"Free!" he cried. "I have escaped! But how I have suffered! That dog of a gringo, Frank Merriwell, caused it all! He thinks me dead and out of his path forever. I am alive, and I swear to make Merriwell suffer even as I have suffered! I'll not kill him at one blow, but I'll rob him of all he holds dear, his sweetheart, his beauty, his strength, his wealth, and then I will find a way to destroy him at last!
"This is the oath of Porfias del Norte!"
CHAPTER XIII.
HOW RAILROADS ARE BUILT.
Four men of great power and influence in the financial world had gathered in the offices of Scott & Rand, brokers, New York City.
Of course, old Gripper Scott himself was one of the four. Two more were Sudbury Bragg and Warren Hatch.
The fourth was a slender, smooth-faced, cold-eyed, thin-lipped man of uncertain age, whose name was Basil Jerome. The latter had just appeared, and had been greeted by the others assembled.
It was several days after the landslide that had brought the stirring events in the Adirondack Mountains to a close—events that were directly traceable to the great business consolidation that these capitalists were now discussing.
"Mr. Jerome, gentlemen," said Watson Scott, "has expressed his willingness to come into our railroad project in case he is satisfied that it will be carried through in a manner that will insure success and profit to us all. You have expressed your willingness to take him in if he will enter on the same terms as the rest of us. Mr. Merriwell should be here now, and——"