In his outspoken moments, which were rare, he was given to railing
against the fate which had made him a round peg in a square hole; a
technical engineer and a man of action, when his earlier tastes and
inclinations had drawn him in other directions. But the temperamental
qualities; the niceties, the exactness, the thoroughness, which, finding
no outlet in an artistic calling, had made him a master in his unchosen
profession, were well known to Mr. Stuart Ford, first vice-president of
the Pacific Southwestern System. And, it was largely for the sake of
these qualities that Ford locked his hands over one knee and spoke as a
man and a comrade.
"Let me tell you, Howard--you've no idea what a savage fight we've had
in New York, absorbing these same demoralized three hundred miles. You
know why we were obliged to have them. If the Transcontinental had
beaten us, it meant that our competitor would build over here from
Jack's Canyon, divide the Copah business with us, and have a line three
hundred miles nearer to the Nevada gold-fields than ours.
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