Mr. Colbrith thrust out a thin lip of obstinate determination.

“And if he does, your hypothetical rush will simply have to wait, Mr. Ford.  We have the key to the Copah door.”

“Don’t you fool yourself!” snapped Ford, forgetting his role of the humble one for the moment.  “The Transcontinental is only forty miles away at Jack’s Canyon, with a pretty decent stage road.  Long before you can get the extension in shape to carry passengers, or even freight, the other line will be known from Maine to California as the keyholder to this district!”

That shot told.  The president was not yet convinced that the Copah boom was real; but there was the chance that it might be—­always the chance.  And to the over-cautious the taking of chances, however remote, is like the handling of a snake:  a thing to inspire creeping horrors.

“If you could convince me, Mr. Ford, that your interest in that mine did not influence you in changing the route of the extension,” he began; but Ford took him up sharply.  “I can’t; and I can say no more than I have said.”

Mr. Colbrith got up and went to the window to look down upon the excited throng in the street.  It did look real.

“Perhaps we might leave matters as they are, pending a future investigation, Mr. Ford,” he said, turning back to his victim, who was methodically clipping the end from a cigar.

“No,” was the brittle rejoinder.

Again the president took time to look down into the crowded street.  His next attack was from the rear.

“But I have understood that you do not wish to resign.  Let us be magnanimous, Mr. Ford, and agree to hang this matter up until this supposed crisis is past.”

“No,” was the curt reply.  “I have changed my mind.  I don’t think I want to work for you any longer, Mr. Colbrith.”

“Not if I withdrew my—­ah—­objections?”

“No.”

Silence again.  The packed lobby of the hotel had overflowed upon the plank sidewalk, and the din of the buyers and sellers rose like the noise of a frantic street fight.  Ford’s half jesting remark about the possibility of the microbe finding its way into the blood of the president was not so pointless as the old man’s retort sought to make it appear.  It was the wheat pit which had given Mr. Colbrith his first half-million; and as he listened to the hoarse cries, the thing which he hoped was safely caution-killed began to stir within him.  Suddenly he picked a word of two out of the sidewalk clamor that made him turn swiftly upon the silent young man.

“They are selling ’Little Alicia’—­your stock—­down there!” he gasped.  “Have you—­have you—­”

“No; I haven’t put mine on the market.  It’s some of my partner’s, Grigsby’s, stock.  I suppose he couldn’t stand the push.”

Once more the president listened.  Only an ex-wrestler in the wheat pit could have picked intelligence out of the Babel of puts and calls.