Ford got to his feet.
"Promise me that you will give the Denver management as thorough an investigation as you have given me, Mr. Colbrith; do that, and give me absolute authority over the MacMorroghs and their men for one week; and before the week's end we'll be hauling passengers and freight into Copah over our own rails."
For a moment the president seemed to be on the point of yielding. Then his habitual caution thrust out its foot and tripped him.
"I can't be pushed, Mr. Ford," he complained, with a return of the irritated tone. "Let the matter rest for the present. And—and you may consider yourself relieved from duty until I have gone a little deeper into these charges against you. Mr. North accuses you, and you accuse Mr. North. I must have time to approach those matters deliberately. I don't know which of you to trust."
It was a deadlock. Ford bowed and laid his hand on the door.
"You are still the president of the Pacific Southwestern, Mr. Colbrith, and while you remain president—"
The old man's pride of office took fire like tow in a furnace.
"What do you mean by that, Mr. Ford? Make yourself clear, sir!" he quavered.
"I mean just this: if your niece, Miss Alicia Adair, hadn't been good enough to say that she will be my wife, I'd carry this thing up to the board of directors and do my level best to have you put where you could do the least harm."
"You? Alicia?" the old man shrilled. And then, in an access of senile rage that shook him like a leaf in the wind: "I said you were suspended—you are discharged, sir—here and now! If you give another order as an official of the Pacific Southwestern company, I'll—I'll put you through the courts for it!"