Williams shook his head. "I guess we'll have to stand for the grouch, if he'll only keep busy. He has the hot end of it, trying to stop the stampede among the stockholders, and hold up the money pinch, and keep Stanton from springing any new razzle on us. We couldn't very well get along without him, right now, Colonel. With all due respect to you and the members of the board, he is the fighting backbone of the whole outfit." "He is that," was Baldwin's ready admission. "He is just what we've been calling him from the first, Bartley--a three-ply, dyed-in-the-wool wonder in his specialty. Stanton hasn't been able to make a single move yet that Smith hasn't foreseen and discounted. He is fighting now like a man in the last ditch, and I believe he thinks he is in the last ditch. The one time lately when I have had anything like a straight talk with him, he hinted at that and gave me to understand that he'd be willing to quit and take his medicine if he could hold on until Timanyoni High Line wins out." "That will be only two days more," said the engineer, saying it as one who has been counting the days in keen anxiety. And then: "Stillings told me yesterday that we're not going to get an extension of the time limit from the State authorities." "No; that little fire went out, blink, just as Smith said it would. Stanton's backers have the political pull--in the State, as well as in Washington. They're going to hold us to the letter of the law." "Let 'em do it. We'll win out yet--if we don't run up against one or both of the only two things I'm afraid of now: high water, or the railroad call down." "The water is pushing you pretty hard?" "It's touch and go every night now. A warm rain in the mountains--well, I won't say that it would tear us up, because I don't believe it would, or could; but it would delay us, world without end." "And the railroad grab? Have you heard anything more about that?" "That is what I was trying to get to town for; to talk the railroad business over with you and Stillings and Smith. They've had a gang here this morning; a bunch of engineers, with a stranger, who gave his name as Hallowell, in charge. They claimed to be verifying the old survey, and Hallowell notified me formally that our dam stood squarely in their right of way for a bridge crossing of the river." "They didn't serve any papers on you, did they?" inquired the colonel anxiously. "No; the notice was verbal. But Hallowell wound up with a threat. He said, 'You've had due warning, legally and otherwise, Mr. Williams. This is our right of way, bought and paid for, as we can prove when the matter gets into the courts. You mustn't be surprised if we take whatever steps may be necessary to recover what belongs to us.'" "Force?" queried the Missourian, with a glint of the border-fighter's fire in his eyes.