In spite of the optimistic view of the man who said that Jefferson Worth could build a railroad for Barba and the South Central District whenever he wished, there was no little disappointment expressed in Worth's town when it became known that the Company town was to have the road.

When the grading camps had returned to their former locations and the construction train drew every day nearer Kingston, with the time approaching when regular trains with passengers and freight would ply to and from the Company town, the feeling of discontent in Barba grew. It even came to be generally understood throughout the Basin that the whole movement had been cleverly planned by Jefferson Worth to force The King's Basin Land and Irrigation Company to make a large contribution to the railroad builder's personal fortune. The people sensed something in the whole transaction that they could not clearly grasp, an intangible, mysterious something, as great as it was indefinite. They felt blindly that they were being used without their consent in a game played by these master financiers, and they resented being sacrificed as dumb pawns in a move, the purpose of which they could not know.

In the meantime, while the people were charging him with selling them out to gain his own ends, the man whose purpose was known only to himself was putting into his enterprise the last dollar of his resources, and another flood season with its appalling danger was at hand.

Because his laborers on the railroad were not as the men who built the South Central canals, working for more than their day's wage, and because, though no one knew it, Jefferson Worth's finances were so nearly exhausted, work on the road, as on the Company project, was discontinued for the summer months, to be resumed in the fall-- perhaps.

Barbara again refused to leave her father and in the close companionship and full understanding of his daughter, the man, who lived so much alone behind his gray mask, found inspiration and strength.

The telephone now connected the heading at the river intake with Kingston, and every hour of those hot days and nights Jefferson Worth listened for a call from Willard Holmes, who also had refused to leave his work, while three of the fastest saddle horses in the Basin were stabled with El Capitan. Texas, Abe and Pablo were ready to ride at an instant's notice to rally the pioneers, who were developing their ranches, building their homes and planning their future unconscious of the real danger that hung over them.

Vague rumors of the dangerous condition of the Company structures floated about and there were not wanting prophecies of disaster. But not one in a hundred of the settlers had even visited the intake at the river, or if they had, what could they judge of conditions there? The settlers were ranchers, not civil engineers. The Company zanjeros turned the water into their ditches when they asked for it; their crops, growing marvelously in the rich soil, demanded constant attention; they had neither time, inclination nor ability to investigate every flying rumor. As for the prophets of evil, only confirmed optimists can reclaim a desert or settle a new country and the croakers received little attention. Besides, the great, all- powerful Company would surely protect its own interests and, in protecting its own, would protect the interests of the settlers. It was the business of the Company engineers to look after the river. The ranchers were looking after the ranches.

Thus another summer went by and the great river, save for the small toll taken by those who were reclaiming the desert it had created in the ages of long ago, continued on its way to the sea. Its time was not yet.

With the return of the cooler weather and the still further increase in the volume of new life that continued to pour into the Basin from the great world outside, work on the railroad was begun again, but Jefferson Worth knew that the first pay day would mark the end. He was as a man with his back to a wall, fighting bravely to the last blow, and he stood alone.

Among the hundreds of pioneers with whom Worth had elected--as he had told Abe Lee the night of his arrival in Kingston--to take a chance, there was not one to take a chance with him now. If he lost he would lose alone, for those who had built upon the work that he had done would not suffer through his defeat. Had any of them known the situation they could have done nothing to help him. But no one knew, and this was the financier's one desperate chance--that no one did know, not even Barbara.

With his capital exhausted and no resources upon which he could realize, he went ahead with the work apparently with the confidence of one with millions behind him. It was, in the language of the West, all a bluff. But it was a magnificent bluff.

Two weeks of the month were gone when a telegram from the high official of the S. & C. summoned him to the city.

The railroad man, in the secrecy of his private office, greeted the promoter with his usual, "Hello, Jeff. I see The King's Basin is still on the map."

Jefferson Worth smiled, then, as the official's eyes were fixed upon his face in a way that he understood, he retreated behind his mask. "Things are going very well," he answered.

"Working full gangs on that railroad of yours?"

"We have taken on all the men we can handle. We will be ready for that last lot of steel in another two weeks."

The other lay back in his chair and laughed with hearty admiration and regard. "Jeff, you are a wonder! How long do you suppose it would take Greenfield to start something with your creditors if he knew what I know?"

Not a line of Jefferson Worth's face changed, only his nervous fingers caressed his chin and the railroad man, noting the familiar signal, smiled again. Then leaning forward in his chair he said: "Jeff, I have been keeping my eye on you ever since those days when our line was building into Rubio City and you handled the right-of- way for us. I have never caught you in a blunder yet. When it comes to sizing up a proposition all around I don't believe you have an equal. Now look here." With a quick movement he took a paper from a pigeon-hole in his desk and laid it before the other. The paper was a carefully tabulated statement of Jefferson Worth's financial condition at that moment. In vain the official tried to see behind that gray mask.

"Well." The word was absolutely colorless.

"Well!" repeated the other savagely, "what I want to know is this: why in hell you are bucking Greenfield and his crowd to such a limit?"

"Because," said Jefferson Worth carefully, "I believe in the future of The King's Basin project, providing--" he paused.

"Providing what?"

"Providing someone bucks Greenfield to the limit."

In one instantaneous flash, the man whose clear brain directed thousands of miles of a great railroad system caught a glimpse of the real Jefferson Worth--the Jefferson Worth who was not, as the railroad man had himself said, "doing it all for a dinky little power plant."

"Jeff," he said slowly, "when you asked us to build a branch line into the Basin I told you that we couldn't do it. As I said then, we are not in the insurance business. A railroad's business depends upon the actual development of a country, not upon backing promoters who open up a new country simply as a speculative proposition. You say you believe in the future of The King's Basin country providing some one bucks Greenfield and you are sure giving him a run for his money. But you have reached the end of your pile and I know it. Now, I have been taking up this matter with our people and we are ready to take a chance on your judgment. Suppose we take over your road as it stands at a fair price--what would be your next move? Get out and leave us in the insurance business?"

"I would build a line from Kingston to Barba, tapping the South Central District, which is the richest section of the Basin," came the instant reply.

"Good! But perhaps you don't want to sell the line you ............