"That may be so, but you see we are not engaged in the fruit-growing business. We build railroads to transport freight and passengers. We do not care what or who makes the freights we carry."

"Exactly. But surely there cannot be any reason why, if San Diego should have freights and passengers to be carried, that we should not have a railroad."

"Certainly not. If you can get it, do so, of course."

"Then, Governor, that is why we came to talk with you. _Is San Diego's death sentence irrevocable?_ Is it absolutely determined by you that San Diego is not to have a railroad?" asked Mr. Holman.

"Well, that is a hard question to answer. No, perhaps for the present San Diego will _not_ have a railroad," said he, with cool nonchalance.

"What do you call _for the present_? How long?"

"That is a harder question yet. You see, if we effect a compromise with Mr. Scott, we will keep on building the Southern Pacific until we meet his road, and then, as all the Eastern freight can come by the Southern Pacific, there will not be any necessity of another railroad."

"In other words, San Diego must be strangled. There will not be any Texas Pacific?" said Mr. Holman.

"No, not in California," the Governor calmly asserted, passing over the subject as of no consequence, if a hundred San Diegos perished by strangulation.

"By the terms of the Southern Pacific charter were you not to build to San Diego?" asked Mr. Mechlin.

"Yes; that is to say, through San Diego to the Colorado River, but that wouldn't suit us at all. Still, I think that after a while, perhaps, when we have more time, we might build to San Diego from some point of the Southern Pacific that we see is convenient," said he, as if it didn't matter what the terms of the Southern Pacific charter were, knowing that Congress would not enforce them.

"A little branch road," observed Mr. Holman.

"Yes; that is all we think is necessary for our purpose."

"Then to sum up, what we must understand is, that San Diego cannot hope to be a western terminus of a transcontinental railway; that all we may hope to get is a little branch road from some point convenient to the Southern Pacific Railroad." Mr. Stanford bowed. "And yet," Mr. Holman continued, "by right, San Diego is the terminal point of a transcontinental railway, and San Diego ought to be the shipping point for all that immense country comprising Arizona, Southern California and Northern Mexico. We are more than five hundred miles nearer to those countries than San Francisco, thus you will be making people travel six hundred miles more than is necessary to get to a shipping point on the Pacific."

"So much more business for our road," Mr. Stanford said, laughing, in a dignified way, and slightly elevating his eyebrows and shoulders, as if to indicate that really the matter hardly merited his consideration.

"But without asking or expecting you to take any sentimental or philosophic or moralizing view of our case _as a benefactor_, will you not take into consideration, as a business man, the immense benefit that there will be to yourselves to have control of the trade which will be the result of uniting Southern California with Arizona, with the Southern States and Northern Mexico, and developing those vast countries now lying useless, scarcely inhabited."

"Oh, yes; we have thought of that, I suppose, but we are too busy up here. We have too much business on hand nearer us to think of attending to those wild countries."

"Then, Governor, let some one else attend to them. We have only one life to live, and, really, much as we would like to await your pleasure, we cannot arrest the march of time. Time goes on, and as it slips by, ruin approaches us. We invested all our means in San Diego, hoping that Colonel Scott would build his railroad. Now we see plainly that unless you withdraw your opposition to Scott we are ruined men, and many more innocent people are in the same situation. So we come to you and say, if you will not let any one else build us a railroad, then do build it yourself. It will save us from ruin and give you untold wealth. We will be glad to see you make millions if we only secure for ourselves our bread and butter," said Mr. Holman.

"Our bread; never mind the butter," said Don Mariano, smiling.

"Why, you at least have plenty of cows to make butter," said Mr.

Stanford, addressing Senor Alamar, evidently wishing to avoid the subject, by turning it off.

"No, sir, I haven't. The squatters at my rancho shot and killed my cattle, so that I was obliged to send off those that I had left, and in doing this a snow-storm overtook us, and nearly all my animals perished then. The Indians will finish those which survived the snow."

"Those Indians are great thieves, I suppose?"

"Yes, sir; but not so bad to me as the squatters. The Indians kill my cattle to eat them, whereas the squatters did so to ruin me. Thus, having now lost all my cattle, I have only my land to rely upon for a living-nothing else. Hence my great anxiety to have the Texas Pacific.

My land will be very valuable if we have a railroad and our county becomes more settled; but if not, my land, like everybody else's land in our county, will be unsaleable, worthless. A railroad soon is our only salvation."

"That is bad," Mr. Stanford said, looking at his watch. "But I don't see how I can help you San Diego people. If Mr. Huntington effects some compromise with Mr. Scott, we will then build a branch road, as I said."

"And what if there is no compromise?"

"Then, of course, there will be no road for you-that is to say, no Texas Pacific in California."

"Why not, Governor? 'Live and let live,'" Don Mariano said.

"You don't seem to think of business principles. You forget that in business every one is for himself. If it is to our interest to prevent the construction of the Texas Pacific, do you suppose we will stop to consider that we might inconvenience the San Diego people?"

"It is not a matter of inconvenience-it is ruin, it is poverty, suffering, distress; perhaps despair and death," said Mr. Mechlin. "Our merchants, our farmers, all, the entire county will suffer great distress or ruin, for they have embarked their all in the hope of immediate prosperity, in the hope that emigration would come to us, should our town be the western terminus."

"You should have been more cautious; not so rash."

"How could we have foreseen that you would prevent the construction of the Texas Pacific?"

"Easily. By studying business principles; by perceiving it would be to our interest to prevent it."

"We never thought, and do not think now, that it is to your interest to prevent it. But even if we had thought so, we would not have supposed that you would attempt it," Mr. Mechlin replied.

"Why not?"

"Because it would have seemed to us impossible that you could have succeeded."

"Why impossible?"

"Because we would have thought that the American people would interfere; that Congress would respect the rights of the Southern people."

Mr. Stanford laughed, saying: "The American people mind their business, and know better than to interfere with ours. All I can tell you, gentlemen, is that if Mr. Scott does not agree to come no further than the Colorado River, he shall not be able to get the interest of his bonds guaranteed by our Government, which means that he will not have money to build his road-no Congressional aid at all."

"You seem very sure of Congress?"

"I am sure of what I say."

"But, Governor, the Government helped you to build your roads, why don't you let it help ours?"

"Who told you that?" said he, with an angry expression, like a dark shadow passing over his face. "Who told you that the Government helped us to build the Southern Pacific?"

"The Government gave you a grant of many millions of acres to help build it, as the Central Pacific was constructed with Government subsidies, and the earning of the Central Pacific were used to construct the Southern Pacific, it follows that you were helped by the Government to build both," said Mr. Holman.

"You are talking of something you know nothing about. The help the Government gave us was to guarantee the interest of our bonds. We accepted that help, because we knew that, as private individuals, we might not command the credit necessary to place our bonds in the market, that's all. As for the land subsidy, we will pay every cent of its price with our services. We do not ask of the Government to give us anything gratis. We will give value received for everything."

"That is certainly a very ingenious view to take of the whole matter, and so viewing it, of course the killing of the Texas Pacific seems justifiable to you," said Mr. Mechlin.

"Carlyle, in your place, would not view your position like that, Governor," said Don Mariano, rising.

"Nor Herbert Spencer, either. His ideas of what you call business principles are different," added Mr. Holman.

"Pray, what would those great thinkers say?"

"Carlyle would think you are much to blame for flinging away a magnificent chance to be great and heroic. Carlyle worships heroes, but his idea of heroism is not only applicable to warriors and conquerors, but to any one capable of rising to a high plane of thought or heroic endeavor, doing acts which require great self-denial for our fellow-beings, for humanity's sake, with no view or expectation of reward in money," Mr. Mechlin said.