But Hill did more. He took that earlier system--the Northern Pacific, so closely allied to his territory--and made it hardly second in efficiency to the Great Northern itself. Both of these great railroads of the Northwest have never reached farther east than St. Paul, which Hill, with that fine sentiment which is so important a part of his nature, has been pleased to maintain as the gateway city of his own part of the land. But, while he has been a most helpful citizen of St. Paul, he has not hesitated to dominate her. A few years ago when the Metropolitan company presenting grand opera came to St. Paul, it was Hill who headed the subscription list for a guarantee--headed it with a good round figure. Three days before the opening night of the opera he walked into the passenger office of the linking railroad that he owned between the Twin Cities and Chicago. The singers were scheduled to come from Chicago. "Are you going to bring the troupe up in extra cars or in a special train?" he demanded, in his peremptory fashion. There was confusion in that office, and finally it was explained to him that a rival line, the M----, had been given the haul of the special train, as a return courtesy for having placed its advertisement on the rear cover of the opera programmes. Hill's muscles tightened. "If the troupe doesn't come up over our road," he said, "I will withdraw the opera subscription." The M---- road lost the movement of that opera company. * * * * * Hill is an advertiser, a patient, persistent and entirely consistent user of public print in every form. Of the really big men of the land he is perhaps the most accessible. His door swings quickly open to any resident of the Northwest. He is in demand at public dinners in the East and at every conceivable function in his own territory. And yet those folk of his own town who come to know Mr. Hill intimately know him rather as a great publicist, no poor musician, a painter of real ability, and a kind-hearted neighbor. His house in Summit avenue contains one of the finest art galleries west of Chicago. In this rare taste for good art he is not unlike the late Collis P. Huntington, or Sir William C. Van Horne, the dominating force of the Canadian Pacific. Hill has a real faculty not only for judging, but for executing oil paintings. It is related on good authority that, having been a member of a committee to purchase a portrait of a distinguished western railroader, he found the picture as it hung in the artist's studio in Chicago far from his liking.