"Providing someone bucks Greenfield to the limit."
In one instantaneous flash, the man whose clear brain directed thousands of miles of a great railroad system caught a glimpse of the real Jefferson Worth—the Jefferson Worth who was not, as the railroad man had himself said, "doing it all for a dinky little power plant."
"Jeff," he said slowly, "when you asked us to build a branch line into the Basin I told you that we couldn't do it. As I said then, we are not in the insurance business. A railroad's business depends upon the actual development of a country, not upon backing promoters who open up a new country simply as a speculative proposition. You say you believe in the future of The King's Basin country providing some one bucks Greenfield and you are sure giving him a run for his money. But you have reached the end of your pile and I know it. Now, I have been taking up this matter with our people and we are ready to take a chance on your judgment. Suppose we take over your road as it stands at a fair price—what would be your next move? Get out and leave us in the insurance business?"
"I would build a line from Kingston to Barba, tapping the South Central District, which is the richest section of the Basin," came the instant reply.
"Good! But perhaps you don't want to sell the line you are building to the S. & C.," he suggested with a smile.
"I figured that you would be ready to make me a proposition about the time I had it in shape for the last shipment of steel."
Worth's bluff had won.
The railroad man said again solemnly: "Jeff, you are a wonder!"
With the passing of his nearly completed railroad into the hands of the S. & C. Jefferson Worth began at once to arrange for the building of the other line from Barba to Kingston. This new road, to be known as the King's Basin Central, connecting with what was now the S. & C., would give an outlet to the rich South Central District, while the Southwestern and Continental Company announced that its new branch would not stop at Kingston but would build on south to Frontera.
With a main line branch of a trans-continental railroad building straight through the heart of the new country, and their town located just half way between the junction and the terminal, The King's Basin Land and Irrigation Company saw the value of their property increased many times. The day was not far distant now when every quarter section of the desert land would be filed on by eager settlers, and the once barren waste would rapidly give place to the fertile fields of the ranchers, every foot of which should yield tribute to James Greenfield and his associates. But the reclamation of the desert opened many avenues for profit other than the irrigation system.