key to the Copah door."

"Don't you fool yourself!" snapped Ford, forgetting his role of the
humble one for the moment. "The Transcontinental is only forty miles
away at Jack's Canyon, with a pretty decent stage road. Long before you
can get the extension in shape to carry passengers, or even freight, the
other line will be known from Maine to California as the keyholder to
this district!"

That shot told. The president was not yet convinced that the Copah boom
was real; but there was the chance that it might be--always the chance.
And to the over-cautious the taking of chances, however remote, is like
the handling of a snake: a thing to inspire creeping horrors.

"If you could convince me, Mr. Ford, that your interest in that mine did
not influence you in changing the route of the extension," he began; but
Ford took him up sharply. "I can't; and I can say no more than I have
said."

Mr. Colbrith got up and went to the window to look down upon the excited
throng in the street. It did look real.

"Perhaps we might leave matters as they are, pending a future
investigation, Mr. Ford," he said, turning back to his victim, who was
methodically clipping the end from a cigar.

"No," was the brittle rejoinder.

Again the president took time to look down into the crowded street. His
next attack was from the rear.

"But I have understood that you do not wish to resign. Let us be
magnanimous, Mr. Ford, and agree to hang this matter up until this
supposed crisis is past."

"No," was the curt reply. "I have changed my mind. I don't think I want
to work for you any longer, Mr. Colbrith."

"Not if I withdrew my--ah--objections?"

"No."

Silence again. The packed lobby of the hotel had overflowed upon the
plank sidewalk, and the din of the buyers and sellers rose like the
noise of a frantic street fight. Ford's half jesting remark about the
possibility of the microbe finding its way into the blood of the
president was not so pointless as the old man's retort sought to make it
appear. It was the wheat pit which had given Mr. Colbrith his first
half-million; and as he listened to the hoarse cries, the thing which he
hoped was safely caution-killed began to stir within him. Suddenly he
picked a word of two out of the sidewalk clamor that made him turn
swiftly upon the silent young man.

"They are selling 'Little Alicia'--your stock--down there!" he gasped.
"Have you--have you--"

"No; I haven't put mine on the market. I