Ford turned away and looked out upon the stock-selling pandemonium with unseeing eyes.  The chance—­the heaven-sent hour that strikes only once in a life-time for the builders of empire—­had come:  and he was only waiting for the arrival of the president to find himself rudely thrust aside from the helm of events.

XXIII

THE DEADLOCK

“No, Mr. Ford; there is no explanation that will explain away the incriminating fact.  This is a matter which involves the good name of the Pacific Southwestern company, through its officials, and I must insist upon your resignation.”

The battle was on, with the two combatants facing each other in the privacy of the president’s room in the Copah hotel.  Since Alicia had made him exchange the sword of extermination for the olive branch, Ford was fighting on the defensive, striving good-naturedly and persistently to keep his official head on his shoulders.

“I’ve admitted that it looks pretty bad, Mr. Colbrith; but you will concede the one chance in a hundred that no wrong was intended.  I merely did, on the ground, what thousands of investors in mining chances do the world over—­bought an interest in a mine without knowing or caring greatly into what particular mountain the mine tunnel was driven.”

Mr. Colbrith frowned.  He was of that elder generation of masters which looked with cold disapproval upon any side ventures on the part of the subordinate.

“The company has paid you liberally for your time and your undivided attention, Mr. Ford.  No man can serve two masters.  Your appointment as assistant to the president did not contemplate your engaging in other business.”

Ford carefully suppressed the smile which the bit of industrial martinetry provoked.

“As to that,” he said placably, “I can assure you that the gold-digging has been purely an investment on my part.”

“But an investment which you should not have made,” insisted the president judicially.  “If it had not tempted you to the breach of trust, it was still inexpedient—­most undeniably inexpedient.  An official high in the counsels of a great corporation should be like Caesar’s wife—­above suspicion.”

This time Ford’s smile could not be wholly repressed.  “I grant you it was foolhardy, in the economic point of view,” he confessed.  “I took a long chance of going ten thousand dollars to the bad.  But mine-buying is a disease—­as contagious as the measles.  Everybody in a mining country takes a flyer, at least once.  The experienced ones will tell you that nobody is immune.  Take your own case, now:  if you don’t keep a pretty tight hold on your check-book, Mr. Colbrith, Cow Mountain will—­”

The president frowned again; more portentously, this time.

“This levity is most reprehensible, Mr. Ford,” he said stiffly.  “I trust I know my duty as the head of a great railway company too well to be carried away on every baseless wave of excitement that fires the imagination of the mining-camp I chance to be visiting.”  Mr. Colbrith was not above mixing metaphor when the provocation was sufficiently great.