"Yet, for the sake of--of, well of his wife and children, he must have
even-handed justice. I must insist upon that."
It was the most lovable thing in the irascible old man--his undying
loyalty to a man in whom he had once believed. Adair slew the last hope
with reluctance. Drawing a thick packet of undelivered telegrams from
his pocket, he handed it to his uncle.
"Justice is the one thing Mr. North is most anxious to dodge," he said
gravely. "When the news of the catastrophe reached him, he resigned by
wire--to New York; not to you--got his physician to order him out of the
country, and left Denver between two days. Ford has sent Frisbie to
Denver to hold things together, and there has been a number of
removals--subject, of course, to your approval. You will find the
history of all these minor happenings in those telegrams, which I have
been collecting--and holding--until you had leisure to look them over."
"Where is Mr. Ford now?" asked the president crisply.
"He is not very far away; in fact, he is up-stairs in the sitting-room
of our suite with Aunt Hetty and the two Van Bruce ladies and Alicia.
Incidentally,--quite incidentally, you understand,--he is waiting to be
asked to help you out in that mining deal."
"Fetch him," was the curt command; and Mr. Colbrith sat down to wade
resignedly through the mass of delayed wire correspondence.
* * * * *
What remains of the story of the Pacific Southwestern is a chapter, as
yet unfinished, in the commercial history of the great and growing
empire of the West.
Of the rush to the Copah gold field; of the almost incredible celerity
with which a stretch of one hundred and forty-odd miles of construction
track was opened for the enormous traffic which was instantly poured in
upon it; of the rapid extension of the line to a far western outlet; of
the steady advance of P. S-W. shares to a goodly premium: these are
matters which are recorded in the newspaper files of the period.
For the typically American success of the Southwestern's dramatic upward
leap to the rank of a great railway system, President Colbrith has the
name and the fame. Yet here and there in the newspaper record there is
mention of one Stuart Ford, "our rising young railroad magnate," in the
unashamed phrase of the _Copah Megaphone_, first as the president's
assistant; later, as first vice-president and general manager of the
system, in the Chicago headquarters, with Mr. Richard Frisbie as his
second in command on the western lines, and Mr. Charles Edward Adair as
comptroller and chief of finances on the executive committee in New
York.
Ford's prophecies predicting the development of the new empire first
traversed by the Western Extension have long since found ample
fulfilment, as all the world knows. Copah gave the region its first and
largest advertisement; but other mining districts, with their imperative
beckonings to a food-producing population, have followed in due course.
It was early in June of the year marking the opening of the completed
Western Extension for through Pacific Coast traffic that a one-car
train, drawn by the smartest of passenger engines in charge of a
diminutive, red-headed Irishman, stormed bravely up the glistening steel
on the eastern approach to Plug Pass. The car was the rebuilt Nadia; and
in obedience to a shrill blast of the cab air-whistle, Gallagher brought
it to a stand on the summit of the mountain.
Alicia looked more than ever the artist's ideal of the American womanly
felicities when Ford lifted her from the step of the Nadia.
"You are quite sure Mr. Gallagher won't mind?" she was saying, as they
walked forward together.
"Mind? Wait till you hear what he says. Michael is an Irish diamond in
the rough, and he knows when he is honored."
They discovered the red-headed little man industriously "oiling around"
for the swift glide down the western declivities.
"Michael," said the first vice-president, "Mrs. Ford thinks she would
like to take the Pannikin loop in the cab of the Six-eighty-eight. Can
you make room for us?"
Gallagher snatched his cap from his fiery head.
"Could we make room? 'Tis by the blessing av the saints that I'm a
little man, meself, Missis Foord, and don't take up much room in the
c-yab. And as f'r Johnny Shovel, he'll be riding on the coal f'r the
pure playsure av ut. My duty to ye, ma'am; and 'tis a pity ut isn't a
black night, whin the swate face av ye would be lighting the thrack f'r
us."
Ford lifted Alicia to the gangway and made her comfortable on the
fireman's box, fixing a footbrace for her, and giving her his arm for a
shoulder rest when Gallagher sent the steam whistling through the
cylinder-cocks for the impulse needful to start the downward rush.
"'With a michnai--ghignai--'" she began; but when the engine plunged
over the summit and the matchless view to the westward came suddenly
into, being, the quotation lapsed in a long-drawn, ecstatic "O-o-oh!"
"You are not afraid, are you?" said the bridegroom, man-like, letting
her feel the support of his arm.
"Afraid? No, indeed; I am just happy--happy! There lies the world before
us, Stuart; _our_ world, because, more than any other man's, yours were
the brain that conceived it and the hands that brought it to pass. Let
us go down quickly and possess it. Tell Mr. Gallagher that he may run as
fast as ever he dares." Then with a sigh of contentment and a
comfortable nestling into the hollow of the strong arm of protection:
"Was there ever another wedding journey just like ours, Stuart, dear?"