“Barely!” O’Neil confessed.  “I’ve been working twenty hours a day getting that steel under motion.”

Dr. Gray said with conviction:  “Gordon is a remarkable man.  It’s a pity he’s crooked.”

“I think it’s dam’ lucky,” declared Tom.  “He’s smarter than us, and if he wasn’t handicapped by a total lack of decency he’d beat us.”

“After the storm,” explained Gray, “he moved back to Hope, and we thought he’d made his last bow, but in some way he got the idea that the Trust was back of us.”

“So I judged from the little I read.”

“Well, we didn’t undeceive him, of course.  His first move was an attack through the press in the shape of a broadside against the Heidlemanns.  It fairly took our breaths.  It appeared in the Cortez Courier and all over the States, we hear—­a letter of defiance to Herman Heidlemann.  It declared that the Trust was up to its old tricks here in Alaska had gobbled the copper; had the coal tied up under secret agreements, and was trying to get possession of all the coast-range passes and defiles—­the old story.  But the man can write.  That article caused a stir.”

“I saw it.”

“Naturally, the Cortez people ate it up.  They’re sore at the Trust for leaving their town, and at us for building Omar.  Then Gordon called a mass-meeting, and some of us went up to watch the fireworks.  I’ve never seen anything quite like that meeting; every man, woman, and child in the city was there, and they hissed us when we came in.  Gordon knew what he was about, and he was in fine voice.  He told them Cortez was the logical point of entry to the interior of Alaska and ought to have all the traffic.  He fired their animosity toward the Trust, and accused us of basely selling out to it.  Then he broached a project to build, by local subscription, a narrow-gauge electric line from Cortez, utilizing the waterfalls for power.  The idea caught on, and went like wild-fire:  the people cheered themselves hoarse, and pledged him over a hundred thousand dollars that night.  Since then they have subscribed as much more, and the town is crazy.  Work has actually begun, and they hope to reach the first summit by Christmas.”

Slater broke in:  “He’s a spell-binder, all right.  He made me hate the Heidlemanns and detest myself for five minutes.  I wasn’t even sure I liked you, Murray.”

“It’s a wild scheme, of course,” continued the doctor, “but he’s putting it over.  The town council has granted him a ninety-nine-year lease covering every street; the road-bed is started, and things are booming.  Lots have been staked all over the flats, property values are somersaulting, everybody is out of his head, and Gordon is a god.  All he does is organize new companies.  He has bought a sawmill, a wharf, a machine shop, acres of real estate.  He has started a bank and a new hotel; he has consolidated the barber shops; and he talks about roofing in the streets with glass and making the town a series of arcades.”