He stood up and walked slowly back to the piano. He raised the lid once more and began to play with one hand, a lyrical, mellifluous melody. ‘Once you’ve surveyed the route through the Sierra Nevada,’ he continued, ‘I can put the squeeze on quite a number of Congressmen and Senators to support you. Democrats and Republicans, both. You’d be surprised how many of them owe me favours, of one sort or another.’

He played, and Collis listened. Theodore was beginning to sober up, and he kept looking at Collis anxiously. Collis lifted a finger as a warning to Theodore to hold his peace. This was bear country, where a man who made the wrong move too quickly could get himself nastily gnawed.

‘Of course, you’ll need money of your own,’ Senator Stride explained. ‘There are one or two less scrupulous Representatives who will only cast a vote for gold. But once you’ve established with surveys that you can lay down a railroad where you claim you can lay down a railroad, then I can start to get things moving. I can get you Congressional letters of support, and you can take the letters back to California and raise more money on the strength of them, and then you can bring the money back here to Washington and buy more support, and so on. Congress is like a fountain of money. The more money you pour into it, the more pours out.’

‘It could take years to survey the route properly,’ said Theodore.

‘That doesn’t matter to me. In fact, as far as I’m concerned, the longer you take, the better. I want to see the Southern route laid first, because I’ve already invested a sizeable amount of money in it, and I believe that it’s going to keep the South strong. Jeff Davis tells me they should have the first topographical reports ready in two years. So take three or four years, if you need them. Take five.’

Theodore bit his lip. ‘Two years isn’t long,’ he said worriedly.

‘No, it isn’t, as these things go,’ said Senator Stride. ‘And that’s partly why I’ve made you the offer I have. I know the southern railroad will be laid down first, because it’s way ahead already; but unlike some of my colleagues in the Senate, I recognise that a northern route will eventually have to come.’

He played a trickly little coda, and then looked up at them, his eyes dark. ‘There are some who say this country will go to war. Well, I think that’s bull. I hate the way the damned Yankees have milked the South as much as anyone. But business is business, and this country has to learn to get along with itself. I think that building a southern-route railroad first and then a northern-route railroad about five or six years later — well, that should help to even up the political balance.’