The years immediately following the issue of the second mortgage and the completion of the road were not uneventful, although it is not necessary to describe them at length. The insolvency of the Oregon & Transcontinental, and continued disputes between it and the Northern Pacific over an adjustment of the two companies’ financial relations, made some other means of binding the Oregon Railway & Navigation with the Northern Pacific seem advisable, and a lease of the former company to the latter was discussed. In July, 1884, an arrangement was said to have been actually arrived at on the basis of a guarantee by the Northern Pacific of 6 per cent on the Navigation stock for two years, 7 per cent for three years, and 8 per cent in perpetuity; but the interest was very high, and an injunction helped to prevent a consummation at the time. In 1885 the idea of a joint lease by the Northern Pacific and Union Pacific railroad companies came to the front. The Oregon Railway & Navigation was serving as the Northwestern outlet for both of these roads, and such a contract would have greatly simplified the competitive situation, besides taking away from the Navigation Company the power to exact an excessive pro-rate because of its double connection.[566] During the next few years negotiations were almost constantly in progress. In 1887, however, the Navigation Company was leased to the Oregon Short Line with a Union Pacific guarantee; and upon the failure of renewed negotiations Mr. Villard, who was again in power, sold the Oregon & Transcontinental Company’s holdings of Oregon Railway & Navigation Company stock at a “satisfactory” price. This consummation was less unfavorable to the Northern Pacific because of its completion of a line of its own to the Pacific coast.[567] From now on the Oregon & Transcontinental Company existed only as a means of obtaining financial assistance for the Northern Pacific, and for making more easy the control of that company’s stock.[568]