. But if you don't mind I'll come occasionally to the
gallery to study the masterpiece."

"I'll mind if you don't."

Voices were heard approaching along the hall. The portieres parted. The
immediate effect on Farnum of the great figure that filled the doorway
was one of masterful authority. A massive head crested a figure of
extraordinary power. Gray as a mediaeval castle, age had not yet touched
his gnarled strength. The keen steady eyes, the close straight lips, the
shaggy eyebrows heavy and overhanging, gave accent to the rugged force
of this grim freebooter who had reversed the law of nature which decrees
that railroads shall follow civilization. Scorning the established
rule of progress, he had spiked his rails through untrodden forests and
unexplored canons to watch the pioneer come after by the road he had
blazed. Chief among the makers of the Northwest, he yearly conceived
and executed with amazing audacity enterprises that would have marked as
monumental the life work of lesser men.

Farnum, rising from his seat unconsciously as a tribute of respect,
acknowledged thus tacitly the presence of greatness in the person of Joe
Powers.

The straight lips of the empire builder tightened as his eyes gleamed
over the soft luxury of his daughter's boudoir. James would have been
hard put to it to conceive any contrast greater than the one between
this modern berserk and the pampered daughter of his wealth. A Hun or
a Vandal gazing down with barbaric scorn on some decadent paramour of
captured Rome was the most analogous simile Farnum's brain could summon.
What freak of nature, he wondered, had been responsible for so alien an
offspring to this ruthless builder? And what under heaven had the two in
common except the blood that ran in both their veins?

Peter C. Frome, who had followed his brother-in-law into the room,
introduced the young man to the railroad king.

The great man's grip drove the blood from Farnum's hand.

"I've heard about you, young man. What do you mean by getting in my
way?"

The young man's veins glowed. He had made Joe Powers notice him. Not
for worlds would he have winked an eyelash, though the bones of his hand
felt as if they were being ground to powder.

"Do I get in your way, sir?" he asked innocently.

"Do you?" boomed the deep bass of the railroader. "You and that mad
brother of yours."

"He's my cousin," James explained.

"Brother or cousin, he's got to get off the track or be r