It was on the day before Ford’s departure for Denver that a letter came from General Manager North.  Ford read it with a scowl of disapproval and tossed it across the double desk to Frisbie.

“A polite invitation for me to stay at home and to attend to my business,” he commented.

“Had you written him that you were going away?” inquired Frisbie.

“No; but evidently somebody else has.”

Frisbie read the letter again.

“’So that all heads of departments may be on duty when the president makes his annual inspection trip over the lines,’” he quoted.  “Is Mr. Colbrith coming out this early in the summer?”

“No, of course not.  He never comes before August.”

“Then this is only a trumped-up excuse to make you stay here?”

“That’s all,” Ford replied laconically.

Mr. Richard Frisbie got up and walked twice the length of the little room before he said: 

“This Denver gentleman is going to knock your little scheme into a cocked hat, if he can, Stuart.”

“I am very much afraid we’ll have to reckon upon that.  As a matter of fact, I’ve been reckoning upon it, all along.”

“How much of a pull has he with the New York money-people?”

“I don’t know that:  I wish I did.  It would simplify matters somewhat.”

Frisbie took another turn up and down the room, with his head down and his hands in his pockets.

“Stuart, I believe, if I were in your place, I’d enlist Mr. North, if I had to make it an object for him,” he said, at length.

“Certainly, I mean to go to him first,” said Ford.  “That is his due.  But I am counting upon opposition rather than help.  Wait a minute”—­he jerked the door open suddenly and made sure that the chief clerk’s chair was unoccupied.  “The worst of it is that I don’t trust North,” he went on.  “He is a grafter in small ways, and he’d sell me out in a minute if he felt like it and could see any chance of making capital for himself.”

“Then don’t go to him with your scheme,” urged Frisbie.  “If you enlist him, you won’t be sure of him; and if you don’t, you’ll merely leave an active opponent behind you instead of a passive one.”

“I guess you’re right, Dick; but I’ll have to be governed by conditions as I find them.  Aside from North’s influence with Mr. Colbrith, which is considerable, I believe, he can’t do much to help.  But he can do a tremendous lot to hinder.  I think I shall try to choke him with butter, if I can.”

Notwithstanding the general manager’s letter, Ford took the train for Denver the following morning, and the chief clerk remarked that he checked a small steamer trunk in addition to his hand baggage.

“Going to be gone some time, Mr. Ford?” he asked, when he brought the night mail down for the superintendent to look over.

“Yes,” said Ford absently.

“You’ll let me know where to reach you from time to time, I suppose?” ventured Penfield.