mergency I was called back from Europe and at the urgent request
of the directors I assumed active charge. My first step was to secure
the injunction."

"Which worried him, I expect?" says I, winkin' at J. Bayard.

"Quite as much as if I had sent a note by my office boy," says Cuyler.
"He rushed a construction train with two hundred men to the spot and
gave the order himself to tear up our tracks. Well, it was rather a
spirited contest. I mobilized our entire working force, had them sworn
in as deputy sheriffs, and kept three switch engines moving up and down
the line. For forty-eight hours we held them back."

"And then?" says I.

Cuyler executes that careless shoulder shrug once more. "Rifles," says
he. "I suppose I should have retaliated with machine guns; but I
preferred to put my trust in the law of the land. Of course I found out
how absurd that was later on. Gordon crossed our grade. After four or
five years of expensive litigation we gave up. By that time our road had
become part of the Gordon system. I was glad to get 48 for my holdings;
so you see his victory was quite complete. But the only real personal
contact I had with him was during those two days of the crossing war
when we took our meals at the wretched little hotel, facing each other
across the table. Fancy! His coarse attempts to treat the situation
humorously were more offensive, if anything, than his guerrilla business
tactics. An ill-bred, barbarous fellow, this Gordon of yours."

"Huh!" says I. "He wa'n't any parlor entertainer, that's a fact; but
take it from me, Mr. De Kay, he was a good deal of a man, for all that."

"So, I presume, was Captain Kidd," sneers Cuyler, "and Jesse James."

"Maybe," I comes back kind of hot. "But Pyramid Gordon was white enough
to want to divide his pile among the poor prunes he'd put out here and
there along the way. You're on the list too, and the chief object of
this little tete-a-tete is to frame up some plan of givin' you a boost."

"So Mr. Steele gave me to understand," says Cuyler. "In my case,
however, the reparation comes a little late. The fact is, Gentlemen,
that I--well, why quibble? I may be good for another ten or a dozen
years. But I shall go on just as I've been going on, following my daily
routine in the department, at my club, at my bachelor quarters. You get
into it, you know,--bath, breakfast, desk, dinner, a rubber or two of
bridge, and bed. A trifle monotonous, but a comfortable, undist