billiards with Rapp, was a dogged
gentleman who was accustomed to take his pound of flesh whenever he
could not obtain, on some pretext, two pounds. His subordinates said
that he worked twenty-five hours a day, which gives, if you consider
it, an advantage of some fifteen days per annum. He was in the grip of
his business, body and soul. It fascinated him, dominated him more and
more as the years went on, as his own fortune and his interests
increased. He was continually reaching out for more territory, and in
so doing he came in hostile contact with other railway men, also
gunning for the same game. Occasionally, therefore, they gunned for
each other. When York was hit he took his medicine; when he hit the
other fellow he chose as vital a spot as he could. Even as he played
billiards his mind was elsewhere, which accounted in part for his poor
success at the game.

"Speaking about Prairie Southern," said he, "we have about decided to
take it over."

Rapp sighed. "I'm not a perpetual-motion legal machine, York. Won't
that keep till to-morrow?"

"We pay you a big enough retainer," said York, with the frankness of
years of intimacy. "What do you suppose we do it for?"

"Principally, I imagine, to keep you out of jail," Rapp retorted, with
equal frankness. "I've done it so far, but----" He shook his head
forebodingly. "Well, if you _will_ talk, come and sit down. I'm tired
of this. Now, then, about Prairie Southern: have they come to the end
of their rope, or did you pull it in a little for them?"

"I didn't need to," said York. "They have tied themselves up in hard
knots. We don't particularly want the road; but, as matters stand, we
can buy it cheaply. Later we might want it, and it would undoubtedly
cost more. Besides, I don't want Hess to get hold of it as a feeder to
his lines."

"Jim Hess is a sort of bugbear to you," said Rapp. "You'll keep
prodding him till he horns you one of these days."

"Two can play at that," York replied grimly.

"There's mighty little play about Jim Hess when he goes on the
warpath," Rapp commented. "Well, let's get the worst over. There's
short of three hundred miles of this Prairie Southern, as I understand
it. It runs somewhere near the foothills. The country doesn't grow
anything yet. The only reason for its building was a coal-mine boom
that petered out. Its bonding privilege was one of the most disgraceful
bits of jobbery ever lobbied through a corrupt little legislature. It