The afternoon of the following day Willard Holmes, at the Dry River Heading, was called to the telephone. Mr. Burk was at the other end of the line. "There is a telegram here from your Uncle Jim ordering you to go to the city on the first train. If you can make it, catch the four-twenty at Frontera. I'll pack your grip and give it to you when you go through."
Mr. Greenfield met the engineer at the depot in the city the next morning and escorted him to his rooms in a hotel. "I was almighty glad to get Burk's wire that you were on the road," said the older man. "I was afraid that he would not be able to find you in time; you go gadding about the country so. Where did he catch you?"
"Dry River Heading. My gadding takes me mostly there or to the intake heading these days. Just now I am trying to patch up the spillway which threatens to go out at any time altogether, and the heading itself is so shaky I'm almost afraid to touch it for fear it will fall down on top of me. No one ever dreamed that these structures would ever be called upon to stand the strain they are under now. I wish—"
"All right; all right, my boy; I think I've heard you say something like that before. I called you in to help me on a little deal that will put us in shape to build all the new structures you want."
"You mean that the Company is at last going to make the appropriation I have been begging for?"
"Not exactly. They will if we can handle one individual."
"Who?"
"Jefferson Worth."
"Jefferson Worth? What under heaven has he to do with the Company's appropriations?"
"He has a lot to do with the Company's profits, which amounts to the same thing."