Still, the railroad men could not see the advisability of investing twenty-five thousand dollars or more--for Pullman's plans grew in expensiveness all the time--in cars, and they steadfastly turned down his requests that they give him orders to build cars and buy the cars when they were finished. This led him to determine to build the cars and rent them. Investors did not flock to him, but he got together enough to start operations, and the five cars he already had on the rail were earning money. During the first year he did not add any new cars, but the next year he put several out, and they were a huge success--the company that year earning two hundred and eighty thousand dollars. The big roads centering in Chicago were pushing out in all directions. The transcontinental roads were open for business. The ending of the Civil War had paved the way to railroad extension in the South. All these facts gave new opportunities for Pullman's business. In the second year the company earned still larger profits, reaching the four-hundred-thousand-dollar mark. Its income went on steadily up to a million dollars, and still on until it passed beyond twenty millions. Before this stage was attained, however, Pullman found that his factory had outgrown its Chicago quarters, and all the surrounding land was held at prohibitive prices. He determined to break away from the city, so he went out several miles, and for eight hundred thousand dollars purchased a thirty-five-hundred-acre tract. Here he built the city of Pullman, raising the ground from the level of the prairie, so that the mistake Chicago had made would not be repeated, and planning everything on such a scale that no future changes were necessary. For a year Pullman had four thousand men constantly employed in raising the ground, laying out streets, and building shops and residences. When they finished he was ready for the seven thousand employees engaged in building the Pullman cars. COLT AND HIS REVOLVER. Not Until It Had Been Used in Two Wars Was Inventor Able to Demonstrate Its Effectiveness. Samuel Colt, whose revolver was the pioneer of all practical rapid-fire arms, was ten years old when he was taken out of school and put to work in his father's silk and woolen mill in Hartford, Connecticut. At fourteen he was doing a man's work in the dyeing department of the establishment, but he wasn't getting a man's pay, for his father did not think it worth while to pay money to a member of the family. So in 1828, when he was fourteen, Samuel Colt ran away to sea, shipping on an India merchantman.