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 cannily, 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 Granger 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
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 decided 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