"Well, Oscar, after Megory turned our offer down, I knew there were just two things to do, and that was, to either make good or leave the country. Megory is full of a lot of fellows that have never known anything but Keya Paha county, and when the road missed Calias, and struck Megory, they took the credit for displaying a superior knowledge. I knew we were going to be the big laughing stock of the reservation, and since I did not intend to leave the country, I got to thinking. The more I pondered the matter, the more determined I became that something had to be done, and I finally made up my mind to do it." Ernest Nicholson was not the kind of a man to make idle declarations. "I went down to Omaha and saw some business friends of mine and suggested to them just what I intended to do, thence to Des Moines and got father, and again we went into Chicago and secured an appointment with Hewitt, who listened attentively to all that we had to say, and the import of this was that Megory, being over five miles east of the Tipp County line, it was difficult to drive range cattle that distance through a settled country. They are so unused to anything that resembles civilization, that ranchers hate to drive even five miles through a settled country, besides the annoyance it would habitually cause contrary farmers, when it comes to accommodating the ranchers. But that is not all. With sixty-six feet open between the wire fences, the range cattle at any time are liable to start a stampede, go right through, and a lot of damage follows. I showed him that most of the cattle men were still driving their stock north and shipping over the C.P. & St. L. Now knowing that the directors had ordered the extension of the line to get the cattle business, Hewitt looked serious, finally arose from his chair, and went over to a map that entirely covered the side of the wall and showed all the lines of the C. & R.W. He meditated a few minutes and then turned around and said: 'Go back and buy the land that has been described.'" It all seemed simple enough when it was done. By the time that the extension had been completed to Megory, the building that had been moved west of town had company in the way of many new ones, and by this time comprised quite a burg, and claimed the name of New Calias. The new was to distinguish between its old site and its present one. After Megory turned them down, Ernest had made a declaration or defiance that he would build a town on the Little Crow and its name would be Calias. CHAPTER XVIII COMES STANLEY, THE CHIEF ENGINEER Megory was still on the boom, not quite as much as the summer before, but more than it was some time later, for as yet New Calias was still regarded as a joke, until one day Stanley, the same wiry-looking individual with the black mustache and the piercing eyes, got off the stage at Megory and began to do the same work he had started west of Oristown the year before.