, pioneer railroad man, to whom Addison,
smiling jocosely, observed: "Mr. Cowperwood is on from Philadelphia,
Mr. Rambaud, trying to find out whether he wants to lose any money out
here. Can't you sell him some of that bad land you have up in the
Northwest?"

Rambaud--a spare, pale, black-bearded man of much force and exactness,
dressed, as Cowperwood observed, in much better taste than some of the
others--looked at Cowperwood shrewdly but in a gentlemanly, retiring
way, with a gracious, enigmatic smile. He caught a glance in return
which he could not possibly forget. The eyes of Cowperwood said more
than any words ever could. Instead of jesting faintly Mr. Rambaud
decided to explain some things about the Northwest. Perhaps this
Philadelphian might be interested.

To a man who has gone through a great life struggle in one metropolis
and tested all the phases of human duplicity, decency, sympathy, and
chicanery in the controlling group of men that one invariably finds in
every American city at least, the temperament and significance of
another group in another city is not so much, and yet it is. Long
since Cowperwood had parted company with the idea that humanity at any
angle or under any circumstances, climatic or otherwise, is in any way
different. To him the most noteworthy characteristic of the human race
was that it was strangely chemic, being anything or nothing, as the
hour and the condition afforded. In his leisure moments--those free
from practical calculation, which were not many--he often speculated as
to what life really was. If he had not been a great financier and,
above all, a marvelous organizer he might have become a highly
individualistic philosopher--a calling which, if he had thought
anything about it at all at this time, would have seemed rather
trivial. His business as he saw it was with the material facts of
life, or, rather, with those third and fourth degree theorems and
syllogisms which control material things and so represent wealth. He
was here to deal with the great general needs of the Middle West--to
seize upon, if he might, certain well-springs of wealth and power and
rise to recognized authority. In his morning talks he had learned of
the extent and character of the stock-yards' enterprises, of the great
railroad and ship interests, of the tremendous rising importance of
real estate, grain speculation, the hotel business, the hardware
business. He had learned of universal ma