A few years later Mr. Sibley conceived a plan for a telegraph line to San Francisco, and at his request a meeting was held of parties holding large interests in the Western Union Telegraph Company to consider the proposition. This was referred to a committee, who in their report pronounced the scheme utterly visionary, and indulged in considerable merriment over its absurdity, and the proposal was unanimously rejected. Mr. Sibley then got up and said, “Gentlemen, if I were not so old a man I would build the line myself.” This declaration was received with peals of laughter. Then he got mad and shouted over the din, “Damn it, gentlemen, I’ll bar the years and do it”; and now he had done it. “And this very day,” said he, “I have been solicited by merchants in New York to let them have shares in California telegraph stock at the rate of five dollars for one, men whom I had almost on my knees begged in vain for help to build the line; but they could not get the stock.” I asked him, “Don’t you have trouble from the Indians?” to which he replied: “The Indians are the best friends we have got. They believe the Great Spirit is in that wire; in fact, they know it, for they have seen him. The linemen had shown them the electric sparks. The only trouble we have had has been from the border ruffians of Missouri. We are now building a line through Iowa, around the State of Missouri.” On arriving at Buffalo I called first upon the firm of Shepard & Company, who were the largest builders of engines for the lake steamers. I did not succeed in persuading them that it would be for their advantage to add to the cost of the engines they were building, but they were very courteous and advised me to apply to the companies owning the boats. I did not make much progress with them, but the matter was left open for further consideration on my return from Chicago. An official of one of the transportation companies showed me over a new boat. I saw a valve in the steam-pipe at some little distance from the engine, and asked him what it was. He told me that was the cut-off. I asked him, “Why not place it on the boiler?” He did not see the humor of the question, but replied to me quite seriously, “Because it is a part of the engine.” At the Shepard Works I said to the gentleman who conducted me over the works, “I see you use the Corliss valve.” “Corliss valve, indeed!” said he. “Come with me.” He then showed me their own engine driving the shop, and fitted with the same valve, cutting off, of course, at a fixed point. He said to me: “That engine has been running in that very spot more than twenty years. Mr. Corliss once visited these works, and I showed him around just as I am showing you around. He was very much interested in the valves we were making, and asked me a great many questions about them. It was not very long afterwards that we began to hear from Providence about the Corliss valve.”