"
"Good strategy, my son! And certainly as a common carrier we will be
welcomed by the farmers and cattlemen along our short line. We can
handle their freight without much annoyance and perhaps at a slight
profit."
"Well, that about completes the rough outline of our plan. The next
thing to do is to start and keep right on moving, for as old Omar has
it, 'The bird of time hath but a little way to flutter,' and the
birdshot is catching up with him. We have a year in which to build
our road; if we do not hurry, the mill will have to shut down for
lack of logs, when our contract with Pennington expires."
"You forget the manager for our new corporation--the vice-president
and general manager. The man we engage must be the fastest and most
convincing talker in California; not only must he be able to tell a
lie with a straight face, but he must be able to believe his own
lies. And he must talk in millions, look millions, and act as if a
million dollars were equivalent in value to a redwood stump. In
addition, he must be a man of real ability and a person you can trust
implicitly."
"I have the very man you mention. His name is Buck Ogilvy and only
this very day I received a letter from him begging me for a small
loan. I have Buck on ice in a fifth-class San Francisco hotel.
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