after all? Had Cardigan in some mysterious manner managed to borrow
enough money to parallel the Laguna Grande Lumber Company's logging-
road, and was he disguising it as a common carrier?

The trail was growing hot; the Colonel mopped his brow and
concentrated further. If the N. C. O. was really going to start
operations, in order to move its material from the Cardigan dock to
the scene of operations it would have to cut his (the Colonel's)
tracks somewhere on Water Street. Damnation! That was it. They were
trying to slip one over on him. They were planning to get a jump-
crossing in before he should awake to the situation; they were
planning, too, to have the city council slip through the franchise
when nobody was looking, and once the crossing should be in, they
could laugh at Colonel Pennington!

"The scoundrels!" he murmured. "I'm on to them! Cardigan is playing
the game with them. That's why he bought those rails from the old
Laurel Creek spur! Oh, the sly young fox--quoting that portion of our
hauling contract which stipulates that all spurs and extensions of my
road, once it enters Cardigan's lands, must be made at Cardigan's
expense! And all to fool me into thinking he wanted those rails for
an extension of his logging-system. Oh, what a blithering idiot I
have been! However, it's not too late yet. Poundstone is coming over
to dinner Thursday night, and I'll wring the swine dry before he
leaves the house. And as for those rails Cardigan managed to
hornswoggle me out of--"

He seized the telephone and fairly shouted to his exchange operator
to get his woods-foreman Jules Rondeau on the line.