He’s got money and he’s got brains.  No sooner does word get about of the Old Man’s contract with the P. C. & W. than Oliver Swinnerton gets busy.  He went straight to Colton Gray, and at first he could do nothing with him.  Gray had taken time for his investigations of Mr. Crawford’s scheme, had been convinced that it was feasible, and now stood pat.  But Swinnerton with his counter-scheme interested a lot of other capital, and through some of the men he got in with him he got the ear of some of the higher-ups on the P. C. & W. He even got his scheme into the private office of the president, and from the president word ran down to Gray.  I think even Gray began then to get shaky in the knees.  I tell you, Conniston, the Old Man’s project is so big that until it is consummated there will always be a doubt in other men’s minds whether the thing ever can be done.  If it can’t, if it proves impracticable to irrigate this country, to build first Valley City and then a string of settlements across the desert, why then of course there would be nothing in it for the P. C. & W. to run a spur across to Indian Creek.

“And Oliver Swinnerton made it his business to show the management of the railroad that the thing was impossible, that it was a mad fool’s dream, that when the first day of October came there would be nothing accomplished because there never could be anything accomplished.  He scored his point, and then he played his trump card.  He showed that the same money which the railroad would have to spend in stringing rails across the sand here could be spent more advantageously in another direction.

“On the other side of Bolton there are grassy foothills, well watered—­a big stretch of country very much like that about Crawfordsville.  Already there are orchards there, considerable small farming, grain-raising and hay.  Swinnerton planned to build a town out there in the heart of that fertile country where there are now a number of settlements and to have the P. C. & W. run a seventy-five-mile spur out that way.  The management naturally will not stand for the expense of both roads at the same time, since both would be very largely in the nature of experiments.  Swinnerton’s scheme looked more promising than the Old Man’s.  Swinnerton got his contract with the railroad.  And that contract says that if on the first day of October Mr. Crawford has not made good he will be given not a day’s grace, but work will be begun on the other road into Swinnerton’s country.  Do you see now what I mean by opposition?  Do you see what will happen if we don’t come up to time on our end of the game?  Swinnerton is so confident that he holds the winning hand that he has already founded his town, already sunk a pile of money in it.  Somebody is going to go to the wall when the first day of October comes.”

“But,” demurred Conniston, “Swinnerton and his corporation are doing nothing actively to retard our work—­can do nothing.  If—­”