Farley had no capital, but he had that which counts for more in the promoter’s field; namely, the ability to reap where others had sown.  His plan, outlined to Caleb in a sweeping cavalry-dash of enthusiasm, was simplicity itself.  Caleb should contribute the raw material—­land, water and the ore quarry—­and it should also be his part to secure a lease of the coal land from Major Dabney.  In the meantime he, Farley, would undertake to float the enterprise in the North, forming a company and selling stock to provide the development capital.

The iron-master demurred a little at first.  There were difficulties, and he pointed them out.

“I don’t know, Colonel Farley.  It appears like I’m givin’ all I’ve got for a handout at the kitchen door of the big company.  Then, again, there’s the Major.  He’s pizon against all these improvements.  You don’t know the Major.”

“On the contrary, my dear Mr. Gordon, it is because I do know him, or know of him, that I am turning him over to you.  You are the one person in the world to obtain that coal lease.  I confess I couldn’t touch the Major with a ten-foot pole, any more than you could go North and get the cash.  But you are his neighbor, and he likes you.  What you recommend, he’ll do.”  Thus the enthusiast.

“Well, I don’t know,” said Caleb doubtfully; “I reckon I can try.  He can’t any more ’n fire me, like he did the Southwestern right-o’-way man.  But then, about t’other part of it:  I’ve got a little charcoal furnace here that don’t amount to much, maybe, but it’s all mine, and I’m the boss.  When this other thing goes through, the men who are putting up the money will own it and me.  I’ll be just about as much account as the tag on a shoe-string.”

This part of the conference was held on the slab-floored porch of the oak-shingled house, with Thomas Jefferson as a negligible listener.  Since he was listening with both eyes and ears, he saw something in Mr. Duxbury Farley’s face that carried him swiftly back to the South Tredegar railway station and to that first antipathetic impression.  But again the suave tongue quickly turned the page.

“Don’t let that trouble you for a moment, Mr. Gordon,” was the reassuring rejoinder.  “I shall see that your apportionment of stock in the company is as large as the flotation scheme will stand; and as I, too, shall be a minority stock-holder, I shall share your risk.  But there will be no risk.  If the Lord prospers us, we shall both come out of this rich men, Mr. Gordon.”

The slow smile that Thomas Jefferson knew so well came and went like a flitting shadow.

“I reckon the Lord don’t make n’r meddle much with these here little child’s playhouses of our’n,” said Caleb; and then he gave his consent to the promoter’s plan.

Singularly or not, as we choose to view it, the difficulties effaced themselves at the first onset.  Though tact was no part of Caleb Gordon’s equipment, his presentation of the matter to Major Dabney became so nearly a personal asking—­with Mr. Duxbury Farley and the Northern capitalists distantly backgrounding—­that the Major granted the lease of the coal lands on purely personal grounds; would, indeed, have waived the matter of consideration entirely, if Caleb had not insisted.  Had not the iron-master been raised to the high degree of fellowship by the hand that signed the lease?