"I am very sorry, Mr. Garter," he said; "but I am not at liberty to
say a word to you about the plans of my clients."

"Am I to understand, then, that I am to be turned out of my
position? I am to have no consideration for all that I have done?
Surely--"

"I am very sorry," Montague said again, firmly,--"but the
circumstances at the present time are such that I must ask you to
excuse me from discussing the matter in any way."

A day or two later Montague received a telegram from Price,
instructing him to go to Riverton, where the works of the
Mississippi Steel Company were located, and to meet Mr. Andrews, the
president of the Company. Montague had been to Riverton several
times in his youth, and he remembered the huge mills, which were one
of the sights of the State. But he was not prepared for the enormous
development which had since taken place. The Mississippi Steel
Company had now two huge Bessemer converters, in which a volcano of
molten flame roared all day and night. It had bought up the whole
western side of the town, and cleared away half a hundred ramshackle
dwellings; and here were long rows of coke-ovens, and two huge
rail-mills, and a plate-mill from which arose sounds like the
crashing of the day of doom. Everywhere loomed rows of towering
chimneys, and pillars of rolling black smoke. Little miniature
railroad tracks ran crisscross about the yards, and engines came
puffing and clanking, carrying blazing white ingots which the eye
could not bear to face.