"For us that will be what the Northwest has been for our fathers. There lies the future—our future!"
"Our future," she repeated slowly, with pleasure in the words. "You plan to feed this land?"
"Settlers are pouring in there, now, like vermin. The railroads are following, and already there are the only strong markets we have to-day—those I have been building up for five years."
We sat there on the floor before the atlas, and the bigness of the idea got hold of both of us. I pointed out the great currents of world trade, and plotted a new current, to rise from that same wheat land of the Dakotas, flowing southward to the ports of the Gulf. Already, as I knew, the wheat and corn and meat of this Western land had begun to turn southward, avoiding the gate of Chicago with its heavy tolls, to flow by the path of least resistance out through the ports of the Gulf to Europe and Asia.
I pointed out the great currents of world trade.
"This is but the beginning, then—this packing company?" she questioned slowly, putting her finger on the inner truth, as was her wont.
"Perhaps!" I laughed back in the recklessness of large plans. "The meat business is nothing to what's coming. We shall have a charter that will let us build elevators, railroads, own ports, run steamship lines—everything that has to do with the handling of food stuffs. Some day that canal will be dug, and then, then"....
I can't say how long we were there on our knees before that atlas. It may all seem childish, but the most astonishing thing is that most of what we imagined then has come true in one way or another. And faster even than my expectation.