Yet, if the road shifted enough to avoid any possibility of resting on the big Man-killer, then it would have to go through the range beyond here--would have to tunnel under the hills for a distance of three miles.

That would cost millions of dollars.

No, sir; the railroad will have to lay tracks across the Man-killer, or else it will have to stand a loss so great as to cripple the road." "Excuse me, sir," interrupted a keen, brisk, breezy-looking man, who had entered the shop only a moment or two before.

"There's a way that the railroad can get over the Man-killer." "What is that ?" asked Duff, eyeing the newcomer's reflected image in the mirror.
"The first thing to do," replied the stranger, "is to drop these boy engineers out of the game.

These youngsters came down here four days ago, looked over the scene, and promised that they could get the tracks laid-safely--for about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars." "Pooh!" jeered Duff, with a sidelong glance at young Farnsworth.
"Of course it is pooh!" laughed the stranger.