se them. Jim Hill focused on getting
farm-products to market. While he was a Canadian by birth, he had now
become a citizen of the United States. His old friend, Commodore
Kittson, was a Canadian by birth, and never got beyond taking out his
first papers. The Winnipeg agent of the Hudson Bay Company was Donald
Alexander Smith, a hardy Scotch bur of a man, with many strong and
sturdy oatmeal virtues. He had gone with the Hudson Bay Company as a
laborer, became a guide, a trader, and then an agent. Hill and Kittson
laid before Smith a plan, very plain, very simple. Buy up the bonds of
the Saint Paul and Pacific from the Dutch bondholders, foreclose, and
own the railroad!

Now, Donald A. Smith's connection with the Hudson Bay Company gave him a
standing in Montreal banking circles, and to be trusted by Montreal is
to have the ear of London. Donald A. Smith went down to Montreal and
laid the plan before George Stephen, Manager of the Bank of Montreal. If
the Bank of Montreal endorsed a financial scheme it was a go. Only one
thing seemed to lie in the way--the willingness of the bondholders to
sell out at a figure which our four Canadians could pay. Mr. Hill was
for going to Holland, and interviewing the bondholders, personally.
Stephen, more astute in big finance, said, bring them over here. Hill
could not fetch them, Kittson couldn't and Donald A. Smith couldn't,
because there was no dog-sled line to Amsterdam.

The Bank of Montreal did the trick, and a committee of Dutchmen arrived
to look over their Minnesota holdings with a view of selling out. Mr.
Hill took them over the line--a dreary waste of slashings, then a wide
expanse of prairie broken now and again by scrub-oak and hazel-groves;
deep gullies here and there--swamps, sloughs and ponds, with assets of
brant, wild geese, ducks and sand-hill cranes.

The road was in bad shape--the equipment worse. An inventory of the
actual property was taken with the help of the Dutch Committee. The
visiting Hollanders made a report to the bondholders, advising sale of
the bonds at an average of about forty per cent of their face-value,
which is what the inventory showed.

Our Canadian friends secured an option which gave them time to turn.
Farley, the Receiver, was willing. The road was reorganized as the Saint
Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railroad. George Stephen was President,
Norman Kittson, First Vice-President, Donald A. Smith, Second
Vice-President, and James J. Hill,