campaign pretty well thought out by the time his train was slowing into
the Union Station. Before 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 options 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 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 Kenneth.
The sight was merely the logical result of Ford's urgent request
telephoned to the lawyer's club.