The equipment—engines and cars—was borrowed, so when the receiver was appointed he found only the classic streak of rust and right of way. No doubt both of these would have been hypothecated if it were possible.
Mr. Hill knew the Northwest as no other man did, except, possibly, Norman Kittson. He had traversed the country from Saint Paul to Winnipeg on foot, by ox-carts, on horseback, by dog-sledges. He had seen it in all seasons and under all conditions. He knew the Red River Valley would raise wheat, and he knew that the prosperity of old Louis Agassiz meant the prosperity of the railroad that ran between that rich valley and Saint Anthony's Falls, where the great flouring-mills were situated, the center of the flour zone having been shifted from Rochester, New York, to Minneapolis, Minnesota.
To gain possession of the railroad and run it so as to build up the country, and thus prosper as the farmers prospered, was his ambition. He was a farmer by prenatal tendency and by education, a commission man by chance, and a master of transportation by instinct. Every farmer should be interested in good roads, for his problem is quite as much to get his products to market as to raise them. Jim Hill focused on getting farm-products to market. While he was a Canadian by birth, he had now become a citizen of the United States. His old friend, Commodore Kittson, was a Canadian by birth, and never got beyond taking out his first papers. The Winnipeg agent of the Hudson Bay Company was Donald Alexander Smith, a hardy Scotch bur of a man, with many strong and sturdy oatmeal virtues. He had gone with the Hudson Bay Company as a laborer, became a guide, a trader, and then an agent. Hill and Kittson laid before Smith a plan, very plain, very simple. Buy up the bonds of the Saint Paul and Pacific from the Dutch bondholders, foreclose, and own the railroad!
Now, Donald A. Smith's connection with the Hudson Bay Company gave him a standing in Montreal banking circles, and to be trusted by Montreal is to have the ear of London. Donald A. Smith went down to Montreal and laid the plan before George Stephen, Manager of the Bank of Montreal. If the Bank of Montreal endorsed a financial scheme it was a go. Only one thing seemed to lie in the way—the willingness of the bondholders to sell out at a figure which our four Canadians could pay. Mr. Hill was for going to Holland, and interviewing the bondholders, personally. Stephen, more astute in big finance, said, bring them over here. Hill could not fetch them, Kittson couldn't and Donald A. Smith couldn't, because there was no dog-sled line to Amsterdam.
The Bank of Montreal did the trick, and a committee of Dutchmen arrived to look over their Minnesota holdings with a view of selling out. Mr. Hill took them over the line—a dreary waste of slashings, then a wide expanse of prairie broken now and again by scrub-oak and hazel-groves; deep gullies here and there—swamps, sloughs and ponds, with assets of brant, wild geese, ducks and sand-hill cranes.
The road was in bad shape—the equipment worse. An inventory of the actual property was taken with the help of the Dutch Committee. The visiting Hollanders made a report to the bondholders, advising sale of the bonds at an average of about forty per cent of their face-value, which is what the inventory showed.
Our Canadian friends secured an option which gave them time to turn. Farley, the Receiver, was willing. The road was reorganized as the Saint Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railroad. George Stephen was President, Norman Kittson, First Vice-President, Donald A. Smith, Second Vice-President, and James J. Hill, General Manager. And on Mr. Hill fell the burden of turning a losing property into a prosperous and paying one. From the very day that he became manager he breathed into the business the breath of life.
He sent over to England and bought hundreds of young Hereford bulls, and distributed them along the line of the road among the farmers. "Jim Hill's bulls" are pointed out now over three thousand miles of range, and jokes on how Hill bulled the market are always in order. Clydesdale horses were sent out on low prices and long-time payments.
Farm seeds, implements and lumber were put within the reach of any man who really wanted to get on. And lo! the land prospered. The waste places were made green, and the desert blossomed like the rose.