The railroad did little business in that part of the country that S.Behrman did not supervise, from the consignment of a shipment of wheat to the management of a damage suit, or even to the repair and maintenance of the right of way.

During the time when the ranchers of the county were fighting the grain-rate case, S.Behrman had been much in evidence in and about the San Francisco court rooms and the lobby of the legislature in Sacramento.

He had returned to Bonneville only recently, a decision adverse to the ranchers being foreseen.

The position he occupied on the salary list of the Pacific and Southwestern could not readily be defined, for he was neither freight agent, passenger agent, attorney, real-estate broker, nor political servant, though his influence in all these offices was undoubted and enormous.

But for all that, the ranchers about Bonneville knew whom to look to as a source of trouble.