"Don't you see? It's so plain to me that I can't understand how you failed to realize the value--the necessity of buying my road." "Explain, please." "Gladly. The North Pass & Yukon is paying a fabulous blackmail to the river-lines to escape a ruinous rate war." "Right! It's blackmail, as you say." "Under the present agreement you handle the Dawson freight and keep out of the lower river; they take the whole Tanana valley and lower Yukon." "Correct." "Didn't it occur to you that the S.R.& N., which starts four hundred miles west of the North Pass and taps the Tanana valley, can be used to put the river steamers of that section out of business?" "Let's have a look at the map." Mr. Illis hurried into an adjoining room and returned with a huge chart which he unrolled upon the table. "To tell you the truth, I never looked at the proposition from that angle. Our people were afraid of those glaciers and the competition of the Copper Trust. They're disgusted, too, with our treatment." "The Trust is eliminated. Kyak harbor is wiped off the map, and I'm alone in the field." "How about this fellow Gordon?" "He'll be broke in a year. Incidentally, that's my trouble." "But I'm told you can't pass the glaciers." "I can. Parker says he'll have the bridge done by spring." "Then I'd bank on it. I'd believe Parker if I knew he was lying. If you both agree, I haven't the slightest doubt." "This is a bigger proposition than the North Pass, Mr. Illis. You made money out of that road, but this one will make more." He swiftly outlined the condition of affairs, even to the attitude assumed by the Heidlemanns; and Illis, knowing the speaker as he did, had no doubt that he was hearing the exact truth. "But that's not all," continued O'Neil. "The S. R. & N. is the club which will hammer your enemies into line. That's what I came to see you about. With a voice in it you can control the traffic of all central Alaska and force the San Francisco crowd to treat the N. P. & Y. fairly, thereby saving half a million a year." "It's a big undertaking. I'm not sure our crowd could swing it." "They don't have to. There's a quick profit of two million to be had by selling to the Trust next spring. You can dictate your own terms to those blackmailers to-morrow, and then make a turn-over in nine months. It doesn't matter who owns the S. R. & N. after it's completed. The steamboat men will see their profits cut. As it is now, they can make enough out of their own territory to haul freight into yours for nothing." "I dare say you'll go to them if we don't take you up, eh?" "My road has its strategic value. I must have help. If you don't come to my rescue it will mean war with your line, I dare say."