ne of their confounded whistling-posts or
cattle-guards--or something real drastic like that!"

Cornish, galled, as was I, by this irony, flushed crimson, and rose.

"The situation," said he, "instead of being a serious one, as I have
believed, seems merely funny. This conference may as well end. Having
taken on things here under the impression that this was to be a city; it
seems that we are to stay a village. It occurs to me that it's time to
stand from under! Good-evening!"

"Wait!" said Hinckley. "Don't go, Cornish; it isn't as bad as that!"

As he spoke he laid his hand on Cornish's arm, and I saw that he was
pale. He felt more keenly than did I the danger of division and strife
among us.

"Yes, Mr. Hinckley," said Jim, as Cornish sat down again, "it _is_ as
bad as that! This thing amounts to a crisis. For one, I don't propose to
adopt the 'stand-from-under' tactics. They make an unnecessary disaster
as certain as death; but if we all stand under and lift, we can win more
than we've ever thought. In the legislature they hold the cards and can
beat us. It's no use fooling with that unless we seek martyrs' deaths in
the bankruptcy courts. But there is a way to meet these men, and that is
by bringing to our aid their greatest rival."

"Do you mean--" said Hinckley.

"I mean Avery Pendleton and the Pendleton system," replied Elkins. "I
mean that we've got to meet them on their own ground. Pendleton won't
declare war on the Halliday combination by building in here, but there
is no reason why we can't build to him, and that's what I propose to do.
We'll take the L. & G. W., swing it over to the east from the Elk Fork
up, make a junction with Pendleton's Pacific Division, and, in one week
after we get trains running, we'll have the freight combine here shot so
full of holes that it won't hold corn-stalks! That's what we'll do:
we'll do a little rate-making ourselves; and we'll make this danger the
best thing that ever happened to us. Do you see?"

Cornish saw, sooner than any one else. As he spoke, Jim had unrolled a
map, and pointed out the places as he referred to them, like a general,
as he was, outlining the plan of a battle. He began this speech in that
quiet, convincing way of his, only a little elevated above the sarcasm
of a moment before. As he went on, his voice deepened, his eye gleamed,
and in spite of his colloquialisms, which we could not notice, his words
began to thrill us like potent oratory. We f