EMPIRE 
 BUILDERS 
 
 FRANCIS 
 LVNDE 
 
I won t attempt to apologize it s beyond all that" Page 32 
 
EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 FRANCIS LYNDE 
 
 Author of 
 
 The Quickening, The Grafters 
 A Fool for Love, etc. 
 
 With Illustrations by 
 
 JAY HAMBIDGE 
 
 INDIANAPOLIS 
 
 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 
 PUBLISHERS 
 
COPYRIGHT 1907 
 FRANCIS LYNDE 
 
 AUGUST 
 
 PRESS OF 
 
 BRAUNWORTH & CO- 
 
 BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS 
 
 BROOKLYN, N. Y. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGB 
 
 I A MASTER OF MEN . .1 
 
 II A SPIKED SWITCH 13 
 
 III Loss AND DAMAGE . ,30 
 
 IV COLD STORAGE 
 
 V WANTED: THIRTY-FIVE MILLIONS . 47 
 
 VI THE AWAKENING OF CHARLES EDWARD 59 
 
 VII HAMMER AND TONGS . 66 
 
 VIII THE AUTOMATIC AIR . 75 
 
 IX THE RACE TO THE SLOW . 90 
 
 X THE SINEWS OF WAR . . 1 
 
 XI HURRY ORDERS . 12 
 
 XII THE ENTERING WEDGE . 141 
 
 XIII THE BARBARIANS . 155 
 
 XIV THE DRAW-BAR PULL . 166 
 XV AN UNWILLING HOST . 177 
 
 XVI THE TRUTHFUL ALTITUDES . . 186 
 
 XVII A NIGHT OF ALARMS . . 198 
 
 XVIII THE MORNING AFTER . . 217 
 
 XIX THE RELUCTANT WHEELS . . 238 
 
 L8057 
 
CONTENTS Continued 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XX THE CONSPIRATORS . . . .254 
 
 XXI THE MILLS OF THE GODS . . .271 
 
 XXII THE MAN ON HORSEBACK . . .285 
 
 XXIII THE DEADLOCK 311 
 
 XXIV Ruiz GREGORIO ..... 325 
 XXV THE SIEGE OF THE NADIA . . .336 
 
 XXVI THE STAR OF EMPIRE 362 
 
EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 A MASTER OF MEN 
 
 Engine Number 206, narrow gauge, was pushing, or 
 rather failing to push, the old-fashioned box-plow 
 through the crusted drifts on the uptilted shoulder of 
 Plug Mountain, at altitude ten thousand feet, with the 
 mercury at twelve below zero. There was a wind the 
 winter day above timber-line without its wind is as 
 rare as a thawing Christmas and it cut like knives 
 through any garmenting lighter than fur or leather. 
 The cab of the 206 was old and weather-shaken, and 
 Ford pulled the collar of his buffalo coat about his ears 
 when the grunting of the exhaust and the shrilling of 
 the wheels on the snow-shod rails stopped abruptly. 
 
 "Gar-r-r!" snarled Gallagher, the red-headed Irish 
 engineer, shutting off the steam in impotent rage. "The 
 power is not in this dommed ould camp-kittle sewin 
 machine! Tis heaven s pity they would n t be givin 
 
 1 
 
2 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 us wan man-sized,, fightin lokimotive on this ind of the 
 line, Misther Foord." 
 
 Ford, superintendent and general autocrat of the 
 Plug Mountain branch of the Pacific Southwestern, 
 climbed down from his cramped seat on the fireman s 
 box and stood scowling at the retracting index of the 
 steam-gauge. When he was on his feet beside the little 
 Irishman, you saw that he was a young man, well-built, 
 square-shouldered and athletic under the muffling of 
 the shapeless fur greatcoat; also, that in spite of the 
 scowl, his clean-shaven face was strong and manly and 
 good to look upon. 
 
 "Power !" he retorted. "That s only one of the hun 
 dred things they don t give us, Mike. Look at that 
 steam-gauge freezing right where she stands !" 
 
 " Tis so," assented Gallagher. "She d be dead and 
 shtiff in tin minutes be the clock if we d lave her be in 
 this drift." 
 
 Ford motioned the engineer aside and took the throt 
 tle himself. It was the third day out from Cherubusco, 
 the station at the foot of the mountain; and in the 
 eight-and-forty hours the engine, plow and crew of 
 twenty shovelers had, by labor of the cruelest, opened 
 eleven of the thirteen blockaded miles isolating Saint s 
 Rest, the mining-camp end-of-track in the high basin 
 at the head of the pass. 
 
 The throttle opened with a jerk under the superin- 
 
A MASTER OF MEN 3 
 
 tendent s hand. There was a snow-choked drumming 
 of the exhaust, and the driving-wheels spun wildly in 
 the flurry beneath. But there was no inch of forward 
 motion, and Ford gave it up. 
 
 "We re against it," he admitted. "Back her down 
 and we ll put the shovelers at it again while you re 
 nursing her up and getting more steam. We re going 
 to make it to Saint s Rest to-day if the Two-six has to 
 go in on three legs." 
 
 Gallagher pulled the reversing lever into the back 
 gear and sent the failing steam whistling into the chilled 
 cylinders with cautious little jerks at the throttle. The 
 box-plow came out of the clutch of its snow vise with 
 shrillings as of a soul in torment, and the bucking out 
 fit screeched coldly down over the snowy rails to the 
 "let-up," where the shovelers box-car had been un 
 coupled. 
 
 Ford swung off to turn out the shoveling squad ; and 
 presently the laborers, muffled to the eyes, were filing 
 past the 206 to break a path for the plow. Gallagher 
 was on the running-board with his flare torch, thawing 
 out an injector. He marked the cheerful swing of the 
 men and gave credit where it was due. 
 
 " Tis a full-grown man, that," he commented, mean 
 ing Ford. "Manny s the wan would be huggin the warm 
 boiler-head these times, and shtickin his head out of 
 the windy to holler, c GVan, boys; pitch it out lively 
 
4 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 now, and be dommed to yez ! But Misther Foord ain t 
 built the like o that. He ll be as deep in that freezin 
 purgatory up yander in th drift as the foremist wan of 
 thim." 
 
 The Irishman s praise was not unmerited. Whatever 
 his failings, and he groaned under his fair human share 
 of them, Stuart Ford had the gift of leadership. Be 
 fore he had been a month on the branch as its "old 
 man" and autocrat, he had won the good-will and 
 loyalty of the rank and file, from the office men in the 
 headquarters to the pick-and-shovel contingent on the 
 sections. Even the blockade-breaking laborers tempo 
 rary helpers as they were stood by him manfully in 
 the sustained battle with the snow. Ford spared them 
 when he could, and they knew it. 
 
 "Warm it up, boys !" he called cheerily, climbing to 
 the top of the frozen drift to direct the attack. "It s 
 been a long fight, but we re in sight of home now. 
 Come up here with your shovels, Olsen, and break it 
 down from the top. It s the crust that plugs Mike s 
 wedge." 
 
 He looked the fighting leader, standing at the top of 
 the wind-swept drift and crying on his shovelers. It 
 was the part he had chosen for himself in the game of 
 life, and he quarreled only when the stake was small, 
 as in this present man-killing struggle with the snow 
 drifts. The Plug Mountain branch was the sore spot 
 
A MASTER OF MEN 5 
 
 in the Pacific Southwestern system ; the bad investment 
 at which the directors shook their heads, and upon 
 which the management turned the coldest of shoulders. 
 It barely paid its own operating expenses in summer, 
 and the costly snow blockades in winter went to the 
 wrong side of the profit and loss account. 
 
 This was why Ford had been scheming and planning 
 for a year and more to find a way of escape; not for 
 himself, but for the discredited Plug Mountain line. It 
 was proving a knotty problem, not to say an insoluble 
 one. Ford had attacked it with his eyes open, as he did 
 most things; and he was not without a suspicion that 
 President Colbrith, of the Pacific Southwestern, had 
 known to the full the hopelessness of the mountain line 
 when he dictated the letter which had cost one of the 
 great Granger roads its assistant engineer in charge 
 of construction, transferring an energetic young man 
 with ambitions from the bald plains of the Dakotas to 
 the snow-capped shoulders of the Rockies. 
 | Originally the narrow gauge had been projected and 
 partly built by a syndicate of Denver capitalists, who 
 were under the hallucination, then prevalent, that any 
 railroad penetrating the mountains in any direction, 
 and having Denver for its starting point, must neces 
 sarily become at once a dividend-paying carrier for the 
 mines, actual or to be discovered. 
 
 Failing to tap their bonanza freight-producer on the 
 
6 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 route up Blue Canyon, the projectors small fish in the 
 great money-pool had talked vaguely of future exten 
 sions to Salt Lake, to San Francisco, to Puget Sound, 
 or to some other of the f ar-beyonds, and had even gone 
 the length of surveying a line over Plug Pass and down 
 the valley of the Pannikin on the Pacific slope of the 
 range. But they had prudently stopped building; and 
 the pause continued until the day of the great silver 
 strike at Saint s Rest. 
 
 The new carbonate beds chanced to lie within easy 
 rifle-shot of the summit of Plug Pass ; in other words, 
 they were precisely on the line of the extension survey 
 of the narrow gauge. The discovery was a piece of sheer 
 luck for the amateur railroad builders. For a time, as 
 all the world knows, Saint s Rest headed the mining 
 news column in all the dailies, and the rush for the 
 new camp fairly swamped the meager carrying facili 
 ties of the incomplete line and the stages connecting its 
 track-end with the high-mountain Mecca of the treas 
 ure-seekers. 
 
 Then, indeed, the Denver syndicate saw its long de 
 ferred opportunity and grasped it. Long purses might 
 be lacking, but not shrewd heads. The unfinished Plug 
 Mountain was immediately bonded for more than it 
 ever promised to be worth, and in the hottest heat of 
 the forwarding strife it was extended at the rate of a 
 mile a day until the welcome screech of its locomotive 
 
A MASTER OF MEN 7 
 
 whistles was added to the perfervid clamor of the new 
 camp in the Plug Pass basin. 
 
 The goal reached, the Denver folk took a fresh leaf 
 out of the book of shrewdness. Holding the completed 
 line only long enough to skim the cream of the rush 
 earnings,, they sold their stock at a sound premium to 
 the Pacific Southwestern, pocketed their winnings can- 
 nily, and escaped a short half-year before the slump in 
 silver, and the consequent collapse of Saint s Rest, came 
 to establish the future Waterloo for Napoleonic young 
 superintendents in the Southwestern s service. 
 
 This was all ancient history when Ford left the Gran 
 ger road to climb, at President Colbrith s behest, into 
 the Plug Mountain saddle; and a round half-dozen of 
 the young Napoleons had been broken before he put 
 foot in stirrup for the mounting. While his attacking 
 of the problem had been open-eyed, he had not stopped 
 to specialize in the ancient history of the Plug Mountain 
 branch. When he did specialize, his point of view was 
 pretty clearly defined in a letter to Mr. Richard Frisbie, 
 of St. Paul, written after he had been for six months 
 the master of the Plug Mountain destinies. 
 
 "I m up against it, good and solid," was the way he 
 phrased it to Frisbie. "My hundred and fifty miles of 
 "two streaks of rust and a right-of-way has never paid 
 a net dollar since the boom broke at Saint s Rest, and 
 under present conditions it never will. If I had known 
 
8 EMPIRE BUILDEES 
 
 the history of the road when President Colbrith went 
 fishing for me as I didn t I wouldn t have touched 
 the job with a ten-foot pole. 
 
 "But now I m here, I m going to do something with 
 my two streaks of rust to make them pay make a spoon 
 or spoil a horn. Just what shall be done I haven t de 
 cided fully, but I have a notion in the back part of my 
 head, and if it works out, I shall need you first of all. 
 Will you come ? 
 
 "Have I told you in any of my earlier letters that I 
 have personally earned the ill-will of General Manager 
 North? I have, and it is distinct from and in addition 
 to his hostility for the unearning branch for which I am 
 responsible. I m sorry for it, because I may need his 
 good word for my inchoate scheme later on. It came up 
 over some maintenance-of-way charges. He is as shrewd 
 as he is unscrupulous, and he knows well how to pile the 
 sins of the congregation on the back of the poor scape 
 goat. To make a better showing for the main line, and 
 at the same time to show what a swilling pig the Plug 
 Mountain is, he had the branch charged up with a lot of 
 material we didn t get. Naturally, I protested and 
 was curtly told to mind my own business, which had no 
 ramifications reaching into the accounting department. 
 Then I threatened to carry it over his head to President 
 Colbrith; whereupon I gained my point temporarily, 
 and lost a possible stepping-stone to success. 
 
A MASTER OF MEN", 9 
 
 "None the less, I am going to win out if it costs me 
 the best year of my life. I m going to swing to this 
 thing till I make something out of it, if I have to put 
 in some more winters like the one I have just come 
 through which was Sheol, with ice and snow in the 
 place of the traditional fire and brimstone. If I have 
 one good quality as I sometimes doubt it s the inabil 
 ity to know when I am satisfactorily and permanently 
 licked." 
 
 Stuart Ford was shivering through the second of the 
 winters on the gray, needle-winded day when he stood 
 on the crusted drift, heartening his men who were 
 breaking the way for further rammings of the scrap- 
 heap 206 and her box-plow. During the summer which 
 lay behind the pitiless storms and the blockading snows 
 he had explored and planned, studied and schemed; 
 and now a month of good weather would put the finish 
 ing touches preparatory upon the "notion" hinted at in 
 the letter to Frisbie. 
 
 "That ll do, boys; we ll let Gallagher hit it a few 
 times now," he sang out, when he saw that the weaker 
 ones among the shovelers were stumbling numbly and 
 throwing wild. "Get back to the car and thaw your 
 selves out." 
 
 The safety-valve of the 206 was stuttering under a 
 gratifying increase of steam pressure when the super 
 intendent climbed to the canvas-shrouded cab. 
 
10 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 "Ha! two hundred and fifty pounds! That looks a 
 little more like it, Michael. Now get all the run you 
 can and hit her straight from the shoulder/ he or 
 dered, mounting to his seat on the fireman s box, and 
 bracing himself for what should come. 
 
 Gallagher released the driver-brakes and let the 206 
 and the plow drift down the grade until his tender 
 drawhead touched the laborers car. Then the revers 
 ing lever went forward with a clang, and the steam 
 squealed shrilly in the dry-pipe. For a thunderous sec 
 ond or two the driving-wheels slipped and whirled 
 futilely on the snowy rails. Gallagher pounced upon the 
 sand lever, whereat the tires suddenly bit and held and 
 a long-drawn, fire-tearing exhaust sobbed from the 
 stack. 
 
 "You ve got her!" shouted Ford. "Now hit it hit 
 it hard!" 
 
 Swiftly the huge mass of engine and plow gathered 
 headway, the pounding exhausts quickening until they 
 blended in a continuous roar. The little Irishman 
 stayed himself with a foot against the boiler brace ; the 
 fireman ducked under the canvas curtain and clung to 
 the coal bulkhead ; and Ford held on as he could. 
 
 The shock came like the crashing blow of a collision. 
 The box-plow buckled and groaned with fine cracklings 
 as of hard-strained timbers, and an avalanche of snow 
 thrown up from its inclined plane buried engine and cab 
 
A MASTER OF MEN 11 
 
 and tender in a smothering drift. Ford slid his window 
 and looked out. 
 
 "Good work, Michael ; good work ! You gained a full 
 car-length that time. Try it again." 
 
 Gallagher backed the plow carefully out of the cut 
 ting, and the fireman opened the blower and nursed his 
 fire. Again and again the wheeled projectile was hurled 
 into the obstruction, and Ford watched the steadily 
 retrograding finger of the steam-gauge anxiously. Would 
 the pressure suffice for the final dash which should clear 
 the cutting? Or would they have to stop and turn out 
 the wretched shovelmen again? 
 
 The answer came with the fourth drive into the 
 stubborn barrier. There was the same nerve-racking 
 shock of impact; but now the recoil was followed by a 
 second forward plunge, and Gallagher yelled his tri 
 umph when the 206 burst through the remaining lesser 
 drifts and shot away on the clear track beyond. 
 
 Ford drew a long breath of relief, and the engineer 
 checked the speed of the runaway, stopped, and started 
 back to couple on the car-load of laborers. 
 
 Ford swung around and put his back to the open 
 window. 
 
 "Let s hope that is the worst of it and the last of it 
 for this winter, Mike," he said, speaking as man to man. 
 "I believe the weather will break before we have any 
 more snow ; and next year " 
 
12 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 The pause was so long that Gallagher took his chance 
 of filling it. 
 
 "Don t be tellin me the big boss has promised us a 
 rotary for next winter, Misther Foord. That d be too 
 good to be thrue, I m thinking." 
 
 "No; but next winter you ll be doing one of two 
 things, Michael. You will be pulling your train through 
 steel snow-sheds on Plug Mountain or you ll be work 
 ing for another boss. Break her loose, and let s get to 
 camp as soon as we can. Those poor devils back in the 
 box-car are about dead for sleep and a square meal." 
 
II 
 
 A SPIKED SWITCH 
 
 Ford s hopeful prophecy that the snow battles were 
 over for the season proved true. A few weeks later a 
 warm wind blew up from the west, the mountain foot- 
 trails became first packed ice-paths and then slippery 
 ridges to trap the unwary; the great drifts began to 
 settle and melt, and the spring music of the swollen 
 mountain torrents was abroad in the land. 
 
 At the blowing of the warm wind Ford aimed the 
 opening gun in his campaign against fate the fate 
 which seemed to be bent upon adding his name to the list 
 of failures on the Plug Mountain branch. The gun-aim 
 ing was a summons to Frisbie, at the moment a drafts 
 man in the engineering office of the Great Northern at 
 St. Paul, and pining, like the Plug Mountain superin 
 tendent, for something bigger. 
 
 "I have been waiting until I could offer you some- 
 13 
 
14 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 thing with a bread-and-meat attachment in the way of 
 day pay/ 5 wrote Ford, "and the chance has come. Ken 
 nedy, my track supervisor, has quit, and the place is 
 yours if you will take it. If you are willing to tie up 
 to the most harebrained scheme you ever heard of, with 
 about one chance in a thousand of coming out on top 
 and of growing up with a brand new country of unlim 
 ited possibilities, just gather up your dunnage and 
 come." 
 
 This letter was written on a Friday. Frisbie got it out 
 of the carriers delivery on the Sunday morning; and 
 Sunday night saw him racing westward, with the high 
 mountains of Colorado as his goal. Not that the desti 
 nation made any difference, for Frisbie would have gone 
 quite as willingly to the ends of the earth at the crook 
 ing of Ford s finger. 
 
 It was the brightest of May days when the new su 
 pervisor of track debarked from the mountain-climbing 
 train at Saint s Rest, stretched his legs gratefully on 
 terra firma, had his first deep lungful of the ozonic air 
 of the high peaks, and found his welcome awaiting him. 
 Ford would have no talk of business until he had taken 
 Frisbie across to the little shack "hotel," and had filled 
 him up on a dinner fresh from the tin; nor, indeed, 
 afterward, until they were smoking comfortably in the 
 boxed-off den in the station building which served as 
 the superintendent s office. 
 
A SPIKED SWITCH 15 
 
 "I ve been counting on you, Dick, as you know, ever 
 since this thing threatened to take shape in my head," 
 Ford began. "First, let me ask you : do you happen to 
 know where you could lay hands on three or four good 
 constructing engineers men you could turn loose ab 
 solutely and trust implicitly? I m putting this up to 
 you because the Plug Mountain exile has taken me a 
 bit out of touch." 
 
 "Why yes," said Frisbie, taking time to call the 
 mental roll. "There are Major Benson and his son 
 Jack you know em both just in off their job in the 
 Selkirks. Then there is Eoy Brissac ; he d be a pretty 
 good man in the field; and Chauncey Leckhard, of my 
 c l ass ^ he s got a job in Winnipeg, but he ll come if I 
 ask him to, and he is the best office man I know. But 
 what on top of earth are you driving at, Stuart?" 
 
 Ford cleared his pipe of the ash and refilled it. 
 
 "I ll go into the details with you a little later. We 
 shall have plenty of time during the next month or six 
 weeks, and, incidentally, a good bit more privacy. The 
 thing I m trying to figure out will burst like a bubble 
 if it gets itself made public too soon, and" lowering 
 his voice "I can t trust my office force here. Savez?" 
 
 "I savez nothing as yet," laughed the new supervisor, 
 "but perhaps I shall if you ll tell me what is going to 
 happen in the next month or six weeks." 
 
 "I m coming to that, right now. How would you like 
 
16 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 to take a hunting trip over on the wilderness side of 
 the range ? There are big woods and big game." 
 
 Frisbie grinned. He was a little man, with sharp 
 black eyes shaded by the heaviest of black brows, and it 
 was his notion to trim his mustaches and beard after 
 the fashion set by the third Napoleon and imitated 
 faithfully by those who sing the part of Mephistopheles 
 in Faust. Hence, his grin was handsomely diabolic. 
 
 "You needn t ask me what I d like; you just tell me 
 what you want me to do," he rejoined, with clansman 
 loyalty. 
 
 "So I will," said Ford, taking the reins of authority. 
 "We leave here to-morrow morning for a trip over the 
 Pass and down the Pannikin on the other side, and if 
 anybody asks you why, you can say that we expect to 
 kill a deer or two, and possibly a bear. Your part of the 
 outsetting, however, is to pack your surveying instru 
 ments on the burro saddles so they ll pass for grub- 
 boxes, tent-poles, and the like." 
 
 "Call it done," said Frisbie. "But why all this stage 
 play? Can t you anticipate that much without endan 
 gering your bubble?" 
 
 Ford lowered his voice again. 
 
 "I gave you the hint. Penfield, my chief clerk his 
 desk is just on the other side of that partition is an 
 ex-main-line man, shoved upon me when I didn t want 
 him. He was General Manager North s stenographer. 
 
A SPIKED SWITCH 17 
 
 For reasons which will be apparent to you a little later 
 on, I want to blow my bubble in my own way; or, to 
 change the figure, I d like to fire the first volley my 
 self/ 
 
 Frisbie s grin was rather more than less diabolic. 
 
 "Then I d begin by firing Mr. Penfield, himself/ he 
 remarked. 
 
 "No, you wouldn t," said Ford. "There are going to 
 be obstacles enough in the way without slapping Mr. 
 North in the face as a preliminary. Under the circum 
 stances, he d take it that way ; Penfield would make sure 
 that he took it that way." 
 
 It was at this point in the low-toned conference that 
 the ingenious young man in the outer office put down 
 the desk telephone ear-piece long enough to smite with 
 his fist at some air-drawn antagonist. Curiosity was this 
 young man s capital weakness, and he had tinkered 
 the wires of the private telephone system so that the 
 flicking of a switch made him an auditor at any conver 
 sation carried on in the private office. He was listening 
 intently and eagerly again when Ford said, still in the 
 same guarded tone: 
 
 "No, I can t fire Penfield, and I don t particularly 
 want to. He is a good office man, and loyal to his salt : 
 it s my misfortune that it is Mr. North s salt-cellar, and 
 not mine, that he dips into. Besides, I d have trouble in 
 replacing him. Saint s Eest isn t exactly the paradise its 
 
18 EMPIEE BUILDERS 
 
 name implies for a clean-cut, well-mannered young 
 fellow with social leanings." 
 
 "Now, what in the mischief does all that mean?" 
 mused the chief clerk, when Ford and his new track 
 man had gone out. "A month s hunting trip over the 
 range, with the surveying instruments taken along. 
 And last summer Mr. Ford spent a good part of his 
 time over there also hunting, so he said. Confound it 
 all ! I wish I could get into that private drawer of his 
 in the safe. That would tell the story. I wonder if 
 Pacheco couldn t make himself an errand over the 
 Pass in the morning ? By George !" slapping his thigh 
 and apostrophizing the superintendent, "I ll just go you 
 once, Mr. Ford, if I lose !" 
 
 Now the fruit, of which this little soliloquy was the 
 opening blossom, matured on the second day after Ford 
 and Frisbie had started out on the mysterious hunting 
 trip across the range. Pacheco, the half-breed Mexican 
 who freighted provisions by jack train to the mining- 
 camps on the head waters of the Pannikin, came in to 
 report to the chief clerk. 
 
 "Well, Checo, what did you find out?" was the curt 
 inquiry. 
 
 The half -breed spread his palms. 
 
 "Wat I see, I know. Dey ll not gone for hunt much. 
 One day out, dey ll make-a da camp and go for squint 
 t rough spy-glass, so" making an imaginary transit 
 
A SPIKED SWITCH 19 
 
 telescope of his hands. "Den dey ll measure h-on da 
 groun and squint some more, so." 
 
 Penfield nodded and a gold piece changed hands 
 silently. 
 
 "That s all, Checo; much obliged. Don t say any 
 thing about this over in the camp. Mr. Ford said he was 
 going hunting, and that s what we ll say, if anybody 
 asks us." 
 
 That night the chief clerk sent a brief cipher tele 
 gram to the general manager at Denver. 
 
 Ford and his new track supervisor, who is really a high- 
 priced constructing engineer, gone over the range for a 
 month s absence. Gave it out here that they were going 
 after big game, but they took a transit and are picking up 
 the line of the old S. L. & W. extension in the upper Pan 
 nikin. 
 
 It was late in the month of June when Ford and 
 Frisbie, tanned, weathered and as gaunt as pioneers, 
 returned to Saint s Eest; and for those who were cu 
 rious enough to be interested, there were a couple of 
 bear-skins and one of a mountain lion to make good 
 the ostensible object of the absence. 
 
 But the most important trophies of the excursion 
 were two engineers note-books, well filled with memo 
 randa ; and these they did not exhibit. On the contrary, 
 they became a part of the collection of maps, statistics, 
 estimates and private correspondence which Chief Clerk 
 Penfield was so anxious to examine, and which Ford 
 
20 EMPIEE BUILDERS 
 
 kept under lock and key when he and Frisbie were not 
 poring over some portion of it in the seclusion of the 
 private office. 
 
 None the less, Penfield kept his eyes and ears open, 
 and before long he had another detail to report by cipher 
 telegram to the general manager. Ford was evidently 
 preparing for another absence, and from what the chief 
 clerk could overhear, he was led to believe that the 
 pseudo supervisor of track would be left in charge of 
 Plug Mountain affairs. 
 
 It was on the day before Ford s departure for Denver 
 that a letter came from General Manager North. Ford 
 read it with a scowl of disapproval and tossed it across 
 the double desk to Frisbie. 
 
 "A polite invitation for me to stay at home and to 
 attend to my business," he commented. 
 
 "Had you written him that you were going away?" 
 inquired Frisbie. 
 
 "No; but evidently somebody else has." 
 
 Frisbie read the letter again. 
 
 " So that all heads of departments may be on duty 
 when the president makes his annual inspection trip 
 over the lines/ " he quoted. "Is Mr. Colbrith coming 
 out this early in the summer ?" 
 
 "No, of course not. He never comes before August." 
 
 "Then this is only a trumped-up excuse to make you 
 stay here?" 
 
A SPIKED SWITCH 21 
 
 "That s all/ Ford replied laconically. 
 
 Mr. Kichard Frisbie got up and walked twice the 
 length of the little room before he said : 
 
 "This Denver gentleman is going to knock your little 
 scheme into a cocked hat, if he can, Stuart." 
 
 "I am very much afraid we ll have to reckon upon 
 that. As a matter of fact, I ve been reckoning upon it, 
 all along." 
 
 "How much of a pull has he with the New York 
 money-people ?" 
 
 "I don t know that : I wish I did. It would simplify 
 matters somewhat." 
 
 Frisbie took another turn up and down the room, 
 with his head down and his hands in his pockets. 
 
 "Stuart, I believe, if I were in your place, I d enlist 
 Mr. North, if I had to make it an object for him," he 
 said, at length. 
 
 "Certainly, I mean to go to him first," said Ford. 
 "That is his due. But I am counting upon opposition 
 rather than help. Wait a minute" he jerked the door 
 open suddenly and made sure that the chief clerk s chair 
 was unoccupied. "The worst of it is that I don t trust 
 North," he went on. "He is a grafter in small ways, 
 and he d sell me out in a minute if he felt like it and 
 could see any chance of making capital for himself." 
 
 "Then don t go to him with your scheme," urged 
 Frisbie. "If you enlist him, you won t be sure of him ; 
 
22 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 and if you don t, you ll merely leave an active opponent 
 behind you instead of a passive one." 
 
 "I guess you re right, Dick; but I ll have to be gov 
 erned by conditions as I find them. Aside from North s 
 influence with Mr. Colbrith, which is considerable, I 
 believe, he can t do much to help. But he can do a tre 
 mendous lot to hinder. I think I shall try to choke him 
 with butter, if I can." 
 
 Notwithstanding the general manager s letter, Ford 
 took the train for Denver the following morning, and 
 the chief clerk remarked that he checked a small 
 steamer trunk in addition to his hand baggage. 
 
 "Going to be gone some time, Mr. Ford?" he asked, 
 when he brought the night mail down for the superin 
 tendent to look over. 
 
 "Yes," said Ford absently. 
 
 "You ll let me know where to reach you from time 
 to time, I suppose?" ventured Penfield. 
 
 Ford looked up quickly. 
 
 "It won t be necessary. You can handle the office 
 work, as you have heretofore, and Mr. Frisbie will have 
 full charge out of doors." 
 
 Penfield looked a little crestfallen. 
 
 "Am I to take orders from Mr. Frisbie?" he asked, 
 as one determined to know the worst. 
 
 "Just the same as you would from me," said the 
 superintendent, swinging up to the step of the moving 
 
A SPIKED SWITCH 23 
 
 car. And the chief clerk went back to his office busily 
 concocting another cipher message to the general man 
 ager. 
 
 On the way down the canyon Ford was saying to him 
 self that he was now fairly committed to the scheme 
 over which he had spent so many toilful days and sleep 
 less nights, and that he would have it out with Mr. 
 North to a fighting conclusion before he slept. 
 
 But a freight wreck got in the way while the down 
 passenger train was measuring the final third of the 
 distance, and it was long after office hours in the Pa 
 cific Southwestern headquarters when Ford reached 
 Denver. 
 
 By consequence, the crucial interview with the gen 
 eral manager had to be postponed; and the enthusiast 
 was chafing at his ill luck when he went to his hotel 
 chafing and saying hard words, for the waiting had been 
 long, and now that the psychologic moment had arrived, 
 delays were intolerable. 
 
 Now it sometimes happens that seeming misfortunes 
 are only blessings in disguise. When Ford entered the 
 hotel cafe to eat his belated dinner, he saw Evans, the 
 P. S-W. auditor, sitting alone at a table-for-two. He 
 crossed the room quickly and shook hands with the man 
 he had meant to interview either before or after the 
 meeting with North. 
 
 It was after they had chatted comfortably through to 
 
24 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 the coffee that the auditor said, blandly : "What are you 
 down for, Ford ? anything special ?" 
 
 "Yes. I am down to get leave of absence to go East," 
 said Ford warily. 
 
 "But that isn t all/ was the quiet rejoinder. "In 
 fact, it s only the non-committal item that you d give 
 to a Rocky Mountain News reporter." 
 
 Ford was impatient of diplomatic methods when there 
 was no occasion for them. 
 
 "Give it a name," he said bluntly. "What do you 
 think you know, Evans ?" 
 
 The auditor smiled. 
 
 "There is a leak in your office up at Saint s Rest, 
 I m afraid. What sort of a bombshell are you fixing 
 to fire at Mr. North?" 
 
 Ford grew interested at once. 
 
 "Tell me what you know, and perhaps I can piece it 
 out for you." 
 
 "I ll tell you what Mr. North knows which will 
 be more to the purpose, perhaps. For a year or more 
 you have been figuring on some kind of a scheme to 
 pull the company s financial leg in behalf of your good- 
 for-nothing narrow gauge. A month ago, for example, 
 you went all over the old survey on the other side of the 
 mountains and verified the original S. L. & W. prelimi 
 naries and rights-of-way on its proposed extension." 
 
 Ford s eyes narrowed. He was thinking of the warn- 
 
A SPIKED SWITCH 25 
 
 ing letter he would have to write to Frisbie. But what 
 he said was : 
 
 "I d like to know how the dickens you guessed all 
 that. But no matter ; supposing I did ?" 
 
 "It s no good/ said the auditor, shaking his head. 
 "I m talking as a friend. North doesn t like you, per 
 sonally; and if he did, you couldn t persuade him to 
 recommend anything in the way of an experiment on 
 the Plug Mountain. So far from extending your two- 
 by-four branch if that is what you have in mind he d 
 be much more likely to counsel its abandonment, if the 
 charter didn t require us to keep it going." 
 
 Ford found a cigar for the auditor, and lighted one 
 for himself. 
 
 "From all of which I infer that the semiannual re 
 port of the Pacific Southwestern is going to be a pretty 
 bad one," he said, with carefully assumed indifference. 
 
 Evans regarded him shrewdly. 
 
 "Are you guessing at that ? Or is there a leak at our 
 end of the line as well as at yours ?" 
 
 "Oh, it s a guess," laughed Ford. "Call it that, any 
 how. At least, I haven t any of your confidential clerks 
 in my pay. But just how bad is the report going to 
 be?" 
 
 The auditor shook his head. 
 
 "Worse than the last one. Perhaps you have noticed 
 that the stock has dropped six points in the past week. 
 
26 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 You re one of the official family: I don t mind telling 
 you that we are in the nine-hole, Ford." 
 
 "Of course we are," said Ford, with calm conviction. 
 "That much is pretty evident to a man who merely 
 reads the Wall Street news bulletins. What is the mat 
 ter with us specifically, I mean?" 
 
 Evans shrugged. 
 
 "Are you a division superintendent on the system 
 and don t know?" he demanded. "We are too short 
 at both ends. With our eastern terminal only half-way 
 to Chicago, we can t control the east-bound grain which 
 grows on our own line; and with the other end stop 
 ping short here at Denver, we can t bid for west-bound 
 transcontinental business. It s as simple as twice two. 
 Our competitors catch us going and coming." 
 
 "Precisely. And if we don t get relief ?" 
 
 The auditor smiled grimly. 
 
 "As I ve said, you re one of us, Ford, and I don t 
 mind speaking freely to you. A receivership is looming 
 in the distance, and the not very dim distance, for the 
 P. S-W." 
 
 "I thought so. How near is it ?" 
 
 "I don t know nobody knows definitely. If we had 
 a man of resources at the head of things as we have 
 not it might be stood off for another six months." 
 
 "I m on the way to stand it off permanently, if I can 
 get any backing," said Ford quietly. 
 
A SPIKED SWITCH 27 
 
 "You \" was the astonished reply. 
 
 "Yes, I. Listen, Evans. For two years I have been 
 buried up yonder in the hills, with not enough to do 
 in the summer season to keep me out of mischief. I 
 am rather fond of mathematics, and I am telling you 
 I have this thing figured out to the fourth decimal. If 
 President Colbrith and his associates can be made to 
 see that the multiplication of two by two gives an in 
 variable resultant of four, there will be no receivership 
 for the P. S-W. this year, or next." 
 
 "Show me," said the auditor. 
 
 Ford hesitated for a moment. Then he took a packet 
 of papers, estimates, exhibits and fine-lined engineer s 
 maps from his pocket and tossed it across the table. 
 
 "That is for you, personally for David Evans; not 
 the P. S-W. auditor. You ve got to keep it to your 
 self." 
 
 The auditor went through the papers carefully, shift 
 ing his cigar slowly from one corner of his mouth to 
 the other as he read and examined. When he handed 
 them back he was shaking his head, almost mourn 
 fully. 
 
 "It s a big thing, Ford; the biggest kind of a thing. 
 And it is beautifully worked out. But I know our peo 
 ple, here and in New York. They will simply give you 
 the cold stare and say that you are crazy." 
 
 "Because it can t be financed ?" 
 
2S EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 "Because it doesn t come from Hill or Harriman or 
 Morgan, or some other one of the big captains. You ll 
 never be able to stand it upon its feet by your single- 
 handed lonesome." 
 
 Ford set his teeth, and his clean-cut face seemed to 
 grow suddenly older and harder as the man in him 
 came to the fore. 
 
 "By heavens! if I put my back under it, it s got to 
 stand upon its feet ! I m not going into it with the idea 
 that there is any such thing in the book as failure." 
 
 The auditor looked darkly into the cool gray eyes of 
 the man facing him. 
 
 "Then let me give you a word of advice before you 
 start in. Skip North, absolutely; don t breathe a word 
 of it to him. Don t ask me why; but do as I say. And 
 another thing: drop into my office to-morrow before you 
 leave. I ll show you some figures that may help you to 
 stir things up properly at the New York end. Do you 
 go direct from here ?" 
 
 "No ; I shall have to stop over a few days in Chicago. 
 I know pretty well where to put my hands on what I 
 need; I have laid the foundations from the bottom up 
 by correspondence. But I want to go over the situation 
 on the ground before I make my grand-stand play before 
 Mr. Colbrith and the board of directors." 
 
 "Well, come in and get the figures, anyway : come to 
 the private door of my office and rap three times. It 
 
A SPIKED SWITCH 29 
 
 will be just as well if it isn t generally known that you 
 are confabbing with me. Our semiannual report will 
 probably be in New York ahead of you, but it won t hurt 
 if you have the information to work with." Evans was 
 pushing his chair from the table when he added: "By 
 the way, you happened upon the exact psychological 
 moment to make your raid ; the report coming out, and 
 things going to the dogs generally." 
 
 Ford s laugh was genially shrewd. 
 
 "Perhaps it wasn t so much of a happening as it ap 
 pears. Didn t I tell you that I had figured this thing out 
 to the fourth decimal place ? Psychological moments are 
 bigger arguments than dollars and cents, sometimes." 
 
 The auditor had taken his hat from the waiter and 
 was shaking hands with his dinner companion. 
 
 "I d like to believe you re a winner, Ford; you de 
 serve to be. Come and see me and make your call upon 
 Mr. North as brief as possible. He ll probe you if you 
 don t," 
 
 This was how it came about that the next morning, 
 when Ford went to call upon the sallow, heavy-faced, 
 big-bodied man who sat behind the glass door lettered 
 "General Manager, Private," this after half an hour 
 spent in Auditor Evans private office, it was only to 
 ask for leave of absence to go East on business of a 
 personal nature, he explained, when Mr. North was 
 curious enough to ask his object. 
 
Ill 
 
 LOSS A>T> DAMAGE 
 
 At this period of his existence, Stuart Ford troubled 
 himself as little as any anchorite of the desert about the 
 eternal feminine. 
 
 It was not that he was more or less than a man, or in 
 any sense that anomalous and impossible thing called a 
 woman-hater. On the contrary, his attitude toward 
 women in the mass was distinctly and at times boyishly 
 sentimental. But when a young man is honestly in loye 
 with his calling, and is fully convinced of its impor 
 tance to himself and to a restlessly progressive world, 
 single-heartedness becomes his watchword, and what sen 
 timent there is in him will be apt to lie comfortably 
 dormant. 
 
 For six full working-days Ford had been immersed 
 to the eyes in the intricacies of his railway problem. 
 
 30 
 
LOSS AND DAMAGE 31 
 
 acquiring in Chicago a valiseful of documentary data 
 that demanded to be classified and thoroughly digested 
 before he reached New York and the battle-field actual. 
 This was why he was able to ride all day in studious 
 abstraction in his section of the Chicago-New York 
 Pullman, without so much as a glance for the young 
 woman in the modest gray traveling coat directly across 
 
 the aisle. 
 
 She was well worth the glance, as he admitted will 
 ingly enough afterward. She was the dainty type, with 
 fluffy bright brown hair, eyes the color of wood violets, 
 a nose tilted to the precise angle of bewitching piquancy, 
 and the adorable mouth and chin familiarized to two 
 continents by the artistic pen of the Apostle of the 
 American Girl. How he could have ridden within arm s 
 reach of her through all the daylight hours of a long 
 summer day remained as one of Ford s unanswered 
 enigmas; but it required an accident and a most em 
 barrassing contretemps to make him aware of her ex 
 istence. 
 
 The accident was one of the absurd sort. The call for 
 dinner in the dining-car had been given, and Ford was 
 just behind the young woman in the rear of the proces 
 sion which filed forward out of the Pullman. The train 
 had at that moment left a way station, and the right- 
 hand vestibule door was still open and swinging dis- 
 jointedly across the narrow passage. Ford reached an 
 
33 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 arm past the young woman to fold the two-leaved door 
 out of her way. As he did it, the door-knob hooked itself 
 mischievously in the loop of her belt chatelaine, snatched 
 it loose, and flung it out into the backward-rushing 
 night. 
 
 Whereupon : "Oh ! my purse I" with a little gasp of 
 sudden bereavement, and a quick turning to face the 
 would-be helper. 
 
 Ford was honestly aghast when the situation fully 
 enveloped him. 
 
 "Heavens and earth! Did you ever see such idiotic 
 clumsiness!" he ejaculated. And then, in deepest con 
 trition: "I won t attempt to apologize it s beyond all 
 that. But you must let me make your loss good." 
 
 In all the pin-pricking embarrassment of the moment, 
 he did not fail to remark that she quickly recovered the 
 serenity which belongs to the well-bred. She was even 
 smiling, rather ruefully, when she said : 
 
 "Fortunately, the conductor has my passes. But 
 really" and now she laughed outright "I am afraid I 
 shall have to go hungry if I can t borrow enough to pay 
 for my dinner." 
 
 Another man, a man less purposefully lost in the 
 purely practical labyrinth of professional work, would 
 have found something fitting to say. But Ford, having 
 discovered a thing to do, did it painstakingly and in 
 solemn silence. There was an unoccupied table for two 
 
LOSS AND DAMAGE 33 
 
 in the dining-car; he seated her, gave her his purse, 
 called a waiter, and would have betaken himself forth 
 with to another table if she had not detained him. 
 
 "No," she said decisively, with a charming little up- 
 tilt of the adorable chin. "I do not forget that you were 
 trying to do me a kindness. Please sit down here and 
 take your purse. I m sure I don t want it." 
 
 He obeyed, still in somber silence, gave his dinner 
 order after she had given hers, and was wondering if he 
 might venture to bury himself in a bundle of the data 
 papers, when she spoke again. 
 
 "Are you provoked with yourself, or with me?" she- 
 asked rather mockingly, he thought. 
 
 "Neither;" he said promptly. "I was merely saying 
 to myself that my wretched awkwardness didn t give me 
 an excuse for boring you." 
 
 "It was an accident nothing more or less," she re 
 joined, with an air of dismissing finally the purse- 
 snatching episode. Then she added : "I am the one who 
 ought to be embarrassed." 
 
 "But you are not," he returned quickly. "You are 
 quite the mistress of yourself which is more than most 
 women would be, under the circumstances." 
 
 "Is that a compliment ?" she asked, with latent mock 
 ery in the violet eyes. "Because if it is, I think you 
 must be out of the West; the the unfettered West: 
 isn t that what it is called ?" 
 
34 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 "I am," Eord acknowledged. "But why do you say 
 that? Was I rude? I beg you to believe that I didn t 
 mean to be." 
 
 "Oh, no; not rude merely sincere. We are not sin 
 cere any more,, I think; except on the frontier edges of 
 us. Are we ?" 
 
 Ford took exceptions to the charge for the sheer pleas 
 ure of hearing her talk. 
 
 "Fd be sorry to believe that/ he protested. "The con 
 ventions account fo: 1 something, of course; and I sup 
 pose the polite lie which deceives no one has to have 
 standing-room. !3u;, every now and then one is sur 
 prised into telling the truth, don t you think ?" 
 
 "If I can t fully agree with you, I can at least admire 
 your point of view," she said amiably. "Is it Western 
 or merely human ?" 
 
 He laughed. 
 
 "Shall we assume that the one implies the other? 
 That would be in accordance with your point of view, 
 wouldn t it?" 
 
 "Yes; but it would be a distinct reversal of yours. 
 Truth belongs to another and simpler time than ours. 
 We are conventional first and everything else after 
 ward." 
 
 "Are we ?" he queried. "Some few hundreds or thou 
 sands of us may be ; but for the remainder of our eighty- 
 odd millions the conventions are things to be put on 
 
LOSS AND DAMAGE 35 
 
 and off like Sunday garments. And even the chosen few 
 of us brush them aside upon occasion; ignore them 
 utterly, as we two are ignoring them at this moment." 
 
 She proved his assertion by continuing to talk to him, 
 and the dining-car was emptying itself when they real 
 ized that there is an end even to a most leisurely dinner. 
 Ford paid the steward as they left the car, but in the 
 Pullman he went back to first principles and insisted 
 upon some kind of a definite accounting for the lost 
 purse. 
 
 "Now you will tell me how much I threw away for 
 you, and I ll pay my debt," he said, when she had hos 
 pitably made room for him in the opposing seat of her 
 section. 
 
 "Indeed, you will do nothing of the kind!" she as 
 serted. "You will give me your card we re going back 
 to the conventions now and when we reach the city 
 you may lend me enough money to take me up-town. 
 And to-morrow morning my brother will pay you back." 
 
 He gave in because he had to. 
 
 "You are much more lenient than I deserve. Keally, 
 you ought to stick me good and hard for my awkward 
 ness. It would serve me right." 
 
 "I am considering the motive," she said almost wist 
 fully, he fancied. "We have drifted very far from all 
 those quiet anchorages of courtesy and helpfulness. If 
 we lived simpler lives " 
 
36 EMPIKE BUILDERS 
 
 He smiled at the turn she was giving it. 
 
 "Are you,, too,, bitten with the fad of the moment, the 
 simple life ?" he asked. "Let me assure you that it is 
 beautiful only when you can look down upon it from the 
 safe altitude of a comfortable income. I know,, because 
 I ve been living it for the past two years." 
 
 She looked as if she were sorry for him. 
 
 "That is rank heresy !" she declared. "Our forefathers 
 had the better of us in many ways, and their simpler 
 manner of living was one of them. They had time for 
 all the little courtesies and kindnesses that make life 
 truly worth living." 
 
 Ford s laugh was boyishly derisive. 
 
 "Yes; they certainly had plenty of time; but they 
 didn t have much else. Why, just think, for a moment, 
 of what our own America would be if merely one of the I 
 modern civilizers, the railroads, had never existed. There / 
 simply wouldn t be any America, as we know it now.", 
 
 "How can you say that ?" 
 
 "Because it is so. For nearly two centuries we stood 
 still, because there were no means of locomotionwhich 
 is another word for progress and civilization. But in 
 less than fifty years after the first railroad was built we 
 had become a great nation." 
 
 She was silenced, if not wholly convinced ; and a few 
 minutes later the train drew into the Forty-second 
 Street Station. When the parting time came, Ford 
 
LOSS AND DAMAGE 37 
 
 dutifully gathered her belongings, said good-by, and put 
 her on a north-bound subway; all this without remem 
 bering that he did not know her name. The recollection 
 came, however, when the subway train shot away into 
 the tunnel. 
 
 "Of all the blockheads I" he growled, apostrophizing 
 his own unreadiness. "But I ll find her again. She said 
 she d send her brother to the hotel with the dinner 
 money, and when I get hold of him it will go hard with 
 me if I don t manage some way to get an introduction." 
 
 This was what was in his mind when he sought the 
 down-town hotel whose name he had written on his card 
 for her; it was his latest waking thought when he went 
 to sleep that night, and his earliest when he awoke the 
 following morning. 
 
 But when he went to the clerk s desk, after a lei 
 surely breakfast, to get his mail, he found that the sure 
 thread of identification had broken in his fingers. There 
 was a square envelope among the other letters in his 
 key-box containing the exact amount of the young wom 
 an s indebtedness to him; this, with a brief note of 
 thanks unsigned. 
 
IY 
 
 COLD STORAGE 
 
 If courage, of the kind fitted to lead forlorn hopes, or 
 marchings undaunted up to the muzzles of loaded can 
 non, be a matter of gifts and temperament, it is also in 
 some degree a matter of environment. 
 
 Stuart Ford was Western born and bred; a product 
 of the wider breathing spaces. Given his proper battle 
 field, where the obstacles were elemental and the foes 
 to be overcome were mere men of flesh and blood fight 
 ing freely in the open, he was a match for the lustiest. 
 But New York, with its submerging, jostling multitudes, 
 its thickly crowding human vastness, and, more than 
 all, its atmosphere of dollar-chasing, apparent and op 
 pressive even to the transient passer-by, disheartened 
 him curiously. 
 
 It was not that he was more provincial than he had 
 to be; for that matter, there is no provincialism so 
 
 38 
 
COLD STORAGE 39 
 
 rampant as that of the thronging, striving, self-sufficient 
 city. But isolation in any sort is a thing to be reckoned 
 with. The two pioneering years in the Rockies had done 
 their work, of narrowing, as well as of broadening, 
 and the plunge into the chilling sea of the money-mad 
 metropolis made him shiver and wish he were out. 
 
 This feeling was really at the bottom of the late rising 
 and the leisurely breakfast, making him temporize where 
 he had meant to be prompt, energetic and vigorously 
 aggressive. Having pocketed the young woman s un 
 signed note, he glanced at his watch and decided that it 
 was still too early to go in search of President Colbrith. 
 
 "I don t suppose he ll be in his office for an hour yet," 
 he mused reflectively; "and anyway, I guess I d better 
 go over the papers again, so I can be sure to speak my 
 piece right end to. By Jove ! I didn t suppose a couple 
 of thousand miles of easting would take the heart out 
 of things the way it does. If I didn t know better, I 
 should think I d come here to float the biggest kind of a 
 fake, instead of a life-boat for the shipwrecked people 
 in the Pacific Southwestern. It is beginning to look that 
 way in spite of all I can do." 
 
 Going once again over his carefully tabulated argu 
 ment did not help matters greatly. He was beginning to 
 realize now how vastly, antipodally different the New 
 York point of view might be from his own. It came to 
 him with the benumbing effect of a blow that his own 
 
40 EMPIEE BUILDERS 
 
 ambitions had persistently looked beyond the mere 
 money-making results of his scheme. Also, that Presi 
 dent Colbrith and his fellow-investors might very easily 
 refuse to consider any other phase of the revolutionary 
 proposition he was about to lay before them. 
 
 By ten o clock postponement was no longer a tenable 
 city of refuge : the plunge had to be taken. Accordingly, 
 he fared forth to present himself at the Broadway ad 
 dress given in the Pacific Southwestern printed matter 
 as the New York headquarters of the company. 
 
 The number proved to be a ground floor, with the 
 business office of the eastern traffic representative in 
 front, and three or four private desk-rooms in the rear, 
 one of them labeled "President" in inconspicuous gilt 
 lettering. Entering, with less assurance than if he had 
 been the humblest of place-seekers out of a job, Ford 
 was almost relieved to find only a closed desk, and a 
 young man absently scanning a morning paper. 
 
 Inquiry developed a few facts, tersely stated but none 
 the less enlightening. Mr. Colbrith was not in: the 
 office was merely his nominal headquarters in the city 
 and he occupied it only occasionally. His residence ? It 
 was in the Borough of the Bronx, pretty well up toward 
 Yonkers locality and means of access obligingly written 
 out on a card for the caller by the clerk. Was Mr. Ford s 
 business of a routine nature? If so, perhaps, Mr. Ten 
 Eyck, the general agent, could attend to it. Ford said it 
 
COLD STORAGE 41 
 
 was not of a routine nature, and made his escape to in 
 quire his way to the nearest subway station. To pause 
 now was to lose the precious impetus of the start. 
 
 It was worth something to be whirled away blindly 
 out of the stifling human vortex of the lower city; but 
 Ford s first glimpse of the Colbrith mansion depressed 
 him again. The huge, formal house had once been the 
 country residence of a retired dry-goods merchant. It 
 fronted the river brazenly, and the fine old trees of a 
 ten-acre park shamed its architectural stiffness. Ford 
 knew the president a little by family repute and more 
 particularly as a young subordinate knows the general 
 in command. It struck him forcibly that the aspect of 
 the house fitted the man. With the broad river and the 
 distant Palisades to be dwelt upon, its outlook windows 
 were narrow. With the sloping park and the great trees 
 to give it dignity, it seemed to assume an artificial, 
 plumb-line dignity of its own, impressive only as the 
 product of rigid mqasurements and mechanical upright 
 ness. 
 
 From the boulevard there was a gravelled driveway 
 with a stone portal. The iron gates were thrown wide, 
 and at his entrance Ford stood aside to let an outgoing 
 auto-car have the right of way. Being full of his errand, 
 and of the abstraction of a depressed soul, Ford merely 
 remarked that there were two persons in the car ; a young 
 man driving, and a young woman, veiled and dust- 
 
43 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 coated, in the mechanician s seat beside him. None the 
 less, there floated out of the mist of abstraction an in 
 stantly vanishing phantom of half -recognition for the 
 Westerner. Something in the pose of the young woman, 
 the way she leaned forward and held her hat with the 
 tips of her gloved fingers, was, for the fleeting moment, 
 almost reminiscent. 
 
 If Ford had wished to speculate upon abstruse prob 
 lems of identity, there was neither time nor the mental 
 aptitude. A little later he had given his card to the 
 servant at the door and was waiting in a darkened and 
 most depressive library for the coming of the master of 
 the house. The five minutes of waiting nearly finished 
 him. As the absurdly formal clock between the book 
 cases ticked off the leaden-winged seconds, his plan for 
 the rescue of Pacific Southwestern took the form of a 
 crass impertinence, and only the grim determination to 
 see a lost cause decently coffined and buried kept the 
 enthusiast with his face to the front. 
 
 After all, the beginning of the interview with the tall, 
 thin, gray-haired and hatchet-faced old man, who pres 
 ently stalked into the library and gave his hand with 
 carefully adjusted cordiality to the son of one of his 
 college classmates, was only a little more depressing : it 
 was not mortal. Ford had been born in Illinois ; and so, 
 something better than a third of a century earlier, had 
 the president. Moreover, Mr. Colbrith had, in the hey- 
 
COLD STORAGE 43 
 
 day of his youth, shared rooms with the elder Ford in 
 the fresh-water university which had later numbered 
 the younger Ford among its alumni. These things count 
 for somewhat, even when the gap to be bridged is that 
 between the president of a railroad and one of his minor 
 officials. 
 
 But when the revolutionary project was introduced, 
 the president s guarded cordiality faded like a photo 
 graphic proof-print in the sunlight, and the air of the 
 darkened library grew coldly inclement. 
 
 "So you came to talk business, did you?" said the 
 high, rasping voice out of the depths of the easy-chair 
 opposite; and Ford raged inwardly at the thought that 
 he had clearly placed himself at a disadvantage by be 
 coming even constructively the guest of the president. 
 "As a rule, I positively refuse to discuss such matters 
 outside of their proper environment; but Til make an 
 exception for Douglas Ford s son. Your plan is simply 
 impossible. I can understand how it may appear pos 
 sible, and even attractive, to a young man, and especially 
 to the young man who has invented it. But as an invest 
 ment for capital my dear young sir, go back to your 
 division, and strive by faithful service to rise in the ac 
 cepted and time-honored way. You are wasting your 
 time in New York." 
 
 Curiously enough, Ford found his evaporated courage 
 recrystallizing under opposition. 
 
44 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 "I can not believe that I have made the plan, and the 
 present condition of the system, sufficiently clear to 
 you," he insisted; whereupon he went patiently and 
 good-naturedly over the argument again, emphasizing 
 the desperate straits to which the Pacific Southwestern 
 was reduced. 
 
 "We know all that, Mr. Ford," was the unyielding 
 reply. "But granting it to be the fact, don t you see the 
 absolute futility of asking for thirty-five millions addi 
 tional capital at such a crisis ?" 
 
 "No, I don t/ said Ford stubbornly. "I know as I 
 can not explain to you in detail in a half -hour interview 
 that this plan of mine can be made successful. For 
 two years, Mr. Colbrith, I have been the man on the 
 ground : no word that I am saying to you is speculative. 
 Every clause of the proposition has a carefully estab 
 lished fact behind it." 
 
 "No doubt it seems so to you," came the rasping voice 
 from the chair-depths. "But thirty-five millions!" 
 with a quavering gasp. "And at a time when our earn 
 ings are falling off steadily and the stock is going down 
 day by day. It s it s simply preposterous ! I must really 
 decline to discuss it any further." 
 
 Ford had his packet of data in hand. 
 
 "I have all the exhibits here, carefully tabulated and 
 condensed. Won t you reconsider far enough to examine 
 them, Mr. Colbrith ?" 
 
COLD STOEAGE 45 
 
 A thin white hand of negation and protest waved out 
 of the depths of the engulfing easy-chair. 
 
 "I am sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Ford. I knew 
 your father, and we were great friends. You are like 
 him," he added reminiscently. "He might have died 
 rich if he had gone into corn-buying with me when we 
 were graduated, as I wanted him to. But he was too 
 enthusiastic. He wanted to turn the world upside down 
 just as you do, my dear young man ; just as you do." 
 
 Ford got upon his feet. The time had arrived for the 
 firing of the shot of last resort, and he aimed it delib 
 erately. 
 
 "I came first to you, Mr. Colbrith, because it was my 
 duty as a subordinate, and your own appointee, and be 
 cause you were my father s friend so many years ago. 
 I may say, frankly, that I did it against good advice. 
 Men who profess to know you have counseled me to 
 appeal directly to the board. What I wish to know now 
 is if you are willing to take the entire responsibility of 
 turning this plan of mine down. Will it not relieve you 
 of all responsibility if you will call a meeting of the 
 directors, and let me lay this absurd proposal of mine 
 before it ? You can surely have no fears for the result." 
 
 The shot told. The president struggled to his feet 
 and took a nervous turn up and down the long room. 
 When he replied, it was with the indecisive man s reluc 
 tance to commitment of any sort. 
 
46 EMPIEE BUILDEBS 
 
 "If I call the meeting, I shall be ridiculed; and if I 
 don t call it, I suppose you ll go to Brewster and Magnus 
 and tell them I ve muzzled you. Have it your own way. 
 I ll issue the call for ten o clock,, the day after to-mor 
 row, in McVeigh and Mackie s offices in Broad Street. 
 But I warn you in advance, Mr. Ford, I shall not be able 
 to help you in the least. And I may add this : that when 
 you reach that part of your proposal where you call for 
 thirty-five millions additional capital, you may as well 
 put on your hat and go home. That will be the end 
 of it." 
 
 "And of me," laughed the enthusiast. But in spite of 
 the cold comfort, and of the still colder promise of op 
 position, he took his leave with a lighter heart, refusing 
 Mr. Colbrith s rather perfunctory invitation to stay to 
 luncheon. 
 
 And on the gravelled drive, where he again had to 
 make way for the auto-car purring in on its return, he 
 did not so much as look up at the pair in the driving- 
 seat. 
 
WANTED: THIRTY-FIVE MILLIONS 
 
 The offices of McVeigh and Mackie, brokers and finan 
 cial agents, are in Broad Street, and the windows of the 
 room used for board meetings look down upon the angle 
 where beats the money pulse of the nation. 
 
 Ford had successfully resisted the temptation to lobby 
 for his scheme during the one-day interval between his 
 conference with Mr. Colbrith and the date of the called 
 meeting of the directors. It was not any mistaken sense 
 of loyalty to the president that restrained him; on the 
 contrary, he decided that Mr. Colbrith s declaration of 
 war left him free to fight as he would. But upon due 
 consideration he concluded to set the advantage of an 
 assault en masse over against the dubious gain of an 
 advanced skirmish line, and when he turned out of 
 Broadway into Wall S treet on the morning of destiny 
 the men whom he was to meet and convince were still no 
 
 47 
 
48 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 more to him than a list of names in the Poor s Manual, 
 consulted within the hour for the purpose. 
 
 He was early on the battle-ground ; much too early, he 
 thought, when a clerk ushered him into the board room 
 in the rear of the brokers offices. As yet there was only 
 one person present a young man who was lounging in 
 the easiest of the leather-covered chairs and yawning 
 dismally. At the first glance the face seemed oddly 
 and strikingly familiar; but when the young man 
 marked the new-comer s entrance, the small hand-bag in 
 which the amateur promoter carried his papers, and got 
 up to shake hands, Ford found the suggestive gropings 
 baffled. 
 
 "My name is Adair," said the lounger genially; 
 "and I suppose you are the Mr. Ford Uncle Sidney has 
 been telling us about. Pull up a chair and sit by the 
 window. It s the only amusement you ll have until the 
 clan gathers." 
 
 Ford looked at his watch. 
 
 "I seem to be ahead of time," he remarked. "I under 
 stood Mr. Colbrith to say that the meeting would be 
 called for ten o clock." 
 
 "Oh, that s all right; and so he did," rejoined the 
 other cheerfully. "But that means anything up to noon 
 for a directors meeting in New York." Then, after a 
 pause : "Do you know any of us personally, Mr. Ford ?" 
 
 Ford was rummaging in his memory again. "I ought 
 
WANTED: THIETY-FIVE MILLIONS 49 
 
 to know you, Mr. Adair. It isn t very decent to drag in 
 resemblances, but " 
 
 "The resemblance is the real thing, this time/ said 
 Adair. "You saw me day before yesterday, driving out 
 of the Overlook grounds as you were going in." 
 
 Ford shook his head. 
 
 "No; it goes back of that; sometime I ll remember 
 how and where. But to answer your question: I know 
 Mr. Colbrith slightly, but I ve never met any of the 
 directors." 
 
 "Well, you are meeting one at this moment," laughed 
 the young man, crossing his legs comfortably. "But I 
 am the easiest mark of the lot," he added. "I inherited 
 my holdings in Pacific Southwestern." 
 
 Ford was crucially anxious to find out how the battle 
 was likely to go, and his companion seemed amiably 
 communicative. 
 
 "Since you call Mr. Colbrith Uncle Sidney/ I infer 
 that you know what I am here for, Mr. Adair. How do 
 you think my proposition is likely to strike the board ?" 
 
 Again the young man laughed. 
 
 "Fancy your asking me !" he said. "I haven t talked 
 with any one but Uncle Sidney; and the most I could 
 get out of him was that you wanted thirty-five million 
 dollars to spend." 
 
 "Well," said the Westerner anxiously, "am I going to 
 get it?" 
 
50 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 "You can search me," was the good-natured rejoinder. 
 "But from my knowledge of the men you are going 
 presently to wrestle with, I should say no/ and itali 
 cize it." 
 
 "Perhaps it might help me a little if I could know in 
 advance the particular reason for the italics/ Ford 
 suggested. 
 
 "Oh, sure. The principal reason is that your name 
 isn t Hill or Harriman or Morgan or Gates. Money is 
 ridiculously sheepish. It will follow a known leader 
 blindly, idiotically. But if it doesn t hear the familiar 
 tinkle of the leader s bell, it is mighty apt to huddle and 
 run back." 
 
 Ford s smile was grim. 
 
 "I don t mind saying to you, Mr. Adair, that this is 
 one of the times when it will be much safer to huddle 
 and run forward. Have you seen the half-yearly re 
 port?" 
 
 "I ? Heaven forbid ! I have never seen anything out 
 of the Pacific Southwestern not even a dividend." 
 
 Ford would very willingly have tried to share his en 
 thusiasm with the care-free young man, whose face was 
 still vaguely but persistently remindful of some impres 
 sion antedating the automobile passing; but now the 
 other members of the board were dropping in by twos 
 and threes, and privacy was at an end. 
 
 Just before President Colbrith took his place at the 
 
WANTED: THIRTY-FIVE MILLIONS 51 
 
 head of the long table to call the meeting to order, Adair 
 leaned forward to say in low tones : "I couldn t give you 
 the tip you wanted, Mr. Ford, but I can give you another 
 which may serve as well. If your good word doesn t 
 win out, scare em scare em stiff! I don t know but 
 you could frighten half a million or so out of me if you 
 should try." 
 
 "Thank you," said Ford. "I may take you at your 
 word," and just then Mr. Colbrith rose in his place, 
 fingering his thin white beard rather nervously, Ford 
 thought, and rapping on the table for silence. 
 
 It was admitted on all hands that the president of the 
 Pacific Southwestern was a careful man and a thrifty. 
 It was these qualities which had first determined his 
 election. There were many small stock-holders in the 
 company, and it is the foible of small stock-holders to 
 believe that rigid economy counts for more than adven 
 turous outreachings in the larger field. 
 
 "Gentlemen," he began, his high, raucous voice rasp 
 ing the silence like the filing of a saw, "this meeting is 
 called, as you have probably been informed, for the pur 
 pose of considering a plan for betterments submitted by 
 Mr. Stuart Ford, who is at the present time superin 
 tendent of our Plug Mountain Division. 
 
 "In making this unusual innovation, and in introduc 
 ing Mr. Ford, I desire to say that I have been actuated 
 by that motive of prudence which, while it stands firmly 
 
52 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 upon its own feet, is willing to consider suggestions 
 from without, even when these suggestions appear to be 
 totally at variance with a policy of careful and judicious 
 financiering. 
 
 "In presenting Mr. Ford as the son of an old friend, 
 long since gone to his reward, I wish it distinctly un 
 derstood that I am in no sense committed to his plan. 
 The policy of this company under the present adminis 
 tration has been uniformly cautious and prudent: Mr. 
 Ford would throw caution and prudence to the winds. 
 Our best efforts have been directed toward the saving of 
 the ultimate dollar of expense: Mr. Ford urges us to 
 spend millions. We have been trying to dispose of some 
 of our non-paying branches: Mr. Ford would have us 
 acquire others and build new lines. 5 
 
 While Mr. Colbrith was speaking, Adair was rapidly 
 characterizing the members for Ford, checking them off 
 upon his fingers. 
 
 "The little man at Uncle Sidney s right is Mackie, 
 and the miserly looking one next to him is McVeigh," 
 he whispered. "One of them will furnish your coffin, 
 and the other will drive the nails into it. The big man 
 with the beard is Brewster a multimillionaire ; and the 
 one who looks like Senator Bailey is Magnus, president 
 of the Mohican National. Connolly, the fat Irishman, 
 is a politician wads of money, but not much interest 
 in the game. The other three " 
 
WANTED: THIRTY-FIVE MILLIONS 53 
 
 But now the president had made an end and was 
 beckoning to Ford. 
 
 The young engineer rose, feeling much as if a bucket 
 of ice-water had been suddenly emptied down the back 
 of his neck. But one of his saving qualities was the 
 spring-like resilience which responds instantly to a 
 shock. Spreading his papers on the table, he began with 
 a little apology. 
 
 "I didn t come here this morning prepared to make a 
 promoter s speech; and perhaps it is just as well, since 
 my gift, if I have one, lies in doing things rather than 
 in talking about them. But I can lay a few facts before 
 you which you may deem worthy of consideration/ 
 
 From this as a beginning he went on swiftly and in 
 cisively. The Pacific Southwestern, in its present condi 
 tion, was a failure. It was an incomplete line, trying 
 vainly to hold its own against great and powerful sys 
 tems overlapping it at either end. The remedy lay in 
 extension. The acquisition of a controlling interest in 
 three short roads, which, pieced together, would bridge 
 the gap between the Missouri River and Chicago, would 
 place the Pacific Southwestern upon an equal footing 
 with its competitors as a grain carrier. By standardizing 
 the Plug Mountain narrow gauge and extending it to 
 Salt Lake and beyond, the line would secure a western 
 outlet, and would be in a position to demand its share 
 of transcontinental business. 
 
54 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 To finance these two extensions a capital of thirty-five 
 million dollars would be needed ; five million dollars for 
 the purchase of the majority stock in the three short 
 roads, and the remainder for the western outlet. These 
 assertions were not guesses: by referring to exhibits 
 marked "a," "b" and "f," his hearers would find accurate 
 estimates of cost, not only of construction, but also of 
 stock purchases. 
 
 As to the manner of providing the capital, he had only 
 a suggestion to offer. The five million dollars necessary 
 for the acquirement of a controlling interest in the three 
 short roads would be a fair investment. It could be cov 
 ered immediately by a reissue share for share of the 
 reorganization stock of the P. S-W., which would am 
 ply secure the investors, since the stock of the most 
 prosperous of the three local roads was listed at 
 twenty-eight, ten points lower than the present market 
 quotation of P. S-W. 
 
 The thirty million dollar extension fund might be 
 raised by issuing second mortgage bonds upon the entire 
 system, or the new line itself could be bonded mile for 
 mile under a separate charter. Ford modestly disclaimed 
 any intention of dictating the financial policy ; this was 
 not in his line. But again he would submit facts. The 
 grain crop in the West was phenomenally large in pros 
 pect. With its own eastern terminal in Chicago, the 
 Pacific Southwestern could control the grain shipments 
 
WANTED: THIRTY*FIVE MILLIONS 55 
 
 in its own territory. With the moving of the grain, the 
 depressed P. S-W. stock would inevitably recover, and on 
 a rising market the new issue of bonds could doubtless 
 be floated. 
 
 The enthusiast closed his argument with a hasty 
 summing-up of the benefits which must, in the nature 
 of things, accrue. From being an alien link in the great 
 transcontinental chain, the Pacific Southwestern would 
 rise at a bound to the dignity of a great railway system ; 
 a power to be reckoned with among the other great sys 
 tems gridironing the West. Its earnings would be en 
 hanced at every point; cross lines which now fed its 
 competitors would become its allies ; the local lines to be 
 welded into the eastern end of the system would share 
 at once in the prosperity of a strong through line. 
 
 For the western extension he could speak from per 
 sonal knowledge of the region to be penetrated. Apart 
 from the new line s prime object that of providing an 
 outlet for the system there was a goodly heritage of 
 local business awaiting the first railroad to reach the 
 untapped territory. Mines, valueless now for the lack of 
 transportation facilities, would become abundant pro 
 ducers; and there were many fertile valleys and mesas 
 to attract the ranchman, who would find on the western 
 slopes of the mountains an unfailing water supply for 
 his reservoirs and ditches. Ford did not hesitate to pre 
 dict that within a short time the extension would earn 
 
56 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 more, mile for mile,, than the grain-belt portion of the 
 system. 
 
 When he sat down he felt that his cause was lost. 
 There was no enthusiasm, no approval, in the faces of 
 his auditors. After a short and informal discussion, in 
 which the engineer was called on to explain his plans 
 and estimates in detail to one and another of the mem 
 bers, Magnus, the bank president, sufficiently summed 
 up the sense of the meeting when he said : 
 
 "There is no question about the ingenuity of your 
 plan, Mr. Ford. You must have given a great deal of 
 time and thought to it. But it is rather too large for us, 
 I m afraid, and there are too many contingencies. Your 
 province, I understand, is the building and operating of 
 railroads, and it is nothing to your discredit that you 
 are unfamiliar with the difficulties of financing an un 
 dertaking as vast as this proposal of yours." 
 
 "I don t deny the difficulties," said Ford. "But they 
 wouldn t seem to be insuperable." 
 
 "Not from your point of view," rejoined the banker 
 suavely. "But you will admit that they are very con 
 siderable. The opposition on the part of the competing 
 systems would be something tremendous. No stone 
 would be left unturned in the effort to dismount us. To 
 go no further into the matter than the proposed pur 
 chase of the majority stocks in the three short roads : at 
 the first signal in that field you would find those stocks 
 
WANTED: THIRTY-FIVE MILLIONS 57 
 
 flying skyward in ten-point advances, and your five mil 
 lions wouldn t be a drop in the bucket. In view of the 
 difficulties, I think I voice the conviction of the board 
 when I say that the plan is too hazardous/ 
 
 The nods of assent were too numerous to leave Ford 
 any hope of turning the tide in his favor. He rose, 
 gathered up his papers, and reached for his hat. 
 
 "It is very pointedly your own funeral, gentlemen/ 
 he said curtly. " Nothing venture, nothing have is an 
 old proverb, but it is as true now as it was when it was 
 coined. With P. S-W. stock at thirty-eight and steadily 
 declining ; with another dividend about to be passed ; and 
 with the certainty that the July interest on the bonds 
 will have to be defaulted unless some compromise can be 
 effected with the bondholders " 
 
 "What s that you re saying?" broke in Mackie, whose 
 P. S-W. holdings were large. 
 
 Ford drew a folded paper from his pocket and laid it 
 on the table. 
 
 "I was merely quoting from the auditor s semiannual 
 report, of which that is a summary," he said, indicating 
 the folded paper. "The report itself will doubtless reach 
 you in a day or two. It would seem to an unprejudiced 
 observer that the present condition spells something like 
 a receivership, unless you have the bondholders with 
 you." 
 
 "One moment, Mr. Ford," interposed the banker 
 
58 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 member; but Ford was working up to his climax and 
 refused to be side-tracked. 
 
 "Of course, as an officer of the company, I have felt in 
 duty bound to bring my grist first to the company s mill. 
 But if you gentlemen don t wish to grind it, it will be 
 ground, notwithstanding. I could very easily have found 
 a market for my proposal without coming to New York." 
 
 With which parting shot, and a word of apology for 
 having taken the time of the board to no good purpose, 
 he bowed himself out, closing the door upon a second 
 attempt on the part of the banker member to renew the 
 argument. 
 
YI 
 
 THE AWAKENING OF CHARLES EDWARD 
 
 Ford went directly to his hotel from the meeting in 
 the Broad Street board room, paid his bill, and had 
 himself shot up to the fifth floor to prepare for a swift 
 retreat from the scene of his humiliating defeat. It was 
 hardly in keeping with his boast of persistence that he 
 should suffer himself to be thus routed by a single re 
 verse, however crushing. But in a world where every 
 problem contains its human factor, red wrath accounts 
 for much that is otherwise unaccountable. 
 
 Ford was thoroughly and unreasoningly angry and 
 disgusted when he began to fling his belongings into the 
 small steamer trunk, and it was only natural that he 
 should turn with a little brow-wrinkling of resentment 
 when, a little later, Mr. Charles Edward Adair, follow 
 ing his card up to the fifth floor front, lounged good- 
 naturedly into the room. 
 
 59 
 
60 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 "Beg pardon, I m sure," said the intruder easily. 
 "Didn t know you were busy. I thought maybe you d 
 like to know the effect of your little double-headed 
 bombshell, and I couldn t be sure Uncle Sidney would 
 take the trouble to tell you." 
 
 Ford made no effort to conceal his contempt for the 
 financial gods. 
 
 "I don t imagine it will take you very long to tell 
 it," he retorted. "Nothing short of a combined earth 
 quake and volcanic eruption would have any effect upon 
 that crowd." 
 
 "Oh, but you re wrong !" protested Adair. "That shot 
 of yours with the semiannual summary for a projectile 
 stirred em up good. It seems that Uncle Sidney and 
 Hertford and Morelock they re the executive commit 
 tee, you know have had the auditor s figures for some 
 days, but they hadn t thought it necessary to harrow the 
 feelings of the other members of the board with the cata 
 clysmic details. So there was a jolly row. Magnus 
 wanted to know, top-loftily, why a small official from the 
 farther end of the system should be the first to bring 
 the news; and Mackie was so wrathy that he inadver 
 tently put the hot end of his cigar in his mouth. Even 
 Connolly woke up enough to say that it was blanked bad 
 politics." 
 
 "But nothing came of it?" said Ford, hope rising in 
 spite of the negative query. 
 
AWAKENING OF CHARLES EDWAED 61 
 
 "No ; nothing but a general hand-out of pretty sharp 
 talk. What was needed right then was a unifier some 
 body who could take command and coax or bully the 
 scrapping factions into line. Magnus tried it, but he s 
 too smooth. Brewster was the man, but he has too many 
 other and bigger irons in the fire to care much about 
 P. S-W. Connolly could have done it if the scrap had 
 been a political split, but he was out of his element." 
 
 "Humph!" growled Ford. "It didn t occur to me 
 that there were any differences of opinion to be recon 
 ciled. The entire board sat on my proposition as a 
 unit." 
 
 Adair laughed with imperturbable good-humor. 
 
 "The factions were there, just the same. You see, it s 
 like this : Brewster and Magnus and two or three more 
 are pretty well-to-do, and their holdings in P. S-W. 
 don t cut much of a figure with them, one way or an 
 other. The others have more stock in the company, and 
 fewer millions. When the jangle came, Brewster and 
 the heavy men said, C 0h, let it go ; it isn t worth bother 
 ing with. Naturally, the little fellows, with more to lose 
 and less money-nerve, said, No. " 
 
 "It spells the same word for me, in any event," Ford 
 commented, and went on pitching things inttf his 
 steamer trunk. 
 
 Adair got upon his feet and strolled away to the win 
 dow. 
 
62 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 When he turned again to face the beaten one he said : 
 
 "If I wasn t so infernally lazy, Mr. Ford, I more than 
 half believe that I could pull this thing off for you, 
 myself. But that is the curse of being born with too 
 much money. I can take a plunge into business now and 
 then I ve done it. But my best friend couldn t bet on 
 me two days in succession." 
 
 Ford looked up quickly. 
 
 "Then don t put your hand to this plow, Mr. Adair. 
 I ll be frank with you. I can fit the mechanical parts 
 of this scheme of mine together, so that they will run 
 true and do business. But I, or any man in my place, 
 would have to have solid backing here in New York ; a 
 board that would be as aggressive as a handful of rebels 
 fighting for life, and every man of it determined to win 
 out or smash something. Mr. Magnus spoke of the op 
 position we should encounter from our competitors. He 
 might have said more. What the Transcontinental, for 
 example, wouldn t do to obliterate us needn t be cata 
 logued. How do you suppose the present P. S-W. board 
 would fare in such a fight ?" 
 
 The youngest member of the flouted board laughed 
 again. 
 
 <c You mustn t say in your wrath that all men are liars 
 or cowards. There is plenty of fight in our crowd; 
 and plenty of money, too, if you could only get it suffi 
 ciently scared." 
 
AWAKENING OF CHARLES EDWARD 63 
 
 "I ve done my best," said Ford, slamming the lid of 
 the trunk and buckling the straps vigorously. "The 
 next time I ll find my market first and build my scheme 
 afterward." 
 
 "Well, if I can say it without offense, I m honestly 
 sorry for you, Mr. Ford ; you ve been butchered to make 
 a Broad Street holiday," said Adair, lounging toward 
 the door. "You are going back to the West, I suppose ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "What line?" 
 
 "Pennsylvania; five-ten this afternoon." 
 
 "That is a long time between drinks. Suppose you 
 come up to the club and have luncheon with me ?" 
 
 Ford hesitated, watch in hand. 
 
 "I was about to lie to you, Mr. Adair, and plead 
 business ; but I shan t. I ll tell you the plain truth. I m 
 too sore just now to be any good fellow s good company." 
 
 "Which is precisely the reason why I asked you," 
 laughed the golden youth. "Come on ; let s go now. You 
 can take it out on me as much as you like, you know. 
 I shan t mind." 
 
 But the club luncheon ignored the business affair com 
 pletely, as Adair intended it should. Ford came out of 
 the shell of disappointment with the salad course, and 
 by way of reparation for his former attitude talked 
 rather more freely of himself than he was wont to do 
 on such short acquaintance with any one. The young 
 
64 EMPIEE BUILDEES 
 
 millionaire met him quite half-way on this road to a 
 better understanding, contrasting with mild envy Ford s 
 well-filled, busy life with his own erratic efforts at time- 
 killing. 
 
 "You make me half sorry for myself/ he said, when 
 they went to the smoking-room to light their cigars. 
 "It s no less than a piteous misfortune when a fellow s 
 father has beaten all the covers of accomplishment for 
 him." 
 
 Ford could laugh now without being bitter. 
 
 "The game isn t all corralled, even for you, Mr. Adair. 
 There was excellent good shooting for you in that direc 
 tors meeting this morning, but you wouldn t take the 
 trouble." 
 
 "That s the fact," was the easy-going rejoinder. "That 
 is just what my sister is always telling me that I won t 
 take the trouble. And yet I do take the trouble to begin 
 a lot of things ; only they never seem worth while after 
 a few days dip into them." 
 
 "Pick out bigger ones," suggested Ford. "My trouble 
 is just the other way about; I am always tackling things 
 that are worlds too big for me just as I have this time." 
 
 "It isn t too big for you, Mr. Ford. It was too big for 
 Colbrith, Magnus, et dl. And, besides, you re not go 
 ing to give it up. You ll drop off in Chicago, hunt up 
 some meat-packer or other Croesus, and land your new 
 railroad independently of the P. S-W." 
 
AWAKENING OF CHARLES EDWARD 65 
 
 It was a measure of the sincerity of Ford s liking for 
 his host when he said : "That little shot of mine at your 
 colleagues was merely a long bluff. If my scheme can t 
 be worked with the P. S-W., it can t well be worked 
 without it. We are lacking the two end-links in the 
 chain which I could forge. But my two end-links with 
 out the middle one wouldn t attract anybody." 
 
 It was quite late in the afternoon when they left the 
 club, and Ford had no more than time to check his lug 
 gage and get to his train. He wondered a little when 
 Adair went with him to the ferry, and was not ungrate 
 ful for the hospitality which seemed to be directed to 
 ward a lightening of the burden of failure. But Adair s 
 word of leave-taking, flung across the barrier when the 
 chains of the landing-stage were rattling to their rise, 
 was singularly irrelevant. 
 
 "By the way, Mr. Ford ; what time did you say your 
 train would reach Chicago ?" 
 
 "At eight forty-five to-morrow evening," replied the 
 beaten one ; and then the boat swung out of its slip and 
 the retreat without honor was begun. 
 
VII 
 
 HAMMER AND TONGS 
 
 It was raining dismally the evening of the following 
 day when Ford saw from his Pullman window the dull 
 sky-glow of the metropolis of the Middle West. It had 
 been a dispiriting day throughout. When a man has 
 flung himself at his best into a long battle which ends 
 finally in unqualified loss, the heavens are as brass, and 
 the future is apt to reflect only the pale light of the 
 past failure. 
 
 It was after the train had entered the suburbs of Chi 
 cago that a blue-coated messenger boy came through the 
 Pullman, with the car conductor for his guide. Ford 
 saw himself pointed out, and a moment later was read 
 ing a telegram, with a tumult, not of the drumming car 
 wheels, roaring in his ears. 
 
 Had a talk with my sister and made up my mind to see 
 you through if I don t get tired and quit, as usual. Secure 
 
 66 
 
HAMMER AND TONGS 6? 
 
 options on that short-road stock quick, and .wire me care 
 McV. & M. Funds to your credit in Algonquin National, 
 Chicago. Another directors meeting to-day, and things 
 look a little less chaotic. Answer. ADAIB. 
 
 For some time Ford could only read and re-read the 
 exciting telegram, scarcely trusting the evidence of his 
 senses. That the coldly indifferent members of the P. 
 S-W. board, with a man like President Colbrith at their 
 head, could be swung into line in the short space of a 
 single day by a young fellow who seemed to be little 
 more than a spoiled son of fortune, was blankly in 
 credible. 
 
 But he was not long in realizing that the cherished 
 scheme for which he had studied and struggled was 
 actually beginning to stagger to its feet ; or in reaching 
 the equally stirring conclusion that his part in the sud 
 denly reopened game called instantly for shrewd blows 
 and the swiftest possible action. 
 
 The stock-holders in the three local roads which were 
 to be united to bridge the Chicago-Missouri River gap 
 were scattered all over the Middle West. To secure the 
 necessary options on working majorities of the stock 
 would be a task for a financial diplomat, and one who 
 could break the haste-making record by being in a dozen 
 different places at one and the same moment. Moreover, 
 secrecy became a prime factor in the problem. If the 
 opposition, and particularly the Transcontinental peo- 
 
68 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 pie, should get wind of the move, it would take fifteen 
 millions to do the work of five, as Banker Magnus had 
 intimated. 
 
 Notwithstanding the thickly marshaled obstacles, Ford 
 had his plan of campaign pretty well thought out by the 
 time his train was slowing into the Union Station. Be 
 fore going to New York he had painstakingly located" 
 the required holdings of the three stocks. Some of them 
 were in Chicago, but the greater number of the men to 
 be bargained with were local capitalists living in the 
 smaller cities along the lines of the three short railroads. 
 
 In his bag was a carefully compiled list of these stock 
 holders, with their addresses and the amounts of their 
 respective holdings. At the worst, he concluded, it 
 should mean nothing more formidable than a deal of 
 quick traveling, some anxious bargaining, perhaps, and 
 a little finesse to keep his object in securing the op 
 tions safely in the background. 
 
 This was how it appeared in the prospect; and the 
 young engineer had yet to learn that the securing of 
 options is a trade by itself a trade by no means to be 
 caught up in passing, even by the most gifted of tyros. 
 
 Hence, it was extremely fortunate for this particular 
 tyro more fortunate than he could possibly know at 
 the moment that his telephone message sent from the 
 first telephone he could reach after his train stopped in 
 the Union Station, caught Kenneth at the Green Bag 
 
HAMMER AND TONGS 69 
 
 Club. It was a mere chance that he knew that Kenneth, 
 the senior member of the firm of attorneys having 
 general oversight of the Pacific Southwestern s legal 
 department, was at the moment in Chicago; a chance 
 hanging upon the fact that he had met Kenneth as he 
 was passing through on his way eastward. But it was not 
 by chance that the first familiar face he saw on entering 
 the rotunda of the Grand Pacific Hotel was that of Ken 
 neth. The sight was merely the logical result of Ford s 
 urgent request telephoned to the lawyer s club. 
 
 "By Jove, Kenneth; this comes within two inches of 
 being a miracle ! my catching you here before you had 
 started West," Ford ejaculated. And then: "When are 
 you going back ?" 
 
 "I am supposed to be on the way now/ was the law 
 yer s reply. "I had made all my arrangements to start 
 back to-night on the slow train, but I dined with some 
 friends on the North Side and made a miss. Where have 
 you been ?" 
 
 "I m just in from New York. Let me register and 
 get a room ; and you put away any lingering notion you 
 may have of heading westward to-night. I ve got to have 
 your ear for a few hours to begin with, and the whole 
 of you for the next few days. No; don t probe me here. 
 Wait, and I ll unload on you gradually. You won t be 
 sorry you missed your train." 
 
 Fifteen minutes later Ford had his adviser safely be- 
 
70 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 hind a closed door, and had put him succinctly in pos 
 session of the world-subverting facts, as far as they 
 went. When he concluded, the lawyer was shaking his 
 head dubiously, just as Auditor Evans had done. 
 
 "Ford, have you any adequate idea of what a tremen 
 dous proposition you are up against?" he asked quietly, 
 helping himself to a cigar out of the engineer s freshly 
 opened box. 
 
 "I don t believe I have underrated the difficulties, 
 any of them," said Ford, matching the attorney s grav 
 ity. "There are bones all the way along, but I think I 
 have struck the biggest of them just here. I ought to 
 be in a dozen places at once, and not later than to-mor 
 row noon. That s something I can t quite compass." 
 
 "Getting these options, you mean ? That is very true ; 
 but it isn t all of it, by long odds. There are the thou 
 sand and one mechanical details to be worked out: the 
 coupling up of these three local lines at their connecting 
 points, the securing of proper trackage or trackage 
 rights at these junctions, the general ordering of things 
 so that a through line may be opened immediately when 
 the stock is secured. If there were ten of you, you 
 couldn t get things licked into shape in time to get in 
 on the grain carrying this season." 
 
 Ford had relighted his cigar, which had gone out in 
 the explanatory interval, and was blowing smoke-rings 
 toward the ceiling. 
 
HAMMER AND TONGS 71 
 
 "I may be the biggest ass this side of the jack trails, 
 and the most conceited, Kenneth; but you re over on 
 my side of the ring when you talk about the mechanical 
 obstacles. What I m worrying about now is the fact 
 that I can t do two things at once. The options must 
 be secured before we can make the fifth part of a move 
 in the other field; and the Lord only knows how long 
 that will take. To hurry is to lose out." 
 
 The lawyer nodded. "And not to hurry is to lose out, 
 too," he qualified. Then he smoked in thoughtful silence 
 for five full minutes before he said, abruptly : "Give me 
 your list of stock-holders and turn the option business 
 over to the legal department, where it properly belongs. 
 That will leave you foot-loose to go after the mechanical 
 matter. How does that suit you ?" 
 
 Ford sprang to his feet. 
 
 "By Jove, Kenneth, you re a man and a brother; 
 I m not forgetting that you are taking this entire fairy 
 tale on my personal say-so ; and I shan t forget it, either. 
 It s what I wanted to ask and was afraid to ask, after 
 I got you safely jailed up here." 
 
 The attorney s smile was grim but friendly. 
 
 "I m not forgetting how you took a sick man over 
 into the Pannikin wilderness on a two-months hunting 
 trip last fall and made a well man of him, Ford," he 
 said. "Any man who can shoot as straight as you do 
 wouldn t be sitting here telling me lies about a trifling 
 
72 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 little matter involving the expenditure of a beggarl} 
 thirty-five millions. But to come down to earth again ; 
 you haven t shifted any considerable part of the burden, 
 you know. I can do this bit of routine work; but the 
 main thing is up to you, just as it was before I said 
 yes." 
 
 Ford rose, stretching himself like a man who has just 
 been relieved of a burden whose true weight was ap 
 preciable only in its lifting. 
 
 "I know," he said cheerfully. "It has been up to me, 
 all along. In the morning we ll go around to the Al 
 gonquin National, and I ll put you into the financial 
 saddle. Then I ll get out on the line, and by the time 
 you have the stock corralled, we ll be practically ready 
 to pull through freight if not passengers from Den 
 ver to Chicago. Oh, I know what I am talking about," 
 he added, when the general counsel smiled his incred 
 ulity. "This is no affair of yesterday with me. I have 
 every mile of these three short roads mapped and cross- 
 sectioned; I have copies of all their terminal and junc 
 tion-point contracts. I know exactly what we can do, 
 and what we can t do." 
 
 The lawyer s comment was frankly praiseful, not to 
 say flattering. 
 
 "You re a wonder, Ford and that s no figure of 
 speech. How on earth did you manage to do it all at 
 such long range ?" 
 
HAMMER AND TONGS 73 
 
 Ford s smile was reminiscent of the obstacles. 
 
 "It would take me all night to tell you in detail, Ken 
 neth. But I did it. It s no mere brag to say that I 
 could walk into the Chicago, Peoria & Davenport gen 
 eral offices here to-morrow morning and organize a 
 through service over the P. S-W. and the three stub 
 lines within twenty-fbur hours, if I had to." 
 
 "Well, that part of it is far enough beyond me," said 
 the attorney. "The stock-chasing is more in my line. I 
 hope we can keep quiet enough about it so that the op 
 position won t guess what we are trying to do. You re 
 sure it won t be given away from the New York end ?" 
 
 It was the engineer s turn to shake his head and to 
 look dubious. 
 
 "Now you are shouting, Kenneth. I can t tell any 
 thing about it. You ll remember that when I left New 
 York the board had turned the plan down, definitely 
 and permanently, as I supposed. I should say that our 
 only safety lies in lightning speed. When you get the 
 options on those controlling stock majorities snugly on 
 deposit in the Algonquin National, we can draw our 
 first long breath. Isn t that about the way it strikes 
 you?" 
 
 "It is, precisely," agreed the general counsel, rising 
 and finding his hat. "And because it does strike me that 
 way, I think I ll go down and do a little telegraphing 
 to-night." 
 
74 EMPIKE BUILDEKS 
 
 "Hold on a minute," said Ford, "and I ll give you a 
 message to take down, if you don t mind. I must an 
 swer Adair, and it won t do any harm to prod him a 
 little on the secrecy side." 
 
 Kenneth waited, with his hand on the door-knob, as it 
 chanced. Hence the opening of the door a minute or two 
 later was quite without any preliminary stir of warn 
 ing in the room of conference. That was possibly the 
 reason why the lawyer almost fell over a man crouching 
 in the corridor. 
 
 "Hello, there !" said Kenneth ; "I beg your pardon." 
 
 The man got upon his feet, exhibiting all the signs 
 of intoxication. 
 
 "Beg yoursh, I m sure," he mumbled, and was lurch 
 ing crookedly away when the lawyer suddenly came to 
 his senses and grabbed at him. The clutching hand fell 
 short, and there was an agile foot-race down the cor 
 ridor, fruitless for Kenneth, since the fugitive suddenly 
 developed sobriety enough to run like a deer. Beaten 
 in the foot-race, Kenneth went back for a word with 
 Ford. 
 
 "The battle is on," was the form the word took. "There 
 was a man here, listening at the key-hole, when I opened 
 the door. How much he overheard we ll be likely to find 
 out to-morrow when we begin to pull the strings. 
 Thought I d give you the pointer. Good night, again." 
 
yin 
 
 THE AUTOMATIC AIR 
 
 Set out In cold type, Ford s itinerary for the four 
 days following his conference with Kenneth would read 
 like the abbreviated diary of a man dodging the sheriff. 
 His "ticker" memorandum for that period is still in 
 existence, but the notes are the hurried strokes of the 
 pen of haste, intelligible, we may say, only to the man 
 who made them. To quote : 
 
 "Thursday, nine A. M V Peoria see Sedgwick; ten 
 make trackage contract with T. P. & W. ; eleven A. M., 
 Davenport inventory motive power see chief de- 
 spatcher get profiles and maps get copies of yard con 
 tracts get crossing rights get total tonnage of grain 
 cars. Three P. M., Hannibal see Berdan and whip him 
 into line inspect shops get contracts get " 
 
 But the string of "gets" fills the page, and is vital 
 now to no living soul of man, least of all to us who are 
 
 75 
 
76 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 interested only in finding out if our young captain of 
 industry actually did make good his boast of flogging 
 the three short roads into some semblance of a through 
 line in the brief interval at his disposal ; and this with 
 out advertising to the railroad world at large who he 
 represented and what he was doing. 
 
 He did it, and without a slip for which he could be 
 held responsible. It was a wire from the chief office of 
 the Transcontinental in New York, a telegram inspired 
 by sundry leakages from Pacific Southwestern sources, 
 that gave him a silent and observant follower in all of 
 his dodgings. Of this, however, he was in blissful ignor 
 ance. Twice, indeed, he sat in the same Pullman section 
 with his "shadow," quite without suspecting it ; and once 
 he was saved from disaster also without suspecting it. 
 
 It was at a way station in Missouri, and the section- 
 sharing traveling companion, who had paid only for an 
 hour s ride in the Pullman, was leaving the train. His 
 hand-bag chanced to be the exact counterpart of Ford s : 
 what more natural than that he should make the mis 
 take of taking the wrong one ? Ford caught him in the 
 vestibule, and there was a reexchange, accompanied by 
 grateful acknowledgments and profuse apologies from 
 the debarking one. Ford, immersed fathoms deep in his 
 problems, thought nothing of it; but a moment lost 
 would have been a cause lost, if he had guessed it. For 
 the mistake was no mistake, and the hand-bag rescued 
 
THE AUTOMATIC AIR 77 
 
 contained documents for which the Transcontinental 
 Company would have paid a month s salary of its board 
 of vice-presidents,, charging the amount, not to profit 
 and loss, but rather to salvage. 
 
 It was on the fourth day of the campaign, while Ford 
 was working his way on an inspection trip over the third 
 link in the short-lines chain, that two telegrams over 
 took him. 
 
 One was from Adair, announcing the tardy, but now 
 certain triumph of the expansionist faction in the board 
 of P. S-W. directors, and begging pathetically for news 
 of the option-getting. The other was signed "K," and 
 Ford had a sharp attack of joy when he read it. The at 
 torney had been successful at all points. The necessary 
 stock majorities were secured and the certificates were 
 safely on deposit in the Algonquin National Bank, in 
 Chicago. What remained was only a matter of routine, 
 provided the P. S-W. bidders would furnish the capital 
 for the purchases. 
 
 Ford swamped the local operator at the next way sta 
 tion with a thick sheaf of "rush" telegrams, left the 
 west-bound train at the first cross-road junction, and 
 caught a night express on a fast line for Chicago. Ken 
 neth was waiting for him at the hotel ; and after break 
 fast there was another telegram from Adair. Matters 
 were still progressing favorably, and President Colbrith, 
 traveling in his private car, "Nadia," via the Lake Shore, 
 
78 EMPIRE BUILDEES 
 
 would be in Chicago the following morning to take final 
 action in the stock purchases. 
 
 Ford gave the message to Kenneth, and the attorney 
 drummed softly on the table with his finger-tips when 
 he read the announcement. 
 
 "We are in for it now," he said with a grimace of dis 
 may. "If Mr. Colbrith doesn t manage to queer the 
 whole deal, it will be because he has suffered a complete 
 change of heart." 
 
 Ford answered the grimace with a scowl, and the mas 
 terful side of him came uppermost. 
 
 "What in the name of common sense were they think 
 ing of to send him out here T he gritted. 
 
 The general counsel laughed. 
 
 "You don t know Mr. Colbrith as well as I do, I 
 fancy," he suggested. "He is rather hard to suppress. 
 He ll be president until his successor is elected or he ll 
 know all the reasons why." 
 
 "Well, I hope you ve got everything straight in the 
 option business," said Ford. "If there is so much as a 
 hair displaced, he will be sure to find it." 
 
 "It is all straight enough," was the confident re 
 joinder. "Only I had to bid five points over the market 
 on odd lots of the stock. I m not sure, but I think the 
 Transcontinental people got wind of us during the last 
 day or two and bid against us." 
 
 "But you have safe majorities ?" 
 
THE AUTOMATIC AIR 79 
 
 " Oh, yes ; we are all in." 
 
 "Good," said Ford. "That puts it up to Mr. Colbrith, 
 at all events. And now, while we have a clear day before 
 us, I want to go over these C. P. & D. terminal contracts 
 with you. Eight here in Chicago is where the Trans 
 continental will try hardest to balk us. The C. P. & D. 
 has trackage rights to the elevators; but I want to be 
 sure that the contracts will hold water under a transfer 
 of ownership." 
 
 Subjected to legal scrutiny, the contracts promised to 
 be defensible, and Ford came through the day with his 
 apprehensive burdens considerably lightened. After din 
 ner he took his papers to Kenneth s room, and together 
 they went carefully over all the legal points involved in 
 the welding of the three local lines into the Pacific 
 Southwestern system, Ford furnishing the data gathered 
 by him during the four days. 
 
 Kenneth was shrewdly inquisitive, as his responsibili 
 ties constrained him to be, and it was deep in the small 
 hours when Ford made his escape and went to bed. By 
 consequence, he was scarcely more than half awake the 
 next morning, when he dressed hurriedly and hastened 
 over to the Van Buren Street station to see if the presi 
 dent s car had arrived. 
 
 The Nadia was in and side-tracked, with a sleepy 
 porter on guard. Ford climbed to the platform and 
 asked for the president. 
 
8Q EMPIKE BUILDERS 
 
 "Yas, suh; dis is Mr. Colbrith s cyar; but he don t 
 see no newspapuh men no, suh. Besides, dey s just 
 gettin up/ was the rebuff ; but Ford ignored it. 
 
 " They ? Then Mr. Colbrith isn t alone ?" 
 
 "No, suh ; got a pahty long with him a young gen 
 tleman and two ladies; yes, suh. Mr. Colbrith nebber 
 goes nowhah s dout he teks a pahty in de cyar." 
 
 "Heavens!" groaned Ford, under his breath; "as if 
 the thing wasn t complicated enough without making 
 a picnic of it!" Then aloud. "I wish to go in. My 
 name is Ford, and Mr. Colbrith is expecting me." 
 
 "Sho you isn t a newspapuh man ?" 
 
 "Of course not," said Ford shortly. 
 
 "All right, suh," said the negro; and he made way 
 and opened the door. 
 
 The Nadia was a commodious hotel on wheels, with a 
 kitchen and buffet forward, four state-rooms opening 
 upon a narrow side vestibule, and a large dining and 
 lounging room looking out through full-length win 
 dows upon a deep, "umbrella-roofed" platform at the 
 rear. 
 
 There was no one in the large compartment when 
 Ford reached it ; but a moment later a door opened and 
 closed in the vestibule, and Adair made his appearance. 
 Ford drew a breath of relief and shook hands with his 
 backer. 
 
 "I m glad it s you, Mr. Adair. I ve been scenting all 
 
THE AUTOMATIC AIR 81 
 
 sorts of hindrances since the porter told me. there was a 
 party aboard." 
 
 The young man without an avocation dropped into 
 the easiest of the wicker chairs and felt in his pockets 
 for his cigarette case. 
 
 "Your prophetic soul didn t deceive you any," he 
 laughed. "The hindrances are here in full force. It is 
 one of Uncle Sidney s notions never to travel without 
 a tail like a Highland chieftain s. I had a foreboding 
 that he d ask somebody, so I took it upon myself to fill 
 up his passenger list with Aunt Hetty, my sister, and 
 my uncle s nephew." 
 
 "I understand," said Ford, and would have plunged 
 forthwith into the business pool ; but Adair stopped him 
 with a gesture of dismay. 
 
 "Not before breakfast, if you love me, my dear fel 
 low !" he protested, with a little grimace that instantly 
 set the reminiscent part of Ford s brain at work. "After 
 I ve had something to eat " 
 
 The interruption was the noiseless entrance of a 
 motherly little lady in gray, with kindly eyes and a 
 touch of silver in the fair hair drawn smoothly back 
 from her forehead. 
 
 "This is Mr. Stuart Ford, I am sure," she said, giv 
 ing her hand to the young engineer before Adair could 
 introduce him. "You look enough, like your father to 
 make me recognize you at once." 
 
83 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 Ford was a little embarrassed by the gratefully in 
 formal greeting. 
 
 "Ought I to remember you, Mrs. Adair?" he asked 
 ingenuously. 
 
 "Oh, no, indeed. I knew your father as a young man 
 before he married and went to the farther West. The 
 Fords and the Colbriths and the Stanbrooks are all from 
 the same little town in central Illinois, you know." 
 
 "I didn t know it," said Ford, "though now I recall 
 it, I used often to hear my father speak of Miss Hester 
 Stanbrook." Then he was going on to say that trite 
 thing about the smallness of the world when Adair broke 
 in. 
 
 "I d like to know what is keeping Uncle Sidney and 
 Alicia. / haven t had breakfast yet." 
 
 As if his protest had evoked her, a young woman drew 
 the portiere of the vestibule a young woman with 
 bright brown hair, eyes like dewy wood violets, and an 
 adorable chin. Ford stared helplessly, and Adair 
 laughed. 
 
 "Shocked, aren t you?" he jested. "But you needn t 
 be alarmed. I have persuaded my sister not to prosecute 
 in the case of the snatched purse. Alicia, this is Mr. 
 Stuart Ford, and he desires me to say that he is not 
 often reduced to the necessity of robbing unprotected 
 young women for the sake of scraping an acquaintance." 
 
 Ford lost sight of the Pacific Southwestern exigencies 
 
THE AUTOMATIC AIR 83 
 
 for tKe moment., and surely the lapse was pardonable. 
 If the truth must be told, this young woman, who had 
 been discovered and lost in the same unforgetable even 
 ing, had stirred the neglected pool of sentiment in him 
 to its profoundest depths, and thoughts of her had been 
 dividing time pretty evenly with some parts of the 
 strenuous business affair. Indeed, the hopelessness of 
 any effort toward rediscovering her had been one of his 
 reasons for hurrying away from New York. He knew 
 himself a little and that quality of unreasoning per 
 sistence which other people called his strong point. The 
 search he had been half -minded to make once begun 
 
 "I hope you haven t forgotten me so soon, Mr. Ford," 
 she was saying ; and he recovered himself with a start, 
 
 "Forgotten you? No, indeed!" this with almost 
 lover-like emphasis. "I I think I am just a trifle aghast 
 at my good luck in finding you again. It seemed so ut 
 terly hopeless, you know. Don t you think " 
 
 But now the president had stalked in, and his high 
 querulous voice was marshaling the party breakf astward. 
 Ford maneuvered skilfully in the pairing off, and so 
 succeeded in securing Miss Adair for a companion on 
 the short walk across to the Grand Pacific. 
 
 "You were about to ask me something when Uncle 
 Sidney interrupted you," she prompted, when they were 
 clear of the throng in the station vestibule. 
 
 "Yes ; I was going to ask if you don t think it was un- 
 
84 EMPIRE BUILDEES 
 
 necessarily cruel to send me that note of thanks un 
 signed." 
 
 "Cruel ?" she echoed, and her laugh was so exactly a 
 replica of her brother s that Ford wondered why the 
 reminiscent arrow had not gone at once to its mark. 
 "How absurd ! What possible difference could it make?" 
 
 "It made a lot of difference to me/ said Ford, refus 
 ing to be brushed aside. "How did you expect I was 
 ever going to be able to find you again, without even 
 your name as a clue ?" 
 
 She glanced up at him with unfeigned interest. The 
 men of her world were not altogether unappreciative ; 
 neither were they so primitively straightforward as this 
 young industry captain out of the West. 
 
 "It is not impossible that I never thought of your 
 finding me again," she said, and only the tone saved it 
 from being a small slap in the face. 
 
 Ford took the rebuff as a part of the day s work. 
 
 "Perhaps you didn t," he admitted. "But I mean to 
 go on hoping that you did." 
 
 "The idea!" she scoffed; but this time she blunted 
 the keen edge of the rebuke by adding : "I thought, per 
 haps, we might meet again, sometime. You see, we are 
 all stock-holders in the Pacific Southwestern; my 
 brother, Aunt Hetty and I; and Uncle Sidney had 
 shown us a letter it was from Mr. North, I think 
 saying that you were likely to come to New York with 
 
THE AUTOMATIC AIR 85. 
 
 some kind of a plan of reorganization. So when you gave 
 me your card, I knew at once who you were." 
 
 Ford made an immediate mental note of the bit of in 
 formation implicating Mr. North, but did not allow him 
 self to be diverted by the business affair. 
 
 "Yes, I know ; but that didn t help me a little bit/ 
 he protested, wishing that the distance to the hotel were 
 twice as far. 
 
 "That was just because it happened so ; you ran away 
 before my brother had a chance to offer you any hos 
 pitality," she explained. Then, before he could say any 
 more straightforward things: "Tell me, Mr. Ford; are 
 you really going to find something to interest brother ? 
 something that will keep him actually and enthusi 
 astically busy for more than a few days at a time?" 
 
 Ford laughed. "I fancy he hasn t been bored for the 
 lack of work since I left New York, has he ?" 
 
 "No ; and it has made such a difference ! Won t you 
 please try and keep him going ?" 
 
 "You may rest assured that I shall do what I can. 
 But you see he has quit already." 
 
 "By coming to Chicago with us? Oh, no, indeed; 
 you are quite mistaken. He is here to help you to to 
 minimize Uncle Sidney; I think that is the word he 
 used. He was afraid you had been finding Uncle Sidney 
 rather difficult. Have you?" 
 
 "I have, for a fact," said Ford, out of the depths of 
 
86 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 sincerity. And, again out of a full heart: "Your 
 brother is a brick, Miss Adair." 
 
 "Isn t he?" and she laughed in sheer good comrade 
 ship. "If yon can only manage to make him rise to his 
 capabilities " 
 
 "He ll never be able to live the simple life for a 
 single waking hour/ said the engineer, finishing the 
 sentence for her. 
 
 "Oh, but that is a mistake !" she objected. "The very 
 first requirement is work; plenty of work of the kind 
 one can do best." 
 
 The short walk to the hotel, where Kenneth was wait 
 ing to go to breakfast with the president s party, came 
 to an end, and the social amenities died of inanition. 
 For one thing, President Colbrith insisted upon learn 
 ing the minutest ins and outs of the business matter, 
 making the table-talk his vehicle ; and for another, Miss 
 Adair s place was on the opposite side of the table, and 
 two removes from Ford s. Time and again the young 
 engineer tried to side-track business in the interests of 
 something a little less banal to the two women ; but the 
 president was implacable and refused to be pulled out of 
 the narrow rut of details; was still running monot 
 onously and raspingly in it when Kenneth glanced at his 
 watch and suggested that the time for action was come. 
 
 After breakfast the party separated. Mrs. Adair and 
 Miss Alicia were to spend the day with friends in South 
 
THE AUTOMATIC AIR 87 
 
 Chicago, and Mr. Colbrith carried the attorney off to 
 his room to dig still deeper into the possible legal com 
 plications which might arise out of the proposed trans 
 fer of the three short roads. Ford and Adair sat in the 
 lobby and smoked while they were waiting for the presi 
 dent and the general counsel to conclude their confer 
 ence., and the young millionaire gave his companion the 
 story of the fight in the directory. 
 
 "We have Brewster to thank for the lift which finally 
 pulled our wheel out of the mud/ said the young man, 
 modestly effacing himself in the summing up. "Or 
 rather I should say that we have the enemy to thank for 
 stirring Brewster into action. Brewster s got some cop 
 per mines out in Utah that he nurses like a sick child. 
 Just at the critical moment some of the people who con 
 trol the Transcontinental began to worry his copper 
 stock. In the hot part of it he came to me and said, 
 Adair, will that western extension of yours be able to 
 fry any fat out of Transcontinental? I told him it 
 would, most assuredly; that next to making money for 
 ourselves, and, incidentally, saving the Pacific South 
 western from going smash, our chief object was to give 
 the Transcontinental a wholesome drubbing." 
 
 "You are progressing rapidly," said Ford, with a grin 
 of appreciation. "Did that fetch him ?" 
 
 "It did, for a fact. He looked like one of those old 
 bush}^-bearded vikings when he said, By thunder, I m 
 
88 EMPIEB BUILDEES 
 
 with you, young man! And I ll answer for Scott and 
 Magnus and Harding. Get your board together, and 
 we ll settle it to-day." 
 
 Ford looked up quickly. "If Mr. Colbrith wasn t the 
 chief of your family clan, Adair, I could wish that we 
 had this Mr. Brewster at the head of things." 
 
 The rejoinder was heartily prompt. "You don t wish 
 it any more fervently than I do, Ford. That is why I 
 am here to-day. The board, in spite of all that our hand 
 ful of revolutionaries could do, has armed Uncle Sidney 
 with almost dictatorial powers in this stock-purchasing 
 deal; and if he doesn t contrive to strangle things by 
 the slow process, it will be simply and solely because 
 you and Kenneth and I are here to see that he does not. 
 Do you know what the men call him out on the main 
 line? When they see the Nadia trundling in, they say, 
 Here comes old Automatic Air-Brakes. And it fits 
 him." 
 
 "But I don t quite understand why he should want to 
 put the brakes on here and now," Ford interposed. "I 
 know he is against the scheme, personally; but he is 
 here as the representative of a majority which has com 
 mitted itself to the expansion measure, isn t he ?" 
 
 "Oh, yes ; and he has no thought of playing the trai 
 tor you mustn t think that of him. But it isn t in his 
 nature to facilitate things. In the present crisis he will 
 feel that he is personally responsible for the expenditure 
 
THE AUTOMATIC AIR 89 
 
 of five million dollars. He will examine and investigate, 
 and probe and pry, and will want to worry through 
 every pen-scratch which has been made up to date." 
 
 "Well, there is one comfort; he can t take much time 
 for his worrying," said Ford. "Some of the options ex 
 pire to-morrow noon." 
 
 Adair sat up as one who suddenly takes notice. 
 
 "What? to-morrow? Land of glory! but you two 
 fellows took short chances ! Why, any little hitch " 
 
 "I know," said the engineer evenly. "But we took 
 what w r e could get and were thankful. Somebody was 
 bidding against us, and prices began to jump. Inciden 
 tally, I may say that Kenneth deserves to be made a 
 vice-president of the new company, at the very least. He 
 has done ten men s work in the last three or four days." 
 
 "I don t doubt it. Neither do I suspect you of loafing. 
 For that matter, I ve been hustling a few lines, myself, 
 since I sent you that first telegram." 
 
 "Do you find it exciting enough to keep you inter 
 ested, as far as you ve gone?" inquired Ford, mindful 
 of Miss Alicia s longings. 
 
 "It s the best yet," declared the idler. "Only, you 
 mustn t lean too heavily on me, you know. Fin the most 
 uncertain quantity you ever experienced. But here comes 
 Uncle Sidney, with a cowed and brow-beaten Kenneth 
 in tow say your prayers, and get ready for the battle 
 royal." 
 
IX 
 
 THE RACE TO THE SLOW 
 
 Adair s prophecy that President Colbrith would prove 
 himself an obstructor of the stubbornest was amply ful 
 filled during the short interval which remained for de 
 cisive action. Truly, in the battle for business celerity 
 the odds were three to one against Mr. Colbrith; yet 
 the three were as those who buffet the wind. The presi 
 dent must see and feel, know and fully understand; and 
 at the very last moment, when the shortest of the options 
 had no more than an hour to live, he was proposing to 
 summon General Manager North from Denver to make 
 a fifth in the council of discord. 
 
 It was Ad air who took the bull by the horns when the 
 president s caution was about to turn victory into defeat. 
 What was said or done after the young man drew Mr. 
 Colbrith into the private committee-room at the bank 
 and shut the door, Ford and Kenneth, who were ex 
 cluded, could only surmise. But whatever was done was 
 well done. When the two, uncle and nephew, came out 
 
 90 
 
THE RACE TO THE SLOW, 91 
 
 of the room of privacy, the old man was shaking his 
 head and the young one was smiling serenely. So it 
 came about that between eleven and twelve o clock, when 
 Ford, grimly battling to the last, fought as one without 
 hope, a few strokes of the pen opened the doors upon the 
 new creation ; five million dollars, more or less, changed 
 hands, and the Pacific Southwestern took the long leap 
 eastward from the Missouri River to its new base in 
 Chicago. 
 
 "It s you for the hustle now, Ford," said Adair, link 
 ing arms with the engineer when the quartet left the 
 bank. "How soon do you think you can get that first 
 train-load of grain in transit?" 
 
 "I wish I could tell you," said Ford. 
 
 "Why can t you?" 
 
 "Because it will depend very largely upon the author 
 ity Mr. Colbrith or the board sees fit to give me. At 
 present, you will remember, I am still only a division 
 superintendent Mr. North s subordinate, in fact, 
 and" 
 
 "Say it out loud," encouraged Adair. 
 
 "I don t like to, but I suppose it can t be helped. Up 
 to now I have been acting under special orders, as you 
 may say, in a purely financial transaction. But my com 
 mission expired five minutes ago when the stock deal 
 went through. When it comes to issuing orders in the 
 operating and transportation department, I have no au- 
 
92 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 thority whatever. Mr. North is general manager, and I 
 suppose his jurisdiction will now be extended to cover 
 the new line, won t it ?" 
 
 "Not much I" retorted the amateur promoter. "You 
 are going to be given a free hand in this from the word 
 go. From what I can learn, North has been an ob- 
 structor, all along, hasn t he ?" 
 
 "I can t say that," said Ford, just, even to an enemy. 
 "To be right honest about it, I shall have to confess that 
 I slurred him entirely went over his head." 
 
 "For good reasons, no doubt, only you are too chari 
 table to give them. Never mind : as I say, you are going 
 to have a free hand. This is your pie and nobody else 
 is going to cut it for you." And when the party reached 
 the hotel there was another conference of two behind 
 closed doors, in which Ford and the general counsel did 
 not participate. 
 
 An hour later, when Adair came down from the presi 
 dent s room, he thrust a sheaf of penciled printers copy 
 into Ford s hands. 
 
 "There you are," he said. "I ve done the best I could 
 for you on such short notice with Uncle Sidney trying 
 his level best to get a cross reference to the board before 
 taking action. Get these circulars through a print shop 
 and into the mails. You ll see that one of them announces 
 your appointment, effective to-day, as Assistant to the 
 President. That was as far as Uncle Sidney could be 
 
THE RACE TO THE SLOW 93 
 
 dragged. It doesn t give you a straight flush ; but your 
 hand will beat North s if it comes to a show-down be 
 tween you. Just the same, I shouldn t quarrel with 
 North, if I were you. Uncle Sidney thinks the sun rises 
 and sets in him." 
 
 Ford nodded, and while he was reading hastily 
 through the sheaf of pencilings a boy brought him a tele 
 gram. When he opened the envelope, Kenneth had 
 turned away. But Adair was looking on, and he did not 
 fail to remark the startling effect of the few typewritten 
 words upon the engineer. 
 
 "Whereabouts does it hit us this time ?" he inquired, 
 lighting a fresh cigarette. 
 
 "In the neck," said Ford curtly. "The possibility oc 
 curred to me yesterday Pacific Southwestern stock be 
 ing so badly scattered among small holders. I wired a 
 broker, a good friend of mine, to pick up a few shares 
 on my account. Here is what he says : Market bone dry. 
 No offerings of P. S-W. at any price. * 
 
 Adair whistled softly. "That s getting next to us with 
 a vengeance !" he commented. "And it can be done, too. 
 Half a dozen of the small stock-holders have been to me 
 since the fire was lighted, trying to get me to take their 
 stock at market." 
 
 "How much do we control that we are sure of?" 
 Ford asked. 
 
 "I don t know in figures. Not more than two-fifths, 
 
94 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 I should say. At the last board meeting I proposed that 
 we make a safe majority pool among ourselves, but 
 Uncle Sidney sat on me. Said his own personal constitu 
 ency among the little people was big enough amply to 
 secure us/ 
 
 Ford swore pathetically. 
 
 "The one single instance when his caution might have 
 steered him straight and it went to sleep I" he raged. 
 
 "Exactly/ laughed Adair. "And now the Transcon 
 tinental moguls are buying up a majority of their own, 
 meaning to capture the main-line dog and leaving us to 
 wag the extension tail which we have just acquired. Say, 
 Ford ; doesn t that appeal to your sense of humor ?" 
 
 "No, it doesn t," said Ford savagely. To see one s air- 
 castles crumbling at the very moment when they were 
 to be transmuted into solid realities is apt to provoke a 
 reversion to type ; and Ford s type was Gothic. 
 
 "That s a pity," said Adair, absently rolling his cig 
 arette between his thumb and finger. "Also, it s another 
 pity that I am such a hopeless quitter. I believe I could 
 pull this thing out yet, if I could only get up sufficient 
 steam." 
 
 "For heaven s sake, tell me what you burn, and I ll 
 furnish the fuel," said Ford desperately. 
 
 "Will you? I guess I need something pretty inflam 
 matory." 
 
 "Lord of love ! haven t you good and plenty, without 
 
THE EACE TO THE SLOW 95 
 
 calling upon me ? Are you going to let these stock-job 
 bing land-pirates on Change gibbet you as a solemn 
 warning to aspiring young promoters ?" 
 
 Adair paused with the cigarette half way to his lips. 
 "Ah," he said, after a thoughtful moment. "Perhaps 
 that was what I needed. No; they will not gibbet any 
 of us to-day; and possibly not to-morrow." Then, with 
 a sudden dropping of the mask of easy-going indiffer 
 ence: "Give me the key to your room, and find me a 
 swift stenographer. Then go over to the Lake Shore 
 headquarters and ask to have the Nadia coupled to the 
 evening train for New York." 
 
 "But the president?" Ford began. "Didn t he say 
 something about going over these new lines on an in 
 spection trip ?" 
 
 "Never mind Uncle Sidney: on this one occasion he 
 will change his plans and go back to New York with us," 
 said Adair curtly. 
 
 "Good," said Ford approvingly. "And how about 
 opening the new through line for business? Do we go 
 on? Or do we hang it up until we find out where we 
 are at ?" 
 
 "Don t hold it up a single minute. Drive it for all 
 the power you can get behind it. If we have to collide 
 with things, let s do it with the throttle wide open. Now 
 find me that shorthand person quickly, will you ?" 
 
 By what means the president was persuaded or co- 
 
96 EMPIEE BUILDEES 
 
 erced into doing the thing he had not planned to do, 
 Ford was not to know. But for that matter, after carry 
 ing out Adair s instructions the engineer plunged at 
 once into his own Herculean task of reorganization, 
 emerging only when he made a tardy sixth at the presi 
 dent s dinner table in the hotel cafe in the evening. 
 
 The dinner, which the young engineer had been fondly 
 counting upon as a momentary relaxation from the 
 heart-breaking business strain, was a dismal failure on 
 its social side. President Colbrith, as yet, it appeared, 
 in blissful ignorance of the latest news from New York, 
 had reserved the seat of honor for his new assistant, and 
 the half-hour was filled to overflowing with minute and 
 cautionary definitions of the assistant s powers and 
 duties. 
 
 Ford listened with a blank ear on that side. There 
 was work to do, and one man to do it. He did not care 
 particularly to hear instructions which he would prob 
 ably have to disregard at the first experimental dash into 
 the new field. He meant to hold himself rigidly to ac 
 count for results; more than this he thought not even 
 Mr. Colbrith had a right to require. 
 
 After dinner he indemnified himself for the kinder 
 garten lecture by boldly taking possession of Miss Adair 
 for the short walk over to the private car. The entire 
 world of work was still ahead, and a corps of expert 
 stenographers was at the moment awaiting his return to 
 
THE RACE TO THE SLOW 97 
 
 the C. P. & D. offices, where he had established tempo 
 rary headquarters; but he shut the door upon the exi 
 gencies and listened to Miss Alicia. 
 
 O 
 
 "I am so sorry we are not going to be here to see your 
 triumph/ she was saying; adding: "It is a triumph, 
 isn t it?" 
 
 "Only a beginning/ he amended. "And it won t be 
 spectacular, if we can help it. Besides, this east-end 
 affair is only a preliminary. A little later on, if our 
 tackle doesn t break, we shall land the really big fish for 
 which this is only the bait." 
 
 "Shall you never be satisfied?" she asked jestingly. 
 And then, more seriously : "What is your ambition ? To 
 be able to buy what your neighbor can not afford ?" 
 
 "Big money, you mean ? No, I think not. But I like 
 to win, as well as other men." 
 
 "To win what?" 
 
 "Whatever seems worth winning this fight, in the 
 present instance, and the consequent larger field. Later, 
 enough money to enable me to think of money only as a 
 stepping-stone to better things. Later still, perhaps " 
 
 He stopped abruptly, as though willing to leave the 
 third desideratum in the air, but she would not let him. 
 
 "Go on," she said. "Last of all?" 
 
 "Last of all, the love of a true woman." 
 
 ^Oh !" she scoffed, with a little uptilt of the admirable 
 chin. "Then love must come trailing along at the very 
 
98 EMPIEE BUILDERS 
 
 end, after we have skimmed the cream from all the other 
 milk pans in orderly succession." 
 
 "No," he rejoined gravely. "I put it clumsily as I 
 snatch purses. As a matter of sober fact,, love sets the 
 mile-stones along any human road that is worth travers- 
 ing." 
 
 She glanced up at him and the blue eyes were dancing. 
 Miss Alicia Adair knew no joy to compare with that of 
 teasing, and it was not often that the fates gave her such 
 a pliable subject. 
 
 "Tell me, Mr. Ford; is is she pretty?" 
 
 "She is beautiful; the most beautiful woman in the 
 world, Miss Adair." 
 
 "How fine ! And, of course, she is a paragon of all the 
 virtues? an angel without the extremely inconvenient 
 wings?" 
 
 "You have said it : and I have never doubted it from 
 the moment I first laid eyes on her." 
 
 "Better and better," she murmured. Then : "She has 
 money ?" 
 
 "I suppose she has ; yes, she certainly has money. But 
 that doesn t make any difference to her or to me." 
 
 "It is simply idyllic!" was the ecstatic comment. 
 "After all this there remains but one other possible con 
 tingency. Has she a willing mind, Mr. Ford ?" 
 
 They had reached the steps of the Nadia, and the 
 others had gone within. Ford looked soberly into the 
 
THE RACE TO THE SLOW 99 
 
 depths of the laughing eyes and said : "I would give all 
 my chances of success in this Pacific Southwestern affair 
 to be able to say yes to that/ 5 
 
 The station gong was clanging the departure signal 
 for the New York train, and he swung her lightly up to 
 the step of the car. 
 
 "Good-by/ she said, turning to smile down upon him. 
 And then, "I don t believe you, you know ; not the least 
 bit in the world." 
 
 "Why don t you ?" he demanded. 
 
 "Because the woman doesn t live who would be worth 
 such a sacrifice as that would be to Mr. Stuart Ford." 
 
 And this was her leave-taking. 
 
THE SINEWS OF WAR 
 
 The general offices of the C. P. & D. Eailway were 
 crowded into a half-dozen utilitarian rooms on the sec 
 ond floor of the company s freight station building in 
 the Chicago yards. In two of these rooms, with a window 
 outlook upon a tangle of switching tracks with their 
 shifting panorama of cars and locomotives,, Ford set up 
 his standard as chief executive of the three "annexed" 
 roads, becoming, in the eyes of three separate republics 
 of minor officials and employees, the arbiter of destiny. 
 
 Naturally, the announcement that their railroads had 
 been swallowed whole by the Pacific Southwestern had 
 fallen as a thunderclap upon the rank and file of the 
 three local companies ; and since, in railway practice, a 
 change of owners usually carries with it a sweeping 
 change in department heads, the service was instantly 
 demoralized. 
 
 During the first few hours of Ford s administration, 
 therefore, the wires were buzzing with hasty resigna- 
 
 100 
 
THE SINEWS OF WAR 101 
 
 tions; and those whose courage w^is i-o.t svhatted iq tlie 
 quitting point took a loose hold "upon- their dnti?.s ; .and 
 waited to see what would happen. tJncler sucli chaotic 
 conditions Ford took his seat in the mean little office 
 over the freight station, and flung himself ardently into 
 the task of bringing order out of the sudden confusion. 
 Effectively to support Adair and the reconstructionists 
 on the board it was critically necessary that there be im 
 mediate and cheering news from the front. 
 
 It was in the preliminary wrestle with disintegration 
 that the young engineer s gift of insight and his faculty 
 of handling men as men stood him in good stead. He 
 was fresh from his trip over the new extension, on which 
 he had met and shrewdly appraised the men who were 
 now his subordinates. With the human field thus men 
 tally mapped and cross-sectioned he was enabled to 
 make swift and sure selections, cutting out the dead 
 timber remorselessly, encouraging the doubtful, reassur 
 ing the timid, assorting and combining and ordering 
 until, at the close of the second day of fierce toil, he was 
 ready to make his first report to Adair. 
 
 Track connections at junction points completed to-day. 
 General and division operating and traffic departments in 
 the saddle and effectively organized. With proper coopera 
 tion on part of General Manager North, grain should begin 
 to move eastward to-morrow. Can get no satisfactory re 
 plies from North. Have him disciplined from your end. 
 Answer. Po RD . 
 
102 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 To this telegram there was a prompt and voluminous 
 reply from the seat of war in the East. In a free fight 
 on the? Stock Exchange, a battle royal generaled by 
 Brewster and Magnus in which every inch of ground 
 had been sharply contested by brokers buying up P. 
 S-W. in the interest of principals unnamed, a majority 
 of the Southwestern stock safe but exceedingly nar 
 row had been secured by the reconstructionists. 
 
 In accordance with Ford s suggestion, North had been 
 "called down" by wire, and Ford was instructed to re 
 port instantly any failure of effort on the part of the 
 Denver headquarters to set the grain trains in motion. 
 
 Otherwise, and from the New York point of view, the 
 situation remained most hopeful. The fight in the Street 
 had unified the factions in the board of directors, and 
 even the timid ones were beginning to clamor for an ad 
 vance into the territory of the enemy. 
 
 Ford read Adair s letter-length and most unbusiness 
 like telegram with the zest of the fine wine of triumph 
 tingling in his blood. With the Chicago outlet fairly 
 open and in working order, and a huge tributary grain 
 crop to be moved, it should be only a matter of days 
 until the depressed Pacific Southwestern stock would 
 begin to climb toward the bonding figure. 
 
 This was the first triumphant conclusion, but after 
 ward came reaction and a depressive doubt. Would the 
 stock go up? Or would the enemy devise some assault 
 
THE SINEWS OF WAR 103 
 
 that would keep it down in spite of the money-earning, 
 dividend-promising facts ? Upon the expected rise hung 
 the fate of Ford s cherished ambition the building of 
 the western extension. Without a dividend-paying Chi 
 cago-Denver main line, there could be no bond issue, no 
 thirty millions for the forging of the third and most im 
 portant link in the great traffic chain. 
 
 Ford walked the floor of his office, called by courtesy, 
 "private/ for an anxious hour, balancing the probabili 
 ties, and finally determined to take the desperate chance. 
 There was a vast mountain of preliminary work to be 
 leveled, huge purchasing expenses to be incurred, be 
 fore the first step could be taken in the actual building 
 of the western extension ; and the summer was advancing 
 day by day. He did not hope to get the extension com 
 pleted in a single season. But to get it over into the 
 promising mining field on the lower Pannikin before 
 snow-flying meant work of the keenest, without the loss 
 of a single day. Could he afford to play the safe game 
 and wait until the building capital should be cannily 
 in Mr. Magnus bank vaults ? 
 
 He decided that he could not; and when he reached 
 a decision, Ford was not the man to hesitate before 
 taking the plunge. On the morning of the third day he 
 called Truitt, sometime superintendent of the C. P. & 
 D., and now acting manager of the Chicago Extension, 
 and gave him his instructions. 
 
104: EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 "You say there are three grain trains moving on the 
 line now, Mr. Truitt: there will be three more before 
 night. Keep them coming, and give them the right of 
 way over everything but the United States mails. Can 
 you handle this without help from me?" 
 
 "We ll give it a pretty stiff try/ was the prompt re 
 joinder. "But you are not going to leave us, are you, 
 Mr. Ford?" 
 
 "No; but for the next forty-eight hours I am going 
 to lock my door, and I don t want to be disturbed for 
 anything less than a disaster or a wire from New York. 
 Please give orders accordingly, will you?" 
 
 The orders were given; and, left with his force of 
 stenographers, Ford began to walk the floor, dictating 
 right and left. Letters and telegrams to steel mills, to 
 contractors, to bridge builders, to the owners of grad 
 ing outfits, and to labor agencies, clicked out of the 
 typewriters in a steady and unbroken stream, and the 
 din was like that of a main-line telegraph office on a 
 hot piece of track. 
 
 All day long, and far into the night, the office force 
 wrought unceasingly, digging away at the mountain of 
 preliminary correspondence; and by the next morning 
 the wire replies were beginning to come in. 
 
 Then came the crux. To insure prompt delivery of 
 material, definite orders must be placed immediately. 
 A delay of a single day might entail a delay of weeks 
 
THE SINEWS OF WAR 105 
 
 in the shipments. Yet the risk of plunging the company 
 into debts it might never be able to pay was appalling. 
 What if the stock should not go up as prefigured? if 
 the bonds could not be floated ? 
 
 It was with the feeling that he might well be signing 
 his own death-warrant that Ford put his name to the 
 first order for two hundred thousand dollars worth of 
 steel rails for immediate delivery to the company s line 
 in Chicago. But after the first cold submergence it 
 came more easily, and when he left the office an hour 
 before midnight, a cool million would not have covered 
 the obligations he had assumed during the strenuous 
 day. 
 
 Kenneth was sitting up for him when he reached his 
 hotel, and the usually impassive face of the general 
 counsel reflected trouble. 
 
 "Out with it/ said Ford wearily; and suddenly the 
 new million of indebtedness became a mountain weight 
 to grind him to powder. 
 
 "We re blocked," was the brief announcement. "Two 
 of the grain trains are in, and the Transcontinental 
 lawyers have won the toss. We re enjoined by the court 
 from using the service tracks to the elevators. Didn t 
 your local people tell you ?" 
 
 "No," said Ford. "I had given orders that I was not 
 to be disturbed. But what of it? You expected some 
 thing of the sort, didn t you ?" 
 
106 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 "Yes; and I provided for it. The injunction will be 
 dissolved when we have our final hearing; but long be 
 fore that time the mischief will be irreparable, I m 
 afraid." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 "It will be blazoned far and wide that we can t de 
 liver the goods that the opposition has done us up. 
 I ve tried to keep it out of the newspapers, or, rather, 
 to persuade them not to make too much of it. But it 
 wouldn t go. The Transcontinental has all the pull in 
 this town, it appears." 
 
 "And you think it will affect the price of the stock ?" 
 
 "It is bound to, temporarily, at least. And coming 
 upon the heels of to-day s sudden tumble " 
 
 "What s that?" demanded Ford, dry-lipped, adding: 
 "I haven t seen a paper since morning." 
 
 Kenneth wagged his head gloomily. "It s pretty bad. 
 P. S-W. closed at thirty-three five points off yester 
 day s market." 
 
 "Good Lord !" Ford s groan was that of a man smit 
 ten down in the heat of the fight. "Say, Kenneth, 
 within a single sweep of the clock-hands I have con 
 tracted for more than a million dollars worth of ma 
 terial for the western extension more than a million 
 dollars worth !" 
 
 "Well, I m afraid you have sinned in haste to repent 
 at leisure," said the lawyer, with a weary man s disre- 
 
THE SINEWS OF WAR 107 
 
 gard for the amenities. Then he added : "I m going to 
 bed. I ve had about all I can stand for one day." 
 
 Ford went to the room clerk for his key; reeled 
 would be the better word, since his brain was whirling. 
 There was a telegram in his box, and he tore it open with 
 fresh and sharper misgivings. It was from Adair. 
 
 The sick man s getting sicker. What is the matter with 
 your prescription? Stock gone off five points, and the bears 
 are squeezing us to beat the band. Stories flying on the 
 Street that we are a kite without an effective tail; that the 
 courts will keep us out of the elevators. What do you say? 
 
 Ford consulted his watch. There was barely time to 
 catch the midnight train for New York, and his deter 
 mination was taken on the spur of the moment. It was 
 all or nothing, now. 
 
 Hastily writing a wire to the cashier of the Denver 
 bank where he kept his personal account, and another to 
 Adair, and leaving brief notes for Kenneth and Truitt, 
 he took a cab and had himself driven at a gallop to the 
 Union Station. He was the last man through the plat 
 form gates, but he made his train, and was settling 
 himself in the sleeper when another telegram was thrust 
 into his hand. This was from Frisbie, at Saint s Rest ; 
 and that it brought more bad news might be argued 
 from the way in which he crushed it slowly in his hand 
 and jammed it into his pocket. On this day, if never 
 
108 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 before, he was proving the truth of the old adage that 
 misfortunes do not come singly. 
 
 Upon arriving in New York late the following even 
 ing, he had himself driven to the Waldorf, where he 
 found Adair waiting for him. A few words sufficed to 
 outline the situation, which the lapse of another day 
 had made still more desperate. So far from recovering, 
 the falling stock had dropped to twenty-nine and a half, 
 and there was every indication that the bottom was not 
 yet reached. 
 
 "How do you account for it?" asked Ford, when the 
 dismal tale had been told. 
 
 "Oh, it s easy enough, when you know how," was the 
 light-hearted rejoinder. "As I wired you, there was 
 something of a scramble on the floor of the Exchange 
 last week when we were fighting to find out whether we 
 should control our own majority or let the Transconti 
 nental have it. Our pool got its fifty-one per cent, all 
 right, but in the nature of things the enemy stood as 
 the next largest stock-holder in P. S-W., since they d 
 been buying right and left against us. Now, since we 
 don t need any more, and nobody else wants it, all the 
 Transcontinental people have to do is to unload on the 
 market, and down she goes." 
 
 Ford looked incredulous, and then wrathful. 
 
 "Adair, tell me : did I have to stop my work when my 
 time is worth fifty dollars a minute, and come all the 
 
THE SINEWS OF WAR 109 
 
 way to New York to tell you folks what to do ?" he de 
 manded. 
 
 Adair s laugh was utterly and absolutely care-free. 
 
 "It looks that way, doesn t it ? Have you got the com 
 pelling club up your sleeve, as usual ?" 
 
 "A boy might carry it and swing it, too," was the 
 disgusted answer. "When does the board meet again? 
 Or has it concluded to lie down in the harness ?" 
 
 "Oh, it gets together every morning got the meeting 
 habit, you know. Everybody s in a blue funk, but we 
 still have the daily round-up to swap funeral statistics." 
 
 "All right. Meet me here in the morning, and we ll 
 go and join the procession. Can you make it nine 
 o clock?" 
 
 "Sure. It s too late to go home, and I ll stay here. 
 Then you ll be measurably certain that I can t escape. 
 May I see the tip end of the club ?" 
 
 "No," said Ford grumpily. "You don t deserve it. 
 Go to bed and store up a head of steam that will carry 
 you through the hardest day s work you ever hoped to 
 do. Good night." 
 
 They met again at the breakfast-table the following 
 morning, and Ford talked pointedly of everything save 
 the P. S-W. predicament. One of Adair s past fads had 
 been the collecting of odd weapons; Ford discovered 
 this and drew the young man skilfully into a discussion 
 of the medieval secrets of sword-tempering. 
 
110 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 "I ve a bit of the old Damascus, myself," said the 
 engineer. "Tybee he was on the Joppa-Jerusalem 
 road in the building picked it up for me. Curious 
 piece of old steel; figured and flowered and etched and 
 inlaid with silver. There were jewels in the pommel 
 once, I take it ; the settings are still there to show where 
 some practical-turned vandal dug them out/ 
 
 Adair was quite at a loss to guess how old swords 
 and their histories could bear upon the financial situa 
 tion, but he was coming to know Ford better. Some one 
 has said that it is only the small men who are careful 
 and troubled on the eve of a great battle. So the talk 
 was of ancient weapons until the time for action ar 
 rived; and a smooth-faced gentleman sitting at a near 
 by table and marked down by Ford though not by 
 Ford s companion listened for some word of enlighten 
 ment on the railroad situation, and was cruelly disap 
 pointed. 
 
 "Why wouldn t you talk?" asked Adair, when they 
 were driving down-town in the young millionaire s auto. 
 "Or rather, why did you persist in keeping me to the 
 old swords ?" 
 
 Ford laughed. 
 
 "For one reason, I enjoy the old swords as a relaxa 
 tion. For another, Mr. Jefiers Hawley, who was once 
 one of the Transcontinental lawyers in Denver, was sit 
 ting just behind you, with eager ears. You didn t know 
 
THE SINEWS OF WAR 111 
 
 that. Hold on a minute; tell your man to stop at the 
 Chemical Bank. I want you to introduce me to the 
 cashier." 
 
 "Now, what the deuce are you starting a New York 
 bank account for?" queried Adair, as they came out of 
 the bank together and climbed into the tonneau of the 
 waiting touring car. "Couldn t you draw on the treas 
 urer ? What s the use of your being the assistant to the 
 president, I d like to know ?" 
 
 "Wait," was the answer; and the questioner waited, 
 perforce. 
 
 The board was already in session when the two young 
 men were admitted to the private room in the rear of 
 the Broad Street offices, and Ford was welcomed as a 
 man who has recklessly steered the ship upon the rocks. 
 There were even some open recriminations, notably on 
 the part of the president; but Ford sat quietly under 
 them, making no defense, and folding and refolding a 
 slip of paper in his fingers as he listened. 
 
 When they gave him leave to speak, he still made no 
 attempt to explain. Instead, he rose, walked to the other 
 end of the table, and tossed the bit of folded paper 
 across to Mackie, the broker. 
 
 "I inherited a little money, and I have made and 
 saved enough more to make it an even twenty thousand 
 dollars," he said. "I don t know of any more promising 
 investment just now than Pacific Southwestern at 
 
EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 twenty-nine and a half. Will you be good enough to buy 
 for my account, Mr. Maekie ?" 
 
 The effect was electrical. President Colbrith sat up 
 very straight in his chair; two or three of the anxious 
 ones opened on Ford with a rapid fire of questions ; and 
 Brewster, the copper magnate, sat back and chuckled 
 softly in his beard. 
 
 "No, gentlemen; there is no change in the situation, 
 so far as I know. Of course, you are not so foolish as 
 to let the newspaper talk of the tie-up at the Chicago 
 elevators influence you," Ford was saying to the anxious 
 inquirers. "And, apart from that, everything is going 
 our way. As I have remarked, our stock at the present 
 figure is good enough for me, and I only wish I had two 
 hundred thousand, instead of twenty thousand, to put 
 into it." 
 
 Brewster stopped chuckling long enough to hold up 
 a finger to the broker. "You may buy for my account, 
 too, Mackie, while you are at it and keep on buying 
 till I tell you to quit." 
 
 This broke the deadlock instantly, and for a few min 
 utes the board room was as noisy as the wheat pit with 
 a corner threatening. Brewster, still laughing in his 
 beard, pulled Ford out of the press at the broker s end 
 of the table. 
 
 "I m going to ask only one thing of you, young man," 
 he began, his shrewd little eyes twinkling. "Just let 
 
"Will you be good enough to buy for my account, Mr. Mackie?" Page 112 
 
THE SINEWS OF WAR 113 
 
 me know when you are going to get out, so I can pull 
 through without having to take the bankruptcy." 
 
 "I ll do it, Mr. Brewster," laughed Ford. "Only I m 
 not going to get out unless you folks freeze me out." 
 "Then it isn t a long bluff on your part?" 
 "It is, and it isn t. We still stand to win if we have 
 the nerve to hold on in which event P. S-W. at twenty- 
 nine and a fraction is a gold mine. That s one view of 
 it, and the other is this : we ve simply got to corner our 
 own stock if we expect to sell thirty millions additional 
 bonds." 
 
 "Well, I guess you ve gone the right way about it. 
 But are you sure about these Chicago terminals? A 
 legal friend of mine here says you ll never get in." 
 
 "He was possibly paid to say it," said Ford hotly. 
 "There has never been a shadow of doubt touching our 
 trackage rights on the C. P. & D. contracts, or upon 
 our ability to maintain them. All the Transcontinental 
 people hoped to do was to make a newspaper stir to help 
 keep our stock down. They know what we are going to 
 do to them over in their western territory, and they 
 won t stop at anything to block us." 
 
 "Of course ; I think we were all inclined to be a little 
 short-sighted and pessimistic here, Mr. Ford. When 
 do you go back to your fighting ground ?" 
 "To-night." 
 "You won t wait to see what happens here ?" 
 
114: EMPIKE BUILDERS 
 
 "I don t need to, I am sure. And the minutes my 
 minutes are worth dollars to the company just now." 
 
 "Well, go in and win only don t forget to give me 
 that tip. You wouldn t want to see a man of my age 
 going to the poorhouse." 
 
 "One other word, Mr. Brewster," Ford begged, as the 
 copper magnate was pointing for the door of escape. 
 "Please don t let any of these timid gentlemen sell till 
 we get our bonds floated. You mark my word : the temp 
 tation to make a big killing is going to be very great, 
 within a week." 
 
 The copper king laughed ; openly, this time. 
 
 "You overrate my influence, Mr. Ford; but I ll do 
 what I can by word of mouth and by example. You 
 can count on me as long as you let me stay on your 
 side of the market." 
 
 Ford had three several invitations to luncheon after 
 the meeting adjourned, but he accepted none of them. 
 To Adair he made the declination courteous while they 
 were trundling back to the Waldorf in the big touring 
 car. 
 
 "I have lost an entire day because I could not take 
 the time to secure a stenographer before leaving Chicago 
 night before last. I must find one now and go to work." 
 
 "All right; if you must. But I was hoping I could 
 take you out to Overlook to dinner this evening. Can t 
 you come anyhow, and take a later train west ?" 
 
THE SINEWS OF WAR 115 
 
 "Don t tempt me," said Ford. And then : "The ladies 
 are quite well, I hope ?" 
 
 "Oh, yes; they are in town to-day, and we are all 
 going to luncheon together though I shan t know just 
 where until I go to the club. Failing the dinner, won t 
 you make a knife and fork with us at one o clock ?" 
 
 "I should like to more than anything else in the 
 world," Ford protested, meaning it. "But you ll make 
 my excuses to Mrs. Adair, won t you? We ve simply 
 got to get a three-cornered hustle on now, if we want 
 to save the day in the West." 
 
 "Why? Is there anything new in that quarter?" 
 
 "There is: something that I didn t dare to mention 
 back yonder in the board meeting. You may remem 
 ber that I told you I had left a man in my place on the 
 Plug Mountain Frisbie? I had a wire from him, 
 night before last, just as I was leaving Chicago. As you 
 know, the Pacific Southwestern inherits, from the old 
 narrow-gauge purchase, the right-of-way over Plug Pass 
 and down the valley of the Pannikin. Frisbie wires that 
 the Transcontinental people have begun massing build 
 ing material at the terminus of their Saguache branch, 
 only twenty miles from the Pass." 
 
 "And that means ? I m lame on geography." 
 
 "It means that they ll cut in ahead of us, if they 
 can. Plug Pass is the only available unoccupied outlet 
 through the mountains for thirty or forty miles north 
 
116 EMPIEE BUILDERS 
 
 or south ; and if we don t get our building force on the 
 ground mighty suddenly, we ll find it fortified and held 
 by the enemy." 
 
 The touring car had turned into Broadway, and the 
 traffic roar precluded further talk. But when Ford was 
 dismounting from the tonneau at the entrance to his 
 hotel, Adair said : "There appears to be no rest for the 
 wicked. You ought to have some of that thirty million 
 dollars to spend right now." 
 
 Ford s smile was little more than a sardonic grin. 
 
 "Adair/ he said, "I m going to tell you something 
 else that I didn t dare tell those money-tremulous people 
 in McVeigh and Mackie s private office. I have been 
 signing contracts and buying material by the train-load 
 ever since the first grain shipment was started eastward 
 on our main line. Also, I ve got my engineering corps 
 mobilized, and it will take the field under Frisbie as its 
 chief not later than to-morrow. Putting one thing with 
 another, I should say that we are something over a fresh 
 million of dollars on the wrong side of solvency for 
 these little antics of mine, and I m adding to the deficit 
 by the hundred thousand every time I can get a chance 
 to dictate a letter." 
 
 Adair lighted a cigarette and made a fair show of 
 taking it easily. But a moment later he was lifting his 
 hat to wipe the perspiration from his forehead. 
 
 "Lord! but you have the confidence of your convic- 
 
THE SINEWS OF WAR 117 
 
 tions I" he said, breathing hard. "If we shouldn t hap 
 pen to be able to float the bonds " 
 
 "We are in too deep to admit the If. The bonds must 
 be floated, and at the earliest possible moment that 
 Magnus will move in it. You wanted something big 
 enough to keep you interested. I have been trying my 
 best to accommodate you." 
 
 Adair leaned forward and spoke to his chauffeur. 
 The man watched his chances for room to turn in the 
 crowded street. 
 
 "Where are you going?" asked Ford. 
 
 "Back to McVeigh and Mackie s where I can watch 
 a ticker and go broke buying more Pacific Southwest 
 ern/ was the reply, and just then the chauffeur found 
 his opening and the big car whirled and plunged into 
 the down-town stream. 
 
 In the financial news the next morning there was a 
 half-column or more devoted to the sudden and unac 
 countable flurry in Pacific Southwestern. Ford got it 
 in the Pittsburg papers and read it while the picked- 
 up stenographer was wrestling with his notes. After 
 the drop in the stock, caused, in the estimation of the 
 writer, by the company s sudden plunge into railroad 
 buying at wholesale, P. S-W. had recovered with a 
 bound, advancing rapidly in the closing hours of the day 
 from the lower thirties to forty-two, with a strong de 
 mand. The utmost secrecy was maintained, but it was 
 
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XI 
 
 HURRY ORDERS 
 
 "I m no cold-water thrower, Ford, as you know. But 
 if I were a contractor, and you were trying to get me 
 to commit myself to any such steeplechase, I should say 
 no, and confirm it with a cuss-word." 
 
 It was a week after the successful placing of the 
 Western Extension building-fund honds with the Dutch 
 syndicate, and Ford, having ordered things to his lik 
 ing on the newly opened Chicago line, had taken the 
 long step westward to Denver to begin the forging of 
 the third link in the great railway chain. 
 
 Frisbie, now first assistant engineer in charge of con 
 struction, had come down from Saint s Eest for a con 
 ference with his chief, and the place of conferrings was 
 a quiet corner in one of the balconies overlooking the 
 vast rotunda of the Brown Palace Hotel; this because 
 the carpenters were still busy in the suite of rooms set 
 apart for the offices of the assistant to the president in 
 the Pacific Southwestern headquarters down-town. 
 
 120 
 
HURRY ORDERS 
 
 "You mean that the time is too short?" said Ford, 
 speaking to Frisbie s emphatic objection. 
 
 "Too short at both ends," contended the little man 
 with the devilish mustaches and chin beard. "The 
 Copah mining district is one hundred and twenty miles, 
 as the crow flies, from the summit of Plug Pass say 
 one hundred and forty by the line of our survey down 
 the Pannikin, through the canyon and up to the town. 
 Giving you full credit for more getting-ready than I 
 supposed any man could compass in the three weeks 
 you ve been at it, I still think it is impossible for us to 
 reach Copah this season." 
 
 "You must change your belief, Dick/ 7 was the curt 
 rejoinder. "This is to be a campaign, not only of pos 
 sibilities, but of things done. We go into Copah with 
 the steel gangs before snow flies." 
 
 "I know; that s what you ve been saying all along. 
 But you re looking at the thing by and large, and I m 
 figuring on the flinty details. For example: you ll ad 
 mit that we can t work to any advantage west of the 
 mountains until we have made a standard gauge out of 
 the Plug Mountain branch. How much time have you 
 been allowing for that ?" 
 
 "No time at all for the delay: about three weeks, 
 maybe, for the actual changing of the gauge," said Ford 
 coolly. 
 
 "All right," laughed Frisbie. "Only you ll show us 
 
122 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 how. It doesn t lie in the back of my head or in Crap- 
 sey s, unless he s a better man than I hired him for." 
 
 "Who is Crapsey?" 
 
 "He is a Purdue man that I picked up and started 
 out on the branch to make figures on the change of 
 gauge. The other three parties, under Major Benson, 
 Jack Benson and Roy Brissac, are setting the grade 
 stakes down the Pannikin, and Leckhard is wrestling 
 with the construction material you ve been dumping in 
 upon us at Saint s Rest. That left me short, and I hired 
 Crapsey." 
 
 "Good. If he is capable, he may do the broadening. 
 Call him in and set him at it." 
 
 "But, man ! Don t you want the figures first?" 
 
 "My dear Dick ! I ve had those figures for two years, 
 and there s nothing very complicated about that part 
 of our problem. Call your man in and let him attack 
 the thing itself." 
 
 "Everything goes: you may consider him recalled. 
 But broadening the Plug Mountain to standard gauge 
 doesn t put us into Copah this summer, does it ?" 
 
 "No; our necessities will do that for us. See here; 
 let me show you." Ford took out his note-book and on 
 a blank page of it outlined a rough map, talking as he 
 sketched. "Three weeks ago you wired me that the 
 Transcontinental people were massing building ma 
 terial at the terminus of their Saguache branch." 
 
HURRY ORDERS 
 
 "So I did," said Frisbie. 
 
 "And the day before yesterday you wired again to 
 say that it was apparently a false alarm. What made 
 you change your mind ?" 
 
 "They are hauling the stuff away over to their 
 Green Butte line, I m told." 
 
 "Why are they hauling it away ?" 
 
 "The bluff their bluff was called. We had got busy 
 on Plug Pass, and they saw there was no hope of cutting 
 in ahead of us at that point." 
 
 "Exactly. Now look at this map for a minute. Here 
 is Saint s Rest; here is the Copah district; and here is 
 Green Butte, the junction of their narrow gauge with 
 the standard-gauge Salt Lake and Eastern. If you were 
 on the Transcontinental executive committee and saw 
 an active competing line about to build a standard-gauge 
 railroad through the Copah district and on to a connec 
 tion with your narrow gauge s outlet at Green Butte, 
 what would you advise ?" 
 
 Frisbie nodded. "It s easy, when you know how, isn t 
 it They ll standardize their narrow gauge to Green 
 Butte, make an iron-clad traffic contract with the S. L. 
 & E. to exclude us, and build a branch from Jack s 
 Canyon, say, up into the Copah country." And then in 
 loyal admiration: "That s what I call the sure word 
 of prophecy your specialty, Stuart. How many nights 
 sleep did you lose figuring that out ?" 
 
124 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 "Not any, as it happens," laughed Ford. "It was a 
 straight tip out of the East. The plan, just about as 
 you ve outlined it, was adopted by the Transcontinental 
 powers that be, sitting in New York last week. By some 
 means unknown to me, Mr. Adair got wind of it, and 
 made a flying trip to Chicago to put me on wouldn t 
 even trust the wire with it. Now you understand why 
 we ve got to wake the Copah echoes with a locomotive 
 whistle this season/ 
 
 "Copah yes," said Frisbie doubtfully. "But that is 
 only a way station. What we need is Green Butte and 
 the Pacific coast outlet over the S. L. & E. ; and they 
 stand to euchre us out of that, hands down. What s to 
 prevent their making that traffic contract with the Mor 
 mon people right now ?" 
 
 "Nothing; if the S. L. & E. management were will 
 ing. But just here the political situation in Mormon- 
 dom fights for us. Last year the Transcontinental folk 
 turned heaven and earth over to defeat the Mormon can 
 didate for the United States Senate. The quarrel wasn t 
 quite mortal enough to stand in the way of a profitable 
 business deal ; but all things being equal, the Salt Lake 
 line will favor us as against its political enemy." 
 
 "You re sure of that ?" queried Frisbie. 
 
 "As sure as one can be of anything that isn t cash 
 down on the nail with the money locked up in a safety 
 deposit vault. By the sheerest good luck, the Mormon 
 
HURRY ORDERS 125 
 
 president of the S. U. & E. happened to be in New York" 
 at the time when Adair had his ear to the Transconti 
 nental keyhole. Adair hunted him up and made a 
 hypothetical case of a sure thing : if our Western Exten 
 sion and the Transcontinental,, standard-gauged, should 
 be knocking at the Green Butte door at the same time, 
 what would the S. L. & E. do? The Mormon answer 
 was a bid for speed ; first come, first served. But Adair 
 was given to understand, indirectly, that on an equal 
 footing, our line would be given the preference as a 
 friendly ally/ 
 
 "Bully for the Mormon! But you say Copah this 
 summer. When we reach Copah we are still one hun 
 dred and forty miles short of Green Butte. And if you 
 can broaden the Plug Mountain in three weeks which 
 you ll still allow me to doubt the Transcontinental 
 ought to be able to broaden its Green Butte narrow 
 gauge in three months." 
 
 "If you had cross-sectioned both lines as I have, you 
 wouldn t stumble over that," said Ford, falling back, as 
 he commonly did, upon the things he knew. "We shall 
 broaden the Plug Mountain without straightening a 
 curve or throwing a shovelful of earth on the embank 
 ment, from beginning to end. On the other hand, the 
 Green Butte narrow gauge runs for seventy miles 
 through the crookedest canyon a Rocky Mountain river 
 ever got lost in. There is more heavy rock work to be 
 
126 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 done in that canyon than on our entire Pannikin division 
 from start to finish." 
 
 "That s bully for us/ quoth the first assistant. "But, 
 all the same, we shouldn t stop at Copah, this fall." 
 
 "We shall not stop at Copah," was the decisive re 
 joinder. "The winters on the western side of the range 
 are much milder than they are here, and not to be 
 spoken of in the same day with your Minnesota and 
 Dakota stamping-ground. If we can get well out of the 
 mountains before the heavy snows come " 
 
 Frisbie wagged his head. 
 
 "I guess I ve got it all, now after so long a time. 
 We merely break the record for fast railroad building 
 all the records for the next six months or so. Is that 
 about it?" 
 
 ^You ve surrounded it," said Ford tersely. 
 
 "Good enough: we re ready to make the break when 
 you give the word. What are we waiting for ?" 
 
 "Just at this present moment, for the contractors." 
 
 "Why, I understood you had closed with the Mac- 
 Morrogh Brothers," said Frisbie. 
 
 "No. At the last moment to relieve me of a re 
 sponsibility which might give rise to charges of favor 
 itism, as he put it Mr. Colbrith took the bids out of 
 my hands and carried the decision up to the executive 
 committee. Hence, we wait; and keep a growing army 
 of laborers here under pay while we wait," said Ford, 
 
HURRY ORDERS 137 
 
 with disgust thinly masked. Then he added: "With 
 all due respect to Mr. Colbrith,, he is simply a senile 
 frost!" 
 
 Frisbie chuckled. 
 
 "Been cooling your fingers, has he? But I under 
 stood from the headquarters people down-town, that the 
 MacMorroghs had a sure thing on the grading and rock 
 work. Their bid was the lowest, wasn t it ?" 
 
 "Yes; but not the cheapest for the company, Dick. 
 I ve been keeping tab on the MacMorroghs for a good 
 while: they are grafters; the kind of men who take it 
 out of the company and out of their labor in a thousand 
 petty little steals three profits on the commissary, 
 piece-work for subs where they know a man s got to lose 
 out, steals on the working hours, fines and drawbacks 
 and discounts on the pay-rolls, and all that. You know 
 how it s done." 
 
 "Sure," agreed Frisbie, with his most diabolical grin. 
 "Also, I know how it keeps the engineering department 
 on the hottest borders of Hades, trying to hold them 
 down. The good Lord deliver us !" 
 
 "I wanted to throw their bid out without considera 
 tion," Ford went on. "But again Mr. Colbrith said 
 No, adding that the MacMorroghs were old contractors 
 on the line, and that Mr. North had always spoken very 
 highly of them." 
 
 "Ah; the fine Italian hand of Mr. North again," 
 
128 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 said Frisbie. "And that reminds me: are we going to 
 be at war with the main line operating department ?" 
 
 Ford shook his head. "Not openly, at least. North 
 was down to meet my train when I came in last night, 
 and you would never have suspected that I left Denver 
 six weeks ago without his blessing. And now Fin re 
 minded. I have a luncheon appointment with him at 
 twelve, and a lot of letters to dictate before I can keep 
 it. Go down and do your wiring for Crapsey, and if we 
 lose each other this afternoon, Fll meet you here at din 
 ner this evening/ 
 
 It was while Ford was working on his mail, with one 
 of the hotel stenographers for a helper, that a thick-set, 
 bull-necked man with Irish-blue eyes and a face two- 
 thirds hidden in a curly tangle of iron-gray beard, 
 stubbed through the corridor on the Pacific Southwest 
 ern floor of the Guaranty Building, and let himself 
 cautiously into the general manager s outer office. The 
 private secretary, a faultlessly groomed young fellow 
 with a suggestion of the Latin races in his features, 
 looked up and nodded. 
 
 "How are you, Mr. MacMorrogh?" he said; and 
 without waiting for a reply: "Go on in. Mr. North is 
 expecting you." 
 
 The burly one returned the nod and passed on to the 
 inner room. The general manager, a sallow, heavy- 
 visaged man who might have passed in a platform 
 
HURRY ORDERS 129 
 
 gathering for a retired manufacturer or a senator from 
 the Middle West, swung in his pivot-chair to welcome 
 the incomer. 
 
 "Glad to see you, MacMorrogh. Sit down. What s 
 the news from New York ?" 
 
 The contractor found a, chair, drew it close to the 
 general manager s desk, and filled it. 
 
 "I m thinking you ll know more about that than I 
 will, Misther North," he replied, in a voice that accorded 
 perfectly with the burly figure and piratical beard. 
 "Ford s fighting us with his fishtes." 
 
 "Why ?" asked the general manager, holding his chin 
 in his hand a gesture known the entire length of the 
 Pacific Southwestern as a signal of trouble brewing, for 
 somebody. 
 
 "God knows, then; I don t," said the MacMorrogh. 
 "I wint to Chicago to see him when the bid was in, and 
 d ye think he would lave me talk it over with him? 
 Not him ! Wan day he d be too busy ; and the next, I d 
 have to call again. Twas good for him I was not me 
 brother Dan. Dan would ve kicked the dure in and 
 t rown him out av the windy." 
 
 The wan ghost of a smile flitted across the impassive 
 face of the big man at the desk. 
 
 "Let me tell you something, MacMorrogh. If you, or 
 your brother Dan, ever find it necessary to go after 
 Ford, don t give him notice by battering down doors. 
 
130 EMPIRE BUILDEES 
 
 You won t, I know. But about the contract : you haven t 
 heard from the executive committee ?" 
 
 "Not the half of wan wor-rd." 
 
 "Have you any idea of what is causing the delay ?" 
 
 " Tis dommed well I know, Misther North. Ford 
 is keeping the wires hot against us. If I could have 
 Misther Colbrith here with you for wan five minutes " 
 
 The general manager broke in, following his own line 
 of thought. 
 
 "Ford is in Denver; he came in from Chicago last 
 night. Why don t you go up to the Brown and have it 
 out with him ?" 
 
 "Fight it out, d ye mean?" 
 
 "Certainly not. Make friends with him. 3 
 
 The contractor sat back in his chair and plunged his 
 stubby hands deep into his pockets. 
 
 "Give me the sthraight tip, Misther North." 
 
 "It ought to suggest itself to you. This is a big job, 
 with a great deal of money passing. Your profits, over 
 and above what you will make out of the company, will 
 be quite large. Ford is an ambitious young man, and he 
 is not building railroads for his health." 
 
 The MacMorrogh was nodding slowly. Nevertheless, 
 he made difficulties. 
 
 "Me hand s not light enough for that, Misther 
 North." 
 
 Again the general manager smiled. 
 
HURRY ORDERS 131 
 
 "You require a deal of prompting, sometimes, Brian. 
 What s the matter with a trusty go-between ?" 
 
 "H m, that s it, now. But where to lay me finger on 
 the right man. Tis a risk to run with a yooung fire 
 brand like Ford holding the other end iv the string." 
 
 "Still I think the man can be found. But first we 
 must make sure of your contract, with or without Ford. 
 Your suggestion about taking the matter up with Mr. 
 Colbrith in person strikes me favorably. Can you spare 
 the time to go to New York ?" 
 
 "Sure I can/ 
 
 "At once?" 
 
 "The wan minute for sthriking is whin the iron s 
 hot, Misther North." 
 
 The general manager put aside the thick file of papers 
 he had been examining when MacMorrogh entered, and 
 began to set his desk in order. 
 
 "I have been thinking I might make it convenient 
 to go with you. I presume you have no objection to 
 going as my guest in the Naught-Seven ?" 
 
 " Tis an honor you re doing me, Misther North, and 
 I ll not be forgetting it." 
 
 "Not at all. There are some matters connected with 
 this contract that I d like to talk over with you pri 
 vately, and if we can agree upon them, I may be able 
 to help you with Mr. Colbrith and the executive com 
 mittee." 
 
132 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 The general manager pressed one of the electric but 
 tons on the side of the desk, and to the clerk who an 
 swered gave a brief order: "Have the Naught-Seven 
 provisioned and made up to go east as a special at 
 twelve-ten to-day. Tell Despatcher Darby to make the 
 schedule fast nineteen hours or less to the River." 
 
 The clerk nodded and disappeared, and North turned 
 again o MacMorrogh. 
 
 "Now about that other matter: I ll find you a go- 
 between to approach Ford; but to be quite frank with 
 you, you ll have to be liberal with the young man for his 
 services. When you go into the diplomatic field, you 
 have to spend money." He was pressing another of the 
 electric buttons as he spoke, and to the office boy who 
 put his face in at the door, he said: "Ask Mr. Eck 
 stein to step in here a minute." 
 
 It was the private secretary, the well-groomed young 
 man with the alien eyes and nose who answered the 
 summons. North gave him his instructions in a curt 
 sentence. 
 
 "Mr. MacMorrogh would like to have a little talk 
 with you, Eckstein : take him into the other room where 
 you can be undisturbed." 
 
 It was half an hour later when the door of the library 
 opened to readmit the private secretary and the con 
 tractor, and in the interval the division superintendent s 
 clerk had returned to say that the special train schedule 
 
HUKRY ORDERS 133 
 
 was made up, and that the Naught-Seven would be 
 waiting at the Union Station at twelve-ten. 
 
 "Well ?" said the general manager, lifting a slow eye 
 brow at MacMorrogh and compressing into the single 
 word his wish to know what had been done in the con 
 ference of two. 
 
 " Tis all right, Misther North/ said the contractor, 
 rubbing his hands. " >Tis a crown jewel ye have in this 
 yooung " 
 
 North cut the eulogy short in a word to his secretary. 
 
 "I go east, special, at twelve-ten, Eckstein, as Mr. 
 MacMorrogh has probably told you. I have a luncheon 
 appointment at twelve with Mr. Ford. Meet him when 
 he comes, and make my excuses without telling him 
 anything he ought not to know. If you can take my 
 place as his host, do so ; but in any event, keep him from 
 finding out where we have gone until we are well on 
 the way. That s all." 
 
 This was why Ford, walking the few blocks from his 
 hotel at noon to keep his engagement with North, 
 found the general manager s private office closed, and a 
 suave, soft-spoken young man with a foreign cast of 
 countenance waiting to make his superior s excuses. 
 
 "Mr. North was called out of town quite unexpectedly 
 on a wire," was the private secretary s explanation. "He 
 tried to telephone you at the Brown, but the operator 
 couldn t find you. He left me to explain, and I ve been 
 
134 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 wondering if you d let me take his place as your host, 
 Mr. Ford." 
 
 Now Ford s attitude toward his opponents was, by 
 reason of his gifts, openly belligerent; wherefore he 
 fought against it and tried to be as other men are. 
 
 "I am sure Mr. North is quite excusable, and it is 
 good-natured in you to stand in the breach, Mr. Eck 
 stein," he said. "Of course, I ll be glad to go with you." 
 
 They went to Tortoni s, and to a private room; and 
 the luncheon was an epicurean triumph. Eckstein 
 talked well, and was evidently a young man of parts. 
 Not until the cigars were lighted did he suffer the table- 
 talk to come down to the railroad practicalities; and 
 even then he merely followed Ford s lead. 
 
 "Oh, yes; we have made arrangements to give you a 
 clear deck in the Denver yards for your material and 
 supplies," he said, in answer to a question of Ford s 
 about side-track room and yard facilities at the point 
 which would have to serve as his base. "Following your 
 orders, we have been forwarding all that your Plug 
 Mountain rolling stock could handle, but there is con 
 siderable more of it side-tracked here. After the Mac- 
 Morrogh grading outfit has gone to the front, we shall 
 have more room, however." 
 
 "The MacMorrogh outfit ?" queried Ford. "Do they 
 store it in our yards ?" 
 
 "Oh, no. They have a pretty complete railroad yard 
 
HURRY ORDERS 135 
 
 of their own at their headquarters in Pueblo. But they 
 have three train-loads of tools and machinery here now, 
 waiting for your orders to send them to the front." 
 
 Ford weighed the possibilities thoughtfully and con 
 cluded that nothing could be lost by a frank declaration 
 of principles. 
 
 "They have given you folks a wrong impression, Mr. 
 Eckstein/ he said mildly. "The contract for the grad 
 ing on the Western Extension is not yet awarded; and 
 if I can compass it, the MacMorrogh Brothers bid will 
 be thrown out." 
 
 The private secretary tried to look mystified, with 
 just the proper touch of a subordinate s embarrass 
 ment. 
 
 "I m only a clerk, Mr. Ford," he said, "and, of course, 
 I m not supposed to know more than I see and hear in 
 the regular way of business. But I understood that the 
 MacMorroghs were in the saddle; that they were only 
 waiting for you to provide track-room at Saint s Rest 
 for their tool cars and outfit." 
 
 "No," said Ford. "It hasn t got that far along yet" 
 
 Eckstein looked at his watch. 
 
 "Don t let me keep you, if there is anything else you 
 want to do, Mr. Ford; but I ll confess you ve aroused 
 my curiosity. What is the matter with the MacMor 
 roghs?" 
 
 Ford answered the question by asking another. 
 
136 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 "Do you know them, Mr. Eckstein?" 
 
 "Why yes ; as Mr. North s chief clerk would He like 
 ly to know the firm of contractors which has been given 
 a good share of the Pacific Southwestern work for a 
 number of years." 
 
 "Do you know any good of them ?" 
 
 "Bless me ! yes : I don t know anything else of them. 
 Three hearty, bluff, rough-tongued Irishmen; lacking 
 diplomacy and all the finer touches, if you like, but good 
 fellows and hustlers of the keenest." 
 
 Ford fastened his companion in a steady eye-grip. 
 "One question, Mr. Eckstein ; do they play fair with all 
 concerned ?" 
 
 "They are more than fair; they are generous with 
 the company, and with the company s representatives 
 with whom they have to do business. On two contracts 
 with us they have lost money ; but I happen to know that 
 in both instances they kept their promises to the en 
 gineering department to the letter." 
 
 Ford had cast off the eye-grip and he appeared to be 
 studying the fresco design of the ceiling over the private 
 secretary s head. 
 
 "And those promises were ?" 
 
 Eckstein laughed boyishly. You needn t make a 
 mystery of it with me, Mr. Ford. I m one of the family, 
 if I haven t any initials after my name. I know we all 
 know that there are certain profits not made out of 
 
HURRY ORDERS 137 
 
 the company, of course that a contractor is always 
 willing to share with his good friends, the engineers." 
 
 Ford s attitude instantly became that of a freshman 
 wishing to learn the ropes. 
 
 "Consider me, Mr. Eckstein," he said. "I m new to 
 the construction business or at least, I ve never been at 
 the head of it before. What are these er perquisites ?" 
 
 The private secretary thought he had entered the 
 thin edge of the wedge and he drove it heartily. 
 
 "They are perfectly legitimate, of course. The con 
 tractors run a commissary to supply the workmen 
 nobody suspects them of doing it at cost. Then there 
 are the fines imposed to secure faithful work, the per 
 capita commission paid on the labor sent in by the en 
 gineers, the discounts on time-checks, the weekly hospi 
 tal and insurance dues collected from the men. All 
 those things amount to a good round profit on a con 
 tract like ours." 
 
 "To about how much, in figures, should you say?" 
 queried Ford, with an air of the deepest interest. 
 
 "To enough to make your share, as head of the con 
 struction department, touch ten thousand a year, on a 
 job as big as ours with a liberal provision for Mr. 
 Frisbie, besides." 
 
 Ford blew reflective smoke rings toward the ceiling for 
 a full minute or more before he said quietly: "Do I 
 understand that you are authorized to guarantee me ten 
 
138 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 thousand a year in commissions from the MacMorrogh 
 Brothers, Mr. Eckstein?" 
 
 Eckstein laughed. 
 
 "You forget that I m only a clerk, and an onlooker, 
 as you may say. But if you accept MacMorrogh s bid, 
 and he doesn t do the square thing by you and Mr. 
 Frisbie, you may call me in as a witness, Mr. Ford. 
 Does that clear up the doubt ?" 
 
 "Perfectly," was the quiet rejoinder. "Under these 
 conditions, I suppose it is up to me to wire the executive 
 committee, withdrawing my objections to the MacMor- 
 roghs, isn t it?" 
 
 "That is the one thing Mr. MacMorrogh asks." The 
 secretary whipped out a note-book and pencil. "Shall 
 I take your message? I can send it when I go back to 
 the office." 
 
 "Thank you," said Ford; then he began to dictate, 
 slowly and methodically: "To S. J. Colbrith, care Mc 
 Veigh and Mackie, New York. This is to recall my ob 
 jections to MacMorrogh Brothers, as stated in letter of 
 the twenty-fifth from Chicago. Further investigation 
 develops the fact that they are quite honest and capable, 
 and that they will pay me ten thousand dollars a year 
 for withdrawing my opposition." 
 
 Eckstein s pencil had stopped and he was gasping for 
 breath. 
 
 "Great Scott!" he ejaculated. "That won t do, Mr. 
 
Eckstein s pencil had stopped and he was gasping for breath Page 138 
 
HURRY ORDERS 139 
 
 Ford ! You can t put a thing like that into a telegram to 
 the president !" 
 
 "Why not?" was the cool inquiry. "You said it was 
 perfectly legitimate, didn t you ?" 
 
 "Yes, but " the entrance of a waiter to clear the 
 table provided a merciful stop-gap, and Eckstein, hur 
 riedly consulting his watch, switched abruptly. "By 
 Jove! I m due at the office this minute to meet a lot 
 of cattlemen," he stammered, and escaped like a man 
 hastening for first aid to the mistaken. 
 
 Ford laughed long and silently when he found him 
 self alone in the private dining-room ; and he was still 
 chuckling by fits and starts when, after an afternoon 
 spent with Auditor Evans, he recounted his adventure 
 to Frisbie over the Brown cafe dinner table that even 
 ing. But Frisbie took all the humor out of the luncheon 
 episode when he said soberly : 
 
 "He laughs best who laughs last, Stuart. Eckstein 
 took a fall out of you one way, even if he did fail in the 
 other; he kept you safely shut up at Tortoni s while 
 Mr. North and the chief of the MacMorroghs got away 
 on a special train for New York. Beard, the Union 
 Station operator, told me. Which means that they ll 
 have a full day with Mr. Colbrith and the executive 
 committee before you can possibly get there to butt in." 
 
 "N"o, it doesn t; necessarily/ Ford contradicted, ris 
 ing suddenly and signaling a waiter. 
 
140. EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 "What are you going to do?" queried Frisbie, drop 
 ping his knife and fork and preparing to second his 
 chief. 
 
 "Come and see. I m going to get out another special 
 train and give Mr. North a run for his money," was the 
 incisive answer. "Hike down to the despatched office 
 with me and help cut out the minutes." 
 
XII 
 
 THE ENTERING WEDGE 
 
 Has civilized humanity, in the plenitude of twen 
 tieth century sophistication, fully determined that there 
 is no such thing as luck? that all things are ordered, 
 if not by Providence, at least by an unchangeable se 
 quence of cause and effect ? 
 
 Stuart Ford was a firm believer in the luck of the 
 energetic; which is to say that he regarded obstacles 
 only as things to be beaten down and abolished. But in 
 the dash to overtake and pass the general manager s one- 
 C5T ^ecial, the belief was shaken almost to its reversal. 
 
 He knew the Pacific Southwestern locomotives and 
 something of the men who ran them. The 1016 was one 
 of the fast eight-wheelers ; and Olson, the engineer, who 
 had once pulled passenger on the Plug Mountain, was 
 loyal and efficient. Happily, both the man and the ma 
 chine were available;, and while Frisbie was calling up 
 the division superintendent at his house to ask the loan 
 
 141 
 
U2 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 of his private car for the assistant to the president, 
 Ford was figuring the schedule with the despatches and 
 insisting upon speed more speed. 
 
 "What s come over you big bosses, all at once?" said 
 Darby, to whom Ford s promotion was no bar to fellow 
 ship or free speech. "First Mr. North wants me to 
 schedule a special that will break the record; and now 
 you want to string one that will beat his record." 
 
 "Never mind my troubles, Julius," was the evasive 
 reply. "Just you figure to keep things out of my way 
 and give me a clear track. Let s see where were we? 
 Cheyenne Crossing at 2 A. M V water at Riddle Creek, 
 coal at Brockton " 
 
 The schedule was completed when Frisbie came back 
 to say that the 1016, with the superintendent s car at 
 tached, was waiting on track Six. Ford went down, 
 looked the gift horse in the mouth, and had the running 
 gear of the car overhauled under his own supervision 
 before he would give Olson the word to go, pressing the 
 night car inspectors into service and making them re 
 pack the truck journals while he waited. 
 
 "I m taking no chances," he said to Frisbie ; and truly 
 it seemed that all the hindrances had been carefully 
 forestalled when he finally boarded the "01" and ordered 
 his flagman to give Olson the signal. Yet before the one- 
 car train was well out of the Denver yards there was a 
 jolting stop, and the flagman came in to report that the 
 
THE ENTERING WEDGE 143 
 
 engine had dropped from the end of an open switch, 
 blocking the main line. 
 
 Ford got out and directed the reenrailment of the 
 1016, carefully refraining from bullying the big Swede, 
 whose carelessness must have been accountable. It was 
 the simplest of accidents, with nothing broken or disa 
 bled. Under ordinary conditions, fifteen minutes should 
 have covered the loss of time. But the very haste with 
 which the men wrought was fatal. Enrailing frogs have 
 a way of turning over at the critical instant when the 
 wheels are climbing, and jack-screws bottomed on the 
 tie-ends do not always hold. 
 
 Eight several times were the jack-screws adjusted 
 and the frogs clamped into position ; but not until the 
 ninth trial could the perverse wheels be induced to roll 
 workmanlike up the inclined planes and into place on 
 the rails. Ford looked at his watch when his special 
 was free of the switches and Olson was speeding up on 
 the first long tangent. With the chase still in its open 
 ing mile, Mr. North s lead had been increased from 
 seven hours to eight. 
 
 Leaving Denver on the spur of the moment, Ford 
 had necessarily left many things at a standstill; and 
 his first care, after he had assured himself that the race 
 was fairly begun, was to write out a handful of tele 
 grams designed to keep the battle alive during his en 
 forced absence from the firing line. The superintend- 
 
144: EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 ent s desk was hospitably unlocked, and for a busy; 
 half-hour Ford filled blank after blank, steadying him 
 self against the pounding swing of the heavily ballasted 
 car with a left-handed grip on the desk end. When there 
 remained no one else to remind, he wrote out a message 
 to Adair, forecasting the threatened disaster, and urging 
 the necessity of rallying the reconstructionists on the 
 board of directors. 
 
 "That ought to stir him up/ he said to himself, 
 bunching Adair s telegram with the others to be sent 
 from the first stop where the Western Union wires 
 could be tapped. Then he whirled around in the swing 
 chair and scowled up at the little dial in the end of the 
 car ; scowled at the speed -recorder, and went to the door 
 to summon the flagman. 
 
 "What s the matter with Olson?" he demanded. "Has 
 he forgotten how to run since he left the Plug Moun 
 tain? Climb up over the coal and tell him that forty 
 miles an hour won t do for me to-night." 
 
 The flagman picked up his lantern and went forward ; 
 and in a minute or two later the index finger of the 
 speed-recorder began to mount slowly toward the fifties. 
 At fifty-two miles to the hour, Ford, sitting in the obser 
 vation end of the car where he could see the ghostly 
 lines of the rails reeling backward into the night, 
 smelled smoke the unmistakable odor of burning oil. 
 In three strides he had reached the rear platform, and 
 
THE ENTERING WEDGE 145 
 
 a fourth to the right-hand railing showed him one of 
 the car-boxes blazing to heaven. 
 
 He pulled the cord of the air-whistle, and after the 
 stop stood by in sour silence while the crew repacked the 
 hot box. Since he had made the car inspectors carefully 
 overhaul the truck gear in the Denver station, there 
 was no one to swear at. Olson bossed the job, did it 
 neatly and in silence, and no one said anything when the 
 fireman, in his haste to be useful, upset the dope-kettle 
 and got its contents well sanded before he had overtaken 
 it in its rolling flight down the embankment. 
 
 Ford turned away and climbed into his car at the 
 dope-kettle incident. There are times when retreat is 
 the only recipe for self-restraint; and in imagination 
 he could see the general manager s special ticking off 
 the miles to the eastward while his own men were sweat 
 ing over the thrice-accursed journal-bearing under the 
 "01." 
 
 Now, as every one knows, hot boxes, besides being* 
 perversely incurable, are the sworn enemies of high 
 speed. At forty miles to the hour the journal was smok 
 ing again. At forty-five it burst into flames. Once more 
 it was patiently cooled by bucketings of water drawn 
 from the engine tank ; after which necessary preliminary 
 Olson spoke his mind. 
 
 "Ay tank ve never get someveres vit dat hal-fer-damn 
 brass, Meester Ford. Ay yust see if Ay can t find noder 
 
146 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 wone." And he rummaged in the car lockers till he did 
 find another. 
 
 Unfortunately, however, the spare brass proved to be 
 of the wrong pattern ; a Pullman, instead of a P. S-W. 
 standard. Olson was a trained mechanic and a man of 
 resources, and he chipped and filed and scraped at the 
 misfit brass until he made it serve. But when he climbed 
 again to the cab of his engine, and Ford swung up to 
 the steps of the car, the white headlight eye of an east- 
 bound freight, left at a siding a full hour s run to the 
 rear, came in sight from the observation platform of 
 the laboring special. 
 
 These were the inauspicious beginnings of the pur 
 suit; and the middle part and the ending varied only 
 in degree. All the way up to midnight, at which hour a 
 station of a bigness to supply a standard brass was 
 reached, the tinkered journal-bearing gave trouble and 
 killed speed. Set once more in running order upon its 
 full quota of sixteen practicable wheels, the special had 
 fallen so far behind its Denver-planned schedule as not 
 only to be in the way of everything else on the division, 
 but to find everything else in its way. Ford held on 
 stubbornly until the lead of the train he was trying to 
 outrun had increased to twelve hours. Then he gave it 
 up, directing his crew to turn the train on the nearest 
 "Y," and to ask for retracing orders to Denver. After 
 which he went to bed in the state-room of the borrowed 
 
THE ENTERING WEDGE 147 
 
 car, and for the first time in his experience was a man 
 handsomely beaten by the perversity of insensate things. 
 
 The request for the retracing orders was sent from 
 Coquina; and when it came clicking into the de- 
 spatcher s office at Denver, a sleep-sodden young man 
 with an extinct cigar between his teeth rose up out of 
 his chair, stretched, yawned, and pointed for the door. 
 
 "Going to leave us, Mr. Eckstein?" said the trick 
 despatcher who was sitting at the train table. 
 
 "Yes. If Mr. Ford has changed his mind, I may as 
 well go home and go to bed." 
 
 "Beckon he forgot something, and has to come back 
 after it?" laughed the operator. 
 
 "Maybe," said the private secretary, and he went out, 
 shutting the door behind him with the bat-like softness 
 and precision that was his distinguishing character 
 istic. 
 
 The sounders were clicking monotonously when the 
 trick man turned to the relief operator who was check 
 ing Darby s transfer sheet. 
 
 "What do you suppose Eckstein was up to, sitting 
 here all night, Jim ?" 
 
 "Give it up," said the relief man. "Ask me some 
 thing easy." 
 
 "I ll bet a hen worth fifty dollars I can guess. He 
 didn t want Mr. Ford to make time." 
 
 The relief man looked up from his checking. 
 
148 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 "Why ? He didn t do anything. He was asleep more n 
 half the time." 
 
 "Don t you fool yourself," said the other. "He heard 
 every word that came in about that hot box. And if 
 the hot box hadn t got in the way, I ll bet a cockerel 
 worth seventy-five dollars, to go with that fifty-dollar 
 hen, that he would have tangled me up somehow till I 
 had shuffled a freight train or something in Mr. Ford s 
 way. He s Mr. North s man, body and soul; and Mr. 
 North doesn t love Mr. Ford." 
 
 "Oh, rats, Billy!" scoffed the relief man, getting up 
 to fill his corn-cob pipe from the common tobacco bag. 
 "You re always finding a nigger in the wood-pile, when 
 there isn t any. Say; that s 201 asking for orders from 
 Calotte. Why don t you come to life and answer em?" 
 
 Frisbie, breakfasting early at the Brown Palace on 
 the morning following the night of hinderings, was 
 more than astonished when Ford came in and took the 
 unoccupied seat at the table-f or-two. 
 
 "Let me eat first," said the beaten one, when Frisbie 
 would have whelmed him with curious questions; and 
 with the passing of the cutlets and the coffee he told 
 the tale of the hindrances. 
 
 "I guess it was foreordained not to be," he admitted, 
 in conclusion. "We tried mighty hard to bully it 
 through, but the fates were too many and too busy 
 for us." 
 
THE ENTERING WEDGE 149 
 
 "Tricks?" suggested Frisbie, suspecting North of 
 covering his flight with special instructions to delay a 
 possible pursuit. 
 
 "Oh, no; nothing of that sort: just the cursed de 
 pravity of inanimate things. Every man concerned 
 worked hard and in good faith. It was luck. No one of 
 us happened to have a rabbit s foot in his pocket." 
 
 "You don t believe in luck," laughed the assistant. 
 
 "Don t I ? I know I used to say that I didn t. But 
 after last night I can t be so sure of it." 
 
 "Well, what s the cost to us?" inquired Frisbie, com 
 ing down out of the high atmosphere of the super 
 stitious to stand upon the solid earth of railway-building 
 fact. 
 
 "I don t know : possibly failure. There is no guessing 
 what sort of a scheme North will cook up when he and 
 MacMorrogh get Mr. Colbrith cornered." 
 
 "Oh, it can t be as bad as that. Take it at the worst 
 admitting that we may have to struggle along with the 
 MacMorroghs for our general contractors; they can t 
 addle the egg entirely, can they ?" 
 
 Ford tabulated it by length and breadth. 
 
 "With the MacMorroghs in the forefront of things 
 to steal and cheat and make trouble with the labor, 
 and Mr. North in the rear to back them up and to re 
 tard matters generally, we are in for a siege to which 
 purgatory, if we ever go there, will seem restful, Rich- 
 
150 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 ard, my son. Our one weapon is my present ranking 
 authority over the general manager. If he ever succeeds 
 in breaking that, you fellows in the field would better 
 hunt you another railroad to build." 
 
 "It s a comfort to know that you are the big boss, 
 Stuart. North can t knock you out of that when it comes 
 to a show-down." 
 
 "I don t know," said Ford, whose night ride had made 
 him pessimistic. "I am Mr. Colbrith s appointee, you 
 know not an elected officer. And what Mr. Colbrith 
 has done, he may be induced to undo. Adair has been 
 nay backer in everything ; but while he is the best fellow 
 in the world, he is continually warning me that he may 
 lose interest in the game at any minute and drop it. He 
 doesn t care a rap for the money-making part of it 
 doesn t have to." 
 
 "Wouldn t Adair be a good safety-switch to throw in 
 front of Mr. North and MacMorrogh in New York ?" 
 
 Ford nodded. "I thought of that last night, and sent 
 a wire. We ll hear from it to-day." 
 
 Frisbie ate through the remainder of the breakfast 
 in silence. Afterward, at the pipe-lighting, he asked if 
 Ford s wire instructions of the night before still held 
 good. 
 
 "They do," was the emphatic reply. "We go on just 
 as if nothing had happened, or was due to happen. You 
 say your man Crapsey will be in this morning: gather 
 
THE ENTERING WEDGE 151 
 
 up your laborers and turn the Plug Mountain into a 
 standard-gauge railroad while we wait. That s all, Dick ; 
 all but one word hustle." 
 
 "Hustle it is. But say : you were going to give me a 
 pointer on that broad-gauging. I ve been stewing over it 
 for a day and a night, and I don t think of any scheme 
 that won t stop the traffic." 
 
 "Don t you? That is because you haven t mulled over 
 it as long as I have. In the first place, you have no 
 curves to straighten and no cross-ties to relay our 
 predecessors having set the good example of using stand 
 ard length ties for their three-foot road. String your 
 men out in gangs as far as they ll go, and swing the 
 three-foot track, as a whole, ten inches out of center to 
 the left. You can do that without stopping trains, can t 
 you?" 
 
 "Sure." 
 
 "All right. When you swing, spike the right-hand rail 
 lightly. Then string your gangs again and set a line of 
 spikes for the outside of the standard-gauge right-hand 
 rail straight through to Saint s Rest, Got that?" 
 
 "Yes ; I guess I ve got it all. But go on." 
 
 "Now you are ready for the grand-stand play. Call in 
 all your narrow-gauge rolling stock, mass your men at 
 this end of the branch, shove the right-hand rail over to 
 the line of gauge spikes in sections as long as your force 
 will cover, and follow up with a standard-gauge construe- 
 
152 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 tion train to pick up the men and carry them forward as 
 fast as a section is completed. If you work it systemat 
 ically, a freight train could leave Denver two hours be 
 hind your track-gangs and find a practical standard 
 gauge all the way to Saint s Rest." 
 
 "Of course V 9 said Frisbie, in workmanlike disgust for 
 his own obtuseness. "I m going back to the Tech when 
 your railroad is finished and learn a few things. I 
 couldn t think of anything but the old Erie Railroad 
 scheme, when it was narrowed down from the six-foot 
 gauge. They did it in one night ; but they had a man to 
 every second cross-tie over the whole four hundred miles 
 from New York to Buffalo." 
 
 Ford nodded, adding : 
 
 "And we re not that rich in labor. By the way, how 
 are the men coming ?" 
 
 "A car-load or two, every little while. S ay, Stuart, 
 you must have had a rabbit s foot with you when you 
 touched up the eastern labor agencies. Every other rail 
 road in this neck of woods is skinned, and M Grath is 
 having the time of his life trying to hold our levies to 
 gether. There is a small army of them under canvas at 
 Saint s Rest, waiting for the contractors, and another 
 with between two and three hundred hands camped at 
 the mouth of the canyon." 
 
 Ford knocked the ashes from his pipe so hard that the 
 pipestem fell in two. 
 
THE ENTEEING WEDGE 153 
 
 "Yes ! all waiting on Mr. Colbrith s leisurely motions ! 
 Well, jump in on the Plug Mountain. That will utilize 
 some of the waste for a few days." 
 
 Frisbie went down to the Plug Mountain yard office, 
 and to a wire-end, to begin the marshaling of his forces ; 
 and Ford, with three picked-up stenographers to madden 
 him, took up the broken threads of his correspondence 
 with a world which seemed to have become suddenly 
 peopled to suffocation with eager sellers of railroad ma 
 terial and supplies. 
 
 Late in the afternoon, when he was tired enough to 
 feel the full force of the blow, a New York telegram 
 came. It was from Miss Alicia Adair, and Ford groaned 
 in spirit when he read it. 
 
 Brother left here yesterday in the Vanderdecken yacht for 
 Nova Scotia. Can not reach him by telegraph until next Fri 
 day or Saturday. Aunt Hester wants to know if there is any 
 thing she can do. 
 
 One way to save a man s life at a crisis is to appeal to 
 his sense of humor. Miss Alicia s closing sentence did 
 that for Ford, and he was smiling grimly when he put 
 the telegram away, not in the business file, but in his 
 pocket. 
 
 Three days later, however, when Frisbie was half-way 
 to Saint s Eest with his preliminary track-swinging, an 
 other New York telegram found Ford in his newly 
 established quarters in the Guaranty Building. This was 
 
154 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 from some one acting as President. Colbrith s secretary, 
 and its wording was concisely mandatory. 
 
 Contract has been awarded MacMorrogh Brothers. Presi 
 dent directs that you afford contractors every facility, and 
 that you confer with Mr. North in all cases of doubt. 
 
XIII 
 
 THE BARBARIANS 
 
 It was some little time after the rock had begun to fly 
 from the cuttings on the western slopes of the moun 
 tains that Kenneth, summoned by Ford, made the run 
 from Denver to Saint s Best over the standardized Plug 
 Mountain branch and found the engineer-manager liv 
 ing in a twenty-foot caboose car fitted as a hotel and an 
 office-on-wheels. 
 
 The occasion of Kenneth s calling was a right-of-way 
 dispute on the borders of the distant Copah mining dis 
 trict ; some half-dozen mining claims having been staked 
 off across the old S. L. & W. survey. The owners, keen 
 to make a killing out of the railroad company, threat 
 ened injunctions if the P. S-W. persisted in trespassing 
 upon private property; and Ford, suspecting shrewdly 
 that the mine men were set on by the Transcontinental 
 people to delay the work on the new line, made haste to 
 shift his responsibility to the legal shoulders. 
 
 "If I hadn t known you for a pretty good mountain- 
 155 
 
156 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 eer, Kenneth, you would have missed this/ he said, mak 
 ing his guest free of the limited hospitality of the 
 caboose-hotel. "Are you good for a two-hundred-and- 
 eighty-mile cayuse ride, there and back, on the same trail 
 we tramped over a year ago last spring ?" 
 
 "I m good for everything on the bill of fare/ was the 
 heartening reply. "How are things going ?" 
 
 Ford s rejoinder began with a non-committal shrug. 
 "We re building a railroad, after a fashion." 
 
 "After a good fashion, I hope ?" 
 
 Another shrug. 
 
 "We re doing as well as we can with the help we have. 
 But about this right-of-way tangle " and he plunged 
 his guest into a discussion of the Copah situation which 
 ran on unbroken until bedtime. 
 
 They took the westward trail together in the morning, 
 mounted upon wiry little mountain-bred ponies fur 
 nished by one Pacheco, the half-breed Mexican who had 
 once earned an easy double-eagle by spying upon two 
 men who were out hunting with an engineer s transit. 
 For seven weeks Frisbie had been pushing things, and 
 the grade from Saint s Rest to the summit of the pass 
 was already a practicable wagon road, deserted by the 
 leveling squads and ready for the ties and the steel. 
 
 From the summit of the pass westward, down the 
 mountain and through the high-lying upper valley of 
 the Pannikin, the grade work was in full swing. The 
 
THE BARBAEIANS 157 
 
 horse trail, sometimes a rough cart-road, but oftener a 
 mere bridle-path, followed the railroad in its loopings 
 and doublings ; and on the mountain sections where the 
 work was heaviest the two riders were never out of sight 
 of the heavily manned grading gangs. 
 
 "To a man up a tree you appear to be doing a whole 
 lot, and doing it quickly, Ford/ commented the lawyer, 
 when they had passed camp after camp of the workers. 
 Then he added : "You are not having any trouble with 
 the MacMorroghs, are you ?" 
 
 "Not what the legal department would call trouble," 
 answered Ford evasively; and for ten other miles the 
 narrowness of the bridle-path discouraged conversation. 
 
 Farther down in the valley of the Pannikin the ac 
 tivities were less thickly sown. On many sections the 
 work was light; no more than the throwing up of an 
 embankment in the park-like intervales, with now and 
 then a rock- or earth-cutting through some jutting spur 
 of the inclosing mountains. Here the men were bunched 
 on the rock work and the fills, though the camp sites 
 were commonly in the park-like interspaces where wood 
 and water, the two sole commodities for which the con 
 tractors could make no deductions on the pay-roll, lay 
 conveniently at the doors of the rude sleeping shacks. 
 
 Since he was not required to talk, Kenneth had time 
 to be curiously observant of many things in passing. 
 Each camp was the fellow of its neighbor; a chaotic 
 
158 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 collection of hastily built bunk shanties, a mess tent for 
 those who,, shunning the pay-devouring Scylla of the 
 contractors "commissary," fell into the Charybdis of the 
 common table, and always, Kenneth remarked, the camp 
 groggery, with its slab-built bar, its array of ready-filled 
 pocket bottles, and its sad-faced, slouch-hatted, pistol- 
 carrying keeper. 
 
 "What is that Bible-saying about the shadow of a 
 great rock in a thirsty land?" said Kenneth, as they 
 were passing one of the wilderness bar-rooms buttress 
 ing a huge boulder by the trail side. "I should think 
 you d rule those fellows emphatically and peremptorily 
 out of the game, Ford. They must make a lot of trouble 
 for you, first and last." 
 
 "They do," was the sober response. "But how would 
 you go about it to rule them out ?" 
 
 The lawyer laughed. "My writs don t run this far. 
 But I thought yours did. Why don t you fire em bodily ; 
 tell em their number is 23 skiddoo! Aren t you the 
 Sublime Porte the court of last resort the big boss 
 over here ?" 
 
 Ford pulled his horse down to a walk. 
 
 "Kenneth, let me tell you: behind those barkeepers 
 are the contractors ; behind the contractors is Mr. North ; 
 behind Mr. North, the president. My little lever isn t 
 long enough to turn the world over." 
 
 "Pshaw!" said Kenneth. "Mr. Colbrith wouldn t 
 
THE BAKBAKIANS 159 
 
 stand for anything like that ! Why, he s a perfect fanatic 
 on the whisky question." 
 
 "That s all right/ said Ford acidly. "It doesn t go 
 as far as Mr. Colbrith in the matter of the debauching 
 particulars. It stops in Denver; and Mr. Colbrith ap 
 proves Denver in the lump signs the vouchers without 
 looking at them, as Evans would say. I tell you what I 
 believe w i ia t I am compelled to believe. These individ 
 ual saloon-keepers are supposed to be in here on their 
 own hook, on sufferance. They are not; they are merely 
 the employees of a close corporation. Among the profit 
 sharers you ll find the MacMorroghs at the top, and Mr. 
 North s little ring of Denver ofiicials close seconds." 
 "Do you honestly believe that, Ford?" 
 "I do. I can t prove it, of course. If I could, I d go 
 to New York and fight it out. And the whisky isn t all 
 of it, or even the worst : there are women in some of these 
 camps, and there would be more if Leckhard didn t 
 stand guard at Saint s Eest and turn them back." 
 
 "Heavens what a cesspool!" said the attorney. 
 "Does a laboring man ever get out of here with any of 
 his earnings?" 
 
 "Not if the MacMorroghs can help it. And you can 
 figure for yourself what the moral atmosphere must be. 
 We are less than two months old on the work, but already 
 the Western Extension is a streak of crime; crime un 
 punished, and at times tacitly encouraged. You may 
 
160 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 say that my department isn t responsible that this is 
 the contractors day and game. If that is true now 
 which it isn t it will no longer be true when we come 
 in with our own employees, the track-layers." 
 
 But now Kenneth was shaking his head. 
 
 "I can t believe it, Ford. You re blue because Mr. 
 Colbrith has thrown Mr. North into your boat as ballast. 
 I don t blame you: but you mustn t let it make you 
 color-blind." 
 
 Ford said nothing. The day was yet young, and the 
 long journey was still younger. It was at the noon halt, 
 made at a subcontractor s camp near a great earth-cut 
 ting and a huge fill, that Kenneth had his object lesson. 
 
 They were standing at the door of the timekeeper s 
 shanty they had been the timekeeper s guests for the 
 noon meal and the big gang of Italians, with its in 
 evitable Irish foreman, was already at work. Out at the 
 head of the great fill a dozen men were dumping the 
 carts as they came in an endless stream from the cutting. 
 Suddenly there was a casting down of shovels, a shrill 
 altercation, a clinch, a flash of steel in the August sun 
 light, and one of the disputants was down, his heels 
 drumming on the soft earth in the death agony. 
 
 "Good God!" said Kenneth. "It s a murder!" and he 
 would have rushed in if Ford and the timekeeper had 
 not held him back. 
 
 The object lesson was sufficiently shocking, but its 
 
THE BARBARIANS 161 
 
 sequel was still more revolting. Without one to kneel 
 beside the dying man; indeed, without waiting until the 
 drumming heels were still ; the men callously put their 
 shovels under the body, slid it over the lip of the dump 
 and left it to be covered by the tumbling cataract of 
 earth pouring from the tip-carts whose orderly proces 
 sion had scarcely been interrupted by the tragedy. 
 
 Kenneth was silent for many minutes after they had 
 left the camp of the Italians. He was a Western man 
 only by adoption; of Anglo-Saxon blood, and so unable 
 to condone the Latin s disregard for the sacredness of 
 human life. 
 
 "That was simply terrible, Ford," he said finally, and 
 his voice was still in sympathy with the shaking hand 
 that held the bridle-reins. "Will nothing be done?" 
 
 "Nothing; unless the murdered man chances to have 
 relatives or clansmen in one of the near-by camps in 
 which case there ll be another killing." 
 
 "But the law," said Kenneth. 
 
 "There is no law here higher than the caprice of Brian 
 MacMorrogh. Besides, it s too common a mere episode ; 
 one of those which you said you couldn t believe, a little 
 while back." 
 
 "But can t you make the MacMorroghs do a little 
 police work, for common decency s sake ?" 
 
 Ford shook his head. "They are quite on the other 
 side of the fence, as I told you in the beginning. By 
 
162 EMPIKE BUILDERS 
 
 winking at lawlessness of all kinds, their own particular 
 brands of lawlessness, by which they and their backers 
 make money, go unquestioned. So far from helping, 
 they d make it exceedingly difficult for any sheriff who 
 should have the temerity to come in here in the dis 
 charge of his duty." 
 
 "You foresaw all this before the contract was 
 awarded ?" 
 
 "Not all though I had been told that the MacMor- 
 roghs ran open camps where the work was far enough 
 from civilization to take the curse off. What you ve seen, 
 and what I ve been telling you, is bad enough, God 
 knows; but it will be worse before it is better. After 
 we ve had a few pay-days, and the men begin to realize 
 that they are here to toil and to be robbed . . . Ken 
 neth, it will be hell on earth ; and the company will pay 
 for it the company always pays in the end." 
 
 "I ve got a notion," said the attorney, after another 
 plodding mile of reflection ; but what it was he did not 
 say. 
 
 Ford and his companion reached Copah in the after 
 noon of the third day out from Saint s Rest, and, sin 
 gularly enough, the mine owners who were disputing the 
 extension right-of-way were found amenable to reason. 
 What Kenneth did to secure the P. S-W. right-of-way 
 across the mining claims, Ford did not know, or seek to 
 know ; though a word or two let fall by the attorney led 
 
THE BAKBARIANS 163 
 
 him to believe that the Transcontinental encourage 
 ment was not quite specific enough in dollars and cents 
 to warrant the obstructors in holding out. 
 
 Ford was for starting back the next morning : he had 
 missed Brissac and both of the Bensons on the way over. 
 But Kenneth confessed to being saddle-sore, and begged 
 for another day s respite. Ford agreed without giving 
 the matter a second thought. Upon such unconsidered 
 trifles an indifferent "yes" or "no" turn the poised 
 scales of life. For one other day the two Southwestern 
 representatives put up at the Grand Union, Copah s 
 tar-paper-covered simulacrum of a hotel; and during 
 that day Ford contrived to sell his birthright for what 
 he, himself, valued at the moment as a mess of pottage. 
 
 It was in this wise. At this period of its existence 
 Copah, the future great, was merely a promise ; a camp 
 of magnificent prospects. Isolated by one hundred and 
 fifty miles of wagon-road and pack-trail from one 
 railroad base, and by forty miles of mountains from the 
 other, its future turned upon the hope of cheaper trans 
 portation. As a gold camp it was an anomaly. With a 
 single exception its ores were low grade, and the wagon- 
 road and pack-trail freightage made them practically 
 profitless to the miners. 
 
 The single exception was the "Little Alicia," and it 
 was the coincidence of the name, rather than the elo 
 quence of its impoverished owner, that first attracted 
 
164 EMPIEE BUILDERS 
 
 Ford. From first to last he did not know the exact loca 
 tion of the mine. It was somewhere in the hills back of 
 Copah, and Grigsby, the prospector who had discovered 
 and opened it, had an office in the camp. 
 
 It was in Grigsby s town office that Ford saw the ore 
 specimens and the certified assays, and listened not too 
 credulously to Grigsby s enthusiastic description of the 
 Little Alicia. To be a half -owner in this mine of mines 
 was to be rich beyond the dreams of avarice when the 
 railroad should come : if one might take Grigsby s word 
 for it. 
 
 It is a curious fever, that which seizes upon the new 
 comer in an unexploited mining field. Ford was far 
 from being money-mad; but there were times when he 
 could not help contrasting a railroad salary with Miss 
 Adair s millions. True, he had once said to her, in the 
 fulness of confident belief, that the money of the 
 woman he loved would make no difference to her or 
 to him. But the point of view, wise or foolish, is not 
 always the same. There were moments when the Adair 
 millions loomed large, and the salary of an assistant to 
 the president who was in fact little more than a glori 
 fied chief of construction shrank in proportion. He was 
 free of obligation and foot-loose. His twenty thousand 
 dollars invested in P. S-W. stock at twenty-nine and a 
 half had grown with the rising market to sixty-odd. 
 What did it matter to any one if he chose to put ten 
 
THE BARBARIANS 165 
 
 thousand of the sixty-odd on a turn of the Little Alicia 
 card? 
 
 While it was gambling,, pure and simple, he did not 
 bet with his eyes shut. Inquiry at the Bank of Copah 
 established Grigsby s reputation for truth-telling. The 
 specimens and the assay certificates were beyond doubt 
 genuine. More than this, Grigsby had made a number 
 of ore shipments by freighters wagon and jack train 
 over the range, and the returns had enabled him to keep 
 a small force of men at work in the mine. 
 
 Ford made his bet through the bank. The cashier 
 was willing to take a P. S-W. official s note of hand, to 
 be canceled when Ford could deposit to the bank s credit 
 in Denver, and to give Grigsby an open account for his 
 immediate needs. Grigsby accepted joyfully, and the 
 thing was done. Ford s mess of pottage was a deed of 
 half-ownership in the Little Alicia, executed and re 
 corded in the afternoon of the day of stop-overs, and 
 he was far enough from suspecting that he had ex 
 changed for it all that a man of honor holds dearest. 
 But, as a matter of fact, the birthright had not yet been 
 handed over : that came later. 
 
xiv; 
 
 THE DRAW-BAR PULL 
 
 Attorney Kenneth had many more object-lessons in 
 the study of "open camps" on the three-day return ride 
 to Saint s Eest. The day of stop-over in Copah chanced 
 to be the MacMorrogh Brothers monthly pay-day, and 
 until the men s money was spent pandemonium reigned 
 along the line of the extension. 
 
 Some of it they dodged, riding wide to pass the larger 
 camps, and hearing from afar the noise of carousal, the 
 fierce drinking songs of the Magyars, the fusillades of 
 pistol-shots. So far as they could see, all work appeared 
 to be suspended ; and Major Benson, whose camp of en 
 gineers they picked up in one of the detours around a 
 gulch head, confirmed that conclusion. 
 
 "It was the same way last month," raged the major, 
 twisting his fierce white mustaches and looking as if 
 he would like to blot the name of MacMorrogh from the 
 roster of humanity. "It ll take a full week to get them 
 into the swing again, and MacMorrogh will be up with 
 
 166 
 
THE DRAW-BAR PULL 167 
 
 his estimates just the same as if he had been working full 
 time. I ll cut em ; by the gods, I ll cut em ! And you 
 must stand by me, Mr. Ford." 
 
 There was the same story to be listened to at Brissac s 
 tie camp; and again at young Benson s headquarters, 
 which were on the mountain section. This last was on 
 the third day, however, when the madness was dying 
 down. Some of the rock men were back on the job, but 
 many of the gangs were still grievously short-handed. 
 Ford said little to Kenneth. The pandemonium spoke 
 for itself. But on the third night, when the long ride 
 was ended, and Pietro, Ford s cook and man-of-all-work, 
 was serving supper in the caboose office-on-wheels, some 
 of the bitterness in Ford s heart slipped into speech. 
 
 "Can you see now how it takes the very marrow out 
 of a man s bones, Kenneth? You may think of an en 
 gineer as a man of purely bull-headed purposes, merely 
 trying, in a crass, materialistic way, to get a material 
 thing done. I want to do a big thing, and I d like to do 
 it in a big way. It {5 a big thing the building of this 
 extension. If it doesn t add another star to the flag, it 
 will at least make one state twice as populous, twice as 
 prosperous. It will add its quota to the habitable sur 
 faces; and it s a good quota a land that some future 
 generation will love, and swear by, and fight for, if need 
 be. And to think that for one man s narrow-mindedness 
 and another s greed we ve got to christen it in blood 
 
[PIB1 
 
 and rnuek and filth and dishonesty it makes me gore, 
 ; sore and disheartened ." 
 
 "J don t blame you," eaid the lawyer, reveling, tho 
 he would never hare admitted it, in the eornfV 
 
 ose headquarters journey * end. 
 through; you ll build your railroad, ami 
 that are made won t be your mistakes, It s a horrible 
 itate of affair.", that in the Mac}!- 
 on our boasted civilisation. But you can t help it. (H 
 rather you will help it if, and when, you can/ 
 
 Ford was shaking his head deject/ 
 
 f don t know, Ken i getting next to me, even 
 
 at this early stage of BM game. Have you ever stood on 
 the front car platform of a train nearest to the er 
 ?;-, rafeM HM ftotfqg fanMtarf i?. M ppwtly 
 loose; its hold on the engine seems to he no more 
 that of the touch of clasped hands in a gipsy dance. Vet 
 ft never lets go, and the drag of it is always there. By 
 and by, when the coal is all burned, and the fire is out, 
 and the water i* drained f r. ink, those gentle 
 
 tiplied jerks will pull the big engine down 
 kill itmake it a mere mass of inert metal blocking th<: 
 way of progress." 
 
 "Well r naid the attorney. 
 
 "It s an allegory. Fm beginner t/, r;?jr 
 
 pall. Sooner or later, North and hi* diqne will drag 
 me down. I can t fight as the under dog 1 never 
 
THE PK.UY-HAK PULL 
 
 learned lunv : and they ve fixed it so thai 1 can t tight any 
 other way." 
 
 Kenneth had lighted his cigar and was lying back 
 against tho cushion of the car-sent. After a little, ho 
 said: "Just after we saw the Italian killed last week 1 
 told you 1 had a notion. Ford. I ve got it yet. and l \e 
 been turning it over in my mind and wondering if I d 
 better explode it on you. On the whole. I think I d better 
 not. It s a vase of surgery. If the patient lives, you ll 
 know about it. If the patient dies, you ll be no \\ 
 oil than you are now. Shall we let it vest at that :" 
 
 Ford acquiesced. He was too utterly disheartened 
 be curious. Hut if he could, lv. von the resul. 
 
 Kenneth s notion it is conceivable that ho would have 
 been aroused to some etTort of pr even in deep 
 
 waters one prays sometimes to be delivered from his 
 friends. 
 
 It was a week after this farewell supper in the oalv 
 hotel at Saint s Kest when Ford went down to IV 
 to borrow, on his F. S-\Y. ttook, the ten thousand dollars 
 to be deposited to the credit of the Hank of f opah. Fol 
 lowing him. and only one train behind, camo Fi 
 new from a confirmatory survey of the extension be- 
 the (Vpah div, 
 
 On his return from tho l"!reen Hut to end of 
 posed lino, tho little man with tho diabolical fashiev 
 beard trimming had spcn; in and around Oopah, 
 
170 EMPIEE BUILDERS 
 
 picking up yard rights-of-way, surveying approaches, 
 and setting grade stakes for the outlying MacMorrogh 
 gangs. During that week he had made a discovery, and 
 since he believed it to be all his own, he journeyed east 
 ward to share it quickly with his chief. 
 
 Ford was dining alone at the Brown Palace when 
 Frisbie, coming straight from the Plug Mountain train, 
 found him. There was an entire western desert to be 
 talked over during the courses, and Frisbie held his dis 
 covery in reserve until they had gone to smoke in a quiet 
 corner of the great rotunda. Even then he approached 
 it indirectly. 
 
 "In taking up the line down the Pannikin we have 
 followed the old S. L. & W. survey pretty closely all the 
 way from start to finish. What were your reasons, 
 Stuart The asked. 
 
 "There didn t seem to be any good reason for not fol 
 lowing it. Brandreth made the S. L. & W. preliminary, 
 and there isn t a better locating engineer in this coun 
 try." 
 
 "I know," said Frisbie. "But the best of us make mis 
 takes, now and then. Brandreth made a pretty sizable 
 one, I think." 
 
 "How is that?" 
 
 "You know where the big rock-cutting is to be made 
 in the lower canyon, about ten miles this side of the 
 point where we begin to swing south for the run to 
 
THE DRAW-BAR PULL 171 
 
 Copah a mile and a half of heavy work thai will cost 
 away up into the pictures ?" 
 
 "Yes ; Fve estimated that rock work at not a cent less 
 than two hundred thousand dollars/ 
 
 "You re shy, rather than over, at that. And two hun 
 dred thousand would build a number of miles of ordi 
 nary railroad, wouldn t it? But that isn t all. The 
 cliffs along that canyon are shale-topped and shale-un 
 dermined, the shale alternating with loose rock about 
 fifty feet above our line of grade in quarter-mile 
 stretches all along. That means incessant track-walking 
 day and night through the mile and a half of cutting, 
 and afterward for all time afterward a construction 
 train kept handy under steam to clear away debris that 
 will never quit sliding down on the embankment." 
 
 "I m afraid you are right," said Ford. "It s the worst 
 bit on the entire extension ; the most costly to build, as 
 it will be the most expensive to maintain. But I guess 
 Brandreth knew what he was about when he surveyed it." 
 
 "Brandreth is a short-line man. He wouldn t lengthen 
 his line ten miles to dodge an earthquake. Ford, we 
 can save a hundred thousand dollars on that piece of 
 track in first cost to say nothing of the future." 
 
 "How ? I m always open to conviction." 
 
 "By leaving the S. L. & W. survey at Horse Creek, 
 following up to the low divide at Emory s Mine, and 
 crossing to enter Copah from the southeast instead of 
 
EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 from the northeast. I came out that way from Copah 
 five days ago. It s perfectly feasible ; straight-away, easy 
 earth work for the greater part, and the only objection 
 is that it adds about twelve running miles to the length 
 of the extension. It s for you to say whether or not the 
 added distance will be warranted by the lessened cost 
 and the assurance of safety in operating. If we cut 
 through that lower canyon cliff it will be only a question 
 of time until we bury somebody, no matter how closely 
 it is watched." 
 
 Ford took time to consider the proposal. There were 
 objections, and he named one of them. 
 
 "The MacMorroghs have based their bid on the pres 
 ent survey : they will not want to let that piece of rock 
 work drop out of sight." 
 
 "They ll have to, if you say so. And you can afford to 
 be pretty liberal with them on the substituted twelve 
 miles." 
 
 "I ll have to think about it over night," was Ford s 
 final answer. "Arrange to give me an hour to-morrow 
 morning and we ll go over the maps and your notes to 
 gether." 
 
 Frisbie slept soundly on the gained inch, hoping to 
 make it the coveted ell in the morning. He knew the 
 chief objection, which was that Ford, too, was a "short- 
 line" engineer ; a man who would lay down his railroad 
 as the Czar of Russia did the St. Petersburg-Moscow 
 
THE DRAW-BAK PULL . 173 
 
 line by placing a ruler on the map and drawing a 
 straight mark beside it between the two cities if that 
 were an American possibility. But he knew, too, that 
 the safety clause would weigh heavily with Ford, and 
 there was no minimizing the danger to future traffic if 
 the canyon route should be retained. 
 
 It turned out finally as the first assistant had hoped 
 and believed it would. Ford spent a thoughtful hour at 
 his office in the Guaranty Building before Frisbie came 
 down the little man being trail-weary enough to sleep 
 late in the comfortable room at the Brown Palace. The 
 slight change of route was hardly a matter to be carried 
 up to the executive committee, and Ford s decision 
 turned upon quite another pivot the addition of twelve 
 miles of distance. As against this, safety and economy 
 won the day; and when Frisbie came in the talk was 
 merely of ways and means. 
 
 "Fix up the change with the MacMorroghs the best 
 way you can," was Ford s concluding instruction to his 
 lieutenant. "They will kick, of course; merely to be 
 kicking at anything I suggest. But you can bring them 
 to terms, I guess." 
 
 "By my lonesome?" said Frisbie. "Aren t you going 
 over to see the new route with your own eyes ?" 
 
 "No. I m perfectly willing to trust your judgment, 
 Dick. Besides, I ve got other fish to fry. I m going east 
 to-night to have one more tussle with the steel mills. We 
 
174: EMPIEE BUILDEKS 
 
 must have quicker deliveries and more of them. When 
 I get back, we ll organize the track-layers and begin to 
 make us a railroad." 
 
 "Good/ said Frisbie, gathering up his maps and 
 sketches of the detour country; and so, in the wording 
 of a brief sentence or two it came to pass that Ford de 
 livered himself bound and unarmed into the hands of 
 his enemies. 
 
 A little light was thrown upon this dark passage that 
 night in the office of the general manager, after Ford s 
 train had gone eastward, and Frisbie was on his way 
 back to the MacMorrogh headquarters on the lower 
 Pannikin. North was waiting when Eckstein came in, 
 flushed as from a rapid walk. 
 
 "It s all settled?" asked the general manager, with a 
 slow lift of the eyebrow to betray his anxiety. 
 
 "To the queen s taste, I should say," was the secre 
 tary s not too deferential reply. "Ford s out of the way, 
 to be gone ten days or a fortnight, and Frisbie has gone 
 back to dicker with MacMorrogh, and to survey the new 
 route up Horse Creek. Ford doesn t know; I doubt if 
 he will ever know until we spring the trap on him. The 
 one thing I was most afraid of was that he would insist 
 upon going over the new line himself. Then, of course, 
 he would have found out he couldn t help finding out." 
 
 The general manager squared his huge shoulders 
 against the back of the chair. 
 
THE DRAW-BAK PULL 175 
 
 "You think he would call it off if he knew?" he 
 queried. "You give him credit for too much virtue, Eck 
 stein. But I think we have him now. By the time he 
 returns it will be too late for him to hedge. MacMorrogh 
 will see to that/ 
 
 Eckstein nodded. "I made a point of that with 
 Brian/ he said. "The minute the word is given he is to 
 throw a little army of graders upon the new roundabout. 
 But Ford won t find out. He ll be too busy on this end 
 of the line with the track-layers. I m a little nervous 
 about Merriam, though." 
 
 "He s the man who talked Frisbie into championing 
 the new route ?" 
 
 "Yes. He did it pretty skilfully : made Frisbie think 
 he was finding it out himself, and never let the little 
 man out of his sight while they were in Copah. But I 
 am afraid Merriam himself knows too much." 
 
 "Get him out of the country before Ford gets back/ 
 was the crisp order. "If he isn t here when the gun goes 
 off, he can t tell anybody how it was loaded." 
 
 "An appointment " Eckstein began. 
 
 "That is what I mean/ said the general manager, 
 turning back to his desk. "We need a traffic agency up 
 in the Oregon country. See Merriam to-night. Find 
 out if he d like to have the general agency at, say, twen 
 ty-five hundred a year; and if he agrees, get out the 
 circular appointing him." 
 
176 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 "He ll agree, fast enough/ laughed the secretary. 
 "But I ll nail him to-night." 
 
 Ford spent rather more than two weeks in his round 
 up of the eastern steel mills, and there was a terrific ac 
 cumulation of correspondence awaiting him when he 
 reached Denver. At the top of the pile was an official 
 circular appointing one George Z. Merriam, a man whom 
 Ford remembered, or seemed vaguely to remember, as 
 one of the MacMorrogh bookkeepers, general agent of 
 the P. S-W., with headquarters at Portland, Oregon. 
 And at the bottom of the accumulation was a second 
 official printing, bearing the approval of the president, 
 this; and Ford s eyes gloomed angrily when he read it. 
 
 PACIFIC SOUTHWESTERN RAILWAY CO. 
 Office of the President. 
 
 NEW YOBK, August 24. 
 To All Officials and Employees: 
 
 At a called meeting of the stock-holders of this company, 
 held in New York, August 23, Mr. John C. North was elected 
 First Vice-President and General Manager of all lines of 
 this company, operative and under construction. All officers 
 and employees will govern themselves accordingly. 
 
 By Order of the Executive Committee. 
 Approved : 
 SIDNEY J. COLBBITH, President. 
 
xv; 
 
 AN UNWILLING HOST 
 
 Standing in the Pacific portal of Plug Pass, on the 
 old snow-crust which, even in midsummer, never entirely 
 disappears at altitude ten thousand feet, they could look 
 away westward over a billowing sea of mountain and 
 mesa and valley breaking in far-distant, crystalline 
 space against the mighty rampart of the Wasatch range, 
 two hundred and other miles nearer the sunset. 
 
 It was an outlook both inspiring and chastening ; with 
 the scenic grandeurs to give the exalted uplift, and the 
 still, gray-green face of the vast mountainous desert to 
 shrink the beholder to microscopic littleness in the 
 face of its stupendous heights and depths, its im 
 measurable bulks and interspaces. Miss Alicia said 
 something like this to Ford, in broken exclamations, 
 when she had taken her first quailing eye-plunge from 
 the lofty view-point. 
 
 "Yes ; quite so," Ford acquiesced, in the unresponsive 
 tone of one who says what he must, rather than what he 
 would like to say. "It is all the things you have been 
 
 177 
 
178 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 saying, and more when one has the time and the mind 
 to be enthusiastic about it." 
 
 Miss Adair stood up very straight, and her chin was 
 a protest in Praxitelean harmonies. She knew very well 
 how reluctantly her companion was doing the honors of 
 the mountain vastnesses; how full of wrath he was be 
 cause President Colbrith had seen fit to precipitate the 
 Nadia and a private-car party into the midst of the 
 strenuous building battle on the western extension. But 
 she argued that this was no reason why he should be 
 crustily impossible with her. Wherefore she said, merely 
 to see him boil over : 
 
 "I should think you would come up here often for 
 this glorious view, Mr. Ford. You do, don t you?" 
 
 "Come up here for the view? Oh, yes; I presume I 
 have climbed up here a hundred times, first and last, 
 and always for the sake of the view. I began it the first 
 winter I spent in Saint s Rest, when the snow-shoeing 
 was at its best. Really to appreciate the scenery, you 
 should take three hours for the approach from the basin 
 down yonder, dragging a pair of Canadian raquettes by 
 the toe-straps." 
 
 The young woman laughed inwardly at the broad 
 sword slash of his sarcasm. It was so like the man ; big 
 and vigorous and energetic, and quite without regard 
 for consequences or for the insignificance of the thing 
 to be obliterated. But she would not spare him. 
 
AN UNWILLING HOST 179 
 
 "How enthusiastic you are!" she commented. "I 
 don t believe I should be equal to f a hundred times, first 
 and last/ or to the snow-shoes. But I can admire such 
 zeal in other people immensely." 
 
 "Do you really think so small of a man s work in the 
 world, Miss Adair ?" he demanded, not very coherently. 
 "I m not saying that the scenery doesn t move me. It 
 does; and the first time I stood here on this summit, 
 I presume I felt just as you do now. But my comings 
 and goings have been chiefly concerned with this" 
 kicking the rail of the new track which threaded the 
 shallow valley of the pass. "I am trying to build a rail 
 road ; to build it quickly, and as well as I can. When I 
 get it finished, I may have time to admire the scenery." 
 
 It was a little appeal for sympathy, apparent enough 
 in spite of its indirectness; but Miss Adair was still 
 mindful of Ford s too evident willingness to leave her 
 behind at the deserted grading-camp half-way down to 
 Saint s Rest where the Nadia was temporarily side 
 tracked. 
 
 "Another ideal gone/ she lamented, in mock despair. 
 "All those trampings and toilings up this magnificent 
 mountain merely to prepare for the laying of some logs 
 of wood in a row, with two strands of iron to fasten 
 them together !" 
 
 He smiled at her definition of his railroad, and the 
 keen edge of his annoyance was a little blunted. He had 
 
180 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 been telling himself that she might be twenty-four, or 
 possibly twenty-five ; but evidently she was only a child, 
 with a child s appreciation of a very considerable indus 
 trial triumph. Old engineers, one of them an assistant 
 on his own staff, had shaken their heads and declared 
 that the running of a standard gauge railroad over Plug 
 Pass was a sheer impossibility. Yet he had done it. 
 
 "I suspect I owe you an apology/ he said, yielding a 
 little to the love which was fighting with discouragement 
 and righteous anger for the first place in his heart. "I m 
 afraid I have been taking you too seriously, all along." 
 
 Her laugh was a delicious little ripple of exultation. 
 She had succeeded in avenging herself. 
 
 "I can forgive you now," she said, and the blue eyes 
 were dancing. "But you must admit that you were the 
 aggressor. I have never been made so pointedly un 
 welcome in all my life. I believe you were going to re 
 fuse to let me walk up here with you if Uncle Sidney 
 had not commanded you to." 
 
 This time his smile was a grin, but it was not ill- 
 natured. 
 
 "I should, indeed," he confessed quite frankly. "To 
 be brutally candid, I had a decided attack of the un- 
 welcomes when I received Mr. Colbrith s wire announc 
 ing his intention of bringing his picnic party out here 
 into the midst of things. We have little time, and none 
 of the civilized conveniences, for entertaining company." 
 
AN UNWILLING HOST 181 
 
 "I think we all understand that/ she made haste to 
 say. "Aunt Hetty tried to dissuade Uncle Sidney, but 
 he was bent on showing us how modern railroad build 
 ing is rushed at the front is that the right word? 
 and so here we are." 
 
 A small frown gathered between Ford s eyes. He was 
 far enough from suspecting that this was the outwork 
 ing of Kenneth s "notion"; that Mr. Colbrith s annual 
 inspection tour over the Pacific Southwestern had been 
 extended to cover the new line at Kenneth s suggestion 
 a suggestion arising out of purely reformatory mo 
 tives. Nor would it have helped matters much if he had 
 known Kenneth s genuine distress when it transpired 
 that the suggestion bade fair to result in precipitating 
 a private car-load of pleasurers into the pandemonium 
 of the grading-camps. 
 
 But the pleasurers were as yet only upon the borders 
 of the pandemonium, and Ford was torturing his in 
 genuity to devise some argument strong enough to turn 
 back the threatened invasion. There were reasons 
 enough why a party with women among its members 
 should not be projected into the grading and track- 
 laying field. It was no place for women, Ford was tell 
 ing himself wrathf ully ; especially for the women of the 
 president s own household. 
 
 In the little interval of silence Miss Adair was focus 
 ing her field-glass and trying to trace the line of the 
 
182 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 descending grade into the headwater valley of the Pan 
 nikin. Ford did not mean to be ungracious to her 
 what lover ever means to be curt to the one woman in 
 all the world? But it is not easy to be angry in nine 
 parts and loving-kind in the tenth anger being one of 
 the inclusive emotions. Nevertheless, he made the ef 
 fort, for her sake. However inconsiderate Mr. Colbrith 
 was, she was blameless. 
 
 "Let me show you/ 7 he said, taking the field-glass and 
 adjusting it for her. "Now hold it steadily and pick up 
 the line in the great loop. . . . Have you found it? 
 . . . Now follow it slowly until you come to the point 
 where it turns into the valley, and you can trace it for 
 miles by the cuts and fills." 
 
 She followed his directions until the line of the ex 
 tension became a vanishing thread in the distance, and 
 then was content to let the glass sweep the vastnesses 
 beyond. When she spoke it was of the topographic im 
 mensities. 
 
 "I heard you telling brother at the dinner-table in 
 Chicago that you were able to see more in this wilder 
 ness than you have ever been able to make any one else 
 see. Can I see it with the glass ?" 
 
 "Hardly," he smiled. "I was trying to tell your 
 brother of the magnificent possibilities of the country 
 lying between this and that farthest mountain range; 
 the country we are going to open up. It was a gospel 
 
AN UNWILLING HOST 183 
 
 I had been trying to preach to the directors, but none 
 of them believed not even your uncle." 
 
 "I see nothing but vastness and cold gray grandeurs," 
 she said, adding: "and the very bigness of it makes me 
 feel like a mere atom, or a molecule whichever is the 
 smaller." 
 
 "Yet it is a new empire in the rough," he rejoined, 
 with a touch of the old enthusiasm, "waiting only for 
 the coming of this" putting his foot again upon the 
 steel of the new railroad line. "What you are looking 
 at has been called a part of the Great American Desert 
 the most forbidding part, in the stories of the early 
 explorers. Notwithstanding, there will come a time 
 when you can focus your glass here on this mountain 
 and look out over what the promoters will then be ad 
 vertising as a peopled paradise/ and these logs of wood 
 in a row, with two strands of iron to fasten them to 
 gether will bring it to pass." 
 
 There was a flash of the enthusiast s fire in the cool 
 gray eyes to go with the words, and Miss Adair won 
 dered at it. He had stood for her as an embodiment of 
 things practical and prosaic ; as one too keenly watchful 
 and alert on the purely industrial side to be in any sense 
 a dreamer of dreams. Some part of her thought slipped 
 into speech. 
 
 "No, I am not an enthusiast," he denied, in reply to 
 her charge. "At bottom, I m only an engineer, with an 
 
184 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 ambition to build railroads. But I should have learned 
 no more than half of my trade if I couldn t tell where 
 it would be profitable to build them." 
 
 "Never mind : you seem to have convinced Uncle Sid 
 ney and the directors finally," she commented. 
 
 "No; your uncle and the directors are not empire 
 builders meaning to be/ he objected. "They are 
 after the present visible dollar in a western outlet for 
 the Pacific Southwestern. If we reach Green Butte be 
 fore our competitors can broaden their narrow gauge to 
 that point, we shall have a practicable line from Chi 
 cago to the Pacific coast." 
 
 "I understand," she said. "But yours is the higher 
 ideal the true American ideal." .j^StT" fr 
 
 "It s business," he asserted. 
 
 "Well, isn t business the very heart and soul of the \j 
 American ideal?" she laughed. 
 
 This time he laughed with her, forgetting his trou 
 bles for the moment. 
 
 "I guess it is, in the last analysis," he said. And 
 then: "I m sorry to keep you waiting so long, if you 
 are anxious to get back to the Nadia. But I warned you 
 beforehand. I must keep my appointment with Frisbie. 
 Do you see anything of him?" This because she was 
 again sweeping the western wilderness with the field- 
 
 "What am I to look for?" 
 
AN UNWILLING HOST 185 
 
 "The smoke of an engine." 
 
 She focused the glass on the gorge at the foot of the 
 pass. "I see it !" she cried. "A little black beetle of a 
 thing just barely crawling. Now it is turning into the 
 first curve of the great loop." 
 
 "Then we shan t have very much longer to wait. Do 
 you find the ten-thousand-foot breeze chilly? Turn up 
 the collar of your coat and we ll walk a bit." 
 
 It was his first appreciable concern for her comfort., 
 and she gave him full credit. Coquetry was no part of 
 Miss Alicia s equipment, but no woman likes to be 
 utterly neglected on the care-taking side, or to be trans 
 formed ruthlessly into a man-companion whose well- 
 being may be brusquely ignored. And this young athlete 
 in brown duck shooting-coat and service leggings, who 
 was patiently doing a sentry-go beside her up and down 
 the newly-laid track at the summit of Plug Pass, was 
 quite a different person from the abashed apologist who 
 had paid for her dinner in the dining-car on the night 
 of purse-snatchings. 
 
XVI 
 
 THE TRUTHFUL ALTITUDES 
 
 A low, tremulous shudder was beginning to lift it 
 self, like the distant growling of thunder, upon the 
 tinnient air of the high summit. A moment later a 
 heavy construction engine shot around the final curve 
 in the westward climb, with Michael Gallagher hanging 
 out of the cab window on the engineer s side. 
 
 The two at the summit faced about to watch the ap 
 proach. The big engine came lumbering and lurching 
 dangerously over the unsurfaced track in a fierce spurt 
 for the mountain-top, its stack vomiting fire, its cylin 
 der-cocks hissing shrilly, and its exhaust ripping the 
 spheral silences like the barking detonations of a ma 
 chine-gun. 
 
 Ford glanced aside at his companion; her expressive 
 face was a study in delighted animation and he decided 
 that he had again misjudged the president s niece. She 
 was beating time softly with her gloved hands and sing 
 ing the song of the locomotive : 
 
 " With a michnai ghignai shtingal! Yah! Yah! Yah! 
 Einzweidrei Mutter! Yah! Yah! Yah! 
 She climb upon der shteeple, 
 Und she frighten all der people, 
 Singin michnai ghignai shtingal! Yah! Yah! " 
 186 
 
THE TRUTHFUL ALTITUDES 187 
 
 she quoted; and Ford s heart went out to her in new 
 and comradely outreachings. 
 
 "You read Naught-naught-seven?" he said: "you are 
 one woman in a thousand." 
 
 "Herd!" she countered. "Small favors thankfully re 
 ceived. Brother thinks there is only one person writing, 
 nowadays, and the name of that person is Kipling. I 
 get a little of it by mere attrition." 
 
 The brakes of the big engine were still gripping the 
 wheels when a small man with wicked mustaches and 
 goatee dropped from the gangway. His khaki suit was 
 weather-faded to a dirty green, and he was grimy and 
 perspiring and altogether unpresentable; but he pulled 
 himself together and tried to look pleasant when he saw 
 that his chief had a companion, and that the companion 
 was a lady. 
 
 "I m sorry if I have kept you waiting/ he began. 
 "Gallagher was shifting steel for the track-layers when 
 your wire found me, and the engine couldn t be spared," 
 this, of course, to Ford. Then, with an apologetic side 
 glance for the lady : "Eiley s in hot water again up to 
 his chin." 
 
 "What s the matter now ?" gritted Ford ; and Alicia 
 marked the instant change to masterful command. 
 
 "Same old score. The Italians are kicking again at 
 the MacMorrogh Brothers commissary because they 
 have to pay two prices and get chuck that a self-respect- 
 
188 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 ing dog wouldn t eat; and, besides, they say they are 
 quarrying rock which is true and getting paid by 
 the MacMorroghs for moving earth. They struck at 
 noon to-day." 
 
 The chief frowned gloomily, and the president s niece 
 felt intuitively that her presence was a bar to free 
 speech. 
 
 "It s straight enough about the rotten commissary and 
 the graft on the pay-rolls," said Eord wrathfully. "Is 
 the trouble likely to spread to the camps farther down ?" 
 
 "I hope not; I don t think it will without whisky 
 to help it along," said Frisbie, with another apologetic 
 side glance for Miss Adair. 
 
 "Yes; but the whisky isn t lacking there s Pete 
 Garcia and his stock of battle, murder and sudden death 
 at Paint Rock, a short half-mile from Riley s," Ford 
 broke in. 
 
 Frisbie s smile, helped out by the grime and the coal 
 dust, was triumphantly demoniacal. 
 
 "Not now there isn t," he amended; adding: "Any 
 fire-water at Paint Rock, I mean. When Riley told me 
 what was doing, I made a bee line for Garcia s wickiup 
 and notified him officially that he d have to go out of 
 business for the present." 
 
 "Oh, you did?" said Ford. "Of course he was quite 
 willing to oblige you ? How much time did he give you 
 to get out of pistol range ?" 
 
Mies Adair, you must let me introduce mv friend, Mr. Richard Frisbie 
 
 -- Page 18 
 
THE TKUTHFUL ALTITUDES 189 
 
 Frisbie actually blushed in deference to the lady. 
 
 "Why er it was the other way round. He double- 
 quicked a little side-trip down the gulch while I 
 knocked in the heads of his whisky barrels and wrecked 
 his bar with a striking hammer I had brought along." 
 
 For the first time in the interview the chief s frown 
 melted and he laughed approvingly. 
 
 "Miss Adair, you must let me introduce my friend 
 and first assistant, Mr. Kichard Frisbie. He is vastly 
 more picturesque than anything else we have to show 
 you at this end of the Pacific Southwestern. Dick 
 Miss Alicia Adair, President Colbrith s niece." 
 
 Frisbie took off his hat, and Miss Alicia gave him her 
 most gracious smile. 
 
 "Please go on," she said. "I m immensely interested. 
 What became of Mr. Garcia afterward ?" 
 
 "I don t know that," said Frisbie ingenuously. "Only, 
 I guess I shall find out when I go back. He is likely to 
 be a little irritated, I m afraid. But there are compen 
 sations, even in Pete : like most Mexicans, he can neither 
 tell the truth nor shoot straight." Then again to Ford : 
 "What is to be done about the Kiley mix-up ?" 
 
 "Oh, the same old thing. Go down and tell the Ital 
 ians that the company will stand between them and the 
 MacMorroghs, and they shall have justice provided al 
 ways that every man of them is back on the job again 
 to-morrow morning. Who is Eiley s interpreter now ?" 
 
190 EMPIEE BUILDERS; 
 
 "Lanciotto." 
 
 "Well, look out for him : he is getting a side-cut from 
 the MacMorroghs and is likely to translate you crooked, 
 if it suits his purposes. Check him by having our man 
 Luigi present when he does the talking act. Any word 
 from Major Benson?" 
 
 "He was at the tie-camp on Ute Creek, yesterday. 
 Jack Benson and Brissac are lining the grade for the 
 steel on M Grain s section, and the bridge men are well 
 up to the last crossing of Horse Creek." 
 
 "That s encouraging. How about the grade work on 
 the detour your new line into Copah ?" 
 
 It was the assistant s turn to frown, but the brow- 
 wrinkling was of puzzlement. 
 
 "There s something a bit curious about that you 
 don t mind our talking shop like a pair of floor-walkers, 
 do you, Miss Adair? You know we expected the Mac 
 Morroghs would kick on the change of route and the 
 loss of the big rock-cut in the canyon. There wasn t a 
 word of protest. If I hadn t known better, I should have 
 said that old Brian MacMorrogh knew all about it in 
 advance. All he said was : Sure, tis your railroad, and 
 we ll be buildin it annywheres you say, Misther Fris- 
 bie. And the very next day he had a little army of men 
 on that detour, throwing dirt to beat the band. It ll be 
 ready for the steel by the time we can get to it with the 
 track-layers." 
 
THE TRUTHFUL ALTITUDES 191 
 
 Ford nodded approvingly. "Speed is what we are 
 paying for, and we re thankful to get it whenever, and 
 wherever, we can. Is the bridge timber coming down 
 all right now ?" 
 
 "Yes; and we are getting plenty of ties since the 
 major put on his war-paint and went after the Mac- 
 Morrogh subs in the tie-camps. It is the rock work that 
 is holding us back." 
 
 Ford nodded again. Then he tried a little shot in the 
 dark. 
 
 "The president s car is just below at the basin 
 switch. He wants to have it taken to the front, and I 
 have been trying to dissuade him. Is the track safe for 
 it?" 
 
 Frisbie guessed what kind of answer was desired, and 
 stretched the truth a little. 
 
 "I should say not. It s something fierce, even for the 
 construction trains." 
 
 Miss Alicia s smile was seraphic. 
 
 "You two gentlemen needn t tell fibs for the possible 
 effect on me," she said, with charming frankness. 
 "Nothing I could say would carry any weight with Uncle 
 Sidney." 
 
 "Stung!" said Frisbie, half to himself; and the two 
 men laughed shamefacedly. 
 
 "Will it disarrange things so very much if the Nadia 
 is taken to the <f ront ?" asked Miss Adair. 
 
192 EMPIKE BUILDERS 
 
 "Well, rather," said Frisbie bluntly. Then he tried 
 to excuse himself and made a mess of it. 
 
 "Just why?" she persisted. "Forget the conventions, 
 Mr. Frisbie, and talk to me as you have been talking to 
 Mr. Ford. Is there any good reason, apart from the in 
 convenience, why our little pleasure party shouldn t see 
 your new railroad ? I am appealing to you because Mr. 
 Ford won t tell me the truth." 
 
 Ford stood aloof and let Frisbie worry with it alone. 
 
 "There are a dozen reasons, Miss Adair; the track 
 is fearfully rough really, you know, it isn t safe for a 
 big car like the Nadia. There are only a few sidings, 
 and what there are, are filled up with construction stuff 
 and camp cars, and " 
 
 She was shaking her head and laughing at his striv 
 ings. 
 
 "Never mind," she said; "you can t tell the truth, 
 either, with Mr. Ford looking on. But I shall find it 
 out." 
 
 Frisbie looked horrified. 
 
 "You you certainly will, Miss Adair; if Mr. Col- 
 brith insists upon having his car dragged over the 
 range." Then, being quite willing to make his escape, 
 he turned to his chief. "Is there anything else ? If not, 
 I ll be getting back to the Riley mix-up before the trou 
 ble has time to grow any bigger." 
 
 Ford shook his head, and Frisbie lifted his hat to 
 
THE TKUTHFUL ALTITUDES 193 
 
 Miss Adair and turned to climb to his engine cab. But 
 at the moment of brake-releasings Ford halted him. 
 
 "One minute," he said; and turning to his charge: 
 "I ll borrow Dick s engine and take you down to the 
 Nadia s siding, if you d rather ride than walk." 
 
 "Oh, will you? That would be fine! But oughtn t 
 Mr. Frisbie to get back to his work ?" 
 
 "Y-yes," Ford admitted. "Time is rather important, 
 just now." 
 
 "Then we ll walk," she said with great decision. 
 
 "That s all, Dick," Ford called. "Keep an eye open 
 for Garcia. He might make a fluke and shoot straight, 
 for once in a way." 
 
 They stood in silence on the wind-swept summit until 
 the curving down-rush of the western grade had swal 
 lowed the retreating engine. Miss Alicia was the first 
 to speak when the iron clamor was distance-drowned. 
 
 "I like your Mr. Frisbie," she said reflectively. "Isn t 
 he the kind of man who would have taken the message 
 to the other Garcia?" 
 
 "He is the kind of man who would stop a bullet for 
 his friend, and think nothing of it if the bullet should 
 happen to leave him anything to think with," he re 
 turned warmly. And then he added, half absently: 
 "He saved my life four years ago last summer." 
 
 There was genuine human interest in her voice when 
 she said gently : 
 
194 EMPIEE BUILDERS 
 
 "Would you mind telling me about it?" 
 
 "It was up in the Minnesota pineries, where we were 
 building a branch railroad through the corner of an 
 Indian reservation. A half-breed pot-hunter for the 
 game companies had a right-of-way quarrel with the 
 railroad people, and he pitched upon me as the proper 
 person to kill. It was a knife rush in the moonlight; 
 and Dick might have shot him, only he was too tender 
 hearted. So he got between us." 
 
 "Well?" she prompted, when it became evident that 
 Ford thought he had finished. 
 
 "That was all; except that it was touch and go with 
 poor Dick for the next six weeks, with no surgeon 
 worthy of the name nearer than St. Paul." 
 
 Miss Alicia was more deeply impressed by the little 
 story than she cared to have her companion suspect. Her 
 world was a world of the commonplace conventions, with 
 New York as its starting point and homing place; and 
 she thought she knew something of humankind. But it 
 came to her suddenly that the men she knew best were 
 not at all like these two. 
 
 "Shall we go back now?" she asked; and they were 
 half-way down to the siding and the private car before 
 she spoke again. It took some little time to compass 
 sufficient humility to make amends, and even then the 
 admission came to no more than four words. 
 
 "I m sorry, Mr. Ford." 
 
THE TRUTHFUL ALTITUDES 195 
 
 "What for ?" he asked, knowing only that he was com 
 ing to love her more blindly with every added minute of 
 their companionship. 
 
 "For for trying to be hateful." It was a humbler 
 thing than any she had ever said to a man, but the raw 
 sincerity of time and place and association was begin 
 ning to get into her blood. 
 
 "If it comes to that, there were two of us," he re 
 joined, matching her frankness. "And, as you remarked 
 a while back, I was certainly the aggressor. Shall we 
 call it a truce for the present ?" 
 
 "If you will be generous enough." 
 
 "Oh, I am generosity itself, under ordinary condi 
 tions ; but just now Fll admit that I am fearfully and 
 wonderfully inhospitable. I can t help wishing most 
 fervently that something had happened to prevent your 
 uncle s coming." 
 
 "Is it uncle who is in the way? or the pleasure 
 party?" 
 
 "Both." 
 
 "We are negligible," she said, meaning the pleasurers. 
 
 "No, you are not ; and neither is your Uncle Sidney." 
 
 "Is he still formidable to you?" she laughed. 
 
 "He is, indeed. But, worse than that, he is likely to 
 prove a very considerable disturbing element if I can t 
 keep him from plunging in upon us." 
 
 She let half of the remaining distance to the end of 
 
196 EMPIRE BUILDEES 
 
 the steep grade go underfoot before she said: "I like 
 to help people, sometimes; but I don t like to do it in 
 the dark." 
 
 He would have explained instantly to a man for the 
 sake of gaining an ally. But he could not bring himself 
 to the point of telling her the story of graft and mis 
 rule in which the MacMorroghs were the principals, and 
 North and her uncle, by implication the backers. 
 
 So he said : "It is rather a long story, and you would 
 scarcely understand it. We have been having constant 
 trouble with the MacMorroghs, the contractors, and 
 there is a bad state of affairs in the grading camps. It 
 has come to a point where I shall have to fight the Mac 
 Morroghs to some sort of a finish, and well, to put it 
 very baldly, I don t want to have to fight the MacMor 
 roghs and the president in the same round." 
 
 "Why should Uncle Sidney take the part of these 
 men, if they are bad men, Mr. Ford ?" 
 
 "Because he has always distrusted my judgment, and 
 because he is loyal to Mr. North, whom he has made my 
 superior. Mr. North tells him that I am to blame." 
 
 "But it must be a very dreadful condition of things, 
 if what Mr. Frisbie said is all true." 
 
 "Frisbie spoke of only one little incident. Trouble 
 like this we re having to-day is constantly arising. No 
 money-making graft is too petty or too immoral for the 
 MacMorroghs to connive at. They rob and starve their 
 
THE TRUTHFUL ALTITUDES 197 
 
 laborers, and cheat the company with bad work. Fve 
 got to have a free hand in dealing with them, or " 
 
 He stopped abruptly, realizing that he was talking to 
 her as he might have talked to a specialist in his own 
 profession. Hence he was not disappointed when she 
 said: 
 
 "You go too fast for me. But I think I understand 
 now why our coming is inopportune. And it s comfort 
 ing to know that the reason is a business reason." 
 
 He put shame to the wall and blurted out suddenly: 
 "It is only one of the reasons, Miss Adair. The the 
 camps are no fit place for a party with women. You 
 you ll have to be blind and deaf if your uncle persists 
 in taking you with him." 
 
 It was said, and he was glad of it, though he was wip 
 ing the perspiration from his face when the thing was 
 done. She was silent until they were standing at the 
 steps of the side-tracked private car. 
 
 "Thank you," she said simply. "Of course, I ll do 
 what I can to keep Uncle Sidney from going and tak 
 ing us. What shall you say to him ?" 
 
 "I am going to tell him that our track isn t safe for 
 the Nadia which is true enough." 
 
 "Very well. I ll tell Aunt Hetty and Mrs. Van Bruce 
 which may be more to the point. But don t be en 
 couraged by that. I have reason to believe that Uncle 
 Sidney will have his way in spite of any or all of us." 
 
IXVII 
 
 NIGHT OF ALARMS 
 
 Ford put Miss Alicia up the steps of the Nadia and 
 followed her into the vestibule, meaning to fight it out 
 with Mr. Colbrith on the spot, and hoping he might 
 have a private audience with the president for the doing 
 of it. 
 
 The hope was not denied. Penfield, who was acting 
 as private secretary to Mr. Colbrith, en route, appeared 
 in the passageway to say that Ford was wanted in the 
 president s state-room. 
 
 "Well, Mr. Ford, what are we waiting for?" was the 
 querulous demand which served as Mr. Colbrith s greet 
 ing when Ford presented himself at the door of the pri 
 vate compartment. 
 
 Ford s reply lacked the deferential note. He had 
 reached a point at which his job was not worth as much 
 as it had been. 
 
 "I have just brought Miss Adair back from the top 
 of the pass, where we met Mr. Frisbie, my chief of con- 
 
 198 
 
A NIGHT OF ALARMS 199 
 
 struction. I wished to ask him if he thought the track 
 was safe for your car, and he says, most emphatically, 
 that it is not. I can not take the responsibility of send 
 ing the Nadia to the end-of-track." 
 
 The president s thin face was working irritably. "I 
 haven t asked you to assume any responsibility, Mr. 
 Ford. If the track is safe for your material trains, it is 
 safe enough for my car. But I didn t send for you to 
 argue the point. I desire to have the Nadia taken to the 
 front. Be good enough to give the necessary orders." 
 
 Ford tried again. In addition to the precarious track 
 there were few or no unoccupied sidings, especially near 
 the front. Moreover, there was no telegraph service 
 which might suffice for the safe despatching of the spe 
 cial train. There might be entire sections over which 
 the Nadia would have to be flagged by a man on foot, 
 and 
 
 The president cut him off with almost childish im 
 patience. 
 
 "I don t know what your object is in putting so many 
 stumbling-blocks in the way, Mr. Ford/ 3 he rasped. "A 
 suspicious person might say that you have been doing 
 something which you do not wish to have found out." 
 
 Ford was a fair-skinned man, and the blood burned 
 hotly in his face. But, as once before under the presi 
 dent s nagging, he found his self-control rising with the 
 provocation. 
 
20Q EMPIRE BUILDEES 
 
 "My work is open to inspection or investigation, now 
 or at any time, and I think we need not discuss that 
 point," he said, when he could force himself to say it 
 calmly. "We were speaking of the advisability of tak 
 ing the Nadia and a pleasure party over a piece of raw 
 construction line, and into an environment which, to 
 put it mildly, could hardly be congenial to to the ladies 
 of the party. You know, or ought to know, the Mac- 
 Morroghs: their camps are not exactly models of pro 
 priety, Mr. Colbrith." 
 
 This was merely waving a red flag at an already ex 
 asperated bull. The president got upon his feet, and his 
 shrill falsetto cut the air like a knife. 
 
 "Mr. Ford, when I wish to be told what is or is not 
 proper for me to do, I ll ask you for an opinion, sir. 
 But this is quite beside the mark. Will you order this 
 car out, or shall I ?" 
 
 Ford looked at his watch imperturbably. Now that 
 the president was thoroughly angry, he could afford to 
 be cool. 
 
 "It is now five o clock; and our end-of-track is fully 
 one hundred and ten miles beyond the summit of the 
 pass. Do I understand that you wish to take the added 
 risk of a night run, Mr. Colbrith? If so, I ll give the 
 order and we ll pull out." 
 
 "I desire to go now!" was the irascible reply. "Is 
 that sufficiently explicit ?" 
 
A NIGHT OF ALARMS - 201 
 
 "It is," said Ford ; and he left the presence to go for 
 ward to the cab of the waiting engine. 
 
 "You are to take the car over the mountain, Hector," 
 he said briefly, to the beetle-browed giant in blue denim, 
 when he had climbed to the foot-plate. Til pilot for 
 you." 
 
 "How far ?" inquired the engineer. 
 
 "Something like a hundred and ten miles." 
 
 "Holy smoke! over a construction track in the 
 night?" 
 
 "It s the president s order none of mine. Let s get 
 a move." 
 
 The big man got down from his box and made room 
 for Ford. "I ll be pilin em in the ditch somewhere, as 
 sure as my name s Bill Hector," he said. "But we ll go, 
 all the same, if he says so. I ve pulled Mr. Colbrith 
 before. Down with you. Jimmy Shovel, and set the 
 switch for us." 
 
 The fireman swung off and stood by the switch, and 
 Hector backed his one-car train from the siding. When 
 he had picked up the fireman and was ready to assault 
 the mountain, Ford thrust a query in between. 
 
 "Hold on a minute ; how is the water ?" he asked. 
 
 Jimmy Shovel climbed over the coal to see, and re 
 ported less than half a tankful. 
 
 "That settles it," said the chief to Hector. "You ll 
 have to back down to Saint s Rest and fill up. You ll 
 
202 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 get no more this side of Pannikin Upper Canyon. We 
 haven t had time to build tanks yet." 
 
 Hector put his valve-motion in the reverse gear and 
 began to drop the train down the grade on the air. A 
 dozen wheel-turns brought a shrill shriek from the air- 
 signal whistle. Mr. Colbrith evidently wished to know 
 why his train was going in the wrong direction. Hector 
 applied the brakes and stopped in obedience to the 
 signal. 
 
 "Do we send back ?" he asked. 
 
 "No/ said Ford sourly. "Let him send forward." 
 
 Penfield was the bearer of the president s question. 
 Would it be necessary to discharge somebody in order to 
 have his commands obeyed? 
 
 Ford answered the petulant demand as one bears with 
 a spoiled child. They were returning to Sainf s Rest for 
 water. Let the president be assured that his orders 
 would be obeyed in due course. 
 
 "He s a piker, the old man is," said the big engineer, 
 once more giving the 1012 the needful inch of release 
 to send it grinding down the hill. "I d ruther pull 
 freight thirty-six hours on end than run his car for a 
 hundred miles." 
 
 There was trouble getting at the water-tank in the 
 Saint s Rest yard. Leckhard, acting as division engi 
 neer, telegraph superintendent, material forwarder and 
 yardmaster, found it difficult at times to bring order out 
 
A NIGHT OF ALARMS 203 
 
 of chaos in the forwarding yard. It was a full hour be 
 fore the jumble of material trains could be shunted and 
 switched and juggled to permit the 1012 to drop down 
 to the water tank ; and four times during the hour Pen- 
 field climbed dutifully over the coal to tell Ford and 
 the engineer what the president thought of them. 
 
 "Burn me ! but you can take punishment like a man, 
 Mr. Ford I" said Hector, on the heels of the fourth send 
 ing, sinking rank distinctions in his admiration for a 
 cool fighter. "These here polite cussin s-out are what 
 I can t stand. Reckon we ll get away from here before 
 the old man throws a sure-enough fit ?" 
 
 "That s entirely with the yard crew," said Ford, 
 calmly making himself comfortable on the fireman s 
 box. "We ll go when we can get water ; and we ll get 
 water when the tank track is cleared. That s all there 
 is to it." Whereupon he found his cigar case, passed it 
 to Hector, lighted up, and waited patiently for another 
 second-hand wigging from the Nadia. 
 
 As it chanced the tank track was cleared a few min 
 utes later; the 1012 was backed down and supplied, and 
 Ford instructed Leckhard to do what he could with the 
 single, poorly manned construction wire toward giving 
 the president s special a clear track. 
 
 "That won t be much," said the hard-worked base-of- 
 supplies man. "We ve got our own operator at Ten 
 Mile, and Brissac and Frisbie have each a set of instru- 
 
204 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 ments which they cut in on the line with wherever they 
 happen to be. I don t know where Brissac is, but Fris- 
 bie is down about Riley s to-night, I think. After you 
 pass him you ll have no help from the wires." 
 
 "I ll have what I can get," asserted Ford. "Now tell 
 me what we re likely to meet." 
 
 Leckhard laughed. "Anything on top of earth, from 
 Brissac or Jack Benson or Frisbie chasing somewhere on 
 a light engine, to Gallagher or Folsom coming out with 
 a string of empties. Oh, you re not likely to find much 
 dead track anywhere after you get over the mountain." 
 
 Ford swung up beside Hector, who had been listening. 
 "You see what we re in for, Hector. Start your head 
 light dynamo and let s go," he said; and five minutes 
 farther on, just as Penfield was about to make his fifth 
 scramble over the coal in the tender, the 1012 took the 
 upward road with a deafening whistle shriek as its fare 
 well to Saint s Rest. 
 
 It was pocket-dark by the time the switch-stand at 
 the basin siding swung into the broad beam of the elec 
 tric headlight. Ford got down from the fireman s box 
 and crossed over to the engineer s side to pilot Hector. 
 "How s your track from this on?" inquired the big 
 engineman gruffly. 
 
 "It is about as rough as it can be, and not ditch the 
 steel trains. You ll have to hold her down or we ll have 
 results." 
 
A NIGHT OF ALARMS 205 
 
 "What in the name o thunder is the old man s no 
 tion of goin to the front with a picnic party and makin 
 a night run of it, at that, d ye reckon ?" 
 
 "The Lord only knows. Easy around this curve you re 
 coming to; it isn t set up yet." The 1012 was a fast 
 eight-wheeler from the main line, and though the grade 
 was a rising four per cent., the big flyer was making 
 light work of her one-car train. 
 
 Ford sat gloomily watching the track ahead as the 
 great engine stormed around the curves and up the 
 grades. The struggle against odds was beginning to tell 
 on him. The building of this new line, the opening of 
 the new country, was the real end for which all the plan 
 ning and scheming in the financial field had been only 
 the necessary preliminaries. For himself he had craved 
 nothing but the privilege of building the extension ; of 
 rejoicing in his own handiwork and in the new triumph 
 of progress and civilization which it would bring to 
 pass. But little by little the fine fire of workmanlike 
 enthusiasm was burning itself out against the iron bar 
 riers of petty spite and malice thrown up at every turn 
 by North and the Denver junta of obstructionists. 
 
 He was at no loss to account for North s motive. It 
 was no longer the contemptuous disregard of a general 
 manager for one of his subordinates who had shown 
 signs of outgrowing his job. It was a fight between rivals 
 equals and Ford knew that it must go on until one 
 
206 EMPIEE BUILDERS 
 
 or the other should be driven to the wall. Thus far, his 
 antagonist had scored every point. The MacMorroghs 
 had been helped into the saddle and held there. Mr. Col- 
 brith had been won over; the authority given Ford by 
 his appointment as assistant to the president had been 
 annulled by making North the first vice-president with 
 still higher authority. With a firm ally in the president, 
 and a legion of others in the MacMorroghs camps, North 
 could discredit the best engineering corps that ever took 
 the field; and he was doing it successfully, as Ford 
 had reason to know. 
 
 More than once Ford had been on the point of leav 
 ing his plow in the furrow while he should go to New 
 York for one more battle with the directory a battle 
 which should definitely abolish North and Mr. Colbrith 
 or himself. Again and again he had weighed the 
 chances of winning such a battle. With Brewster for a 
 leader it might be done. The time for the annual stock 
 holders meeting was approaching, and an election which 
 should put the burly copper magnate into the presidency 
 would be an unmixed blessing, not only for a struggling 
 young chief of construction, but for the Pacific South 
 western stock-holders, who were sure to pay in the end 
 for the present policy of rule or ruin. 
 
 Part of the time it seemed to Ford that it was clearly 
 his duty to make this fight against the grafters in the 
 Denver management. North deserved no consideration, 
 
A NIGHT OF ALARMS . 207 
 
 and while Mr. Colbrith was honest enough, his blind 
 prejudice and narrow mentality made him North s un 
 witting accessory. Three months earlier Ford would 
 not have hesitated; but in the interval a woman had 
 come between to obscure all the points of view. A fight 
 to the death against the Colbrith administration meant 
 the antagonizing of the Adairs of Alicia, at least. 
 True, she had spoken lightly of her uncle s peculiarities ; 
 but Ford made sure she would stand by him in the con 
 flict, if only for kinship s sake. 
 
 All this he was turning over in his mind for the 
 hundredth time while the big 1012 hammered up the 
 Plug Mountain grade under the guiding hand of the 
 giant in blue denim. Ford, glooming out upon the 
 lighted stretch ahead,, was once more finding the crucial 
 question answerless. Should he draw out of the losing 
 battle with North and his fellow grafters, and thereby 
 save his chance of winning Alicia Adair? Or should 
 he sacrifice his love upon the altar of ambition, abolish 
 Mr. Colbrith and the crew of buccaneers his mistaken 
 policy was sheltering, and win. the industrial success and 
 a quieted conscience ? 
 
 His decision was reached by the time Hector was eas 
 ing the throttle lever at the summit of Plug Pass. What 
 must be done should be done quickly. 
 
 "Right here is where you begin to run on your 
 nerves," he said to the big engineer, as the heavy engine 
 
208 EMPIEE BUILDEES 
 
 and car lunged over the summit of the pass and began 
 to gather gravity momentum on the downward rush. 
 
 Hector nodded, and twitched the handle of the air- 
 hrake cock at shorter intervals. Ford glanced back at 
 the following car framed in the red glow from the 
 opened fire-box door. It was surging and bounding 
 alarmingly over the uneven track., not without threaten- 
 ings of derailment. Ford was willing to give the presi 
 dent the full benefit of his unreasonable pertinacity; 
 but there were others to be considered and one above 
 all the others. 
 
 "Easy, man; easy!" he cautioned. "If you leave the 
 steel on this goat-track there won t be anybody left to 
 tell the story. It s a thousand feet sheer in some places 
 along here. Suppose you let me take her to the bottom 
 of the hill." 
 
 The engineer stood aside with a good-tempered grin. 
 He had seen the chief of construction walking the one 
 young lady of the party to the top of Plug Pass and 
 back, and it was not difficult to account for his anxiety. 
 
 Throughout the ten long miles of the mountain de 
 scent Ford crouched on the driver s seat and put his 
 mind into the business of getting down the slides and 
 around the sagging curves without having a wreck. The 
 1012 s brake equipment was modern, and the Nadia s 
 gear was in perfect order. Now and then on a tangent 
 the big engine would straighten herself for a race or a 
 
A NIGHT OF ALARMS 209 
 
 runaway, but always the steady hand on the air-cock 
 brought her down just before the critical moment be 
 yond which neither brakes nor the steadiest nerve could 
 avail. Thrice in the long downward rush Ford checked 
 the speed to a foot-pace. This was in the rock cuttings 
 where the jagged faces of the cliffs thrust themselves 
 out into the white cone of the headlight, scanting the 
 narrow shelf of the right-of-way to a mere groove in the 
 rock. He was afraid of the cuttings. One of the many 
 tricks of the MacMorroghs was to keep barely within the 
 contract limits on clearance widths, and once the Nadia, 
 sagging mountainward on the roughly leveled track at 
 the wrong moment, touched one of the out-hanging 
 rocks in passing. Hector heard the touch, and so did 
 Ford; but it was the engineman who made a grim jest 
 upon it, saying : "If she does that more n once or twice, 
 there ll be a job for the car painters, don t you reckon, 
 Mr. Ford? And for the carpenters." 
 
 Just below the doubling bend in the great loop they 
 came in sight of the first of the MacMorrogh camps. 
 Since the night was frosty a huge bonfire was burning 
 beside the track; and when Hector blew his whistle, 
 some one flagged the train with a brand snatched from 
 the fire. Ford stopped because he dared not do other 
 wise. 
 
 "Well, what s wanted?" he snapped, when the train 
 came to a stand, and the brand-swinger, backed by a 
 
210 EMPIRE BUILDEES 
 
 dozen others, made as if lie would climb to the cab of 
 the 1012. 
 
 "Some of us fellies want to go down to Ten Mile 
 the liquor s out/ said the man, trying to get a fair sight 
 of the strange engineman. 
 
 "Get off !" said Ford ; and Hector made the order ef 
 fective by shoving the intruder from the step. That was 
 easy ; but before the train had measured twice its length, 
 a pistol barked thrice and the glass in the cab window 
 on Ford s side fell in splinters. 
 
 "Holy smoke!" said Hector. "Is them the kind of 
 plug-uglies you ve got over here, Mr. Ford ?" 
 
 Ford nodded. His eyes were on the track again, and 
 he was hoping fervently that the three shots had all 
 been aimed at the engine. A mile farther on, Penfield 
 came sliding over the coal to say that the president 
 wanted to know what the shooting was about. 
 
 Ford turned the 1012 over to Hector. The track haz 
 ards of the mountain grade were safely passed. 
 
 "Did any of the shots hit the car ?" he asked of Pen- 
 field. 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Well, if you have to say anything before the ladies 
 it might be advisable to make a joke of it. Signal tor 
 pedoes sound very much like pistol-shots, you know." 
 
 Penfield nodded. "But to Mr. Colbrith?" 
 
 "To Mr. Colbrith you may say that a gang of drunken 
 
A NIGHT OF ALARMS . 
 
 MacMorrogh surfacers flagged us down, and when we 
 wouldn t let them have the train, made a little gun 
 play/ 5 
 
 "Heavens!" said the clerk, whose curiosity stopped 
 short at the farthest confines of any battle-field. "Is 
 that sort of thing likely to happen again, Mr. Ford ?" 
 
 "Your guess is as good as anybody s/ said Ford 
 curtly. "Better get back to the car as quickly as you 
 can, before Mr. Colbrith whistles us down to find out 
 what has become of you." 
 
 Below the camp of the surfacers there were a few 
 miles of better track, and Hector made fair time until 
 the train circled the mountain shoulder at the lower end 
 of the great loop. Beyond this the roughnesses began 
 again, and there were more of the skimped rock cuttings. 
 At Ten Mile, which was a relay station in the upper 
 canyon for the halting of supplies and material for 
 which there was no room at the ever-advancing "front," 
 they stopped to try for track-clearings. 
 
 As Leckhard had foretold, the operator could give 
 them little help. Two hours earlier, a train of empties 
 in two sections had left the end-of-track, coming east 
 ward. Whether it was hung up at one of the intervening 
 side-tracks, or was still coming, the operator could not 
 say ; and there were no means of finding out. Also, Mr. 
 Frisbie, who had reached Riley s camp late in the after 
 noon, had left there after supper and was somewhere on 
 
212 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 the line with, his light engine probably on his way to 
 the front, the operator thought. 
 
 Hector removed his great weight from the telegraph 
 counter and the woodwork creaked its relief. What he 
 said was indicative of his frame of mind. 
 
 "Humph !" he growled. "If we don t get tangled up 
 with Mr. Frisbie s light engine, it s us for a head-ender 
 with the string of empties. Isn t that about it, Mr. 
 Ford?" 
 
 "That s it, precisely." 
 
 "Which means that Jimmy Shovel trots ahead of us 
 for a hundred mile r so, carryin a lantern like a blame 
 Dio-geenes huntin for an honest-man." 
 
 "That is the size of it," said Ford ; but just then the 
 sounder on the table began to click and the operator held 
 up his hand for silence. 
 
 "Hold on a minute," he interrupted, "here s a piece 
 of luck it s Mr. Frisbie, cutting in with his field set 
 from Camp Frierson. He is asking Saint s Rest about 
 you." 
 
 "Break in and tell him we re here," said Ford; and 
 when it was done: "Ask him about that string of 
 empties." 
 
 The reply was apparently another piece of luck. 
 Frisbie, going westward, had passed the first section of 
 the freight train at Siding Number Twelve. It was 
 hung up with a broken draw-head on the engine, and 
 
A NIGHT OF ALARMS 
 
 was safe to stay there, Frisbie thought, until somebody 
 came along with a repair kit, which, it might be as 
 sumed, would not be before morning. 
 
 At this point Ford went around the counter and took 
 the wire for a little personal talk with the first assist 
 ant. It ignored the stalled freight train, and Ford s 
 rapid clickings spelled out an order. Frisbie was to drop 
 everything else, and constitute himself the president s 
 avant-courrier to the end-of-track camp, which, at the 
 moment, happened to be the MacMorroghs headquarters 
 at the mouth of Horse Creek. All liquor-selling was to 
 be stopped, the saloons closed, and the strictest order 
 maintained during the president s stay this if it should 
 take the entire field force of the engineering department 
 to bring it to pass. 
 
 "Don t," clicked Frisbie, from the other end of the 
 long wire. And then at the risk of giving it away to 
 every operator on the line : "You re doing yourself up. 
 Let the president see for himself what he has let us in 
 for." 
 
 Ford s reply was short and to the point. "The order 
 stands. There are others besides the president to be con 
 sidered. Good night." 
 
 "Well, we go to this here Siding Number Twelve, do 
 we?" said Hector, when they were clambering once 
 more to the foot-plate of the 1012. 
 
 "Safely, I think," said the chief, adding: "You can t 
 
EMPIEE BUILDERS 
 
 run fast enough over this track to get into trouble, any 
 way." 
 
 That was the way it appealed to Hector for the suc 
 ceeding twenty miles. When the track was not too rough 
 to forbid speed, the cuts were too numerous, and the big 
 flyer had to be bitted and held down until some of Hec 
 tor s impatience began to get into the machinery. This 
 shall account as it may for what happened. A mile or 
 two below Riley s, where the lights were all out and the 
 turmoil of the day of strikes had apparently subsided, 
 the canyon opened out into a winding valley, and when 
 Ford called across to Hector: "There are no rock cuts 
 on this section, and we are partly surfaced. You can let 
 her out a little for a few miles," the engineer took the 
 permission for all it was worth and sent the eight- 
 wheeler flying down the newly-ballasted stretch. 
 
 Two long curves were rounded in safety, and the spe 
 cial was approaching a third, when to Ford, track- 
 watching even more anxiously than Hector, a dull red 
 spot appeared in the exact center of the white field of 
 the electric. For a moment it puzzled him, but the ex 
 planation came with a vigorous shock an instant later. 
 It was the oil-lamp headlight of the freight ! 
 
 Hector was huge enough to be slow, if bigness were a 
 bar to celerity. But no drill-master of the foot-plates 
 could have brought the flying train to a stand with the 
 loss of fewer seconds. Happily, too, the 1012 s electric 
 
A NIGHT OF ALARMS . 215 
 
 headlight served as a danger signal seen from afar by 
 the engineer of the freight. So it chanced that the two 
 great engines merely put their noses together; and by 
 the time Penfield came scrambling over the coal with 
 the inevitable query from the president, the jolting stop 
 was a thing of the past, and the train was in motion 
 again, following the freight, which was backing, at 
 Ford s order, to the nearest siding. 
 
 "No more hurry for us to-night, Hector," was the 
 boss s dictum, when the obstructing string of empties 
 was safely passed. "We take it slow and sure from this 
 on, with your fireman to flag us around the curves and 
 through the cuts. This was only the first section of the 
 train that left Horse Creek at eight o clock the section 
 that was broken down at Siding Twelve. We re due to 
 pick up the second section anywhere between here and 
 the end-of -track." 
 
 "Slow it is," said Hector. "I m no hog, if I do take a 
 little swill now and then : I know when I ve got enough." 
 
 This was at ten-forty, while the night was still young. 
 And for seven other hours the one-car special inched its 
 way cautiously toward the goal, with Ford scanning 
 every mile of the hazardous way as it swung into the 
 beam of the headlight arc, with Hector s left hand stiff 
 ening on the brake-cock, and with a weary fireman drop 
 ping from his gangway at every curve approach to flag 
 for safety. 
 
216 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 It was not until three o clock in the morning that they 
 met and passed the second section of empties, and the 
 dawn of a new day was fully come when the shacks and 
 storehouses of the MacMorroghs headquarters at the 
 mouth of Horse Creek came in sight. Ford got down 
 from his seat on the fireman s side and stretched him 
 self as one relaxing after a mighty strain. 
 
 "That s the end of it for a little while, Billy/ he 
 said, addressing the big engineer as a man and a brother. 
 "Crawl in on the first siding you come to, and go hunt 
 you a bed. I don t think the president will be perni 
 ciously active to-day after such a night as we ve had." 
 
 But in this, as in other instances when Mr. Colbrith s 
 activities had figured as a factor., he reckoned without 
 his host. 
 
XVIII 
 
 THE MOBNItfG AFTER 
 
 Ford was awake for all day, and was colloguing with 
 Frisbie about the carrying out of the sumptuary order 
 for the forcible camp-cleaning, when Penfield came with 
 the request that the chief report at once to the presi 
 dent in the Nadia. 
 
 "Tell him I ll be there presently/ was the answer; 
 and when Penfield went to do it, the interrupted col 
 loquy was resumed. 
 
 "You say the camp has already gone dry ?" said Ford 
 incredulously. 
 
 Frisbie nodded. "Everybody s on the water-wagon; 
 here and at all the camps above and below bars not 
 only closed, but apparently wiped out of existence. I 
 went for old Brian last night as soon as I reached here. 
 He looked at me reproachfully, and said : It s you to be 
 always naggin me about thim whisky dives that I m for 
 ever thryin to run out, and can t. Go and thry it your 
 self, Misther Frisbie, an I ll stand at your back till 
 
 217 
 
218 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 you re black in the face/ But when I went through the 
 camp, everything was quiet and orderly, and Jack Bat 
 ters bar was not only closed it was gone; vanished 
 without leaving so much as a bad smell behind it." 
 "And then?" said Ford. 
 
 "Then I got out my horse and rode up the creek and 
 through some of the camps on the Cop ah detour. The 
 star-eyed goddess of reform had evidently landed on 
 that coast, too. Donahue s Hungarians were singing 
 war-songs around their camp-fire, as usual, and Con- 
 tadini s Tuscans were out in full force, guying the night- 
 shift track-layers. But there was no bad blood, and no 
 whisky to breed it. You re done up again, Stuart." 
 
 "I don t see that," said Ford, who, besides being short 
 on sleep, was rejoicing in the thought that Alicia and 
 the other women of the private-car party would not have 
 to be blind and deaf. 
 
 "Don t you ? You ve been protesting to beat the band 
 about the lawlessness and dissipation of the MacMorrogh 
 camps. Accordingly, Mr. Colbrith comes over here to see 
 for himself : and what will he see ? Decency on a monu 
 ment smiling reproachfully at her unprincipled tra- 
 ducer. MacMorrogh will rub it into you good and hard. 
 Can t you feel the Sunday-school atmosphere right here 
 in the headquarters this morning ? Look down yonder at 
 the Nadia wouldn t that soothe you, now ?" 
 
 Ford looked and the scowl which was coming to be a 
 
THE MORNING AFTER 219 
 
 habit transformed itself into a cynical smile. A hundred 
 or more of the MacMorrogh laborers, hats off and stand 
 ing at respectful attention, were clustered about the rear 
 platform of the private car, and Mr. Colbrith was ad 
 dressing them ; giving them the presidential benediction, 
 as Frisbie put it irreverently. 
 
 "Don t you see how you are going to be hoisted with 
 your own ammunition?" the little man went on spite 
 fully. "What becomes of all your complaints of drunk 
 enness and crime, when Mr. Colbrith can see with his 
 own eyes what truly good people the MacMorroghs are ? 
 And what conclusion will he arrive at? There s only 
 one, and it s a long-armed one so far as your reputation 
 is concerned : you are so desperately bent on having your 
 own way that you haven t scrupled to tell lies about 
 these angelic contractors." 
 
 "Let up, Dick," said Ford gruffly. "I ve got about all 
 I can carry till I catch up on sleep a little. But you re 
 right: this is the place where the fireworks come in. I 
 think I ll go and light the fuses while I m keyed up 
 to it." 
 
 The crowd of laborers had dispersed by the time Ford 
 reached the Nadia, and the president, benign from the 
 reactionary effect of his own early-morning eloquence, 
 was waiting for him. 
 
 "Ah; we did reach the front safely, after all, didn t 
 we, Mr. Ford?" was Mr. Colbrith s mildly sarcastic 
 
220 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 greeting. And then : "Come aboard, sir ; we are waiting 
 breakfast for you." 
 
 Ford would have declined promptly, if the invitation 
 had been anything less than a command. He had met 
 none of the members of the private-car party save Miss 
 Alicia, and he did not want to meet them, having the 
 true captain-of-industry s horror of mixing business 
 with the social diversions. But with one example of the 
 president s obstinacy fresh in mind, he yielded and 
 climbed obediently to the railed platform. Whatever 
 happened, he should see Alicia again, a privilege never 
 to be too lightly esteemed, whatever it cost. 
 
 The social ordeal was not so formidable. The private- 
 car party was made up of the president and his sister- 
 in-law, the president s family physician, Doctor Van 
 Bruce, the doctor s wife, his sister, a maiden lady of no 
 uncertain age, and Alicia. These, with Penfield and 
 Ford, made the eight at table in the open compartment 
 in the Nadia; and Ford, in the seating, was lucky 
 enough to find his place between Miss Van Bruce, who 
 was hard of hearing, and Miss Alicia, who was not. 
 Luckily again, Mr. Colbrith omitted all talk of business, 
 drawing his end of the table into a discussion of the ef 
 fects of the dry altitudes in advanced stages of tuber 
 culosis. 
 
 cc What a dreadful night you must have had, Mr. 
 Ford," said Alicia, when the tuberculotic subject was 
 
THE MOKNING AFTER 
 
 well launched at the other end of the table. ".Were you 
 on the engine all the time ?" 
 
 "Most of the time/ he confessed. "But that was 
 nothing. It wasn t my first night in the cab, as it won t 
 be the last, by many, I hope." 
 
 "Why? Do you like it?" 
 
 "Not particularly. But I hope to live a while longer ; 
 and while I live I shall doubtless have to ride with the 
 enginemen now and then." 
 
 "Was it very bad last night ?" she asked. 
 
 "I am afraid you know it was. Could you sleep at 
 all?" 
 
 "Oh, yes ; I slept very well after that terrible shak 
 ing up we had just before bedtime. What was happen 
 ing then?" 
 
 "Nothing much. We were about to try the old experi 
 ment of passing two trains on a single track." 
 
 "Mercy !" she exclaimed. 
 
 It was safely retrospective now, and Ford could smile 
 at her belated shock. 
 
 cr Were the others alarmed ?" he asked. 
 
 "Mrs. Van Bruce and Aunt Hetty were. But Uncle 
 Sidney fairly coruscated. He said that an engineer who 
 would make such a stop as that ought to be discharged." 
 
 "Hector was willing to quit," laughed Ford. "He 
 grumbled for a full hour afterward about the wrench 
 ing he had given the 1012. You see he might have 
 
222 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 taken about six feet more for the stop, if He d only 
 known it." 
 
 Miss Alicia said "Mercy !" again. "Were we as near as 
 that to a collision ?" she asked, in a hushed whisper. 
 
 "We were, indeed. The freight was supposed to be on 
 a siding broken down. The crew tinkered things up 
 some way, and the train proceeded. Luckily, the freight 
 engineer saw our electric headlight farther than we 
 could see his oil lamp, and the track happened to be 
 measurably straight." 
 
 Miss Adair was silent for a little time, waiting for 
 the lapsed tuberculotic discussion to revive. When it 
 was once more in full swing, she asked quickly : 
 
 "What is the programme for to-day ? Must we all stay 
 in the car as you intimated yesterday ?" 
 
 Ford glanced across the table to make sure that Pen- 
 field was not eavesdropping. 
 
 "It will not be necessary. Your coming or the presi 
 dent s has reformed things wonderfully. Frisbie says 
 but never mind what he says: the miracle has been 
 wrought." 
 
 He said it with such an evident air of dejection that 
 she wondered. And with Miss Alicia Adair the step 
 from wonderment to investigation was always short. 
 
 "You say it as if you were sorry," she said. "Are 
 you?" 
 
 "Oh, no; I m glad for your sake. But I wonder if 
 
THE MORNING AFTER 223 
 
 you could understand if I say that it will make it a thou 
 sand times harder for me ?" 
 
 "I can understand when I m told/ she retorted. 
 
 The table-f or-eight was no place for confidences ; and 
 Ford knew Penfield s weakness for soaking up informa 
 tion. Yet he took the risk. 
 
 "You remember what I hinted at, yesterday," he said 
 in low tones ; "about the rough-house we have been hav 
 ing in the camps. It hasn t stopped short of murder. I 
 objected to the MacMorroghs before the contract was 
 given to them ; and since, I have fought the lawlessness 
 as I could. Now your uncle comes over here and doesn t 
 find any lawlessness. What is the inference ?" 
 
 "That you have been" she took him up quickly, and 
 there was swift indignation in the blue eyes. 
 
 " lying to gain a personal end," he finished for her. 
 
 Penfield had been apparently listening avidly to the 
 president s praise of the dry altitudes as a sure cure 
 for consumption, but now he had his face in his plate. 
 Ford devoted himself for the moment to the deaf Miss 
 Van Bruce, and when he turned back to Alicia he was 
 telegraphing with his eyes for discretion. She under 
 stood, and the low-toned tete-a-tete was not resumed. 
 Later, when they had a moment together in the disper 
 sion from the breakfast-table, he tried to apologize for 
 what he was pleased to call his "playing of the baby 
 act." But she reassured him in a low-spoken word. 
 
224: EMPIEE BUILDERS 
 
 "Brother told me I know more than you give me 
 credit for, Mr. Ford. Mr. North doesn t like you he 
 would be glad if you would resign. You must not re- 
 sign!" 
 
 The others, personally-conducted by Mr. Colbrith, 
 were crowding to the rear platform for an after-break 
 fast view of the headquarters camp. Ford and Alicia 
 followed, but without haste. 
 
 "You have chanced upon the word, Miss Adair," Ford 
 was saying. "I decided last night that I should resign." 
 
 "No," she objected. 
 
 "Yes ; I must. Sometime I may tell you why." 
 
 "I say you must not. That was the last word in broth 
 er s letter; and he wished me to repeat it to you," she 
 insisted. 
 
 "Where is your brother ?" he asked. 
 
 "He was in London when he wrote." 
 
 "He has thrown up his hand." Ford was pessimistic 
 again. 
 
 Miss Adair looked about her despairingly for some 
 means of prolonging the whispered confidence. Penfield, 
 deferentially in the rear of the platform group, was 
 never safely out of earshot. 
 
 "I want to see the engine that so nearly plunged us 
 into a collision last night," she said aloud; and Pen- 
 field s visible ear betrayed the listening mind. 
 
 Ford took his cue promptly. "We can go out the other 
 
THE MORNING AFTER . 225 
 
 way/ he said ; and the secretary pro tempore had no ex 
 cuse for following. 
 
 They found the cab of the 1012 deserted, with the 
 steam in the huge boiler singing softly at the behest of 
 the banked fire. Miss Adair lost her curiosity as soon as 
 Ford had lifted her to the foot-plate. 
 
 "Now you are to tell me all about it quickly/ she 
 commanded. "Uncle Sidney will be calling for you as 
 soon as he misses you. Why are you so foolish as to talk 
 about resigning ? Don t you see what they will say then ? 
 that you were afraid ?" 
 
 Ford was leaning against the centered reversing-lever, 
 and his face was gloomy again. 
 
 "Possibly I am afraid/ he suggested. 
 
 "You should be more afraid of dishonor than of of 
 the other things. Do you suppose Mr. North will be 
 content with your resignation now ?" 
 
 Ford looked up quickly. Here was a new revelation 
 an unsuspected facet of the precious gem. He could 
 hardly believe that this steady-voiced, far-seeing young 
 woman was the insouciant, school-girlish though none 
 the less lovable young person with whom he had 
 tramped to the wind-swept summit of Plug Pass in the 
 golden heart of the yesterday. 
 
 "You mean ?" he began. 
 
 "I mean that you will be discredited; disgraced if 
 possible. Are you sure you haven t been doing anything 
 
226 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 over here that yon wouldn t want Uncle Sidney to find 
 out?" 
 
 "Not consciously, you may be sure," he asserted un 
 hesitatingly. 
 
 "Think; think hard/ she urged. "Is there nothing 
 at all?" 
 
 He could not help smiling lovingly at her scarce-con 
 cealed anxiety though it was merely the anxiety of a 
 noble soul unwilling to stand by and see injustice done. 
 
 "My methods never get very far underground/ he 
 averred. "Not far enough for my own safety, Frisbie 
 says. If I had been keeping a diary, I think I should 
 be quite willing to let Mr. Colbrith read it or print it, 
 if he cared to." 
 
 "And yet there is something," she asserted, and the 
 straight brows went together in a little frown of per 
 plexity. "You don t ask me how I know: I m going to 
 tell you, Mr. Ford though it s rather shameful. Three 
 days ago, while we were in Denver, Mr. North came 
 down to the car to see Uncle Sidney." 
 
 "Yes?" he encouraged. 
 
 "They were closeted in Uncle Sidney s state-room 
 for a long time," she went on. "I I was walking with 
 Miss Van Bruce, up and down on the station platform 
 beside the Nadia. Uncle Sidney had told me not to go 
 very far away because we were likely to start at any 
 moment. The the car windows were open " 
 
THE MOENING AFTER 227 
 
 Her embarrassment was growing painfully apparent, 
 and Ford came to the rescue. 
 
 "You were not even constructively to blame/ lie has 
 tened to say. "They must surely have seen you passing 
 and repassing, and if they wished for privacy they 
 might have closed the windows." 
 
 "I didn t hear much: only a word or two, now and 
 then. They were talking about you and brother; and 
 She stopped short and laid her hand on the throttle-lever 
 of the big engine : "What did you say this was for ?" she 
 asked ingenuously. 
 
 Ford s up-glance of surprise was answered by a 
 glimpse of Penfield sauntering past on the other side of 
 the track. She could not have seen, but she had doubt 
 less heard his footsteps on the gravel. 
 
 "It s the throttle," said Ford, answering her question. 
 And then : "Please go on : he is out of hearing." 
 
 "They were speaking of you and brother; and and 
 of me. I can t repeat a single sentence entire, but I 
 know Mr. North was accusing you in some way, and 
 apparently implicating me. Perhaps I listened in self- 
 defense. Do you think I did, Mr. Ford ?" 
 
 "You certainly had a good right to," said Ford, who 
 would have sworn in her behalf that the morally black 
 was spotlessly white. "But how could you be impli 
 cated?" 
 
 "That was what puzzled me then and it is puzzling 
 
228 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 me still. They said or rather Mr. North said that 
 you that you had bought me!" 
 
 Ford did not say that he would like to buy, beg, 
 borrow or steal any kind of right to call her his own, 
 but if his lips did not form the words they were lying 
 at the bottom of the steady gray eyes for her to take 
 or leave as she chose. 
 
 "I am sure you couldn t have heard that part of it 
 quite straight," he said, almost regretfully. 
 
 "But I did, because it was repeated. Mr. North in 
 sisted that you had bought me ; and I didn t like the way 
 in which he said it, either. He called me the little 
 Alicia ." 
 
 "What I" said Ford ; and then a flood of light burst 
 in upon at least one of the dark places. "It s only a 
 mine," he said sheepishly. "And I did buy it, or half 
 of it." 
 
 She was regarding him accusingly now. 
 
 "Did you did you name it?" she asked, and there 
 was the merest breath of frost in the air. 
 
 He was glad to be able to tell the truth without flinch 
 ing. 
 
 "No ; it is one of the earliest of the Copah prospects, 
 and I suppose the discoverer named it. I am willing 
 to defend his choice, though. He couldn t have found 
 a prettier name." 
 
 She went back to the matter in hand with womanly 
 
THE MORNING AFTER 229 
 
 swiftness. "But the mine: you had a right to buy it, 
 didn t you?" 
 
 "I should suppose so. I paid for it with my own 
 money, anyway." 
 
 "Then why should Mr. North use it as an argument 
 against you in speaking to Uncle Sidney ? He did that 
 I am sure he did that." 
 
 "Now the water has grown too deep for me," said 
 Ford. "Why, North, himself, is interested in Copah, 
 openly. He owns half a dozen claims." 
 
 "Near yours ?" she queried. 
 
 Ford stopped to consider. "To tell the truth, I don t 
 know where mine is," he confessed. "I bought it as the 
 school-boys trade pocket-knives sight unseen. You 
 wouldn t believe it of a grown man, would you?" 
 
 "What made you buy it at all?" 
 
 Again he told the simple truth and tried not to 
 flinch. 
 
 "You won t mind if I say that the name attracted 
 me? I thought a mine, or anything, that bore your 
 name, ought to be good and and desirable. And it is 
 a good mine ; or it will be, by and by. Some morning I 
 shall wake up and find myself rich. At least that is 
 what my partner, Grigsby, assures me; and I believe 
 him when I happen to remember it." 
 
 She neither approved nor disapproved. When she 
 spoke, it was of the present necessity. "We must go 
 
23Q EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 back to the others now/ she said. "Or at least I must. 
 Do you know what is to be done to-day ?" 
 
 Ford spread his hands. 
 
 "Your uncle will set the pace. I wouldn t venture a 
 guess, after last night." 
 
 He was handing her down from the engine step and 
 she went back in a word to the former contention. 
 
 "You haven t promised me yet that you will not re 
 sign under fire you are under fire, you know." 
 
 "Ami?" 
 
 "Brother thinks you are." 
 
 Once more he took the pessimistic view. 
 
 "Your brother isn t losing any sleep over the Pacific 
 Southwestern situation. You said he was in England, 
 didn t you?" 
 
 "I said he was in London when he wrote." 
 
 "London is a long way off: and what I do must be 
 done to-day or to-morrow. Mr. North will force the 
 fighting, now that your uncle is on the ground, and 
 your brother safely on the opposite side of the earth. 
 And I can t afford to fight this time, Miss Alicia." 
 
 "Why can t you?" 
 
 They were walking slowly back toward the Nadia 
 when he said: "Because a victory would cost me more 
 than I am willing to pay. There is no longer room in 
 this service for Mr. North and me. If we come to blows 
 one of us will have to go." 
 
THE MORNING AFTER 23 
 
 "I can understand that/ she said quietly. 
 
 "And to obliterate Mr. North, I shall be obliged t 
 efface your uncle." 
 
 She caught her breath. 
 
 "Mr. Ford, you have intimated that Mr. North isn 
 an honest man. Do you ask me to believe that Uncl 
 Sidney is his accomplice?" 
 
 "He is not, knowingly. But he will stand or fall wit! 
 the man he has made. I should have to ride him dowi 
 before I could get at North." 
 
 Her lip curled and the straight-browed little frowi 
 came again. "There is no such thing as mercy in busi 
 ness, is there, Mr. Ford? My uncle is an old man an< 
 his presidency means more to him " 
 
 "I understand that perfectly," said Ford soberly 
 "That is why I prefer to step down and out and le 
 some other man have the glory of finishing the exten 
 sion." 
 
 She looked up quickly. 
 
 "Would you do that for Uncle Sidney? He hasn 
 been very lenient with you, has he ?" 
 
 Ford ignored the query. 
 
 "He is your uncle, Miss Alicia; and I d do it for you 
 sake or not at all." 
 
 They had reached the steps of the private car, an< 
 Frisbie was waiting with evident impatience for a won 
 with Ford. Miss Adair s eyes signaled emotion, am 
 
EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 Ford thought it was resentment. But her parting word 
 was not resentful ; it was merely a repetition. 
 
 "Go to Mr. Frisbie," she said from the car step; "he 
 is waiting for you." And then: "Remember; whatever 
 happens,, you must not resign not even if Uncle Sidney 
 asks you to." 
 
 Frisbie s information, given after Miss Adair had 
 gone in, was rather mystifying. Young Benson, who 
 was just in from the grade work beyond Copah, brought 
 word of a party of strange engineers running lines on 
 the opposite side of the river from the rejected S. L. 
 & W. short-cut through the canyon of shale slides. 
 Questioned by Benson, they had told what Frisbie be 
 lieved to be a fairy tale. The chief of the party claimed 
 to be the newly-elected county surveyor from Copah, 
 running the lines for some mining property recently 
 filed for entry. Benson had not been over curious ; but 
 he was observant enough to note that the tale was a mis 
 fit in three important particulars. He saw no locating 
 stakes, such as a prospector always sets up conspicu 
 ously to mark his claim ; and there were no signs of the 
 precious metal, and no holes to indicate an attempt to 
 find it. 
 
 "What s your guess, Dick ?" said Ford tersely. 
 
 The assistant shook his head. 
 
 "I haven t any coming to me. But I don t like mys 
 teries." 
 
THE MOKNING AFTER 23 
 
 "Where was this party ?" 
 
 "About a mile and a half below here. It was goin 
 out toward Copah when Jack met it its work, whai 
 ever it was, all done, apparently." 
 
 It was one of Frisbie s gifts to be suspicious; bu 
 Ford was lacking on that side. 
 
 "It s barely possible that the man was telling th 
 truth, in spite of Benson s failure to find any prospec 
 holes," he remarked. "We ll let it go at that until w 
 know something different. It couldn t be a Transcont: 
 nental party, this far from home, and we haven t an} 
 body else to fear." 
 
 Frisbie dropped the subject as one of the abstractior 
 and took up the concrete. 
 
 "What are the orders for to-day?" he asked. 
 
 "I don t know. I m waiting for Mr. Colbrith to say. 
 
 "There are two buckboard teams here, in the Ma< 
 Morrogh stables came over from Copah last nigh 
 What are they for?" 
 
 "I don t know. Another of the president s little su: 
 prises, I suppose. We ll know when he sends for me, 
 
 The expected summons came at that precise momen 
 transmitted by Penfield. Mr. Colbrith would like to s< 
 Mr. Ford in his private state-room in the Nadia. Tl 
 secretary had a sheaf of telegrams in his hand, ar 
 wished to be directed to the wire office. Frisbie took hi: 
 in charge, and Ford went to obey the summons. 
 
234 EMPIKE BUILDEES 
 
 The president was sitting very erect in his swing 
 chair when the young engineer let himself into the box- 
 like compartment, and his voice was at its thinnest 
 when he said : "Be seated, Mr. Ford." 
 
 Ford sat down on the divan-couch, and the president 
 plunged at once into business. 
 
 "Some time ago, you advised me, as chairman of the 
 executive committee, that you had decided upon a 
 change of route, Mr. Ford," he began raspingly. "What 
 were your reasons for making the change ?" 
 
 "I stated them in my letter of advice," said Ford; 
 "economy in construction and greater safety in oper 
 ating, as against a slight increase in the length of the 
 line." 
 
 "Twelve miles, I believe you said: that is a very 
 considerable increase, I should say. The great eastern 
 companies are spending millions of dollars, Mr. Ford, 
 to shorten their lines by half-mile cut-offs." 
 
 Ford had his reply ready. 
 
 "The conditions are entirely different. It will be 
 many years before a fast through service is either prac 
 ticable or profitable over the extension; and when it 
 comes to that, we shall still have the short line from 
 Denver to Green Butte by forty-two miles. But I ex 
 plained all this at the time, Mr. Colbrith, and I under 
 stood that I had the executive committee s approval of 
 the changed route." 
 
THE MORNING AFTER 235 
 
 "Qualifiedly, Mr. Ford; only qualifiedly. Yet you 
 have gone ahead in your usual impetuous way, aban 
 doning the short line through the canyon and building 
 the detour. Your motive for haste must have been a 
 very strong one very strong." 
 
 "It was. I am not here to kill time." 
 
 "So it appears. But I am here, Mr. Ford, to consider 
 carefully, and to investigate. We shall go first over this 
 route you have abandoned. I wish to see for myself the 
 difficulties you have so painstakingly described." 
 
 Ford shrugged. 
 
 "I m quite at your service, of course. But you will 
 find it a hard trip. Indeed, if we drive, we shall have to 
 cross the river and take the other side. The canyon 
 on this side is impassable in places for a man on foot." 
 
 "I provided for that," said the president, letting his 
 ferrety eyes rest for a moment upon the reluctant one. 
 "You will find two buckboards with their drivers at 
 the MacMorrogh headquarters. Be good enough to or 
 der them around, and well start at once. No; no pro 
 tests, Mr. Ford. My responsibilities are not to be 
 shirked. Penfield will drive with me, and you may take 
 Mr. Frisbie with you, if you see fit. I understand he is 
 implicated with you in this matter." 
 
 Ford bridled angrily at the word. 
 
 "There is no implication about it, Mr. Colbrith. You 
 continually refer to it as if it were a crime." 
 
236 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 "Ah ! the word is yours, Mr. Ford. We shall see we 
 shall see. That is all, for the present." 
 
 Ford was raging when he found Frisbie and gave the 
 order for the vehicles. 
 
 "He turned me out of his office state-room as if I had 
 been a messenger boy or tramp! Get those teams out, 
 Dick, and give me a chance to cool down. If my job is 
 to last through this day " 
 
 Frisbie laughed. "Go and dip your head in the Pan 
 nikin while you wait. Or, better still, chew on this. 
 It s a cipher message that Durgin has just been sending 
 for Penfield to Vice-President North. Wouldn t that 
 make you weep and howl ?" 
 
 Ford was still puzzling over the meaningless code 
 words when he took his seat in the second of the two 
 buckboards with Frisbie. The first assistant waited un 
 til the horses had splashed through the shallows of the 
 river crossing; waited further until the president s ve 
 hicle had gained a little start. Then he said: "Is it 
 possible that you had Penfield for a spy on you as long 
 as you did without working out his cipher code ? Good 
 Lord! I got that down before I did anything else 
 last spring when you left me to run the Plug Mountain. 
 Here s what he says to North" taking the code mes 
 sage and translating : " Ford suspects something. 
 Don t know how much. He and Miss Adair are putting 
 their heads together. She has authority of some kind 
 
THE MORNING AFTER 237 
 
 from her brother. President goes with Ford to examine 
 abandoned route,, as arranged. Will wire result later. " 
 " As arranged/ ; was Ford s wrathful comment. 
 "Apparently, everything is arranged for us. Some day, 
 Dick, I ll lose my temper, tie Penfield in a hard knot 
 and throw him into the river ! It s like a chapter out of 
 Lucretia Borgia !" 
 
XIX 
 
 THE RELUCTANT WHEELS 
 
 Ii was possibly an hour after Penfield s cipher mes 
 sage reached the Southwestern Pacific headquarters in 
 the Colorado capital, when a fair-haired young man in 
 London-cut clothes, and with a tourist s quota of hand- 
 luggage, crossed the Denver Union Station platform 
 from the Pullman of a belated Chicago train. 
 
 Ascertaining from a gateman that the Plug Mountain 
 day train had long since gone on its way up the canyon, 
 the young man left his many belongings at the check- 
 stand and had himself driven up-town to the Guaranty 
 Building. It was Eckstein who took his card in Mr. 
 North s outer office. The private secretary was dictat 
 ing to a stenographer, and was impatient of the inter 
 ruption. But the name on the card wrought a miracle. 
 
 "Mr. North? Why, surely, Mr. Adair. He is always 
 at liberty for you. Eight through this way" holding 
 the gate in the counter railing at its widest "we re 
 mighty glad to see you in Denver, always." 
 
 238 
 
THE RELUCTANT WHEELS 239 
 
 Adair had acquired the monocle habit on his latest 
 run across the Atlantic, and to keep in practice he gave 
 the secretary the coldest of stares through the discon 
 certing glass. "Really! I m quite delighted. Who is 
 the other member of the we/ Mr. er er " 
 
 "Eckstein/ prompted the secretary; but he said no 
 more, being prudently anxious to be quit of the trans 
 fixing stare before a worse thing should befall. 
 
 In the inner room the vice-president was less effusive, 
 but no less cordial. It was a rare thing to see one of the 
 company s directors in the Denver business offices. Mr. 
 North was of the opinion that it would be a good in 
 vestment of time and effort for all concerned if the 
 members of the board used their privilege oftener. So 
 on through half a dozen polite time-killers to the re 
 luctant query: What could the general manager do for 
 Mr. Adair? 
 
 Given leave to speak, Adair stated his needs suc 
 cinctly. He wanted a special train to Saint s Rest; he 
 wanted it suddenly, and he asked that it be given the 
 right of the road. 
 
 "My dear sir!" protested the vice-president, "you 
 mustn t ask impossibilities! You shall have the train 
 at once, of course: you shall have my private car. But 
 when it comes to the right of way, you ll have to appeal 
 to Mr. Ford. Why, he doesn t scruple to lay out the 
 United States mails for his material trains !" 
 
240 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 "Urn," said Adair. "Where can I reach Ford?" 
 
 Mr. North did not equivocate ; he never lied when the 
 truth would answer the purpose equally well. 
 
 "He is out on the extension; or more correctly speak 
 ing, somewhere beyond the present end of the construc 
 tion telegraph line. I m afraid you couldn t reach him 
 by wire." 
 
 "And the president ?" queried the visitor. 
 
 "Mr. Colbrith s car is at the end-of-track. You wished 
 to join the party in the Nadia ?" 
 
 "That is what I had in mind/ said Adair, not too 
 anxiously. 
 
 Mr. North shook his head. 
 
 "I don t think you d enjoy the run over the construc 
 tion track. Mr. Colbrith went over it last night because 
 well, because he believes it to be a presidential duty 
 to inspect everything. If you leave to-day, you will 
 probably meet the Nadia coming out possibly at Saint s 
 Rest." 
 
 Adair suddenly became wary. 
 
 "Perhaps that would be the easy thing to do," he said. 
 "I suppose the engineers at Saint s Rest could put me up 
 if I have to stay over night ?" 
 
 "You needn t ask them. You will have my car with 
 the best cook this side of Louisiana. Keep it, live in it, 
 till Mr. Colbrith picks you up on his return." 
 
 "All right. But you ll give me the special. And let 
 
THE RELUCTANT WHEELS 
 
 it make as good time as it can, Mr. North.; I m fierce 
 when I have to ride a slow train." 
 
 The vice-president s promise was freely given; and to 
 expedite matters, the division superintendent s chief 
 clerk went down to the station with Adair to see the 
 special train properly equipped and started on the moun 
 tain-climbing run. Adair left the details to this orderly 
 from the general offices; not knowing how to compass 
 them himself, he had to. If he could have seen the 
 broad grins on the faces of his train crew when Dobson, 
 the clerk, gave them the despatched order but at that 
 moment he was lounging in Mr. North s easiest chair 
 in the central compartment of the "01," reading for the 
 twentieth time a crease-worn telegram. 
 
 The telegram was from Alicia, and it was dated at 
 Denver, three days gone. It was not very explicit; on 
 the contrary, it was rather incoherent. 
 
 "You would better come on as fast as you can if you want 
 to save your friend s life. He has been tried and found 
 guilty of just what, I don t know and will be hanged 
 pretty soon within a few days, I think." 
 
 "Now that s a nice way to stir a fellow up, isn t it?" 
 soliloquized the pleasure-lover. "Just as I was getting 
 ready to go up to Mount Ptarmigan for the shooting. 
 She knew that, too. I ll bet a picayune it s just a girl s 
 scare. Ford s plenty good and able to take care of him 
 self." 
 
242 EMPIEE BUILDEES 
 
 That was Mr. Charles Edward Adair s care-free 
 phrasing of it; but three hours later, when the cook of 
 the "01" served him the most appetizing of luncheons in 
 the big open compartment,, and the steeply pitched walls 
 of the lower Blue Canyon were still stinting the outlook 
 from the car windows, he began to grow impatient. 
 
 "Whereabouts are we now, Johnson ?" he asked of the 
 cook s second man. 
 
 "Between Cutcliff and No-Horse; yes, sah. Bout 
 forty mile from Denver." 
 
 "Great Scott ! Fifteen miles an hour ? Say, Johnson, 
 what do you do when you want em to run faster pull 
 this string?" 
 
 "Yes, sah ; dat s it," grinned the negro. 
 
 Adair pulled the air-cord, and it brought results of 
 a kind. Only the train came to a sudden stop, instead of 
 going ahead faster; and Conductor Barclay, who had 
 been riding on the engine, came back to see what had 
 happened. 
 
 "Did you stop us, Mr. Adair ?" he asked pleasantly. 
 
 "Not meaning to, you may be sure," said Adair. "But 
 now you re here, I ll ask if there is any objection to my 
 getting off and walking. I could stop and rest and let 
 you overtake me now and then, you know." 
 
 The conductor tweaked the air-cord and the train 
 moved on again. 
 
 "I ve been expecting you d shout at us," he said good- 
 
THE RELUCTANT WHEELS 243 
 
 naturedly. "But we re doing the best we can. There s a 
 freight wreck on ahead, and we ve been dallying along, 
 hoping they d get it picked up by the time we reach it. 
 I thought you d rather keep moving than to be hung up 
 for three or four hours at the wreck." 
 
 Adair saw his helplessness and made the best of it. 
 He was in Mr. North s hands, and if Mr. North was 
 playing for delay, the delay would be forthcoming. None 
 the less, he contrived to make Barclay uncomfortable. 
 
 "I m only a director in the Pacific Southwestern, and 
 I suppose directors don t count," he said nonchalantly. 
 "Yet, I presume, if I should ask it as a personal favor, 
 I might get a conductor s or an engineer s head to take 
 home with me for a souvenir. How would that be ? Do 
 you think I could make it win ?" 
 
 "You could do it, hands down, Mr. Adair. But I hope 
 you won t feel as if you d got to go into the head-hunting 
 business. It s like the boy throwing stones into the 
 pond ; it s fun for the kid, but sort o hard on the toad- 
 frogs." 
 
 Adair laughed. He was not one of those who find it 
 easy to bear malice. 
 
 "You don t talk half as bad as you act," he said genial 
 ly. "Down at bottom I dare say you re a pretty good kind 
 of a fellow. Had anything to eat ?" 
 
 Barclay shook his head. "No ; we was laying off to get 
 coffee and sinkers at Clapp s Mine, if we ever get there." 
 
24:4: EMPIRE BUILDEES 
 
 " Coffee and sinkers / said Adair. "That doesn t 
 sound very uplifting. Sit down here and help me out 
 with my contract." 
 
 Barclay did it, rather unwillingly. He was not ac 
 customed to eating at the vice-president s table, but there 
 was no resisting the curly-headed young man when he 
 chose to make himself companionable. Barclay sat on 
 the edge of his chair, ate with his knife or fork indiffer 
 ently, and had small use for the extra spoons and cutlery. 
 But he made a meal to be remembered. Afterward, the 
 young man found a cigar-case, and his own box of Turk 
 ish cigarettes ; and still the special was going at the same 
 slow cow-gallop up the canyon. 
 
 "How many are there of you up ahead ?" asked Adair, 
 when Barclay s cigar was going like a factory chimney. 
 
 "Only Williams and his fireman." 
 
 "Dinner-buckets?" 
 
 "No; neither one of em, as it happens. Hurry call 
 to go out with you, and both of em live too far to go 
 home after the grub-cans." 
 
 "Johnson," said the dispenser of hospitality, calling 
 the second man. "Think you could climb over the coal 
 with some dinner for the enginemen? No? Let me 
 make it possible" flipping a dollar into the ready palm. 
 "Tell the cook it s an order, and if he stints it there ll be 
 consequences." 
 
 Barclay grinned his appreciation. The curly-headed 
 
THE RELUCTANT WHEELS 245 
 
 young man was far enough removed from any species of 
 railway official hitherto known to the conductor. But 
 Adair was only paving the way. 
 
 "Do you know/ he said, after a little interval of to 
 bacco-charmed silence, "one of the things I am most 
 anxious to see is a real railroad wreck. Suppose you 
 quicken up a little and let us have our dead time at the 
 scene of this disaster you speak of." 
 
 Barclay was tilting uneasily in his chair. 
 
 "I reckon they ve about got it picked up and cleaned 
 out o the way by this time, Mr. Adair. I shouldn t be 
 surprised if we could hardly find the place when we get 
 there." 
 
 "Nor I," said Adair; and he sat back and chuckled. 
 "It s considerably difficult to sit up and pull your im 
 agination on a man who has been decently good to you, 
 isn t it, Barclay ? Let me ask you : are you Mr. North s 
 man?" 
 
 "Mr. North is the big boss." 
 
 "But this Plug Mountain division is a part of Mr. 
 Ford s line, isn t it?" 
 
 "It used to be all his. There s a white man for you, 
 Mr. Adair." 
 
 Adair saw his opportunity and used it. 
 
 "Now see here, Barclay; I m only a director, and I 
 don t cut much ice out this way. But back in New York 
 I m one of three or four people who can tell Mr. North 
 
246 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 what he can do, and what he can t. You wouldn t want 
 to see Mr. Ford getting it in the neck, would you ?" 
 
 "By Jacks! There ain t a man in the service that 
 wouldn t fight for him. I tell you, he s white" 
 
 "Well, Mr. Ford is in trouble : I don t know but he is 
 likely to lose his job, if I don t see the president before 
 the big ax comes down. That is between us two." 
 
 The conductor sprang out of his chair. 
 
 "By gravy! Why didn t you say that at first? Say, 
 Mr. Adair, you stand between us and Mr. North tell 
 him you gave the orders yourself and you ll have the 
 ride of your life from here to Saint s Rest I" 
 
 "Go it," said Adair; and two minutes after Barclay 
 had let himself out of the forward door of the "01," the 
 train took a sudden start and darted ahead at full speed. 
 
 This bit of diplomacy on the part of Adair saved two 
 full hours in the run to Saint s Rest. Nevertheless, it 
 was after dark when the "01" pulled into the crowded 
 material yard in the high mountain basin and Leckhard 
 came aboard to find out what had brought this second 
 private-car visitation. He was relieved not to meet 
 North to be confronted only by a pleasant-faced young 
 man who seemed to have the car all to himself. 
 
 "My name is Leckhard/ announced the man-of-all- 
 work, "and I represent the engineering department. I 
 Baw it was Mr. North s car, and " 
 
 "And you came to see what you could do for the 
 
THE EELUCTANT WHEELS 2-1-7 
 
 vice-president and general manager/ Adair finished for 
 him. "Mighty sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Leckhard, 
 but my name isn t North ; it s Adair, and I m only a di 
 rector. How much authority is a director allowed at 
 this altitude and distance from New York?" 
 
 Leckhard laughed. 
 
 "I reckon you might call yourself the ranking officer 
 in the field, Mr. Adair. What you say, goes." 
 
 "Then I say go ; which means that I d like to go on 
 to the end of the extension." 
 
 But now the engineer was shaking his head. 
 
 "Ask me anything but that, Mr. Adair. None of our 
 enginemen is at this end of the line, and your man 
 Williams, who brought you up from Denver, doesn t 
 know the way. More than that, if we had a man and an 
 engine, I d be afraid to send you out for a night run. 
 Mr. Ford made it last night with Mr. Colbrith s car, 
 and they used up ten hours in covering less than a hun 
 dred and twenty miles, and came within six feet of kill 
 ing everybody." 
 
 Adair had lighted a cigarette, and he did not reply un 
 til the match flare had gone out. Then he said, in a way 
 that made Leckhard his friend for life : 
 
 "I m entirely in your hands, Mr. Leckhard ; can t turn 
 a wheel unless you say so. And I believe you re telling 
 me the truth, as man to man. Can you reach Ford or 
 Mr. Colbrithbywire?" 
 
248 EMPIEE BUILDERS 
 
 "I m sorry to say I can t. We have only the one wire, 
 and it s on temporary poles most of the way. It broke 
 down on us this morning, and I can t raise the end-of- 
 track." 
 
 "Block number two," said Adair cheerfully. "We 
 seem to be out of luck this evening." Then, with search 
 ing abruptness : "Do you call yourself Ford s friend, Mr. 
 Leckhard?" 
 
 "Rather," said the Saint s Rest Pooh Bah. "He hired 
 me ; and when he goes, I go." 
 
 "Ah ! now we are warming ourselves at the same fire. 
 Let me invite your confidence in one word, Mr. Leck 
 hard. I dislike Mr. North." 
 
 The burly engineer laughed again. 
 
 "You have a geniusful way of putting your finger on 
 the sore spot without fumbling. We all dislike Mr. 
 North at this end of things with reason." 
 
 "And that reason is ?" 
 
 "That he d fire the entire engineering department if 
 he could find half an excuse. I m afraid he s going to 
 do it, too, in the most effectual way by forcing Mr. 
 Ford out. If Ford goes, every man in the department 
 will quit with him. I m afraid it s coming to that." 
 
 Johnson, the porter, had lighted the Pintsch globes 
 and was laying the covers for dinner. 
 
 "Make it two, Johnson," said Adair; and then to 
 Leckhard : "You dine with me don t say no ; I couldn t 
 
THE RELUCTANT WHEELS 249 
 
 stand it alone." And when that point was settled : "Now 
 sit down till we thresh this out a bit finer. How far has 
 this forcing business gone ? You re talking to the man 
 who has backed Ford from the first." 
 
 "It has gone pretty far. North has obstructed, quietly 
 but persistently, ever since the first blow was struck on 
 the extension. He has delayed material, when he could 
 do it unofficially, he scants us for rolling stock and mo 
 tive power, he stands in with the MacMorroghs and backs 
 them against Ford every time there is a dispute. Ford 
 is a patient man, Mr. Adair, but I think he has about 
 reached the limit." 
 
 "H m. Do you attach any particular importance to 
 the president s trip over the extension ?" 
 
 Leckhard shook his head. "I m only a passenger I 
 see what goes by the car-windows. Mr. Colbrith was 
 dead set on pushing over to the end-of-track wouldn t 
 even wait for daylight. You probably know him better 
 than I do" 
 
 "He is my uncle," Adair cut in. 
 
 "Oh; then I can t tell you anything about him. He 
 was hot at Ford last night ; what for I don t know, unless 
 it was because Ford opposed a night run over a raw con 
 struction track with the Nadia. He was right about 
 that, though. If I had been in his place I would have 
 thrown up my job before I would have taken the risk." 
 
 Adair appeared to be considering something, and 
 
250 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 when he had thought it out, the porter had announced 
 dinner and they had taken their places at the table. 
 
 "I have told you I am Ford s friend, Mr. Leckhard ; I 
 have ridden a couple of thousand miles out of my way to 
 give him a lift. Tell me frankly; have you any reason 
 to believe it will come to blows between him and the 
 president while they are together at the front ? Try this 
 celery ; it s as good as you d get at Sherry s." 
 
 Leckhard helped himself to the relish, and waited un 
 til the negro, Johnson, had gone back to the cook s gal 
 ley. 
 
 "The little I know comes in a roundabout way," he re 
 plied slowly. "Penfield, who is known all over the 
 Southwestern as Mr. North s private detective ,and spy, 
 is with Mr. Colbrith acting as the president s secretary. 
 Yesterday, while the Nadia was side-tracked here, Pen- 
 field had a lot of telegraphing to do for Mr. Colbrith. 
 He did it himself he s a lightning operator, among 
 other things and I happened into the office just as he 
 was finishing. His final message was a cipher, to Mr. 
 North, and he signed it with his own name/ 
 
 "Well?" said Adair. 
 
 Again the engineer waited until the negro was out of 
 hearing. 
 
 "A little later, just as the ISTadia was about to pull out, 
 there came a rush call from Denver for Penfield. I an 
 swered and said the car was on the point of leaving, but 
 
THE RELUCTANT WHEELS 251 
 
 that I d take the message and try to catch Penfield if I 
 could. It came, on the run, and it was signed by Eck 
 stein, North s chief clerk. It wasn t ciphered lack of 
 time, I reckon and Eckstein took the chance that I 
 wouldn t catch on." 
 
 "You. kept a copy ?" suggested Adair. 
 
 "I did. I wasn t able to deliver the original until the 
 Nadia came back from the foot of the pass in the even 
 ing to fill the engine tank. But I couldn t make any 
 thing out of it. It was an order to Penfield not to let 
 anything interfere with the president s buckboard trip 
 whatever that might be with authority to incur any 
 expense that might be necessary, using the telegram as 
 his credential with the MacMorrogh Brothers if more 
 money were needed." 
 
 "To pay for the buckboards?" asked Adair. 
 
 "You may search me," said Leckhard. "Only it could 
 hardly be that we have an open account at the Bank of 
 Copah for legitimate expenses. No ; there s a nigger in 
 the woodpile, somewhere. Penfield is only a clerk ; but 
 for some purpose he is given carte blanche to spend 
 money." 
 
 Adair was absently stirring his black coffee. 
 
 "All of which points to one conclusion, Mr. Leckhard. 
 They are plotting against Ford without the president s 
 connivance. But the president is going to be made to 
 swing the club. I know rather more than you do about 
 
252 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 it which isn t saying very much. My a relative of 
 mine who is with the party in the Nadia wired me three 
 days ago from Denver that Ford had been tried and 
 condemned, and was only waiting to be hanged. That s 
 why I am here to-night. You ve got to get me to the 
 end-of-track before it comes to blows between Mr. Col- 
 brith and Stuart Ford. I know both men, Mr. Leckhard. 
 If the iron comes to a certain heat, the past master of all 
 the peacemakers won t be able to patch things together." 
 
 "Ford will resign," said the engineer. 
 
 "That is what I m afraid of; and we can t let him 
 resign. That would mean Mr. North for everything in 
 sight, and the ultimate ruin of the Pacific Southwestern. 
 On the other hand, I can t have Ford fighting the family 
 or my uncle which is just what he will do if he gets 
 his blood up and doesn t quit in a huff. It s up to you 
 to trundle this car over to the seat of war, Mr. Leck 
 hard." 
 
 The division engineer was thinking hard. 
 
 "I can t see how it s to be done, right now, Mr. Adair. 
 But I ll tell you what I will do. Our empty material 
 trains come back from the front in the night, as a rule. 
 When they get in, and I can be sure that the track s clear, 
 I ll double one of the construction engines out with you. 
 It will be along toward morning, I m afraid ; but, with 
 nothing in the way, you ought to make the run in four 
 or five hours say by late breakfast time." 
 
THE EELUCTANT WHEELS 253 
 
 That was the way it was left when Leckhard went back 
 to his telegraph den at ten o clock; and some six hours 
 later, Adair, sleepily conscious of disturbances, wakened 
 sufficiently to hear the wheels once more trundling mo 
 notonously under the "Ol. 3 * 
 
XX 
 
 THE CONSPIRATORS 
 
 "How far do we go, and what do we do when we get 
 there ?" asked Frisbie of his chief, when the two buck- 
 boards, heaving and lurching over the rock-strewn talus 
 at the foot of the canyon cliff, had passed beyond sight 
 and sound of the headquarters camp at the mouth of 
 Horse Creek. 
 
 "I m not guessing any more," said Ford crustily. He 
 was finding that his temper deteriorated as the square 
 of his distance from Alicia Adair increased. "The pres 
 ident said he wanted to drive over this short-cut, and 
 he s doing it." 
 
 "Humph!" growled Frisbie. "If he wanted to rub 
 salt into your bruises, why didn t he take you in the cart 
 with him ? And where do I come in ?" 
 
 "You are implicated with me; that was his word/ 
 
 Another mile passed in discomforting plungings. 
 The trail had become all but impassable for the stagger 
 ing horses ; yet the leading buckboard held on doggedly. 
 
 254 
 
THE CONSPIRATORS 255 
 
 There were places where both drivers had to get out 
 and lead ; bad bits where all save the president descend 
 ed to walk. But through the worst as well as the best, 
 Mr. Colbrith clung to his seat like a man determined 
 to ride. It was well past noon when the two vehicles 
 reached the western portal of the canyon, and the dot- 
 tings of the Copah mine workings came in sight on the 
 hillsides to the southward. Ford s driver had fallen a 
 little behind in the final half-mile, and when the gap 
 was closed up, the president was waiting. 
 
 "Well, Mr. Ford," he began, somewhat breathless but 
 triumphant, "are you fully satisfied?" 
 
 "I have learned nothing that I did not know before 
 we began to build the extension," was the non-committal 
 rejoinder. 
 
 "Oh, you haven t? You reported that canyon im 
 practicable for a railroad, and yet I have just driven 
 through it without once dismounting from this buck- 
 board. Moreover, we shall find in Copah to-morrow a 
 re-survey of the line showing its entire practicability, 
 Mr. Ford a report not made by your engineers." 
 
 Ford and Frisbie exchanged swift glances of intelli 
 gence. The presence of the strange engineering party 
 in the canyon was sufficiently explained. At first sight 
 the president s expedient seemed childishly puerile to 
 Ford. Then suddenly in a flash of revealment he saw 
 beyond the puerilities beyond the stubborn old man 
 
256 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 who, with all his narrow self-will and obstinacy was 
 merely playing the game for others. 
 
 "We can discuss these matters later, if you wish," he 
 said placably. "I think you will find our ground well 
 taken. Do you want to drive back as we came? Or will 
 you let me find you an easier road to the mouth of 
 Horse Creek?" 
 
 But Mr. Colbrith was not to be balked or turned 
 aside. 
 
 "Mr. Ford, I wish to be fair and impartial. I desired 
 to satisfy myself, personally, that this route we have 
 driven over is practicable, and it was also my desire 
 that the investigation should be conducted in your 
 presence. You will admit now that you made a mistake 
 a very costly mistake for the company in abandon 
 ing this short cut/ 
 
 "I admit nothing of the kind. The difficulties remain 
 as they were, quite unchanged by our pleasure trip 
 from the end-of-track, Mr. Colbrith. Assuming that 
 the re-survey will report that the north bank of the river 
 is practicable, while the south bank is not, I have only 
 to say that the cost of the two bridges would offset the 
 easier grading conditions, while the danger to future 
 traffic would remain the same. But that is neither here 
 nor there. You must either give us credit for knowing 
 our business, or you must discredit us entirely." 
 
 Frisbie was grinding his heel into the hard soil of 
 
THE CONSPIRATORS 25? 
 
 the mesa. The argument was growing rather acrid; 
 and Penfield and the two drivers were interested listen 
 ers. It was high time for a diversion to be made, and 
 the assistant made it. 
 
 "We have used five hours getting down here, and 
 we ll need as many going back/ he put in. "Unless 
 there is something more to be done on the spot, I think 
 we d better take the road over the hills. It s with you, 
 Mr. Colbrith." 
 
 The president signified his assent by climbing into 
 his buckboard, and the return journey was begun with 
 the two engineers in the lead for pathfinding purposes. 
 Once safely out of earshot, Frisbie voiced his disgust. 
 
 "A wild goose-chase, pure and simple ! Stuart, that 
 old man is in his second childhood." 
 
 "Not at all," said Ford. "He is merely following out 
 North s suggestions. Dick, my name is Dennis." 
 
 "Nonsense! Things are no worse than they have 
 been all along." 
 
 "My time with the Pacific Southwestern is shorter 
 by just the number of hours it has taken us to drive 
 down here. Mr. Colbrith has convinced himself that I 
 was wrong in abandoning the canyon. To-morrow he 
 will convince himself that I was doubly wrong in ap 
 proving the detour. I shall hand in my resignation to 
 night." 
 
 "So be it," said Frisbie shortly. "That means good- 
 
258 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 by to the extension. I m predicting that it will never 
 get to Green Butte never get beyond Copah. And 
 your name will go out to the railroad world as that of 
 a man who bit off a number of large things that he 
 couldn t chew." 
 
 "Confound you!" said Ford; and after that, Frisbie 
 could get no more than single-syllabled replies to his 
 monologue of Job s comfortings. 
 
 The returning route was a detour, winding, through 
 the greater part of it, among and over the swelling 
 heights north of the Pannikin. On each hilltop the vast 
 sweep of the inter-mountain wilderness came into view, 
 and from the highest point in the trail, reached when 
 the sun was dipping toward the western horizon, the eye- 
 sweep took in the broken country lying between the 
 Pannikin and the path of the Transcontinental narrow 
 gauge forty miles away. 
 
 Jack s Canyon, the Transcontinental station nearest 
 Copah, was the beginning of a combined pack trail and 
 stage road connecting the Copah district with what 
 had been, before the advent of the Southwestern Ex 
 tension, its nearest railroad outlet. Along this trail, 
 visible to the buckboarders as a black speck tittuping 
 against the reddening background of the west, galloped 
 a solitary horseman, urging his mount in a way to make 
 Frisbie, getting his glimpse from the hilltop of extended 
 views, call Ford s attention. 
 
THE CONSPIRATORS 259 
 
 "Look at that brute, pushing his horse like that at 
 the end of the day ! He ought to be " 
 
 But the hastening rider was getting his deserts, what 
 ever they should be, as he went along. For three hours, 
 with three relays of fresh horses picked up at the stage 
 stations in passing, he had been galloping southward, 
 and to whatever other urging he might confess was 
 added the new one of fear, the fear that in the ap 
 proaching day s-end he would lose his way. 
 
 Seen from the nearer point of view, the tittuping 
 horseman seemed curiously out of harmony with his en 
 vironment. Instead of the cow-boy "shaps," or over 
 alls, he wore the trousers of civilization, which the rapid 
 flight had hitched half-way to his knees. In place of 
 the open-breasted shirt with the rolled-up sleeves there 
 were tailor-made upper clothes, with the collar and 
 cravat also of civilization, and the hat it was perhaps 
 fortunate for the rider that he had not met any true 
 denizens of the unfettered highlands on the lonely trail 
 from Jack s Canyon. His hat was a Derby of the newest 
 shape ; and the cow-men beyond the range are impatient 
 of such head-gear. 
 
 Recognition, after one has ridden hard for three 
 hours over a dusty road,, is not easy ; but there are faces 
 one never forgets, and the features, dust-grimed and 
 sweat-streaked though they were, had still the South-of- 
 Europe outline, the slightly aquiline nose, and the pierc- 
 
2GO EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 ing black eyes of Mr. Julius Eckstein, whom we saw, 
 on the morning of this same road-wearying day, welcom 
 ing Adair over the counter railing in the Denver of 
 fice. How does it come that a few short hours later 
 we find him galloping tantivy over the dusty hills, no 
 less than two hundred miles, as the birds fly, from the 
 counter railing of welcomings? 
 
 That is the story of another, and a more successful 
 special train than Adair s. No sooner was the care-free 
 young director safely on his way to meet the delays so 
 painstakingly prearranged for him than the wires began 
 to buzz with a cipher message of warning to Penfield. 
 A precious half-hour was lost in ascertaining that the 
 wire connection to the end-of-track was temporarily 
 out of commission; but during that half-hour Mr. 
 North had held his chin in his hand to some good pur 
 pose. 
 
 With the fresh complications promised by Adair s 
 projection into the field, a stronger man than Penfield 
 should be in command on the firing line. The vice- 
 president decided swiftly that Eckstein was the man; 
 but how to get him to the MacMorrogh headquarters 
 before Adair should arrive? 
 
 It proved to be simpler in the outcarrying than in the 
 planning. A special light engine over the Transconti 
 nental to Jack s Canyon an exchange of courtesies 
 which even fighting railroads make in war as well as 
 
THE CONSPIRATORS 261 
 
 in peace a wire request on the stage company for re 
 lays of saddle horses, and the thing was done. And 
 Eckstein, pushing his jaded beast down the final hill 
 in the dusk of the evening, and welcoming, as only the 
 saddle-tormented can welcome, the lights of the head 
 quarters camp, confessed in cursings quite barbaric in 
 their phrasings that he, too, was done. 
 
 The conference held that night behind locked doors 
 in the MacMorroghs commissary office was a council of 
 five, with Eckstein, as the mouthpiece of the vice-presi 
 dent, in the chair. Penfield was present, with no vote, 
 and the three MacMorroghs voted as one ; but as to that, 
 there were no divisions. A crisis was imminent, and it 
 must be met. 
 
 "As I have said, I am here with power to act," said 
 Eckstein, gripping the chair with wincings after the 
 day of torment. "The plan outlined at first by Mr. 
 North must go through as it was outlined. Part of it 
 has already been carried out, you say: Ford and the 
 president have been over the short-cut together. To 
 morrow the entire private-car party goes to Copah over 
 the detour. Are the buckboards here for that?" 
 
 "They re here wid the drivers. I saw to that part of 
 it myself." It was the youngest of the three MacMor 
 roghs who gave the assurance. 
 
 "So far so good," commented the chairman. "The 
 other thing we have to provide for, or rather, to pre- 
 
262 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 vent, is the possibility of Mr. Adair s reaching here in 
 time to join the party. The last definite information 
 we had of Mr. Adair he was crawling up Blue Canyon 
 with a train crew which was under orders to give him 
 ample time to study the scenery. He has probably 
 reached Saint s Rest before this, however, and once 
 there, Leckhard will give him anything in sight. The 
 question is, will he attempt to run the extension to 
 night?" 
 
 The middle MacMorrogH thought not, and his 
 younger brother agreed with him. But the senior part 
 ner voted aye, and stuck to it. Thereupon ensued a 
 conflict of opinion. Dan MacMorrogh pointed out that 
 the construction motive power was all at the west end, 
 or in transit eastward; it would be daylight of another 
 day before an engineer familiar with the hazards could 
 be obtained for Adair s special over the construction 
 line. But Brian MacMorrogh argued with equal em 
 phasis that this was a mere begging of chances. With 
 out a telegraph wire to verify the guess, no man could 
 say at what hour one of the trains of empties would 
 pull through to Saint s Rest; and whatever the hour, 
 Leckhard would doubtless turn the engine and crew to 
 double back with Adair s car. 
 
 Eckstein was gripping the arms of his chair and set 
 ting his teeth deep into his cigar while the probabilities 
 were getting themselves threshed out. At the end of the 
 
THE CONSPIRATORS 263 
 
 dispute he said quietly: "It s a hell of a pity we can t 
 have the use of the wire for this one night. But, gen 
 tlemen, we can t stop for trifles. There are five of us 
 here in this room who know how much is at stake. One 
 of two things is due to happen. If we can keep Adair 
 out of it for another twelve hours, Ford will be dis 
 graced and asked to resign. If he gets to that point, 
 we re safe. I know Ford s temper. If Mr. Colbrith 
 puts it as he is likely to put it, Ford will say and do 
 things that will make it impossible for Adair or any 
 one else to get him back into the service." 
 
 "Thrue for you, Misther Eckstein ; ye have im down 
 to the crossin of a t ," agreed the eldest of the brothers 
 MacMorrogh. 
 
 "That is one of the due things," Eckstein went on 
 smoothly. "The other isn t pretty to look at. If Adair 
 gets here in time, it will be another story. He can han 
 dle Ford; and he has proved once or twice that he can 
 handle Mr. Colbrith. If he hadn t been out of the way 
 when you went to New York with Mr. North, you d 
 never have seen the thin edge of this contract, Brian. 
 Well, then what happens? With Adair on the ground 
 to back him, Ford wins out. Do you know what that 
 means? Investigations, muck-rakings, and worse. 
 There are two or three of us here, and some more on the 
 other side of the range, who won t get off with less than 
 ten years apiece. I m willing to take the chance of a 
 
264 EMPIEE BUILDERS 
 
 few more years for another play on the red. How is it 
 with the rest of you ?" 
 
 The elder MacMorrogh spread his hands. 
 
 "It s all in the same boat we are. You ve a notion in 
 the back par-rt of your head, Misther Eckstein; lave 
 us have it." 
 
 "As I ve said, we can t stick at trifles. If Adair s 
 train is on the extension, it mustn t get here. Somebody 
 goes up the line on a hand-car to-night and stops it." 
 
 "Is it to ditch it, ye mane?" asked the youngest of 
 the brothers in a hoarse whisper. 
 
 Eckstein laughed cynically. "What a lot of crude 
 cutthroats you are!" he jeered. "Now if it were Ford, 
 instead of Adair but pshaw! a rail or two taken up 
 and flung into the river well beyond walking distance 
 from this camp does the business. Only the man who 
 does it wants to make sure he has gone far enough back 
 to cover all the possible chances." 
 
 "That s me," said Dan MacMorrogh ; and he rose and 
 let himself out, with the younger brother to lock the 
 door behind him. 
 
 The door-keeping attended to, the younger brother 
 drew closer into the circle. 
 
 "There s wan thing," he said, looking furtively at 
 Eckstein. "I was in Copah this day: I got the buck- 
 boards for Misther Colbrith. Goin past the bank, who 
 would I see but our old bookkeeper, Merriam, chinnin 
 
THE CONSPIRATORS 265 
 
 wid the bank president. I thought he was out o the way 
 entirely." 
 
 Stiff and saddle-sore as he was, Eckstein leaped out 
 of his chair with an oath. 
 
 "Merriam? What the devil is he back here for? It s 
 a put-up job !" 
 
 It was the chief of the MacMorroghs who flung in the 
 calming word. 
 
 " Tis only a happen-so, Misther Eckstein. Merriam 
 owns a mine or two in the Copah, and ye know the 
 fever : a man can t keep away from thim." 
 
 "That may be; but it s a cursed unlucky combina 
 tion, just the same. I tell you, Brian, he knows too 
 much this fellow Merriam. He knew what was up 
 when he was steering Frisbie. You told him too much. 
 And afterward, when we gave him the Oregon job, he 
 knew why he was being bribed to go away. You let us 
 in for this : you ve got to muzzle him, some way." 
 
 The MacMorrogh looked at his remaining brother 
 meaningly. " Tis up to you, this time, Mickey, b y. 
 Find your way over to the minin camp this night, and 
 make a clane job av it/ 
 
 Penfield was moving uneasily in his chair. The plot 
 ting waters were deepening swiftly, much too swiftly 
 for him. Loyalty to his superior officer, the unquestion 
 ing loyalty that disregards motives entirely and does 
 not look too closely at methods, was his fetish. But 
 
266 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 these men were not merely loyal to Mr. North. They 
 were criminals he stuck at the word, but there was no 
 other fighting for their own hand. 
 
 "I guess I guess I d better go back to the Nadia," 
 he stammered, trying to keep his voi, ,e steady. "Mr. Col- 
 brith may need me." 
 
 Eckstein turned on him like a snarling animal. 
 
 "No you don t, Arthur, my boy. I know you like a 
 book. You stay here till you re in as deep as the rest 
 , of us. Like Merriam, you know too damned much." 
 
 Penfield sat still, with the cold chills running up and 
 down his spine, while Eckstein went on talking to the 
 two MacMorroghs. 
 
 "This Merriam business complicates things like hell" 
 he was growing coarsely profane in the grinding mill 
 of events. "But it shows us where we stand. This thing 
 has got to go through, and if it doesn t work out the 
 way we ve planned it, it s for us to find another way." 
 
 "There s always the wan other way," said the elder 
 MacMorrogh slowly. " Tis but a drunken fight in wan 
 o the camps, and Ford tryin to stop it, as he always 
 does: a bit of a shindy among the b ys, and this " 
 crooking his forefinger suggestively. 
 
 "Bah!" said Eckstein. "You fellows ought to have 
 lived in the stone age, when a man pulled his enemy 
 to pieces with his bare hands. If it comes to that, there 
 are easier ways and safer. A premature blast in a rock 
 
THE CONSPIRATORS 267 
 
 cut; a weak coupling-pin when he happens to be stand 
 ing in the way of a pulling engine: they tell me he is 
 always indifferent to his personal safety. But never 
 mind the fashion of it; the point I m making is that if 
 everything else fails, Ford mustn t live to be the head- 
 foreman of the outfit." 
 
 Penfield s face was ashen, and he was cravenly thank 
 ful that the lamplight was dim, and that his chair was 
 in the shadow. This was more than he had bargained 
 for ; more by the price of a man s life. 
 
 Eckstein was lifting himself by painful inches from 
 his chair. A silence as of the grave had fallen upon the 
 two MacMorroghs. It was the senior partner who 
 broke it. 
 
 " Tis as ye say, Misther Eckstein. A man a safe 
 man, that ll do what he s told to do will be at Ford s 
 heels till this thing do be settled. And now for your 
 self : tis betther that ye kape dark. Four of us know 
 that you re in the camp no wan else need know. Fve 
 a room and a bed, and ye ll be nadin the lasht, I m 
 thinking." 
 
 The two MacMorroghs were bestirring themselves, 
 and Penfield was slipping through the door into the 
 commissary when Eckstein s fingers closed upon his 
 arm. 
 
 "Your part is to keep tab on the programme," he whis 
 pered. "Get word instantly to Brian if there is any 
 
268 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 change. And if you weaken, Arthur, I ll promise you 
 just one thing : I ll pull you in with the rest of us if I 
 have to swear to a string of lies a mile long. Remem 
 ber that." 
 
 Penfield escaped at length, and stumbled through the 
 littered end-of-track yard to where the lighted windows 
 of the Nadia marked the berth of the president s car. 
 Out of the shadow of the car a man rose up and con 
 fronted him. It was Frisbie, and he asked a single ques 
 tion: 
 
 "Say, Penfield, who was that fellow who rode around 
 to the MacMorroghs back door just after dark ?" 
 
 "It was Eckstein." The secretary let slip the name 
 before he could lay hold of his discretion. 
 
 "Oh: all right. That s all," said the engineer; and he 
 vanished. 
 
 Climbing to the observation platform, Penfield let 
 himself into the cheerful central compartment of the 
 Nadia quietly enough to surprise two people who were 
 sitting together on one of the broad divans. The two 
 were Ford and Miss Alicia Adair, with Aunt Hester 
 Adair, reading under the drop-light at the table, for the 
 only other occupant of the compartment. It was Miss 
 Alicia who told the secretary that he was not needed. 
 
 "Mr. Colbrith was very tired, and he has gone to 
 bed," she said; and Penfield, still pallid and curiously 
 unready of speech, said he believed he d go, too. 
 
THE CONSPIRATORS 269 
 
 Ford got up when Penfield had disappeared in the 
 curtained vestibule leading to the state-rooms. 
 
 "I shall wait one more day, because you want me to," 
 he said, resuming the conversation which had been 
 broken off by Penfield s incoming. "But I ll tell the 
 truth: I came here to-night to have it over with. We 
 were as near quarreling to-day as I want to come, and if 
 Frisbie hadn t got between " 
 
 "Good Mr. Frisbie I" she said. "Some day I hope to 
 get a chance to be very nice to him." 
 
 Ford laughed. The evening had healed many of the 
 woundings of the day. 
 
 "If you don t get the chance it won t be Dick s fault 
 or mine. Meantime, I ll be delighted to pose as his 
 substitute." 
 
 She had gone with him to the door, and his last 
 word was a reminder. "Don t forget," he said. "I m 
 to drive your buckboard to-morrow, whatever happens." 
 
 "You are the one who will forget," she retorted. 
 "When Uncle Sidney crooks his finger at you, you ll 
 climb up obediently beside him and let him scold you all 
 the way over to Copah." 
 
 "Wait and see," said Ford; and then he said good 
 night, not as he wanted to, but as he must, with Aunt 
 Hester sitting within arm s reach. 
 
 Frisbie was sitting up for him when he reached the 
 white tents of the engineers camp pitched a little apart 
 
270 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 from the MacMorrogb. conglomeration of shacks and 
 storehouses. 
 
 "Just one question," said the first assistant, "and 
 I ve been staying awake to ask it. Are you still my 
 boss?" 
 
 "For one more day/ said Ford shortly. 
 
 "Well, we can t live more than a day at a time, if we 
 try. That will do to sleep on." 
 
 "All right; sleep on it, then." 
 
 "In a minute; after I ve freed my mind of one little 
 news item. Do you remember that fellow we saw riding 
 in on the Jack s Canyon trail as we were coming back 
 this afternoon?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Have you any notion who it was?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "It was Mr. Julius Eckstein; and he is at present 
 lying doggo in the MacMorrogh quarters. That s all. 
 Now you can turn in and sleep a few lines on that." 
 
XXI 
 
 THE MILLS OF THE GODS 
 
 It was merely by chance that Adair had Michael 
 Gallagher for his engineer when the "01" was made up 
 for the after-midnight run from Saint s Eest to the 
 MacMorrogh headquarters. But it was a chance which 
 was duly gratifying to Leckhard. The little Irishman 
 was Ford s most loyal liegeman, and a word was all that 
 was needed to put him on his mettle. The word was 
 spoken while he was oiling around for the man-killing 
 extra service. 
 
 "Pretty well knocked out, Michael ?" asked Leckhard, 
 by way of preface, 
 
 "I am thot, Misther Leckhard. Tis the good half of 
 lasht night, all day yestherday, and thin some." 
 
 "It s tough. But if any of the other men were in, I 
 should still ask you to go. Mr. Ford is in a pinch, and 
 Mr. Adair, your passenger, is going to help him out. 
 He can do it if you get him to Horse Creek in time; 
 and I know you ll get him there if the 956 and the 01* 
 will stay on the steel." 
 
 271 
 
272 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 "To help Misther Foord out? Thot s me," said Gal 
 lagher simply. 
 
 "Not having a wire, I can t boost you any from this 
 end. You ll meet Folsom and Graham with the other 
 two sections of empties where you can: you ll run as 
 fast as the Lord ll let you on such a track as you have : 
 but above all, you ll stay on the rails. If you ditch your 
 self, it ll go hard with Mr. Ford." 
 
 "I ll do all thim things and wan more and thot wan 
 is the shtiffest av thim all : the saints aidin me, Misther 
 Leckhard, I ll shtay awake." 
 
 There was a short siding at the summit of the pass, 
 and by good hap, Gallagher met Folsom with the first 
 string of empties at that point: or rather, giving the 
 bit of good luck full credit, he heard the roaring of 
 Folsom s exhaust as the first of the opposing trains 
 pounded up the dangerous western grade, and hastily 
 backed up and took the summit siding. 
 
 Pitching over the hill with the "01" the moment 
 Folsom s tail-lights had passed the outlet switch, Gal 
 lagher had a sharp attack of memory. The day before, 
 in the Horse Creek yard, he had seen and remarked 
 a jagged scratch on the side of the Nadia. Hence, he 
 was watching for the narrow rock cuttings, and the 
 three passages perilous on the cliff face were made in 
 safety. 
 
 Once off the mountain, however, the greater peril 
 
THE MILLS OF THE GODS 273 
 
 began to assert itself. For a time the Irishman kept 
 himself fully awake and alert by pushing the 956 to the 
 ragged edge of hazard, scurrying over the short tangents 
 and lifting her around the curves in breath-taking 
 spurts. Later this expedient began to lose its fillip. 
 Since the train was running wholly on the air-brakes 
 there was nothing for the fireman to do, and Jackson, 
 the loyalest understudy Gallagher had ever known, tum 
 bled from his box in a doze, staggered across the 
 gang-way into the half-filled tender, and fell like a man 
 anaesthetized full length on the coal. Gallagher did not 
 try to arouse him. 
 
 " Tis hell for wan, an twice hell for two," he mut 
 tered; and then he shifted his right hand to the brake- 
 cock and grasped the hot throttle lever with the ungloved 
 left. And for a time the pain of the burn sufficed. 
 
 It was another piece of luck, good or bad, that made 
 Ten Mile station the special train s meeting point with 
 the second train of empties. This time it was Graham, 
 the other engineer, who heard. He had stopped at Ten 
 Mile on the bare chance that the wire between that point 
 and Saint s Rest had been repaired; public opinion to 
 the contrary notwithstanding, an engineer does not run 
 "wild" when he can help it. 
 
 The engineer of the third section had come out of the 
 night operator s office disappointed, and was climbing to 
 his engine to pull out, when he heard, or thought he 
 
274 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 heard, the dull rumble of a train racing down the can 
 yon. It came in sight while he listened, and the yellow 
 flare told him that it was either Gallagher or Folsom 
 doubling back on one of the construction engines. What 
 startled him was the fact that the coming train appeared 
 to be running itself ; there was no warning whistle shriek 
 and no slackening of speed. 
 
 Graham was a Scotchman, slow of speech, slow to an 
 ger, methodical to the thirty-third degree. But in an 
 emergency his brain leveled itself like a ship s compass 
 gimballed to hang plumb in the suddenest typhoon. 
 Three shrill whistle calls sent a sleepy flagman racing 
 to set the switch of the siding. With a clang the revers 
 ing lever came over and the steam roared into the cylin 
 ders. 
 
 The Scotchman had the grade to help him, which was 
 fortunate. When he had the string of empties fairly 
 in retreat, the beam of Gallagher s headlight was shin 
 ing full in his face and blinding him. For a heart 
 breaking second he feared that the opposing train 
 would follow him in on the siding; there was but an 
 instant for the flicking of the switch. But by this time 
 the sleepy flagman was wide awake, and he jerked the 
 switch lever for his life the moment Graham s engine 
 had cleared the points. It was the closest possible shave. 
 Gallagher s cab ticked the forward end of the other en 
 gine s running board in passing, and if Graham had 
 
THE MILLS OF THE GODS 275 
 
 not been still shoving backward with the throttle wide 
 open, the "01," being wider than its piloting engine, 
 would have had its side ripped out. 
 
 Graham had a glimpse into the cab of the 956 as it 
 passed and saw Gallagher, sitting erect on his box with 
 wide-staring eyes. He knew the symptoms, and feared 
 that he had only postponed the catastrophe. The sid 
 ing was a short one, and he knew that in backing down 
 he must inevitably have shoved the rear end of his train 
 out upon the main line at the lower switch. Once again 
 the level brain righted itself to the emergency. Four 
 sharp shrieks of the whistle for switches, a jamming of 
 the whistle lever to set the canyon echoes yelling in the 
 hope of arousing Gallagher, and Graham slammed his 
 engine into the forward motion without pausing to close 
 the throttle. There was a grinding of fire from the 
 wheels, a running jangle of slack-taking down the long 
 line of empties, and the freight train shot ahead, 
 snatching its rear end out of harm s way just as Gal 
 lagher, dreaming that his boiler had burst and that all 
 the fiends of the pit were screeching the news of it, came 
 to life and snapped on the air. 
 
 When the stop was made, the little Irishman roused 
 his fireman, go off and footed it up the line to see what 
 he had done. Graham had stopped his engine when he 
 was sure his train was clearing the lower switch, and 
 was on his way back to find out what had happened to 
 
276 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 Gallagher. The two men met in the shadow of the 
 halted material empties, and it was the Irishman who 
 began it. 
 
 "Paste me wan, Scotchie," he said. " Tis owin to 
 me." 
 
 Without a word the Scotchman gave the Blow, catch 
 ing the little man full in the chest and knocking him 
 half a car-length. That was enough. Gallagher picked 
 himself up out of the gravel, the lust of battle hot upon 
 him. 
 
 "Wan more like thot, ye divvle, and I can lick ye 
 if ye wor Fin-mac-Coul himself," he panted; and 
 Graham gave it judiciously, this time on the point of 
 the jaw. For five bloody minutes it went on, give and 
 take, down and up; methodically on Graham s part, 
 fiery hot on Gallagher s. And in the end the Irishman 
 had the heavier man backed against the string of emp 
 ties and yelling for quarter. 
 
 "Are you full awake now, ye red-hot blastoderm?" 
 gasped Graham, struggling to free himself when Galla 
 gher gave him leave. 
 
 "I am thot, thanks to you, Sandy, lad. Twas a foine 
 bit av a scrimmage, an* Fm owin ye wan. Good night 
 to ye." 
 
 "Ye ve got a clear track from this," called Graham, 
 swabbing his battered face with a piece of cotton waste 
 drawn from one of the pockets of method. "But ye d 
 
THE MILLS OF THE GODS 277 
 
 better not take any more cat-naps. Go on with ye, ye 
 wild Irishman ; ye re obstructin the traffic." 
 
 For twenty miles below Ten Mile Gallagher sat on 
 his box like a man refreshed. Then the devil of sleep 
 postponed beset him again. Once more the fireman was 
 asleep on the coal, and to the little Irishman s bom 
 bardment of wrenches and other missiles he returned 
 only sodden groans. Gallagher nerved himself to fight 
 it through alone. Mile after mile of the time-killing 
 track swung slowly to the rear, and there was not even 
 the flick of speed to help in the grim battle. 
 
 Dawn came when the end-of -track camp was still 
 forty miles away, but the breaking day brought no sur 
 cease of strugglings. When it came to the bitter end, 
 when his eyelids would close involuntarily and he would 
 wake with a start to wonder dumbly how far the 956 had 
 come masterless, Gallagher took a chew of tobacco and 
 began to rub the spittle into his eyes the last resort of 
 the sleep-tormented engineman. Like all the other expe 
 dients it sufficed for the time; but before long he was 
 nodding again, and dreaming that a thousand devils 
 were burning his eyes out with the points of their red- 
 hot pitchforks. 
 
 Out of one of these nightmares he came with a yell 
 of pain to see what figured for the moment as another 
 nightmare. Three hundred feet ahead the track 
 seemed to vanish for three or four rail-lengths. It was 
 
278. EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 second nature to jam on the brakes and to make the sud 
 den stop. Then he sat still and rubbed his smarting 
 eyes and stared again. The curious hallucination per 
 sisted strangely. Fifty feet ahead of the stopped engine 
 the glistening lines of the steel ended abruptly, begin 
 ning again a car-length or two beyond. Without disturb 
 ing the sleeping Jackson, Gallagher got down and crept 
 cautiously out to the break. It was a break. He stooped 
 and felt the rail ends with his hands. 
 
 When he straightened up his passenger was standing 
 beside him. 
 
 "What is it?" asked Adair. "Have we lost some 
 thing?" 
 
 Gallagher waved a grimy hand at the gap. 
 
 "The thrack," he said. " Twas there whin I pulled 
 me sthring av empties out over ut lasht night. Tis 
 gone now, else I m thot near dead for sleep I can 
 nayther see nor feel sthraight." 
 
 Adair was calmly lighting a cigarette. 
 
 "Your senses are still in commission/ he said; 
 "there is a good-sized piece of track missing. Who 
 sniped it, do you suppose?" 
 
 The engineer was shaking his fiery head. 
 
 " ? Tis beyond me, Misther Adair." 
 
 "That s the deuce of it," smiled the young man. 
 "It s beyond the train. How is your engine pretty 
 good on the broad jump ?" 
 
THE MILLS OF THE GODS 279 
 
 Gallagher was not past laughing. 
 
 "She ll not lep thot, this day. But who d be doin 
 this job betune dark an mornin , d ye think?" 
 
 "You will have to ask me something easy, I m not up 
 in all the little practical jokes of the country. But if 
 I should venture a guess, I should say it was some 
 one who didn t want me to answer the first call for 
 breakfast at your end-of-track camp this morning. 
 What do we do?" 
 
 Gallagher was thinking. 
 
 "We passed a camp av surfacers tin mile back, and 
 there d be rails at Arroyo Siding, tin mile back o thot," 
 he said reflectively. 
 
 Adair had passed over to the, river side of the line and 
 was looking at a fresh plowing of the embankment. 
 
 "The rails have been dragged down here and they are 
 probably in the river," he announced. "If we had men 
 and tools we might fish them out and repair damages." 
 
 "Come on, thin," cried the little Irishman, and when 
 he ran back to climb to t!io footboard of the 956, Adair 
 climbed with him. 
 
 Jackson, refreshed by his cat-naps on the coal, was 
 sent to the rear end of the "01" to flag back, and in 
 due time the special picked up the gang of surfacers 
 just turning out to the day s work. An Irish foreman 
 was in command, and to him Gallagher appealed, 
 lucidly but not too gently. The reply was a volley of 
 
280 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 abuse and a caustic refusal to lend his men to the track- 
 laying department. 
 
 Gallagher turned to Adair with his red-apple face 
 wrinkling dismayfully. 
 
 " Tis up to me to push thot felly s face in, Misther 
 Adair; and what wid two nights and a day, shtandin , 
 and wan fight wid a bully twice me size, I m not man 
 enough." 
 
 Adair tossed away the stump of his cigarette. 
 
 "You re quite sure that is what is needed?" he! 
 queried. 
 
 "To knock a grain av sinse into thot Wicklow man ?" 
 queried Gallagher. "Sure, it is." And then whispering : 
 "But not for you, Misther Adair; he d ate you in two 
 bites. L ave me have a thry wid him." 
 
 But Adair was off and fronting the surly MacMor- 
 rogh foreman. 
 
 "We need a dozen of your men and some tools," he 
 said quietly. "Do we get them?" 
 
 "Not by a fistful!" retorted the surly one. "Maybe 
 
 you think you re enough of a to take 
 
 em." 
 
 "I am a better man than you are," was the even- 
 toned rejoinder. 
 
 "Prove it, then." 
 
 Gallagher, leaning from his cab window, fully awake 
 now, and chuckling and rubbing his hands together 
 
THE MILLS OF THE GODS 281 
 
 softly,, saw the blow. It was clean-cut, swift as the light 
 ning s flash, true to a finger s breadth, and the sound of 
 it was as bone upon bone. At its impact the Wicklow 
 man bounded into the air, arched his back like a bow, 
 and pitched on his head in the ditch. When he rose up, 
 roaring blasphemies and doubling his huge fists for 
 the fray, the quiet voice was assailing him again. "Do 
 we get the men and tools ?" 
 
 Again the lightning-like passes of the hands, and the 
 Wicklow man sat down forcibly and gasped. The 
 Italian surfacers threw aside their picks and shovels 
 and made a ring, dancing excitedly and jeering. The 
 big foreman, whose scepter of authority was commonly 
 a pick-handle for the belaboring of offenders, was not 
 loved. 
 
 "Kick-a da shin kick-a da shin he like-a da nig 
 ger-mans," suggested one of the Italians, but there was 
 no need. Being safely out of range of the catapult fists, 
 the foreman stayed there. 
 
 "Take your track gang and be damned to you!" he 
 snarled, 
 
 Adair made a forward step and stood over him. 
 
 "Are you quite convinced that I am the better man ? w 
 he asked very gently. 
 
 "It s a trick I" growled the Wicklow man savagely. "I 
 could get onto it in another whirl or two." 
 
282 EMPIEE BUILDERS 
 
 "Get up," said the gentle voice. "You ll never have 
 a better chance to learn the trick.* But the foreman 
 had the saving grace to shun anti-climaxes. 
 
 "G wan! Take the men, I say; all of em, if you 
 like." 
 
 "Thanks," said Adair pleasantly. "We ll do it, and 
 we ll take you, as well to answer for their good be 
 havior. Let me help you up," and he stooped and 
 snapped the big one to his feet as a man would collar 
 a reluctant boy. 
 
 "Great judgment !" gasped the foreman. "Say, Mister 
 Cock-o -the-walk where do you hide all that muscle?" 
 And without waiting for an answer he piled a dozen of 
 his men upon the engine and followed them, still mut 
 tering. 
 
 It was a partly surfaced ten miles over which the spe 
 cial train thundered for the third time since dawn- 
 breaking, and Gallagher took the last wheel-turn out of 
 the 956. None the less, the sun was reddening the west 
 ern mountains when the Italians took ground at the 
 mysterious gap. The rails were found in the stream, as 
 Adair had predicted, and it was a work of minutes only 
 to snake them up the embankment and to spike them 
 lightly into place. But when Adair, for the healing of 
 wounds, had thrust a bank-note into the hand of the 
 Wicklow man, and the special was once more on its un 
 hindered way westward, the sun had fairly topped the 
 
THE MILLS OF THE GODS 283 
 
 eastern range, and Johnson, the porter of the "01," was 
 shouting across the rocketing tender that breakfast was 
 served. 
 
 The young man in the London-cut clothes might have 
 climbed back to the car over the coal; or Gallagher 
 would have stopped for him. But he elected to stay 
 in the cab, and he was still there, hanging from the open 
 window on Jackson s side, when the one-car special woke 
 the echoes with its whistle, clattered in over the switches 
 at Horse Creek, and came to a stand opposite the Mac- 
 Morroghs commissary. 
 
 It was Brian MacMorrogh who came across the tracks 
 to greet Adair, and, since this was their first meeting, he 
 made the. mistake of his life in calling the young di 
 rector by name. 
 
 "The top of the morning to you, Misther Adair. Is it 
 Misther Colbrith you d be looking for?" 
 
 "It is," said Adair shortly, not failing to remark that 
 the barrel-bodied, black-bearded man seemed to recog 
 nize and to be expecting him. 
 
 " Tis two hours gone they all are," was the oily- 
 voiced explanation. "Up the grade and over to Copah. 
 But they ll be back to-morrow, Heaven savin thim, and 
 we ll make you comfortable here as comfortable as we 
 can." 
 
 "That will be quickly "done," said Adair, swinging 
 down from the engine step. "Just give me a horse and 
 
284 EMPIEE BUILDERS 
 
 tell me which way they have gone, and I ll overtake 
 them." 
 
 But here the barrel-bodied one spread his hands help 
 lessly* 
 
 "Tis just our luck!" he protested, in the keenest 
 self-reproach. "There isn t a horse or a mule in camp 
 that you could get a mile an hour out of. In fact, I m 
 thinking there isn t anny horses at all I" 
 
XXII 
 
 THE MAN ON HORSEBACK 
 
 Since the weather was rather threatening, and the 
 promise of October in the inter-mountain region is not 
 to be lightly trifled with, Mr. Colbrith pressed for an 
 early start on the seventeen-mile buckboard jaunt to 
 Copah over the detour survey. 
 
 It was by his express command that the private-car 
 party was called at daybreak, and that breakfast was 
 served in the Nadia at six o clock. And at seven sharp, 
 which chanced to be the precise time of day when 
 Adair s commandeered Italians were spiking the last of 
 the displaced rails into position at the gap in the track 
 thirty-three miles away, the buckboards were drawn up 
 at the steps of the president s car. 
 
 For reasons charitable, as well as practical, Ford had 
 planned to leave Frisbie out of this second dance of at 
 tendance upon the president. The track-layers were 
 well up toward the head of Horse Creek gulch, with 
 Brissac to drive; but during the night the Louisianian 
 
 285 
 
286 EMPIEE BUILDEKS 
 
 had reported in with a touch of mountain fever, and 
 Ford had asked Frisbie to go up and take his place. 
 
 This was one of Ford s peg-drivings for the day; and 
 another was timed for the moment of outsetting. For 
 conveyances for the party there were the two double- 
 seated buckboards used on the canyon trip the previous 
 day, and one other with a single seat; but there were 
 only two drivers, the third man, who had brought the 
 single-seated rig from Copah, having been prevailed 
 upon by Ford to disappear. 
 
 Ford directed the distribution of the trippers arbitra 
 rily, and was amazed when the president acquiesced 
 without protest. Mr. Colbrith, the doctor s wife, and 
 Penfield, were to go in the leading vehicle ; "Aunt Hester 
 Adair, Miss Van Bruce, and the doctor, in the second; 
 and Ford drove the single-seated third, with Miss Alicia 
 for his companion. 
 
 "I think you must have taken Uncle Sidney una 
 wares," said Alicia, when the caravan was toiling at a 
 slow footpace along the rough wagon road paralleling 
 the Horse Creek grade. 
 
 <r You mean that he might have objected to your 
 driver? You are a whole lot safer with me than you 
 would be with one of those livery-stable helpers up 
 ahead/ 
 
 "Oh, no; I didn t mean just that. But you know He 
 usually plans all tHe little details himself, and 33 
 
THE MAN ON HORSEBACK 287 
 
 "And the fact that somebody else plans them is suffi 
 cient excuse for a rearrangement. That is one of the 
 penalties he pays for being the big boss/ laughed Ford. 
 Since the yesterday was now safely yesterday, and to 
 day was his own, there was no room for anything but 
 pure joy. 
 
 "You are a ^big boss/ too, aren t you ?" she said, match 
 ing his light-hearted mood. 
 
 "I was, in a way, until your uncle came over and 
 eclipsed me." 
 
 "And you will be again when Uncle Sidney moves a 
 little farther along in his orbit." 
 
 "That remains to be seen. There is yet plenty of time 
 for him to abolish me, permanently, before he goes on 
 his way rejoicing." 
 
 "But you are not going to resign, you know/ she re 
 minded him. 
 
 "Am I not ?" Then he took his courage by the proper 
 grip and went on with sudden gravity : "That rests en 
 tirely with you." 
 
 "Mr. Ford ! Aren t you a little unfair?" She did not 
 pretend to misunderstand him. 
 
 "I am open to convincement," he affirmed. 
 
 "It is making me Uncle Sidney s executioner, on one 
 hand ; or yours, on the other." 
 
 He pressed the point relentlessly. 
 
 "There are only two horns to the dilemma : either Mr. 
 
288 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 Colbrith, or a man named Stuart Ford, will have to walk 
 the official plank. Because Mr. Colbrith is your relative, 
 I m willing to be the victim. But you must say that it 
 is what you wish. That is my price." 
 
 "I say it is unfair/ she repeated. "Why should you 
 put the burden of the decision upon poor me ?" 
 
 "Because, if you were not concerned,, there would be, 
 to put it in good Hibernian, only one horn to the dilem 
 ma and your uncle would be impaled upon that one." 
 
 "Mercy!" she shuddered, in mock dismay. "That 
 sounds almost vindictive. Are you vindictive, Mr. 
 Ford?" 
 
 "Terribly," he laughed. "The black-hearted villain 
 of melodrama isn t a patch on me when I m stirred." 
 And then, more seriously : "But it isn t altogether a joke. 
 There is another side to the thing what you might call 
 the ethical, I suppose. There are a score or so of men in 
 the company s service Frisbie and his subordinates 
 whose jobs hang upon mine. A worse man than I ever 
 aspired to be might be loyal to his friends." 
 
 "I wouldn t think of questioning your loyalty to your 
 friends," she admitted. 
 
 "Also," he went on determinately, "there is the larger 
 question of right and wrong involved. Is jt-righLfor me 
 to step aside and let an organized system of graft and 
 thievery go on unchecked ? I know it exists ; I have evi 
 dence enough to go before a grand jury. I m not posing 
 
THE MAN ON HOKSEBACE; 289 
 
 as a saint, or even as a muck-raker; but isn ? t_something 
 due to the people who are paying the bills ?" 
 
 "Now you are involving Uncle Sidney again; and I 
 can t listen to that." 
 
 "He is innocent; as innocent as some hundreds of 
 other narrow-minded, short-sighted old men whom 
 chance, or the duplicity of the real rascals, puts at the 
 head of corporations." 
 
 "Yet you would make him suffer with the guilty." 
 
 "Not willingly, you may be sure. Not at all, if he 
 would listen to reason. But he won t. He ll stand by 
 North till the last gun is fired; and while North stays, 
 there ll be graft, big or little, as the opportunities war 
 rant." 
 
 Alicia held her peace while the caravan was measuring 
 another half-mile of the boulder-strewn road. Then she 
 said : "I feel so wretchedly inadequate to help you, Mr. 
 Ford. I wish you could wait until you have talked it 
 over with brother." 
 
 "So do I. But I am afraid postponement doesn t lie 
 with me, now. Prom your uncle s manner and from 
 what he said to me yesterday, I can t help feeling that 
 the crisis is right here. For two days Mr. Colbrith has 
 been very plainly leading up to some sort of dramatic 
 climax. I can t remotely guess what it is going to be; 
 though I can guess that the plot isn t his." 
 
 Again she took time to consider, and when she spoke 
 
290 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 they were nearing the scene of strenuous activities at 
 the moving track-end. 
 
 "You don t think you could postpone it?" she asked, 
 almost wistfully, he thought. "I think I hope my 
 brother will become interested again. It is your fault 
 that he lost interest, Mr. Ford." 
 
 "My fault?" reproachfully. 
 
 "Certainly. You didn t give him enough to do. He 
 was happy and contented while you kept him hard at 
 work. But after the bonds were placed and the money 
 raised " 
 
 "I m a miserable sinner!" Ford confessed. "And I 
 had promised you, too ! But the battle has been so fierce 
 at this end of the line ; and I couldn t be in two places at 
 one time. Your brother should have been made first 
 vice-president, instead of North. Perhaps we can bring 
 it about yet if you don t call it all off." 
 
 "There it is again," she retorted. "You are dragging 
 me in and trying to bribe me, too !" 
 
 "God forbid!" he said, so earnestly that she forgave 
 him. And then: "I wish your brother were here 
 
 now." 
 
 "So do I," she admitted. Then she told him of the 
 wire summons sent from Denver, and of the shadowy 
 hope she had based upon it. 
 
 "Where was your brother then ?" he asked. 
 
 "I don t know, positively. I hope he was in New 
 
THE MAN ON HOESEBACK 291 
 
 York. He was to come over in the Campania, in time 
 for the shooting at Mount Ptarmigan." 
 
 Cf You ve had no word from him ?" 
 
 "None." 
 
 They were up with the track-layers, now, in a coun 
 try of huge bare hills and high-lying, waterless valleys ; 
 and the president had halted the caravan to give his 
 guests a chance to see a modern railroad in the actual 
 throes of evolution. 
 
 In a specialist in the trade, Ford s genius might have 
 invoked enthusiasm. Speed was the end to which all 
 of the young engineer s inventive powers had been di 
 rected ; and the pace was furious. On the leveled grade 
 ahead of the track-laying train an army of sweating la 
 borers marched and counter-marched like trained sol 
 diers, placing the cross-ties in position. On a train of 
 specially constructed flat-cars another army was bolting 
 together a long section of track, clamping the double line 
 of rails at intervals to hold them to gauge. At the word, 
 "Keady \" a hauling chain, passing through an anchored 
 pulley-block far up the grade and back to the freed 
 engine of the construction train, was made fast to the 
 forward end of the bolted section ; a second word of com 
 mand, and the engine backed swiftly, dragging the pre 
 pared section off over the rollers of the flat-cars and 
 into place on the ties. With the clanging fall of the final 
 pair of rails, a third army, spike-drivers these, fell upon 
 
292 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 the newly placed steel, shouting their chantey as they 
 swung the great pointed hammers ; and in the midst of 
 this fresh turmoil the train, with its brigade of bolters 
 deftly preparing another section, was slowly pushed to 
 the new front for another advance. 
 
 "It is like clockwork," was Miss Alicia s enthusiastic 
 comment. "Did you invent it, Mr. Ford ?" 
 
 Now the combination of flat-car bolting-table, and the 
 shifting and laying by sections, was Ford s invention, 
 but he modestly stood from under. 
 
 "Frisbie gets the medal," he said. "It s all in the drill 
 every man knowing what he has to do, and doing it 
 at the proper moment. I d give something if I had 
 Dick s knack in detail organizing." 
 
 She looked up, laughing. "You have the funniest 
 way of ducking to cover if you think a bit of honest 
 appreciation is coming your way, Mr. Ford. You know 
 you told Mr. Frisbie how to do it." 
 
 "Did I ? I suppose it wouldn t be polite to contradict 
 you." 
 
 "Or any use. Is Mr. Frisbie here now? Oh, yes; 
 there he is." And then, in a half -awed whisper : "Who 
 is that dreadful, Grand-Opera-villain looking man he is 
 talking to?" 
 
 Ford s eyes sought and found Frisbie. He was stand 
 ing a little apart from the turmoil, talking to a man on 
 horseback; a man with half -closed, beady, black eyes, 
 
THE MAN ON HOESEBACE 293 
 
 drooping mustaches, and a face reptilian in its repul- 
 siveness. 
 
 "That is Mexican George ; the MacMorrogh Brothers 
 Idller ," said Ford evenly. "Have you ever heard of a 
 professional man-killer, Miss Adair; a man whose call 
 ing is that of a hired assassin ?" 
 
 She shuddered. ff You are jesting, I know. But the 
 word fits his face so accurately. I saw him lounging 
 about the store at the camp yesterday, and it gave me 
 the creeping shivers every time I looked at him. Do you 
 ever have such instantaneous and unreasoning hatreds 
 at first sight?" 
 
 "Now and then; yes. But I was not jesting about 
 Mexican George. He is precisely what the word implies ; 
 is hired for it and paid for it. Nominally, he guards 
 the commissary and stores, and is the paymaster s armed 
 escort. Eeally, it is his duty to shoot down any desperate 
 laborer who, in the MacMorroghs judgment, needs to 
 be killed out of the way." 
 
 "Mercy I" Miss Alicia was shuddering again. "What 
 hideously primitive conditions! What is this terrible 
 man doing out here ?" 
 
 "Oh, he is a free lance ; comes and goes as he pleases. 
 No, he s not quarreling with Dick" answering her look 
 of anxiety. 
 
 "How do you know he isn t ?" 
 
 Ford laughed. ."Because Dick wouldn t let him get 
 
294 EMPIEE BUILDERS 
 
 that near. He knows Hello ; I wonder what your good 
 uncle wants of us." 
 
 Mr. Colbrith was standing up in his place in the lead 
 ing buckboard and making signals to the rear guard of 
 two. Ford shook the reins over his broncos and drove 
 around. 
 
 The president was fingering his thin beard and wav 
 ing an arm toward the track-layers. 
 
 "Mr. ah Ford/ he began critically, "is it necessary 
 to have such a vast army of men as that to lay the 
 track?" 
 
 "I don t think we are over-manned/ said Ford good- 
 naturedly. It was comparatively easy to be patient with 
 Alicia looking on and listening. 
 
 But it was against Mr. Colbrith s principles to let a 
 man off with a single rebuttal. 
 
 "I am not at all convinced of the worth of these new 
 fangled ideas, Mr. Ford ; not at all. We built the Pacific 
 Southwestern main line in the old, approved way a rail 
 at a time with less than one-quarter of the men you 
 have over there." 
 
 "I don t question it : and you were three years build 
 ing some six hundred miles in a prairie country. We are 
 to-day just six weeks out of Saint s Rest with the track 
 gang, and in six more, if the weather holds, we shall be 
 laying the switches in the Green Butte yards. That is 
 the difference between the old way and the new." 
 
THE MAN" ON HOKSEBACK 295 
 
 The president was turned aside but not stopped. 
 
 "I understand," he objected raucously. "But your 
 expense bills are something tremendous; tre-wendous, 
 Mr. Ford ! You have spent more money in three months 
 than we spent in a full year on the main line." 
 
 "Quite likely," agreed Ford, losing interest in the 
 pointless discussion. "But with us, time is an object; 
 and we have the results to show for the expenditure." 
 
 At this, Mr. Colbrith took refuge in innuendo, as 
 seemed to be his lately acquired habit. 
 
 "You are very ready with your answers, Mr. Ford; 
 very ready, indeed. Let us see if you can continue as 
 you have begun." 
 
 It was Miss Alicia who resented this final speech of 
 the president s when the buckboards were once more in 
 motion, following the unrailed grade around the swell 
 ing shoulders of the huge hills. 
 
 "I think that last remark of Uncle Sidney s was 
 rather uncalled for," she said, after Ford had driven 
 in grim silence at the tail of the procession for a full 
 mile. 
 
 "It is one of a good many uncalled-for things he has 
 been saying to me since the day before yesterday," was 
 Ford s rejoinder. 
 
 "Yet you can still assure me that you are not vindic 
 tive." 
 
 "I am not at the mere actors in the play. But I 
 
296 EMPIEE BUILDEKS 
 
 confess to an unholy desire to get back at the prompter 
 the stage manager of the little comedy. I am only 
 waiting for your decision." 
 
 "Please!" she said; and he saw that the blue eyes 
 were growing wistful again. 
 
 "I m done," he said quickly. "I shan t put it up to 
 you any more. I ll do what I think I ought to do, on my 
 own responsibility." 
 
 But now, woman-like, she crossed quickly to the other 
 side. 
 
 "No ; you mustn t deprive me of my chance," she pro 
 tested soberly. "After a little while I shall tell you what 
 I think what I think you ought to do. Only you must 
 give me time." 
 
 His smile came from the depths of a lover s heart. 
 
 <f You shall have all the time there is and then some, 
 if I can compass it. Now let s talk about something else. 
 I ve been boring you with this despicable business affair 
 ever since you gave me leave on that foot-race down Plug 
 Mountain Tuesday afternoon." 
 
 "What shall it be?" she inquired gaily. And then: 
 "Oh, I know. One day last summer just as we were 
 leaving Chicago in the Nadia you had begun to tell me 
 about a certain young woman who had money, and who 
 was who was " 
 
 " who was without her peer in all this world," he 
 finished for her. "Yes ; I remember." 
 
THE MAN ON HORSEBACK 297 
 
 "Do you still remember her,, as you do the conversa 
 tion ?" she went on teasingly. 
 
 "I have never lost a day since I first met her." 
 
 "Good Sir Galahad I" she mocked. "And is she still 
 worth all those sacrifices you said you would be willing 
 to make for her ?" 
 
 "All, and several more." 
 
 Silence for a little time, while the hoof-beats of a horse 
 fox-trotting behind them drew nearer. It was the sinis 
 ter-faced Mexican who ambled into view, and when he 
 overtook the rearmost of the buckboards he was a long 
 time in passing. 
 
 "That dreadful man I" murmured Alicia ; and she did 
 not go back to the suspended subject until he had trotted 
 on past the caravan. Then she said slowly, taking her 
 companion s complete understanding for granted: "It 
 must be delicious to be away out over one s depth, like 
 that!" 
 
 "It is," said Ford solemnly. "It s like well, I ve 
 never been sick a day in my life since I can remember, 
 but I should think it might be like a a sort of benefi 
 cent fever, you know. Haven t you ever had a touch 
 of it?" 
 
 "Possibly without recognizing it. Can you describe 
 the symptoms ?" 
 
 "Accurately. One day I awoke suddenly to the real 
 ization that there was one woman in the world : before 
 
298 EMPIKE BUILDERS 
 
 that, you know, there had always been a good many, but 
 never just one. Then I began to discover that this one 
 woman was the embodiment of an ideal my ideal. She 
 said and did and looked all the things I d been missing 
 in the others. I wanted to drop everything and run after 
 her." 
 
 "How absolutely idyllic!" she murmured. "And 
 then?" 
 
 "Then I had to come down to earth with a dull, stun 
 ning swat, of course. There were a lot of commonplace, 
 material things waiting to be done, and it was up to me 
 to do them. Before I saw her, I used to think that 
 nothing could divide time with a man s work : that there 
 wouldn t be any time to divide. Afterward, I found out 
 my mistake. Sleeping or waking, every day and all day, 
 she was there : and the work went on just the same, or 
 rather a whole lot better." 
 
 The long drive was in its final third, and the wagon 
 track, which had transferred itself to the top of the 
 level railroad grade, admitted speed. By degrees the 
 caravan became elongated, with the president still in the 
 lead, the man on horseback indifferently ahead or be 
 hind, and the other two vehicles wide apart and well to 
 the rear. Their isolation was complete when she said : 
 
 "Do you want me to say that I don t recognize any of 
 the symptoms, Mr. Ford ?" 
 
 "Do I No ! Yes ! that is, I Heavens ! that is a 
 
THE MAN ON HOESEBACK 299 
 
 terrible way to put it ! Of course I hope I hope you are 
 in love with the right person. If you re not, I " 
 
 She was weeping silently; weeping because it would 
 have been a sin to laugh. 
 
 "You called it a comedy a little while ago/ she 
 faltered. "In another minute it will be a tragedy. Don t 
 you think we are getting too far behind the others ?" 
 
 He whipped up obediently, but the horses were in no 
 hurry. At the rounding of the next shouldering hill the 
 railroad grade entered a high, broad valley, the swelling 
 hills on either side dotted with the dumps and tunnel- 
 openings of the Copah gold-diggers. Ford had not been 
 through the upper part of the district since the previous 
 summer of pathfindings, and at that time it was like a 
 dozen other outlying and hardly accessible fields, scantily 
 manned and languishing under the dry rot of isolation. 
 But now 
 
 He was looking curiously across at the opposing hill 
 sides. Black dots, dozens of them, were moving from 
 ledge to ledge, pausing here and there to ply pick and 
 shovel. Now and then from some one of the dry arroyos 
 came the echoes of a surface shot; dynamite cartridges 
 thrust into the earth to clear away the drift to bed-rock. 
 Ford called his companion s attention to the activities. 
 
 "See what it does to a mining country when a railroad 
 comes within shouting distance," he said. "The last time 
 I was over here, this valley was like a graveyard. Now 
 
300 EMPIKE BUILDEKS 
 
 you d think the entire population of Copah was up here 
 prospecting for gold." 
 
 "Is that what they are doing ?" she asked. Then sud 
 denly: "Where is your mine? the mine with my 
 name?" 
 
 He laughed. 
 
 "I told you the simple truth. I don t know where it 
 is ; though I suppose it is up this way somewhere. Yes, 
 I remember, Grigsby said it was on Cow Mountain." 
 
 The hill on their side of the valley threw out a long, 
 low spur and the railroad-grade driving track swept in 
 a long curve around the spur and crossed over to the foot 
 of a slope dotted with the digging manikins. 
 
 "By Jove!" said Ford, still wondering. "There are 
 twice as many prospectors out here as there were in 
 habitants in Copah the last time I was over. The camp 
 ought to vote bonds and give the railroad company a 
 bonus." 
 
 Farther along, the grade hugged the hillside, skirting 
 the acclivity where the shaft-houses of some of the older 
 mines of the district were perched on little hillocks 
 formed by their own dumps, within easy tramming dis 
 tance of the railroad. Opposite and directly below the 
 nearest of these shaft-houses the two leading buckboards 
 had stopped ; and the president was once more standing 
 up and beckoning vigorously to the laggards in the 
 single-seated vehicle. 
 
THE MAN ON HORSEBACK 301 
 
 Ford spoke to his horses and grimaced as one who 
 swallows bitter herbs. 
 
 "I wonder what I ve been doing now or leaving un 
 done ?" he queried. 
 
 He was not kept long in suspense. When they drove 
 up, the president was still standing, balancing himself 
 with a hand on the driver s seat in front. His thin face 
 was working nervously and the aggressive chin whiskers 
 moved up and down like an accusing finger. 
 
 "Dear me!" said Alicia, under her breath; "Uncle 
 Sidney is really angry, this time! What could have 
 hap " She glanced up at the mine buildings perched 
 above the roadway and smothered a little cry. Ford s 
 eyes followed hers. All across the slab-built shaft-house 
 and the lean-to ore sheds was stretched a huge canvas 
 sign. And in letters of bright blue, freshly painted and 
 two feet high, ran the boastful legend : 
 
 THE LITTLE ALICIA MINE 
 
 THE ONLY PAYING PRODUCER IN THE DISTRICT 
 
 Stuart Ford & John Grigsby, Props. 
 
 The white-haired old man standing in the leading 
 buckboard was trembling with righteous indignation. 
 Pointing a shaking finger at the incriminating sign, he 
 broke out in a storm of accusation. 
 
 "So, Mr. Ford ! This is why you changed the route of 
 
302 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 the extension and added twelve miles to its length I" he 
 raved. "This explains why you suddenly found the 
 shorter route impracticable! Answer me, sir: when did 
 you become interested in this mine ?" 
 
 There was a little stir of consternation among the 
 listeners ; and it did not help matters that the man on 
 horseback ambled up at the moment and drew rein be 
 hind the doctor s vehicle. Ford s hands were gripping 
 the reins until the stiff leathers were crumpled into 
 strings ; but it was Alicia s touch on his arm that enabled 
 him to reply coldly : 
 
 "It was something over two months ago, I believe. I 
 can give you the exact date when we reach Copah, though 
 you will permit me to say that it is none of your busi 
 ness." 
 
 Mr. Colbrith exploded like a hastily fired bomb. 
 
 "I propose to make it some of my business ! Was it 
 before or after your purchase here that you decided upon 
 the change of route ? Answer me that, Mr. Ford !" 
 
 Ford wheeled his bronchos and closed the shouting 
 
 gap- 
 
 "Sit down, Mr. Colbrith," he said half-menacingly. 
 
 "If it is your purpose to humiliate me before your 
 guests, I shall drive on and leave you." 
 
 "You don t answer my question; you can not answer 
 it ! You instructed your assistant to change the line of 
 this railroad after you had bought this mine !" 
 
Answer me, sir ! When did you become interested in this mine ?" Page 303 
 
THE MAN ON HORSEBACK . 303 
 
 "And if I did?" 
 
 "You did. And by so doing, Mr. Ford, you diverted 
 the company s money to your own personal ends as 
 wrongfully as if you had put your hands into the treas 
 urer s strong-box. In other words, you became what 
 you have accused others of being a common grafter !" 
 
 Ford s face was very white, and his lips were drawn 
 into thin lines when he opened them to reply. But the 
 restraining hand was on his arm again, and he obeyed it. 
 
 "I don t care to talk with you, about this matter or 
 any other, here and now. Later on, perhaps, when you 
 can speak without being abusive, I shall take the liberty 
 of telling you what I think of you." And at that, he 
 gave his horses the rein and drove on, swiftly, abruptly, 
 leaving the president and his guests to follow as they 
 would. 
 
 For some minutes neither of the two in the flying 
 buckboard could find words wherewith to bridge the 
 miserable chasm so suddenly opened between them. 
 Miss Alicia s eyes were tear-brightened and unfathom 
 able; Ford s were hard, and there was a steely light in 
 them. It was Alicia who spoke first. 
 
 "I know it is not true, of course what Uncle Sidney 
 accused you of," she offered. "But tell me how it hap 
 pened?" 
 
 "I don t know unless the devil planned it," said 
 Ford bitterly. "I bought the mine one day last summer 
 
304 EMPIRE BUILDEES 
 
 when I was in Copah, without premeditation, without 
 seeing it without knowing where it was situated, just 
 as I have told you. Some little time afterward, Frisbie 
 came to me with the plan for the change of route. I had 
 considered it before, but had made no estimates. Frisbie 
 had made the estimates, and we decided upon it at once. 
 I haven t been over here since : it wasn t necessary, and 
 I had other things to do." 
 
 "Did Mr. Frisbie know about your purchase of the 
 mine?" 
 
 "No. I don t think he knows of it yet. To tell the 
 truth, I was a little ashamed : it was a touch of the min 
 ing fever that everybody gets now and then in a mining 
 country. Dick would have guyed me." 
 
 "But Mr. Frisbie must have been over the line a great 
 many times: how could he miss seeing that enormous 
 sign ?" she persisted. 
 
 Ford shook his head. 
 
 "I venture to say that the paint isn t yet dry on that 
 sign. It was put there for a purpose, and your uncle was 
 told to look for it. Grigsby is just the sort of fool to 
 jump at the chance to advertise the mine, and somebody 
 suggested it and gave him the tip that the president of 
 the railroad was coming in this way. Mr. North is a 
 very careful man. He doesn t neglect any of the little 
 details." 
 
 The high valley was falling away into a broken gulch, 
 
THE MAN ON HORSEBACK 305 
 
 and the railway-grade driving-path clung closer to the 
 hillsides. At the next turn the town of Copah came into 
 view, and the road became a shelf on the slope two hun 
 dred feet above the main street and paralleling it. Alicia 
 was looking down upon the town when she said : 
 
 "What shall you do?" 
 
 Ford s laugh was not mirthful. 
 
 "I have already done it. I shall perhaps be permitted 
 to see you all safely back to the Nadia, and over the 
 rough track to Saint s Rest. More than that I fancy Mr. 
 Colbrith will not allow and possibly not that much." 
 
 Miss Adair was still looking down upon the town ; and 
 now Ford looked. Instantly he saw that something un 
 usual was going on. Notwithstanding the number of 
 men afield on the hills, the main street of the camp was 
 restlessly alive. Horsemen were galloping back and 
 forth; in front of the outfitting stores freighters were 
 hastily loading their pack animals; at every gathering 
 place there were knots of excited men talking and ges 
 ticulating. 
 
 Ford was puzzled. At another time he would quickly 
 have put the obvious two and two together to make the 
 equally obvious four. But now he merely said : "That s 
 curious; mighty curious. Where do you suppose all 
 those people came from ?" 
 
 Alicia s rejoinder was not an answer to the half- 
 mechanical query. 
 
306 EMPIKE BUILDEES 
 
 "Mr. Ford, a little while ago I told you I must have 
 time to consider : I I have considered. You must fight 
 for your life and your good name. You must make 
 Uncle Sidney see things as they are that they are not 
 as he thinks they are." 
 
 "I can t/ he said stubbornly. "Your condition re 
 verses your decision. If I am to fight with any hope of 
 winning, after what has transpired to-day, Mr. Colbrith 
 will have to be eliminated." 
 
 He had pulled the broncos down to a walk. There was 
 a soft thudding of hoofs on the yielding earth of the 
 grade behind, but neither of them heard. 
 
 "You are disappointing me/ she protested, and now 
 the hesitation was all gone. "A few minutes ago, before 
 this miserable thing happened, you were telling me of 
 your ideal ... a woman may have an ideal, too, Mr. 
 Ford." 
 
 "Yes ?" he said eagerly. 
 
 "My ideal is the knight without fear and without re 
 proach and also without limitations. He will never 
 say, I can not. He will say, I will/ and not for my 
 sake, but because his own sense of justice and mercy and 
 loving-kindness will go hand in hand with his ambi 
 tion." 
 
 "One word," he broke in passionately; and now the 
 soft thudding of hoofs had drawn so near that the pres 
 ence of the overtaking horseman might have been felt. 
 
THE MAN ON HOKSEBACK 307 
 
 "My little allegory didn t deceive you; you are the one 
 woman, Alicia, dear. I didn t mean to tell you yet, 
 though I think you have known it all along: I had an 
 idea that I wanted to do something worthy something 
 big enough to be worth while before I spoke. But you 
 have given me leave; don t say you haven t given me 
 leave!" 
 
 "You have taken it," she said softly, adding: "And 
 that is what a woman likes, I think. But you mustn t 
 spoil my ideal, Stuart indeed, you mustn t. You are 
 young, strong, invincible, as my knight should be. But 
 when you strike you must also spare. You say there is 
 no way save the one you have indicated; you must find 
 a way." 
 
 He smiled ruefully. 
 
 "You give the cup of water only to take it away again. 
 I d rather build ten railroads than to attempt to smash 
 North and his confederates through your uncle. You 
 see, I m frightfully handicapped right at the start 
 with this mine business hanging over me. But if you 
 say it has to be done, it shall be. I ll win Mr. Colbrith 
 over, in spite of all that has happened ; and he shall fire 
 North and the MacMorroghs first and prosecute them 
 afterward. I ve said it." 
 
 It was just here that the broncos shied inward, 
 loward the hill. Ford gathered the slack reins, and Miss 
 Adair looked up and gave a little shriek. Noiselessly, 
 
308 EMPIKE BUILDEES 
 
 and so close upon the blackboard that he might have 
 touched either of its occupants with his rawhide quirt, 
 rode the Mexican. When they discovered him he was 
 leaning forward, his half-closed eyes mere slits with pin 
 points of black fire to mark them, and his repulsive face 
 a stolid mask. Ford s hand went instinctively to the 
 whip : it was the only available weapon. But the Mex 
 ican merely touched his flapping sombrero and rode on 
 at the shuffling fox-trot. 
 
 "That man, again I" shivered Alicia, when the portent 
 of evil had passed out of sight around the next curve in 
 the grade. 
 
 But Ford s concern was deeper than her passing thrill 
 of repulsion. 
 
 "Did you notice his horse s hoofs as he went by ?" he 
 asked soberly. 
 
 "No," she said. 
 
 "I did. He dismounted somewhere behind us and 
 covered them with sacking." 
 
 "What for?" she asked, shivering again with the 
 nameless dread. 
 
 "You recall what I was saying when the broncos 
 shied : his object was to creep up behind us and listen. 
 He has done it more than once since we left the end-of- 
 track, and this time " 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 "This time he heard what he wanted to hear." 
 
THE MAN ON HORSEBACK 309 
 
 Beyond the curve which had hidden the Mexican, the 
 wagon-road left the grade, descending abruptly upon 
 the town. Ford looked back from the turn and saw that 
 the other two vehicles were not yet in sight. 
 
 "Shall we wait for your aunt and the others?" he 
 asked. 
 
 Her smile was a sufficient reward for the bit of tactful 
 forethought. 
 
 "I m sure we have left the conventions far enough 
 behind not to be unduly terrified by them. I am not 
 afraid to go in unchaperoned. Besides, I heard Uncle 
 Sidney telling Doctor Van Bruce that our rooms at the 
 hotel had been engaged for us." 
 
 Ford drove carefully down the steep side street which 
 was the approach to the hotel. An excited throng blocked 
 the sidewalk, and the lobby seemed to be a miniature 
 stock exchange. Single-eyed, Ford fought a passage 
 through the crowd with Alicia on his arm, heeding noth 
 ing until he had seen her safely above stairs and in the 
 sitting-room of the president s reservation, with a cheer 
 ful fire in the big sheet-iron stove for her comforting. 
 Then he went down and elbowed his way through the 
 clamorous lobby to the clerk s desk. 
 
 "Suppose you take a minute or two off and tell me 
 what this town has gone crazy about, Hildreth," he said, 
 with a backward nod toward the lobby pandemonium. 
 
 "Why, Great Scott ! Mr. Ford have you got this far 
 
310 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 into it without finding out?" was the astounded rejoin 
 der. "It s a gold strike on Cow Mountain the biggest 
 since Cripple Creek! We ve doubled our population 
 since seven o clock this morning; and by this time to 
 morrow . . . Say, Mr. Ford; for heaven s sake, get 
 your railroad in here! We ll all go hungry within an 
 other twenty-four hours can t get supplies for love or 
 money !" 
 
 Ford turned away and looked out upon the stock-sell 
 ing pandemonium with unseeing eyes. The chance the 
 heaven-sent hour that strikes only once in a life-time for 
 the builders of empire had come: and he was only 
 waiting for the arrival of the president to find himself 
 rudely thrust aside from the helm of events. 
 
XXIII 
 
 THE DEADLOCK 
 
 "No, Mr. Ford; there is no explanation that will ex 
 plain away the incriminating fact. This is a matter 
 which involves the good name of the Pacific South 
 western company, through its officials, and I must insist 
 upon your resignation." 
 
 The battle was on, with the two combatants facing 
 each other in the privacy of the president s room in the 
 Copah hotel. Since Alicia had made him exchange the 
 sword of extermination for the olive branch, Ford was 
 fighting on the defensive, striving good-naturedly and 
 persistently to keep his official head on his shoulders. 
 
 "I ve admitted that it looks pretty bad, Mr. Colbrith; 
 but you will concede the one chance in a hundred that 
 no wrong was intended. I merely did, on the ground, 
 what thousands of investors in mining chances do the 
 world over bought an interest in a mine without know 
 ing or caring greatly into what particular mountain the 
 mine tunnel was driven." 
 
 Mr. Colbrith frowned. He was of that elder genera- 
 311 
 
312 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 tion of masters which looked with cold disapproval upon 
 any side ventures on the part of the subordinate. 
 
 "The company has paid you liberally for your time 
 and your undivided attention, Mr. Ford. No man can 
 serve two masters. Your appointment as assistant to 
 the president did not contemplate your engaging in 
 other business." 
 
 Ford carefully suppressed the smile which the bit of 
 industrial martinetry provoked. 
 
 "As to that/ he said placably, "I can assure you that 
 the gold-digging has been purely an investment on my 
 part." 
 
 "But an investment which you should not have made/ 
 insisted the president judicially. "If it had not tempted 
 you to the breach of trust, it was still inexpedient most 
 undeniably inexpedient. An official high in the counsels 
 of a great corporation should be like Caesar s wife 
 above suspicion." 
 
 This time Ford s smile could not be wholly repressed. 
 "I grant you it was foolhardy, in the economic point of 
 view," he confessed. "I took a long chance of going ten 
 thousand dollars to the bad. But mine-buying is a dis 
 ease as contagious as the measles. Everybody in a min 
 ing country takes a flyer, at least once. The experienced 
 ones will tell you that nobody is immune. Take your 
 own case, now : if you don t keep a pretty tight hold on 
 your check-book, Mr. Colbrith, Cow Mountain will " 
 
THE DEADLOCK 313 
 
 The president frowned again ; more portentously, this 
 time. 
 
 "This levity is most reprehensible, Mr. Ford," he said 
 stiffly. "I trust I know my duty as the head of a great 
 railway company too well to be carried away on every 
 baseless wave of excitement that fires the imagination of 
 the mining-camp I chance to be visiting." Mr. Colbrith 
 was not above mixing metaphor when the provocation 
 was sufficiently great. 
 
 "Baseless?" echoed Ford. "Surely you don t doubt 
 . . . Why, Mr. Colbrith, this strike is the biggest thing 
 that has happened in the mining world since the dis 
 covery of the wedge-veins in Cripple Creek !" 
 
 The president shrugged his thin shoulders as one 
 whose mission in life is to be sturdily conservative after 
 all the remainder of mankind has struck hands with 
 frenzied optimism. 
 
 "Nonsense!" he rasped contemptuously. "What hap 
 pens? Two men come to town with certain rich 
 specimens which they claim to have taken out of their 
 prospect hole on Cow Mountain. That was at seven 
 o clock last night, less than twenty-four hours ago, and 
 some two or three thousand lunatics have already rushed 
 here in the belief founded upon a mere boast, it may 
 be that a great gold reef underlies Cow Mountain. By 
 this time to-morrow " 
 
 Ford took him up promptly. "Yes ; and by this time 
 
314 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 to-morrow the Denver Mining Exchange will be howling 
 itself hoarse over Copah mining shares, like those curb 
 stone fellows down-stairs ; the hunt will be up, and every 
 feeder the Pacific Southwestern system has will be send 
 ing its quota of gold-seekers to the new field. That isn t 
 what you were going to say, I know; but it is what is 
 going to happen. Mr. Colbrith, it s the chance of a cen 
 tury for the Pacific Southwestern company, and you are 
 deliberately trying to fire the one man who can make the 
 most of it." 
 
 The president s lack of the sense of humor made it 
 hard for him at times. He was sitting very erect in the 
 straight-backed hotel chair when he said: "Mr. Ford, 
 there are occasions when your conceit is insufferable. Do 
 you imagine for a moment that you are the only engineer 
 in the United States who can build railroads, sir ?" 
 
 "Oh, no." 
 
 "Then perhaps you will be good enough to explain 
 your meaning?" 
 
 "It was a poor attempt at a jest," said the young man, 
 rather lamely. "Yet it had the truth behind it, in a 
 way. I predict that this is the beginning of one of the 
 biggest mining rushes the world ever saw. We are within 
 one hundred and forty miles of Copah with a practicable 
 railroad ; we are within twelve miles with a track which 
 must be made practicable while the band plays. If you 
 discharge your entire engineering corps at this crisis " 
 
THE DEADLOCK 315 
 
 "I beg your pardon," interrupted the president crust 
 ily. "I have not asked your force to resign." 
 
 "Not meaning to, perhaps/ countered the young man, 
 maliciously rejoicing in the hope that he had found one 
 vulnerable link in the president s coat of mail. "But if 
 I go, the entire department will go. Every man in it is 
 my friend, as well as my subordinate; and they know 
 very well that if they shouldn t go, your new, chief 
 would fire them and put in his own men." 
 
 "Ha!" said the president, straightening up again. 
 "Am I to understand that you are threatening me, Mr. 
 Ford." 
 
 "No, indeed; I am only stating a fact. But it is a 
 pretty serious fact. Let us suppose, for the sake of the 
 argument, that my prediction comes true; that within 
 thirty-six or forty-eight hours Saint s Best is packed 
 with people trying to get to Copah. Your new chief, if 
 you shall have found him, will hardly be in the saddle. 
 When he comes he will have to reorganize the depart 
 ment, break in new men, learn by hard knocks what I 
 have been learning in detail " 
 
 Mr. Colbrith thrust out a thin lip of obstinate deter 
 mination. 
 
 "And if he does, your hypothetical rush will simply 
 have to wait, Mr. Ford. We have the key to the Copah 
 door." 
 
 "Don t you fool yourself!" snapped Ford, forgetting 
 
316 EMPIEE BUILDEES 
 
 his role of the humble one for the moment. "The Trans 
 continental is only forty miles away at Jack s Canyon, 
 with a pretty decent stage road. Long before you can 
 get the extension in shape to carry passengers, or even 
 freight, the other line will be known from Maine to 
 California as the keyholder to this district !" 
 
 That shot told. The president was not yet convinced 
 that the Copah boom was real ; but there was the chance 
 that it might be always the chance. And to the over 
 cautious the taking of chances, however remote, is like 
 the handling of a snake: a thing to inspire creeping 
 horrors. 
 
 "If you could convince me, Mr. Ford, that your in 
 terest in that mine did not influence you in changing 
 the route of the extension/* lie began; but Ford took 
 him up sharply. 
 
 "I can t ; and I can say no more than I have said." 
 
 Mr. Colbrith got up and went to the window to look 
 down upon the excited throng in the street. It did look 
 real. 
 
 "Perhaps we might leave matters as they are, pending 
 a future investigation, Mr. Ford/ he said, turning back 
 to his victim, who was methodically clipping the end 
 from a cigar. 
 
 "No," was the brittle rejoinder. 
 
 Again the president took time to look down into the 
 crowded street. His next attack was from the rear. 
 
THE DEADLOCK 317 
 
 "But I have understood that you do not wish to re 
 sign. Let us be magnanimous, Mr. Ford, and agree to 
 hang this matter up until until this supposed crisis is 
 past." 
 
 "No," was the curt reply. "I have changed my mind. 
 I don t think I want to work for you any longer, Mr. 
 Colbrith." 
 
 "Not if I withdrew my ah objections ?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 Silence again. The packed lobby of the hotel had 
 overflowed upon the plank sidewalk, and the din of the 
 buyers and sellers rose like the noise of a frantic street 
 fight. Ford s half jesting remark about the possibility 
 of the microbe finding its way into the blood of the pres 
 ident was not so pointless as the old man s retort sought 
 to make it appear. It was the wheat pit which had given 
 Mr. Colbrith his first half -million ; and as he listened to 
 the hoarse cries, the thing which he hoped was safely 
 caution-killed began to stir within him. Suddenly he 
 picked a word or two out of the sidewalk clamor that 
 made him turn swiftly upon the silent young man. 
 
 "They are selling Little Alicia your stock down 
 there !" he gasped. "Have you have you " 
 
 "No ; I haven t put mine on the market. It s some of 
 my partner s, Grigsby s, stock. I suppose he couldn t 
 stand the push." 
 
 Once more the president listened. Only an ex-wrestler 
 
318 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 in the wheat pit could have picked intelligence out of 
 the Babel of puts and calls. 
 
 "It s up to a hundred and fifty I" he exploded. "What 
 did you pay for your shares, Mr. Ford ?" 
 
 "Twenty," said Ford coolly. 
 
 "Good Heavens! I I hope you hold a safe ma 
 jority?" 
 
 "Xo ; we broke even, Grigsby and I. I have fifty per 
 cent." 
 
 The president groaned. 
 
 "I I ll excuse you, Mr. Ford. Get down there at once 
 and buy that other necessary share !" 
 
 Ford shook his head with predetermined gloom. "No, 
 Mr. Colbrith, I m not buying any more mining stock. 
 What I did buy seems to have cost me my job." 
 
 "But, my dear young man ! This is a a crisis. You 
 are likely to lose control of your property ! Or, at least, 
 it is soaring to a point at which you will never be able 
 to secure the control." 
 
 Ford came up smiling. "You forget that this is mere 
 mad excitement, Mr. Colbrith," he said, handing back 
 the president s own phrase. "To-morrow, I dare say, I 
 shall be able to buy at twenty again." 
 
 The president came away from the window and sat 
 down. His face was twitching and the thin white hands 
 were tremulous. 
 
 "There may be more in this gold discovery than I have 
 
THE DEADLOCK 319 
 
 been willing to admit," he said abstractedly, "and in 
 that case . . . Mr. Ford, upon what terms will you 
 consent to go on and whip this line of ours into shape ?" 
 
 Ford came out of the fog of discouragement with a 
 bound. 
 
 "A complete change in the management of the Pacific 
 Southwestern, Mr. Colbrith. Xorth and his grafters 
 must go." 
 
 The president did not fly into wrathful shards, as Ford 
 fully expected. On the contrary, he was fingering the 
 white goafs-beard with one nervous hand, and appar 
 ently listening half-absently to the clamor in the street. 
 
 "Don t be unreasonable, Mr. Ford/ he said quite 
 mildly. "You know we can t consider anything like that 
 at the present moment." 
 
 "It must be considered," Ford persisted. "Ever since 
 I quit being a division superintendent, North has ob 
 structed, lied about me, fought me. The time has come 
 when, if I stay, I must have a free hand. I can t have it 
 while he is out of jail." 
 
 "That is strong language to apply to our first vice- 
 president, Mr. Ford. And I can only believe that you 
 are prejudiced unduly prejudiced. But all this may 
 be taken up later. As you suggest, we may be losing 
 very precious time." 
 
 Ford got upon his feet. 
 
 "Promise me that you will give the Denver manage- 
 
320 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 merit as thorough an investigation as you have given me, 
 Mr. Colbrith; do that, and give me absolute authority 
 over the MacMorroghs and their men for one week ; and 
 before the week s end we ll be hauling passengers and 
 freight into Copah over our own rails." 
 
 For a moment the president seemed to be on the point 
 of yielding. Then his habitual caution thrust out its 
 foot and tripped him. 
 
 "I can t be pushed, Mr. Ford," he complained, with" a 
 return of the irritated tone. "Let the matter rest for 
 the present. And and you may consider yourself re 
 lieved from duty until I have gone a little deeper into 
 these charges against you. Mr. North accuses you, and 
 you accuse Mr. North. I must have time to approach 
 these matters deliberately. I don t know which of you 
 to trust." 
 
 It was a deadlock. Ford bowed and laid his hand on 
 the door. 
 
 "You are still the president of the Pacific Southwest 
 ern, Mr. Colbrith, and while you remain president " 
 
 The old man s pride of office took fire like tow in a 
 furnace. 
 
 "What do you mean by that, Mr. Ford ? Make your 
 self clear, sir !" he quavered. 
 
 "I mean just this: if your niece, Miss Alicia Adair, 
 hadn t been good enough to say that she will be my wife, 
 I d carry this thing up to the board of directors and do 
 
THE DEADLOCK 321 
 
 my level best to have you put where you could do the 
 least harm." 
 
 "You? Alicia?" the old man shrilled. And then, in 
 an access of senile rage that shook him like a leaf in the 
 wind : "I said you were suspended you are discharged, 
 sir here and now! If you give another order as an 
 official of the Pacific Southwestern company, I ll I ll 
 put you through the courts for it !" 
 
 Ford opened the door and went out, leaving the presi 
 dent clutching his chair with one hand and balling the 
 other into a shaking fist. The die was cast, and he had 
 thrown a blank at the very moment when the game 
 seemed to be turning his way. What would Alicia say ? 
 
 As if the unspoken query had evoked her, the door of 
 her room opened silently and she stood before him in the 
 corridor. 
 
 "Tell me," she commanded. 
 
 "We have fought it out, and I ve had my beating," he 
 said soberly. "When I thought I had him fairly down, 
 he was actually begging me to stay on with the com 
 pany, we got tangled up again over North, and he fired 
 me bodily." 
 
 "Did you did you tell him about our " 
 
 "Yes ; and that was what set off the final fireworks." 
 
 She put her hands on his shoulders and made him 
 face her squarely. 
 
 "Stuart, did you lose your temper?" 
 
322 EMPIEE BUILDEKS 
 
 "I Fm afraid I did just at the last, you know. It s 
 simply an unspeakable state of affairs, Alicia, dear! At 
 a moment when we should be setting the whole world 
 afire in a superhuman effort to flog this piece of con 
 struction track into shape, your uncle paralyzes every 
 thing!" 
 
 The constraining touch of her hands became almost a 
 caress. "What shall you do, Stuart? Is there nothing 
 to be done?" 
 
 He took his resolution on the spur of the moment 
 
 "Yes, thank heaven! Your uncle has got to find a 
 printing press, or at least a telegraph wire, before he 
 can make my discharge effective. Before he can do that, 
 or until he does it, I m going to pull the throttle wide 
 open and race that discharge circular, if I go to jail for 
 it, afterward ! Who knows but I shall have time to save 
 the day for the company after all? Good-by, dearest. 
 In twenty minutes I shall be riding for the MacMor- 
 roghs camp, and when I get there " 
 
 "You are going to ride back ? alone ? Oh, no, no !" 
 she protested ; and the clinging arms held him. 
 
 "Why, Alicia, girl see here: what do you imagine 
 could happen to me ? Why, bless your loving heart, I ve 
 been tramping and riding this desert more or less for 
 two years ! What has come over you ?" 
 
 "I don t know; but but oh, me! you will think I 
 am miserably weak and foolish: but just as you said 
 
THE DEADLOCK 323 
 
 that, I seemed to see you lying in the road with your 
 horse standing over you and you were dead !" 
 
 "Nonsense!" he comforted. "I ll be back here to 
 morrow, alive and well; but I mustn t lose a minute 
 now. It s up to me to reach Horse Creek before the 
 news of the gold strike gets there. There ll be a stam 
 pede, with every laborer on the line hoofing it for Copah. 
 Good-by, sweetheart, and may I?" He took her face 
 between his hands and did it anyhow. 
 
 Five minutes later he was bargaining for a saddle 
 horse at the one livery stable in the camp, offering and 
 paying the selling price of the animal for the two days 
 hire. It was a rather sorry mount at that, and when he 
 was dragging it out into the street, Jack Benson, the 
 youngest member of his staff, rode up, that moment in 
 from the tie-camp above Cow Mountain. 
 
 "Don t dismount, Jack," he ordered curtly. "You re 
 just in time to save me eight or ten miles, when the 
 inches are worth dollars. Eide for the end-of-track and 
 Frisbie on a dead run. Tell Dick to hold his men, if he 
 has to do it at the muzzle of a gun, and to come on with 
 the track, night and day. He ll have to raise the pay, 
 and keep on raising it but that s all right. It s an 
 order. Kushit!" 
 
 Benson nodded, set his horse at the path leading up 
 to the railroad grade, and spurred up the hill. Ford 
 gave a final tug at his saddle cinches, put up a leg and 
 
324: EMPIEE BUILDEKS 
 
 began to pick his way down the thronged street in the 
 opposite direction. 
 
 Thirty seconds afterward a man wearing the laced 
 trousers and broad bullion-corded sombrero of a Mexican 
 dandy came out of his hiding-place behind the door of 
 the livery stable office, thoughtfully twirling the cylinder 
 of a drawn revolver. 
 
 "I take-a da mustang," he said to the boy who had 
 held Ford s horse during the short interview with Ben 
 son. And when the bronco was brought out, the Mex 
 ican, like Ford, looked to the cinches, mounted, and rode 
 down the street leading to the lower mesa and the river. 
 
XXIV 
 
 RUIZ GREGORIO 
 
 He rode easily, as one born to the saddle, the leathers 
 creaking musically under him to keep time to the shuf 
 fling fox-trot of the wiry little range pony. Once free 
 of the mining-camp and out upon the mesa, he found a 
 corn-husk wrapper and his bag of dry tobacco and deftly 
 rolled a cigarette, doing it with one hand, cow-boy 
 fashion. When the cigarette was lighted, the horseman 
 ahead was a mere khaki-colored dot, rising and falling 
 in the mellowing distance. 
 
 With the eye of a plainsman he measured the trail s 
 length to the broken hill range where the Pannikin 
 emerges from its final wrestle with the gorges. Then 
 he glanced up at the dull crimson spot in the murky 
 sky that marked the sun s altitude. There was time 
 sufficient and the trail was long enough. He did not 
 push his horse out of the shuffling trot. At the portal 
 hills the horseman now disappearing over the rim of the 
 high mesa would slacken speed. In the canyon itself 
 a dog could not go faster than a walk. 
 
 325 
 
326 EMPIKE BUILDERS 
 
 On the lower mesa the Mexican picked up the gallop 
 ing dot again, holding it in view until it halted on the 
 river bank a hundred yards below the entrance to the 
 canyon. Since the water was low in the ford, the river 
 bank hid the crossing, and the Mexican drew rein and 
 waited for the dot to reappear on the opposite shore. 
 
 A slow minute was lost; then a second and a third. 
 The man in the corded sombrero and laced buckskins 
 touched his horse s flank with a spur and crept forward 
 at a walk, keeping his eyes fixed upon the point where 
 the quarry ought to come in sight again. When three 
 more minutes passed and the farther shore was still a 
 deserted blank, the Mexican dug both rowels into his 
 mustang and galloped down to the river, muttering 
 curses in the patois of his native Sonora. 
 
 Apparently the closing in had been delayed too long. 
 There were fresh hoof -prints in the marl of the hither 
 approach to the shallow ford, but none to match them 
 on the farther side. The Mexican crossed hastily and 
 searched for the outcoming hoof-marks. The rocky bar 
 which formed the northern bank of the stream told him 
 nothing. 
 
 Now it is only in the imagination of the word- 
 smith that the villain in the play is gifted with super- 1 
 natural powers of discernment. Ruiz Gregorio Maria y 
 Alvarez Mattacheco, familiarly and less cumbrously 
 known as "Mexican George," was a mere murderer, with 
 
RUIZ GREGOEIO 327 
 
 a quick eye for gun-sights and a ready and itching trig 
 ger finger. But he was no Vidocq, to know by instinct 
 which of the two trails, the canyon passage or the longer 
 route over the hills, Ford had chosen. 
 
 Having two guesses he made the wrong one first, urg 
 ing his mustang toward the canyon trail. A stumbling 
 half-mile up the narrow cleft of the river s path reveal 
 ing nothing, he began to reconsider. Drawing a second 
 blank of the same dimensions, he turned back to the 
 ford and tried the hill trail. At the end of the first hun 
 dred yards on the new scent he came again upon the 
 fresh hoof-prints, and took off the brow-cramping hat 
 to swear the easier. 
 
 Two courses were now open to him; to press hard 
 upon the roundabout hill trail in the hope of overtaking 
 the engineer before he could reach the Horse Creek 
 camp, or to pass by the shorter route to the upper ford 
 to head him off at the river crossing. The Mexican gave 
 another glance at the dull red spot in the western sky 
 and played for safety. The waylaying alternative com 
 mended itself on several counts. The canyon trail was 
 the shorter and it could be traversed leisurely and in 
 daylight. Pressing his livery hack as he could, Ford 
 would scarcely reach the crossing at the mouth of Horse 
 Creek before dusk. Moreover, it would be easier to wait 
 and to smoke than to chase the quarry over the hills, 
 wearing one s pinto to the bone. 
 
328 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 Ruiz Gregorio Maria set his horse once more at the 
 task of picking a path among the canyon boulders, rid 
 ing loosely in the saddle, first in one stirrup and then 
 in the other, and smoking an unbroken succession of 
 the corn-husk cigarettes. 
 
 One small cloud flecked the sky of satisfaction. His 
 instructions had been explicit. If Ford should resign, 
 quit, wash his hands of the Pacific Southwestern, he 
 might be suffered to escape. If not there was only one 
 condition attached to the alternative: what was done 
 must be done neatly, with despatch, and at a sufficient 
 distance from any of the MacMorrogh camps to avert 
 even the shadow of suspicion. 
 
 Now the upper crossing of waylayings was within 
 a stone s throw of the end-of-track yards; nay, within 
 an amateur s pistol-shot of the commissary buildings. 
 But Ruiz Gregorio, weighing all the possibilities, found 
 them elastic enough to serve the purpose. A well-calcu 
 lated shot from behind a sheltering boulder, the heav 
 ing of the body into the swift torrent of the Pannikin, 
 and the thing was done. What damning evidence might 
 afterward come to the light of day, if, indeed, it should 
 ever come to light, would be fished out of the stream 
 far enough from any of the MacMorrogh camps. 
 
 Thus Ruiz Gregorio Maria y Alvarez, lolling lazily 
 in his saddle while the hard-breathing mustang picked 
 a toilsome path among the strewn boulders and through 
 
KUIZ GREGORIO 329 
 
 the sliding shale beds. He went even further : an alibi 
 might not be needful, but it would be easy to provide 
 one. Young Jack Benson, if no other, would know that 
 Ford had taken one of the shorter trails from Copah to 
 the camp at Horse Creek. Bueno! He, Euiz Gregorio, 
 could slip across the river in the dusk when the thing 
 was done, skirt the headquarters camp unseen, and pre 
 sent himself a little later at Seiior Frisbie s camp of the 
 track-layers, coming, as it were, direct from Copah, al 
 most upon the heels of Seiior Benson. After that, who 
 could connect him with the dead body of a man fished 
 out of a river twenty, fifty, a hundred miles away ? 
 
 There was a weak link in the chain. Ruiz Gregorio s 
 child-like plot turned upon one pivot of hazard hazard 
 most likely to be ignored by so good a marksman as the 
 "man-killer." One shot he might permit himself, with 
 little danger of drawing a crowd from the mess tent and 
 the sleeping shanties in the Horse Creek camp. Two 
 would bring the men to their doors. Any greater number 
 would be taken as the signal of a free fight needing 
 spectators. Hence the first shot must suffice. 
 
 The Mexican bore this in mind when, arriving at his 
 post opposite the camp in the early dusk, he chose his 
 ambushing boulder so near the descending hill trail 
 that a stout club might have teen substituted for the 
 pistol. The weather promise was for a starless night, but 
 the electric arc-lights were already scintillating at their 
 
330. EMPIEE BUILDERS 
 
 mastheads in the headquarters railroad yard across the 
 Pannikin. Later, when the daylight was quite gone and 
 the electrics were hollowing out a bowl of stark white 
 ness in the night, Ruiz Gregorio wished he had chosen 
 otherwise. The camp lights shone full upon him and on 
 the mustang standing witK drooped head at his elbow, 
 and the trail on the other side pf the boulder was in 
 shadow. 
 
 He was about to take the risk of moving farther up 
 the hill-path to a less exposed lurking place, was hesi 
 tating only because his indolent soul rebelled at the 
 thought of having to drag Ford s body so many added 
 steps to its burial in the river, when the clink of shod 
 hoofs upon stone warned him that the time for scene- 
 shifting had passed. Pushing the mustang out of the 
 line of sight from the trail, he flattened himself against 
 the great rock and waited. 
 
 Ford rode down the last declivity cautiously, for his 
 horse s sake. The trail came out of the hills abruptly, 
 dropping into the rock-strewn river valley within hail 
 ing distance of the camp. Well within the sweep of the 
 masthead lights across the stream, the boulder-strewn 
 flat was as light as day, save where the sentinel rocks 
 flung their shadows; and promptly at the first facing 
 of the bright electrics, Ford s horse stumbled aside from 
 the path and began to take short cuts between the thick- 
 standing boulders for the river. This was how the Mex- 
 
EUIZ GREGORIO 331 
 
 lean, instead of having his victim at a complete dis 
 advantage, found himself suddenly uncovered by the 
 flank, exposed, recognized, and hailed in no uncertain 
 tones. 
 
 "Hello, Mattacheco ! what are you doing here ?" Ford 
 had a flash-light picture of the horse standing with his 
 muzzle to the ground ; of the man flattened against the 
 rock. Then he saw the dull gleam of the lights upon 
 blued metal. "You devil !" he shouted ; and unarmed 
 as he was, spurred his tired beast at the assassin. 
 
 Here, then, was the weak link in Ruiz Gregorio s 
 chain twisted to the breaking point at the very outset. 
 Instead of taking a deliberate pot-shot at an unsus 
 pecting victim, he was obliged to face about, to fire 
 hastily at a charging enemy, and to spring nimbly aside 
 to save himself from being ridden down. The saving 
 jump was an awkward one : it brought him into breath 
 taking collision with the upjerking head of the mustang. 
 When he had recovered his feet and his presence of 
 mind, the charging whirlwind had dashed through the 
 shallows of the Pannikin, and a riderless horse was clat 
 tering across the tracks in the railroad yard. 
 
 The Mexican waited prudently to see what the camp 
 would say to the single shot. It said nothing; it might 
 have been deserted for all the indications there were of 
 life in it. Ruiz Gregorio snapped the empty shell from 
 his weapon, replacing it with a loaded one, and mounted 
 
332 EMPIEE BUILDEES 
 
 and rode slowly through the ford. The riderless horse 
 disappearing across the tracks gave him good hope that 
 the hasty shot had accomplished all that a deliberate one 
 might have. 
 
 There was no dead man tumbled in a heap in the rail 
 road yard, as he had hoped to find. Silence, the silence 
 of desertion, brooded over the masthead arcs. Painfully 
 the Mexican searched, at the verge of the river, in the 
 black shadows cast by the crowding material cars. Fi 
 nally he crossed over to the straggling street of the camp, 
 walking now and leading the spent mustang. Silence 
 here, too, broken only by the sputtering sizzle of the 
 electrics. The huge mess tent was dark; there were no 
 lights, save in the closed commissary and in the presi 
 dent s car: no lights, and not a man of the camp s 
 crowding labor army to be seen. 
 
 At a less strenuous moment the man-killer would 
 have been puzzled by the unusual stillness and the air 
 of desertion. As it was, he was alertly probing the car- 
 flung shadows. The engineer, if only wounded, would 
 doubtless try to hide in the shadows in the railroad yard. 
 
 The Mexican left his horse in the camp street and 
 made an instant search between and under the material 
 cars, coming out now and again to stare suspiciously at 
 the president s private car, standing alone on the siding 
 directly opposite the commissary. The Nadia was occu 
 pied. It was lighted within, and the window shades 
 
RUIZ GKEGORIO 333 
 
 were drawn down. Ruiz Gregorio could never get far 
 from the lighted car without being irresistibly drawn 
 back to it, and finally he darted back in time to see a 
 man rise up out of the shadow of the nearest box-car, 
 spring to the platform of the Nadia and kick lustily at 
 the locked door. The door was opened immediately by 
 some one within, and the fugitive plunged to cover but 
 not before the Mexican s revolver had barked five times 
 with the rapid staccato of a machine gun. 
 
 When Ruiz Gregorio, dropping the smoking weapon 
 into its holster, would have mounted to put into instant 
 action the plan of the well-considered alibi, a barrel- 
 bodied figure launched itself from the commissary 
 porch, and a vigorous hand dragged horse and man into 
 the shadow of the stables. 
 
 "Off wid you now, you blunderin dago divvle!" 
 gritted the MacMorrogh savagely. "It s all av our 
 necks ye ve put into a rope, this time, damn you !" 
 
 The Mexican had dismounted and was calmly reload 
 ing his pistol. 
 
 "You t ink-a he s not-a sufficiently kill? I go over 
 to da car and bring-a you da proof, si ?" 
 
 "You ll come wid me," raved the big contractor. 
 " Tis out av your clumsy hands, now, ye black-hearted 
 blunderin cross betune a Digger Indian and a Mexican 
 naygur! Come on, I say!" 
 
 The back room of the commissary to which the Mac- 
 
334 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 Morrogh led the way held three men; Eckstein, and the 
 two younger members of the contracting firm. They had 
 heard the fusillade in the camp street and were waiting 
 for news. Brian MacMorrogh gave it, garnished with 
 many oaths. 
 
 "The pin-brained omadhaun av a Mexican has 
 twishted a rope for all av us ! He s let Ford come back, 
 alive; let him get to the very dure av the prisident s 
 car ! Then, begorra ! he must nades show himself under 
 the electhrics and open fire on the man who was kicking 
 at the dure and looking sthraight at him I" 
 
 Eckstein asked a single question. 
 
 "Did he get him ? If he s dead he can t very well tell 
 who shot him." 
 
 "That s the hell av it!" raged the big man. "Who s 
 to know?" 
 
 Eckstein spat out the extinct cigar stump he was 
 chewing. 
 
 "We are to know beyond a question of doubt, this 
 time. Who is in the Nadia, besides Ford ?" 
 
 "The two naygurs." 
 
 "No one else?" 
 
 MacMorrogh shook his head. "No wan." 
 
 "You are sure Mr. Adair and Brissac are out of the 
 way?" 
 
 "They got Gallagher to push them up to Frisbie s 
 track camp in Misther North s car an hour before dark." 
 
EUIZ GKEGORIO 335 
 
 "None of your men are likely to drift in from the 
 other way up the line ?" 
 
 "Not unless somebody carries the news av the gold 
 sthrike and there s nobody going that way to carry it. 
 The camp s empty but for us." 
 
 Eckstein rose and buttoned his coat. 
 
 "You have held your own strikers the men you can 
 depend upon : how many do we count, all told ?" 
 
 "Thirteen, counting the five av us here, and the felly 
 that runs the electhric light plant." 
 
 "H m; it s a hell of a risk: thirteen men knowing 
 what only one should know and what that one should 
 hurry to forget. But your butter-fingered Mexican has 
 left us no choice. Ford knows enough now to send some 
 of us over the road for life. If he got into that car alive, 
 he must never come out of it alive." 
 
 Brian MacMorrogh had unlocked a cupboard in the 
 corner of the room. It was a well-filled gun-rack, and 
 he was passing the Winchesters out to his brothers. 
 
 " Tis so," he said briefly. Then : "There s the two 
 naygurs in the car : what av thim, Misther Eckstein ?" 
 
 Eckstein took one of the guns and emptied the maga 
 zine to make sure of the loading. 
 
 "We are thirteen to one; the negroes don t count," 
 he replied coldly. "Call in your men and we ll go and 
 do what s got to be done." 
 
XXV 
 
 THE SIEGE OF THE NADIA 
 
 With a horse that could have been handled Ford 
 would not have run away when the charge upon the 
 Mexican failed of its purpose. So far from it, he tried 
 to wheel and charge again while the man was reeling 
 from his collision with the rearing mustang. 
 
 But the bronco from the Copah stable, with the flash 
 and crash of the pistol-shot to madden it, took the bit 
 between its teeth and bolted safely through the shal 
 lows of the stream crossing and up to the level of the 
 railroad yard beyond, but swerving aside at the first 
 of the car shadows to fling its -rider out of the saddle. 
 Ford gathered himself quickly and rolled under a car. 
 His right arm had no feeling in it, whether from the 
 shot or the fall he could not determine. 
 
 The numbness had become a prickling agony when he 
 heard the Mexican splashing through the river to be 
 gin his search. Ford s field of vision was limited by the 
 car trucks, but he kept the man in sight as he could. It 
 
 336 
 
THE SIEGE OF THE NADIA 337 
 
 filled him with sudden and fiery rage to be hunted thus 
 like a defenseless animal, and more than once he was 
 tempted to make a dash for the engineers quarters on 
 the hillside above the commissary a rifle being the 
 thing for which he hungered and thirsted. 
 
 But to show himself under the lights was to invite 
 the fate he had so narrowly escaped. He knew Mat- 
 tacheco s skill as a marksman: the Mexican would not 
 be rattled twice in the same half-hour. Ford gripped 
 the benumbed arm in impotent writhings. 
 
 "Now, by recognizing him, I ve fixed it so that he is 
 obliged to kill me/ he muttered. "It s my life, or his 
 neck for a halter, and he knows it. The blood-thirsty 
 devil ! If I could only get to Brissac s bunk-shanty and 
 lay my hands on a gun ..." 
 
 There seemed to be no chance of doing that most de 
 sirable thing. The Mexican was now afoot and coursing 
 the railroad yard like a baffled hound. Ford saw that 
 it was only a question of minutes until his impromptu 
 hiding-place would be discovered, and he began to look 
 for another. The Nadia was but a short distance away, 
 and the lighted deck transoms beckoned him. 
 
 It was instinct rather than intention that made him 
 duck and plunge headlong through the suddenly opened 
 door of the private car at the glimpse of his pursuer 
 standing beside his horse in the open camp street. This 
 was why the pistol barked harmlessly. Springing to his 
 
338 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 feet, and leaving the frightened negro who had admitted 
 him trying to barricade the door with cushions from 
 the smoking-room seats, Ford burst into the lighted cen 
 tral compartment. 
 
 It was not empty, as he had expected to find it. Two 
 men, startled by the shots and the crash of breaking 
 glass, were prepared to grapple him. It was Brissac, the 
 invalided assistant, who cried, "Hold on, Mr. Adair 
 it s Ford, and he s hurt !" 
 
 Ford met the involuntary rush, gathered the two in 
 his uncrippled arm and dragged them to the floor. 
 
 "That s in case my assassin takes a notion to turn 
 loose on the windows," he panted. Then he gasped out 
 his story while Brissac got the aching right arm out of 
 its sleeve and looked for the injury. 
 
 Adair listened to the story of the attempted murder 
 awe-struck, as one from the civilized East had a right 
 to be. 
 
 "By Jove !" he commented ; "I thought I had bumped 
 into all the different varieties of deviltry since I left 
 Denver yesterday morning, but this tops em. Actually 
 tried to kill you in cold blood ? But what for, Stuart ? 
 for heaven s sake, what for ?" 
 
 "Because he was hired to: because his masters, the 
 MacMorroghs, and their master, North, have staked 
 their roll on this last turn of the cards. I know too 
 much, Adair. The president was sent over here to get 
 
THE SIEGE OF THE NADIA 339 
 
 rid of me. That failing, word was passed down the line 
 that I was to be effaced. A few hours ago this Mexican 
 overheard me telling your sister what I proposed to do 
 to North and the MacMorroghs. That s why he Ouch ! 
 Eoy ; that is my arm you re trying to twist out of joint, 
 man!" 
 
 "It s all right," laughed the Louisianian; "it is only 
 a crazy-bone bump that you got when the bronc threw 
 you. Say, Ford; I thought you claimed to know how 
 to ride a horse !" 
 
 Adair was feeling in his pockets for the inevitable 
 cigarette case. 
 
 "What he overheard you telling Alicia?" he mused. 
 "I m evidently two or three chapters behind. But no 
 matter ; this is the now ; the very immediate now. Will 
 your assassin keep on feeling for you ?" 
 
 Ford shook his head. "Not any more just at present, 
 I guess. He has waited too long. That fusillade of his 
 will have turned the entire camp out by this time, and 
 the Macs don t want any inconvenient witnesses." 
 
 "Witnesses ?" echoed Adair. "Then you don t know 
 Say, Stuart; there isn t a white man in this camp be 
 sides us three unless you count the MacMorroghs and 
 their commissary garrison as white men. News of the 
 great gold strike got here about three o clock, and every 
 laborer within hearing of it shouldered pick and shovel 
 and lined out up the new track for Copah." 
 
340 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 "What I" shouted Ford. "And these bash-dashed Mac- 
 Morroghs didn t try to hold them ?" 
 
 "I don t know about that. I had Mr. Brissac, here, 
 over in the 01 I came across the mountain in North s 
 car, you know dosing him with things out of Doctor 
 Van Bruce s traveling case, and trying to get him in 
 shape to show me the way to Copah. After the stampede, 
 which took all the four-legged horses as well as the two- 
 legged asses, I persuaded your man Gallagher to hitch 
 his engine to our car to drag us up to Frisbie s camp at 
 the front. I thought Frisbie would probably be in com 
 munication with you. Gallagher s intentions were good, 
 but about three miles up Horse Creek he ditched the 
 car so thoroughly that we couldn t inhabit it; so we 
 got out and walked back." 
 
 "All of which brings on more talk," said Ford gravely. 
 "From what you say, I gather that the MacMorroghs 
 are still here. Did any one see you come back ?" 
 
 "I don t know. It was after dark when we straggled 
 in, and we didn t ring any bells or blow any whistles." 
 
 Ford stood up. 
 
 "Does either one of you happen to have anything big 
 ger than a pocket-knife in the way of a weapon?" he 
 asked. 
 
 "Why? what are you going to do?" Adair demanded. 
 
 "I am going to separate you two from my highly dan 
 gerous presence," said Ford definitely. "The MacMor- 
 
THE SIEGE OP THE NADIA 341 
 
 roghs outfit of a dozen or fifteen cutthroat scoundrels, 
 captained, for the moment, by Eckstein, North s right- 
 hand man, are doubtless just across the way in the back 
 room of the commissary. You say the camp is otherwise 
 deserted: the MacMorroghs don t know that you are 
 here ; and they do know that I am, dead or alive. More 
 over, Mattacheco has doubtless told them by this timo 
 that I saw and recognized him. Wherefore, it s up to 
 them to see that I never get a chance to go before a 
 grand jury." 
 
 "You sit down on the floor," said Adair. He had 
 found a cigarette and was crimping the end of it. "Have 
 you a fraction of an idea that we are going to allow 
 you to make a Jonah of yourself for us? Sit down, I 
 say ! Who s got a gun ?" 
 
 Brissac had crept to a window and was reconnoiter- 
 ing the deserted camp street and the commissary 
 through a peephole in the drawn shade. As Adair spoke, 
 he sprang back, tripped Ford and fell with him, cry 
 ing: 
 
 "Down ! both of you !" 
 
 At the cry there was a shot from without, and a win 
 dow on the exposed side of the Nadia fell in shivers. 
 There were yells of terror from the cook s pantry, and 
 the two negroes came crawling through the side vesti 
 bule, their eyes like saucers and their teeth chattering. 
 Ford jumped up and turned off the Pintsch lights ; and 
 
342 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 he was barely down again when another shot broke a 
 second window. 
 
 "Wouldn t that jolt you?" said Adair. "They are 
 feeling for you with both hands. What a heaven s pity 
 it is that we haven t so much as a potato popgun among 
 us to talk back with. What did you see, Mr. Brissac ?" 
 
 "A crowd of them bunched on the commissary porch. 
 One of them was sighting a Winchester at the car when 
 I got busy." 
 
 Adair was again lamenting the lack of arms when the 
 negro porter produced a pocket bulldog pistol of the 
 cheap and uncertain sort. "Y-y-y-yah you is, Mistuh 
 Charles," he stuttered. 
 
 "Ah, Williams concealed weapons? That is fifty 
 dollars fine in your native Tennessee, isn t it?" Then 
 to Brissac : "Please go to the farther window and mark 
 down for me, Mr. Brissac. I don t like to have those 
 fellows do all the bluffing." 
 
 While the assistant was complying, a third bullet 
 from the commissary porch tore high through the car, 
 smashing one of the gas globes. Adair crawled to a 
 broken window and the cheap revolver roared like an 
 overloaded musket. 
 
 "Good shot!" said Brissac, from his marking post. 
 "You got one of them: he s down and they re dragging 
 him inside. Now they have all ducked to cover." 
 
 "That settles any notion of a palaver and the pipe of 
 
THE SIEGE OF THE NADIA 343 
 
 peace, I guess," said Adair, as indifferently as if he had 
 just brought down a clay pigeon. "Prophesy, Stuart: 
 what comes next ?" 
 
 Ford shook his head. 
 
 "They can t quit now till they are sure I am perma 
 nently obliterated; they have gone too far. They ll 
 credit me with that shot of yours, and they will take it 
 as a pretty emphatic proof that I still live. Hence, 
 more war." 
 
 "Well, what do we do? You are the captain." 
 
 "Picket the car and keep a sharp lookout for the next 
 move. Brissac, you take the forward end, and I ll take 
 the rear platform. Adair, post your Africans in here 
 where they ll do the most good, and see that they don t 
 go to sleep on their jobs." 
 
 The disposition of forces was quickly made, after 
 which suspense set in. Silence and the solitude of the 
 deserted camp reigned unbroken ; yet the watchers knew 
 that the shadows held determined enemies, alertly be 
 sieging the private car. To prove it, Adair pulled down 
 a portiere, gave it bulk with a stuffing of berth pillows, 
 and dropped the bundle from one of the shattered win 
 dows. Three jets of fire belched from the nearest shadow, 
 and the dummy was riddled. Adair fired at one of the 
 flashes, resting the short-barreled pistol across the win 
 dow ledge, and the retaliatory shot brought Ford hurry 
 ing in from his post. 
 
344 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 "For heaven s sake, don t waste your ammunition!" 
 he whispered. "One of them has gone up to the powder- 
 house after dynamite, I heard the creaking of the iron 
 door." 
 
 Adair whistled softly. "Dynamite ! That will bring 
 things to a focus beautifully, won t it ? When they have 
 blown us up, I wonder how they will account to Uncle 
 Sidney for the loss of his car ?" 
 
 Brissac had come running in at the sound of the fir 
 ing. He missed the grim humor in Adair s query. 
 
 "Car, nothing!" he retorted. "Better say the entire 
 camp and everything in it! There s a whole box-car 
 load of dynamite and caps out here in the yard sub 
 contractors supplies waiting for the freighters teams 
 from the west end. If they smash us, the chances are 
 ten to one that there ll be a sympathetic explosion out 
 yonder in the yard somewhere that will leave nothing 
 but a hole in the ground !" 
 
 "No," said Ford. "I gave orders myself to have that 
 car set down below the junction when the Nadia came 
 in." 
 
 "So you did; and so it was," Brissac cut in. "But 
 afterward it got mixed in the shifting, and it s back in 
 the yard I don t know just where." 
 
 Adair turned to the cowering porter. 
 
 "Have you any more cartridges for this cannon of 
 yours, Williams ?" he asked. 
 
THE SIEGE OF THE NADIA 345 
 
 "N-n-no, sah." 
 
 "Then we have three more chances in the hat. Much 
 obliged for the dynamite hint, Stuart. I ll herd these 
 three cartridges pretty carefully. Back to your sentry- 
 boxes, you two, and make a noise if you need the artil 
 lery." 
 
 Another interval of suspense followed, thickly scored 
 with pricklings of anxiety for the besieged. Then an at 
 tempt was made from the rear. Ford saw a dodging 
 shadow working its way from car to car in the yard and 
 signaled softly to Adair. 
 
 "Hold low on him," he cautioned, when the New 
 Yorker was at his elbow, "those cheap guns jump like 
 a scared cow-pony/ Then he added: "And pray God 
 you don t hit what he s carrying." 
 
 Adair held low and bided his time. There was an 
 other musket-like roar, and an instant though harmless 
 reply from two rifles on the other side of the Nadia. 
 But the dodging shadow was no longer advancing. 
 
 "I vo stopped him for the time being, anyhow," said 
 Adair, exulting like a boy. "If we only had a decent 
 weapon we could get them all, one at a time." 
 
 "This was crude," Ford commented. "Eckstein will 
 think up something better for the next attempt." 
 
 It was a prophecy which found its fulfilment after 
 another sweating interval of watchfulness. This time it 
 was Brissac who made the discovery, from the forward 
 
346 EMPIEE BUILDEES 
 
 end of the Nadia. The nearest of the material cars was 
 a box, lying broadside to the private car on the next 
 side-track but one. From behind the trucks of the box 
 car a slender pole, headed with what appeared to be an 
 empty oyster tin, and trailing a black line of fuse, was 
 projecting itself along the ground by slow inchings, 
 creeping across the lighted space between the two cars. 
 Brissac promptly gave the alarm. 
 
 "This is where we lose out, pointedly and definitely," 
 predicted Adair, still cheerful. "Anybody want to try 
 a run for it ?" 
 
 It was Ford who thought of the two negroes. 
 
 "Tell them, Boy," he said to Brissac. "Perhaps they 
 would rather risk the rifles." 
 
 Brissac crept back to the central compartment, and 
 the two watchers marked the progress of the inching 
 pole, with its dynamite head and the ominous black 
 thread of communication trailing like a grotesque horn 
 behind it. At the crossing of the intervening track it 
 paused, moving back and forth along the steel like a 
 living thing seeking a passage. Finally the metallic 
 head of it appeared above the rail, hesitated, and came 
 on slowly. At that moment there was a shout, and the 
 two negroes, hands held high, tumbled from the oppo 
 site step of the Nadia and ran toward the commissary 
 stables. Three shots bit into the silence, and the fat cook 
 ran on, stumbling and shrieking. But the man Williams 
 
THE SIEGE OF THE NADIA 347 
 
 stopped short and fell on Lis face, rolling over a mo 
 ment later to lie with arms and legs outspread. 
 
 "God !" said Ford, between his set teeth ; "they saw 
 who they were they couldn t help seeing! And there 
 was no excuse for killing those poor devils I" 
 
 But there was no time for reprisals, if any could have 
 been made. When Brissac rejoined the two in the for 
 ward vestibule, the stiff-bodied snake with its tin head 
 and trailing horn was crossing the second rail of the in 
 tervening siding. 
 
 "We ve got to think pretty swiftly," suggested Adair, 
 still cool and unruffled. "I might be able to hit that tin 
 thing at this short distance, but I suppose that would 
 only precipitate matters. What do you say?" 
 
 Ford could not say, and Brissac seemed to have be 
 come suddenly petrified with horror. He was staring at 
 the lettering on the box-car opposite the one under 
 whose trucks the dynamiters were hiding. 
 
 "Look !" he gasped ; "it s the car of explosives, and they 
 don t know it !" Then he darted back into the Nadia s 
 kitchen, returning quickly with a huge carving-knife 
 rummaged from the pantry shelves. "Stand back and 
 give me room," he begged; and they saw him lean out 
 to send the carving-knife whistling through the air: 
 saw it sever the head from the stiff-bodied snake the 
 head and the trailing horn as well. 
 
 "Good man!" applauded Adair, dragging the assist- 
 
348 EMPIEE BUILDERS 
 
 ant engineer back to safety before any of the sharp 
 shooters had marked him down. "Where did you learn 
 that trick?" 
 
 "It is my one little accomplishment," confessed the 
 Louisianian. "An old Chickasaw chief taught me when 
 I was a boy in the bayou country." 
 
 The peril was over for the moment. The severed pole 
 was withdrawn, and for what seemed like an endless in 
 terval the attack paused. The three besieged men kept 
 watch as they might, creeping from window to window. 
 Out under the blue glare of the commissary arc-light 
 the body of the negro porter lay as it had fallen. Once, 
 Ford thought he heard groans from the black shadow 
 where the fat cook had disappeared, but he could not be 
 sure. On the other side of the private car, and half-way 
 between it and the forty-thousand-pound load of high 
 explosives, the petard oyster-tin lay undisturbed, with 
 the carving-knife sticking in the sand beside it. 
 
 "What will they try next?" queried Adair, when the 
 suspense was again growing intolerable. 
 
 "It is simple enough, if they happen to think of it," 
 was Ford s rejoinder. "A few sticks of dynamite in a 
 plugged gas-pipe: cut your fuse long enough, light it, 
 and throw the thing under the car. That would settle 
 it." 
 
 Adair yawned sleepily. 
 
 "Well, they ve got all night for the inventive part of 
 
THE SIEGE OF THE NADIA 349 
 
 it. There s no rescue for us unless somebody a good 
 husky army of somebodies just happens along/ 
 
 "The army is less than eight miles away over at 
 Frisbie s camp/ said Ford. "With Dick to lead them, 
 the track-layers would sack this place in about five 
 minutes. If I could only get to the wire !" 
 
 Brissac heard the "if." 
 
 "Let me try to run their picket line, Ford," he said 
 eagerly. "If I can get around to our quarters and into 
 the telegraph tent " 
 
 "You couldn t do it, Eoy. There is the proof of it," 
 pointing to the body of the slain negro. "But I have 
 been thinking of another scheme. The track-camp wire 
 is bracketed across the yard on the light-poles. I have 
 my pocket relay. I wonder if we could manage to cut in 
 on that wire ?" 
 
 "Wait a minute," Brissac interrupted. He was gone 
 but a moment, and when he returned he brought hope 
 with him. 
 
 "The wire is down and lying across the front vesti 
 bule," he announced excitedly. "They must have cut it 
 up yonder by the telegraph tent and the slack has sagged 
 down this way." 
 
 "Which gives us a dead wire without any batteries," 
 said Ford gloomily ; and then : "Hold on aren t there 
 electric call-bells in this car, Adair ?" 
 
 "Yes, several of them ; one in each state-room." 
 
350 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 "Good ! that means batteries of some sort/ said Ford. 
 "Rummage for them, Brissac, while I get that wire in 
 here." 
 
 The wire was successfully pulled in through the front 
 vestibule without giving the alarm. Ford twisted it in 
 two when he had enough of it to reach the central com 
 partment. Adair did sentry duty while the two tech 
 nicians wrought swiftly. The bell battery was found, 
 the ground connection made with a bit of copper wire 
 stripped from one of the state-rooms, and Ford quickly 
 adjusted the delicate spring of the tiny field relay. 
 
 What he feared most was that the few dry-cells of the 
 bell battery would not supply the current for the eight 
 miles of line up Horse Creek. For a time, which length 
 ened to dragging minutes, the anxious experimenters 
 hung over the tiny field instrument. The sensitive mag 
 net seemed wholly dead. Then, suddenly, it began to 
 tick hesitantly in response to Ford s tapping of the key. 
 
 "Thank God, the battery is strong enough," he ex 
 claimed. "Now, if there is somebody within hearing at 
 Frisbie s end of the line ..." 
 
 He was clicking persistently and patiently, "E-T," 
 "E-T," "E-T," alternating now and then with the Horse 
 Creek call and his own private code letter, when Adair 
 came up from his post at one of the rear windows. The 
 golden youth was the bearer of tidings, but Ford held 
 up his hand for silence: some one was breaking in to 
 
THE SIEGE OF THE NADIA 351 
 
 reply from Frisbie s Frisbie, himself, as the minimized 
 tickings speedily announced. 
 
 Ford snipped out his call for help in the fewest possi 
 ble words: 
 
 Arm M Grath s gang and bring it by train to Horse 
 Creek, quick. MacMorroghs are trying to dynamite us in 
 the Nadia. FORD. 
 
 Almost without a break in the insect-like tickings the 
 reply came: 
 
 Stand them off; help coming. 
 
 The thing done, the master workman in Ford snatched 
 at the helm. 
 
 Did you catch and hold the pick-and-shovel men from 
 this camp? 
 
 he clicked anxiously. 
 
 Got them all herded here and ready to go back to work 
 for more pay, 
 
 answered Frisbie; and Ford ticked one more word, 
 "Hurry," and closed the key with a sigh of relief. Then, 
 and not until then, Adair said: "Is that all, for the 
 present? If it is, Fm sorry to have to report that the 
 beggars outside have hit upon your gas-pipe scheme. 
 They are rolling a round, black thing with a string at- 
 
352 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 tached down upon us from the commissary. The slant 
 of the hill is just enough to keep it coming where the 
 ground is smooth." 
 
 From sheer force of habit, Ford disconnected his field 
 telegraph, cased and pocketed it. Then there was an in 
 stant adjournment to the rear windows on the camp 
 side. Happily, the rolling homb was as yet only on the 
 way. Pebbles and roughnesses intervened here and there 
 to stop or to turn it aside, and since it was out of reach 
 of their longest pole, the dynamiters would start it on 
 again by throwing stones at it. 
 
 Hereupon ensued a struggle which, under other con 
 ditions, would have figured as horse-play. One after 
 another the three men in the car heaved cushions, pil 
 lows, obstructions of any sort, in the path of the rolling 
 menace. And behind the commissary barricade the 
 dynamiters patiently twitched the bomb by the firmly 
 fastened fuse this way and that to avoid the obstacles, 
 or sent it forward under the impact of well-directed 
 missiles. 
 
 Ford was the first of the three to recognize the futility 
 of the cushion barricades. 
 
 "They ll beat us they ll drop it in the ditch right 
 here under us in spite of fate !" he cried. "Brissac : go 
 and break the glass in the accident tool-case and bring 
 me the ax, quickly !" And when he had it : "Now get 
 me a piece of that telegraph wire and bend a hook on the 
 
THE SIEGE OF THE NADIA 353 
 
 end of it jump for it; you ll have to twist it off with 
 your fingers !" 
 
 With an energy that made no account of the lamed 
 arm, Ford tore up the carpet and fell to work fiercely, 
 cutting a hole through the car floor ; while Brissac broke 
 a piece from the wire and bent a finger-shaped hook on 
 the end of it Adair, with his eye at a hole in a window 
 shade, gave his attention to the attack. 
 
 "They are getting it here, slowly but surely," he re 
 ported. "It is going to roll under us just about where 
 you are. . . . Now it has gone past my line of sight." 
 And a moment later, in the same drawling monotone : 
 "They have lighted the fuse, but there is a good long 
 string of it to burn through. Take your time " then, 
 with a sudden failure in the monotone: "No, by Jove I 
 you can t take your time! The fire is jumping across 
 the road to beat the band !" 
 
 The hole was opened through the floor, and Ford was 
 on his stomach with his face and an arm in the aperture, 
 fishing desperately for the loop in the fuse. It was his 
 success, his sudden drawing of the loop up into the car, 
 that had shocked Adair out of his pose. Brissac was 
 ready with the ax, and the instant the loop appeared it 
 was severed, the burning end cast off, and the other end, 
 with the bomb attached, was safely drawn up into the 
 car. 
 
 The perspiration was running from Ford s face in 
 
354 EMPIEE BUILDERS 
 
 streams when he had the engine of death securely in his 
 hands. 
 
 "Take it, Roy," he gasped. "Drop it into the water- 
 cooler. That will be the safest place for it if they fall 
 back on the gun-play." 
 
 As if his word had evoked it, a storm of rifle bullets 
 swept through the car, smashing windows, breaking the 
 remaining gas globes and splintering the wood-work. 
 Again and again the flashes leaped out of the surround 
 ing shadows and the air was sibilant with whining mis 
 siles. 
 
 Brissac had the infernal machine : at first he fell upon 
 it and covered it with his body; afterward he crawled 
 with it into the nearest state-room and muffled it in a 
 roll of berth mattresses. 
 
 When the storm ceased, as suddenly as it had begun, 
 they crept together in the vestibule farthest from the 
 commissary lead-hurling volcano to count the casual 
 ties. 
 
 There was none ; not even a bullet score or a splinter- 
 wound to show for the hot bombardment, though the 
 side of the Nadia facing the commissary was riddled. 
 
 "I m believing all I ve ever read about its taking a 
 hundred pounds of lead to kill one man in a war battle," 
 said the New Yorker, grimly humorous to the last 
 "How do you two C. E. s account for it ?" 
 
 "We don t," said Ford shortly. "We re merely thank- 
 
Brissac hurled the skillet like a clumsy discus Page 355 
 
THE SIEGE OF THE NADIA 355 
 
 ful that all humankind habitually shoots high when it s 
 excited or in a hurry." 
 
 Then he sprang afoot, secured his ax, and sent Brissac 
 to the pantry to rummage for other weapons. "A rush 
 is the next thing in order," he suggested; and they pre 
 pared as they could to meet it. 
 
 But the rush did not come. Instead of it, one man, 
 carrying what appeared to be a bundle of dripping rags, 
 came cautiously into the open and approached the shat 
 tered car. The night wind sweeping down from the up 
 per valley was with him, and the pungent odor of kero 
 sene was wafted to and through the broken windows. 
 
 "Oho !" said Adair. "Having safely shot you dead or 
 disabled, they are now going to give you Christian 
 burial, Ford. Also, they will comfortably obliterate all 
 the marks and scars of this pleasant evening s diversion. 
 How near shall I let him come before I squander one of 
 the two remaining cartridges on him ?" 
 
 "Wait," said Brissac in a half -whisper. In his second 
 pantry rummaging he had found nothing more promis 
 ing than a cast-iron skillet promising because it had 
 weight and a handle to wield it by. The intending in 
 cendiary was no more than a few yards from his goal 
 when Brissac rose up opposite the nearest shattered win 
 dow and hurled the skillet like a clumsy discus. His 
 aim was true to a hand s-breadth : a bullet from Adair s 
 pistol could have done no more. With a cry that was 
 
356 EMPIKE BUILDERS 
 
 fairly shogged out of him by the impact of the iron mis 
 sile, the man flung away his burden, dropped in his 
 tracks and lay groaning. 
 
 They looked for another storm of lead to follow this, 
 and hugged the floor in readiness for it. When it did 
 not come, Ford crept to the hole in the car floor and lis 
 tened long and intently. Half an hour he had given 
 Frisbie to get his track-layers together, and to cover the 
 eight miles of rough-laid rails with the construction 
 train. What was delaying him ? 
 
 "You said Gallagher ditched your car: did it block 
 the track ?" he asked of Adair. 
 
 "It did, didn t it, Brissac?" was the answer, and the 
 assistant confirmed it. 
 
 "Then that is why Frisbie can t get to us. Was Gal 
 lagher s engine still on the rails ?" 
 
 "It was." 
 
 Ford sat up and nursed his knees. "Dick will make a 
 way if he can t find one ready made. But it may take 
 hours. Meanwhile, if these devils have scouts out " 
 
 "Yes?" said Adair. 
 
 "They ll bring the warning, and there won t be much 
 more time wasted in experiments. They can do us up, 
 if they get right down to business." 
 
 "What are they doing now ?" Adair asked of Brissac, 
 who was on watch on the commissary side. 
 
 "I ll be hanged if I know. It looks like a young can- 
 
THE SIEGE OF THE NADIA 357 
 
 non, and it s pointed this way. By George ! it s coming 
 coming by its all alone, too !" 
 
 By this time they were all watching the new menace. 
 Brissac s description fitted it accurately; a cylindrical 
 object mounted upon a pair of small wheels taken from 
 the commissary store-room truck. It came toward the 
 Nadia by curious surges a rush forward and a pause 
 trailing what appeared to be a long iron rod behind it. 
 
 Ford hit upon the explanation. The cylindrical thing 
 was another gas-pipe bomb; the iron tail was a smaller 
 pipe containing and armoring the fuse, and serving also 
 as the means of propulsion. They were coupling on ad 
 ditional lengths of the fuse-carrying pipe as they were 
 needed ; hence the jerking advances and pauses. 
 
 Adair s low laugh was as care-free as ever. 
 
 "A practical illustration of the tail wagging the dog," 
 he remarked. "But the dog will wag us good and plenty 
 when they get him where they want him. You can t fish 
 that thing up through the hole with your wire or crop 
 the tail." 
 
 "No; it s a run for it, this time," said Ford, rising 
 and stripping his coat. 
 
 But Brissac was pointing to three or four men dodg 
 ing from shadow to shadow under the masthead lights 
 and circling wide to tighten the line of circumvallation. 
 
 "We shan t run very far," he commented. 
 
 It seemed a hair-graying age to the watchers at the 
 
358 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 Nadia s windows before the men behind the commissary 
 barricade got their infernal machine placed to their 
 liking. They stared at it, all three of them, fascinated, 
 deaf and blind to all else. A minimized shudder as of 
 drumming wheels or escaping steam was in the air when 
 they saw the flare of the match that betokened the firing 
 of the fuse, but no one of the three heard it. 
 
 It was when the sputtering line of fire had buried 
 itself in its tube that they became suddenly alive to the 
 unbelievable fact that a locomotive was thundering down 
 the yard on the Nadia s track. A rifle cracked ; then an 
 other and a third; but the engine came on as if its 
 driver bore a charmed life. 
 
 Surely Michael Gallagher must have prayed to the 
 saints that night. He did not know that the very seconds 
 had become priceless : he knew only that Frisbie had sent 
 him on ahead to snake the president s car out of the 
 Horse Creek yard as quickly as possible. Yet if he could 
 have seen the bomb and the sputtering fuse, he could 
 not have slowed more deftly to let the automatic coup 
 lers clutch each other, nor, at the touch and clamp, could 
 he have reversed and gathered headway with greater 
 skill. 
 
 The three occupants of the Nadia staggered to their 
 feet as the private car lunged ahead in the grasp of the 
 big engine, increasing speed with every wheel-turn. 
 Mechanically, and as one man, they rushed to the rear 
 
THE SIEGE OF THE NADIA 359 
 
 platform. The mock cannon stood where it had been 
 thrust; but in the camp street a handful of men were 
 wrestling madly with the pipe fuse-carrier, breaking it, 
 wrenching it in pieces, and stamping futilely upon the 
 snake-like thing hissing and spitting under their feet. 
 
 "Look I" sobbed Adair. "They know they ve discov 
 ered that box-car ! Oh, why in the name of the pitiful 
 Christ don t they drop it and run ?" 
 
 This from the man who had laughed, and aimed and 
 fired and laughed again, in the heat of battle. But 
 Ford s rejoinder was the bitter malediction of the de 
 feated industry captain. "Damn their worthless lives !" 
 he stormed. "In the next half -minute the Pacific South 
 western stands to lose a quarter of a million dollars !" 
 
 It was but a vanishing glimpse that they had of the 
 handful of madmen stamping and dancing under the 
 masthead light in front of the commissary; a glimpse 
 withdrawing swiftly into a dim perspective as the Nadia 
 was whisked around the curve and up the Horse Creek 
 grade. 
 
 It was after Gallagher had picked up the lights of the 
 waiting train of armed track-layers, and was whistling 
 to announce his success, that the end came. For the 
 three watchers on the rear platform of the president s 
 car the little constellation of arostars in the valley be 
 low was suddenly blotted out in a skyward belching of 
 gray flame ; a huge volcano-burst of momentarily illumi- 
 
360 EMPIKE BUILDEKS 
 
 nated dust. Instinctively they braced themselves for the 
 concussion that followed, a bellowing thunderclap and 
 a rending of earth and air that shook the surrounding 
 hills and drowned the shriek of Gallagher s whistle. 
 
 A blast of air, down-drawn from the heights to fill 
 the dreadful vacuum, was still rocking the stopped car 
 when Frisbie climbed nimbly to the railed rear platform 
 and swung his lantern to light the faces of the three 
 men braced in the doorway. 
 
 "A close call, gentlemen," was his only comment ; and 
 then he appealed briefly to Ford for orders. 
 
 "Back us down slowly," said Ford shortly, "and fol 
 low with your train. We may need the men/ 5 
 
 Frisbie went forward through the wrecked private car, 
 returning presently to flag Gallagher along with the lan 
 tern swung over the railing. Down in the valley of the 
 Pannikin the heavy, sickening fumes of the burned ex 
 plosives hung in the air, and when the car swung in on 
 the straight line the red glare of a wrecked and burning 
 oil tank lighted the scene. 
 
 The camp site was blankly unrecognizable. Where the 
 ten-tracked yard had been there was a vast depression, 
 half-filled with distorted steel and debris indescribable, 
 twisted iron and splintered wood, with the water from 
 the river pouring into it. The commissary buildings 
 and the surrounding bunk-shanties were gone, swept 
 away as with the stroke of a mighty broom; and the 
 
THE SIEGE OF THE NADIA 361 
 
 trees on the hill-sides above were scorched and shriveled 
 as if a forest fire had blasted them. 
 
 Frisbie was the first to speak after he had flagged 
 Gallagher to a stand on the farthermost edge of the 
 devastation. 
 
 "Any use to turn out the crew and hunt for them?" 
 he asked. 
 
 Ford shook his head. 
 
 "No. Leave M Grath and a few others to stand guard 
 and to flag the incoming steel trains, and let s get out 
 of this. Fm sick; and so is Mr. Adair." 
 
XXVI 
 
 THE STAR OP EMPIRE 
 
 A week, the most strenuous week in Copah s history, 
 had passed, and still the president s party delayed its 
 return to what Miss Priscilla Van Bruce constantly re 
 ferred to as "civilization" ; though the Farthest West 
 has always been slow to admit the derogatory compari 
 son which the word implies. 
 
 During the strenuous week much had happened, and 
 much more was scheduled to happen. For one twenty- 
 four-hour day the ex-speculator in Mr. Colbrith held out 
 against the sharp attacks of the reawakened lust of con 
 quest. Then, from Jack s Canyon on the Transconti 
 nental, from men-clustered construction trains on the 
 extension, over the passes from Summit Lakes, and 
 across the brown plains from Green Butte, poured the 
 army of gold-seekers, and the president was swept away 
 and into the very vortex of the stock-jobbing whirlpool. 
 
 It was not until the third day of the week that Adair 
 came ambling into Copah, riding a cart mule from Fris- 
 
 362 
 
THE STAR OF EMPIRE 363 
 
 bie s camp. To his sister and his aunt the young man 
 told everything ; to his uncle nothing. Between gasps in 
 the speculative frenzy Mr. Colbrith found time to com 
 plain bitterly to his nephew of Ford s defection. 
 
 "It was dastardly !" he shrilled. "We had some words ; 
 I don t deny that we had some words. But he was most 
 unreasonable. He should have gone about his business 
 and let me have time to consider. Here are thousands 
 of people pouring into this place, everything at famine 
 prices, no supplies for our miners, no railroad to bring 
 them. What s this I hear about an accident at Horse 
 Creek ? Why isn t Ford on the ground attending to his 
 railroad building and straightening things out? Have 
 I got to forfeit the money-making chance of a lifetime 
 and go and drag that track into Copah with my own 
 hands?" 
 
 Adair seemed suddenly to have lost his tongue, which 
 was certainly glib enough ordinarily. All he would say 
 was that the engineering department was still at work, 
 he believed; that the track was approaching Copah, 
 slowly, perhaps, but pretty surely. 
 
 "But without a head!" snapped the irate president. 
 "Ford is a traitor to the company. Tell him so from me, 
 sir, if you know where he is skulking." 
 
 Adair did tell Ford, circumstantially, when he rode 
 the cart mule out of town the next morning and met 
 the young engineer at the head of a tremendously aug- 
 
364 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 merited track force, rushing the rails around the swell 
 ing hills on the approach to the mining-camp-city. 
 
 "Oh, he s still up in the air/ laughed the director., 
 when he had repeated the president s wrathful outburst. 
 "Frantic because the road isn t finished ; frantic because 
 he can t get in on all the ground-floors in all the mining 
 deals; frantic some more because he has to live in a 
 shack hotel while he has a private car and a good cook, 
 as he thinks, only a few miles away. Which reminds 
 me : the 01 has a pretty good cook, and the incompar 
 able Johnson, don t let them escape. Have you sent 
 the Nadia back to Denver for repairs ?" 
 
 "Yes ; Frisbie went over in it this morning." 
 
 "Frisbie?" 
 
 "Yes, I had to let him go. Word came from Leckhard 
 as soon as we got the wire reestablished, which was late 
 last night. North was taken suddenly ill the day after 
 the explosion. He resigned at once by wire to the execu 
 tive committee in New York, and two days later he took 
 a steamer from Galveston for nobody knows where; 
 health trip doctor s orders Leckhard said. I sent 
 Frisbie over to be acting manager of the system, pend 
 ing the president s er recovery from his sudden ill 
 ness. Leckhard says the New York people are burning 
 the wires trying to get word to Mr. Colbrith." 
 
 "They may go on burning them," said Adair calmly. 
 "Uncle Sidney isn t going to quit until he owns a good 
 
THE STAK OF EMPIRE 3G5 
 
 half of the Copah district or gets his armature burned 
 out. And if he were ready to quit, we shouldn t let him. 
 But how are things working out on the extension? 
 that is what interests me." 
 
 "Bully!" was the enthusiastic reply. "We re spend 
 ing money like water; paying anything that s asked; 
 and even then the men come and go like a torchlight 
 procession. But we are keeping the surfacing gangs 
 neck-full the entire length of the line, and Leckhard 
 has already organized his regular train service over the 
 first hundred miles. That puts us on an even footing 
 with the Transcontinental at Jack s Canyon, and the 
 tide is fairly turned our way. When we lay the rails 
 into Copah, which will be the day after to-morrow, if 
 nothing pulls in two, the first through passenger train, 
 with the 01 in tow, will be right behind us. Does the 
 report satisfy you ?" 
 
 "Your word fits it: it s bully." 
 
 "Then I want my reward. When am I to be allowed 
 to chase in and pay my respects to your er aunt, and 
 and Miss Alicia ?" 
 
 Adair laughed. 
 
 "My er aunt !" he mocked. "Much you care about 
 Aunt Hetty. And I ve a thing or two to say about Alicia, 
 Who gave you leave to fall in love with my little sister, 
 I d like to know?" 
 
 "She did," retorted Ford brazenly. "Don t tell me 
 
366 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 you are going to try to kick it over at this late day. 
 You can t, you know." 
 
 Adair tilted his hat to the back of his head and thrust 
 his hands into his pockets. 
 
 "I m no such wild ass of the prairies/ he declared. 
 "But, my good friend, you don t come into town till 
 you bring your railroad with you. I know how it will 
 be: you d linger for just one more last fond farewell, 
 and about that time Uncle Sidney would drop in on you 
 unexpectedly. Then there d be a family row, after which 
 my Pacific Southwestern stock wouldn t be worth a 
 whoop. No; you wait till I get Uncle Sidney safely 
 where I want him properly in the nine-hole, and then 
 I ll flag you in." 
 
 The chance for which the golden youth was waiting 
 and working climaxed on the day the extension rails 
 came down the hill-side grade above the town a town 
 now spreading into a wilderness of hastily built and 
 crowding structures. It was a simple pit he had digged 
 for an old man suddenly gone mad with the fever of 
 mine-buying. From picking up stock in a score of 
 prospects, Mr. Colbrith had hedged by concentrating his 
 heavy investments in six or seven of the most promising 
 of the partly developed properties. Then, to make as 
 surance reasonably sure, he had sprung the modern 
 method of combination upon his fellow stock-holders in 
 the producing mines. The promising group was to be 
 
THE STAB OF EMPIRE 367 
 
 merged in one giant holding corporation, strong enough 
 to control the entire Copali situation. 
 
 But there were obstacles in the way; obstructions 
 carefully placed, if the truth must be told, by an unscru 
 pulous young manipulator in the president s own house 
 hold. The Little Alicia was in the group, was the 
 keystone in the combination arch, as it chanced, and un 
 happily Grigsby had parted with a grievous block of his 
 share of the stock a block which could neither be re 
 covered nor traced to its present holder. Not to make a 
 mystery of the matter, the certificates were safely locked 
 in a safety-deposit box in the vault of the Bank of Co- 
 pah, and the key to the box rattled in Adair s pocket. 
 And because the Little Alicia could not be included, 
 three other necessary votes were withheld when the presi 
 dent tried to get action. 
 
 Mr. Colbrith was in despair. A good many of his in 
 vestments were palpably bad; and they could be re 
 couped only by the backing of the combination. And the 
 combination obstinately refused to combine unless the 
 Little Alicia could be gathered in. At the end of the 
 ends Mr. Colbrith appealed to his nephew. 
 
 (C YoM know where Ford is," he began accusingly. 
 "You needn t deny it. I was in hopes we wouldn t have 
 to ask him to sell us more than one share of his stock, 
 which he couldn t decently refuse to do if we let him set 
 his own price. But since we can t trace that block that 
 
368 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 Grigsby let go, we must have nearly all of Ford s. Find 
 him: get his stock if you have to pay twice par for it. 
 If you don t, I I shall be the heaviest loser in this 
 camp, Charles Edward." It was gall and wormwood to 
 the old man, but it had to be swallowed. 
 
 "So you are coming around to ask a favor of Ford ?" 
 said the young man unfeelingly. "He won t help you 
 out. You mustn t forget that you kicked him out of the 
 family ; or rather you kicked him to prevent his getting 
 into it." 
 
 "But think of the profit to him !" protested the presi 
 dent. "He paid only twenty cents for his half of the 
 Alicia; he told me so himself. At two hundred he d 
 clear ninety thousand; a magnificent amount for so 
 young a man !" 
 
 "Ford doesn t care anything about money. You can t 
 move him that way." 
 
 "Well, then, find him for me and I ll I ll apologize," 
 said Mr. Colbrith, pressed now to the last extremity. 
 
 "He doesn t want your apologies, Uncle Sidney. Your 
 little tiff was between man and man, and he d never 
 think of holding you accountable for anything you were 
 foolish enough to say." 
 
 "Then what in heaven s name does he want ?" iras 
 cibly. 
 
 "Oh, a lot of things: reinstatement; your order to 
 investigate the Denver management; a chance to build 
 
THE STAR OF EMPIRE 369 
 
 his railroad unmolested; and,, as a side issue, a chance 
 to whitewash your administration of Pacific Southwest 
 ern by conducting the house-cleaning in your name this 
 last because he thinks something of the family honor. 
 He doesn t have to consider us, you know. At the next 
 annual meeting he can elect Brewster president over 
 your head : then you will have to stand for all the graft 
 ing and deviltry that will be unearthed." 
 
 The ground for this duel between President Colbrith 
 and the determined young pace-setter was the lobby of 
 the tar-paper-covered hotel, cleared now of the im 
 promptu mining-stock exchange, which had moved into 
 permanent quarters. The old man rose stiffly and stood 
 grasping the chair-back. 
 
 "The same reckless charges against Mr. North and his 
 subordinates and now you are making them !" he 
 rasped. "They are groundless; groundless, I tell you!" 
 
 Adair looked at his watch, listened a moment as for 
 some expected sound from out-of-doors, and motioned 
 toward the vacated chair. 
 
 "Sit down, Uncle Sidney, and let me tell you what 
 happened at Horse Creek camp a week ago last night/ 
 he said evenly ; and then he told the story of the attempt 
 upon Ford s life, of the siege of the Nadia, of the ter 
 rible catastrophe which had involved all three of the 
 MacMorroghs, the commissary staff, Eckstein, and the 
 headquarters camp. When he finished, the president 
 
370 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 was shaking as if from a chill. Yet one thread of the 
 strong strand of loyalty still held. 
 
 "It was horrible fiendish!" he shuddered. "But it 
 was the MacMorroghs fight. It does not necessarily in 
 criminate North." 
 
 "It does/ said Adair, in the same even tone. "I told 
 you that we left a few men at the wrecked camp to warn 
 the incoming material trains. They found a single sur 
 vivor of the thirteen men who tried to destroy us and 
 the Nadia. It was Eckstein, North s secretary, and be 
 fore he died he amply confirmed all of our guesses. They 
 had plotted to have you quarrel with Ford. Ford had 
 bought his half of the Little Alicia without any prompt 
 ing, but from that as a starting point the entire scheme 
 was worked up. The MacMorroghs bookkeeper, a man 
 named Merriam, who is at present in Copah, and 
 whose deposition I have had taken before a justice of 
 the peace, was detailed to win Frisbie over to the 
 change of route no difficult thing, since the change 
 was for the better. But Merriam s part was chiefly to 
 keep Frisbie from finding out anything about Ford s 
 mine ; which he did. Am I making it clear ?" 
 
 The president bowed his head. 
 
 "Then, when you came West on your inspection trip, 
 the trap was sprung. You were told that Ford had been 
 doing a dishonorable thing, and you were urged to come 
 over here and see for yourself. To make sure that there 
 
THE STAR OF EMPIRE 371 
 
 should be no slips, Penfield was sent with you, ostensibly 
 as your acting secretary, but really as a spy " 
 
 "Oh, no; I can t think that of young Penfield/ pro 
 tested the president, 
 
 "I say yes; and the proof is that Penfield has con 
 fessed. He was scared into it when I told him what had 
 happened at Horse Creek and gave him his choice of 
 telling me what he knew, or going to jail. Then I came 
 on the scene at the inopportune moment, and after 
 North had carefully issued instructions intended to de 
 lay me as much as possible, he sent Eckstein in post 
 haste by way of Jack s Canyon and the stage trail to get 
 ahead of me. You see, he was afraid to trust matters to 
 Penfield, who would most certainly have stopped short 
 of the desperate measures Eckstein and the MacMor- 
 roghs finally took. It was decided at a council in which 
 Penfield was present, that Ford s elimination must go 
 through. If you didn t quarrel with him and drop him, 
 he was to be murdered." 
 
 Mr. Colbrith was silent for a long minute after Adair 
 ceased speaking. Then he looked up to say : "What was 
 Ford doing at Horse Creek that night? He had left me 
 only a few hours before ; and, as I have said, we had 
 we had some words." 
 
 Adair smiled. "He was about to begin doing what he 
 has been doing ever since: flogging the extension into 
 shape night and day to get it ready to carry passengers 
 
372 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 and freight. He conceived it to be his duty to yon as 
 well as to the other stock-holders. And he has flogged 
 it into shape. Look out of that window, Uncle Sidney I" 
 
 A long passenger train, crowded to the platforms, and 
 with the private car "01" in tow, was winding down the 
 grade of the opposite hillside, and as they stepped to the 
 windows the engineer woke the echoes with the engine 
 whistle. 
 
 "The first one of many, let us hope," said the young 
 man, standing at his uncle s elbow. Then, with quite "a 
 different note in his voice : "It s Stuart s work, all of it. 
 He has scarcely stopped to eat or sleep since that horrible 
 night in the Pannikin valley. And that night, Uncle 
 Sidney, I fought shoulder to shoulder with him as a 
 brother should; he is a man, and there are not many 
 more like him." 
 
 The president s thin lips were drawn into straight 
 lines, and the thin goafs-beard stood out at the argu 
 mentative angle. Mr. Colbrith was chary of his emo 
 tions. 
 
 "Will he sell us that stock in the Little Alicia, Charles 
 Edward?" 
 
 Adair smiled at the determined return to the prac 
 tical. 
 
 "No," he said; "I don t think he will I shouldn t, 
 if I were in his place. But he will do the next best 
 thing: he will marry Alicia and so bring it into the 
 
THE STAR OF EMPIRE 373 
 
 family. And on the railroad conditions I have named, 
 I am quite sure he will make you his voting proxy if 
 you want to use it in forcing the combine." 
 
 The president took a turn as far as the clerk s counter 
 and back. The lobby was deserted, everybody having 
 gone to welcome the first train into Copah. 
 
 "You seem to have North against the wall," he said 
 when he came back. "Yet, for the sake of of, well of 
 his wife and children, he must have even-handed justice. 
 I must insist upon that." 
 
 It was the most lovable thing in the irascible old 
 man his undying loyalty to a man in whom he had 
 once believed. Adair slew the last hope with reluctance. 
 Drawing a thick packet of undelivered telegrams from 
 his pocket, he handed it to his uncle. 
 
 "Justice is the one thing Mr. North is most anxious 
 to dodge," he said gravely. "When the news of the 
 catastrophe reached him, he resigned by wire to New 
 York; not to you got his physician to order him out 
 of the country, and left Denver between two days. Ford 
 has sent Frisbie to Denver to hold things together, and 
 there has been a number of removals subject, of 
 course, to your approval. You will find the history of 
 all these minor happenings in those telegrams, which I 
 have been collecting and holding until you had lei 
 sure to look them over." 
 
 "Where is Mr. Ford now ?" asked the president crisply. 
 
374: EMPIEE BUILDEKS 
 
 "He is not very far away; in fact, he is up-stairs in 
 the sitting-room of our suite with Aunt Hetty and the 
 two Van Bruce ladies and Alicia. Incidentally, quite 
 incidentally, you understand, he is waiting to be asked 
 to help you out in that mining deal." 
 
 "Fetch him," was the curt command; and Mr. Col- 
 brith sat down to wade resignedly through the mass of 
 delayed wire correspondence. 
 
 What remains of the story of the Pacific Southwestern 
 is a chapter, as yet unfinished, in the commercial history 
 of the great and growing empire of the West. 
 
 Of the rush to the Copah gold field ; of the almost in 
 credible celerity with which a stretch of one hundred 
 and forty-odd miles of construction track was opened 
 for the enormous traffic which was instantly poured in 
 upon it ; of the rapid extension of the line to a far west 
 ern outlet; of the steady advance of P. S-W. shares to a 
 goodly premium: these are matters which are recorded 
 in the newspaper files of the period. 
 
 For the typically American success of the Southwest- 
 ern s dramatic upward leap to the rank of a great rail 
 way system, President Colbrith has the name and the 
 fame. Yet here and there in the newspaper record there 
 is mention of one Stuart Ford, "our rising young rail 
 road magnate/ in the unashamed phrase of the Copah 
 Megaphone, first as the president s assistant; later, as 
 
THE STAR OF EMPIRE , 375 
 
 first vice-president and general manager of the system, 
 in the Chicago headquarters, with Mr. Richard Frisbie 
 as his second in command on the western lines, and Mr. 
 Charles Edward Adair as comptroller and chief of 
 finances on the executive committee in New York. 
 
 Ford s prophecies predicting the development of the 
 new empire first traversed by the Western Extension 
 have long since found ample fulfilment, as all the 
 world knows. Copah gave the region its first and largest 
 advertisement; but other mining districts, with their 
 imperative beckonings to a food-producing population, 
 have followed in due course. 
 
 It was early in June of the year marking the open 
 ing of the completed Western Extension for through 
 Pacific Coast traffic that a one-car train, drawn by the 
 smartest of passenger engines in charge of a diminutive, 
 red-headed Irishman, stormed bravely up the glistening 
 steel on the eastern approach to Plug Pass. The car was 
 the rebuilt Nadia; and in obedience to a shrill blast of 
 the cab air-whistle, Gallagher brought it to a stand on 
 the summit of the mountain. 
 
 Alicia looked more than ever the artist s ideal of the 
 American womanly felicities when Ford lifted her from 
 the step of the Nadia. 
 
 "You are quite sure Mr. Gallagher won t mind ?" she 
 was saying, as they walked forward together. 
 
 "Mind ? Wait till you hear what he says. Michael is 
 
376 EMPIRE BUILDERS 
 
 an Irish diamond in the rough, and he knows when he 
 is honored/ 
 
 They discovered the red-headed little man industri 
 ously "oiling around" for the swift glide down the west 
 ern declivities. 
 
 "Michael/ 5 said the first vice-president, "Mrs. Ford 
 thinks she would like to take the Pannikin loop in the 
 cab of the Six-eighty-eight. Can you make room for 
 us?" 
 
 Gallagher snatched his cap from his fiery head. 
 
 "Could we make room? Tis by the blessing av the 
 saints that I m a little man, meself, Missis Foord, and 
 don t take up much room in the c-yab. And as f r 
 Johnny Shovel, he ll be riding on the coal f r the pure 
 playsure av ut. My duty to ye, ma am; and tis a pity 
 ut isn t a black night, whin the swate face av ye would 
 be lighting the thrack f r us." 
 
 Ford lifted Alicia to the gangway and made her com 
 fortable on the fireman s box, fixing a footbrace for her, 
 and giving her his arm for a shoulder rest when Galla 
 gher sent the steam whistling through the cylinder- 
 cocks for the impulse needful to start the downward 
 rush. 
 
 " With a michnai ghignai " she began ; but when 
 the engine plunged over the summit and the matchless 
 view to the westward came suddenly into being, the 
 quotation lapsed in a long-drawn, ecstatic "0-o-oh !" 
 
THE STAR OF EMPIRE 377 
 
 "You are not afraid, are you?" said the bridegroom, 
 man-like, letting her feel the support of his arm. 
 
 "Afraid? No, indeed; I am just happy happy! 
 There lies the world before us, Stuart; our world, be 
 cause, more than any other man s, yours were the brain 
 that conceived it and the hands that brought it to pass. 
 Let us go down quickly and possess it. Tell Mr. Galla 
 gher that he may run as fast as ever he dares." Then 
 with a sigh of contentment and a comfortable nestling 
 into the hollow of the strong arm of protection: "Was 
 there ever another wedding journey just like ours, Stu 
 art, dear?" 
 
 THE END 
 

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