When Receiver Guilford took possession of the properties, appurtenances
and appendages of the sequestered Trans-Western Railway, one of the
luxuries to which he fell heir was private car "Naught-seven," a
commodious hotel on wheels originally used as the directors' car of the
Western Pacific, and later taken over by Loring to be put in commission as
the general manager's special.
In the hands of a friendly receiver this car became a boon to the capitol
contingent; its observation platform served as a shifting rostrum from
which a deep-chested executive or a mellifluous Hawk often addressed
admiring crowds at way stations, and its dining saloon was the moving
scene of many little relaxative feasts, at which _Veuve Cliquot_ flowed
freely, priceless cigars were burned, and the members of the organization
unbent, each after his kind.
But to the men of the throttle and oil-can, car Naught-seven, in the gift
of a hospitable receiver, shortly became a nightmare. Like most private
cars, it was heavier than the heaviest Pullman; and the engineer who was
constrained to haul it like a dragging anchor at the tail end of a fast
train was prone to say words not to be found in any vocabulary known to
respectable philologists.
It was in the evening of a wind-blown day, a week after Kent's visit to
Gaston, that Engineer "Red" Callahan, oiling around for the all-night run
with the Flyer on the Western Division, heard above the din and clamor of
Union Station noises the sullen thump betokening the addition of another
car to his train.
"Now fwhat the divvle will that be?" he rasped, pausing, torch in hand, to
apostrophize his fireman.
The answer came up out of the shadows to the rear on the lips of M'Tosh,
the train-master.
"You have the Naught-seven to-night, Callahan, and a pretty severe head
wind. Can you make your time?"
"Haven't thim bloody fools in the up-town office anything betther to do
than to tie that sivinty-ton ball-an'-chain to my leg such a night as
this?" This is not what Callahan said: it is merely a printable paraphrase
of his rejoinder.
M'Tosh shook his head. He was a hold-over from the Loring administration,
not because his place was not worth taking, but because as yet no
political heeler had turned up with the requisite technical ability to
hold it.
"I don't blame you for cussing it out," he said; and the saying of it was
a mark of the relaxed discipline which was creeping into all branches of
the service. "Mr. Loring's car is anybody's private wagon these days. Can
you make your time with her?"
"Not on yer life," Callahan growled. "Is it the owld potgutted thafe iv a
rayceiver that's in her?"
"Yes; with Governor Bucks and a party of his friends. I take it you ought
to feel honored."
"Do I?" snapped Callahan. "If I don't make thim junketers think they're in
the scuff iv a cyclone whin I get thim on the crooks beyant Dolores ye can
gimme time, Misther M'Tosh. Where do I get shut iv thim?"
"At Agua Caliente. They are going to the hotel at Breezeland, I suppose.
There is your signal to pull out."
"I'll go whin I'm dommed good an' ready," said Callahan, jabbing the snout
of his oiler into the link machinery. And again M'Tosh let the breach of
discipline go without reproof.
Breezeland Inn, the hotel at Agua Caliente, is a year-round resort for
asthmatics and other health seekers, with a sanatorium annex which
utilizes the waters of the warm springs for therapeutic purposes. But
during the hot months the capital and the plains cities to the eastward
send their quota of summer idlers and the house fills to its capacity.
It was for this reason that Mr. Brookes Ormsby, looking for a comfortable
resort to which he might take Mrs. Brentwood and her daughters for an
outing, hit upon the expedient of going first in person to Breezeland,
partly to make sure of accommodations, and partly to check up the
attractions of the place against picturesque descriptions in the
advertisements.
When he turned out of his sleeper in the early morning at Agua Caliente
station, car Naught-seven had been thrown in on a siding a little farther
up the line, and Ormsby recognized the burly person of the governor and
the florid face and pursy figure of the receiver, in the group of men
crossing from the private car to the waiting Inn tally-ho. Being a
seasoned traveler, the club-man lost no time in finding the station agent.
"Isn't there some way you can get me up to the hotel before that crowd
reaches?" he asked; adding: "I'll make it worth your while."
The reply effaced the necessity for haste.
"The Inn auto will be down in a few minutes, and you can go up in that.
Naught-seven brought Governor Bucks and the receiver and their party, and
they're going down to Megilp, the mining camp on the other side of the
State line. They've chartered the tally-ho for the day."
Ormsby waited, and a little later was whisked away to the hotel in the
tonneau of the guests' automobile. Afterward came a day which was rather
hard to get through. Breakfast, a leisurely weighing and measuring of the
climatic, picturesque and health-mending conditions, and the writing of a
letter or two helped him wear out the forenoon; but after luncheon the
time dragged dispiteously, and he was glad enough when the auto-car came
to take him to the station for the evening train.
As it happened, there were no other passengers for the east-bound Flyer;
and finding he still had some minutes to wait, Ormsby lounged into the
telegraph office. Here the bonds of ennui were loosened by the gradual
development of a little mystery. First the telephone bell rang smartly,
and when the telegraph operator took down the ear-piece and said "Well?"
in the imperious tone common to his kind, he evidently received a
communication that shocked him.
Ormsby overheard but a meager half of the wire conversation; and the
excitement, whatever its nature, was at the other end of the line. None
the less, the station agent's broken ejaculations were provocative of keen
interest in a man who had been boring himself desperately for the better
part of a day.
"Caught him doing it, you say?... Great Scott!... Oh, I don't believe
that, you know ... yes--uh-huh--I hear ... But who did the shooting?"
Whether the information came or not, Ormsby did not know, for at this
conjuncture the telegraph instruments on the table set up a furious
chattering, and the railway man dropped the receiver and sprang to his
key.
This left the listener out of it completely, and Ormsby strolled out to
the platform, wondering what had happened and where it had happened. He
glanced up at the telephone wires: two of them ran up the graveled
driveway toward Breezeland Inn; the poles of the other two sentineled the
road to the west down which the tally-ho had driven in the early morning.
In the reflective instant the telegraph operator dashed out of his
bay-windowed retreat and ran up the track to the private car. In a few
minutes he was back again, holding an excited conference with the
chauffeur of the Inn automobile, who was waiting to see if the Flyer
should bring him any fares for the hotel.
Curiosity is said to be peculiarly a foible feminine. It is not, as every
one knows. But of the major masculine allotment, Ormsby the masterful had
rather less than his due share. He saw the chauffeur turn his car in the
length of it and send it spinning down the road and across the line into
the adjoining State; heard the mellow whistle of the incoming train, and
saw the station man nervously setting his stop signal; all with no more
than a mild desire to know the reason for so much excitement and haste--a
desire which was content to wait on the explanation of events.
The explanation, such as it was, did not linger. The heavy train thundered
in from the west; stopped barely long enough to allow the single passenger
to swing up the steps of the Pullman; and went on again to stop a second
time with a jerk when it had passed the side-track switch.
Ormsby put his head out of the window and saw that the private car was to
be taken on; remarked also that the thing was done with the utmost
celerity. Once out on the main line with car Naught-seven coupled in, the
train was backed swiftly down to the station and the small mystery of
hurryings was sufficiently solved. The governor and his party were
returning, and they did not wish to miss connections.
Ormsby had settled back into the corner of his section when he heard the
spitting explosions of the automobile and the crash of hoofs and
iron-tired wheels on the sharp gravel. He looked out again and was in time
to see the finish of the race. Up the road from the westward came the
six-horse tally-ho, the horses galloping in the traces and the automobile
straining in the lead at the end of an improvised tow-line. In a twinkling
the coach was abreast of the private car, the transfer of passengers was
effected, and Ormsby was near enough at his onlooking window to remark
several things: that there was pell-mell haste and suppressed excitement;
that the governor was the coolest man in the group; and that the receiver
had to be helped across from the coach to the car. Then the train moved
out, gathering speed with each added wheel-turn.
The onlooker leaned from his window to see what became of the tangle of
horses and auto-car precipitated by the sudden stop of the tally-ho.
Mirage effects are common on the western plains, and if Ormsby had not
been familiar with them he might have marveled at the striking example
afforded by the backward look. In the rapidly increasing perspective the
six horses of the tally-ho were suddenly multiplied into a troop; and
where the station agent had stood on the platform there seemed to be a
dozen gesticulating figures fading into indistinctness, as the fast train
swept on its way eastward.
The club-man saw no more of the junketing party that night. Once when the
train stopped to cut out the dining-car, and he had stepped down for a
breath of fresh air on the station platform, he noticed that the private
car was brilliantly lighted, and that the curtains and window shades were
closely drawn. Also, he heard the popping of bottle corks and the clink of
glass, betokening that the governor's party was still celebrating its
successful race for the train. Singularly enough, Ormsby's reflections
concerned themselves chiefly with the small dishonesty.
"I suppose it all goes into the receiver's expense account and the
railroad pays for it," he said to himself. "So and so much for an
inspection trip to Megilp and return. I must tell Kent about it. It will
put another shovelful of coal into his furnace--not that he is especially
needing it."
* * * * *
At the moment of this saying--it was between ten and eleven o'clock at
night--David Kent's wrath-fire was far from needing an additional stoking.
Once more Miss Van Brock had given proof of her prophetic gift, and Kent
had been moodily filling in the details of the picture drawn by her
woman's intuition. He had gone late to the house in Alameda Square,
knowing that Portia had dinner guests. And it was imperative that he
should have her to himself.
"You needn't tell me anything but the manner of its doing," she was
saying. "I knew they would find a way to stop you--or make one. And you
needn't be spiteful at me," she added, when Kent gripped the arms of his
chair.
"I don't mind your saying 'I told you so'," he fumed. "It's the fact that
I didn't have sense enough to see what an easy game I was dealing them. It
didn't take Meigs five minutes to shut me off."
"Tell me about it," she said; and he did it crisply.
"The _quo warranto_ inquiry is instituted in the name of the State; or
rather the proceedings are brought by some person with the approval of the
governor or the attorney-general, one or both. I took to-day for obtaining
this approval because I knew Bucks was out of town and I thought I could
bully Meigs."
"And you couldn't?" she said.
"Not in a thousand years. At first he said he would take the matter under
advisement: I knew that meant a consultation with Bucks. Then I put the
whip on; told him a few of the things I know, and let him imagine a lot
more; but it was no good. He was as smooth as oil, admitting nothing,
denying nothing. And what grinds me worst is that I let him put me in
fault; gave him a chance to show conclusively how absurd it was for me to
expect him to take up a question of such magnitude on the spur of the
moment."
"Of course," she said sympathetically. "I knew they would find a way. What
are you doing?"
Kent laughed in spite of his sore _amour-propre_.
"At this present moment I am doing precisely what you said I should:
unloading my woes upon you."
"Oh, but I didn't say that. I said you would come to me for help. Have
you?"
"I'd say yes, if I didn't know so well just what I am up against."
Miss Van Brock laughed unfeelingly.
"Is it a man's weakness to fight better in the dark?"
"It is a man's common sense to know when he is knocked out," he retorted.
She held him with her eyes while she said:
"Tell me what you want to accomplish, David; at the end of the ends, I
mean. Is it only that you wish to save Miss Brentwood's little marriage
portion?"
He told the simple truth, as who could help, with Portia's eyes demanding
it.
"It was that at first; I'll admit it. But latterly--"
"Latterly you have begun to think larger things?" She looked away from
him, and her next word seemed to be part of an unspoken thought. "I have
been wondering if you are great enough, David."
He shook his head despondently.
"Haven't I just been showing you that I am not?"
"You have been showing me that you can not always out-plan, the other
person. That is a lack, but it is not fatal. Are you great enough to run
fast and far when it is a straight-away race depending only upon mere
man-strength and indomitable determination?"
Her words fired him curiously. He recalled the little thrill of
inspiration which a somewhat similar appeal from Elinor had once given
him, and tried to compare the two sensations. There was no comparison. The
one was a call to moral victory; the other to material success. None the
less, he decided that the present was the more potent spell, perhaps only
because it was the present.
"Try me," he said impulsively.
"If I do ... David, no man can serve two masters--or two mistresses. If I
do, will you agree to put the sentimental affair resolutely in the
background?"
He took his head in his hands and was a long minute making up his mind.
But his refusal was blunt enough when it came.
"No; at least, not until they are married."
It would have taken a keener discernment than Kent's or any man's to have
fathomed the prompting of her laugh.
"I was only trying you," she said. "Perhaps, if you had said yes I should
have deserted you and gone over to the other side."
He got up and went to sit beside her on the pillowed divan.
"Don't try me again, please--not that way. I am only a man."
"I make no promises--not even good ones," she retorted. And then: "Would
you like to have your _quo warranto_ blind alley turned into a
thoroughfare?"
"I believe you can do it if you try," he admitted, brightening a little.
"Maybe I can; or rather maybe I can put you in the way of doing it. You
say Mr. Meigs is obstinate, and the governor is likely to prove still more
obstinate. Have you thought of any way of softening them?"
"You know I haven't. It's a stark impossibility from my point of view."
"Nothing is impossible; it is always a question of ways and means." Then,
suddenly: "Have you been paying any attention to the development of the
Belmount oil field?"
"Enough to know that it is a big thing; the biggest since the Pennsylvania
discoveries, according to all accounts."
"And the people of the State are enthusiastic about it, thinking that now
the long tyranny of the oil monopoly will be broken?"
"That is the way most of the newspapers talk, and there seems to be some
little ground for it, granting the powers of the new law."
She laid the tips of her fingers on his arm and knotted the thread of
suggestion in a single sentence.
"In the present state of affairs--with the People's Party as yet on trial,
and the public mind ready to take fire at the merest hint of a foreign
capitalistic monopoly in the State--tell me what would happen to the man
who would let the Universal Oil Company into the Belmount field in
defiance of the new trust and corporation law?"
"By Jove!" Kent exclaimed, sitting up as if the shapely hand had given him
a buffet. "It would ruin him politically, world without end! Tell me; is
Bucks going to do that?"
She laughed softly.
"That is for you to find out, Mr. David Kent; not by hearsay, but in good,
solid terms of fact that will appeal to a level-headed, conservative
newspaper editor like--well, like Mr. Hildreth, of the _Argus_, let us
say. Are you big enough to do it?"
"I am desperate enough to try," was the slow-spoken answer.
"And when you have the weapon in your hands; when you have found the sword
and sharpened it?"
"Then I can go to his Excellency and tell him what will happen if he
doesn't instruct his attorney-general in the _quo warranto_ affair."
"That will probably suffice to save your railroad--and Miss Brentwood's
marriage portion. But after, David; what will you do afterward?"
"I'll go on fighting the devil with fire until I have burned him out. If
this is to be a government of dictators, I can be one of them, too."
She clapped her hands enthusiastically.
"There spoke the man David Kent; the man I have been trying to discover
deep down under the rubbish of ill-temper and hesitancy and--yes, I will
say it--of sentiment. Have you learned your lesson, David mine?"
It was a mark of another change in him that he rose and stood over her,
and that his voice was cool and dispassionate when he said:
"If I have, it is because I have you for an inspired text-book, Portia
dear."
And with that he took his leave.