Empire Builders | Page 7

"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.
Ford looked up quickly.
"It won't be necessary. You can handle the office work, as you have
heretofore, and Mr. Frisbie will have full charge out of doors."
Penfield looked a little crestfallen.
"Am I to take orders from Mr. Frisbie?" he asked, as one determined to
know the worst.
"Just the same as you would from me," said the superintendent,
swinging up to the step of the moving car. And the chief clerk went
back to his office busily concocting another cipher message to the
general manager.
On the way down the canyon Ford was saying to himself that he was
now fairly committed to the scheme over which he had spent so many
toilful days and sleepless nights, and that he would have it out with Mr.
North to a fighting conclusion before he slept.
But a freight wreck got in the way while the down passenger train was
measuring the final third of the distance, and it was long after office
hours in the Pacific Southwestern headquarters when Ford reached
Denver.
By consequence, the crucial interview with the general manager had to
be postponed; and the enthusiast was chafing at his ill luck when he
went to his hotel--chafing and saying hard words, for the waiting had
been long, and now that the psychologic moment had arrived, delays
were intolerable.
Now it sometimes happens that seeming misfortunes are only blessings
in disguise. When Ford entered the hotel café to eat his belated dinner,

he saw Evans, the P. S-W. auditor, sitting alone at a table-for-two. He
crossed the room quickly and shook hands with the man he had meant
to interview either before or after the meeting with North.
It was after they had chatted comfortably through to the coffee that the
auditor said, blandly: "What are you down for, Ford?--anything
special?"
"Yes. I am down to get leave of absence to go East," said Ford warily.
"But that isn't all," was the quiet rejoinder. "In fact, it's only the
non-committal item that you'd give to a Rocky Mountain News
reporter."
Ford was impatient of diplomatic methods when there was no occasion
for them.
"Give it a name," he said bluntly. "What do you think you know,
Evans?"
The auditor smiled.
"There is a leak in your office up at Saint's Rest, I'm afraid. What sort
of a bombshell are you fixing to fire at Mr. North?"
Ford grew interested at once.
"Tell me what you know, and perhaps I can piece it out for you."
"I'll tell you what Mr. North knows--which will be more to the purpose,
perhaps. For a year or more you have been figuring on some kind of a
scheme to pull the company's financial leg in behalf of your
good-for-nothing narrow gauge. A month ago, for example, you went
all over the old survey on the other side of the mountains and verified
the original S. L & W. preliminaries and rights-of-way on its proposed
extension."
Ford's eyes narrowed. He was thinking of the warning letter he would
have to write to Frisbie. But what he said was:

"I'd like to know how the