"The bluff—their bluff—was called. We had got busy on Plug Pass, and they saw there was no hope of cutting in ahead of us at that point."
"Exactly. Now look at this map for a minute. Here is Saint's Rest; here is the Copah district; and here is Green Butte, the junction of their narrow gauge with the standard-gauge Salt Lake and Eastern. If you were on the Transcontinental executive committee and saw an active competing line about to build a standard-gauge railroad through the Copah district and on to a connection with your narrow gauge's outlet at Green Butte, what would you advise?"
Frisbie nodded. "It's easy, when you know how, isn't it They'll standardize their narrow gauge to Green Butte, make an iron-clad traffic contract with the S.L. & E. to exclude us, and build a branch from Jack's Canyon, say, up into the Copah country." And then in loyal admiration: "That's what I call the sure word of prophecy—your specialty, Stuart. How many nights' sleep did you lose figuring that out?"
"Not any, as it happens," laughed Ford. "It was a straight tip out of the East. The plan, just about as you've outlined it, was adopted by the Transcontinental powers that be, sitting in New York last week. By some means unknown to me, Mr. Adair got wind of it, and made a flying trip to Chicago to put me on—wouldn't even trust the wire with it. Now you understand why we've got to wake the Copah echoes with a locomotive whistle this season."
"Copah—yes," said Frisbie doubtfully. "But that is only a way station. What we need is Green Butte and the Pacific coast outlet over the S.L. & E.; and they stand to euchre us out of that, hands down. What's to prevent their making that traffic contract with the Mormon people right now?"
"Nothing; if the S.L. & E. management were willing. But just here the political situation in Mormondom fights for us. Last year the Transcontinental folk turned heaven and earth over to defeat the Mormon candidate for the United States Senate. The quarrel wasn't quite mortal enough to stand in the way of a profitable business deal; but all things being equal, the Salt Lake line will favor us as against its political enemy."
"You're sure of that?" queried Frisbie.
"As sure as one can be of anything that isn't cash down on the nail—with the money locked up in a safety deposit vault. By the sheerest good luck, the Mormon president of the S.L. & E. happened to be in New York at the time when Adair had his ear to the Transcontinental keyhole. Adair hunted him up and made a hypothetical case of a sure thing: if our Western Extension and the Transcontinental, standard-gauged, should be knocking at the Green Butte door at the same time, what would the S.L. & E. do? The Mormon answer was a bid for speed; first come, first served. But Adair was given to understand, indirectly, that on an equal footing, our line would be given the preference as a friendly ally."
"Bully for the Mormon! But you say Copah—this summer. When we reach Copah we are still one hundred and forty miles short of Green Butte. And if you can broaden the Plug Mountain in three weeks—which you'll still allow me to doubt—the Transcontinental ought to be able to broaden its Green Butte narrow gauge in three months."
"If you had cross-sectioned both lines as I have, you wouldn't stumble over that," said Ford, falling back, as he commonly did, upon the things he knew. "We shall broaden the Plug Mountain without straightening a curve or throwing a shovelful of earth on the embankment, from beginning to end. On the other hand, the Green Butte narrow gauge runs for seventy miles through the crookedest canyon a Rocky Mountain river ever got lost in. There is more heavy rock work to be done in that canyon than on our entire Pannikin division from start to finish."