and his friends the silken document's purport in English. It
granted every right, railway, wharf, and gold, asserted by Storri. Then
Mr. Harley wired that nobleman to join them in New York.

Storri had not been informed of Mr. Harley's New York visit. But he had
counted on it, and the summons in no wise smote him with surprise. Once
with Mr. Harley and the adventurous five, Storri again went over his
project, beginning at the Chinese railway and closing with Credit
Magellan, capital thirty billions. Not one who heard went unconvinced;
not one but was willing to commence in practical fashion the carrying
out of this high financial dream.

It was the romance--for money-making has its romances--and the
adventurous uncertainty of the thing, the pushing into the unknown,
which formed the lure. Have you ever considered that nine of ten among
those who went with De Soto and Balboa and Coronado and Cortez and
Pizarro, if asked by some quiet neighbor, would have refused him the
loan of one hundred dollars unless secured by fivefold the value? And
yet the last man jack would peril life and fortune blindly in a voyage
to worlds unknown, for profits guessed at, against dangers neither to be
counted nor foreseen. Be not too much stricken of amazement, therefore,
when now these cold ones, who would not have bought an American railroad
without counting the cross-ties and weighing every spike and fish-plate,
were ready to send millions adrift on a sightless invasion of Asia ten
thousand miles away. Besides, as the five with Mr. Harley laid out their
campaign, any question of Oriental danger was for the present put aside.

"The way to commence," said one of the five--one grown gray in first
looting companies and then scuttling them--"the way to commence is by
getting possession of Northern Consolidated. Once in control of the
railroad, we have linked the Pacific with the Great Lakes; after that we
can turn to the matter of subsidies for the two steamship lines, and the
appointment of those commissions to consider the Canadian Canal." Then,
turning to Mr. Harley: "You, of course, speak for Senator Hanway?"

Mr. Harley gave assurance that Senator Hanway, for what might be
demanded congressionally, would be with him. Then they laid their
plotting heads together over a conquest of Northern Consolidated.

Under the experienced counsel of the old gray scuttler of innocent
companies, this procedure was resolved upon. Northern Consolidated