said Ford. "If there is so much as a hair displaced, he will be sure to
find it."
"It is all straight enough," was the confident rejoinder. "Only I had to
bid five points over the market on odd lots of the stock. I'm not sure,
but I think the Transcontinental people got wind of us during the last
day or two and bid against us."
"But you have safe majorities?"
"Oh, yes; we are all in."
"Good," said Ford. "That puts it up to Mr. Colbrith, at all events. And
now, while we have a clear day before us, I want to go over these
C. P. & D. terminal contracts with you. Right here in Chicago is where
the Transcontinental will try hardest to balk us. The C. P. & D. has
trackage rights to the elevators; but I want to be sure that the
contracts will hold water under a transfer of ownership."
Subjected to legal scrutiny, the contracts promised to be defensible,
and Ford came through the day with his apprehensive burdens considerably
lightened. After dinner he took his papers to Kenneth's room, and
together they went carefully over all the legal points involved in the
welding of the three local lines into the Pacific Southwestern system,
Ford furnishing the data gathered by him during the four days.
Kenneth was shrewdly inquisitive, as his responsibilities constrained
him to be, and it was deep in the small hours when Ford made his escape
and went to bed. By consequence, he was scarcely more than half awake
the next morning, when he dressed hurriedly and hastened over to the Van
Buren Street station to see if the president's car had arrived.
The Nadia was in and side-tracked, with a sleepy porter on guard. Ford
climbed to the platform and asked for the president.
"Yas, suh; dis is Mr. Colbrith's cyar; but he don't see no newspapuh
men--no, suh. Besides, dey's just gettin' up," was the rebuff; but Ford
ignored it.
"'They?' Then Mr. Colbrith isn't alone?"
"No, suh; got a pahty 'long with him--a young gentleman and two ladies;
yes, suh. Mr. Colbrith nebber goes nowhah's 'dout he teks a pahty in de
cyar."
"Heavens!" groaned Ford, under his breath; "as if the thing wasn't
complicated enough without making a picnic of it!" Then aloud. "I wish
to go in. My name is Ford, and Mr. Colbrith is expecting me."
"Sho' you isn't a newspapuh man?"
"Of course not," said Ford shortly.
"All right, suh," said the negro; and he made way and opened the door.
The Nadia was a commodious hotel on wheels, with a kitchen and buffet
forward, four state-rooms opening upon a narrow side vestibule, and a
large dining and lounging room looking out through full-length windows
upon a deep, "umbrella-roofed" platform at the rear.
There was no one in the large compartment when Ford reached it; but a
moment later a door opened and closed in the vestibule, and Adair made
his appearance. Ford drew a breath of relief and shook hands with his
backer.
"I'm glad it's you, Mr. Adair. I've been scenting all sorts of
hindrances since the porter told me there was a party aboard."
The young man without an avocation dropped into the easiest of the
wicker chairs and felt in his pockets for his cigarette case.
"Your prophetic soul didn't deceive you any," he laughed. "The
hindrances are here in full force. It is one of Uncle Sidney's notions
never to travel without a tail like a Highland chieftain's. I had a
foreboding that he'd ask somebody, so I took it upon myself to fill up
his passenger list with Aunt Hetty, my sister, and my uncle's nephew."
"I understand," said Ford, and would have plunged forthwith into the
business pool; but Adair stopped him with a gesture of dismay.
"Not before breakfast, if you love me, my dear fellow!" he protested,
with a little grimace that instantly set the reminiscent part of Ford's
brain at work. "After I've had something to eat--"
The interruption was the noiseless entrance of a motherly little lady in
gray, with kindly eyes and a touch of silver in the fair hair drawn
smoothly back from her forehead.
"This is Mr. Stuart Ford, I am sure," she said, giving her hand to the
young engineer before Adair could introduce him. "You look enough like
your father to make me recognize you at once."
Ford was a little embarrassed by the gratefully informal greeting.
"Ought I to remember you, Mrs. Adair?" he asked ingenuously.
"Oh, no, indeed. I knew your father as a young man before he married and
went to the farther West. The Fords and the Colbriths and the Stanbrooks
are all from the same little town in central Illinois, you know."
"I didn't know it," said Ford, "though now I recall it, I used often to
hear my father speak of Miss Hester Stanbrook." Then he was going on to
say that trite thing about the smallness of the world when Adair broke
in.
"I'd like to know what is keeping Uncle Sidney and Alicia. _I_ haven't
had breakfast yet."
As if his protest had evoked her, a young woman drew the portière of the
vestibule--a young woman with bright brown hair, eyes like dewy wood
violets, and an adorable chin. Ford stared helplessly, and Adair
laughed.
"Shocked, aren't you?" he jested. "But you needn't be alarmed. I have
persuaded my sister not to prosecute in the case of the snatched purse.
Alicia, this is Mr. Stuart Ford, and he desires me to say that he is not
often reduced to the necessity of robbing unprotected young women for
the sake of scraping an acquaintance."
Ford lost sight of the Pacific Southwestern exigencies for the moment,
and surely the lapse was pardonable. If the truth must be told, this
young woman, who had been discovered and lost in the same unforgetable
evening, had stirred the neglected pool of sentiment in him to its
profoundest depths, and thoughts of her had been dividing time pretty
evenly with some parts of the strenuous business affair. Indeed, the
hopelessness of any effort toward rediscovering her had been one of his
reasons for hurrying away from New York. He knew himself--a little--and
that quality of unreasoning persistence which other people called his
strong point. The search he had been half-minded to make once begun--
"I hope you haven't forgotten me so soon, Mr. Ford," she was saying; and
he recovered himself with a start.
"Forgotten you? No, indeed!"--this with almost lover-like emphasis.
"I--I think I am just a trifle aghast at my good luck in finding you
again. It seemed so utterly hopeless, you know. Don't you think--"
But now the president had stalked in, and his high querulous voice was
marshaling the party breakfastward. Ford manoeuvered skilfully in the
pairing off, and so succeeded in securing Miss Adair for a companion on
the short walk across to the Grand Pacific.
"You were about to ask me something when Uncle Sidney interrupted you,"
she prompted, when they were clear of the throng in the station
vestibule.
"Yes; I was going to ask if you don't think it was unnecessarily cruel
to send me that note of thanks unsigned."
"Cruel?" she echoed, and her laugh was so exactly a replica of her
brother's that Ford wondered why the reminiscent arrow had not gone at
once to its mark. "How absurd! What possible difference could it make?"
"It made a lot of difference to me," said Ford, refusing to be brushed
aside. "How did you expect I was ever going to be able to find you
again, without even your name as a clue?"
She glanced up at him with unfeigned interest. The men of her world were
not altogether unappreciative; neither were they so primitively
straightforward as this young industry captain out of the West.
"It is not impossible that I never thought of your finding me again,"
she said, and only the tone saved it from being a small slap in the
face.
Ford took the rebuff as a part of the day's work.
"Perhaps you didn't," he admitted. "But I mean to go on hoping that you
did."
"The idea!" she scoffed; but this time she blunted the keen edge of the
rebuke by adding: "I thought, perhaps, we might meet again, sometime.
You see, we are all stock-holders in the Pacific Southwestern; my
brother, Aunt Hetty and I; and Uncle Sidney had shown us a letter--it
was from Mr. North, I think--saying that you were likely to come to New
York with some kind of a plan of reorganization. So when you gave me
your card, I knew at once who you were."
Ford made an immediate mental note of the bit of information implicating
Mr. North, but did not allow himself to be diverted by the business
affair.
"Yes, I know; but that didn't help me a little bit," he protested,
wishing that the distance to the hotel were twice as far.
"That was just because it happened so; you ran away before my brother
had a chance to offer you any hospitality," she explained. Then, before
he could say any more straightforward things: "Tell me, Mr. Ford; are
you really going to find something to interest brother?--something that
will keep him actually and enthusiastically busy for more than a few
days at a time?"
Ford laughed. "I fancy he hasn't been bored for the lack of work since I
left New York, has he?"
"No; and it has made such a difference! Won't you please try and keep
him going?"
"You may rest assured that I shall do what I can. But you see he has
quit already."
"By coming to Chicago with us? Oh, no, indeed; you are quite mistaken.
He is here to help you to--to 'minimize' Uncle Sidney; I think that is
the word he used. He was afraid you had been finding Uncle Sidney rather
difficult. Have you?"
"I have, for a fact," said Ford, out of the depths of sincerity. And,
again out of a full heart: "Your brother is a brick, Miss Adair."
"Isn't he?" and she laughed in sheer good comradeship. "If you can only
manage to make him rise to his capabilities--"
"He'll never be able to live the simple life for a single waking hour,"
said the engineer, finishing the sentence for her.
"Oh, but that is a mistake!" she objected. "The very first requirement
is work; plenty of work of the kind one can do best."
The short walk to the hotel, where Kenneth was waiting to go to
breakfast with the president's party, came to an end, and the social
amenities died of inanition. For one thing, President Colbrith insisted
upon learning the minutest ins and outs of the business matter, making
the table-talk his vehicle; and for another, Miss Adair's place was on
the opposite side of the table, and two removes from Ford's. Time and
again the young engineer tried to side-track business in the interests
of something a little less banal to the two women; but the president was
implacable and refused to be pulled out of the narrow rut of details;
was still running monotonously and raspingly in it when Kenneth glanced
at his watch and suggested that the time for action was come.
After breakfast the party separated. Mrs. Adair and Miss Alicia were to
spend the day with friends in South Chicago, and Mr. Colbrith carried
the attorney off to his room to dig still deeper into the possible legal
complications which might arise out of the proposed transfer of the
three short roads. Ford and Adair sat in the lobby and smoked while they
were waiting for the president and the general counsel to conclude their
conference, and the young millionaire gave his companion the story of
the fight in the directory.
"We have Brewster to thank for the lift which finally pulled our wheel
out of the mud," said the young man, modestly effacing himself in the
summing up. "Or rather I should say that we have the enemy to thank for
stirring Brewster into action. Brewster's got some copper mines out in
Utah that he nurses like a sick child. Just at the critical moment some
of the people who control the Transcontinental began to worry his copper
stock. In the hot part of it he came to me and said, 'Adair, will that
western extension of yours be able to fry any fat out of
Transcontinental?' I told him it would, most assuredly; that next to
making money for ourselves, and, incidentally, saving the Pacific
Southwestern from going smash, our chief object was to give the
Transcontinental a wholesome drubbing."
"You are progressing rapidly," said Ford, with a grin of appreciation.
"Did that fetch him?"
"It did, for a fact. He looked like one of those old bushy-bearded
vikings when he said, 'By thunder, I'm with you, young man! And I'll
answer for Scott and Magnus and Harding. Get your board together, and
we'll settle it to-day."
Ford looked up quickly. "If Mr. Colbrith wasn't the chief of your family
clan, Adair, I could wish that we had this Mr. Brewster at the head of
things."
The rejoinder was heartily prompt. "You don't wish it any more fervently
than I do, Ford. That is why I am here to-day. The board, in spite of
all that our handful of revolutionaries could do, has armed Uncle Sidney
with almost dictatorial powers in this stock-purchasing deal; and if he
doesn't contrive to strangle things by the slow process, it will be
simply and solely because you and Kenneth and I are here to see that he
does not. Do you know what the men call him out on the main line? When
they see the Nadia trundling in, they say, 'Here comes old Automatic
Air-Brakes.' And it fits him."
"But I don't quite understand why he should want to put the brakes on
here and now," Ford interposed. "I know he is against the scheme,
personally; but he is here as the representative of a majority which has
committed itself to the expansion measure, isn't he?"
"Oh, yes; and he has no thought of playing the traitor--you mustn't
think that of him. But it isn't in his nature to facilitate things. In
the present crisis he will feel that he is personally responsible for
the expenditure of five million dollars. He will examine and
investigate, and probe and pry, and will want to worry through every
pen-scratch which has been made up to date."
"Well, there is one comfort; he can't take much time for his worrying,"
said Ford. "Some of the options expire to-morrow noon."
Adair sat up as one who suddenly takes notice.
"What?--to-morrow? Land of glory! but you two fellows took short
chances! Why, any little hitch--"
"I know," said the engineer evenly. "But we took what we could get--and
were thankful. Somebody was bidding against us, and prices began to
jump. Incidentally, I may say that Kenneth deserves to be made a
vice-president of the new company, at the very least. He has done ten
men's work in the last three or four days."
"I don't doubt it. Neither do I suspect you of loafing. For that matter,
I've been hustling a few lines, myself, since I sent you that first
telegram."
"Do you find it exciting enough to keep you interested, as far as you've
gone?" inquired Ford, mindful of Miss Alicia's longings.
"It's the best yet," declared the idler. "Only, you mustn't lean too
heavily on me, you know. I'm the most uncertain quantity you ever
experienced. But here comes Uncle Sidney, with a cowed and brow-beaten
Kenneth in tow--say your prayers, and get ready for the battle royal."
IX
THE RACE TO THE SLOW
Adair's prophecy that President Colbrith would prove himself an
obstructor of the stubbornest was amply fulfilled during the short
interval which remained for decisive action. Truly, in the battle for
business celerity the odds were three to one against Mr. Colbrith; yet
the three were as those who buffet the wind. The president must see and
feel, know and fully understand; and at the very last moment, when the
shortest of the options had no more than an hour to live, he was
proposing to summon General Manager North from Denver to make a fifth in
the council of discord.
It was Adair who took the bull by the horns when the president's caution
was about to turn victory into defeat. What was said or done after the
young man drew Mr. Colbrith into the private committee-room at the bank
and shut the door, Ford and Kenneth, who were excluded, could only
surmise. But whatever was done was well done. When the two, uncle and
nephew, came out of the room of privacy, the old man was shaking his
head and the young one was smiling serenely. So it came about that
between eleven and twelve o'clock, when Ford, grimly battling to the
last, fought as one without hope, a few strokes of the pen opened the
doors upon the new creation; five million dollars, more or less, changed
hands, and the Pacific Southwestern took the long leap eastward from the
Missouri River to its new base in Chicago.
"It's you for the hustle now, Ford," said Adair, linking arms with the
engineer when the quartet left the bank. "How soon do you think you can
get that first train-load of grain in transit?"
"I wish I could tell you," said Ford.
"Why can't you?"
"Because it will depend very largely upon the authority Mr. Colbrith or
the board sees fit to give me. At present, you will remember, I am still
only a division superintendent--Mr. North's subordinate, in fact, and--"
"Say it out loud," encouraged Adair.
"I don't like to, but I suppose it can't be helped. Up to now I have
been acting under special orders, as you may say, in a purely financial
transaction. But my commission expired five minutes ago when the stock
deal went through. When it comes to issuing orders in the operating and
transportation department, I have no authority whatever. Mr. North is
general manager, and I suppose his jurisdiction will now be extended to
cover the new line, won't it?"
"Not much!" retorted the amateur promoter. "You are going to be given a
free hand in this from the word go. From what I can learn, North has
been an obstructor, all along, hasn't he?"
"I can't say that," said Ford, just, even to an enemy. "To be right
honest about it, I shall have to confess that I slurred him
entirely--went over his head."
"For good reasons, no doubt, only you are too charitable to give them.
Never mind: as I say, you are going to have a free hand. This is your
pie and nobody else is going to cut it for you." And when the party
reached the hotel there was another conference of two behind closed
doors, in which Ford and the general counsel did not participate.
An hour later, when Adair came down from the president's room, he thrust
a sheaf of penciled printers' copy into Ford's hands.
"There you are," he said. "I've done the best I could for you on such
short notice--with Uncle Sidney trying his level best to get a cross
reference to the board before taking action. Get these circulars through
a print shop and into the mails. You'll see that one of them announces
your appointment, effective to-day, as Assistant to the President. That
was as far as Uncle Sidney could be dragged. It doesn't give you a
straight flush; but your hand will beat North's if it comes to a
show-down between you. Just the same, I shouldn't quarrel with North, if
I were you. Uncle Sidney thinks the sun rises and sets in him."
Ford nodded, and while he was reading hastily through the sheaf of
pencilings a boy brought him a telegram. When he opened the envelope,
Kenneth had turned away. But Adair was looking on, and he did not fail
to remark the startling effect of the few typewritten words upon the
engineer.
"Whereabouts does it hit us this time?" he inquired, lighting a fresh
cigarette.
"In the neck," said Ford curtly. "The possibility occurred to me
yesterday--Pacific Southwestern stock being so badly scattered among
small holders. I wired a broker, a good friend of mine, to pick up a few
shares on my account. Here is what he says: 'Market bone dry. No
offerings of P. S-W. at any price.'"
Adair whistled softly. "That's getting next to us with a vengeance!" he
commented. "And it can be done, too. Half a dozen of the small
stock-holders have been to me since the fire was lighted, trying to get
me to take their stock at market."
"How much do we control--that we are sure of?" Ford asked.
"I don't know--in figures. Not more than two-fifths, I should say. At
the last board meeting I proposed that we make a safe majority pool
among ourselves, but Uncle Sidney sat on me. Said his own personal
constituency among the little people was big enough amply to secure us."
Ford swore pathetically.
"The one single instance when his caution might have steered him
straight--and it went to sleep!" he raged.
"Exactly," laughed Adair. "And now the Transcontinental moguls are
buying up a majority of their own, meaning to capture the main-line dog
and leaving us to wag the extension tail which we have just acquired.
Say, Ford; doesn't that appeal to your sense of humor?"
"No, it doesn't," said Ford savagely. To see one's air-castles crumbling
at the very moment when they were to be transmuted into solid realities
is apt to provoke a reversion to type; and Ford's type was Gothic.
"That's a pity," said Adair, absently rolling his cigarette between his
thumb and finger. "Also, it's another pity that I am such a hopeless
quitter. I believe I could pull this thing out yet, if I could only get
up sufficient steam."
"For heaven's sake, tell me what you burn, and I'll furnish the fuel,"
said Ford desperately.
"Will you? I guess I need something pretty inflammatory."
"Lord of love! haven't you good and plenty, without calling upon me?
Are you going to let these stock-jobbing land-pirates on 'Change gibbet
you as a solemn warning to aspiring young promoters?"
Adair paused with the cigarette half way to his lips. "Ah," he said,
after a thoughtful moment. "Perhaps that was what I needed. No; they
will not gibbet any of us to-day; and possibly not to-morrow." Then,
with a sudden dropping of the mask of easy-going indifference: "Give me
the key to your room, and find me a swift stenographer. Then go over to
the Lake Shore headquarters and ask to have the Nadia coupled to the
evening train for New York."
"But the president?" Ford began. "Didn't he say something about going
over these new lines on an inspection trip?"
"Never mind Uncle Sidney: on this one occasion he will change his plans
and go back to New York with us," said Adair curtly.
"Good," said Ford approvingly. "And how about opening the new through
line for business? Do we go on? Or do we hang it up until we find out
where we are 'at'?"
"Don't hold it up a single minute. Drive it for all the power you can
get behind it. If we have to collide with things, let's do it with the
throttle wide open. Now find me that shorthand person quickly, will
you?"
By what means the president was persuaded or coerced into doing the
thing he had not planned to do, Ford was not to know. But for that
matter, after carrying out Adair's instructions the engineer plunged at
once into his own Herculean task of reorganization, emerging only when
he made a tardy sixth at the president's dinner table in the hotel café
in the evening.
The dinner, which the young engineer had been fondly counting upon as a
momentary relaxation from the heart-breaking business strain, was a
dismal failure on its social side. President Colbrith, as yet, it
appeared, in blissful ignorance of the latest news from New York, had
reserved the seat of honor for his new assistant, and the half-hour was
filled to overflowing with minute and cautionary definitions of the
assistant's powers and duties.
Ford listened with a blank ear on that side. There was work to do, and
one man to do it. He did not care particularly to hear instructions
which he would probably have to disregard at the first experimental dash
into the new field. He meant to hold himself rigidly to account for
results; more than this he thought not even Mr. Colbrith had a right to
require.
After dinner he indemnified himself for the kindergarten lecture by
boldly taking possession of Miss Adair for the short walk over to the
private car. The entire world of work was still ahead, and a corps of
expert stenographers was at the moment awaiting his return to the C. P.
& D. offices, where he had established temporary headquarters; but he
shut the door upon the exigencies and listened to Miss Alicia.
"I am so sorry we are not going to be here to see your triumph," she was
saying; adding: "It is a triumph, isn't it?"'
"Only a beginning," he amended. "And it won't be spectacular, if we can
help it. Besides, this east-end affair is only a preliminary. A little
later on, if our tackle doesn't break, we shall land the really big fish
for which this is only the bait."
"Shall you never be satisfied?" she asked jestingly. And then, more
seriously: "What is your ambition? To be able to buy what your neighbor
can not afford?"
"Big money, you mean? No, I think not. But I like to win, as well as
other men."
"To win what?"