cing rapidly in the closing hours of the day from the lower
thirties to forty-two, with a strong demand. The utmost secrecy was
maintained, but it was shrewdly suspected that one of the great
companies, of which the Pacific Southwestern was now a competitor on an
equal footing for the grain-carrying trade, had gone in to absorb the
new factor in trans-Missouri traffic. Other and more sensational
developments might be expected if the battle should be fought to a
finish. Then followed a brief history of the Pacific Southwestern, with
a somewhat garbled account of the late dash for a Chicago terminal, but
lacking--as Ford remarked gratefully--any hint of the company's designs
in the farther West.

"If Adair and Brewster and the others only have the nerve to keep it
up!" said Ford to himself. Then he tossed the paper aside and dived once
more into the deep sea of extension building, working the picked-up
stenographer until the young man was ready with his resignation the
moment the final letter was filed for mailing in the Chicago station.

Five days the young engineer waited for news from New York--waited and
worked like a high-pressure motor while he waited. Each day's financial
news showed the continued and growing success of the home-made "corner,"
and now the reporters were predicting that the stock would go to par
before the price should break.

Ford trembled for the good faith of his backers on the board. When one
has bought at twenty-nine and a half and can sell within the week for
eighty-seven, the temptation is something tremendous. But at the closing
hour of the fifth day the demand was still good; and when Ford reached
the hotel that night there was a telegram from Adair awaiting him.

He tore it open and read it, with the blood pounding through his veins
and a roar which was not of the street traffic drumming in his ears.

P. S-W. closed at ninety-two to-day, and a Dutch syndicate will take
the bonds. Success to you in the Western wilderness. Brewster wants
to know how soon you'll reach his Utah copper mines. ADAIR.

XI

HURRY ORDERS

"I'm no cold-water thrower, Ford, as you know. But if I were a
contractor, and you were trying to get me to commit myself to any such
steeplechase, I should say no, and confirm it with a cuss-word."

It was a week after the successful placing of the Western Extension
building-fund bonds with the Dutch syndicate, and Ford, having ordered
thi