“It’s a comfort to know that you are the big boss, Stuart.  North can’t knock you out of that when it comes to a show-down.”

“I don’t know,” said Ford, whose night ride had made him pessimistic.  “I am Mr. Colbrith’s appointee, you know—­not an elected officer.  And what Mr. Colbrith has done, he may be induced to undo.  Adair has been my backer in everything; but while he is the best fellow in the world, he is continually warning me that he may lose interest in the game at any minute and drop it.  He doesn’t care a rap for the money-making part of it—­doesn’t have to.”

“Wouldn’t Adair be a good safety-switch to throw in front of Mr. North and MacMorrogh in New York?”

Ford nodded.  “I thought of that last night, and sent a wire.  We’ll hear from it to-day.”

Frisbie ate through the remainder of the breakfast in silence.  Afterward, at the pipe-lighting, he asked if Ford’s wire instructions of the night before still held good.

“They do,” was the emphatic reply.  “We go on just as if nothing had happened, or was due to happen.  You say your man Crapsey will be in this morning:  gather up your laborers and turn the Plug Mountain into a standard-gauge railroad while we wait.  That’s all, Dick; all but one word—­hustle.”

“Hustle it is.  But say:  you were going to give me a pointer on that broad-gauging.  I’ve been stewing over it for a day and a night, and I don’t think of any scheme that won’t stop the traffic.”

“Don’t you?  That is because you haven’t mulled over it as long as I have.  In the first place, you have no curves to straighten and no cross-ties to relay—­our predecessors having set the good example of using standard length ties for their three-foot road.  String your men out in gangs as far as they’ll go, and swing the three-foot track, as a whole, ten inches out of center to the left.  You can do that without stopping trains, can’t you?”

“Sure.”

“All right.  When you swing, spike the right-hand rail lightly.  Then string your gangs again and set a line of spikes for the outside of the standard-gauge right-hand rail straight through to Saint’s Rest.  Got that?”

“Yes; I guess I’ve got it all.  But go on.”

“Now you are ready for the grand-stand play.  Call in all your narrow-gauge rolling stock, mass your men at this end of the branch, shove the right-hand rail over to the line of gauge spikes in sections as long as your force will cover, and follow up with a standard-gauge construction train to pick up the men and carry them forward as fast as a section is completed.  If you work it systematically, a freight train could leave Denver two hours behind your track-gangs and find a practical standard gauge all the way to Saint’s Rest.”

“Of course!” said Frisbie, in workmanlike disgust for his own obtuseness.  “I’m going back to the Tech when your railroad is finished and learn a few things.  I couldn’t think of anything but the old Erie Railroad scheme, when it was narrowed down from the six-foot gauge.  They did it in one night; but they had a man to every second cross-tie over the whole four hundred miles from New York to Buffalo.”