A third connection of the Southern Pacific across Texas was operated before the end of 1883 over its Mojave extension in California and the Atlantic and Pacific from the Needles to Albuquerque. The old Atlantic and Pacific had built to Vinita, gone into receivership, and come out as St. Louis and San Francisco. But its land grant had remained unused, while the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé had reached Albuquerque and had exhausted its own land grant, received through the state of Kansas and ceasing at the Colorado line. Entering Colorado, the latter had passed by Las Animas and thrown a branch along the old Santa Fé trail to Santa Fé and Albuquerque. Here it came to an agreement with the St. Louis and San Francisco, by which the two roads were to build jointly under the Atlantic and Pacific franchise, from Albuquerque into California. They built rapidly; but the Southern Pacific, not relishing a rival in its state, had made use of its charter privilege to meet the new road on the eastern boundary of California. Hence its Mojave branch was waiting at the Needles when the Atlantic and Pacific arrived there; and the latter built no farther. Upon the completion of bridges over the Colorado and Rio Grande this third eastern connection of the Southern Pacific was completed so that Pullman cars were running through into St. Louis on October 21, 1883. The names of Billings and Villard are most closely connected with the renascence of the Northern Pacific. The panic had stopped this line at the Missouri River, although it had built a few miles in Washington territory, around its new terminal city of Tacoma. The illumination of crisis times had served to discredit the route as effectively as Jay Cooke had served to boom it with advertisements in his palmy days. The existence of various land grant railways in Washington and Oregon made the revival difficult to finance since its various rivals could offer competition by both water and rail along the Columbia River, below Walla Walla. Under the presidency of Frederick Billings construction revived about 1879, from Mandan, opposite Bismarck on the Missouri, and from Wallula, at the junction of the Columbia and Snake. From these points lines were pushed over the Pend d'Oreille and Missouri divisions towards the continental divide. Below Wallula, the Columbia Valley traffic was shared by agreement with the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company, which, under the presidency of Henry Villard, owned the steamship and railway lines of Oregon. As the time for opening the through lines approached, the question of Columbia River competition increased in serious aspect. Villard solved the problem through the agency of his famous blind pool, which still stands remarkable in railway finance. With the proceeds of the pool he organized the Oregon and Transcontinental as a holding company, and purchased a controlling interest in the rival roads. With harmony of plan thus insured, he