How a corporation left in the panic year 1873 in a condition of hopeless bankruptcy was resuscitated and put into vigorous life is a story which the reader will be interested in. The “Division roads,” the main line from St. Paul to Breckenridge and the branch to St. Cloud, had gone into a receiver’s hands in August, 1873. The “Extensions” to St. Vincent and Brainerd, of which 140 miles in detached portions had been built, remained in the control of the stockholders till October, 1876, when they were turned over to trustees of the bondholders, according to the terms of the company’s contract with them. These trustees employed as their general manager the same gentleman who for three years had been receiver of the Division roads. The stockholders having given over the task of completing the roads and retaining ownership, it remained for the bondholders to decide between putting in several more millions of dollars to complete and equip the roads, or giving up and letting the property go to sale under pending foreclosure proceedings. Had they taken the former course and selected honest and capable agents, they would have not merely escaped great losses but realized large profits. The greater portion of the bonds of the system, over $17,000,000, were owned in Holland, and they had been placed by their holders in the hands of a syndicate of Dutch bankers to be controlled for the common interest. The drift of affairs had been watched by three deeply interested persons. Donald A. Smith, residing at Winnipeg and representing that city in the Dominion parliament, was chief commissioner of the Hudson’s Bay Company. That company had many millions of acres of land in Manitoba, and was desirous to obtain railroad connections through Minnesota with the outside world. He particularly desired the completion of the St. Vincent Extension. Another was Norman W. Kittson, an old associate of Sibley in the fur-trade and politics, still interested in the Red River trade. The third was James J. Hill, who had come from Canada to Minnesota as a boy of eighteen in 1856. He had been in Mr. Kittson’s employ in his Red River business, had built up a rival line of steamboats and barges, and made it for Mr. Kittson’s interest to take him into partnership. These three men had journeyed up and down the Red River till they knew every foot of the stream and the lands drained by it. Early in 1874 Mr. Smith asked Messrs. Kittson and Hill to collect for him all the information accessible in regard to the St. Paul and Pacific system, its lines completed or unfinished, its terminals, equipment, land grants, and in particular the stock and bonds. The consultations which followed were fruitless. “There seemed no way to get in.”