Graham laughed. “That’s going to be your affair. When you want them the dollars will be ready, and there’s only one condition. Every dollar we put down has got to bring another in.”
“But,” said Witham, “I don’t know anything about milling.”
“Then,” said Graham dryly, “you have got to learn. A good many men have got quite rich in this country running things they didn’t know much about when they took hold of them.”
“There’s one more point,” said Witham. “I must make those thirty thousand dollars soon, or they’ll be no great use to me, and when I have them I may want to leave you.”
“That’s all right,” said Graham. “By the time you’ve done it, you’ll have made sixty for me. We’ll go out and have some lunch to clinch the deal if you’re ready.”
It might have appeared unusual in England, but it was much less so in a country where the specialization of professions is still almost unknown, and the man who can adapt himself attains ascendency, and on the morrow Witham arrived at a big wooden building beside a pine-shrouded river. It appeared falling to pieces, and the engineer looked disdainfully at some of the machinery, but, somewhat against his wishes, he sat up with his companion most of the night in a little log hotel, and orders that occasioned one of Graham’s associates consternation were mailed to the city next morning. Then machines came out by the carload, and men with tools in droves. Some of them murmured mutinously when they found they were expected to do as much as their leader who was not a tradesman, but these were forthwith sent back again, and the rest were willing to stay and earn the premium he promised them for rapid work.
Before the frost grew Arctic, the building stood firm and the hammers rang inside it night and day until when the ice had bound the dam and lead the fires were lighted and the trials under steam again. It cost more than water, but buyers with orders from the East were clamouring for flour just then. For a fortnight Witham snatched his food in mouthfuls, and scarcely closed his eyes, when Graham found him pale and almost haggard when he came down with several men from the cities in response to a telegram. For an hour they moved up and down, watching whirring belt and humming roller, and then, whitened with the dust, stood very intent and quiet while one of them dipped up a little flour from the delivery hopper. His opinions on, and dealings in that product were famous in the land. He said nothing for several minutes, and then, brushing the white dust from his hands, turned with a little smile to Graham.
“We’ll have some baked, but I don’t know that there’s much use for it. This will grade a very good first,” he said. “You can book me the thousand two eighties for a beginning now.”
Witham’s fingers trembled, but there was a twinkle in Graham’s eyes as he brought his hand down on his shoulder.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “I was figuring right on this when I brought the champagne along. It was all I could do, but Imperial Tokay wouldn’t be good enough to rinse this dust down with, when every speck of it that’s on you means dollars by the handful rolling in.”