"Don't you worry. I'll have the law on those fellows--"

"And I'd get the stuff about five years from now, when I was likely enough
dead."

"What's the best way to get it, according to your idea?"

"Take it over to Manistogee in wagons and then down by barges."

Sloan snorted. "You'd stand a chance to get some of it by Fourth of July
that way."

"Do you want to bet on that proposition?"

Sloan made no reply. He had allowed his wrath to boil for a few minutes
merely as a luxury. Now he was thinking seriously of the scheme. "It
sounds like moonshine," he said at last, "but I don't know as it is. How
are you going to get your barges?"

"I've got one already. It leaves Milwaukee tonight."

Sloan looked him over. "I wish you were out of a job," he said. Then
abruptly he went on: "Where are your wagons coming from? You haven't got
them all lined up in the yard now, have you? It'll take a lot of them."

"I know it. Well, we'll get all there are in Ledyard. There's a beginning.
And the farmers round here ain't so very fond of the G.&M., are they?
Don't they think the railroad discriminates against them--and ain't they
right about it? I never saw a farmer yet that wouldn't grab a chance to
get even with a railroad."