h threats in his mouth. Yet his letter was distinctly friendly,
conveying an offer of neighborly help.

The occasion for the neighborliness arose upon a right-of-way
involvement. Acting under instructions from Vice-President Ford,
Lidgerwood had already begun to move in the matter of extending the Red
Butte Western toward the Nevada gold-fields, and Benson had been running
preliminary surveys and making estimates of cost. Of the two more
feasible routes, that which left the main line at Little Butte, turning
southward up the Wire-Silver gulch, had been favorably reported on by
the engineer. The right of way over this route, save for a few miles
through an upland valley of cattle ranches, could be acquired from the
government, and among the ranch owners only one was disposed to fight
the coming of the railroad--for a purely mercenary purpose, Benson
declared.

It was about this man, James Grofield, that Flemister wrote. The
ranchman, so the letter stated, had passed through Little Butte early in
the day, on his way to Red Butte. He would be returning by the
accommodation late in the afternoon, and would stop at the Wire-Silver
mine, where he had stabled his horses. For some reason he had taken a
dislike to Benson, but if Lidgerwood could make it convenient to come
over to Little Butte on the evening passenger-train from Angels, the
writer of the letter would arrange to keep Grofield over-night, and the
right-of-way matter could doubtless be settled satisfactorily.

This was the substance of the mine-owner's letter, and if Lidgerwood
hesitated it was partly because he was suspicious of Flemister's sudden
friendliness. Then the motive--Flemister's motive--suggested itself, and
the suspicion was put to sleep. The Wire-Silver mine was five miles
distant from the main line at Little Butte, at the end of a spur; if the
extension should be built, it would be a main-line station, with all the
advantages accruing therefrom. Flemister was merely putting the
personal animosities aside for a good and sufficient business reason.

Lidgerwood looked at his watch. If Grady should not be gone too long, he
might be able to work through the pile of correspondence and get away on
the evening passenger; and when the stenographer came back the work was
attacked with that end in view. But after an hour's rapid dictating, a
long-drawn whistle signal announced the incoming of the train he was
trying to make and warned him that the race agains