The horse-bell was heard everywhere tinkling gaily.
Standing on the outside of this scene, contemplating its promise, Cowperwood much more than any one else connected financially with the future of these railways at this time was impressed with their enormous possibilities--their enormous future if Chicago continued to grow, and was concerned with the various factors which might further or impede their progress.
Not long before he had discovered that one of the chief handicaps to street-railway development, on the North and West Sides, lay in the congestion of traffic at the bridges spanning the Chicago River.
Between the street ends that abutted on it and connected the two sides of the city ran this amazing stream--dirty, odorous, picturesque, compact of a heavy, delightful, constantly crowding and moving boat traffic, which kept the various bridges momentarily turning, and tied up the street traffic on either side of the river until it seemed at times as though the tangle of teams and boats would never any more be straightened out.

It was lovely, human, natural, Dickensesque--a fit subject for a Daumier, a Turner, or a Whistler.

The idlest of bridge-tenders judged for himself when the boats and when the teams should be made to wait, and how long, while in addition to the regular pedestrians a group of idlers stood at gaze fascinated by the crowd of masts, the crush of wagons, and the picturesque tugs in the foreground below.

Cowperwood, as he sat in his light runabout, annoyed by a delay, or dashed swiftly forward to get over before a bridge turned, had long since noted that the street-car service in the North and West Sides was badly hampered.

The unbroken South Side, unthreaded by a river, had no such problem, and was growing rapidly.
Because of this he was naturally interested to observe one day, in the course of his peregrinations, that there existed in two places under the Chicago River--in the first place at La Salle Street, running north and south, and in the second at Washington Street, running east and west--two now soggy and rat-infested tunnels which were never used by anybody--dark, dank, dripping affairs only vaguely lighted with oil-lamp, and oozing with water.