“By the way, Mr. Ford; what time did you say your train would reach Chicago?”

“At eight forty-five to-morrow evening,” replied the beaten one; and then the boat swung out of its slip and the retreat without honor was begun.

VII

HAMMER AND TONGS

It was raining dismally the evening of the following day when Ford saw from his Pullman window the dull sky-glow of the metropolis of the Middle West.  It had been a dispiriting day throughout.  When a man has flung himself at his best into a long battle which ends finally in unqualified loss, the heavens are as brass, and the future is apt to reflect only the pale light of the past failure.

It was after the train had entered the suburbs of Chicago that a blue-coated messenger boy came through the Pullman, with the car conductor for his guide.  Ford saw himself pointed out, and a moment later was reading a telegram, with a tumult, not of the drumming car wheels, roaring in his ears.

Had a talk with my sister and made up my mind to see you through—­if I don’t get tired and quit, as usual.  Secure options on that short-road stock quick, and wire me care McV. & M. Funds to your credit in Algonquin National, Chicago.  Another directors’ meeting to-day, and things look a little less chaotic.  Answer.  Adair.

For some time Ford could only read and re-read the exciting telegram, scarcely trusting the evidence of his senses.  That the coldly indifferent members of the P. S-W. board, with a man like President Colbrith at their head, could be swung into line in the short space of a single day by a young fellow who seemed to be little more than a spoiled son of fortune, was blankly incredible.

But he was not long in realizing that the cherished scheme for which he had studied and struggled was actually beginning to stagger to its feet; or in reaching the equally stirring conclusion that his part in the suddenly reopened game called instantly for shrewd blows and the swiftest possible action.

The stock-holders in the three local roads which were to be united to bridge the Chicago-Missouri River gap were scattered all over the Middle West.  To secure the necessary options on working majorities of the stock would be a task for a financial diplomat, and one who could break the haste-making record by being in a dozen different places at one and the same moment.  Moreover, secrecy became a prime factor in the problem.  If the opposition, and particularly the Transcontinental people, should get wind of the move, it would take fifteen millions to do the work of five, as Banker Magnus had intimated.

Notwithstanding the thickly marshaled obstacles, Ford had his plan of campaign pretty well thought out by the time his train was slowing into the Union Station.  Before going to New York he had painstakingly “located” the required holdings of the three stocks.  Some of them were in Chicago, but the greater number of the men to be bargained with were local capitalists living in the smaller cities along the lines of the three short railroads.