“Copah—­yes,” said Frisbie doubtfully.  “But that is only a way station.  What we need is Green Butte and the Pacific coast outlet over the S. L & E.; and they stand to euchre us out of that, hands down.  What’s to prevent their making that traffic contract with the Mormon people right now?”

“Nothing; if the S. L & E. management were willing.  But just here the political situation in Mormondom fights for us.  Last year the Transcontinental folk turned heaven and earth over to defeat the Mormon candidate for the United States Senate.  The quarrel wasn’t quite mortal enough to stand in the way of a profitable business deal; but all things being equal, the Salt Lake line will favor us as against its political enemy.”

“You’re sure of that?” queried Frisbie.

“As sure as one can be of anything that isn’t cash down on the nail—­with the money locked up in a safety deposit vault.  By the sheerest good luck, the Mormon president of the S. L & E. happened to be in New York at the time when Adair had his ear to the Transcontinental keyhole.  Adair hunted him up and made a hypothetical case of a sure thing:  if our Western Extension and the Transcontinental, standard-gauged, should be knocking at the Green Butte door at the same time, what would the S. L & E. do?  The Mormon answer was a bid for speed; first come, first served.  But Adair was given to understand, indirectly, that on an equal footing, our line would be given the preference as a friendly ally.”

“Bully for the Mormon!  But you say Copah—­this summer.  When we reach Copah we are still one hundred and forty miles short of Green Butte.  And if you can broaden the Plug Mountain in three weeks—­which you’ll still allow me to doubt—­the Transcontinental ought to be able to broaden its Green Butte narrow gauge in three months.”

“If you had cross-sectioned both lines as I have, you wouldn’t stumble over that,” said Ford, falling back, as he commonly did, upon the things he knew.  “We shall broaden the Plug Mountain without straightening a curve or throwing a shovelful of earth on the embankment, from beginning to end.  On the other hand, the Green Butte narrow gauge runs for seventy miles through the crookedest canyon a Rocky Mountain river ever got lost in.  There is more heavy rock work to be done in that canyon than on our entire Pannikin division from start to finish.”

“That’s bully for us,” quoth the first assistant.  “But, all the same, we shouldn’t stop at Copah, this fall.”

“We shall not stop at Copah,” was the decisive rejoinder.  “The winters on the western side of the range are much milder than they are here, and not to be spoken of in the same day with your Minnesota and Dakota stamping-ground.  If we can get well out of the mountains before the heavy snows come—­”

Frisbie wagged his head.

“I guess I’ve got it all, now—­after so long a time.  We merely break the record for fast railroad building—­all the records—­for the next six months or so.  Is that about it?”