"And this--is part of the Union Grayling system?" Gordon persisted, his blue eyes getting bigger and bigger with excitement.

"Sure," nodded Mallinsbee, watching him closely.

Then the explosion came. Gordon could contain himself no longer. He flung his newly lit dollar-and-a-half cigar on the floor with all the force of pent feelings and leaped to his feet.

"Great Scott!" he cried. "The President of that road is my father!"

"Eh?" Then, without another sign, Mallinsbee pointed reproachfully at the fallen cigar. "It cost a dollar an' a ha'f, boy."

But Gordon was beside himself with excitement. A great flash of light and hope was shining through his recent mental darkness. It didn't matter to him at that moment if the cigar had cost a thousand dollars.

"But--but don't you understand?" he almost yelled. "The President of the Union Grayling and Ukataw is my--father."

"James Carbhoy."

"Yes, yes. My name's Gordon Van Henslaer Carbhoy."

Then quite suddenly Gordon sat down and began to laugh. Then he stooped and picked up his cigar. He was still laughing, while he carefully wiped the dust from the cigar's moistened end.

"James Carbhoy's your--father?"

Mallinsbee was no longer disturbed at the waste of the cigar. All his attention was fixed on that laughing face in front of him.

Gordon nodded delightedly, while he once more thrust his cigar into the corner of his mouth.

"You're thinkin' something?"

Mallinsbee was becoming infected by the other's manner.

"Sure I am." Gordon nodded. "I'm thinking a heap. Say, the fight has shifted its battle-ground. It's only just going to begin. Gee, if I'd only thought of it before! The Union Grayling and Ukataw! It's fate.

Say, it isn't Slosson any longer. It's son and father. I've got to scrap the old dad. Gee! It's colossal. Say, can you beat it? I've got to make my little pile out of my old dad. And--he sent me out to make it and show him what I could do."

"But how? I don't just see----"

"How? How?"

Gordon's laughing eyes sobered. He suddenly realized that he had only considered the humorous side of the position. His brain began to work at express speed. How was he to turn this thing to account? How?

Yes--how?

Mallinsbee watched him for many silent minutes. And during those minutes scheme after scheme, each one more wild than its predecessor, flashed through Gordon's brain. None of them suggested any sane possibility. He knew he was up against one of the most brilliant financiers of the country, who, in a matter like this, would regard his own son simply as "the other feller." He must trick him. But how?

How?

For a long time, in spite of his excited delight, Gordon saw no glamour of a hope of dealing successfully with his father. Then all in a flash he remembered something. He remembered he still had his father's private code book with him. He remembered Slosson. If Slosson could only be--silenced.

In a moment he was on his feet again.

"I've got it!" he cried exultantly. "I've got it, Mr. Mallinsbee! You said that it didn't matter, short of murder, how we got the other feller where we needed him. Will you come in on the wildest, most crazy scheme you ever heard of? We can beat the game, and we'll take money for nothing. We can make my dad build the depot right here and scrap Snake's Fall. We can make him--and without any murder. Will you come in?"

"In what?" demanded a girlish voice from the veranda doorway.

Gordon swung round, and Mallinsbee turned his smiling, twinkling eyes upon his daughter, who had arrived all unnoticed.

"It's a scheme he's got to beat his father, gal," laughed Mallinsbee in a deep-throated chuckle.

"His father?" Hazel turned her smiling, inquiring eyes upon the man who had rescued her yesterday.

"Yes, James Carbhoy," said her father, "the President of this railroad."

Hazel's eyes widened, and their smile died out.

"Your father--the--millionaire--James Carbhoy?" she said. And her note of regret must have been plain to anybody less excited than Gordon.

But Gordon was beyond all observation of such subtle inflections. He was obsessed with his wild scheme. He started forward. Walking past Hazel, he closed and locked the door. Then with alert eyes he glanced at the window. It was open. He shut it and secured it. Then he set a chair for Hazel close beside her father, and finally brought his own chair round and sat himself down facing them.

"Listen to me, and I'll tell you," he grinned, his whole body throbbing with a joyous humor. "We're going to get the other feller where we need him, and that other feller is my--dear--old--Dad!"

CHAPTER XVI

SOMETHING DOING

During the next two or three days the entire atmosphere of Snake's Fall underwent a significant change. All doubt had been set at rest. The whole problem of the future boom was solved, and David Slosson received as much homage in the conversation of the general run of the citizens as though he were the victorious general in a military campaign. The lesser people, who would receive the most benefit from the coming boom, regarded him with wide-eyed wonder at the stupendous nature of the wildly exaggerated reports of his dealings in land. They saw in him a Napoleon of finance, and remembered that their concerns were vastly more valuable through his operations.

Men of maturer business instincts withheld their judgment and contented themselves with a rather dazed wonder. Others, those who had actually and already profited by his preliminary deals, chuckled softly to themselves, rubbed their hands gently, pocketed his paper and deposit money, and wrote him down "plumb crazy." But even so, there was a sober watchfulness as to the next movements in the approaching boom.

Those who were the farthest seeing kept an eye wide open on Buffalo Point. So far as they could see it was not possible for the Buffalo Point interests to go under without a "kick." When would that "kick"

come, and where would it be delivered?

As for David Slosson, after his first effort, which had been the deciding factor in the future of Snake's Fall, he remained unapproachable. He was living at Peter McSwain's hotel, and occupied a bedroom and parlor, which latter served him as an office. Here he remained more or less invisible, possibly while his disfigured features underwent the process of mending, possibly nursing his wrath and plotting developments against the object of it. There was even another possible explanation. Maybe the plunge into the land market he had taken needed a great concentration of effort to completely manipulate it. Whatever it was, very little of the railroad company's agent was seen after his first setting defiant foot into the arena of affairs.

McSwain was more than interested. The hotel-keeper seemed to have become obsessed with the idea that David Slosson was the only creature worth regarding on the face of the earth. This was after he, Peter, had spent the evening of that memorable first day of real movement, in the company of Silas Mallinsbee and Gordon, out at the office at Buffalo Point.

Peter McSwain had always been an attentive landlord in his business, now he had suddenly become even more so, especially to David Slosson.

There was not a single requirement that the agent could conceive, but Peter was on hand to supply it. He was more or less at his elbow the whole time.

Then, too, Mike Callahan became a frequenter of the hotel, and even boarded there. Furthermore, a wonderful friendliness between him and Peter sprang up, which was so marked that the townspeople saw in it a combination of forces possibly foreshadowing the inauguration of a great hotel enterprise under their joint control. This also was after that first evening, when Mike Callahan had also formed one of the party at the office at Buffalo Point.

Another point of interest, had it been noticeable by the more curious and interested of the frequenters of the hotel, was, that at any time that Peter McSwain found it necessary to absent himself from the hotel, Mike was always found in his place superintending the running of the establishment.

However, these small details were merely an added puff of wind to the breath of general excitement prevailing. The one thought in the place seemed to be of those preparations necessary for the boom. Already certain contracts, long since prepared for such a happening, were put into operation. A number of buildings were started, or prepared to start. The news had been sent broadcast by interested citizens, and a fresh influx of people began and heavy orders from the various traders were placed with the wholesalers in the East.

David Slosson in his quarters was made aware of these things, but somehow they raised small enough enthusiasm in him. Truth to tell, he was far too deeply concerned with the subtleties of his own affairs.

His course of action had not been the wild plunge which Peter McSwain had suggested. On the contrary, such was his venomous nature that he had pitted his own abilities and fortune against the Buffalo Point interests in a carefully calculated scheme.

For years he had been engaged in every corner of the United States and Canada in such work as he was now doing. In the process of such work, by methods of unscrupulous grafting and blackmail he had contrived a fortune of no inconsiderable amount. So that now he was no ordinary agent. He was a "representative" of the interests he worked for. In his case the distinction was a nice one.

As the result of his encounter with Gordon he had resolved upon the crushing defeat of his adversaries by hurling the entire weight of his personal fortune into the scale. True enough he had bought without regard to price. He bought all he could in the best positions, and even in the quarters which would not meet with the railroad's approval.