grimly battling to the
last, fought as one without hope, a few strokes of the pen opened the
doors upon the new creation; five million dollars, more or less, changed
hands, and the Pacific Southwestern took the long leap eastward from the
Missouri River to its new base in Chicago.

"It's you for the hustle now, Ford," said Adair, linking arms with the
engineer when the quartet left the bank. "How soon do you think you can
get that first train-load of grain in transit?"

"I wish I could tell you," said Ford.

"Why can't you?"

"Because it will depend very largely upon the authority Mr. Colbrith or
the board sees fit to give me. At present, you will remember, I am still
only a division superintendent--Mr. North's subordinate, in fact, and--"

"Say it out loud," encouraged Adair.

"I don't like to, but I suppose it can't be helped. Up to now I have
been acting under special orders, as you may say, in a purely financial
transaction. But my commission expired five minutes ago when the stock
deal went through. When it comes to issuing orders in the operating and
transportation department, I have no authority whatever. Mr. North is
general manager, and I suppose his jurisdiction will now be extended to
cover the new line, won't it?"

"Not much!" retorted the amateur promoter. "You are going to be given a
free hand in this from the word go. From what I can learn, North has
been an obstructor, all along, hasn't he?"

"I can't say that," said Ford, just, even to an enemy. "To be right
honest about it, I shall have to confess that I slurred him
entirely--went over his head."

"For good reasons, no doubt, only you are too charitable to give them.
Never mind: as I say, you are going to have a free hand. This is your
pie and nobody else is going to cut it for you." And when the party
reached the hotel there was another conference of two behind closed
doors, in which Ford and the general counsel did not participate.

An hour later, when Adair came down from the president's room, he thrust
a sheaf of penciled printers' copy into Ford's hands.

"There you are," he said. "I've done the best I could for you on such
short notice--with Uncle Sidney trying his level best to get a cross
reference to the board before taking action. Get these circulars through
a print shop and into the mails. You'll see that one of them announces
your appointment, effective to-day, as Assistant to the President. That
was as far as Uncle Sidney coul