Frémont looked towards Laurence Melford for support, and he could see by Melford’s indifference that Collis was probably nothing more than a talkative upstart, without funds or backers or friends in Washington. He was reassured by that. Pacific railroads were still a slightly tender subject in the Frémont household, in spite of John’s boasts about the Buffalo Trail, and he privately preferred the idea of a transcontinental train to remain as a glorious unfulfilled national fantasy. It wasn’t very comfortable for the Pathfinder’s self-esteem to think that somebody else might lay tracks where he had met only frostbite and wretched failure. Particularly when that somebody was a jaded rake like Collis Edmonds, from out of the gambling clubs and drawing-rooms of upper-class New York.

‘Take your very first obstacle,’ Frémont said, with a twitchy smile. ‘Not just a hill. The Sierra Nevada! Why, the Sierras are pretty well impassable for locomotives. The Donner Pass must be six thousand feet above sea level. And, er, the gradients are very steep. And in the places where they aren’t, there are very few straight ways. So your railroad topographer is caught, as it were, between the grades and the curves.’

Collis stepped back as a footman brought a tray of champagne. They took a glass each, and then Collis said, quite gently, ‘You’re absolutely right about the Sierras. Or at least, I’ve been told they’re almost impossible to cross. But why should my railroad not be able to negotiate them when yours apparently could?’

Frémont coughed. ‘It’s a question of expertise, Mr Edmonds. My railroad could find a way because it was expertly planned, and was not the devising of amateurs. Don’t forget my nickname. The Pathfinder!’

‘Yes,’ said Collis, in a voice that bore just the slightest trace of sarcasm.

‘Yes,’ insisted Frémont. ‘Because don’t forget that when you were still at school, I was a railroad surveyor for the Army Topographical Corps, and I ran a line from Charleston to Cincinnati. And don’t forget that I know about the ins and outs of drumming up political support in Congress. You can’t just go around building Pacific railroads however you please. You have to have the backing and funding of Washington.’

‘Of course,’ said Collis. ‘I forgot that your good wife’s father is Senator Benton, of Missouri. He’s a great supporter of Pacific railroads, isn’t he?’

‘Yes,’ said Frémont. His tone was edgy. ‘Yes, I guess you could say that.’

‘You know something,’ Collis went on, ‘it always struck me as remarkably good chance that you found the Buffalo Trail to be the most satisfactory route for a transcontinental railroad. Especially the way it runs west out of St Louis, and links up your father-in-law’s state with the Pacific Coast. Remarkably good chance.’