“You’ve surrounded it,” said Ford tersely.

“Good enough:  we’re ready to make the break when you give the word.  What are we waiting for?”

“Just at this present moment, for the contractors.”

“Why, I understood you had closed with the MacMorrogh Brothers,” said Frisbie.

“No.  At the last moment—­to relieve me of a responsibility which might give rise to charges of favoritism, as he put it—­Mr. Colbrith took the bids out of my hands and carried the decision up to the executive committee.  Hence, we wait; and keep a growing army of laborers here under pay while we wait,” said Ford, with disgust thinly masked.  Then he added:  “With all due respect to Mr. Colbrith, he is simply a senile frost!”

Frisbie chuckled.

“Been cooling your fingers, has he?  But I understood from the headquarters people down-town, that the MacMorroghs had a sure thing on the grading and rock work.  Their bid was the lowest, wasn’t it?”

“Yes; but not the cheapest for the company, Dick.  I’ve been keeping tab on the MacMorroghs for a good while:  they are grafters; the kind of men who take it out of the company and out of their labor in a thousand petty little steals—­three profits on the commissary, piece-work for subs where they know a man’s got to lose out, steals on the working hours, fines and drawbacks and discounts on the pay-rolls, and all that.  You know how it’s done.”

“Sure,” agreed Frisbie, with his most diabolical grin.  “Also, I know how it keeps the engineering department on the hottest borders of Hades, trying to hold them down.  The good Lord deliver us!”

“I wanted to throw their bid out without consideration,” Ford went on.  “But again Mr. Colbrith said ‘No,’ adding that the MacMorroghs were old contractors on the line, and that Mr. North had always spoken very highly of them.”

“Ah; the fine Italian hand of Mr. North again,” said Frisbie.  “And that reminds me:  are we going to be at war with the main line operating department?”

Ford shook his head.  “Not openly, at least.  North was down to meet my train when I came in last night, and you would never have suspected that I left Denver six weeks ago without his blessing.  And now I’m reminded.  I have a luncheon appointment with him at twelve, and a lot of letters to dictate before I can keep it.  Go down and do your wiring for Crapsey, and if we lose each other this afternoon, I’ll meet you here at dinner this evening.”

It was while Ford was working on his mail, with one of the hotel stenographers for a helper, that a thick-set, bull-necked man with Irish-blue eyes and a face two-thirds hidden in a curly tangle of iron-gray beard, stubbed through the corridor on the Pacific Southwestern floor of the Guaranty Building, and let himself cautiously into the general manager’s outer office.  The private secretary, a faultlessly groomed young fellow with a suggestion of the Latin races in his features, looked up and nodded.