erintendent to go to hell. It came to the
same thing."

"I worked for a railroad once myself," said Sloan. "Was a hostler in the
roundhouse at Syracuse, New York. I never worked up any higher than that.
I had ambitions to be promoted to the presidency, but it didn't seem very
likely, so I gave it up and came West."

"You made a good thing of it. You seem to own most all Potfawatomie
County."

"Pretty much."

"I wish you would tell me how to do it. I have worked like an
all-the-year-round blast furnace ever since I could creep, and never
slighted a job yet, but here I am--can't call my soul my own. I have
saved fifteen thousand dollars, but that ain't enough to stop with. I
don't see why I don't own a county too."

"There's some luck about it. And then I don't believe you look very sharp
for opportunities. I suppose you are too busy. You've got a chance this
minute to turn your fifteen thousand to fifty; maybe lot more."

"I'm afraid I'm too thick-headed to see it."

"Why, what you found out this morning was the straightest kind of a
straight tip on the wheat market for the next two months. A big elevator
like yours will be almost decisive. The thing's right in your own hands.
If Page & Company can't make that delivery, why, fellows who buy wheat now
are going to make money."

"I see," said Bannon, quickly. "All I'd have to do would be to buy all the
wheat I could get trusted for and then hold back the job a little. And
while I was at it, I might just as well make a clean job and walk off with
the pay roll." He laughed. "I'd look pretty, wouldn't I, going to old
MacBride with my tail between my legs, telling him that the job was too
much for me and I couldn't get it done on time. He'd look me over and say:
'Bannon, you're a liar. You've never had to lay down yet, and you don't
now. Go back and get that job done before New Year's or I'll shoot you.'"

"You don't want to get rich, that's the trouble with you," said Sloan, and
he said it almost enviously.

Bannon rode to Manistogee on the first wagon. The barge was there, so the
work of loading the cribbing into her began at once. There were numerous
interruptions at first, but later in the day the stream of wagons became
almost continuous. Farmers living on other than the Manistogee roads came
into Ledyard and hurried back to tell their neighbors of the chance to get
ahead of the railroad for once. Dennis, who was in charge at the yard, had
hard work to keep up