ill be too late for him to hedge. MacMorrogh
will see to that."

Eckstein nodded. "I made a point of that with Brian," he said. "The
minute the word is given he is to throw a little army of graders upon
the new roundabout. But Ford won't find out. He'll be too busy on this
end of the line with the track-layers. I'm a little nervous about
Merriam, though."

"He's the man who talked Frisbie into championing the new route?"

"Yes. He did it pretty skilfully: made Frisbie think he was finding it
out himself, and never let the little man out of his sight while they
were in Copah. But I am afraid Merriam himself knows too much."

"Get him out of the country--before Ford gets back," was the crisp
order. "If he isn't here when the gun goes off, he can't tell anybody
how it was loaded."

"An appointment--" Eckstein began.

"That is what I mean," said the general manager, turning back to his
desk. "We need a traffic agency up in the Oregon country. See
Merriam--to-night. Find out if he'd like to have the general agency at,
say, twenty-five hundred a year; and if he agrees, get out the circular
appointing him."

"He'll agree, fast enough," laughed the secretary. "But I'll nail
him--to-night."

Ford spent rather more than two weeks in his round-up of the eastern
steel mills, and there was a terrific accumulation of correspondence
awaiting him when he reached Denver. At the top of the pile was an
official circular appointing one George Z. Merriam, a man whom Ford
remembered, or seemed vaguely to remember, as one of the MacMorrogh
bookkeepers, general agent of the P. S-W., with headquarters at Portland,
Oregon. And at the bottom of the accumulation was a second official
printing, bearing the approval of the president, this; and Ford's eyes
gloomed angrily when he read it.

PACIFIC SOUTHWESTERN RAILWAY CO.

Office of the President.

NEW YORK, August 24.

To All Officials and Employees:

At a called meeting of the stock-holders of this company, held in
New York, August 23, Mr. John C. North was elected First
Vice-President and General Manager of all lines of this company,
operative and under construction. All officers and employees will
govern themselves accordingly.

By Order of the Executive Committee.

Approved:

SIDNEY J. COLBRITH, President.

XV

AN UNWILLING HOST

Standing in the Pacific portal of Plug Pass, on the old snow-crust
which