mighty suddenly, we'll find it fortified and held by the
enemy."

The touring car had turned into Broadway, and the traffic roar precluded
further talk. But when Ford was dismounting from the tonneau at the
entrance to his hotel, Adair said: "There appears to be no rest for the
wicked. You ought to have some of that thirty million dollars to spend
right now."

Ford's smile was little more than a sardonic grin.

"Adair," he said, "I'm going to tell you something else that I didn't
dare tell those money-tremulous people in McVeigh and Mackie's private
office. I have been signing contracts and buying material by the
train-load ever since the first grain shipment was started eastward on
our main line. Also, I've got my engineering corps mobilized, and it
will take the field under Frisbie as its chief not later than to-morrow.
Putting one thing with another, I should say that we are something over
a fresh million of dollars on the wrong side of solvency for these
little antics of mine, and I'm adding to the deficit by the hundred
thousand every time I can get a chance to dictate a letter."

Adair lighted a cigarette and made a fair show of taking it easily. But
a moment later he was lifting his hat to wipe the perspiration from his
forehead.

"Lord! but you have the confidence of your convictions!" he said,
breathing hard. "If we shouldn't happen to be able to float the bonds--"

"We are in too deep to admit the 'if.' The bonds must be floated, and at
the earliest possible moment that Magnus will move in it. You wanted
something big enough to keep you interested. I have been trying my best
to accommodate you."

Adair leaned forward and spoke to his chauffeur. The man watched his
chances for room to turn in the crowded street.

"Where are you going?" asked Ford.

"Back to McVeigh and Mackie's--where I can watch a ticker and go broke
buying more Pacific Southwestern," was the reply, and just then the
chauffeur found his opening and the big car whirled and plunged into the
down-town stream.

In the financial news the next morning there was a half-column or more
devoted to the sudden and unaccountable flurry in Pacific Southwestern.
Ford got it in the Pittsburg papers and read it while the picked-up
stenographer was wrestling with his notes. After the drop in the stock,
caused, in the estimation of the writer, by the company's sudden plunge
into railroad buying at wholesale, P. S-W. had recovered with a bound,
advan