r clouds, like that
which lightened over the fete in the park, admonished us that we were
far into our second year. And still shuffle, cut, deal, trick, and hand
followed each other, and with draw and bluff and showdown we played the
World and Destiny, and playing won, and saw our stacks of chips grow
higher and higher, as our great and absorbing game went on.

Moreover, while we won and won, nobody seemed to lose. Josie spoke that
night of fortunes which people had not earned; but surely they were
created somehow; and as the universe, when the divine fiat had formed
the world, was richer, rather than poorer, so, we felt, must these
values so magically growing into our fortunes be good, rather than evil,
and honestly ours, so far as we might be able to secure them to
ourselves. I said as much to Jim one day, at which he smiled, and
remarked that if we got to monkeying with the ethics of the trade,
piracy would soon be a ruined business.

"Better, far better keep the lookout sweeping the horizon for sails,"
said he, "and when one appears, serve out the rum and gunpowder to the
crew, and stand by to lower away the boats for a boarding-party!"

I am afraid I have given the impression that our life at this time was
solely given over to cupidity and sordidness; and that idea I may not be
able to remove. Yet I must try to do so. We were in the game to win; but
our winnings, present and prospective, were not in wealth only. To
surmount obstacles; to drive difficulties before us like scattering
sparrows; to see a town marching before us into cityhood; to feel
ourselves the forces working through human masses so mightily that, for
hundreds of miles about us, social and industrial factors were compelled
to readjust themselves with reference to us; to be masters; to
create--all these things went into our beings in thrilling and dizzying
pulsations of a pleasure which was not ignoble.

For instance, let us take the building of the Lattimore & Great Western
Railway. Before Mr. Elkins went to Lattimore this line had been surveyed
by the cooeperation of Mr. Hinckley, Mr. Ballard, the president of the
opposition bank, and some others. It was felt that there was little real
competition among the railways centering there, and the L. & G.W. was
designed as a hint to them of a Lattimore-built connection with the
Halliday system, then a free-lance in the transportation field, and
ready to make rates in an independent and competitive way.