Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 2.djvu/310

 bulk three times and the use of three sets of boats. It was to form a new company, which should absorb both the Oregon Steamship Company and the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, and which should be provided with capital enough to build a narrow-gauge railroad from the Lower Cascades up the left bank to a connection near the mouth of the Snake River with the existing narrow-gauge road Jto the town of Walla Walla. This railroad would secure, in his judgment, by the safe occupancy of the Columbia Valley, the only outlet of eastern Oregon and Washington to the Pacific, against both river and railroad competition—a far more important matter than the economical transportation of wheat.

After days of negotiation, it was agreed that the new company should be organized under the name of the Oregon Railway & Navigation Company, with a capital of $6,000,000 stock, and issue $6,000,000 six per cent. bonds. Mr. Villard secured for $100,000 cash an option till October 1, to call for 40,320 Navigation shares at par, paying for them fifty per cent. in cash, twenty per cent. in the bonds, and thirty per cent. in the stock of the new company. He was allowed $1,000,000 stock and $1,200,000 in bonds for the acquisition of all the Oregon steamship properties and for a fourth large new steamer; $2,000,000 stock and $2,500,000 bonds to raise the cash required for Ainsworth and friends, leaving $1,800,000 stock and $1,500,000 bonds for the purchase of the thirty-five miles of the Walla Walla railroad and the construction of the new railroad along the Columbia. For $10,000 he obtained an option, also till October 1, to buy the Walla Walla line at a satisfactory price.

The Navigation people did not think it possible for Mr. Villard to raise so much cash, and considered him a reckless fool to put up the stake of $100,000, which they felt certain of pocketing. He left Portland at the end of May in a high state of elation at what he had achieved, and reached New York on June 8. The scheme he brought with him differed from that agreed on with the Union Pacific people;