e run an
accommodation train back and forth daily ever since. And they have
made money at it hauling freight, merchandise from the main line,
building-material, farming implements--everything which had to go into
Crawfordsville; hauling farm produce from the new settlement back into
Bolton.

"Because he had shown the P. C. & W. that the thing could be done on a
paying basis, because it _was_ done and did pay, the P. C. & W.
listened to him when he made a second proposition to them. He went
straight to Colton Gray, and Colton Gray listened to him. What Gray
advises, the P. C. & W. does. In the end, after many interviews and
much investigation and discussion, Crawford made Gray see the matter
the way he saw it. The P. C. &. W. contracted to begin work on a line
from Crawfordsville to Valley City and on across the desert to the
main transcontinental railroad at Indian Creek the day that sufficient
water to irrigate fifty square miles of land had been brought into
this part of the 'valley.' It was agreed by both contracting parties
that the water was to be brought to this spot by noon of October
first, or all contracts became null and void.

"The day that Gray agreed for the P. C. & W. Mr. Crawford put men to
work on the first preliminary survey. He had already the necessary
water concessions. He had studied his ground, made his plans with a
carefulness which overlooked nothing which a man could foresee, and
had every reason to believe, to be positive, that he could have all
the water he wanted in the valley a whole month before the first of
October.

"And I tell you he could have done it if they had just let him alone!
But they wouldn't. Within thirty days after the first shovelful of
earth was turned there was a strong organization perfected to defeat
him. Why? In the first place there is a certain bloated toad in our
local puddle named Oliver Swinnerton who has his hatchet out on
general principles for the Old Man. In the town of Bolton he's the
mayor and the chief of police and the board of city fathers and the
municipal janitor all rolled into one pompous, pot-bellied little
body. He's got money and he's got brains. No sooner does word get
about of the Old Man's contract with the P. C. & W. than Oliver
Swinnerton gets busy. He went straight to Colton Gray, and at first he
could do nothing with him. Gray had taken time for his investigations
of Mr. Crawford's scheme, had been convinced that it was feasible, and
now