ailroad map of the
West would indeed be disrupted. But at the end of ten days I knew no
more than on the first.

At the farmhouse where they took me in to dinner mine host was highly
elated, for the survey crossed the corner of his southern "forty" and he
saw visions of a fat right-of-way payment and of a railway station.
Later--his optimism was characteristic--surely a city would spring up,
with corner lots priced fabulously. "Then," said he to Mandy, "we'll go
to Yerrup." It was, of course, long before Yerrup became a shambles.

The old man was reminding me of the growth of Spokane--that universal
example of the West!--which expanded from nothing to more than one
hundred thousand in thirty years, when Mandy interrupted the universal
pastime of counting your lots before they are sold by producing a
soiled printed form.

"Can you tell me if this has any value now?" she asked.

It was a voucher of the Great Northern Railroad.

"Where did you get it?"

She narrated how a crew had laid out the preliminary survey, now
followed by the mysterious workers, coming through there secretly the
previous autumn.

"They told us they was surveyin' water power," said she. "The papers
never said nothing about it, and neither did we. They bought buttermilk
here, an' when the Ol' Man cashed in the slips he forgot this one.
Wonder if it's too late to get it paid?"

I told her it wasn't. In fact, I bought it myself, paying face value. It
was $1.40.

Then I made tracks for the 'phone, eighteen miles away. Here, at last,
was positive evidence that the Great Northern, the Hill system, was the
power behind the new line. Six months ago while Oregon slept, they had
made the secret survey upon which they were now constructing. A very
pretty scoop, as western newspapering goes! I offered my driver an
extra dollar for haste's sake.

[Illustration: Along the Canyon of the Deschutes

Copyright 1911 by Kiser Photo Co., Portland. Ore.]

The managing editor listened while I outlined my beat over the wire. His
silence seemed the least bit sad.

"Dandy story," said he. "If we'd had it yesterday it would have been
fine. But--" There was no need for him to go further; I knew the worst.

An afternoon paper had wrecked my yarn. The emissary of the Hills, who
had traveled secretly and under an assumed name all through the Interior
determining whether or not the new line should be undertaken, had that
morning told his story. The Hills were in t