for
the fulfillment of a thing which seemed impossible.

Coldly, dispassionately, now that it was done, that the word of the
Empire Lake Mill and Lumber Company had been given to deliver the
materials for the making of a great railroad, had guaranteed its
resources and furnished the necessary bond for the fulfillment of a
promise, Barry Houston could not help but feel that it all had been rash,
to say the least. Where was the machinery to be obtained? Where the
money to keep things going? True, there would be spot cash awaiting the
delivery of every installment of the huge order, enough, in fact, to
furnish the necessary running expenses of a mill under ordinary
circumstances. But the circumstances which surrounded the workings of
the Empire Lake project were far from ordinary. No easy skidways to a
lake, no flume, no aerials; there was nothing to cut expenses. Unless a
miracle should happen, and Houston reflected that miracles were few and
far between, that timber must be brought to the mill by a system that
would be disastrous as far as costs were concerned. Yet, the contract
had been made!

He wandered the aisle of the sleeper, fidgeting from one end to the
other, as neither magazines, nor the spinning scenery without held a
counter-attraction for his gloomy thoughts. When night at last came, he
entered the smoking compartment and slumped into a seat in a far corner,
smoking in a detached manner, often pulling on his cigar long after
lengthy minutes of reflection had allowed its ashes to cool.

About him the usual conversation raged, the settling of a nation's
problems, the discussion of crime waves, Bolshevism and the whatnot that
goes with an hour of smoking on a tiresome journey. From Washington and
governmental affairs, it veered to the West and dry farming, thence to
the cattle business; to anecdotes, and finally to ghost stories. And
then, with a sudden interest, Houston forgot his own problems to listen
attentively, tensely, almost fearfully. A man whom he never before had
seen, and whom he probably never would see again, was talking,--about
something which might be as remote to Houston as the poles. Yet it held
him, it fascinated, it gripped him!

"Speaking of gruesome things," the talker had said, "reminds me. I'm a
doctor--not quite full fledged, I'll admit, but with the right to put M.
D. after my name. Spent a couple of years as an interne in Bellstrand
Hospital in New York. Big place.