CHAPTER IV

Presley's Socialistic poem, “The Toilers,” had an enormous success. The

editor of the Sunday supplement of the San Francisco paper to which

it was sent, printed it in Gothic type, with a scare-head title so

decorative as to be almost illegible, and furthermore caused the poem to

be illustrated by one of the paper's staff artists in a most impressive

fashion. The whole affair occupied an entire page. Thus advertised, the

poem attracted attention. It was promptly copied in New York, Boston,

and Chicago papers. It was discussed, attacked, defended, eulogised,

ridiculed. It was praised with the most fulsome adulation; assailed with

the most violent condemnation. Editorials were written upon it. Special

articles, in literary pamphlets, dissected its rhetoric and prosody.

The phrases were quoted,--were used as texts for revolutionary sermons,

reactionary speeches. It was parodied; it was distorted so as to read as

an advertisement for patented cereals and infants' foods. Finally,

the editor of an enterprising monthly magazine reprinted the poem,

supplementing it by a photograph and biography of Presley himself.

Presley was stunned, bewildered. He began to wonder at himself. Was

he actually the “greatest American poet since Bryant”? He had had no

thought of fame while composing “The Toilers.” He had only been moved

to his heart's foundations,--thoroughly in earnest, seeing clearly,--and

had addressed himself to the poem's composition in a happy moment when

words came easily to him, and the elaboration of fine sentences was not

difficult. Was it thus fame was achieved? For a while he was tempted

to cross the continent and go to New York and there come unto his own,

enjoying the triumph that awaited him. But soon he denied himself this

cheap reward. Now he was too much in earnest. He wanted to help his

People, the community in which he lived--the little world of the San

Joaquin, at grapples with the Railroad. The struggle had found its poet.

He told himself that his place was here. Only the words of the manager

of a lecture bureau troubled him for a moment. To range the entire

nation, telling all his countrymen of the drama that was working itself

out on this fringe of the continent, this ignored and distant Pacific

Coast, rousing their interest and stirring them up to action--appealed

to him. It might do great good. To devote himself to “the Cause,”

accepting no penny of remuneration; to give his life to loosing the grip

of the iron-hearted monster of steel and steam would be beyond question

heroic. Other States than California had their grievances. All over the

country the family of cyclops was growing. He would declare himself the

champion of the People in their opposition to the Trust. He would be an

apostle, a prophet, a martyr of Freedom.

But Presley was essentially a dreamer, not a man of affairs. He

hesitated to act at this precise psychological moment, striking while

the iron was yet hot, and while he hesitated, other affairs near at hand

began to absorb his attention.

One night, about an hour after he had gone to bed, he was awakened by

the sound of voices on the porch of the ranch house, and, descending,

found Mrs. Dyke there with Sidney. The ex-engineer's mother was talking

to Magnus and Harran, and crying as she talked. It seemed that Dyke was

missing. He had gone into town early that afternoon with the wagon and

team, and was to have been home for supper. By now it was ten o'clock

and there was no news of him. Mrs. Dyke told how she first had gone

to Quien Sabe, intending to telephone from there to Bonneville, but

Annixter was in San Francisco, and in his absence the house was

locked up, and the over-seer, who had a duplicate key, was himself

in Bonneville. She had telegraphed three times from Guadalajara to

Bonneville for news of her son, but without result. Then, at last,

tortured with anxiety, she had gone to Hooven's, taking Sidney with her,

and had prevailed upon “Bismarck” to hitch up and drive her across Los

Muertos to the Governor's, to beg him to telephone into Bonneville, to

know what had become of Dyke.

While Harran rang up Central in town, Mrs. Dyke told Presley and Magnus

of the lamentable change in Dyke.

“They have broken my son's spirit, Mr. Derrick,” she said. “If you were

only there to see. Hour after hour, he sits on the porch with his hands

lying open in his lap, looking at them without a word. He won't look

me in the face any more, and he don't sleep. Night after night, he has

walked the floor until morning. And he will go on that way for days

together, very silent, without a word, and sitting still in his chair,

and then, all of a sudden, he will break out--oh, Mr. Derrick, it is

terrible--into an awful rage, cursing, swearing, grinding his teeth,

his hands clenched over his head, stamping so that the house shakes, and

saying that if S. Behrman don't give him back his money, he will kill

him with his two hands. But that isn't the worst, Mr. Derrick. He goes

to Mr. Caraher's saloon now, and stays there for hours, and listens

to Mr. Caraher. There is something on my son's mind; I know there

is--something that he and Mr. Caraher have talked over together, and

I can't find out what it is. Mr. Caraher is a bad man, and my son has

fallen under his influence.” The tears filled her eyes. Bravely, she

turned to hide them, turning away to take Sidney in her arms, putting

her head upon the little girl's shoulder.

“I--I haven't broken down before, Mr. Derrick,” she said, “but after we

have been so happy in our little house, just us three--and the future

seemed so bright--oh, God will punish the gentlemen who own the railroad

for being so hard and cruel.”

Harran came out on the porch, from the telephone, and she interrupted

herself, fixing her eyes eagerly upon him.

“I think it is all right, Mrs. Dyke,” he said, reassuringly. “We know

where he is, I believe. You and the little tad stay here, and Hooven and

I will go after him.”

About two hours later, Harran brought Dyke back to Los Muertos in

Hooven's wagon. He had found him at Caraher's saloon, very drunk.

There was nothing maudlin about Dyke's drunkenness. In him the alcohol

merely roused the spirit of evil, vengeful, reckless.

As the wagon passed out from under the eucalyptus trees about the ranch

house, taking Mrs. Dyke, Sidney, and the one-time engineer back to the

hop ranch, Presley leaning from his window heard the latter remark:

“Caraher is right. There is only one thing they listen to, and that's

dynamite.”

The following day Presley drove Magnus over to Guadalajara to take the

train for San Francisco. But after he had said good-bye to the Governor,

he was moved to go on to the hop ranch to see the condition of affairs

in that quarter. He returned to Los Muertos overwhelmed with sadness and

trembling with anger. The hop ranch that he had last seen in the full

tide of prosperity was almost a ruin. Work had evidently been abandoned

long since. Weeds were already choking the vines. Everywhere the poles

sagged and drooped. Many had even fallen, dragging the vines with them,

spreading them over the ground in an inextricable tangle of dead

leaves, decaying tendrils, and snarled string. The fence was broken;

the unfinished storehouse, which never was to see completion, was a

lamentable spectacle of gaping doors and windows--a melancholy skeleton.

Last of all, Presley had caught a glimpse of Dyke himself, seated in

his rocking chair on the porch, his beard and hair unkempt, motionless,

looking with vague eyes upon his hands that lay palm upwards and idle in

his lap.

Magnus on his way to San Francisco was joined at Bonneville by Osterman.

Upon seating himself in front of the master of Los Muertos in the

smoking-car of the train, this latter, pushing back his hat and

smoothing his bald head, observed:

“Governor, you look all frazeled out. Anything wrong these days?”

The other answered in the negative, but, for all that, Osterman was

right. The Governor had aged suddenly. His former erectness was

gone, the broad shoulders stooped a little, the strong lines of his

thin-lipped mouth were relaxed, and his hand, as it clasped over the

yellowed ivory knob of his cane, had an unwonted tremulousness not

hitherto noticeable. But the change in Magnus was more than physical.

At last, in the full tide of power, President of the League, known and

talked of in every county of the State, leader in a great struggle,

consulted, deferred to as the “Prominent Man,” at length attaining that

position, so long and vainly sought for, he yet found no pleasure in

his triumph, and little but bitterness in life. His success had come by

devious methods, had been reached by obscure means.

He was a briber. He could never forget that. To further his ends,

disinterested, public-spirited, even philanthropic as those were, he

had connived with knavery, he, the politician of the old school, of such

rigorous integrity, who had abandoned a “career” rather than compromise

with honesty. At this eleventh hour, involved and entrapped in the

fine-spun web of a new order of things, bewildered by Osterman's

dexterity, by his volubility and glibness, goaded and harassed beyond

the point of reason by the aggression of the Trust he fought, he had at

last failed. He had fallen he had given a bribe. He had thought that,

after all, this would make but little difference with him. The affair

was known only to Osterman, Broderson, and Annixter; they would not

judge him, being themselves involved. He could still preserve a bold

front; could still hold his head high. As time went on the affair would

lose its point.

But this was not so. Some subtle element of his character had forsaken

him. He felt it. He knew it. Some certain stiffness that had given him

all his rigidity, that had lent force to his authority, weight to his

dominance, temper to his fine, inflexible hardness, was diminishing

day by day. In the decisions which he, as President of the League, was

called upon to make so often, he now hesitated. He could no longer

be arrogant, masterful, acting upon his own judgment, independent of

opinion. He began to consult his lieutenants, asking their advice,

distrusting his own opinions. He made mistakes, blunders, and when those

were brought to his notice, took refuge in bluster. He knew it to be

bluster--knew that sooner or later his subordinates would recognise it

as such. How long could he maintain his position? So only he could keep

his grip upon the lever of control till the battle was over, all would

be well. If not, he would fall, and, once fallen, he knew that now,

briber that he was, he would never rise again.

He was on his way at this moment to the city to consult with Lyman as

to a certain issue of the contest between the Railroad and the ranchers,

which, of late, had been brought to his notice.

When appeal had been taken to the Supreme Court by the League's

Executive Committee, certain test cases had been chosen, which should

represent all the lands in question. Neither Magnus nor Annixter had

so appealed, believing, of course, that their cases were covered by the

test cases on trial at Washington. Magnus had here blundered again, and

the League's agents in San Francisco had written to warn him that the

Railroad might be able to take advantage of a technicality, and by

pretending that neither Quien Sabe nor Los Muertos were included in the

appeal, attempt to put its dummy buyers in possession of the two ranches

before the Supreme Court handed down its decision. The ninety days

allowed for taking this appeal were nearly at an end and after then the

Railroad could act. Osterman and Magnus at once decided to go up to the

city, there joining Annixter (who had been absent from Quien Sabe for

the last ten days), and talk the matter over with Lyman. Lyman, because

of his position as Commissioner, might be cognisant of the Railroad's

plans, and, at the same time, could give sound legal advice as to what

was to be done should the new rumour prove true.

“Say,” remarked Osterman, as the train pulled out of the Bonneville

station, and the two men settled themselves for the long journey, “say

Governor, what's all up with Buck Annixter these days? He's got a bean

about something, sure.”

“I had not noticed,” answered Magnus. “Mr. Annixter has been away

some time lately. I cannot imagine what should keep him so long in San

Francisco.”

“That's it,” said Osterman, winking. “Have three guesses. Guess right

and you get a cigar. I guess g-i-r-l spells Hilma Tree. And a little

while ago she quit Quien Sabe and hiked out to 'Frisco. So did Buck.

Do I draw the cigar? It's up to you.” “I have noticed her,” observed

Magnus. “A fine figure of a woman. She would make some man a good wife.”

“Hoh! Wife! Buck Annixter marry! Not much. He's gone a-girling at last,

old Buck! It's as funny as twins. Have to josh him about it when I see

him, sure.”

But when Osterman and Magnus at last fell in with Annixter in the

vestibule of the Lick House, on Montgomery Street, nothing could be got

out of him. He was in an execrable humour. When Magnus had broached the

subject of business, he had declared that all business could go to pot,

and when Osterman, his tongue in his cheek, had permitted himself a

most distant allusion to a feemale girl, Annixter had cursed him for a

“busy-face” so vociferously and tersely, that even Osterman was cowed.

“Well,” insinuated Osterman, “what are you dallying 'round 'Frisco so

much for?”

“Cat fur, to make kitten-breeches,” retorted Annixter with oracular

vagueness.

Two weeks before this time, Annixter had come up to the city and

had gone at once to a certain hotel on Bush Street, behind the First

National Bank, that he knew was kept by a family connection of the

Trees. In his conjecture that Hilma and her parents would stop here, he

was right. Their names were on the register. Ignoring custom, Annixter

marched straight up to their rooms, and before he was well aware of it,

was “eating crow” before old man Tree.

Hilma and her mother were out at the time. Later on, Mrs. Tree returned

alone, leaving Hilma to spend the day with one of her cousins who lived

far out on Stanyan Street in a little house facing the park.

Between Annixter and Hilma's parents, a reconciliation had been

effected, Annixter convincing them both of his sincerity in wishing to

make Hilma his wife. Hilma, however, refused to see him. As soon as

she knew he had followed her to San Francisco she had been unwilling

to return to the hotel and had arranged with her cousin to spend an

indefinite time at her house.

She was wretchedly unhappy during all this time; would not set foot out

of doors, and cried herself to sleep night after night. She detested the

city. Already she was miserably homesick for the ranch. She remembered

the days she had spent in the little dairy-house, happy in her work,

making butter and cheese; skimming the great pans of milk, scouring the

copper vessels and vats, plunging her arms, elbow deep, into the white

curds; coming and going in that atmosphere of freshness, cleanliness,

and sunlight, gay, singing, supremely happy just because the sun shone.

She remembered her long walks toward the Mission late in the afternoons,

her excursions for cresses underneath the Long Trestle, the crowing of

the cocks, the distant whistle of the passing trains, the faint sounding

of the Angelus. She recalled with infinite longing the solitary expanse

of the ranches, the level reaches between the horizons, full of light

and silence; the heat at noon, the cloudless iridescence of the sunrise

and sunset. She had been so happy in that life! Now, all those days were

passed. This crude, raw city, with its crowding houses all of wood

and tin, its blotting fogs, its uproarious trade winds, disturbed and

saddened her. There was no outlook for the future.

At length, one day, about a week after Annixter's arrival in the city,

she was prevailed upon to go for a walk in the park. She went alone,

putting on for the first time the little hat of black straw with its

puff of white silk her mother had bought for her, a pink shirtwaist, her

belt of imitation alligator skin, her new skirt of brown cloth, and her

low shoes, set off with their little steel buckles.

She found a tiny summer house, built in Japanese fashion, around a

diminutive pond, and sat there for a while, her hands folded in her lap,

amused with watching the goldfish, wishing--she knew not what.

Without any warning, Annixter sat down beside her. She was too

frightened to move. She looked at him with wide eyes that began to fill

with tears.

“Oh,” she said, at last, “oh--I didn't know.”

“Well,” exclaimed Annixter, “here you are at last. I've been watching

that blamed house till I was afraid the policeman would move me on. By

the Lord,” he suddenly cried, “you're pale. You--you, Hilma, do you feel

well?”

“Yes--I am well,” she faltered.

“No, you're not,” he declared. “I know better. You are coming back to

Quien Sabe with me. This place don't agree with you. Hilma, what's

all the matter? Why haven't you let me see you all this time? Do you

know--how things are with me? Your mother told you, didn't she? Do you

know how sorry I am? Do you know that I see now that I made the mistake

of my life there, that time, under the Long Trestle? I found it out the

night after you went away. I sat all night on a stone out on the ranch

somewhere and I don't know exactly what happened, but I've been a

different man since then. I see things all different now. Why, I've only

begun to live since then. I know what love means now, and instead of

being ashamed of it, I'm proud of it. If I never was to see you again I

would be glad I'd lived through that night, just the same. I just woke

up that night. I'd been absolutely and completely selfish up to the

moment I realised I really loved you, and now, whether you'll let me

marry you or not, I mean to live--I don't know, in a different way. I've

GOT to live different. I--well--oh, I can't make you understand, but

just loving you has changed my life all around. It's made it easier

to do the straight, clean thing. I want to do it, it's fun doing it.

Remember, once I said I was proud of being a hard man, a driver, of

being glad that people hated me and were afraid of me? Well, since I've

loved you I'm ashamed of it all. I don't want to be hard any more, and

nobody is going to hate me if I can help it. I'm happy and I want other

people so. I love you,” he suddenly exclaimed; “I love you, and if you

will forgive me, and if you will come down to such a beast as I am,

I want to be to you the best a man can be to a woman, Hilma. Do you

understand, little girl? I want to be your husband.”

Hilma looked at the goldfishes through her tears.

“Have you got anything to say to me, Hilma?” he asked, after a while.

“I don't know what you want me to say,” she murmured.

“Yes, you do,” he insisted. “I've followed you 'way up here to hear it.

I've waited around in these beastly, draughty picnic grounds for over a

week to hear it. You know what I want to hear, Hilma.”

“Well--I forgive you,” she hazarded.

“That will do for a starter,” he answered. “But that's not IT.”

“Then, I don't know what.”

“Shall I say it for you?”

She hesitated a long minute, then:

“You mightn't say it right,” she replied.

“Trust me for that. Shall I say it for you, Hilma?”

“I don't know what you'll say.”

“I'll say what you are thinking of. Shall I say it?”

There was a very long pause. A goldfish rose to the surface of the

little pond, with a sharp, rippling sound. The fog drifted overhead.

There was nobody about.

“No,” said Hilma, at length. “I--I--I can say it for myself. I--” All

at once she turned to him and put her arms around his neck. “Oh, DO you

love me?” she cried. “Is it really true? Do you mean every word of it?

And you are sorry and you WILL be good to me if I will be your wife? You

will be my dear, dear husband?”

The tears sprang to Annixter's eyes. He took her in his arms and held

her there for a moment. Never in his life had he felt so unworthy, so

undeserving of this clean, pure girl who forgave him and trusted his

spoken word and believed him to be the good man he could only wish to

be. She was so far above him, so exalted, so noble that he should have

bowed his forehead to her feet, and instead, she took him in her arms,

believing him to be good, to be her equal. He could think of no words

to say. The tears overflowed his eyes and ran down upon his cheeks. She

drew away from him and held him a second at arm's length, looking at

him, and he saw that she, too, had been crying.

“I think,” he said, “we are a couple of softies.”

“No, no,” she insisted. “I want to cry and want you to cry, too. Oh,

dear, I haven't a handkerchief.”

“Here, take mine.”

They wiped each other's eyes like two children and for a long time sat

in the deserted little Japanese pleasure house, their arms about each

other, talking, talking, talking.

On the following Saturday they were married in an uptown Presbyterian

church, and spent the week of their honeymoon at a small, family hotel

on Sutter Street. As a matter of course, they saw the sights of the city

together. They made the inevitable bridal trip to the Cliff House and

spent an afternoon in the grewsome and made-to-order beauties of

Sutro's Gardens; they went through Chinatown, the Palace Hotel, the

park museum--where Hilma resolutely refused to believe in the Egyptian

mummy--and they drove out in a hired hack to the Presidio and the Golden

Gate.

On the sixth day of their excursions, Hilma abruptly declared they had

had enough of “playing out,” and must be serious and get to work.

This work was nothing less than the buying of the furniture and

appointments for the rejuvenated ranch house at Quien Sabe, where they

were to live. Annixter had telegraphed to his overseer to have the

building repainted, replastered, and reshingled and to empty the rooms

of everything but the telephone and safe. He also sent instructions to

have the dimensions of each room noted down and the result forwarded

to him. It was the arrival of these memoranda that had roused Hilma to

action.

Then ensued a most delicious week. Armed with formidable lists, written

by Annixter on hotel envelopes, they two descended upon the department

stores of the city, the carpet stores, the furniture stores. Right and

left they bought and bargained, sending each consignment as soon as

purchased to Quien Sabe. Nearly an entire car load of carpets, curtains,

kitchen furniture, pictures, fixtures, lamps, straw matting, chairs, and

the like were sent down to the ranch, Annixter making a point that their

new home should be entirely equipped by San Francisco dealers.

The furnishings of the bedroom and sitting-room were left to the very

last. For the former, Hilma bought a “set” of pure white enamel, three

chairs, a washstand and bureau, a marvellous bargain of thirty dollars,

discovered by wonderful accident at a “Friday Sale.” The bed was a

piece by itself, bought elsewhere, but none the less a wonder. It was of

brass, very brave and gay, and actually boasted a canopy! They bought

it complete, just as it stood in the window of the department store and

Hilma was in an ecstasy over its crisp, clean, muslin curtains, spread,

and shams. Never was there such a bed, the luxury of a princess, such a

bed as she had dreamed about her whole life.

Next the appointments of the sitting-room occupied her--since Annixter,

himself, bewildered by this astonishing display, unable to offer a

single suggestion himself, merely approved of all she bought. In the

sitting-room was to be a beautiful blue and white paper, cool straw

matting, set off with white wool rugs, a stand of flowers in the window,

a globe of goldfish, rocking chairs, a sewing machine, and a great,

round centre table of yellow oak whereon should stand a lamp covered

with a deep shade of crinkly red tissue paper. On the walls were to hang

several pictures--lovely affairs, photographs from life, all properly

tinted--of choir boys in robes, with beautiful eyes; pensive young girls

in pink gowns, with flowing yellow hair, drooping over golden harps; a

coloured reproduction of “Rouget de Lisle, Singing the Marseillaise,”

and two “pieces” of wood carving, representing a quail and a wild duck,

hung by one leg in the midst of game bags and powder horns,--quite

masterpieces, both.

At last everything had been bought, all arrangements made, Hilma's

trunks packed with her new dresses, and the tickets to Bonneville

bought.

“We'll go by the Overland, by Jingo,” declared Annixter across the

table to his wife, at their last meal in the hotel where they had been

stopping; “no way trains or locals for us, hey?”

“But we reach Bonneville at SUCH an hour,” protested Hilma. “Five in the

morning!”

“Never mind,” he declared, “we'll go home in PULLMAN'S, Hilma. I'm not

going to have any of those slobs in Bonneville say I didn't know how to

do the thing in style, and we'll have Vacca meet us with the team. No,

sir, it is Pullman's or nothing. When it comes to buying furniture, I

don't shine, perhaps, but I know what's due my wife.”

He was obdurate, and late one afternoon the couple boarded the

Transcontinental (the crack Overland Flyer of the Pacific and

Southwestern) at the Oakland mole. Only Hilma's parents were there to

say good-bye. Annixter knew that Magnus and Osterman were in the city,

but he had laid his plans to elude them. Magnus, he could trust to be

dignified, but that goat Osterman, one could never tell what he would do

next. He did not propose to start his journey home in a shower of rice.

Annixter marched down the line of cars, his hands encumbered with wicker

telescope baskets, satchels, and valises, his tickets in his mouth, his

hat on wrong side foremost, Hilma and her parents hurrying on behind

him, trying to keep up. Annixter was in a turmoil of nerves lest

something should go wrong; catching a train was always for him a little

crisis. He rushed ahead so furiously that when he had found his Pullman

he had lost his party. He set down his valises to mark the place and

charged back along the platform, waving his arms.

“Come on,” he cried, when, at length, he espied the others. “We've no

more time.”

He shouldered and urged them forward to where he had set his valises,

only to find one of them gone. Instantly he raised an outcry. Aha, a

fine way to treat passengers! There was P. and S. W. management for

you. He would, by the Lord, he would--but the porter appeared in the

vestibule of the car to placate him. He had already taken his valises

inside.

Annixter would not permit Hilma's parents to board the car, declaring

that the train might pull out any moment. So he and his wife, following

the porter down the narrow passage by the stateroom, took their places

and, raising the window, leaned out to say good-bye to Mr. and Mrs.

Tree. These latter would not return to Quien Sabe. Old man Tree had

found a business chance awaiting him in the matter of supplying his

relative's hotel with dairy products. But Bonneville was not too far

from San Francisco; the separation was by no means final.

The porters began taking up the steps that stood by the vestibule of

each sleeping-car.

“Well, have a good time, daughter,” observed her father; “and come up to

see us whenever you can.”

From beyond the enclosure of the depot's reverberating roof came the

measured clang of a bell.

“I guess we're off,” cried Annixter. “Good-bye, Mrs. Tree.”

“Remember your promise, Hilma,” her mother hastened to exclaim, “to

write every Sunday afternoon.”

There came a prolonged creaking and groan of straining wood and iron

work, all along the length of the train. They all began to cry their

good-byes at once. The train stirred, moved forward, and gathering slow

headway, rolled slowly out into the sunlight. Hilma leaned out of the

window and as long as she could keep her mother in sight waved her

handkerchief. Then at length she sat back in her seat and looked at her

husband.

“Well,” she said.

“Well,” echoed Annixter, “happy?” for the tears rose in her eyes.

She nodded energetically, smiling at him bravely.

“You look a little pale,” he declared, frowning uneasily; “feel well?”

“Pretty well.”

Promptly he was seized with uneasiness. “But not ALL well, hey? Is that

it?”

It was true that Hilma had felt a faint tremour of seasickness on the

ferry-boat coming from the city to the Oakland mole. No doubt a little

nausea yet remained with her. But Annixter refused to accept this

explanation. He was distressed beyond expression.

“Now you're going to be sick,” he cried anxiously.

“No, no,” she protested, “not a bit.”

“But you said you didn't feel very well. Where is it you feel sick?”

“I don't know. I'm not sick. Oh, dear me, why will you bother?”

“Headache?”

“Not the least.”

“You feel tired, then. That's it. No wonder, the way rushed you 'round

to-day.”

“Dear, I'm NOT tired, and I'm NOT sick, and I'm all RIGHT.”

“No, no; I can tell. I think we'd best have the berth made up and you

lie down.”

“That would be perfectly ridiculous.”

“Well, where is it you feel sick? Show me; put your hand on the place.

Want to eat something?”

With elaborate minuteness, he cross-questioned her, refusing to let the

subject drop, protesting that she had dark circles under her eyes; that

she had grown thinner.

“Wonder if there's a doctor on board,” he murmured, looking uncertainly

about the car. “Let me see your tongue. I know--a little whiskey is what

you want, that and some pru----”

“No, no, NO,” she exclaimed. “I'm as well as I ever was in all my life.

Look at me. Now, tell me, do l look likee a sick lady?”

He scrutinised her face distressfully.

“Now, don't I look the picture of health?” she challenged.

“In a way you do,” he began, “and then again----”

Hilma beat a tattoo with her heels upon the floor, shutting her

fists, the thumbs tucked inside. She closed her eyes, shaking her head

energetically.

“I won't listen, I won't listen, I won't listen,” she cried.

“But, just the same----”

“Gibble--gibble--gibble,” she mocked. “I won't Listen, I won't listen.”

She put a hand over his mouth. “Look, here's the dining-car waiter, and

the first call for supper, and your wife is hungry.”

They went forward and had supper in the diner, while the long train, now

out upon the main line, settled itself to its pace, the prolonged, even

gallop that it would hold for the better part of the week, spinning out

the miles as a cotton spinner spins thread.

It was already dark when Antioch was left behind. Abruptly the sunset

appeared to wheel in the sky and readjusted itself to the right of the

track behind Mount Diablo, here visible almost to its base. The train

had turned southward. Neroly was passed, then Brentwood, then Byron.

In the gathering dusk, mountains began to build themselves up on either

hand, far off, blocking the horizon. The train shot forward, roaring.

Between the mountains the land lay level, cut up into farms, ranches.

These continually grew larger; growing wheat began to appear, billowing

in the wind of the train's passage. The mountains grew higher, the

land richer, and by the time the moon rose, the train was well into the

northernmost limits of the valley of the San Joaquin.

Annixter had engaged an entire section, and after he and his wife went

to bed had the porter close the upper berth. Hilma sat up in bed to

say her prayers, both hands over her face, and then kissing Annixter

good-night, went to sleep with the directness of a little child, holding

his hand in both her own.

Annixter, who never could sleep on the train, dozed and tossed and

fretted for hours, consulting his watch and time-table whenever there

was a stop; twice he rose to get a drink of ice water, and between

whiles was forever sitting up in the narrow berth, stretching himself

and yawning, murmuring with uncertain relevance:

“Oh, Lord! Oh-h-h LORD!”

There were some dozen other passengers in the car--a lady with three

children, a group of school-teachers, a couple of drummers, a stout

gentleman with whiskers, and a well-dressed young man in a plaid

travelling cap, whom Annixter had observed before supper time reading

Daudet's “Tartarin” in the French.

But by nine o'clock, all these people were in their berths.

Occasionally, above the rhythmic rumble of the wheels, Annixter could

hear one of the lady's children fidgeting and complaining. The stout

gentleman snored monotonously in two notes, one a rasping bass, the

other a prolonged treble. At intervals, a brakeman or the passenger

conductor pushed down the aisle, between the curtains, his red and

white lamp over his arm. Looking out into the car Annixter saw in an end

section where the berths had not been made up, the porter, in his white

duck coat, dozing, his mouth wide open, his head on his shoulder.

The hours passed. Midnight came and went. Annixter, checking off the

stations, noted their passage of Modesto, Merced, and Madeira. Then,

after another broken nap, he lost count. He wondered where they were.

Had they reached Fresno yet? Raising the window curtain, he made a shade

with both hands on either side of his face and looked out. The night was

thick, dark, clouded over. A fine rain was falling, leaving horizontal

streaks on the glass of the outside window. Only the faintest grey blur

indicated the sky. Everything else was impenetrable blackness.

“I think sure we must have passed Fresno,” he muttered. He looked at his

watch. It was about half-past three. “If we have passed Fresno,” he said

to himself, “I'd better wake the little girl pretty soon. She'll need

about an hour to dress. Better find out for sure.”

He drew on his trousers and shoes, got into his coat, and stepped out

into the aisle. In the seat that had been occupied by the porter,

the Pullman conductor, his cash box and car-schedules before him, was

checking up his berths, a blue pencil behind his ear.

“What's the next stop, Captain?” inquired Annixter, coming up. “Have we

reached Fresno yet?”

“Just passed it,” the other responded, looking at Annixter over his

spectacles.

“What's the next stop?”

“Goshen. We will be there in about forty-five minutes.”

“Fair black night, isn't it?”

“Black as a pocket. Let's see, you're the party in upper and lower 9.”

Annixter caught at the back of the nearest seat, just in time to prevent

a fall, and the conductor's cash box was shunted off the surface of the

plush seat and came clanking to the floor. The Pintsch lights overhead

vibrated with blinding rapidity in the long, sliding jar that ran

through the train from end to end, and the momentum of its speed

suddenly decreasing, all but pitched the conductor from his seat. A

hideous ear-splitting rasp made itself heard from the clamped-down

Westinghouse gear underneath, and Annixter knew that the wheels had

ceased to revolve and that the train was sliding forward upon the

motionless flanges.

“Hello, hello,” he exclaimed, “what's all up now?”

“Emergency brakes,” declared the conductor, catching up his cash box and

thrusting his papers and tickets into it. “Nothing much; probably a cow

on the track.”

He disappeared, carrying his lantern with him.

But the other passengers, all but the stout gentleman, were awake; heads

were thrust from out the curtains, and Annixter, hurrying back to Hilma,

was assailed by all manner of questions.

“What was that?”

“Anything wrong?”

“What's up, anyways?”

Hilma was just waking as Annixter pushed the curtain aside.

“Oh, I was so frightened. What's the matter, dear?” she exclaimed.

“I don't know,” he answered. “Only the emergency brakes. Just a cow on

the track, I guess. Don't get scared. It isn't anything.”

But with a final shriek of the Westinghouse appliance, the train came to

a definite halt.

At once the silence was absolute. The ears, still numb with the

long-continued roar of wheels and clashing iron, at first refused to

register correctly the smaller noises of the surroundings. Voices came

from the other end of the car, strange and unfamiliar, as though heard

at a great distance across the water. The stillness of the night outside

was so profound that the rain, dripping from the car roof upon the

road-bed underneath, was as distinct as the ticking of a clock.

“Well, we've sure stopped,” observed one of the drummers.

“What is it?” asked Hilma again. “Are you sure there's nothing wrong?”

“Sure,” said Annixter. Outside, underneath their window, they heard the

sound of hurried footsteps crushing into the clinkers by the side of the

ties. They passed on, and Annixter heard some one in the distance shout:

“Yes, on the other side.”

Then the door at the end of their car opened and a brakeman with a red

beard ran down the aisle and out upon the platform in front. The forward

door closed. Everything was quiet again. In the stillness the fat

gentleman's snores made themselves heard once more.

The minutes passed; nothing stirred. There was no sound but the dripping

rain. The line of cars lay immobilised and inert under the night. One of

the drummers, having stepped outside on the platform for a look around,

returned, saying:

“There sure isn't any station anywheres about and no siding. Bet you

they have had an accident of some kind.”

“Ask the porter.”

“I did. He don't know.”

“Maybe they stopped to take on wood or water, or something.”

“Well, they wouldn't use the emergency brakes for that, would they? Why,

this train stopped almost in her own length. Pretty near slung me out

the berth. Those were the emergency brakes. I heard some one say so.”

From far out towards the front of the train, near the locomotive,

came the sharp, incisive report of a revolver; then two more almost

simultaneously; then, after a long interval, a fourth.

“Say, that's SHOOTING. By God, boys, they're shooting. Say, this is a

hold-up.”

Instantly a white-hot excitement flared from end to end of the

car. Incredibly sinister, heard thus in the night, and in the rain,

mysterious, fearful, those four pistol shots started confusion from out

the sense of security like a frightened rabbit hunted from her burrow.

Wide-eyed, the passengers of the car looked into each other's faces. It

had come to them at last, this, they had so often read about. Now they

were to see the real thing, now they were to face actuality, face this

danger of the night, leaping in from out the blackness of the roadside,

masked, armed, ready to kill. They were facing it now. They were held

up.

Hilma said nothing, only catching Annixter's hand, looking squarely into

his eyes.

“Steady, little girl,” he said. “They can't hurt you. I won't leave you.

By the Lord,” he suddenly exclaimed, his excitement getting the better

of him for a moment. “By the Lord, it's a hold-up.”

The school-teachers were in the aisle of the car, in night gown,

wrapper, and dressing sack, huddled together like sheep, holding on to

each other, looking to the men, silently appealing for protection. Two

of them were weeping, white to the lips.

“Oh, oh, oh, it's terrible. Oh, if they only won't hurt me.”

But the lady with the children looked out from her berth, smiled

reassuringly, and said:

“I'm not a bit frightened. They won't do anything to us if we keep

quiet. I've my watch and jewelry all ready for them in my little black

bag, see?”

She exhibited it to the passengers. Her children were all awake. They

were quiet, looking about them with eager faces, interested and amused

at this surprise. In his berth, the fat gentleman with whiskers snored

profoundly.

“Say, I'm going out there,” suddenly declared one of the drummers,

flourishing a pocket revolver.

His friend caught his arm.

“Don't make a fool of yourself, Max,” he said.

“They won't come near us,” observed the well-dressed young man; “they

are after the Wells-Fargo box and the registered mail. You won't do any

good out there.”

But the other loudly protested. No; he was going out. He didn't propose

to be buncoed without a fight. He wasn't any coward.

“Well, you don't go, that's all,” said his friend, angrily. “There's

women and children in this car. You ain't going to draw the fire here.”

“Well, that's to be thought of,” said the other, allowing himself to be

pacified, but still holding his pistol.

“Don't let him open that window,” cried Annixter sharply from his place

by Hilma's side, for the drummer had made as if to open the sash in one

of the sections that had not been made up.

“Sure, that's right,” said the others. “Don't open any windows. Keep

your head in. You'll get us all shot if you aren't careful.”

However, the drummer had got the window up and had leaned out before the

others could interfere and draw him away.

“Say, by jove,” he shouted, as he turned back to the car, “our engine's

gone. We're standing on a curve and you can see the end of the train.

She's gone, I tell you. Well, look for yourself.”

In spite of their precautions, one after another, his friends looked

out. Sure enough, the train was without a locomotive.

“They've done it so we can't get away,” vociferated the drummer with

the pistol. “Now, by jiminy-Christmas, they'll come through the cars and

stand us up. They'll be in here in a minute. LORD! WHAT WAS THAT?”

From far away up the track, apparently some half-mile ahead of the

train, came the sound of a heavy explosion. The windows of the car

vibrated with it.

“Shooting again.”

“That isn't shooting,” exclaimed Annixter. “They've pulled the express

and mail car on ahead with the engine and now they are dynamiting her

open.”

“That must be it. Yes, sure, that's just what they are doing.”

The forward door of the car opened and closed and the school-teachers

shrieked and cowered. The drummer with the revolver faced about, his

eyes bulging. However, it was only the train conductor, hatless, his

lantern in his hand. He was soaked with rain. He appeared in the aisle.

“Is there a doctor in this car?” he asked.

Promptly the passengers surrounded him, voluble with questions. But he

was in a bad temper.

“I don't know anything more than you,” he shouted angrily. “It was a

hold-up. I guess you know that, don't you? Well, what more do you want

to know? I ain't got time to fool around. They cut off our express car

and have cracked it open, and they shot one of our train crew, that's

all, and I want a doctor.”

“Did they shoot him--kill him, do you mean?”

“Is he hurt bad?”

“Did the men get away?”

“Oh, shut up, will you all?” exclaimed the conductor.

“What do I know? Is there a DOCTOR in this car, that's what I want to

know?”

The well-dressed young man stepped forward.

“I'm a doctor,” he said. “Well, come along then,” returned the

conductor, in a surly voice, “and the passengers in this car,” he added,

turning back at the door and nodding his head menacingly, “will go back

to bed and STAY there. It's all over and there's nothing to see.”

He went out, followed by the young doctor.

Then ensued an interminable period of silence. The entire train seemed

deserted. Helpless, bereft of its engine, a huge, decapitated monster it

lay, half-way around a curve, rained upon, abandoned.

There was more fear in this last condition of affairs, more terror

in the idea of this prolonged line of sleepers, with their nickelled

fittings, their plate glass, their upholstery, vestibules, and the like,

loaded down with people, lost and forgotten in the night and the rain,

than there had been when the actual danger threatened.

What was to become of them now? Who was there to help them? Their engine

was gone; they were helpless. What next was to happen?

Nobody came near the car. Even the porter had disappeared. The wait

seemed endless, and the persistent snoring of the whiskered gentleman

rasped the nerves like the scrape of a file.

“Well, how long are we going to stick here now?” began one of the

drummers. “Wonder if they hurt the engine with their dynamite?”

“Oh, I know they will come through the car and rob us,” wailed the

school-teachers.

The lady with the little children went back to bed, and Annixter,

assured that the trouble was over, did likewise. But nobody slept. From

berth to berth came the sound of suppressed voices talking it all over,

formulating conjectures. Certain points seemed to be settled upon, no

one knew how, as indisputable. The highwaymen had been four in number

and had stopped the train by pulling the bell cord. A brakeman had

attempted to interfere and had been shot. The robbers had been on the

train all the way from San Francisco. The drummer named Max remembered

to have seen four “suspicious-looking characters” in the smoking-car

at Lathrop, and had intended to speak to the conductor about them. This

drummer had been in a hold-up before, and told the story of it over and

over again.

At last, after what seemed to have been an hour's delay, and when the

dawn had already begun to show in the east, the locomotive backed on to

the train again with a reverberating jar that ran from car to car. At

the jolting, the school-teachers screamed in chorus, and the whiskered

gentleman stopped snoring and thrust his head from his curtains,

blinking at the Pintsch lights. It appeared that he was an Englishman.

“I say,” he asked of the drummer named Max, “I say, my friend, what

place is this?”

The others roared with derision.

“We were HELD UP, sir, that's what we were. We were held up and you

slept through it all. You missed the show of your life.”

The gentleman fixed the group with a prolonged gaze. He said never a

word, but little by little he was convinced that the drummers told the

truth. All at once he grew wrathful, his face purpling. He withdrew his

head angrily, buttoning his curtains together in a fury. The cause of

his rage was inexplicable, but they could hear him resettling himself

upon his pillows with exasperated movements of his head and shoulders.

In a few moments the deep bass and shrill treble of his snoring once

more sounded through the car.

At last the train got under way again, with useless warning blasts of

the engine's whistle. In a few moments it was tearing away through

the dawn at a wonderful speed, rocking around curves, roaring across

culverts, making up time.

And all the rest of that strange night the passengers, sitting up in

their unmade beds, in the swaying car, lighted by a strange mingling of

pallid dawn and trembling Pintsch lights, rushing at break-neck speed

through the misty rain, were oppressed by a vision of figures of terror,

far behind them in the night they had left, masked, armed, galloping

toward the mountains pistol in hand, the booty bound to the saddle

bow, galloping, galloping on, sending a thrill of fear through all the

country side.

The young doctor returned. He sat down in the smoking-room, lighting a

cigarette, and Annixter and the drummers pressed around him to know the

story of the whole affair.

“The man is dead,” he declared, “the brakeman. He was shot through the

lungs twice. They think the fellow got away with about five thousand in

gold coin.”

“The fellow? Wasn't there four of them?”

“No; only one. And say, let me tell you, he had his nerve with him. It

seems he was on the roof of the express car all the time, and going as

fast as we were, he jumped from the roof of the car down on to the coal

on the engine's tender, and crawled over that and held up the men in the

cab with his gun, took their guns from 'em and made 'em stop the train.

Even ordered 'em to use the emergency gear, seems he knew all about it.

Then he went back and uncoupled the express car himself.

“While he was doing this, a brakeman--you remember that brakeman that

came through here once or twice--had a red mustache.”

“THAT chap?” “Sure. Well, as soon as the train stopped, this brakeman

guessed something was wrong and ran up, saw the fellow cutting off the

express car and took a couple of shots at him, and the fireman says

the fellow didn't even take his hand off the coupling-pin; just turned

around as cool as how-do-you-do and NAILED the brakeman right there.

They weren't five feet apart when they began shooting. The brakeman had

come on him unexpected, had no idea he was so close.”

“And the express messenger, all this time?”

“Well, he did his best. Jumped out with his repeating shot-gun, but the

fellow had him covered before he could turn round. Held him up and took

his gun away from him. Say, you know I call that nerve, just the same.

One man standing up a whole train-load, like that. Then, as soon as he'd

cut the express car off, he made the engineer run her up the track about

half a mile to a road crossing, WHERE HE HAD A HORSE TIED. What do you

think of that? Didn't he have it all figured out close? And when he got

there, he dynamited the safe and got the Wells-Fargo box. He took five

thousand in gold coin; the messenger says it was railroad money that the

company were sending down to Bakersfield to pay off with. It was in a

bag. He never touched the registered mail, nor a whole wad of greenbacks

that were in the safe, but just took the coin, got on his horse, and lit

out. The engineer says he went to the east'ard.”

“He got away, did he?”

“Yes, but they think they'll get him. He wore a kind of mask, but the

brakeman recognised him positively. We got his ante-mortem statement.

The brakeman said the fellow had a grudge against the road. He was a

discharged employee, and lives near Bonneville.”

“Dyke, by the Lord!” exclaimed Annixter.

“That's the name,” said the young doctor.

When the train arrived at Bonneville, forty minutes behind time, it

landed Annixter and Hilma in the midst of the very thing they most

wished to avoid--an enormous crowd. The news that the Overland had been

held up thirty miles south of Fresno, a brakeman killed and the safe

looted, and that Dyke alone was responsible for the night's work,

had been wired on ahead from Fowler, the train conductor throwing the

despatch to the station agent from the flying train.

Before the train had come to a standstill under the arched roof of the

Bonneville depot, it was all but taken by assault. Annixter, with Hilma

on his arm, had almost to fight his way out of the car. The depot was

black with people. S. Behrman was there, Delaney, Cyrus Ruggles, the

town marshal, the mayor. Genslinger, his hat on the back of his

head, ranged the train from cab to rear-lights, note-book in hand,

interviewing, questioning, collecting facts for his extra. As Annixter

descended finally to the platform, the editor, alert as a black-and-tan

terrier, his thin, osseous hands quivering with eagerness, his brown,

dry face working with excitement, caught his elbow.

“Can I have your version of the affair, Mr. Annixter?”

Annixter turned on him abruptly.

“Yes!” he exclaimed fiercely. “You and your gang drove Dyke from his job

because he wouldn't work for starvation wages. Then you raised freight

rates on him and robbed him of all he had. You ruined him and drove him

to fill himself up with Caraher's whiskey. He's only taken back what you

plundered him of, and now you're going to hound him over the State,

hunt him down like a wild animal, and bring him to the gallows at San

Quentin. That's my version of the affair, Mister Genslinger, but it's

worth your subsidy from the P. and S. W. to print it.”

There was a murmur of approval from the crowd that stood around, and

Genslinger, with an angry shrug of one shoulder, took himself away.

At length, Annixter brought Hilma through the crowd to where young Vacca

was waiting with the team. However, they could not at once start for

the ranch, Annixter wishing to ask some questions at the freight office

about a final consignment of chairs. It was nearly eleven o'clock before

they could start home. But to gain the Upper Road to Quien Sabe, it was

necessary to traverse all of Main Street, running through the heart of

Bonneville.

The entire town seemed to be upon the sidewalks. By now the rain was

over and the sun shining. The story of the hold-up--the work of a man

whom every one knew and liked--was in every mouth. How had Dyke come to

do it? Who would have believed it of him? Think of his poor mother

and the little tad. Well, after all, he was not so much to blame; the

railroad people had brought it on themselves. But he had shot a man

to death. Ah, that was a serious business. Good-natured, big,

broad-shouldered, jovial Dyke, the man they knew, with whom they had

shaken hands only yesterday, yes, and drank with him. He had shot a man,

killed him, had stood there in the dark and in the rain while they

were asleep in their beds, and had killed a man. Now where was he?

Instinctively eyes were turned eastward, over the tops of the houses,

or down vistas of side streets to where the foot-hills of the mountains

rose dim and vast over the edge of the valley. He was in amongst them;

somewhere, in all that pile of blue crests and purple canyons he was

hidden away. Now for weeks of searching, false alarms, clews, trailings,

watchings, all the thrill and heart-bursting excitement of a man-hunt.

Would he get away? Hardly a man on the sidewalks of the town that day

who did not hope for it.

As Annixter's team trotted through the central portion of the town,

young Vacca pointed to a denser and larger crowd around the rear

entrance of the City Hall. Fully twenty saddle horses were tied to

the iron rail underneath the scant, half-grown trees near by, and as

Annixter and Hilma drove by, the crowd parted and a dozen men with

revolvers on their hips pushed their way to the curbstone, and, mounting

their horses, rode away at a gallop.

“It's the posse,” said young Vacca.

Outside the town limits the ground was level. There was nothing to

obstruct the view, and to the north, in the direction of Osterman's

ranch, Vacca made out another party of horsemen, galloping eastward, and

beyond these still another.

“There're the other posses,” he announced. “That further one is Archie

Moore's. He's the sheriff. He came down from Visalia on a special engine

this morning.”

When the team turned into the driveway to the ranch house, Hilma uttered

a little cry, clasping her hands joyfully. The house was one glitter

of new white paint, the driveway had been freshly gravelled, the

flower-beds replenished. Mrs. Vacca and her daughter, who had been busy

putting on the finishing touches, came to the door to welcome them.

“What's this case here?” asked Annixter, when, after helping his wife

from the carry-all, his eye fell upon a wooden box of some three by five

feet that stood on the porch and bore the red Wells-Fargo label.

“It came here last night, addressed to you, sir,” exclaimed Mrs. Vacca.

“We were sure it wasn't any of your furniture, so we didn't open it.”

“Oh, maybe it's a wedding present,” exclaimed Hilma, her eyes sparkling.

“Well, maybe it is,” returned her husband. “Here, m' son, help me in

with this.”

Annixter and young Vacca bore the case into the sitting-room of the

house, and Annixter, hammer in hand, attacked it vigorously. Vacca

discreetly withdrew on signal from his mother, closing the door after

him. Annixter and his wife were left alone.

“Oh, hurry, hurry,” cried Hilma, dancing around him.

“I want to see what it is. Who do you suppose could have sent it to us?

And so heavy, too. What do you think it can be?”

Annixter put the claw of the hammer underneath the edge of the board top

and wrenched with all his might. The boards had been clamped together by

a transverse bar and the whole top of the box came away in one piece.

A layer of excelsior was disclosed, and on it a letter addressed by

typewriter to Annixter. It bore the trade-mark of a business firm of Los

Angeles. Annixter glanced at this and promptly caught it up before Hilma

could see, with an exclamation of intelligence.

“Oh, I know what this is,” he observed, carelessly trying to restrain

her busy hands. “It isn't anything. Just some machinery. Let it go.”

But already she had pulled away the excelsior. Underneath, in temporary

racks, were two dozen Winchester repeating rifles.

“Why--what--what--” murmured Hilma blankly.

“Well, I told you not to mind,” said Annixter. “It isn't anything. Let's

look through the rooms.”

“But you said you knew what it was,” she protested, bewildered. “You

wanted to make believe it was machinery. Are you keeping anything from

me? Tell me what it all means. Oh, why are you getting--these?”

She caught his arm, looking with intense eagerness into his face. She

half understood already. Annixter saw that.

“Well,” he said, lamely, “YOU know--it may not come to anything at all,

but you know--well, this League of ours--suppose the Railroad tries to

jump Quien Sabe or Los Muertos or any of the other ranches--we made up

our minds--the Leaguers have--that we wouldn't let it. That's all.”

“And I thought,” cried Hilma, drawing back fearfully from the case of

rifles, “and I thought it was a wedding present.”

And that was their home-coming, the end of their bridal trip. Through

the terror of the night, echoing with pistol shots, through that scene

of robbery and murder, into this atmosphere of alarms, a man-hunt

organising, armed horsemen silhouetted against the horizons, cases of

rifles where wedding presents should have been, Annixter brought his

young wife to be mistress of a home he might at any moment be called

upon to defend with his life.

The days passed. Soon a week had gone by. Magnus Derrick and Osterman

returned from the city without any definite idea as to the Corporation's

plans. Lyman had been reticent. He knew nothing as to the progress of

the land cases in Washington. There was no news. The Executive Committee

of the League held a perfunctory meeting at Los Muertos at which nothing

but routine business was transacted. A scheme put forward by Osterman

for a conference with the railroad managers fell through because of the

refusal of the company to treat with the ranchers upon any other basis

than that of the new grading. It was impossible to learn whether or not

the company considered Los Muertos, Quien Sabe, and the ranches around

Bonneville covered by the test cases then on appeal.

Meanwhile there was no decrease in the excitement that Dyke's hold-up

had set loose over all the county. Day after day it was the one topic of

conversation, at street corners, at cross-roads, over dinner tables, in

office, bank, and store. S. Behrman placarded the town with a notice

of $500.00 reward for the ex-engineer's capture, dead or alive, and the

express company supplemented this by another offer of an equal amount.

The country was thick with parties of horsemen, armed with rifles

and revolvers, recruited from Visalia, Goshen, and the few railroad

sympathisers around Bonneville and Guadlajara. One after another of

these returned, empty-handed, covered with dust and mud, their horses

exhausted, to be met and passed by fresh posses starting out to continue

the pursuit. The sheriff of Santa Clara County sent down his bloodhounds

from San Jose--small, harmless-looking dogs, with a terrific bay--to

help in the chase. Reporters from the San Francisco papers appeared,

interviewing every one, sometimes even accompanying the searching bands.

Horse hoofs clattered over the roads at night; bells were rung, the

“Mercury” issued extra after extra; the bloodhounds bayed, gun butts

clashed on the asphalt pavements of Bonneville; accidental discharges of

revolvers brought the whole town into the street; farm hands called

to each other across the fences of ranch-divisions--in a word, the

country-side was in an uproar.

And all to no effect. The hoof-marks of Dyke's horse had been traced in

the mud of the road to within a quarter of a mile of the foot-hills and

there irretrievably lost. Three days after the hold-up, a sheep-herder

was found who had seen the highwayman on a ridge in the higher

mountains, to the northeast of Taurusa. And that was absolutely all.

Rumours were thick, promising clews were discovered, new trails taken

up, but nothing transpired to bring the pursuers and pursued any closer

together. Then, after ten days of strain, public interest began to flag.

It was believed that Dyke had succeeded in getting away. If this was

true, he had gone to the southward, after gaining the mountains, and

it would be his intention to work out of the range somewhere near the

southern part of the San Joaquin, near Bakersfield. Thus, the sheriffs,

marshals, and deputies decided. They had hunted too many criminals in

these mountains before not to know the usual courses taken. In time,

Dyke MUST come out of the mountains to get water and provisions. But

this time passed, and from not one of the watched points came any word

of his appearance. At last the posses began to disband. Little by little

the pursuit was given up.

Only S. Behrman persisted. He had made up his mind to bring Dyke in. He

succeeded in arousing the same degree of determination in Delaney--by

now, a trusted aide of the Railroad--and of his own cousin, a real

estate broker, named Christian, who knew the mountains and had once been

marshal of Visalia in the old stock-raising days. These two went into

the Sierras, accompanied by two hired deputies, and carrying with them a

month's provisions and two of the bloodhounds loaned by the Santa Clara

sheriff.

On a certain Sunday, a few days after the departure of Christian and

Delaney, Annixter, who had been reading “David Copperfield” in his

hammock on the porch of the ranch house, put down the book and went to

find Hilma, who was helping Louisa Vacca set the table for dinner. He

found her in the dining-room, her hands full of the gold-bordered china

plates, only used on special occasions and which Louisa was forbidden to

touch.

His wife was more than ordinarily pretty that day. She wore a dress of

flowered organdie over pink sateen with pink ribbons about her waist and

neck, and on her slim feet the low shoes she always affected, with their

smart, bright buckles. Her thick, brown, sweet-smelling hair was

heaped high upon her head and set off with a bow of black velvet, and

underneath the shadow of its coils, her wide-open eyes, rimmed with

the thin, black line of her lashes, shone continually, reflecting

the sunlight. Marriage had only accentuated the beautiful maturity of

Hilma's figure--now no longer precocious--defining the single, deep

swell from her throat to her waist, the strong, fine amplitude of her

hips, the sweet feminine undulation of her neck and shoulders. Her

cheeks were pink with health, and her large round arms carried the

piled-up dishes with never a tremour. Annixter, observant enough where

his wife was concerned noted how the reflection of the white china set a

glow of pale light underneath her chin.

“Hilma,” he said, “I've been wondering lately about things. We're so

blamed happy ourselves it won't do for us to forget about other people

who are down, will it? Might change our luck. And I'm just likely to

forget that way, too. It's my nature.”

His wife looked up at him joyfully. Here was the new Annixter,

certainly.

“In all this hullabaloo about Dyke,” he went on “there's some one nobody

ain't thought about at all. That's MRS. Dyke--and the little tad. I

wouldn't be surprised if they were in a hole over there. What do you

say we drive over to the hop ranch after dinner and see if she wants

anything?”

Hilma put down the plates and came around the table and kissed him

without a word.

As soon as their dinner was over, Annixter had the carry-all hitched

up, and, dispensing with young Vacca, drove over to the hop ranch with

Hilma.

Hilma could not keep back the tears as they passed through the

lamentable desolation of the withered, brown vines, symbols of perished

hopes and abandoned effort, and Annixter swore between his teeth.

Though the wheels of the carry-all grated loudly on the roadway in front

of the house, nobody came to the door nor looked from the windows. The

place seemed tenantless, infinitely lonely, infinitely sad. Annixter

tied the team, and with Hilma approached the wide-open door, scuffling

and tramping on the porch to attract attention. Nobody stirred. A Sunday

stillness pervaded the place. Outside, the withered hop-leaves rustled

like dry paper in the breeze. The quiet was ominous. They peered into

the front room from the doorway, Hilma holding her husband's hand. Mrs.

Dyke was there. She sat at the table in the middle of the room, her

head, with its white hair, down upon her arm. A clutter of unwashed

dishes were strewed over the red and white tablecloth. The unkempt room,

once a marvel of neatness, had not been cleaned for days. Newspapers,

Genslinger's extras and copies of San Francisco and Los Angeles dailies

were scattered all over the room. On the table itself were crumpled

yellow telegrams, a dozen of them, a score of them, blowing about in the

draught from the door. And in the midst of all this disarray, surrounded

by the published accounts of her son's crime, the telegraphed answers

to her pitiful appeals for tidings fluttering about her head, the

highwayman's mother, worn out, abandoned and forgotten, slept through

the stillness of the Sunday afternoon.

Neither Hilma nor Annixter ever forgot their interview with Mrs. Dyke

that day. Suddenly waking, she had caught sight of Annixter, and at once

exclaimed eagerly:

“Is there any news?”

For a long time afterwards nothing could be got from her. She was numb

to all other issues than the one question of Dyke's capture. She did not

answer their questions nor reply to their offers of assistance. Hilma

and Annixter conferred together without lowering their voices, at her

very elbow, while she looked vacantly at the floor, drawing one hand

over the other in a persistent, maniacal gesture. From time to time she

would start suddenly from her chair, her eyes wide, and as if all at

once realising Annixter's presence, would cry out:

“Is there any news?”

“Where is Sidney, Mrs. Dyke?” asked Hilma for the fourth time. “Is she

well? Is she taken care of?”

“Here's the last telegram,” said Mrs. Dyke, in a loud, monotonous voice.

“See, it says there is no news. He didn't do it,” she moaned, rocking

herself back and forth, drawing one hand over the other, “he didn't do

it, he didn't do it, he didn't do it. I don't know where he is.”

When at last she came to herself, it was with a flood of tears. Hilma

put her arms around the poor, old woman, as she bowed herself again upon

the table, sobbing and weeping.

“Oh, my son, my son,” she cried, “my own boy, my only son! If I could

have died for you to have prevented this. I remember him when he was

little. Such a splendid little fellow, so brave, so loving, with never

an unkind thought, never a mean action. So it was all his life. We were

never apart. It was always 'dear little son,' and 'dear mammy' between

us--never once was he unkind, and he loved me and was the gentlest

son to me. And he was a GOOD man. He is now, he is now. They don't

understand him. They are not even sure that he did this. He never

meant it. They don't know my son. Why, he wouldn't have hurt a kitten.

Everybody loved him. He was driven to it. They hounded him down, they

wouldn't let him alone. He was not right in his mind. They hounded him

to it,” she cried fiercely, “they hounded him to it. They drove him and

goaded him till he couldn't stand it any longer, and now they mean to

kill him for turning on them. They are hunting him with dogs; night

after night I have stood on the porch and heard the dogs baying far off.

They are tracking my boy with dogs like a wild animal. May God never

forgive them.” She rose to her feet, terrible, her white hair unbound.

“May God punish them as they deserve, may they never prosper--on my

knees I shall pray for it every night--may their money be a curse to

them, may their sons, their first-born, only sons, be taken from them in

their youth.”

But Hilma interrupted, begging her to be silent, to be quiet. The tears

came again then and the choking sobs. Hilma took her in her arms.

“Oh, my little boy, my little boy,” she cried. “My only son, all that I

had, to have come to this! He was not right in his mind or he would have

known it would break my heart. Oh, my son, my son, if I could have died

for you.”

Sidney came in, clinging to her dress, weeping, imploring her not to

cry, protesting that they never could catch her papa, that he would come

back soon. Hilma took them both, the little child and the broken-down

old woman, in the great embrace of her strong arms, and they all three

sobbed together.

Annixter stood on the porch outside, his back turned, looking straight

before him into the wilderness of dead vines, his teeth shut hard, his

lower lip thrust out.

“I hope S. Behrman is satisfied with all this,” he muttered. “I hope he

is satisfied now, damn his soul!”

All at once an idea occurred to him. He turned about and reentered the

room.

“Mrs Dyke,” he began, “I want you and Sidney to come over and live at

Quien Sabe. I know--you can't make me believe that the reporters and

officers and officious busy-faces that pretend to offer help just so as

they can satisfy their curiosity aren't nagging you to death. I want you

to let me take care of you and the little tad till all this trouble of

yours is over with. There's plenty of place for you. You can have the

house my wife's people used to live in. You've got to look these things

in the face. What are you going to do to get along? You must be very

short of money. S. Behrman will foreclose on you and take the whole

place in a little while, now. I want you to let me help you, let Hilma

and me be good friends to you. It would be a privilege.”

Mrs. Dyke tried bravely to assume her pride, insisting that she could

manage, but her spirit was broken. The whole affair ended unexpectedly,

with Annixter and Hilma bringing Dyke's mother and little girl back to

Quien Sabe in the carry-all.

Mrs. Dyke would not take with her a stick of furniture nor a single

ornament. It would only serve to remind her of a vanished happiness. She

packed a few clothes of her own and Sidney's in a little trunk, Hilma

helping her, and Annixter stowed the trunk under the carry-all's back

seat. Mrs. Dyke turned the key in the door of the house and Annixter

helped her to her seat beside his wife. They drove through the sear,

brown hop vines. At the angle of the road Mrs. Dyke turned around and

looked back at the ruin of the hop ranch, the roof of the house just

showing above the trees. She never saw it again.

As soon as Annixter and Hilma were alone, after their return to Quien

Sabe--Mrs. Dyke and Sidney having been installed in the Trees' old

house--Hilma threw her arms around her husband's neck.

“Fine,” she exclaimed, “oh, it was fine of you, dear to think of them

and to be so good to them. My husband is such a GOOD man. So unselfish.

You wouldn't have thought of being kind to Mrs. Dyke and Sidney a little

while ago. You wouldn't have thought of them at all. But you did now,

and it's just because you love me true, isn't it? Isn't it? And because

it's made you a better man. I'm so proud and glad to think it's so. It

is so, isn't it? Just because you love me true.”

“You bet it is, Hilma,” he told her.

As Hilma and Annixter were sitting down to the supper which they found

waiting for them, Louisa Vacca came to the door of the dining-room

to say that Harran Derrick had telephoned over from Los Muertos for

Annixter, and had left word for him to ring up Los Muertos as soon as he

came in.

“He said it was important,” added Louisa Vacca.

“Maybe they have news from Washington,” suggested Hilma.

Annixter would not wait to have supper, but telephoned to Los Muertos

at once. Magnus answered the call. There was a special meeting of the

Executive Committee of the League summoned for the next day, he told

Annixter. It was for the purpose of considering the new grain tariff

prepared by the Railroad Commissioners. Lyman had written that the

schedule of this tariff had just been issued, that he had not been able

to construct it precisely according to the wheat-growers' wishes,

and that he, himself, would come down to Los Muertos and explain its

apparent discrepancies. Magnus said Lyman would be present at the

session.

Annixter, curious for details, forbore, nevertheless, to question. The

connection from Los Muertos to Quien Sabe was made through Bonneville,

and in those troublesome times no one could be trusted. It could not

be known who would overhear conversations carried on over the lines.

He assured Magnus that he would be on hand. The time for the Committee

meeting had been set for seven o'clock in the evening, in order to

accommodate Lyman, who wrote that he would be down on the evening train,

but would be compelled, by pressure of business, to return to the city

early the next morning.

At the time appointed, the men composing the Committee gathered about

the table in the dining-room of the Los Muertos ranch house. It was

almost a reproduction of the scene of the famous evening when Osterman

had proposed the plan of the Ranchers' Railroad Commission. Magnus

Derrick sat at the head of the table, in his buttoned frock coat.

Whiskey bottles and siphons of soda-water were within easy reach.

Presley, who by now was considered the confidential friend of every

member of the Committee, lounged as before on the sofa, smoking

cigarettes, the cat Nathalie on his knee. Besides Magnus and Annixter,

Osterman was present, and old Broderson and Harran; Garnet from the

Ruby Rancho and Gethings of the San Pablo, who were also members of the

Executive Committee, were on hand, preoccupied, bearded men, smoking

black cigars, and, last of all, Dabney, the silent old man, of whom

little was known but his name, and who had been made a member of the

Committee, nobody could tell why.

“My son Lyman should be here, gentlemen, within at least ten minutes.

I have sent my team to meet him at Bonneville,” explained Magnus, as he

called the meeting to order. “The Secretary will call the roll.”

Osterman called the roll, and, to fill in the time, read over the

minutes of the previous meeting. The treasurer was making his report as

to the funds at the disposal of the League when Lyman arrived.

Magnus and Harran went forward to meet him, and the Committee rather

awkwardly rose and remained standing while the three exchanged

greetings, the members, some of whom had never seen their commissioner,

eyeing him out of the corners of their eyes.

Lyman was dressed with his usual correctness. His cravat was of the

latest fashion, his clothes of careful design and unimpeachable fit. His

shoes, of patent leather, reflected the lamplight, and he carried a

drab overcoat over his arm. Before being introduced to the Committee, he

excused himself a moment and ran to see his mother, who waited for him

in the adjoining sitting-room. But in a few moments he returned, asking

pardon for the delay.

He was all affability; his protruding eyes, that gave such an unusual,

foreign appearance to his very dark face, radiated geniality. He was

evidently anxious to please, to produce a good impression upon the

grave, clumsy farmers before whom he stood. But at the same time,

Presley, watching him from his place on the sofa, could imagine that he

was rather nervous. He was too nimble in his cordiality, and the little

gestures he made in bringing his cuffs into view and in touching the

ends of his tight, black mustache with the ball of his thumb were

repeated with unnecessary frequency.

“Mr. Broderson, my son, Lyman, my eldest son. Mr. Annixter, my son,

Lyman.”

The Governor introduced him to the ranchers, proud of Lyman's good

looks, his correct dress, his ease of manner. Lyman shook hands all

around, keeping up a flow of small talk, finding a new phrase for each

member, complimenting Osterman, whom he already knew, upon his talent

for organisation, recalling a mutual acquaintance to the mind of old

Broderson. At length, however, he sat down at the end of the table,

opposite his brother. There was a silence.

Magnus rose to recapitulate the reasons for the extra session of the

Committee, stating again that the Board of Railway Commissioners which

they--the ranchers--had succeeded in seating had at length issued the

new schedule of reduced rates, and that Mr. Derrick had been obliging

enough to offer to come down to Los Muertos in person to acquaint the

wheat-growers of the San Joaquin with the new rates for the carriage of

their grain.

But Lyman very politely protested, addressing his father punctiliously

as “Mr. Chairman,” and the other ranchers as “Gentlemen of the Executive

Committee of the League.” He had no wish, he said, to disarrange the

regular proceedings of the Committee. Would it not be preferable to

defer the reading of his report till “new business” was called for?

In the meanwhile, let the Committee proceed with its usual work. He

understood the necessarily delicate nature of this work, and would be

pleased to withdraw till the proper time arrived for him to speak.

“Good deal of backing and filling about the reading of a column of

figures,” muttered Annixter to the man at his elbow.

Lyman “awaited the Committee's decision.” He sat down, touching the ends

of his mustache.

“Oh, play ball,” growled Annixter.

Gethings rose to say that as the meeting had been called solely for the

purpose of hearing and considering the new grain tariff, he was of the

opinion that routine business could be dispensed with and the schedule

read at once. It was so ordered.

Lyman rose and made a long speech. Voluble as Osterman himself, he,

nevertheless, had at his command a vast number of ready-made phrases,

the staples of a political speaker, the stock in trade of the commercial

lawyer, which rolled off his tongue with the most persuasive fluency.

By degrees, in the course of his speech, he began to insinuate the idea

that the wheat-growers had never expected to settle their difficulties

with the Railroad by the work of a single commission; that they

had counted upon a long, continued campaign of many years, railway

commission succeeding railway commission, before the desired low rates

should be secured; that the present Board of Commissioners was only the

beginning and that too great results were not expected from them. All

this he contrived to mention casually, in the talk, as if it were a

foregone conclusion, a matter understood by all.

As the speech continued, the eyes of the ranchers around the table were

fixed with growing attention upon this well-dressed, city-bred young

man, who spoke so fluently and who told them of their own intentions. A

feeling of perplexity began to spread, and the first taint of distrust

invaded their minds.

“But the good work has been most auspiciously inaugurated,” continued

Lyman. “Reforms so sweeping as the one contemplated cannot be

accomplished in a single night. Great things grow slowly, benefits to

be permanent must accrue gradually. Yet, in spite of all this, your

commissioners have done much. Already the phalanx of the enemy

is pierced, already his armour is dinted. Pledged as were your

commissioners to an average ten per cent. reduction in rates for the

carriage of grain by the Pacific and Southwestern Railroad, we have

rigidly adhered to the demands of our constituency, we have obeyed the

People. The main problem has not yet been completely solved; that is

for later, when we shall have gathered sufficient strength to attack the

enemy in his very stronghold; BUT AN AVERAGE TEN PER CENT. CUT HAS BEEN

MADE ALL OVER THE STATE. We have made a great advance, have taken a

great step forward, and if the work is carried ahead, upon the lines

laid down by the present commissioners and their constituents, there

is every reason to believe that within a very few years equitable and

stable rates for the shipment of grain from the San Joaquin Valley to

Stockton, Port Costa, and tidewater will be permanently imposed.”

“Well, hold on,” exclaimed Annixter, out of order and ignoring the

Governor's reproof, “hasn't your commission reduced grain rates in the

San Joaquin?”

“We have reduced grain rates by ten per cent. all over the State,”

rejoined Lyman. “Here are copies of the new schedule.”

He drew them from his valise and passed them around the table.

“You see,” he observed, “the rate between Mayfield and Oakland, for

instance, has been reduced by twenty-five cents a ton.”

“Yes--but--but--” said old Broderson, “it is rather unusual, isn't it,

for wheat in that district to be sent to Oakland?” “Why, look here,”

exclaimed Annixter, looking up from the schedule, “where is there any

reduction in rates in the San Joaquin--from Bonneville and Guadalajara,

for instance? I don't see as you've made any reduction at all. Is this

right? Did you give me the right schedule?”

“Of course, ALL the points in the State could not be covered at once,”

returned Lyman. “We never expected, you know, that we could cut rates in

the San Joaquin the very first move; that is for later. But you will see

we made very material reductions on shipments from the upper Sacramento

Valley; also the rate from Ione to Marysville has been reduced eighty

cents a ton.”

“Why, rot,” cried Annixter, “no one ever ships wheat that way.”

“The Salinas rate,” continued Lyman, “has been lowered seventy-five

cents; the St. Helena rate fifty cents, and please notice the very

drastic cut from Red Bluff, north, along the Oregon route, to the Oregon

State Line.”

“Where not a carload of wheat is shipped in a year,” commented Gethings

of the San Pablo.

“Oh, you will find yourself mistaken there, Mr. Gethings,” returned

Lyman courteously. “And for the matter of that, a low rate would

stimulate wheat-production in that district.”

The order of the meeting was broken up, neglected; Magnus did not even

pretend to preside. In the growing excitement over the inexplicable

schedule, routine was not thought of. Every one spoke at will.

“Why, Lyman,” demanded Magnus, looking across the table to his son, “is

this schedule correct? You have not cut rates in the San Joaquin at all.

We--these gentlemen here and myself, we are no better off than we were

before we secured your election as commissioner.”

“We were pledged to make an average ten per cent. cut, sir----” “It IS

an average ten per cent. cut,” cried Osterman. “Oh, yes, that's plain.

It's an average ten per cent. cut all right, but you've made it by

cutting grain rates between points where practically no grain is

shipped. We, the wheat-growers in the San Joaquin, where all the wheat

is grown, are right where we were before. The Railroad won't lose a

nickel. By Jingo, boys,” he glanced around the table, “I'd like to know

what this means.”

“The Railroad, if you come to that,” returned Lyman, “has already lodged

a protest against the new rate.”

Annixter uttered a derisive shout.

“A protest! That's good, that is. When the P. and S. W. objects to rates

it don't 'protest,' m' son. The first you hear from Mr. Shelgrim is

an injunction from the courts preventing the order for new rates from

taking effect. By the Lord,” he cried angrily, leaping to his feet, “I

would like to know what all this means, too. Why didn't you reduce our

grain rates? What did we elect you for?”

“Yes, what did we elect you for?” demanded Osterman and Gethings, also

getting to their feet.

“Order, order, gentlemen,” cried Magnus, remembering the duties of his

office and rapping his knuckles on the table. “This meeting has been

allowed to degenerate too far already.”

“You elected us,” declared Lyman doggedly, “to make an average ten

per cent. cut on grain rates. We have done it. Only because you don't

benefit at once, you object. It makes a difference whose ox is gored, it

seems.”

“Lyman!”

It was Magnus who spoke. He had drawn himself to his full six feet. His

eyes were flashing direct into his son's. His voice rang with severity.

“Lyman, what does this mean?”

The other spread out his hands.

“As you see, sir. We have done our best. I warned you not to expect too

much. I told you that this question of transportation was difficult.

You would not wish to put rates so low that the action would amount to

confiscation of property.”

“Why did you not lower rates in the valley of the San Joaquin?”

“That was not a PROMINENT issue in the affair,” responded Lyman,

carefully emphasising his words. “I understand, of course, it was to

be approached IN TIME. The main point was AN AVERAGE TEN PER CENT.

REDUCTION. Rates WILL be lowered in the San Joaquin. The ranchers around

Bonneville will be able to ship to Port Costa at equitable rates, but so

radical a measure as that cannot be put through in a turn of the hand.

We must study----”

“You KNEW the San Joaquin rate was an issue,” shouted Annixter, shaking

his finger across the table. “What do we men who backed you care about

rates up in Del Norte and Siskiyou Counties? Not a whoop in hell. It was

the San Joaquin rate we were fighting for, and we elected you to reduce

that. You didn't do it and you don't intend to, and, by the Lord Harry,

I want to know why.”

“You'll know, sir--” began Lyman.

“Well, I'll tell you why,” vociferated Osterman. “I'll tell you why.

It's because we have been sold out. It's because the P. and S. W. have

had their spoon in this boiling. It's because our commissioners have

betrayed us. It's because we're a set of damn fool farmers and have been

cinched again.”

Lyman paled under his dark skin at the direct attack. He evidently had

not expected this so soon. For the fraction of one instant he lost his

poise. He strove to speak, but caught his breath, stammering.

“What have you to say, then?” cried Harran, who, until now, had not

spoken.

“I have this to say,” answered Lyman, making head as best he might,

“that this is no proper spirit in which to discuss business. The

Commission has fulfilled its obligations. It has adjusted rates to

the best of its ability. We have been at work for two months on the

preparation of this schedule----”

“That's a lie,” shouted Annixter, his face scarlet; “that's a lie. That

schedule was drawn in the offices of the Pacific and Southwestern and

you know it. It's a scheme of rates made for the Railroad and by the

Railroad and you were bought over to put your name to it.”

There was a concerted outburst at the words. All the men in the room

were on their feet, gesticulating and vociferating.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” cried Magnus, “are we schoolboys, are we

ruffians of the street?”

“We're a set of fool farmers and we've been betrayed,” cried Osterman.

“Well, what have you to say? What have you to say?” persisted Harran,

leaning across the table toward his brother. “For God's sake, Lyman,

you've got SOME explanation.”

“You've misunderstood,” protested Lyman, white and trembling. “You've

misunderstood. You've expected too much. Next year,--next year,--soon

now, the Commission will take up the--the Commission will consider the

San Joaquin rate. We've done our best, that is all.”

“Have you, sir?” demanded Magnus.

The Governor's head was in a whirl; a sensation, almost of faintness,

had seized upon him. Was it possible? Was it possible?

“Have you done your best?” For a second he compelled Lyman's eye.

The glances of father and son met, and, in spite of his best efforts,

Lyman's eyes wavered. He began to protest once more, explaining the

matter over again from the beginning. But Magnus did not listen. In

that brief lapse of time he was convinced that the terrible thing had

happened, that the unbelievable had come to pass. It was in the air.

Between father and son, in some subtle fashion, the truth that was a

lie stood suddenly revealed. But even then Magnus would not receive it.

Lyman do this! His son, his eldest son, descend to this! Once more and

for the last time he turned to him and in his voice there was that ring

that compelled silence.

“Lyman,” he said, “I adjure you--I--I demand of you as you are my son

and an honourable man, explain yourself. What is there behind all this?

It is no longer as Chairman of the Committee I speak to you, you a

member of the Railroad Commission. It is your father who speaks, and I

address you as my son. Do you understand the gravity of this crisis;

do you realise the responsibility of your position; do you not see the

importance of this moment? Explain yourself.”

“There is nothing to explain.”

“You have not reduced rates in the San Joaquin? You have not reduced

rates between Bonneville and tidewater?”

“I repeat, sir, what I said before. An average ten per cent. cut----”

“Lyman, answer me, yes or no. Have you reduced the Bonneville rate?”

“It could not be done so soon. Give us time. We----”

“Yes or no! By God, sir, do you dare equivocate with me? Yes or no; have

you reduced the Bonneville rate?”

“No.”

“And answer ME,” shouted Harran, leaning far across the table, “answer

ME. Were you paid by the Railroad to leave the San Joaquin rate

untouched?”

Lyman, whiter than ever, turned furious upon his brother.

“Don't you dare put that question to me again.”

“No, I won't,” cried Harran, “because I'll TELL you to your villain's

face that you WERE paid to do it.”

On the instant the clamour burst forth afresh. Still on their feet, the

ranchers had, little by little, worked around the table, Magnus alone

keeping his place. The others were in a group before Lyman, crowding

him, as it were, to the wall, shouting into his face with menacing

gestures. The truth that was a lie, the certainty of a trust betrayed, a

pledge ruthlessly broken, was plain to every one of them.

“By the Lord! men have been shot for less than this,” cried Osterman.

“You've sold us out, you, and if you ever bring that dago face of yours

on a level with mine again, I'll slap it.”

“Keep your hands off,” exclaimed Lyman quickly, the aggressiveness of

the cornered rat flaming up within him. “No violence. Don't you go too

far.”

“How much were you paid? How much were you paid?” vociferated Harran.

“Yes, yes, what was your price?” cried the others. They were beside

themselves with anger; their words came harsh from between their set

teeth; their gestures were made with their fists clenched.

“You know the Commission acted in good faith,” retorted Lyman. “You know

that all was fair and above board.”

“Liar,” shouted Annixter; “liar, bribe-eater. You were bought and paid

for,” and with the words his arm seemed almost of itself to leap out

from his shoulder. Lyman received the blow squarely in the face and the

force of it sent him staggering backwards toward the wall. He tripped

over his valise and fell half way, his back supported against the closed

door of the room. Magnus sprang forward. His son had been struck, and

the instincts of a father rose up in instant protest; rose for a moment,

then forever died away in his heart. He checked the words that flashed

to his mind. He lowered his upraised arm. No, he had but one son.

The poor, staggering creature with the fine clothes, white face, and

blood-streaked lips was no longer his. A blow could not dishonour him

more than he had dishonoured himself.

But Gethings, the older man, intervened, pulling Annixter back, crying:

“Stop, this won't do. Not before his father.”

“I am no father to this man, gentlemen,” exclaimed Magnus. “From now on,

I have but one son. You, sir,” he turned to Lyman, “you, sir, leave my

house.”

Lyman, his handkerchief to his lips, his smart cravat in disarray,

caught up his hat and coat. He was shaking with fury, his protruding

eyes were blood-shot. He swung open the door.

“Ruffians,” he shouted from the threshold, “ruffians, bullies. Do your

own dirty business yourselves after this. I'm done with you. How is it,

all of a sudden you talk about honour? How is it that all at once you're

so clean and straight? You weren't so particular at Sacramento just

before the nominations. How was the Board elected? I'm a bribe-eater,

am I? Is it any worse than GIVING a bribe? Ask Magnus Derrick what he

thinks about that. Ask him how much he paid the Democratic bosses at

Sacramento to swing the convention.”

He went out, slamming the door.

Presley followed. The whole affair made him sick at heart, filled him

with infinite disgust, infinite weariness. He wished to get away from it

all. He left the dining-room and the excited, clamouring men behind him

and stepped out on the porch of the ranch house, closing the door behind

him. Lyman was nowhere in sight. Presley was alone. It was late, and

after the lamp-heated air of the dining-room, the coolness of the night

was delicious, and its vast silence, after the noise and fury of the

committee meeting, descended from the stars like a benediction. Presley

stepped to the edge of the porch, looking off to southward.

And there before him, mile after mile, illimitable, covering the earth

from horizon to horizon, lay the Wheat. The growth, now many days old,

was already high from the ground. There it lay, a vast, silent ocean,

shimmering a pallid green under the moon and under the stars; a mighty

force, the strength of nations, the life of the world. There in the

night, under the dome of the sky, it was growing steadily. To Presley's

mind, the scene in the room he had just left dwindled to paltry

insignificance before this sight. Ah, yes, the Wheat--it was over this

that the Railroad, the ranchers, the traitor false to his trust, all

the members of an obscure conspiracy, were wrangling. As if human

agency could affect this colossal power! What were these heated, tiny

squabbles, this feverish, small bustle of mankind, this minute swarming

of the human insect, to the great, majestic, silent ocean of the Wheat

itself! Indifferent, gigantic, resistless, it moved in its appointed

grooves. Men, Liliputians, gnats in the sunshine, buzzed impudently in

their tiny battles, were born, lived through their little day, died, and

were forgotten; while the Wheat, wrapped in Nirvanic calm, grew steadily

under the night, alone with the stars and with God.