EXACTING ROYAL TRIBUTE.
In spite of the optimistic view of the man who said that Jefferson
Worth could build a railroad for Barba and the South Central District
whenever he wished, there was no little disappointment expressed in
Worth's town when it became known that the Company town was to have the
road.
When the grading camps had returned to their former locations and the
construction train drew every day nearer Kingston, with the time
approaching when regular trains with passengers and freight would ply
to and from the Company town, the feeling of discontent in Barba grew.
It even came to be generally understood throughout the Basin that the
whole movement had been cleverly planned by Jefferson Worth to force
The King's Basin Land and Irrigation Company to make a large
contribution to the railroad builder's personal fortune. The people
sensed something in the whole transaction that they could not clearly
grasp, an intangible, mysterious something, as great as it was
indefinite. They felt blindly that they were being used without their
consent in a game played by these master financiers, and they resented
being sacrificed as dumb pawns in a move, the purpose of which they
could not know.
In the meantime, while the people were charging him with selling them
out to gain his own ends, the man whose purpose was known only to
himself was putting into his enterprise the last dollar of his
resources, and another flood season with its appalling danger was at
hand.
Because his laborers on the railroad were not as the men who built the
South Central canals, working for more than their day's wage, and
because, though no one knew it, Jefferson Worth's finances were so
nearly exhausted, work on the road, as on the Company project, was
discontinued for the summer months, to be resumed in the fall--perhaps.
Barbara again refused to leave her father and in the close
companionship and full understanding of his daughter, the man, who
lived so much alone behind his gray mask, found inspiration and
strength.
The telephone now connected the heading at the river intake with
Kingston, and every hour of those hot days and nights Jefferson Worth
listened for a call from Willard Holmes, who also had refused to leave
his work, while three of the fastest saddle horses in the Basin were
stabled with El Capitan. Texas, Abe and Pablo were ready to ride at an
instant's notice to rally the pioneers, who were developing their
ranches, building their homes and planning their future unconscious of
the real danger that hung over them.
Vague rumors of the dangerous condition of the Company structures
floated about and there were not wanting prophecies of disaster. But
not one in a hundred of the settlers had even visited the intake at the
river, or if they had, what could they judge of conditions there? The
settlers were ranchers, not civil engineers. The Company zanjeros
turned the water into their ditches when they asked for it; their
crops, growing marvelously in the rich soil, demanded constant
attention; they had neither time, inclination nor ability to
investigate every flying rumor. As for the prophets of evil, only
confirmed optimists can reclaim a desert or settle a new country and
the croakers received little attention. Besides, the great,
all-powerful Company would surely protect its own interests and, in
protecting its own, would protect the interests of the settlers. It was
the business of the Company engineers to look after the river. The
ranchers were looking after the ranches.
Thus another summer went by and the great river, save for the small
toll taken by those who were reclaiming the desert it had created in
the ages of long ago, continued on its way to the sea. Its time was not
yet.
With the return of the cooler weather and the still further increase in
the volume of new life that continued to pour into the Basin from the
great world outside, work on the railroad was begun again, but
Jefferson Worth knew that the first pay day would mark the end. He was
as a man with his back to a wall, fighting bravely to the last blow,
and he stood alone.
Among the hundreds of pioneers with whom Worth had elected--as he had
told Abe Lee the night of his arrival in Kingston--to take a chance,
there was not one to take a chance with him now. If he lost he would
lose alone, for those who had built upon the work that he had done
would not suffer through his defeat. Had any of them known the
situation they could have done nothing to help him. But no one knew,
and this was the financier's one desperate chance--that no one did
know, not even Barbara.
With his capital exhausted and no resources upon which he could
realize, he went ahead with the work apparently with the confidence of
one with millions behind him. It was, in the language of the West, all
a bluff. But it was a magnificent bluff.
Two weeks of the month were gone when a telegram from the high official
of the S. & C. summoned him to the city.
The railroad man, in the secrecy of his private office, greeted the
promoter with his usual, "Hello, Jeff. I see The King's Basin is still
on the map."
Jefferson Worth smiled, then, as the official's eyes were fixed upon
his face in a way that he understood, he retreated behind his mask.
"Things are going very well," he answered.
"Working full gangs on that railroad of yours?"
"We have taken on all the men we can handle. We will be ready for that
last lot of steel in another two weeks."
The other lay back in his chair and laughed with hearty admiration and
regard. "Jeff, you are a wonder! How long do you suppose it would take
Greenfield to start something with your creditors if he knew what I
know?"
Not a line of Jefferson Worth's face changed, only his nervous fingers
caressed his chin and the railroad man, noting the familiar signal,
smiled again. Then leaning forward in his chair he said: "Jeff, I have
been keeping my eye on you ever since those days when our line was
building into Rubio City and you handled the right-of-way for us. I
have never caught you in a blunder yet. When it comes to sizing up a
proposition all around I don't believe you have an equal. Now look
here." With a quick movement he took a paper from a pigeon-hole in his
desk and laid it before the other. The paper was a carefully tabulated
statement of Jefferson Worth's financial condition at that moment. In
vain the official tried to see behind that gray mask.
"Well." The word was absolutely colorless.
"Well!" repeated the other savagely, "what I want to know is this: why
in hell you are bucking Greenfield and his crowd to such a limit?"
"Because," said Jefferson Worth carefully, "I believe in the future of
The King's Basin project, providing--" he paused.
"Providing what?"
"Providing someone bucks Greenfield to the limit."
In one instantaneous flash, the man whose clear brain directed
thousands of miles of a great railroad system caught a glimpse of the
real Jefferson Worth--the Jefferson Worth who was not, as the railroad
man had himself said, "doing it all for a dinky little power plant."
"Jeff," he said slowly, "when you asked us to build a branch line into
the Basin I told you that we couldn't do it. As I said then, we are not
in the insurance business. A railroad's business depends upon the
actual development of a country, not upon backing promoters who open up
a new country simply as a speculative proposition. You say you believe
in the future of The King's Basin country providing some one bucks
Greenfield and you are sure giving him a run for his money. But you
have reached the end of your pile and I know it. Now, I have been
taking up this matter with our people and we are ready to take a chance
on your judgment. Suppose we take over your road as it stands at a fair
price--what would be your next move? Get out and leave us in the
insurance business?"
"I would build a line from Kingston to Barba, tapping the South Central
District, which is the richest section of the Basin," came the instant
reply.
"Good! But perhaps you don't want to sell the line you are building to
the S. & C.," he suggested with a smile.
"I figured that you would be ready to make me a proposition about the
time I had it in shape for the last shipment of steel."
Worth's bluff had won.
The railroad man said again solemnly: "Jeff, you are a wonder!"
With the passing of his nearly completed railroad into the hands of the
S. & C. Jefferson Worth began at once to arrange for the building of
the other line from Barba to Kingston. This new road, to be known as
the King's Basin Central, connecting with what was now the S. & C.,
would give an outlet to the rich South Central District, while the
Southwestern and Continental Company announced that its new branch
would not stop at Kingston but would build on south to Frontera.
With a main line branch of a trans-continental railroad building
straight through the heart of the new country, and their town located
just half way between the junction and the terminal, The King's Basin
Land and Irrigation Company saw the value of their property increased
many times. The day was not far distant now when every quarter section
of the desert land would be filed on by eager settlers, and the once
barren waste would rapidly give place to the fertile fields of the
ranchers, every foot of which should yield tribute to James Greenfield
and his associates. But the reclamation of the desert opened many
avenues for profit other than the irrigation system.
From these also the Company, obeying the law of Good Business, had
planned to take toll, but the field for investment most closely allied
with the fields of the ranchers, and therefore keeping even pace with
the increasing wealth of the new country, had been preempted by
Jefferson Worth. The Company desired to add to their holdings those
enterprises that had come to be known as the Worth interests. They had
failed repeatedly to bring about a union of forces. Their only recourse
then was to force the independent operator to sell to them or to
eliminate him from The King's Basin project. To this end Greenfield and
Burk watched and planned on the well known principle that whatever
Jefferson Worth wanted was bad for the Company, until the day when the
interests of Worth and those of The King's Basin Land and Irrigation
Company should be the same or Jefferson Worth should be no longer a
factor in the new country.
While the Worth enterprises were firmly established in all the centers
of activity in the Basin, the Company knew that his largest interests
were in Barba and the South Central District. Worth must have railroad
connections with the S. & C. line before he could even begin to realize
on his largest investments. There was every reason why he should desire
to make Kingston the junction point of the road he was now forced to
build. James Greenfield was not backward in letting Worth understand
that he would need to pay well for a right-of-way with terminal
facilities in the Company town.
For two weeks Jefferson Worth tried to bring the Company president to
some reasonable settlement but his efforts only served to make
Greenfield more determined to exact royal tribute. "I tell you," said
the president triumphantly to his Manager, "he's forced to build that
line or go to smash with his town and district. No one will settle away
off there from the railroad as long as they can locate in reach of
Kingston or Frontera, and he has got to connect with the S. & C. branch
at Kingston, for we are the only place between the main line and the
terminal."
When Mr. Worth reminded them that the proposed road would benefit
Kingston and that in view of its value to their town it would be only
just for them to give him the privileges he needed but for which he was
quite ready to pay a reasonable price, Greenfield declared that his
Company had already given Worth quite enough. Of course, if they could
find some basis upon which to unite their interests that would be
another matter.
Then the evening mail brought to Mr. Worth certain legal looking papers
and the next morning he called again upon Mr. Greenfield. In a spring
wagon in front of the Company office Texas Joe and Abe Lee waited with
a prosperous looking stranger who also had arrived the evening before.
"Mr. Greenfield, I have come for your final answer on this railroad
deal."
On Greenfield's face there was a smile of satisfaction and triumph.
There were several reasons why he enjoyed seeing Jefferson Worth in a
corner. "I am ready to listen to any other proposition you have to
make, Mr. Worth."
"You have the only proposition I shall make."
"Really, I fear that we can do nothing this morning."
The visitor turned on his heel and left the office.
Later, in describing the interview to Willard Holmes, Burk commented
thoughtfully: "I very much fear your festive Uncle Jim played the game
a little too fine. You can take some things and most men for granted;
but a railroad, now, and Jefferson Worth----" he shifted his cigar to
the corner of his mouth and cocked his head in the opposite direction.
"I think, Willard, that something is going to happen."
What happened was this: When Jefferson Worth left the Company's office
he stepped into the waiting rig beside the stranger. "Go ahead, Abe,"
he said. Then the surveyor giving Texas the direction, the team sped
away. Once in the desert they stopped occasionally while the surveyor
examined the four by four redwood stakes. At a point on the S. & C.
four miles north of Kingston and therefore between the Company town and
the main line, Abe directed Texas to stop.
The surveyor, taking a note book from his pocket, went to a corner
stake and indicated with outstretched hands the direction of the
boundary lines of a tract of land owned by his employer. "Here we are,
Mr. Worth."
The place was raw desert and except for the railroad without sign of
life save the life of the hard, desolate land; though in the distance
could be seen the improved ranches, with Kingston in their midst.
Standing on the slight elevation of the railroad grade Jefferson Worth
looked around silently. Then, followed by the stranger and Abe, he
walked some distance west of the track.
Pausing and striking his boot-heel into the soft earth, he said with
much less show of emotion than is exhibited by the average school boy
in laying out a ball-ground: "We will build a hotel here; over there a
bank. The main street will run toward the railroad. The Basin Central
from Barba will come in from the southeast."
And this was the beginning of Republic, the town that was built on a
barren desert almost in the time it would have taken to prepare the
land, plant and grow a crop of corn.
The stranger was the president of a townsite company organized by
Jefferson Worth while James Greenfield was congratulating himself that
he at last had that gentleman in a trap. Worth had given the company
the land and had entered into an agreement whereby he was to build a
hotel and several business blocks and furnish them, rent free, for one
year.
With the railroad to deliver material in any desired quantity, work was
begun in a few days. The King's Basin Messenger and the papers in
Frontera and Barba, all owned by Worth, gave full accounts of the birth
of the new town and the reason why The King's Basin Central would not
be built into Kingston, with glowing accounts of Worth's plans for the
future of the Company's rival town. The Worth Electric Company moved
its plant from Kingston to Republic; the ice-plant, the bank, the
telephone office and every enterprise controlled by Worth followed;
while many merchants, lured by the success of the Wizard of the Desert
in every undertaking and by the promise of rent free, went with the
Worth industries; and from the world outside many, who had hesitated to
enter the new country before the railroad, rushed in to locate in the
new town. The first building completed in Republic was a cottage for
Barbara and her father.
Meanwhile the work on the road to Barba and the South Central District
was begun. The "something" prophesied by Mr. Burk had happened.