of
flogging the three short roads into some semblance of a through line in
the brief interval at his disposal; and this without advertising to the
railroad world at large who he represented and what he was doing.

He did it, and without a slip for which he could be held responsible. It
was a wire from the chief office of the Transcontinental in New York, a
telegram inspired by sundry leakages from Pacific Southwestern sources,
that gave him a silent and observant follower in all of his dodgings. Of
this, however, he was in blissful ignorance. Twice, indeed, he sat in
the same Pullman section with his "shadow," quite without suspecting it;
and once he was saved from disaster--also without suspecting it.

It was at a way station in Missouri, and the section-sharing traveling
companion, who had paid only for an hour's ride in the Pullman, was
leaving the train. His hand-bag chanced to be the exact counterpart of
Ford's: what more natural than that he should make the mistake of taking
the wrong one? Ford caught him in the vestibule, and there was a
reexchange, accompanied by grateful acknowledgments and profuse
apologies from the debarking one. Ford, immersed fathoms deep in his
problems, thought nothing of it; but a moment lost would have been a
cause lost, if he had guessed it. For the mistake was no mistake, and
the hand-bag rescued contained documents for which the Transcontinental
Company would have paid a month's salary of its board of
vice-presidents, charging the amount, not to profit and loss, but rather
to salvage.

It was on the fourth day of the campaign, while Ford was working his way
on an inspection trip over the third link in the short-lines chain, that
two telegrams overtook him.

One was from Adair, announcing the tardy, but now certain triumph of the
expansionist faction in the board of P. S-W. directors, and begging
pathetically for news of the option-getting. The other was signed "K,"
and Ford had a sharp attack of joy when he read it. The attorney had
been successful at all points. The necessary stock majorities were
secured and the certificates were safely on deposit in the Algonquin
National Bank, in Chicago. What remained was only a matter of routine,
provided the P. S-W. bidders would furnish the capital for the purchases.

Ford swamped the local operator at the next way station with a thick
sheaf of "rush" telegrams, left the west-bound train at the first
cross-road junction, and caught a ni