I

THE RIDDLE EXPLAINED

The next half hour was spent, as Barbara expressed it, in "perfecting
the guess" she had made.

"Tandy has gone into that Memphis and Ohio River enterprise up to his
eyes," said Duncan. "Naturally, he has got his controlling interest in
it at an extremely low price, as compared with the face value of the
stock and bonds, for the reason that the road ends at Paducah, which is
much the same thing as ending nowhere.

"But if he can succeed in diverting our line to Paducah instead of
Cairo, thus securing an entirely satisfactory connection north and east,
his Memphis and Ohio road will become part of one of the greatest trunk
lines in this part of the country, and the advance in his stock and bond
holdings will make him one of the richest men in the West."

"That is what I was thinking, Guilford, but I hardly dared suggest it--I
know so little. I didn't know that it would be possible to change our
line. I thought that maybe its charter compelled it to run to Cairo."

"No, unfortunately, it doesn't. Tandy secured the charter in the first
place, before Hallam and Stafford went into the project. I wonder," he
added with a puzzled look, "I wonder if the old schemer was looking this
far ahead. At any rate, the charter, as Tandy had it drawn, requires
only that the line shall be so located and constructed as to connect the
railroads running east from its eastern terminus with the Mississippi
River--it doesn't say at what point. That requirement would be fully
met, of course, if the road should be diverted to Paducah, connecting
there with the line to Memphis."

"But why did Tandy want that county line provision put into the bond
subscription?"

"Look at the map again. Those two counties lie west of the point at
which the road must be turned south if it is to be diverted to Paducah.
If we fail to build across that county line by noon of the fifteenth of
next March, the subscriptions of both those counties will be forfeited.
Then Tandy will step in and offer the company that is building the line
a much larger subscription of some sort from Paducah and from his
Memphis road, as an inducement to shorten the line by taking it to
Paducah instead of Cairo."

"That would ruin Cairo?" the girl asked, anxiously.

"It would be a terrible blow to the city's prosperity. But," looking at
his watch, "I must lay this matter before Hallam and Stafford to-night,
late as it is."

Then, going to the little te