“Bully!” was the enthusiastic reply.  “We’re spending money like water; paying anything that’s asked; and even then the men come and go like a torchlight procession.  But we are keeping the surfacing gangs neck-full the entire length of the line, and Leckhard has already organized his regular train service over the first hundred miles.  That puts us on an even footing with the Transcontinental at Jack’s Canyon, and the tide is fairly turned our way.  When we lay the rails into Copah,—­which will be the day after to-morrow, if nothing pulls in two,—­the first through passenger train, with the ‘01’ in tow, will be right behind us.  Does the report satisfy you?”

“Your word fits it:  it’s bully.”

“Then I want my reward.  When am I to be allowed to chase in and pay my respects to your—­er—­aunt, and—­and Miss Alicia?”

Adair laughed.

“My—­er—­aunt!” he mocked.  “Much you care about Aunt Hetty.  And I’ve a thing or two to say about Alicia.  Who gave you leave to fall in love with my little sister, I’d like to know?”

“She did,” retorted Ford brazenly.  “Don’t tell me you are going to try to kick it over at this late day.  You can’t, you know.”

Adair tilted his hat to the back of his head and thrust his hands into his pockets.

“I’m no such wild ass of the prairies,” he declared.  “But, my good friend, you don’t come into town till you bring your railroad with you.  I know how it will be:  you’d linger for just one more last fond farewell, and about that time Uncle Sidney would drop in on you unexpectedly.  Then there’d be a family row, after which my Pacific Southwestern stock wouldn’t be worth a whoop.  No; you wait till I get Uncle Sidney safely where I want him—­properly in the nine-hole, and then I’ll flag you in.”

The chance for which the golden youth was waiting and working climaxed on the day the extension rails came down the hill-side grade above the town—­a town now spreading into a wilderness of hastily built and crowding structures.  It was a simple pit he had digged for an old man suddenly gone mad with the fever of mine-buying.  From picking up stock in a score of prospects, Mr. Colbrith had hedged by concentrating his heavy investments in six or seven of the most promising of the partly developed properties.  Then, to make assurance reasonably sure, he had sprung the modern method of combination upon his fellow stock-holders in the producing mines.  The promising group was to be merged in one giant holding corporation, strong enough to control the entire Copah situation.

But there were obstacles in the way; obstructions carefully placed, if the truth must be told, by an unscrupulous young manipulator in the president’s own household.  The Little Alicia was in the group, was the keystone in the combination arch, as it chanced, and unhappily Grigsby had parted with a grievous block of his share of the stock—­a block which could neither be recovered nor traced to its present holder.  Not to make a mystery of the matter, the certificates were safely locked in a safety-deposit box in the vault of the Bank of Copah, and the key to the box rattled in Adair’s pocket.  And because the Little Alicia could not be included, three other necessary votes were withheld when the president tried to get action.