anned in the directors' room of the
H. & P. A. that has not seeped out and aided the enemy in foreseeing
our moves."

"The enemy?" repeated Mr. Swift, with mild surprise.

"That's it exactly! The enemy!" replied Mr. Bartholomew shortly. "The
H. & P. A. has got the fight of its life on its hands. We had a hard
enough time fighting nature and the elements when we laid the first
iron for the road a score of years ago. Now I am facing a fight that
must grow fiercer and fiercer as time goes on until either the H. & P.
A. smashes the opposition, or the enemy smashes it."

"What enemy is this you speak of?" asked Tom, much interested.

"The proposed Hendrickton & Western. A new road, backed by new capital,
and to be officered and built by new men in the construction and
railroad game.

"Montagne Lewis--you've heard of him, I presume--is at the head of the
crowd that have bought the little old Hendrickton & Western, lock,
stock and barrel.

"They have franchises for extending the road. In the old days the
legislatures granted blanket franchises that allowed any group of
moneyed men to engage in any kind of business as side issues to
railroading. Montagne Lewis and his crowd have got a 'plenty-big'
franchise.

"They have begun laying iron. It parallels, to a certain extent, our
own line. Their surveyors were smarter than the men who laid out the H.
& P. A. I admit it. Besides, the country out there is developed more
than it was a score of years ago when I took hold.

"All this enters into the fight between Montagne Lewis and me. But
there is something deeper," said the little man, with almost a snarl,
as he thrashed about again in his chair. "I beat Montagne Lewis at one
big game years ago. He is a man who never forgets--and who never
hesitates to play dirty politics if he has to, to bring about his own
ends.

"I know that I have been watched. I know that I was followed on this
trip East. He has private detectives on my track continually. And
worse. All the gunmen of the old and wilder West are not dead. There's
a fellow named Andy O'Malley--well, never mind him. The game at present
is to keep anybody in Lewis's employ from getting wise to why I came to
see you."

"What you say is interesting," Mr. Swift here broke in quietly. "But I
have already been puzzled by what you first said. Just why have you
come to us--to Tom and me--in reference to your railroad difficulties?"

"And this suggestion you have made," ad