To return to Bryce Cardigan: Having completed his preliminary plans
to build the N. C. O., Bryce had returned to Sequoia, prepared to sit
quietly on the side-lines and watch his peppery henchman Buck Ogilvy go
into action. The more Bryce considered that young man's fitness for
the position he occupied, the more satisfied did he become with his
decision. While he had not been in touch with Ogilvy for several years,
he had known him intimately at Princeton.
In his last year at college Ogilvy's father, a well-known railroad
magnate, had come a disastrous cropper in the stock market, thus
throwing Buck upon his own resources and cutting short his college
career--which was probably the very best thing that could happen to
his father's son. For a brief period--perhaps five minutes--Buck had
staggered under the blow; then his tremendous optimism had asserted
itself, and while he packed his trunk, he had planned for the future.
As to how that future had developed, the reader will have gleaned
some slight idea from the information imparted in his letter to Bryce
Cardigan, already quoted. In a word, Mr. Ogilvy had had his ups and
downs.
Ogilvy's return to Sequoia following his three-weeks tour in search of
rights of way for the N. C. O. was heralded by a visit from him to
Bryce Cardigan at the latter's office. As he breasted the counter in the
general office, Moira McTavish left her desk and came over to see what
the visitor desired.
“I should like to see Mr. Bryce Cardigan,” Buck began in crisp
businesslike accents. He was fumbling in his card-case and did not look
up until about to hand his card to Moira--when his mouth flew half open,
the while he stared at her with consummate frankness. The girl's glance
met his momentarily, then was lowered modestly; she took the card and
carried it to Bryce.
“Hum-m-m!” Bryce grunted. “That noisy fellow Ogilvy, eh?”
“His clothes are simply wonderful--and so is his voice. He's very
refined. But he's carroty red and has freckled hands, Mr. Bryce.”
Bryce rose and sauntered into the general office.
“Mr. Bryce Cardigan?” Buck queried politely, with an interrogative lift
of his blond eyebrows.
“At your service, Mr. Ogilvy. Please come in.”
“Thank you so much, sir.” He followed Bryce to the latter's private
office, closed the door carefully behind him, and stood with his broad
back against it.
“Buck, are you losing your mind?” Bryce demanded.
“Losing it? I should say not. I've just lost it.”
“I believe you. If you were quite sane, you wouldn't run the risk of
being seen entering my office.”
“Tut-tut, old dear! None of that! Am I not the main-spring of the
Northern California Oregon Railroad and privileged to run the destinies
of that soulless corporation as I see fit?” He sat down, crossed his
long legs, and jerked a speckled thumb toward the outer office. “I was
sane when I came in here, but the eyes of the girl outside--oh, yow,
them eyes! I must be introduced to her. And you're scolding me for
coming around here in broad daylight. Why, you duffer, if I come at
night, d'ye suppose I'd have met her? Be sensible.”
“You like Moira's eyes, eh?”
“I've never seen anything like them. Zounds, I'm afire. I have little
prickly sensations, like ants running over me. How can you be insensate
enough to descend to labour with an houri like that around? Oh, man! To
think of an angel like that WORKING--to think of a brute like you making
her work!”
“Love at first sight, eh, Buck?”
“I don't know what it is, but it's nice. Who is she?”
“She's Moira McTavish, and you're not to make love to her. Understand? I
can't have you snooping around this office after to-day.”
Mr. Ogilvy's eyes popped with interest. “Oh,” he breathed. “You have an
eye to the main chance yourself have you? Have you proposed to the lady
as yet?”
“No, you idiot.”
“Then I'll match you for her--or rather for the chance to propose
first.” Buck produced a dollar and spun it in the air.
“Nothing doing, Buck. Spare yourself these agonizing suspicions. The
fact of the matter is that you give me a wonderful inspiration. I've
always been afraid Moira would fall in love with some ordinary fellow
around Sequoia--propinquity, you know--”
“You bet. Propinquity's the stuff. I'll stick around.”
“--and I we been on the lookout for a fine man to marry her off to.
She's too wonderful for you, Buck, but in time you might learn to live
up to her.”
“Duck! I'm liable to kiss you.”
“Don't be too precipitate. Her father used to be our woods-boss. I fired
him for boozing.”
“I wouldn't care two hoots if her dad was old Nick himself. I'm going to
marry her--if she'll have me. Ah, the glorious creature!” He waved his
long arms despairingly. “O Lord, send me a cure for freckles. Bryce,
you'll speak a kind word for me, won't you--sort of boom my stock, eh?
Be a good fellow.”
“Certainly. Now come down to earth and render a report on your
stewardship.”
“I'll try. To begin, I've secured rights of way, at a total cost of
twelve thousand, one hundred and three dollars and nine cents, from
the city limits of Sequoia to the southern boundary of your timber in
Township Nine. I've got my line surveyed, and so far as the building of
the road is concerned, I know exactly what I'm going to do, and how and
when I'm going to do it, once I get my material on the ground.”
“What steps have you taken toward securing your material?”
“Well, I can close a favourable contract for steel rails with the
Colorado Steel Products Company. Their schedule of deliveries is O.
K. as far as San Francisco, but it's up to you to provide water
transportation from there to Sequoia.”
“We can handle the rails on our steam schooners. Next?”
“I have an option of a rattling good second-hand locomotive down at
the Santa Fe shops, and the Hawkins & Barnes Construction Company have
offered me a steam shovel, half a dozen flat-cars, and a lot of fresnos
and scrapers at ruinous prices. This equipment is pretty well worn, and
they want to get rid of it before buying new stuff for their contract
to build the Arizona and Sonora Central. However, it is first-rate
equipment for us, because it will last until we're through with it; then
we can scrap it for junk. We can buy or rent teams from local citizens
and get half of our labour locally. San Francisco employment bureaus
will readily supply the remainder, and I have half a dozen fine boys
on tap to boss the steam shovel, pile-driver, bridge-building gang,
track-layer and construction gang. And as soon as you tell me how I'm to
get my material ashore and out on the job, I'll order it and get busy.”
“That's exactly where the shoe begins to pinch, Pennington's main-line
tracks enter the city along Water Street, with one spur into his
log-dump and another out on his mill-dock. From the main-line tracks we
also have built a spur through our drying-yard out to our log-dump and a
switch-line out on to our milldock. We can unload our locomotive, steam
shovel, and flat-cars on our own wharf, but unless Pennington gives us
permission to use his main-line tracks out to a point beyond the city
limits--where a Y will lead off to the point where our construction
begins--we're up a stump.”
“Suppose he refuses, Bryce. What then?”
“Why, we'll simply have to enter the city down Front Street, paralleling
Pennington's tracks on Water Street, turning down B Street, make a
jump-crossing of Pennington's line on Water Street, and connecting with
the spur into our yard.”
“Can't have an elbow turn at Front and B streets?”
“Don't have to. We own a square block on that corner, and we'll build
across it, making a gradual turn.”
“See here, my son,” Buck said solemnly, “is this your first adventure in
railroad building?”
Bryce nodded.
“I thought so; otherwise you wouldn't talk so confidently of running
your line over city streets and making jump-crossings on your
competitor's road. If your competitor regards you as a menace to his
pocketbook, he can give you a nice little run for your money and delay
you indefinitely.”
“I realize that, Buck. That's why I'm not appearing in this railroad
deal at all. If Pennington suspected I was back of it, he'd fight me
before the city council and move heaven and earth to keep me out of a
franchise to use the city streets and cross his line. Of course, since
his main line runs on city property, under a franchise granted by the
city, the city has a perfect right to grant me the privilege of making a
jump-crossing of his line---”
“Will they do it? That's the problem. If they will not, you're licked,
my son, and I'm out of a job.”
“We can sue and condemn a right of way.”
“Yes, but if the city council puts up a plea that it is against the best
interests of the city to grant the franchise, you'll find that except in
most extraordinary cases, the courts regard it as against public policy
to give judgment against a municipality, the State or the Government of
the United States. At any rate, they'll hang you up in the courts till
you die of old age; and as I understand the matter, you have to have
this line running in less than a year, or go out of business.”
Bryce hung his head thoughtfully. “I've been too cocksure,” he muttered
presently. “I shouldn't have spent that twelve thousand for rights of
way until I had settled the matter of the franchise.”
“Oh, I didn't buy any rights of way--yet,” Ogilvy hastened to assure
him. “I've only signed the land-owners up on an agreement to give or
sell me a right of way at the stipulated figures any time within
one year from date. The cost of the surveying gang and my salary and
expenses are all that you are out to date.”
“Buck, you're a wonder.”
“Not at all. I've merely been through all this before and have profited
by my experience. Now, then, to get back to our muttons. Will the city
council grant you a franchise to enter the city and jump Pennington's
tracks?”
“I'm sure I don't know, Buck. You'll have to ask them--sound them out.
The city council meets Saturday morning.”
“They'll meet this evening--in the private diningroom of the Hotel
Sequoia, if I can arrange it,” Buck Ogilvy declared emphatically. “I'm
going to have them all up for dinner and talk the matter over. I'm not
exactly aged, Bryce, but I've handled about fifteen city councils
and county boards of supervisors, not to mention Mexican and Central
American governors and presidents, in my day, and I know the breed from
cover to cover. Following a preliminary conference, I'll let you know
whether you're going to get that franchise without difficulty or whether
somebody's itchy palm will have to be crossed with silver first. Honest
men never temporize. You know where they stand, but a grafter temporizes
and plays a waiting game, hoping to wear your patience down to the point
where you'll ask him bluntly to name his figure. By the way, what do you
know about your blighted old city council, anyway?”
“Two of the five councilmen are for sale; two are honest men--and one
is an uncertain quantity. The mayor is a politician. I've known them all
since boyhood, and if I dared come out in the open, I think that even
the crooks have sentiment enough for what the Cardigans stand for in
this county to decline to hold me up.”
“Then why not come out in the open and save trouble and expense?”
“I am not ready to have a lot of notes called on me,” Bryce replied
dryly. “Neither am I desirous of having the Laguna Grande Lumber Company
start a riot in the redwood lumber market by cutting prices to a point
where I would have to sell my lumber at a loss in order to get hold of a
little ready money. Neither do I desire to have trees felled across the
right of way of Pennington's road after his trainloads of logs have gone
through and before mine have started from the woods. I don't want my
log-landings jammed until I can't move, and I don't want Pennington's
engineer to take a curve in such a hurry that he'll whip my loaded
logging-trucks off into a canon and leave me hung up for lack of
rolling-stock. I tell you, the man has me under his thumb, and the only
way I can escape is to slip out when he isn't looking. He can do too
many things to block the delivery of my logs and then dub them acts
of God, in order to avoid a judgment against him on suit for
non-performance of his hauling contract with this company.”
“Hum-m-m! Slimy old beggar, isn't he? I dare say he wouldn't hesitate to
buy the city council to block you, would he?”
“I know he'll lie and steal. I dare say he'd corrupt a public official.”
Buck Ogilvy rose and stretched himself. “I've got my work cut out for
me, haven't I?” he declared with a yawn. “However, it'll be a fight
worth while, and that at least will make it interesting. Well?”
Bryce pressed the buzzer on his desk, and a moment later Moira entered.
“Permit me, Moira, to present Mr. Ogilvy. Mr. Ogilvy, Miss McTavish.”
The introduction having been acknowledged by both parties, Bryce
continued: “Mr. Ogilvy will have frequent need to interview me at this
office, Moira, but it is our joint desire that his visits here shall
remain a profound secret to everybody with the exception of ourselves.
To that end he will hereafter call at night, when this portion of the
town is absolutely deserted. You have an extra key to the office, Moira.
I wish you would give it to Mr. Ogilvy.”
The girl nodded. “Mr. Ogilvy will have to take pains to avoid our
watchman,” she suggested.
“That is a point well taken, Moira. Buck, when you call, make it a point
to arrive here promptly on the hour. The watchman will be down in the
mill then, punching the time-clock.”
Again Moira inclined her dark head and withdrew. Mr. Buck Ogilvy
groaned. “God speed the day when you can come out from under and I'll
be permitted to call during office hours,” he murmured. He picked up
his hat and withdrew, via the general office. Half an hour later, Bryce
looked out and saw him draped over the counter, engaged in animated
conversation with Moira McTavish. Before Ogilvy left, he had managed to
impress Moira with a sense of the disadvantage under which he laboured
through being forced, because of circumstances Mr. Cardigan would
doubtless relate to her in due course, to abandon all hope of seeing her
at the office--at least for some time to come. Then he spoke feelingly
of the unmitigated horror of being a stranger in a strange town, forced
to sit around hotel lobbies with drummers and other lost souls, and drew
from Moira the assurance that it wasn't more distressing than having to
sit around a boardinghouse night after night watching old women tat and
tattle.
This was the opening Buck Ogilvy had sparred for. Fixing Moira with his
bright blue eyes, he grinned boldly and said: “Suppose, Miss McTavish,
we start a league for the dispersion of gloom. You be the president, and
I'll be the financial secretary.”
“How would the league operate?” Moira demanded cautiously.
“Well, it might begin by giving a dinner to all the members, followed
by a little motor-trip into the country next Saturday afternoon,” Buck
suggested.
Moira's Madonna glance appraised him steadily. “I haven't known you very
long, Mr. Ogilvy,” she reminded him.
“Oh, I'm easy to get acquainted with,” he retorted lightly. “Besides,
don't I come well recommended?” He pondered for a moment. Then: “I'll
tell you what, Miss McTavish. Suppose we put it up to Bryce Cardigan.
If he says it's all right we'll pull off the party. If he says it's all
wrong, I'll go out and drown myself--and fairer words than them has no
man spoke.”
“I'll think it over,” said Moira.
“By all means. Never decide such an important matter in a hurry. Just
tell me your home telephone number, and I'll ring up at seven this
evening for your decision.”
Reluctantly Moira gave him the number. She was not at all prejudiced
against this carroty stranger--in fact, she had a vague suspicion that
he was a sure cure for the blues, an ailment which she suffered from
all too frequently; and, moreover, his voice, his respectful manner,
his alert eyes, and his wonderful clothing were all rather alluring.
Womanlike, she was flattered at being noticed--particularly by a man
like Ogilvy, whom it was plain to be seen was vastly superior to any
male even in Sequoia, with the sole exception of Bryce Cardigan. The
flutter of a great adventure was in Moira's heart, and the flush of
a thousand roses in her cheeks when, Buck Ogilvy having at length
departed, she went into Bryce's private office to get his opinion as to
the propriety of accepting the invitation.
Bryce listened to her gravely as with all the sweet innocence of her
years and unworldliness she laid the Ogilvy proposition before him.
“By all means, accept,” he counselled her. “Buck Ogilvy is one of the
finest gentlemen you'll ever meet. I'll stake my reputation on him.
You'll find him vastly amusing, Moira. He'd make Niobe forget her
troubles, and he DOES know how to order a dinner.”
“Don't you think I ought to have a chaperon?”
“Well, it isn't necessary, although it's good form in a small town like
Sequoia, where everybody knows everybody else.”
“I thought so,” Moira murmured thoughtfully. “I'll ask Miss Sumner to
come with us. Mr. Ogilvy won't mind the extra expense, I'm sure.”
“He'll be delighted,” Bryce assured her maliciously. “Ask Miss Sumner,
by all means.”
When Moira had left him, Bryce sighed. “Gosh!” he murmured. “I wish I
could go, too.”
He was roused from his bitter introspections presently by the ringing of
the telephone. To his amazement Shirley Sumner was calling him!
“You're a wee bit surprised, aren't you, Mr. Cardigan?” she said
teasingly.
“I am,” he answered honestly. “I had a notion I was quite persona non
grata with you.”
“Are you relieved to find you are not? You aren't, you know.”
“Thank you. I am relieved.”
“I suppose you're wondering why I have telephoned to you?”
“No, I haven't had time. The suddenness of it all has left me more or
less dumb. Why did you ring up?”
“I wanted some advice. Suppose you wanted very, very much to know what
two people were talking about, but found yourself in a position where
you couldn't eavesdrop. What would you do?”
“I wouldn't eavesdrop,” he told her severely. “That isn't a nice thing
to do, and I didn't think you would contemplate anything that isn't
nice.”
“I wouldn't ordinarily. But I have every moral, ethical, and financial
right to be a party to that conversation, only--well--”
“With you present there would be no conversation--is that it?”
“Exactly, Mr. Cardigan.”
“And it is of the utmost importance that you should know what is said?”
“Yes.”
“And you do not intend to use your knowledge of this conversation, when
gained, for an illegal or unethical purpose?”
“I do not. On the contrary, if I am aware of what is being planned, I
can prevent others from doing something illegal and unethical.”
“In that event, Shirley, I should say you are quite justified in
eavesdropping.”
“But how can I do it? I can't hide in a closet and listen.”
“Buy a dictograph and have it hidden in the room where the conversation
takes place. It will record every word of it.”
“Where can I buy one?”
“In San Francisco.”
“Will you telephone to your San Francisco office and have them buy one
for me and ship it to you, together with directions for using. George
Sea Otter can bring it over to me when it arrives.”
“Shirley, this is most extraordinary.”
“I quite realize that. May I depend upon you to oblige me in this
matter?”
“Certainly. But why pick on me, of all persons, to perform such a
mission for you?”
“I can trust you to forget that you have performed it.”
“Thank you. I think you may safely trust me. And I shall attend to the
matter immediately.”
“You are very kind, Mr. Cardigan. How is your dear old father? Moira
told me sometime ago that he was ill.”
“He's quite well again, thank you. By the way, Moira doesn't know that
you and I have ever met. Why don't you tell her?”
“I can't answer that question--now. Perhaps some day I may be in a
position to do so.”
“It's too bad the circumstances are such that we, who started out to be
such agreeable friends, see so little of each other, Shirley.”
“Indeed, it is. However, it's all your fault. I have told you once how
you can obviate that distressing situation. But you're so stubborn, Mr.
Cardigan.”
“I haven't got to the point where I like crawling on my hands and
knees,” he flared back at her.
“Even for your sake, I decline to simulate friendship or tolerance for
your uncle; hence I must be content to let matters stand as they are
between us.”
She laughed lightly. “So you are still uncompromisingly
belligerent--still after Uncle Seth's scalp?”
“Yes; and I think I'm going to get it. At any rate, he isn't going to
get mine.”
“Don't you think you're rather unjust to make me suffer for the sins of
my relative, Bryce?” she demanded.
She had called him by his first name. He thrilled. “I'm lost in a
quagmire of debts--I'm helpless now,” he murmured. “I'm not fighting
for myself alone, but for a thousand dependents--for a principle--for
an ancient sentiment that was my father's and is now mine. You do not
understand.”
“I understand more than you give me credit for, and some day you'll
realize it. I understand just enough to make me feel sorry for you. I
understand what even my uncle doesn't suspect at present, and that
is that you're the directing genius of the Northern California Oregon
Railroad and hiding behind your friend Ogilvy. Now, listen to me, Bryce
Cardigan: You're never going to build that road. Do you understand?”
The suddenness of her attack amazed him to such an extent that he did
not take the trouble to contradict her. Instead he blurted out, angrily
and defiantly: “I'll build that road if it costs me my life--if it costs
me you. Understand! I'm in this fight to win.”
“You will not build that road,” she reiterated.
“Why?”
“Because I shall not permit you to. I have some financial interest
in the Laguna Grande Lumber Company, and it is not to that financial
interest that you should build the N.C.O.”
“How did you find out I was behind Ogilvy?”
“Intuition. Then I accused you of it, and you admitted it.”
“I suppose you're going to tell your uncle now,” he retorted
witheringly.
“On the contrary, I am not. I greatly fear I was born with a touch of
sporting blood, Mr. Cardigan, so I'm going to let you two fight until
you're exhausted, and then I'm going to step in and decide the issue.
You can save money by surrendering now. I hold the whip hand.”
“I prefer to fight. With your permission this bout will go to a
knockout.”
“I'm not so certain I do not like you all the more for that decision.
And if it will comfort you the least bit, you have my word of honour
that I shall not reveal to my uncle the identity of the man behind the
N. C. O. I'm not a tattletale, you know, and moreover I have a great
curiosity to get to the end of the story. The fact is, both you and
Uncle Seth annoy me exceedingly. How lovely everything would have been
if you two hadn't started this feud and forced upon me the task of
trying to be fair and impartial to you both.”
“Can you remain fair and impartial?”
“I think I can--even up to the point of deciding whether or not you are
going to build that road. Then I shall act independently of you both.
Forgive my slang, but--I'm going to hand you each a poke then.”
“Shirley,” he told her earnestly, “listen carefully to what I am about
to say: I love you. I've loved you from the day I first met you. I shall
always love you; and when I get around to it, I'm going to ask you
to marry me. At present, however, that is a right I do not possess.
However, the day I acquire the right I shall exercise it.”
“And when will that day be?” Very softly, in awesome tones!
“The day I drive the last spike in the N. C. O.”
Fell a silence. Then: “I'm glad, Bryce Cardigan, you're not a quitter.
Good-bye, good luck--and don't forget my errand.” She hung up and sat
at the telephone for a moment, dimpled chin in dimpled hand, her glance
wandering through the window and far away across the roofs of the town
to where the smoke-stack of Cardigan's mill cut the sky-line. “How I'd
hate you if I could handle you!” she murmured.
Following this exasperating but illuminating conversation with Shirley
Sumner over the telephone, Bryce Cardigan was a distressed and badly
worried man. However, Bryce was a communicant of a very simple faith--to
wit, that one is never whipped till one is counted out, and the first
shock of Shirley's discovery having passed, he wasted no time in
vain repinings but straightway set himself to scheme a way out of his
dilemma.
For an hour he sat slouched in his chair, chin on breast, the while he
reviewed every angle of the situation.
He found it impossible, however, to dissociate the business from the
personal aspects of his relations with Shirley, and he recalled that she
had the very best of reasons for placing their relations on a business
basis rather than a sentimental one. He had played a part in their
little drama which he knew must have baffled and infuriated her. More,
had she, in those delightful few days of their early acquaintance,
formed for him a sentiment somewhat stronger than friendship (he did
not flatter himself that this was so), he could understand her attitude
toward him as that of the woman scorned. For the present, however, it
was all a profound and disturbing mystery, and after an hour of futile
concentration there came to Bryce the old childish impulse to go to
his father with his troubles. That sturdy old soul, freed from the hot
passions of youth, its impetuosity and its proneness to consider cause
rather than effect, had weathered too many storms in his day to permit
the present one to benumb his brain as it had his son's.
“He will be able to think without having his thoughts blotted out by a
woman's face,” Bryce soliloquized. “He's like one of his own big redwood
trees; his head is always above the storm.”
Straightway Bryce left the office and went home to the old house on the
knoll. John Cardigan was sitting on the veranda, and from a stand beside
him George Sea Otter entertained him with a phonograph selection--“The
Suwanee River,” sung by a male quartet. As the gate clicked, John raised
his head; then as Bryce's quick step spurned the cement walk up
the little old-fashioned garden, he rose and stood with one hand
outstretched and trembling a little. He could not see, but with the
intuition of the blind, he knew.
“What is it, son?” he demanded gently as Bryce came up the low steps.
“George, choke that contraption off.”
Bryce took his father's hand. “I'm in trouble, John Cardigan,” he said
simply, “and I'm not big enough to handle it alone.”
The leonine old man smiled, and his smile had all the sweetness of a
benediction. His boy was in trouble and had come to him. Good! Then he
would not fail him. “Sit down, son, and tell the old man all about it.
Begin at the beginning and let me have all the angles of the angle.”
Bryce obeyed, and for the first time John Cardigan learned of his son's
acquaintance with Shirley Sumner and the fact that she had been present
in Pennington's woods the day Bryce had gone there to settle the score
with Jules Rondeau. In the wonderful first flush of his love a sense of
embarrassment, following his discovery of the fact that his father and
Colonel Pennington were implacable enemies, had decided Bryce not
to mention the matter of the girl to John Cardigan until the ENTENTE
CORDIALE between Pennington and his father could be reestablished, for
Bryce had, with the optimism of his years, entertained for a few days a
thought that he could bring about this desirable condition of affairs.
The discovery that he could not, together with his renunciation of his
love until he should succeed in protecting his heritage and eliminating
the despair that had come upon his father in the latter's old age, had
further operated to render unnecessary any discussion of the girl with
the old man.
With the patience and gentleness of a confessor John Cardigan heard the
story now, and though Bryce gave no hint in words that his affections
were involved in the fight for the Cardigan acres, yet did his father
know It, for he was a parent. And his great heart went out in sympathy
for his boy.
“I understand, sonny, I understand. This young lady is only one
additional reason why you must win, for of course you understand she is
not indifferent to you.”
“I do not know that she feels for me anything stronger than a vagrant
sympathy, Dad, for while she is eternally feminine, nevertheless she has
a masculine way of looking at many things. She is a good comrade with
a bully sense of sportsmanship, and unlike her skunk of an uncle, she
fights in the open. Under the circumstances, however, her first loyalty
is to him; in fact, she owes none to me. And I dare say he has given
her some extremely plausible reason why we should be eliminated; while
I think she is sorry that it must be done, nevertheless, in a mistaken
impulse of self-protection she is likely to let him do it.”
“Perhaps, perhaps. One never knows why a woman does things, although it
is a safe bet that if they're with you at all, they're with you all the
way. Eliminate the girl, my boy. She's trying to play fair to you and
her relative. Let us concentrate on Pennington.”
“The entire situation hinges on that jump-crossing of his tracks on
Water Street.”
“He doesn't know you plan to cross them, does he?”
“No.”
“Then, lad, your job is to get your crossing in before he finds out,
isn't it?”
“Yes, but it is an impossible task, partner. I'm not Aladdin, you know.
I have to have a franchise from the city council, and I have to have
rails.”
“Both are procurable, my son. Induce the city council to grant you a
temporary franchise to-morrow, and buy your rails from Pennington. He
has a mile of track running up Laurel Creek, and Laurel Creek was logged
out three years ago. I believe that spur is useless to Pennington, and
the ninety-pound rails are rusting there.”
“But will he sell them to me?”
“Not if you tell him why you want them.”
“But he hates me, old pal.”
“The Colonel never permits sentiment to interfere with business, my son.
He doesn't need the rails, and he does desire your money. Consider the
rail-problem settled.”
“How do you stand with the Mayor and the council?”
“I do not stand at all. I opposed Poundstone for the office; Dobbs,
who was appointed to fill a vacancy caused by the death of a regularly
elected councilman, was once a bookkeeper in our office, you will
remember. I discharged him for looting the petty-cash drawer. Andrews
and Mullin are professional politicians and not to be trusted. In fact,
Poundstone, Dobbs, Andrews, and Mullin are known as the Solid Four.
Yates and Thatcher, the remaining members of the city council, are
the result of the reform ticket last fall, but since they are in the
minority, they are helpless.”
“That makes it bad.”
“Not at all. The Cardigans are not known to be connected with the N. C.
O. Send your bright friend Ogilvy after that franchise. He's the only
man who can land it. Give him a free hand and tell him to deliver the
goods by any means short of bribery. I imagine he's had experience
with city councils and will know exactly how to proceed. I KNOW you
can procure the rails and have them at the intersection of B and Water
streets Thursday night. If Ogilvy can procure the temporary franchise
and have it in his pocket by six o'clock Thursday night, you should have
that crossing in by sunup Friday morning. Then let Pennington rave. He
cannot procure an injunction to restrain us from cutting his tracks,
thus throwing the matter into the courts and holding us up indefinitely,
because by the time he wakes up, the tracks will have been cut. The best
he can do then will be to fight us before the city council when we apply
for our permanent franchise. Thank God, however, the name of Cardigan
carries weight in this county, and with the pressure of public sympathy
and opinion back of us, we may venture, my boy, to break a lance with
the Solid Four, should they stand with Pennington.”
“Partner, it looks like a forlorn hope,” said Bryce.
“Well, you're the boy to lead it. And it will cost but little to put
in the crossing and take a chance. Remember, Bryce, once we have that
crossing in, it stands like a spite-fence between Pennington and the law
which he knows so well how to pervert to suit his ignoble purposes.” He
turned earnestly to Bryce and waved a trembling admonitory finger. “Your
job is to keep out of court. Once Pennington gets the law on us,
the issue will not be settled in our favour for years; and in the
meantime--you perish. Run along now and hunt up Ogilvy. George, play
that 'Suwannee River' quartet again. It sort o' soothes me.”