Since he was now able to argue from a personal knowledge of the Powder Can facts, David Vallory was ready to go to the railroad officials with a plea for intervention and relief. But with his own president’s visit impending he was unwilling to absent himself for the needful trip to the railroad headquarters in Brewster. In this small dilemma a bit of gossip trickling in over the construction line wire from Agorda, the point at which the new grade diverged from the old, offered an alternative. There was a right-of-way claim to be adjusted at Agorda, and the gossiping wire said that the Short Line’s legal representative had come up from Brewster on the morning train to settle with the claimants. Seizing the opportunity, David Vallory boarded an empty material train backing out of the Powder Gap yards and in due time was set down at the desolate little junction station at the foot of Mount Latigo. There was a private car standing on one of the side-tracks, and inquiry at the telegraph office developed the fact that the right-of-way claimants had already had their day in court, and Mr. Jolly was in his car, waiting for the afternoon train to come along and tow him back to Brewster. Walking down the tracks to the occupied siding, David presented himself at the door of the private car and was welcomed effusively by a round-bodied little gentleman with a face like a full moon. “Vallory, hah!--do I get the name right?--always want to get a man’s name right--demned awkward to find that you’ve been calling Smith Jones, when his name is Smith,” bubbled the welcomer. “Sit down--sit down, Mr. Vallory, and be at home. Of the Grillage Engineering Company, you say? Big job you’ve got on your hands here--tre-mendous job! How’s it coming along?” David Vallory braced himself as one stepping out of shelter into a blustering March wind. Gusty talkers had always been his pet aversion, and he seemed to have encountered the original of the type. By taking persevering advantage of the lulls between the gusts he contrived to explain his errand. The Powder Can situation was thus and so. The Grillage company had no jurisdiction, and he understood that the Short Line company, in its capacity as owner of the town site, might possibly be able to intervene on the side of law and order. How about it? “Why, hah! my dear Mr. Vallory! what do you take us for?” cackled the gusty one. “We’re not an eleemosynary institution, any more than you are! Why, hah! bless your heart, if we should go into the moral-issue business in these mountains we’d last as a railroad corporation just about as long as it would take an indignant State legislature to repeal our charter!”