five millions more to put the property in
the same excellent condition in which the opening of hostilities had
found it. It would cost another five millions to win back the confidence
of the travelling and shipping public. Twenty millions would not cover
the cost, directly and indirectly, to the company, for there were no
end of small items--incidentals. To a single detective agency they paid
two hundred thousand dollars. And there were others.

It has taken nearly ten years to restore the road to its former
condition, and to man the engines as they were manned before the strike.
It would have taken much longer had the owners of the property not
settled upon the wise policy of promoting men who had been all their
lives in the employ of the Burlington road, to fill the places as fast
as they became vacant, of men--the heroes of the strike--who were now
sought out by other companies for loftier positions. In this way the
affairs of the company were constantly in the hands of men who had gone
through it all, who could weed out the worthless among the new men, and
select the best of those who had left the road at the beginning of the
strike. The result is that there is scarcely an official of importance
in the employ of the company to-day who has not been with it for a
quarter of a century. The man who took the first engine out at the
beginning of the strike--taking his life in his hands, as many
believed--is now the general manager of the road.

There was something admirable, even heroic, in the action of the owners
in standing calmly by while the officials melted down millions of gold.
As often as a directors' meeting was called the strikers would take
heart. "Surely," they would say, "when they see what it costs to fight
us they will surrender." The men seem never to have understood that all
this was known to the directors long before the sad news reached the
public. And then, when the directors would meet and vote to stand by the
president, and the president would approve and endorse all that the
general manager had done, the disheartened striker would turn sadly away
to break the melancholy news to a sorrowing wife, who was keeping lonely
vigil in a cheerless home.

CHAPTER TWENTIETH

Dan Moran had not applied for re-employment when the strike was off, but
chose rather to look for work elsewhere, and he had looked long and
faithfully, and found no place. First of all he had gone west, away to
the coast, bu