The Act of 1864 gave the Sierra Pacific and the Union Pacific between them the potential of becoming the largest private landowners in the country. They would eventually own more than twenty-million acres — more than Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont all put together. It also gave them the ready money to start laying track.

Congressman Watkins came to the Capitol Hotel the night the act was signed and handed Collis an envelope.

‘You needn’t open it,’ he said, with a fat and satisfied smile. ‘It’s just an official confirmation that the Sierras rise where the state geologist of California alleges that they rise. The President himself has agreed to it.’

‘Well,’ said Collis, ‘you must let me buy you a drink.’

Congressman Watkins raised his hands, as if to ask how he could possibly refuse. ‘It seems as if my pertinacity and Abraham’s faith has moved mountains,’ he said.

Collis telegraphed Andy Hunt in San Francisco at once. He was to use Collis’s credit with the San Francisco Banking Trust to lay as much extra track as he could. The Governor McCormick was already running between Sacramento and Roseville for the one-way fare of $1.85 — now Collis wanted to push it ahead as quickly as possible to qualify for all the federal loan money he could get.

He took the first steamer back to Panama. The war was going badly for the Union, and he was lucky to get away so quickly. Thomas Durant had breakfast with him the morning he left, and they shook hands on the steps of the Capitol Hotel.

‘We may meet again,’ said Durant. ‘Out there somewhere, on the plains, or on the Great Basin, wherever our two railroads conjoin. I hope by then that both of us will be happier and richer men.’

The Panama steamer caught the tail end of a hurricane off Florida, and Collis was ill for two days. At Aspinwall, the train was delayed yet again, and he had to spend three days in a seedy hotel, shivering with influenza, nausea, impatience, and the effects of unlimited Kentucky bourbon. He thought of Theodore, dead of the yellow fever, and he wondered if God intended to mete out the same punishment to him.

But late in May, he arrived back in San Francisco, and immediately called on Andy Hunt to find out how the railroad was going. Andy’s office was closed and locked, but he found Andy in the Bank Exchange Saloon, drinking with Sam Lewis and Lloyd Wintle. The saloon was thick with smoke and noise, although several conversations quieted and several eyebrows were raised when Collis walked in. News of the revised Railroad Act had reached San Francisco on the day that it was signed, and more than half of the regulars were uncomfortably remembering that they had wagered Collis two or three thousand dollars or more that he couldn’t cross the Sierra by train.

‘Sam, Lloyd, how are you?’ said Collis, shaking their hands.