of battle. Vaguely he thought of himself as a general, a kind of U. S. Grant of industry. The lives and happiness of many people, he told himself, depended on the clear working of his brain. " Well," he thought, " when factories start coming to a town and it begins to grow as this town is growing no man can stop it. The fellow who thinks of individual men, little fellows with their savings invested, who may be hurt by an industrial failure, is just a weakling. Men have to face the duties life brings. The few men who see clearly have to think first of themselves. They have to save themselves in order that they may save others." *** Things kept on the stir in Bidwell and the gods of chance played into the hands of Steve Hunter. Hugh invented an apparatus for lifting a loaded coal-car off the railroad tracks, carrying it high up into the air and dumping its contents into a chute. By its use an entire car of coal could be emptied with a roaring rush into the hold of a ship or the engine room of a factory. A model of the new invention was made and a patent secured. Then Steve Hunter carried it off to New York. He received two hundred thousand dol- lars in cash for it, half of which went to Hugh. Steve's faith in the inventive genius of the Missourian was re- newed and strengthened. He looked forward with a feeling almost approaching pleasure to the time when the town would be forced to face the fact that the plant- setting machine was a failure, and the factory with its new machinery would have to be thrown on the mar- ket. He knew that his associates in the promotion of
