At last, a short branch of steel shot off from Pendleton's Pacific Division, grew daily longer and longer, pushed across the level earth-banks, the rows of driven tree-trunks, and the spun steel cobwebs, through the dark pits, nearer and nearer to Lattimore, and at last entered the beleaguered city, amid rejoicings of the populace. Most of whom knew but vaguely the facts of either siege or deliverance; but who shouted, and tossed their caps, and blew the horns and beat the drums, because the _Herald_ in a double-leaded editorial assured them that this was _the_ event for which Lattimore had waited to be raised to complete parity with her envious rivals. Furthermore, Captain Tolliver, magniloquently enthusiastic, took charge of the cheering, artillery, and band-music, and made a tumultuous success of it. "He told me," said Giddings, "that when the people of the North can be brought for a moment into that subjection which is proper for the masses, 'they make devilish good troops, suh, devilish good troops!'" And so it also happened that Mr. Elkins found himself the president of a real railway, with all the perquisites that go therewith. Among these being the power to establish town-sites and give them names. The former function was exercised according to the principles usually governing town-site companies, and with ends purely financial in view. The latter was elevated to the dignity of a ceremony. The rails were scarcely laid, when President Elkins invited a choice company to go with him over the line and attend the christening of the stations. He convinced the rest of us of the wisdom of this, by showing us that it would awaken local interest along the line, and prepare the way for the auction sales of lots the next week. "It's advertising of the choicest kind," said he. "Giddings will sow it far and wide in the press dispatches, and it will attract attention; and attention is what we want. We'll start early, run to the station Pendleton has called Elkins Junction, at the end of the line, lie over for a couple of hours, and come home, bestowing names as we come. Help me select the party, and we'll consider it settled."