Ford’s eyes narrowed.  He was thinking of the warning letter he would have to write to Frisbie.  But what he said was: 

“I’d like to know how the dickens you guessed all that.  But no matter; supposing I did?”

“It’s no good,” said the auditor, shaking his head.  “I’m talking as a friend.  North doesn’t like you, personally; and if he did, you couldn’t persuade him to recommend anything in the way of an experiment on the Plug Mountain.  So far from extending your two-by-four branch—­if that is what you have in mind—­he’d be much more likely to counsel its abandonment, if the charter didn’t require us to keep it going.”

Ford found a cigar for the auditor, and lighted one for himself.

“From all of which I infer that the semiannual report of the Pacific Southwestern is going to be a pretty bad one,” he said, with carefully assumed indifference.

Evans regarded him shrewdly.

“Are you guessing at that?  Or is there a leak at our end of the line as well as at yours?”

“Oh, it’s a guess,” laughed Ford.  “Call it that, anyhow.  At least, I haven’t any of your confidential clerks in my pay.  But just how bad is the report going to be?”

The auditor shook his head.

“Worse than the last one.  Perhaps you have noticed that the stock has dropped six points in the past week.  You’re one of the official family:  I don’t mind telling you that we are in the nine-hole, Ford.”

“Of course we are,” said Ford, with calm conviction.  “That much is pretty evident to a man who merely reads the Wall Street news bulletins.  What is the matter with us—­specifically, I mean?”

Evans shrugged.

“Are you a division superintendent on the system and don’t know?” he demanded.  “We are too short at both ends.  With our eastern terminal only half-way to Chicago, we can’t control the east-bound grain which grows on our own line; and with the other end stopping short here at Denver, we can’t bid for west-bound transcontinental business.  It’s as simple as twice two.  Our competitors catch us going and coming.”

“Precisely.  And if we don’t get relief?”

The auditor smiled grimly.

“As I’ve said, you’re one of us, Ford, and I don’t mind speaking freely to you.  A receivership is looming in the distance, and the not very dim distance, for the P. S-W.”

“I thought so.  How near is it?”

“I don’t know—­nobody knows definitely.  If we had a man of resources at the head of things—­as we have not—­it might be stood off for another six months.”

“I’m on the way to stand it off permanently, if I can get any backing,” said Ford quietly.

“You!” was the astonished reply.

“Yes, I. Listen, Evans.  For two years I have been buried up yonder in the hills, with not enough to do in the summer season to keep me out of mischief.  I am rather fond of mathematics, and I am telling you I have this thing figured out to the fourth decimal.  If President Colbrith and his associates can be made to see that the multiplication of two by two gives an invariable resultant of four, there will be no receivership for the P. S-W. this year, or next.”