THE TILLMAN CITY STOCK
The Governor was a familiar figure in Chicago, and his presence in a
hotel lobby ordinarily excited no more than a glance of curious interest
from the loungers about the news stand. The sensation he caused, when he
entered the office of the Great Northern on Friday afternoon, was due to
the company he brought with him; for on one side walked a pale, nervous,
careworn man, who was hardly recognizable as the dapper, self-contained
William C. Porter, and on the other, burly as ever, and, though grave,
confident as ever, was Jim Weeks.
A man who was registering at the desk watched them as they stepped into
an elevator, and then said to the clerk:--
“Have you got your furniture well insured? Because you can bet your life
the fur will begin to fly in a few minutes.”
But the conference, which any reporter in Chicago would have given his
ears to hear, was a quiet one. The Governor dominated the situation,
and at the very outset he made this clear. In his dealings with the
Intelligent Voter he was wont to call a spade by many high-sounding
names, but when he chose he could call it a spade, and he did choose so
to do this afternoon.
The road, he said, was for the present in the hands of the State. Every
station was guarded by a detail of State troops who had instructions
to pay no attention to any writs from any court whatever. In every case
they were to respect actual possession, and to allow the routine work of
running the road to be carried on by the men they found in charge. This
state of things would continue until the Governor was fully convinced
that there would be no further attempt by either party to obtain
possession of the road by force.
The Governor went on to point out that a continuation of this
arrangement was against the interest of both parties, as it brought the
affairs of the road into unpleasant prominence, and every added day of
it antagonized the people more, and might eventually lead to some rather
drastic legislation which would hurt every road in the State.
The courts would of course settle the question of possession in time,
but meanwhile some sort of an understanding must be reached. The
Governor proposed as a solution of the difficulty that the two men
should jointly sign a paper he had drawn up.
It was a petition addressed to the Governor himself, asking him to
appoint one or more men to act as receivers of the road until the suits
should be settled by the regular process of law. The men to be appointed
were to be allies of neither party in the fight. Both parties agreed to
refrain from any further attempts to use force in getting possession of
the road.
Weeks readily, and Porter after a moment of hesitation, signed the
paper, and the Governor announced that his appointment would be made
immediately.
It was then arranged that the regular annual election of directors,
which was due on the following Tuesday, should be held as usual. After
the legal questions were settled, the Governor's commission would turn
over the road to the newly elected board.
When the conference was over, and it had not been a long one, the two
warring railway magnates, who in the past week had set the whole State
by the ears, rose and politely took their leave. As they went down in
the elevator together, Weeks remarked,--
“Autumn seems to have taken hold early this year.”
“Yes,” answered Porter, “it's extremely disagreeable weather. I have my
carriage here. May I save you a walk?”
“No, thanks,” said Jim; “I'm not going far.”
When they parted at the door they did not shake hands, but there was
nothing in their manner to indicate that they had not just met for the
first time at an afternoon tea.
Jim went straight to his office, told Pease that he must not be
disturbed, and settled himself to some hard thinking. That afternoon had
materially changed the situation, and had for the most part simplified
it. There was no further necessity for guarding against force. There was
no longer anything to be apprehended from the legal juggling of Judge
Black, for the Governor's interposition had rendered him quite harmless.
When the case was tried it would be before an unprejudiced court. The
seizure of the road by the militia had come at the right moment for Jim,
for it left his employees in possession as far down as Sawyerville.
The longer Jim thought, the simpler the problem became. He must bring
about the election of his board of directors. As matters stood he could
accomplish this only by voting the nine thousand shares of new stock
he had issued the week before, thus giving Porter a more or less strong
case against him. But if he could command a majority of the stock
without this, there would be absolutely nothing for the courts to
decide, and Tuesday evening would see him completely victorious. And
so, for the first time that week, Jim turned the whole force of his
attention to the Tillman City stock.
It was just ten days since he had instructed Bridge to find out what
was at the bottom of Blaney's defiance, and in that time he had heard no
word from his lieutenant. There were but three days more.
If it were his habit to act on impulse, as his wonderful quickness led
men to believe, he would have gone straight to Tillman City, and carried
on his fight there in person. But on reflection he concluded that his
presence there would be likely to ruin whatever schemes Bridge might be
working out. “I'll wait a little longer,” he thought.
Bridge was in the hospital. His landlady had found him in his room about
an hour after the fever overtook him, and visions of a red quarantine
card on her door-post had such disquieting force that in an incredibly
short time the doctor and the oldest boarder were carrying the
unconscious politician wrapped in a pair of blankets to the carriage
which was to take him thither.
Tillman City was proud of its hospital, and the nursing and the medical
attention which Bridge received were as good as they could have been.
But after all it seemed to make little difference, for the fever raged
in him in spite of all efforts to break it. He lay, utterly insensible
to his surroundings, the object of the curiosity, as well as the
kindness, of those about him; for scarlet fever in a man, especially
so severe a case, is enough out of the ordinary to be interesting.
Sometimes his delirium became so violent that men had to hold him down
to the bed, but for the most of the time he simply rolled and tossed,
moaning softly or chattering unintelligible syllables.
Wednesday evening his fever was slightly lower and he lay comparatively
quiet. Sitting by the screen which kept the light of the night lamp from
his eyes was Grace Burns. She had been a nurse only a little while, and
to her Bridge was not a case but a man. She felt a great pity for the
pathetic figure on the bed and, when she saw that it was good for him
to have her by, she spent more than half the hours of the twenty-four
watching him. She was a young woman, not yet thirty, and she had the
poise which comes from nerves that are never out of tune. Some of her
nervous strength she seemed to impart to him, and he was rarely violent
while under her care.
Now as she watched him she saw him throw back the covers and sit up on
the edge of the bed. The movement was so quick that before she could
reach him he was struggling to his feet.
“The contract,” he said. “I must take it to him right away.” His voice
and his inflection were perfectly natural.
“Yes,” she said easily, “I'll attend to that. There's plenty of time.
Now lie down again.”
He looked at her in a puzzled, questioning way, but obeyed, and in a few
moments his moaning told her that the dull fever dreams had again come
upon him.
When the doctor came to make his last visit before the night, he looked
grave.
“Has he had any lucid intervals?” he asked.
She told him what had happened earlier in the evening.
“It's hard to tell,” he said, “whether that was dreams or not.”
As he started to go, she asked,--
“Did they tell you downstairs that some one had been here to see him?”
He shook his head.
“He came while I was down in the office, and they said he had been here
two or three times before. He wanted to see Mr. Bridge, he said, on a
very important business matter.”
The doctor smiled. “I'm afraid,” he said, “that business will be
indefinitely postponed. Who was the man?”
“He's one of our aldermen, Michael Blaney.”
They were startled by a cry from the bed. Bridge was sitting bolt
upright, and terror was in his face.
“Stop him, Weeks!” he gasped. “He's trying to choke me. Pull him off.
You said he shouldn't touch me.”
The voice died away in a moan, and he sank back in the pillows,
breathing thickly. The nurse slipped quickly to his side, clasped his
wrist in her cool hand, and laid the other on his forehead, and in a few
moments his breath was coming more regularly and the mad light was gone
out of his eyes.
The doctor looked on admiringly. “You'll pull him out of this if anybody
can,” he said. “It's strange he's got this Weeks business in his head.
He hasn't known anything since Sunday night, and there wasn't much about
it in the papers up to that time.”
There was a silence while the doctor, after a long look at his patient,
turned and walked to the door. When he reached it he said:--
“There's something beside scarlet fever that keeps up that delirium, I
believe; something on his mind. I'd watch what he says pretty carefully,
if I were you. He may give you a clew to what's bothering him. Then
perhaps we can bring him around. Good night.”
Grace Burns was not in the habit of reading the papers, for her
activities, her sympathies, and her thoughts were pretty well absorbed
without them, but on Thursday morning she read with eager interest
the account of the fight for the M. & T. railroad. She also read an
editorial on Jim Weeks, and then found out all she could from the
newspapers of the two days previous. When she had finished, she
abandoned a half-formed project of the night before to write to
Weeks and explain the situation to him on the chance of his being
of assistance. She saw on what a large scale this man did things and
concluded that it was unlikely that he had any connection with Bridge's
affairs, if, indeed, he had ever heard of him. He would be too busy to
pay much attention to anything she might write.
All day long she listened to the sick man's continuous talk, hoping that
some meaning would transpire through the incoherent sentences, something
that would guide her to the source of his trouble; but her patience had
little reward. He spoke vaguely of a contract once or twice, and as many
times he mentioned the name of Jim Weeks, and at those times she thought
of her plan again; mentally she would begin framing the note she would
write to the great capitalist. But as often as she did this she realized
that she had nothing to say to him, and with a sigh she put the thought
away to wait at least until she could find out something more definite.
The next morning, Friday, she read in the papers of the dramatic
happenings of the day before and of Jim Weeks's going to Chicago,
presumably for a conference with the Governor. The bigness of it
appalled her a little, and again the courage she had been storing up
over night to write the note oozed away. For after all it was a question
of courage, courage to do something which common sense called absurd on
the bare chance that it might do good.
The day was a repetition of the day before, but late in the afternoon
the persistent thought, “it might do some good,” drove her to write to
Jim Weeks. The note read:--
“Mr. Bridge [she did not know his initials] is dangerously sick here in
the hospital. He has been delirious ever since he was brought here, and
has frequently called for you, sometimes as if he wanted to tell you
something, and at others as if he desired your protection. I write in
the hope that you will be able either to come or to suggest some clew to
his delusions which may enable us to remove them.”
It was mailed that evening and reached Jim about noon Saturday. Not
half an hour afterward she received a telegram which took a load off her
mind:--
Shall reach Tillman at eight this evening and will drive direct to
the hospital. Please arrange it so I can see him immediately after I
arrive there.
She was in the sick room watching, when Jim was shown in. He walked
directly to the bed and stood looking down at Bridge for a moment, and
then spoke to Grace Burns.
“Has he any chance? What is it?”
“It's scarlet fever. The doctor doesn't seem to think there's much
hope.”
“Poor devil,” said Jim under his breath.
The nurse suddenly bent forward over the sick man, and motioned Jim to
silence. Bridge's lips were moving and he seemed to be struggling to
speak.
“Yes, he's here,” said the nurse in answer to the half-heard question.
Jim dropped on one knee beside the bed. “Yes, I'm Jim Weeks,” he said.
“Do you want to tell me anything?”
Again it was the nurse's ear that caught the words, “My coat--in the
pocket--the contract.”
“I'll get it,” she said quickly, and in a moment she had come back into
the room, with the coat Bridge had worn when they brought him to the
hospital.
Jim took the coat, took a handful of papers out of the pockets and
glanced over them. A scrawled and crumpled sheet caught his eye, and
straightening it out he read it carefully, holding it close to the dim
night lamp. He stood erect again, staring intently at the grotesque
shadows on the screen. Grace Burns, who was watching him, saw that for
the moment Bridge was forgotten.
But presently his face softened and a smile came into his eyes. Again he
went to the bedside and dropped on one knee. He spoke softly, but there
was a restrained ring in his voice.
“You've saved us, Bridge; can you understand me? We're going to win out.
You were in time.”
He took the thin hand that lay on the coverlet and it clasped his
convulsively. He looked curiously at the sick man, and then as the weak
grip was not relaxed he sat down on the side of the bed and waited. Five
minutes crept away, and another five, and then the slow easy breathing
told them that Bridge was asleep.
As the hand let go of his, Weeks rose to go. The nurse followed him to
the door, where she said simply:--
“Thank you for coming. It saved his life.”
“Then it was you who saved it,” said Jim. “And you saved me, too. I
won't forget it.”