without reservation to Jim. The times offered golden opportunities to a
man with ready money and good business training, and his success was
almost inevitable. His life from this time was the logical working out of
what he had in him.

He turned naturally to the railroad business, and those who know the
history of Western railroads from '65 to '90 will understand what a
field it was for a man who was at once fearless and level-headed. The
craze for construction and then the equally mad competition did not
confuse him, they simply gave him opportunities. When the reaction
against the railroads set in, and the Granger movement wrecked nearly
all the Western roads, Jim bowed to the inevitable, but he saved
himself--no one knew just how--and when the State legislators were over
their midsummer madness he was again in the field, and again succeeding.

With the details of these struggles we are not concerned. The "inside"
history of many of them will never be known; in almost every case it
differs materially from the story which appeared in the papers. Jim became
famous and was libelled and flattered, respected and abused, by turns; but
always he was feared. He was supposed to be dishonest, and it is true he
did not scruple to use his enemies' weapons; but at directors' meetings it
was the interest of the stockholders that he fought for.

Men wondered at his success, and over their cigars gravely discussed the
reasons for it. Some said it was sheer good luck that turned what he
touched to gold, some laid it to his start, and others to his cool,
dispassionate strategy. To some extent it was all of these things; but
more than anything else he had won as a bulldog does, by hanging on. Often
he had beaten better strategists simply by keeping up the fight when by
all the rules he was beaten. For as the comrade of long ago had said, "it