osed to prevail between the two Titans of the
highways. As conditions have since become, plans like mine are quite
sure to come to naught; but in those days the community of interests in
the railway world had not reached its present perfection of
organization. Men like Pendleton and Halliday were preparing the way for
it, but the personal equation was then a powerful factor in the problem,
and these builders of their own systems still carried on their private
wars with their own forces. In such a war our properties were important.

The Lattimore & Great Western with the Belt Line terminals would make
the Pendleton system dominant in Lattimore. In the possession of
Halliday it would render him the arbiter of the city's fortunes, and
would cut off from his rival's lines the rich business from this feeder.
Both men were playing with the patience of Muscovite diplomacy the old
and tried game of permitting the little road to run until it got into
difficulties, and then swooping down upon it; but either, we thought,
and especially Pendleton, would pay full value for the properties rather
than see them fall into his opponent's net.

I wired Pendleton's office from home that I was coming. At Chicago I
received from his private secretary a telegram reading: "Mr. Pendleton
will see you at any time after the 9th inst. SMITH."

We had been having some correspondence with Mr. Halliday's office on
matters of disputed switching and trackage dues. The controversy had
gone up from subordinate to subordinate to the fountain of power itself.
A contract had been sent on for examination, embodying a _modus vivendi_
governing future relations. I had wired notice of my coming to him also,
and his answer, which lay alongside Pendleton's in the same box, was
evidently based on the supposition that it was this contract which was
bringing me East, and was worded so as to relieve me of the journey if
possible.

"Will be in New York on evening of 11th," it read, "not before. With
slight modifications, contract submitted as to L. & G. W. and Belt Line
matter will be executed. HALLIDAY."

I spent no time in Chicago, but pushed on, in the respectable isolation
of a through sleeper on a limited train. Once in a while I went forward
into the day coach, to give myself the experience of the complete
change in the social atmosphere. On arrival, I began killing time by
running down every scrap of our bus