They
fill yours."

"Hmp! And what's your personal opinion? Am I a robber of labor?"

"I think that the price of any success worth while is paid for in the
failure of others. You win because you're strong, sir. That's the law
of the game. It's according to the survival of the fittest that you're
where you are. If you had hesitated some other man would have trampled
you down. It's a case of wolf eat wolf."

The old railroad builder laughed harshly. This was the first time in his
experience that a subordinate had so analyzed him to his face.

"So I'm a wolf, am I?"

"In one sense of the word you're not that at all, sir. You're a great
builder. You've done more for the Northwest than any man living.
You couldn't have done it if you had been squeamish. I hold the end
justifies the means. What you've got is yours because you've won it. Men
who do a great work for the public are entitled to great rewards."

"Glad to know you've got more sense than that fool cousin of yours. Now
go home and beat him. I don't care how you do it, just so that you
get results. Spend what money you need, but make good, young man--make
good."

"I'll do my best," James promised.

"All I demand is that you win. I'm not interested in the method you use.
But put that cousin of yours out of the demagogue business if you have
to shanghai him."

James laughed. "That might not be a bad way to get rid of him till after
the election. The word would leak out that he had been bought off."

The old buccaneer's eyes gleamed. He was as daring a lawbreaker as ever
built or wrecked a railroad. "Have you the nerve, young man?"

"When I'm working for you, sir," retorted James coolly.

"What do you mean by that?"

"If I've studied your career to any purpose, sir, one thing stands out
pretty clear. You haven't the slightest respect for law merely as law.
When it's on your side you're a stickler for it; when it isn't you say
nothing, but brush it aside as if it did not exist. In either case you
get what you want."

"I'm glad you've noticed that last point. Now we'll have luncheon." He
smiled grimly. "I daresay you'll enjoy it no less because I stole it
from the horny hand of labor, by your mad cousin's way of it."

"Not a bit," answered James cheerfully.

CHAPTER 13

"Must it be? Must we then
Render back to God again
This, His broken work, this thing
For His man that once did sing?"
--Josephine Prestor Peabody.