“You may as well take hold at once, and there’s work ready now,” he said.  “You’ve heard of the old St. Louis mills back on the edge of the bush country.  Never did any good.  Folks who had them were short of money, and didn’t know how they should be run.  Well, I and two other men have bought them for a song, and, while the place is tumbling in, the plant seems good.  Now, I can get hold of orders for flour when I want them, and everybody with dollars to spare will plank them right into any concern handling food-stuffs this year.  You go down to-morrow with an engineer, and, when you’ve got the mills running and orders coming in we’ll sell out to a company, if we don’t want them.”

Winston sat silent a space turning over a big bundle of plans and estimates.  Then he said, “You’ll have to lay out a pile of money.”

Graham laughed.  “That’s going to be your affair.  When you want them the dollars will be ready, and there’s only one condition.  Every dollar we put down has got to bring another in.”

“But,” said Winston, “I don’t know anything about milling.”

“Then,” said Graham dryly, “You have got to learn.  A good many men have got quite rich in this country running things they didn’t know much about when they took hold of them.”

“There’s one more point,” said Winston.  “I must make those thirty thousand dollars soon or they’ll be no great use to me, and when I have them I may want to leave you.”

“That’s all right,” said Graham.  “By the time you’ve done it, you’ll have made sixty for me.  We’ll go out and have some lunch to clinch the deal if you’re ready.”

It might have appeared unusual in England, but it was much less so in a country where the specialization of professions is still almost unknown, and the man who can adapt himself attains ascendency, and on the morrow Winston arrived at a big wooden building beside a pine-shrouded river.  It appeared falling to pieces, and the engineer looked disdainfully at some of the machinery, but, somewhat against his wishes, he sat up with his companion most of the night in a little log hotel, and orders that occasioned one of Graham’s associates consternation were mailed to the city next morning.  Then machines came out by the carload, and men with tools in droves.  Some of them murmured mutinously when they found they were expected to do as much as their leader, who was not a tradesman, but these were forth-with sent back again, and the rest were willing to stay and earn the premium he promised them for rapid work.

Before the frost grew arctic, the building stood firm, and the hammers rang inside it night and day until, when the ice had bound the dam and lead, the fires were lighted and the trials under steam began.  It cost more than water, but buyers with orders from the East were clamoring for flour just then.  For a fortnight Winston snatched his food in mouthfuls, and scarcely closed his eyes, while Graham found him