It was pocket-dark by the time the switch-stand at the basin siding swung into the broad beam of the electric headlight.  Ford got down from the fireman’s box and crossed over to the engineer’s side to pilot Hector.

“How’s your track from this on?” inquired the big engineman gruffly.

“It is about as rough as it can be, and not ditch the steel trains.  You’ll have to hold her down or we’ll have results.”

“What in the name o’ thunder is the old man’s notion of goin’ to the front with a picnic party and makin’ a night run of it, at that, d’ye reckon?”

“The Lord only knows.  Easy around this curve you’re coming to; it isn’t set up yet.”  The 1012 was a fast eight-wheeler from the main line, and though the grade was a rising four per cent, the big flyer was making light work of her one-car train.

Ford sat gloomily watching the track ahead as the great engine stormed around the curves and up the grades.  The struggle against odds was beginning to tell on him.  The building of this new line, the opening of the new country, was the real end for which all the planning and scheming in the financial field had been only the necessary preliminaries.  For himself he had craved nothing but the privilege of building the extension; of rejoicing in his own handiwork and in the new triumph of progress and civilization which it would bring to pass.  But little by little the fine fire of workmanlike enthusiasm was burning itself out against the iron barriers of petty spite and malice thrown up at every turn by North and the Denver junta of obstructionists.

He was at no loss to account for North’s motive.  It was no longer the contemptuous disregard of a general manager for one of his subordinates who had shown signs of outgrowing his job.  It was a fight between rivals—­equals—­and Ford knew that it must go on until one or the other should be driven to the wall.  Thus far, his antagonist had scored every point.  The MacMorroghs had been helped into the saddle and held there.  Mr. Colbrith had been won over; the authority given Ford by his appointment as assistant to the president had been annulled by making North the first vice-president with still higher authority.  With a firm ally in the president, and a legion of others in the MacMorroghs’ camps, North could discredit the best engineering corps that ever took the field; and he was doing it—­successfully, as Ford had reason to know.

More than once Ford had been on the point of leaving his plow in the furrow while he should go to New York for one more battle with the directory—­a battle which should definitely abolish North and Mr. Colbrith—­or himself.  Again and again he had weighed the chances of winning such a battle.  With Brewster for a leader it might be done.  The time for the annual stock-holders’ meeting was approaching, and an election which should put the burly copper magnate into the presidency would be an unmixed blessing, not only for a struggling young chief of construction, but for the Pacific Southwestern stock-holders, who were sure to pay in the end for the present policy of rule or ruin.