It wasn't
long before I was foreman of a section; next I became a division
superintendent, and after I had stuck to that for a time I was
appointed superintendent of the Kansas & Arizona Railroad, a line
extending from Trinidad in Kansas to The Needles in Arizona, tapping
the Missouri Western System at the first place, and the Great Southern
at the other. With both lines we had important traffic agreements,
as well as the closest relations, which sometimes were a little
difficult, as the two roads were anything but friendly, and we had
directors of each on the K. & A. board, in which they fought like
cats. Indeed, it could only be a question of time when one would
oust the other and then absorb my road. My headquarters were at
Albuquerque, in New Mexico, and it was there, in October, 1890, that
I received the communication which was the beginning of all that
followed.
This initial factor was a letter from the president of the Missouri
Western, telling me that their first vice-president, Mr. Cullen (who
was also a director of my road), was coming out to attend the annual
election of the K. & A., which under our charter had to be held in Ash
Fork, Arizona. A second paragraph told me that Mr. Cullen's family
accompanied him, and that they all wished to visit the Grand Canon of
the Colorado on their way. Finally the president wrote that the
party travelled in his own private car, and asked me to make myself
generally useful to them. Having become quite hardened to just such
demands, at the proper date I ordered my superintendent's car on to
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