uld be
bankrupt."

"Interest on your investment!" cried Harran, furious. "It's fine to talk
about fair interest. I know and you know that the total earnings of the
P. and S. W.--their main, branch and leased lines for last year--was
between nineteen and twenty millions of dollars. Do you mean to say that
twenty million dollars is seven per cent. of the original cost of the
road?"

S. Behrman spread out his hands, smiling.

"That was the gross, not the net figure--and how can you tell what was
the original cost of the road?" "Ah, that's just it," shouted Harran,
emphasising each word with a blow of his fist upon his knee, his eyes
sparkling, "you take cursed good care that we don't know anything about
the original cost of the road. But we know you are bonded for treble
your value; and we know this: that the road COULD have been built
for fifty-four thousand dollars per mile and that you SAY it cost you
eighty-seven thousand. It makes a difference, S. Behrman, on which of
these two figures you are basing your seven per cent."

"That all may show obstinacy, Harran," observed S. Behrman vaguely, "but
it don't show common sense."

"We are threshing out old straw, I believe, gentlemen," remarked Magnus.
"The question was thoroughly sifted in the courts."

"Quite right," assented S. Behrman. "The best way is that the railroad
and the farmer understand each other and get along peaceably. We are
both dependent on each other. Your ploughs, I believe, Mr. Derrick." S.
Behrman nodded toward the flat cars.

"They are consigned to me," admitted Magnus.

"It looks a trifle like rain," observed S. Behrman, easing his neck and
jowl in his limp collar. "I suppose you will want to begin ploughing
next week."

"Possibly," said Magnus.

"I'll see that your ploughs are hurried through for you then, Mr.
Derrick. We will route them by fast freight for you and it won't cost
you anything extra."

"What do you mean?" demanded Harran. "The ploughs are here. We have
nothing more to do with the railroad. I am going to have my wagons down
here this afternoon."

"I am sorry," answered S. Behrman, "but the cars are going north,
not, as you thought, coming FROM the north. They have not been to San
Francisco yet."

Magnus made a slight movement of the head as one who remembers a fact
hitherto forgotten. But Harran was as yet unenlightened.

"To San Francisco!" he answered, "we want them here--what are you
talking about?"

"Well, you