there wasn't nerve enough left in the Red Tower outfit to keep up the
fight; that the surrender of the affidavits was kind of a plea for a
let-up on our part.
"We'll begin to show them, in just about fifteen minutes, Jimmie," was
the short comment. "Reach over and get that telephone and tell Mr.
Ripley and Mr. Billoughby that I want them to meet me at my office at
half-past twelve. Any news from the strike?"
"Nothing," I told him, while "Central" was getting me Mr. Ripley's
number. "Fred May said it was going on just the same; everything quiet
and nothing doing, except that the wrecking train had gone out to pick
up the scraps at Timber Mountain 'Y'. Kirgan is bossing it, and the
strikers manned it for him."
Nothing more was said until after I had sent the two phone messages, and
then the boss broke out in a new spot.
"Has anything been heard from Mr. Van Britt?" he asked.
"Not that I know of."
Again he gave me that queer little scowl across the table.
"Jimmie, have you found out yet why Mr. Van Britt insisted on quitting
the service?"
I guess I grinned a little, though I tried not to.
"Mr. Van Britt is one of the best friends you've got," I said. "He
thought you needed this strike, and he wanted to go out among the
pay-roll men and sort of help it along. He couldn't do a thing like that
while he was an officer of the company and drawing his pay like the rest
of us."
"I might have known--he as good as told me," was the reply, made kind of
half-absently; and then, short and quick: "How's the stock market? Have
you seen a paper?"
I had seen both papers, at breakfast-time, but of course they had
nothing startling in them except a last-minute account of the wreck at
Timber Mountain "Y," grabbed off just before they went to press. They
couldn't have anything later from New York than the day before. But Fred
May had tipped me off when he came up to tell me about the Major
Kendrick special. The newspaper offices were putting out bulletins by
that time.
I told Mr. Norcross about the bulletins and was brash enough to add:
"We're headed for the receivership all right, I guess; our stock has
tumbled to twenty-nine, and there's a regular dog-fight going on over it
at the railroad post in the Exchange. Wall Street's afire and burning
up, so they say."
The chief hadn't eaten enough to keep a cat alive, but at that he pushed
his chair back and reached for his hat.
"Come on, Jimmie," he snapped. "We've got to get busy. And there isn't
going to be any receivership."
We reached the railroad headquarters--which were as dead and quiet as a
graveyard--a little before Mr. Ripley and Billoughby got down. But Mr.
Editor Cantrell was there, waiting to shoot an anxious question at the
boss.
"Well, Norcross, are you ready to talk now?"
"Not just yet; to-morrow, maybe," was the good-natured rejoinder.
"All right; then perhaps you will tell me this: Do you, yourself,
believe that four or five thousand railroad men have gone on strike out
of sheer sympathy for a few hundred C. S. & W. employees, most of whom
are merely common laborers?"
The boss spread his hands. "You have all the facts that anybody has,
Cantrell."
"Can you look me in the eye and tell me that you haven't fomented this
eruption on the quiet to get the better of the Red Tower crowd in some
way?" demanded the editor.
"I can, indeed," was the smiling answer.
Cantrell looked as if he didn't more than half believe it.
"Being a newspaper man, I'm naturally suspicious," he put in. "There are
big doings down underneath all this that I can smell, but can't dig up.
Everything about this strike is too blamed good-natured. I've talked
with half a dozen of the leaders, and with any number of the rank and
file. They all grin and give me the wink, as if it were the best joke
that was ever pulled off."
Again Mr. Norcross smiled handsomely. "If you push me to it, Cantrell, I
may say that this is exactly their attitude toward me!"
"Well," said the editor, getting up to go; "it's doing one thing to you,
good and proper. Your railroad stock is tumbling down-stairs so fast
that it can't keep up with itself."
"I hope it will tumble still more," said the boss, pleasantly, with
another sort of enigmatic smile; and with that Mr. Cantrell had to be
content.
As the editor went out, Fred May brought in the bunch of forenoon
telegrams and laid them on the desk. They were quickly glanced at and
tossed over to me as fast as they were read. Most of them were plaintive
little yips from a strike-stricken lot of people along the Short Line
who seemed to think that the world had come to an end, but there were
three bearing the New York date line and signed "Dunton." The earliest
had been sent shortly after the opening of the Stock Exchange, and it
ran thus:
"Morning papers announce strike and complete tie-up on P. S. L. Why no
report from you of labor troubles threatening? Compromise at any cost
and wire emphatic denial of strike. Answer quick."
The second of the series had been filed for transmission an hour later
and it was still more saw-toothed.
"Later reports confirm newspaper story. Your failure to compromise
instantly with employees will break stock market and subject you to
investigation for criminal incompetency. Answer."
The third message had been sent still later.
"Your continued silence inexcusable. If no favorable report from you by
six o'clock you may consider yourself discharged from the company's
service and criminal proceedings on charge of conspiracy will be
instituted at once."
There was no mention of Collingwood, and I could only imagine that Major
Kendrick's telegram had not yet reached the president. I thought things
were beginning to look pretty serious for us if Mr. Dunton was going to
try to drag us into the courts, but Mr. Norcross was still smiling when
he handed me the last and latest telegram in the bunch that May had
brought in. It was from Mr. Chadwick, and was good-naturedly laconic.
"To G. NORCROSS, G. M.,
"Portal City.
"Just returned from trip to Seattle. What's doing on the Short
Line?
"CHADWICK."
"A couple of telegrams, Jimmie," said the chief, as he passed this last
wire over, and I got my notebook ready.
"To B. Dunton, New York. Strike is sympathetic and not subject to
compromise. Mails moving regularly, but all other traffic suspended
indefinitely. My office closes to-day, and my resignation, effective at
once, goes to you on Fast Mail to-night."
"Now one to Mr. Chadwick, and you may send it in code," he directed
crisply. Then he dictated:
"See newspapers for account of strike. Hatch and eight of his associates
were killed last night in railroad wreck. Dunton has demanded my
resignation and I have given it. Have plan for complete reorganization
along lines discussed in beginning, and need your help. At market
opening to-morrow sell P. S. L. large blocks and repurchase in driblets
as price goes down. Repeat until I tell you to stop. Wire quick if you
are with us."
Just as I was taking the last sentence, Mr. Ripley and Billoughby came
in, and Mr. Norcross took them both into the third room of the suite and
shut the door. An hour later when the door opened and they came out, the
boss was summing up the new orders to Billoughby: "There's a lot to do,
and you have my authority to hire all the help you need. See the bankers
yourself, personally, and get them to interest other local buyers along
the line, the more of them, and the smaller they are, the better. I'll
take care of Portal City, myself. I've had Van Britt on the wire and he
is taking care of the employees--yes, that goes as it lies, and is a
part of the original plan; every man who works for P. S. L. is going to
own a bit of stock, if we have to carry him for it and let him pay a
dollar a week. More than that, they shall have representation on the
board if they want it. And while you're knocking about, take time to
show these C. S. & W. folks how they can climb back into the saddle. Red
Tower is down and out, now, and they can keep it out if they want to."
* * * * *
I suppose I might rattle this old type-machine of mine indefinitely and
tell the story of the financial fight that filled the next few days; of
how the boss and Mr. Ripley and Billoughby got the bankers and
practically everybody together all along the Short Line and sprung the
big plan upon them, which was nothing less than the snapping up, on a
tumbling stock market, of the opportunity now presented to them of
owning--actually _owning_ in fee simple--their own railroad, the buying
to be done quietly through Mr. Chadwick's brokers in Chicago and New
York.
There was some opposition and jangling and see-sawing back and forth, of
course, but the newspapers, led by the _Mountaineer_, took hold, and
then, pretty soon, everybody took hold; after which the only trouble was
to keep people--our own rank and file among them--from buying P. S. L.
Common so fast that the New Yorkers would catch on and run the price
up.
They didn't catch on--not until after it was too late; and the minute
Mr. Chadwick wired us from Chicago that we were safe, the strike went
off, as you might say, between two minutes, and Mr. Norcross called a
meeting of stockholders, the same to be held--bless your heart!--in
Portal City, the thriving metropolis of the region in which, counting
Mr. Chadwick in as one of us, a good, solid voting majority of the stock
was now held. The _Mountaineer_ printed the call, and it spoke of the
railroad as "_our_ railroad company"!
The meeting was held in due time, and Mr. Chadwick was there to preside.
He made a cracking good chairman, and the way he dilated on the fact
that now the country--and the employees--had a railroad of their own,
and that the whole nation would be looking to see how we would
demonstrate the problem we had taken over, actually brought
cheers--think of it; cheers in a railroad stockholders' meeting.
Following Mr. Chadwick's talk there was the usual routine business;
reports were read and it was shown that the Short Line, notwithstanding
all the stealings and mismanagements was still a good going proposition
at the price at which it had been bought in. A new board of directors
was chosen, and as soon as the new board got together, Mr. Norcross
went back to his office in the headquarters, not as general manager,
this time--not on your life!--but as the newly elected president of
Pioneer Short Line. And by the same token, the first official circular
that came out--a copy of which I sent, tied up with a blue ribbon, to
Maisie Ann--read like this:
"To all Employees:
"Effective this day, Mr. James F. Dodds is appointed Assistant to
the President with headquarters in Portal City.
"G. NORCROSS, _President_."
That's all; all but a little talk between the boss and Mr. Upton Van
Britt that took place in our office on the day after Mr. Van Britt,
still kicking about the hard work that the boss was always piling upon
him, had been appointed general manager.
"You've made the riffle, Graham--just as I said you would," said our own
and only millionaire, after he had got through abusing the fates that
wouldn't let him go back East and play with his coupon shears and his
yachts and polo ponies. "You're going to be the biggest man this side of
the mountains, some day; and the day isn't so very far off, either."
It was just here that the boss got out of his chair and walked to the
other end of the room. When he came back it was to say:
"You think I have won out, Upton, and so does everybody else. I suppose
it looks that way to the man in the street. But I haven't, you know. I
have lost the one thing for which I would gladly give all the business
success I have ever made or hope to make."
Mr. Van Britt's smile was more than half a grin.
"It isn't lost, Graham: it's only gone before. Can't you wait a decent
little while?"
"If I should wait all my life it wouldn't be long enough, Upton," was
the reply. "What you said to me--that time when we first spoke of
Collingwood--was true. You said she loved the other man--and so she
did."
This time Mr. Van Britt's smile was a whole grin.
"I said it, and I'll say it again. She didn't realize it or admit it,
even to herself you know; she's too good and clean-hearted for anything
like that. But I could see it plainly enough, and so could everybody
else except the two people most nearly concerned. I didn't mean Howie
Collingwood: you were the 'other man,' Graham."
At this the boss whirled short around and tramped to the other end of
the room again, standing for quite a little while with one foot on the
low window-sill and making out like he was looking down at the traffic
clattering along in Nevada Avenue. But I'll bet a quarter he never saw a
single wheel of it. When he came back our way his eyes were shining and
he put his hand on Mr. Van Britt's shoulder.
"It ought to have been you, Uppy," he said, dropping back to the old
college nickname. "You're by long odds the better man. When--when do you
think I might venture to take a little run across to New York?"
At that, Mr. Van Britt laughed out loud.
"Ho! ho!" he said. "I suppose I ought to say a year. You can wait one
little year, can't you, Graham?"
"Not on your life!" rasped the boss. And then: "I'll tell you what I'll
do; I'll compromise with the proprieties, or whatever it is that you're
insisting on, and make it six months. But that's the limit--the absolute
limit!"
And so it was.
* * * * *
_BY FRANCIS LYNDE_
THE WRECKERS
DAVID VALLORY
BRANDED
STRANDED IN ARCADY
AFTER THE MANNER OF MEN
THE REAL MAN
THE CITY OF NUMBERED DAYS
THE HONORABLE SENATOR SAGE-BRUSH
SCIENTIFIC SPRAGUÉ
THE PRICE
THE TAMING OF RED BUTTE WESTERN
A ROMANCE IN TRANSIT