“The one thing you wouldn’t be willing to give.  You asked me once when we had fallen over the fence upon this forbidden ground if I were satisfied, and I told you I wasn’t.  Do we understand each other?”

“I guess so,” said Ormsby.  “But—­Say, Kent, I like you too well to see you go up against a stone fence blindfolded.  I’m like Guilford:  I am the man in possession.  And possession is nine points of the law.”

Kent rose and took the proffered cigar from Ormsby’s case.

“It depends a good bit upon how the possession is gained—­and held—­doesn’t it?” he rejoined coolly.  “And your figure is unfortunate in its other half.  I am going to beat Guilford.”

XIII

THE WRECKERS

Just why Receiver Guilford, an officer of the court who was supposed to be nursing an insolvent railroad to the end that its creditors might not lose all, should begin by declaring war on the road’s revenue, was a question which the managers of competing lines strove vainly to answer.  But when, in defiance of all precedent, he made the cut rates effective to and from all local stations on the Trans-Western, giving the shippers at intermediate and non-competitive points the full benefit of the reductions, the railroad colony denounced him as a madman and gave him a month in which to find the bottom of a presumably empty treasury.

But the event proved that the major’s madness was not altogether without method.  It is an axiom in the carrying trade that low rates make business; create it, so to speak, out of nothing.  Given an abundant crop, low prices, and high freight rates in the great cereal belt, and, be the farmers never so poor, much of the grain will be stored and held against the chance of better conditions.

So it came about that Major Guilford’s relief measure was timed to a nicety, and the blanket cut in rates opened a veritable flood-gate for business in Trans-Western territory.  From the day of its announcement the traffic of the road increased by leaps and bounds.  Stored grain came out of its hiding places at every country cross-roads to beg for cars; stock feeders drove their market cattle unheard-of distances, across the tracks of competing lines, over and around obstacles of every sort, to pour them into the loading corrals of the Trans-Western.

Nor was the traffic all outgoing.  With the easing of the money burden, the merchants in the tributary towns began thriftily to take advantage of the low rates to renew their stocks; long-deferred visits and business trips suddenly became possible; and the saying that it was cheaper to travel than to stay at home gained instant and grateful currency.

In a short time the rolling stock of the road was taxed to its utmost capacity, and the newly appointed purchasing agent was buying cars and locomotives right and left.  Also, to keep pace with the ever-increasing procession of trains, a doubled construction force wrought night and day installing new side tracks and passing points.