within which if used on the right things and at the right time and
place he believed would make him a man of influence.

He was able then with his own hands to fashion a bolt, a nail, or
horseshoe, unsurpassed in the county. He was handy in shaping and
tempering tools of every kind. When he ate his cold dinner, reheating his
coffee over the forge coals, he often thought of the dormant fires within
him, and he wondered if they would ever be fanned to a white heat. For
years he had toiled hard to pay the rent of his forge and home and his
monthly bills. His wife was saving and helpful in a thousand ways, but
life was a hard struggle from sun to sun.

One summer's day when work was slack, there came to his shop a tall
Englishman to get a small job done. So well was the work performed by
Harris that the Englishman, whose name was James Ingram, said to Harris,
"I believe you are the mechanic I have long been looking for. In early
life I was apprenticed in England to a famous iron-master, and when the
Bessemer patents for converting iron into steel were issued, it was my
good fortune to be a foreman where the first experiments were made by
Henry Bessemer himself, and so I came to have a practical knowledge of
Bessemer's valuable invention; but my health failed, and for six months
I have been in your country in search of it, and now being well again,
I plan to start if possible a Bessemer steel plant in America. Can you
help me?"

Reuben Harris was quick to see that great profits might be realized from
Bessemer's patents and Ingram's ideas, and promptly said, "Yes, but I
must first know more about these patents and their workings." Before a
week had passed, he had learned much from Ingram concerning the practical
working of the Bessemer process of converting iron into steel. Bessemer
claimed that his steel rails would last much longer than the common iron
rail then in use.

Reuben Harris easily comprehended that the profits would be large. It was
verbally agreed between Harris and Ingram that they would share equally
any and all profits realized. Ingram had contributed reliable knowledge,
Harris was to enlist capital, and both were to make use of all their
talents, for they were both skilled mechanics.

It was not an easy matter for Harris to secure capital, for capital is
often lynx-eyed, and usually it is very conservative. It was especially
cautious of investment in Harris's schemes, as the practical workings of
the B