The Grafters
Francis Lynde











THE GRAFTERS











THE
GRAFTERS
BY
FRANCIS LYNDE
Author of The Mister of Appleby, Etc.
Illustrated by
ARTHUR I. KELLER

NET YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS


Copyright 1904
Thb Bobbs-Mkrrill Company
April


TO MY GOOD FRIEND
MR. EDWARD YOUNG CHAPIN





CONTENTS
Chapter
Page
I
Ashes of Empire
1
II
A Man of the People
14/
III
The Bostonians
32\
IV
The Flesh-Potb of Egypt
43
V
Journeys End
58
VI
Of the Making of Laws
60
VII
The Sentimentalists
89
VIII
The Haymakers
108
IX
The Shocking of Hunnicott
131
X
Without Benefit of Clergy
133
XI
The Last Ditch
143
XII
The Man in Possession
160
XIII
The Wreckers
159
XIV
The Gerrymander
173
XV
The Junketers
192
XVI
Sharpening the Sword
207
XVII
The Conspirators
216
XVIII
Down, Bruno!
229
XIX
Deep-Sea Soundings
248
XX
The Winning Loser
257
XXI
A Woman Intervenes
269
XXII
A Borrowed Conscience
274
XXIII
The Insurrectionary
283
XXIV
Into the Primitive
296
XXV
Dead Water and Quick
308
XXVI
On the High Plains
325
XXVII
By Order of the Court
342
XXVIII
The Night of Alarms
356
XXIX
The Relentless Wheels
372
XXX
Subhi Sadik
387





THE GRAFTERS
i
ASHES OF EMPIRE
In point of age, Gaston the strenuous was still no
more than a lusty infant among the cities of the brown
plain when the boom broke and the junto was born,
though its beginnings as a halt camp ran back to the
days of the later Mormon migrations across the thirsty
plain; to that day when the advanced guard of Zophar
Smith's ox-train dug wells in the damp sands of Dry
Creek and called them the Waters of Merom.
Later, one Jethro Simsby, a Mormon deserter, set up
his rod and staff on the banks of the creek, homesteaded
a quarter-section of the sage-brush plain, and in due
time came to be known as the Dry Creek cattle king.
And the cow-camp was still Simsby's when the locating
engineers of the Western Pacific, searching for tank
stations in a land where water was scarce and hard to
(1)


2
THE GEAFTERS
come by, drove their stakes along the north line of the
quarter-section; and having named their last station
Alphonse, christened this one Gaston.
From the stake-driving of the engineers to the spike-
driving of the track-layers was a full decade. For hard
times overtook the Western Pacific at Midland City,
eighty miles to the eastward; while the State capital,
two days' bronco-jolting west of Dry Creek, had rail-
road outlets in plenty and no inducements to offer a
new-comer.
But, with the breaking of the cloud of financial de-
pression, the Western Pacific succeeded in placing its
extension bonds, and a little later the earth began to fly
on the grade of the new line to the west. Within a
Sundayless month the electric lights of the night shift
could be seen, and, when the wind was right, the shriek
of the locomotive whistle could be heard at Dry Creek;
and in this interval between dawn and daylight Jethro
Simsby sold his quarter-section for the nominal sum of
two thousand dollars, spot cash, to two men who buck-
boarded in ahead of the track-layers.
This purchase of the "J-lazy-S" ranch by Hawk and
Guilford marked the modest beginning of Gaston the("
marvelous. By the time the temporary sidings were
down and the tank well was dug in the damp sands, it
was heralded far and wide that the Western Pacific
would make the city on the banks of Dry Creek—a city


ASHES' OF EMPIRE
3
consisting as yet only of the Simsby ranch shacks—its
western terminus. Thereupon followed one of the sense-
less rushes that populate the waste places of the earth
and give the professional city-builder his reason for
being. In a fortnight after the driving of the silver
spike the dusty plain was dotted with the black-roofed
shelters of the Argonauts; and by the following spring
the plow was furrowing the cattle ranges in ever-widen-
ing circles, and Gaston had voted a bond loan of three
hundred thousand dollars to pave its streets.
Then under the forced draft of skilful exploitation,
three years of high pressure passed quickly; years
named by the promoters the period of development.
In the Year One the very heavens smiled and the
rainfall broke the record of the oldest inhabitant.
Thus the region round about lost the w'ord "arid" as
a qualifying adjective, and the picturesque fictions of
the prospectus makers were miraculously justified. In
Year Two there was less rain, but still an abundant
crop; and Jethro Simsby, drifting in from some un-
named frontier of a newer cow-country, saw what he
had missed, took to drink, and shot himself in the
lobby of the Mid-Continent Hotel, an ornate, five-
storied, brick-and-terra-cotta structure standing pre-
cisely upon the site of the "J-lazy-S" branding corral.
It was in this same Year Two, the fame of the
latest of western Meccas for young men having pene-


4
THE GRAFTERS
trated to the provincial backgrounds of New Hamp-
shire, that David Kent came.
By virtue of his diploma, and three years of coun-
try practice in the New Hampshire county town where
his father before him had read Blackstone and Chitty,
he had his window on the fourth floor of the Farquhar
Building lettered "Attorney and Counselor at Law";
but up to the day in the latter part of the fateful Year
Three, when the overdue crash came, he was best known
as a reckless plunger in real estate—this, mind you,
at a moment when every third man counted his gains
in "front feet", and was shouting himself hoarse at the
daily brass-band lot sales.
When the bottom fell out in the autumn of Year
Three, Kent fell with it, though not altogether as far
or as hard as many another. One of his professional
hold-fasts—it was the one that afterward became the
bread-tackle in the famine time—was his position as lo-
cal attorney for the railway company. By reason of this
he was among the first to have a hint of the impend-
ing cataclysm. The Western Pacific, after so long a
pause on the banks of Dry Creek, had floated its second
mortgage bonds and would presently build on to the
capital, leaving Gaston to way-station quietude. There-
fore and wherefore—
Kent was not lacking in native shrewdness or energy.
He foresaw, not the pitiable bubble-burst which en-


ASHES OF EMPIRE
5
sued, indeed, but the certain and inevitable end of the
speculative era. Like every one else, he had bought
chiefly with promises to pay, and his paper in the
three banks aggregated a sum equal to a frugal New
Hampshire competence.
"How long have I got?" was the laconic wire which
he sent to Loring, the secretary of the Western Pacific
Advisory Board in Boston, from whom his hint had
come. And when Loring replied that the grading and
track-laying contracts were already awarded, there was
at least one "long" on the Gaston real estate exchange
who wrought desperately night and day to "unload".
As it turned out, the race against time was both a
victory and a defeat. On the morning when the Daily
Clarion sounded the first note of public alarm, David
Kent took up the last of his bank promises-to-pay, and
transferred his final mortgaged holding in Gaston
realty. When it was done he locked himself in his office
in the Farquhar Building and balanced the account. On
leaving the New Hampshire country town to try the new
cast for fortune in the golden West, he had turned his
small patrimony into cash—some ten thousand dollars
of it. To set over against the bill of exchange for this
amount, which he had brought to Gaston a year earlier,
there were a clean name, a few hundred dollars in bank,
six lots, bought and paid for, in one of the Gaston
suburbs, and a vast deal of experience.


6
THE GBAFTERS
Kent ran his hands through his hair, opened the
check-book and hastily filled out a check payable to
himself for the remaining few hundreds. When he
reached the Apache National on the corner of Colorado
and Texas Streets, he was the one hundred and twenty-
seventh man in the queue, which extended around the
corner and doubled back and forth in the cross-street
to the stoppage of all traffic. The announcement in
the Clarion had done its work, and the baleful flower
of panic, which is a juggler's rose for quick-growing
possibilities, was filling the very air of the street with
its acrid perfume—the scent of all others that soonest
drives men mad.
Major James Guilford, the president of the Apache
National, was in the cage with the sweating paying
tellers, and it was to him that Kent presented his check
when his turn came.
"What! You, too, Kent?" said the president, re-
proachfully. "I thought you had more backbone."
Kent shook his head.
"Gaston has absorbed nine-tenths of the money I
brought here; I'll absorb the remaining tenth myself,
if it's just the same to you, Major. Thank you." And
the hundred and twenty-seventh man pocketed his sal-
vage from the wreck and fought his way out through
the jam at the doors. Two hours farther along in the


ASHES' OF EMPIRE
7
forenoon the Apache National suspended payment, and
the bank examiner was wired for.
For suddenness and thoroughgoing completeness the
Gaston bubble-bursting was a record-breaker. For s.
week and a day there was a frantic struggle for enlarge-
ment, and by the expiration of a fortnight the life was
pretty well trampled out of the civic corpse and the
stench began to arise.
Flight upon any terms then became the order of the
day, and if the place had been suddenly plague-smitten
the panicky exodus could scarcely have been more head-
long. None the less, in any such disorderly up-anchor-
ing there are stragglers perforce: some left like strand-
ed hulks by the ebbing tide; others riding by mooring
chains which may be neither slipped nor capstaned.
.When all was over there were deserted streets and
empty suburbs in ruthless profusion; but there was also
a hungry minority of the crews of the stranded and an-
chored hulks left behind to live or die as they might,
and presently to fall into cannibalism, preying one upon
another between whiles, or waiting like their prototypes
of the Spanish Main for the stray spoils of any luckless
argosy that might drift within grappling distance.
Kent stayed partly because a local attorney for the
railroad was as necessary in Gaston the bereaved as in
Gaston the strenuous; partly, also, because he was a


THE GRAFTERS
student of his kind, and the broken city gave him labor-
atory opportunities for the study of human nature at
its worst.
He marked the raising of the black flag as the Gaston
castaways, getting sorrily afloat one by one, cleared their
decks for action. Some Bluebeard admiral there will
always be for such stressful occasions, and David Kent,
standing aside and growing cynical day by day, laid
even chances on Hawk, the ex-district attorney, on
Major Guilford, and on one Jasper G. Bucks, sometime
mayor of Gaston the iridescent.
Afterward he was to learn that he had underrated
the gifts of the former mayor. For when the famine
time was fully come, and there were no more argosies
drifting Gastonward for the bucaneers to sack and
scuttle, it was Jasper G. Bucks who called a conference
of his fellow werwolves, set forth his new cast for for-
tune, and brought the junto, the child of sheer despera-
tion fiercely at bay, into being.
It was in the autumn of that first cataclysmic year
that Secretary Loring, traveling from Boston to the
State capital on a mission for the Western Pacific,
stopped over a train with Kent. After a rather dis-
piriting dinner in the deserted Mid-Continent caf6, and
some plowing of the field of recollection in Kent's
rooms in the Farquhar Building, they took the deserted


ASHES OF EMPIEE
9
street in the golden twilight to walk to the railway sta-
tion.
"It was a decent thing for you to do—stopping over
a train with me, Grantham," said the host, when the
five squares intervening had been half measured. "I
have, had all kinds of a time out here in this God-for-
saken desert, but never until to-day anything approach-
ing a chummy hour with a man I know and care for."
Kent had not spoken since they had felt their way
out of the dark lower hall of the Farquhar Building.
Up to this point the talk had been pointedly reminis-
cent; of the men of their university year, of mutual
friends in the far-away "God's country" to the east-
ward, of the Gastonian epic, of all things save only
two—the exile's cast for fortune in the untamed West,
and one other.
"That brings us a little nearer to the things that
be—and to your prospects, David," said the guest.
"How are you fixed here?"
Kent shrugged.
"Gaston is dead, as you see; too dead to bury."
"Why don't you get out of it, then?"
"I shall some day, perhaps. Up to date there has
been no place to go to, and no good way to arrive. Like
some thousands of others, I've made an ass of myself
here, Loring."


10
THE GRAFTEES
"By coming, you mean? Oh, I don't know about
that. You have had some hard knocks, I take it, but if
, you are the same David Kent I used to know, they have
made a bigger man of you."
"Think so?"
"I'd bet on it. We have had the Gaston epic done
out for us in the newspapers. No man could live
through such an experience as you must have had with-
out growing a few inches. Hello! What's this?"
A turned corner had brought them in front of a
lighted building in Texas Street with a straggling
crowd gathered about the porticoed entrance. As Lor-
ing spoke, there was a rattle of snare drums followed
by the dum-dum of the bass, and a brass band ramped
out the opening measures of a campaign march.
"It is a rally," said Kent, when they had passed far
enough beyond the zone of brass-throated clamorings
to make the reply audible. "I told you that the Gaston
wolf-pack had gone into politics. We are in the throes
of a State election, and there is to be a political speech-
making at tHe Opera House to-night, with Bucks in
the title role. And there is a fair measure of the dead-
ness of the town! When you see people flock together
like that to hear a brass band play, it means one of two
things: that the town hasn't outgrown the country
village stage, or else it has passed that and all other
stages and is well on its way to the cemetery."


ASHES OF EMPIRE
11
"That is one way of putting it," Loring rejoined.
"If things are as bad as that, it ' s time you were moving
on, don't you think?"
"1 guess so," was the lack-luster response. "Only I
don't know where to go, or what to do when I get
there."
They were crossing the open square in front of the
wide-eaved passenger station. A thunderous tremolo,
dominating the distant band music, thrilled on the still
air, and the extended arm of the station semaphore with
its two dangling lanterns wagged twice.
"My train," said Loring, quickening his step.
"No," Kent corrected. "It is a special from the
west, bringing a Bucks crowd to the political rally.
Number Three isn't due for fifteen minutes yet, and
she is always late."
They mounted the steps to the station platform in
good time to meet the three-car special as it came
clattering in over the switches, and presently found
themselves in the thick of the crowd of debarking ralli-
ers.
It was a mixed masculine multitude, fairly typical
of time, place and occasion; stalwart men of the soil
for the greater part, bearded and bronzed and rough-
clothed, with here and there a range-rider in pictur-
esque leathern shaps, sagging pistols and wide-flapped
sombrero.


12
THE GRAFTERS
Loring stood aside and put up his eye-glasses. It was
his first sight near at hand of the untrammeled West
in puris naturalibus, and he was finding the spectacle
both instructive and diverting. Looking to Kent for
fellowship he saw that his companion was holding him-
self stiffly aloof; also, he remarked that none of the
boisterous partizans flung a word of recognition in
Kent's direction.
"Don't you know any of them?" he asked.
Kent's reply was lost in the deep-chested bull-bellow
of a cattleman from the Eio Blanoo.
"Hold on a minute, boys, before you scatter! Line
up here, and let's give three cheers and a tail-twister
for next-Governor Bucks! Now, then—everybody!
Hip, hip—"
The ripping crash of the cheer jarred Loring's eye-
glasses from their hold, and he replaced them with a
smile. Four times the ear-splitting shout went up, and
as the echoes of the "tiger" trailed off into silence the
stentorian voice was lifted again.
"Good enough! Now, then; three groans for the
land syndicates, alien mortgagees, and the Western Pa-
cific Railroad, by grabs! and to hell with 'em!"
The responsive clamor was a thing to be acutely re-
membered—sustained, long-drawn, vindictive; a nerve-
wrenching pandemonium of groans, yelpings and cat-


ASHES' OF EMPIEE
13
calls, in the midst of which the partizans shuffled into
loose marching order and tramped away townward.
"That answers your question, doesn't it?" said Kent,
smiling sourly. "If not, I can set it out for you in
words. The Western Pacific is the best-hated corpora-
tion this side of the Mississippi, and I am its local at-.'
torney."
"I don't envy you," said Loring. "I had no idea the
opposition crystallized itself in any such concrete ill
will. You must have the whole weight of public senti-
ment against you in any railroad litigation."
"I do," said Kent, simply. "If every complainant
against us had the right to pack his own jury, we
couldn't fare worse."
"What is at the bottom of it? Is it our pricking of
the Gaston bubble by building on to the capital?"
"Oh, no; it's much more personal to these shouters.
As you may, or may not, know, our line—like every
other western railroad with no competition—has for
its motto, 'All the tariff the traffic will stand,' and it
bleeds the country accordingly. But we are forgetting
your train. Shall we go and see how late it is?"


II
a. MAN OF THE PEOPLE
Train Number Three, the Western Flyer, was late,
as Kent had predicted—just how late the operator
could not tell; and pending the chalking-up of its ar-
riving time on the bulletin board, the two men sat on
an empty baggage truck and smoked in companionable
silence.
While they waited, Loring's thoughts were busy with
many things, friendly solicitude for the exile serving
as the point of departure. He knew what a handfast
friend might know: how Kent had finished his post-
graduate course in the law and had succeeded to his
father's small practice in the New Hampshire county
town where he was born and bred. Also, he knew how
Kent's friends, college friends who knew his gifts and
ability, had deprecated the burial; and he himself had
been curious enough to pay Kent a visit to spy out the
reason why. On their first evening together in the
stuffy little law office which had been his father's, Kent


A MAN OF THE PEOPLE 15
had made a clean breast of it: there was a young woman
in the case, and a promise passed before Kent had gone
to college. She was a farmer's daughter, with no notion
for a change of environment; wherefore she had de-
termined Kent's career and the scene of it, laying its
lines in the narrow field of her own choosing.
Later, as Loring knew, the sentimental anchor had
dragged until it was hopelessly off holding-ground.
The young woman had laid the blame at the door of the
university, had given Kent a bad half-year of fault-
finding and recrimination, and had finally made an end
of the matter by bestowing her dowry of hillside acres
on the son of a neighboring farmer.
Thereafter Kent had stagnated quietly, living with
simple rigor the life he had marked out for himself;
thankful at heart, Loring had suspected, for the timely
intervention of the farmer's son, but holding himself
well in hand against a repetition of the sentimental of-
fense. All this until the opening of the summer hotel
at the foot of Old Croydon, and the coming of Elinor
Brentwood.
No one knew just how much Miss Brentwood had to
do with the long-delayed awakening of David Kent;
but in Loring's forecagtings she enjoyed the full benefit
of the doubt. From tramping the hills alone, or whip-
ping the streams for brook trout, David had taken to
spending his afternoons with lover-like regularity at


16
THE GRAFTERS
the Croydon Inn; and at the end of the season had
electrified the sleepy home town by declaring his in-
tention to go West and grow up with the country.
In Loring's setting-forth of the awakening, the mo-
tive was not far to seek. Miss Brentwood was ambi-
tious, and if her interest in Kent had been only casual
she would not have been likely to point him to the
wider battle-field. Again, apart from his modest patri-
mony, Kent had only his profession. The Brentwoods
were not rich, as riches are measured in millions; but
they lived in their own house in the Back Bay wilder-
ness, moved in Boston's older substantial circle, and, in
a world where success, economic or other, is in some
sort the touchstone, were many social planes above a
country lawyer.
Loring knew Kent's fierce poverty-pride—none bet-
ter. Hence, he was at no loss to account for the exile's
flight afield, or for his unhopeful present attitude.
Meaning to win trophies to lay at Miss Brentwood's
feet, the present stage of the rough joust with Fortune
found him unhorsed, unweaponed and rolling in the
dust of the lists.
Loring chewed his cigar reflectively, wishing his com-
panion would open the way to free speech on the sub-
ject presumably nearest his heart. He had a word of
comfort, negative comfort, to offer, but it might not
be said until Kent should give him leave by taking the


A MAN OF THE PEOPLE 17
initiative. Kent broke silence at last, but the promp-
ting was nothing more pertinent than the chalking-up
of the delayed train's time.
"An hour and twenty minutes: that means any time
after nine o'clock. I'm honestly sorry for you, Gran-
tham—sorry for any one that has to stay in this charnel-
house of a town ten minutes after he's through. What
will you do with yourself?"
Loring got up, looked at his watch, and made a sug-
gestion, hoping that Kent would fall in with it.
"I don't know. Shall we go back to your rooms and
sit a while?"
The exile's eyes gloomed suddenly.
"Not unless you insist on it. We should get back
among the relics and I should bore you. I'm not the
man you used to know, Grantham."
"No?" said Loring. "I sha'n't be hypocritical enough
to contradict you. Nevertheless, you are my host. It
is for you to say what you will do with me until train
time."
"We can kill an hour at the rally, if you like. You
have seen the street parade and heard the band play: it
is only fair that you should see the menagerie on ex-
hibition."
Loring found his match-box and made a fresh light
for his cigar.
"It's pretty evident that you and 'next-Governor'


18
THE GEAPTERS
Bucks are on opposite sides of the political fence," he
observed.
"We are. I should think a good bit less of myself
than I do—and that's needless—if I trained in his
company."
"Yet you will give him a chance to make a partizan
of me? Well, come along. Politics are not down on my
western programme, but I'm here to see all the new
things."
The Gaston Opera House was a survival of the flush
times, and barring a certain tawdriness from disuse and
neglect, and a rather garish effect which marched evenly
with the brick-and-terra-cotta fronts in Texas Street
and the American-Tudor cottages of the suburbs, it was
a creditable relic. The auditorium was well filled in pit,
dress-circle and gallery when Kent and his guest edged
tlieir way through the standing committee in the foyer;
but by dint of careful searching they succeeded in find-
ing two seats well around to the left, with a balcony
pillar to separate them from their nearest neighbors.
Since the public side of American politics varies little
with the variation of latitude or longitude, the man from
the East found himself at once in homely and remindful
surroundings. There was the customary draping of
flags under the proscenium arch and across the set-piece
villa of the background. In the semicircle of chairs
arched from wing to wing sat the local and visiting


A MAN OF THE PEOPLE 19
political lights; men of all trades, these, some of them
a little shamefaced and ill at ease by reason of their
unwonted conspicuity; all of them listening with a
carefully assumed air of strained attention to the
speaker of the moment.
Also, there was the characteristic ante-election audi-
ence, typical of all America—the thing most truly typi-
cal in a land where national types are sought for mi-
croscopically: wheel-horses who came at the party call;
men who came in the temporary upblaze of enthusiastic
patriotism, which is lighted with the opening of the cam-
paign, and which goes out like a candle in a gust of
wind the day after the election; men who came to ap-
plaud blindly, and a few who came to cavil and deride.
Loring oriented himself in a leisurely eye-sweep, and
so came by easy gradations to the speaker.
Measured by the standard of fitness for his office of
prolocutor the man standing beside the stage-properties
speaker's desk was worthy a second glance. He was
dark, undersized, trimly built; with a Vandyke beard
clipped closely enough to show the lines of a bull-dog
jaw, and eyes that had the gift, priceless to the public
speaker, of seeming to hold every onlooking eye in the
audience. Unlike his backers in the awkward semi-
circle, he wore a professional long coat; and the hands
that marked his smoothly flowing sentences were slim
and shapely.


20
THE GRAFTERS
"Who is he?" asked Loring, in an aside to Kent.
"Stephen Hawk, the ex-district attorney: boomer,
pettifogger, promoter—a charter member of the Gas-
ton wolf-pack. A man who would persuade you into
believing in the impeccability of Satan in one breath,
and knife you in the back for a ten-dollar bill in the
next," was the rejoinder.
Loring nodded, and again became a listener. Hawk's
speech was merely introductory, and it was nearing its
peroration.
"Fellow citizens, this occasion is as auspicious as it
is significant. When the people rise in their might
to say to tyranny in whatsoever form it oppresses them,
'Thus far and no farther shalt thou go,' the night is far
spent and the light is breaking in the east.
"Since the day when we first began to wrest with com-
pelling hands the natural riches from the soil of this
our adoptive State, political trickery in high places,
backed by the puissant might of alien corporations, has
ground us into the dust.
"But now the time of our deliverance is at hand.
Great movements give birth to great leaders; and
in this, our holy crusade against oppression and
tyranny, the crisis has bred the man. Ladies and
gentlemen, I have the pleasure of presenting to you
the speaker of the evening: our friend and fellow
citizen the Honorable Jasper G. Bucks, by the grace of


A MAN OF THE PEOPLE 2i
God, and your suffrages, the next governor of the
State."
In the storm of applause that burst upon the dra-
matic peroration of the ex-district attorney, a man
rose from the center of the stage semicircle and lum-
bered heavily forward to the footlights. Loring's first
emotion was of surprise, tempered with pity. The
crisis-born leader, heralded by such a flourish of rhetor-
ical trumpets, was a giant in size; but with his huge
figure, unshapely and ill-clad, all promise of greatness
seemed to pause.
His face, broad-featured, colorless, and beardless as
a boy's, was either a blank or an impenetrable mask.
There was no convincement in the lack-luster gaze of
the small, porcine eyes; no eloquence in the harsh,
nasal tones of the untrained voice, or in the ponderous
and awkward wavings of the beam-like arms. None
the less, before he had uttered a dozen halting sen-
tences he was carrying the audience with him step by
step; moving the great concourse of listeners with his
commonplace periods as a mellifluous Hawk could never
hope to move it.
Loring saw the miracle in the throes of its outwork-
t
ing; saw and felt it in his own proper person, and
sought in vain to account for it. Was there some sub-
tile magnetism in this great hulk of a man that made
itself felt in spite of its hamperings? Or was it merely


22
THE GRAFTEES
that the people, weary of empty rhetoric and unkept
promises, were ripe to welcome and to follow any man
whose apparent earnestness and sincerity atoned for
all his lacks?
Explain it as he might, Loring soon assured himself
that the Honorable Jasper G. Bucks was laying hold of
the sentiment of the audience as though it were a thing
tangible to be grasped by the huge hands. Unlike
Hawk, whose speech flamed easily into denunciation
when it touched on the alien corporations, he coun-
seled moderation and lawful reprisals. Land syndi-
cates, railroads, foreign capital in whatever employment,
were prime necessities in any new and growing com-
monwealth. The province of the people was not to
wreck the ship, but to guide it. And the remedy for all
ills lay in controlling legislation, faithfully and rigidly
enforced.
"My friends: I'm only a plain, hard-handed farmer,
as those of you who are my fellow townsmen can testify.
But I've seen what you've seen, and I've suffered what
you've suffered. Year after year we send our repre-
sentatives to the legislature, and what comes of it?
Why, these corporations, looking only to their own in-
terests, as they're in duty bound to do, buys 'em if they
can. You can't blame 'em for that; it's business—their
business. But it is our business, as citizens of this
great commonwealth, to prevent it. We have good laws


A MAN OF THE PEOPLE 23
on our statute books, but we need more of 'em; laws
for control, with plain, honest men at the capital, in
the judiciary, in every root and branch of the executive,
to enforce 'em. With such laws, and such men to see
that they are executed, there wouldn't be any more ex-
tortion, any more raising of the rates of transportation
on the produce of our ranches and farms merely be-
cause the eastern market for that particular product
happened to jump a few cents on the dollar.
"No, my friends; plain, hard-handed farmer though
I be, I can see what will follow an honest election of
the people, by the people, and for the people. The
State can be—it ought to be—sovereign within its own
boundaries. If we rise up as one man next Tuesday
and put a ticket into the ballot-box that says we are
going to make it so, and keep it so, you'll see a new
commodity tariff put into effect on the Western Pacific
Eailroad the day after."
The speaker paused, and into the little gap of silence
barked a voice from the gallery.
"That's what you say. But supposin' they don't do
it?"
Loring was gazing steadfastly at the blank, heavy
face, so utterly devoid of the enthusiasm the man was
evoking in others. For one flitting instant he thought
he saw behind the mask. The immobile face, the awk-
ward gestures, the slipshod English became suddenly


24
THE GRAFTERS
transparent, revealing the real man; a man of titanic
strength, of tremendous possibilities for good or evil.
Loring put up his glasses and looked again; but the
figure of the flash-light inner vision had vanished, and
the speaker was answering his objector as calmly as
though the house held only the single critic to be set
right.
"I'm always glad to hear a man speak right out in
meeting," he said, dropping still deeper into the col-
loquialisms. "Supposing the corporations don't see
the handwriting on the wall—won't see it, you say?
Then, my friend, it will become the manifest duty of
the legislature and the executive fo make 'em see it:
always lawfully, you understand; always with a just
and equitable respect for the rights of property in which
our free and glorious institutions are founded, but with
level-handed justice, and without fear or favor."
A thunderous uproar of applause clamored on the
heels of the answer, and the Honorable Jasper mopped
his face with a colored handkerchief and took a swallow
of water from the glass on the desk.
"Mind you, my friends, I'm not saying we are not
going to find plenty of stumps and roots and a tough
sod in this furrow we are going to plow. It's only the
fool or the ignoramus who underrates the strength of his
opponent. It is going to be just plain, honest justice
and the will of the people against the money of the


A MAN OF THE PEOPLE 25
Harrimans and the Goulds and the Vanderbilts and all
the rest of 'em. But the law is mighty, and it will pre-
vail. Give us an honest legislature to make such laws,
and an executive strong enough to enforce 'em, and
the sovereign State will stand out glorious and triumph-
ant as a monument against oppression.
"When that time comes—and it's a-coming, my
friends—the corporations and the syndicates will read
the handwriting on the wall; don't you be afraid of
that. If they should be a little grain thick-headed and
sort o' blind at first, as old King Belshazzar was, it may
be that the sovereign State will have to give 'cm an
object-lesson—lawfully, always lawfully, you under-
stand. But when they see, through the medium of
such an object-lesson or otherwise, as the case may be,
that we mean business; when they see that we, the
people of this great and growing commonwealth, mean
to assert our rights to live and move and have our be-
ing, to have fair, even-handed justice meted out to
ourselves, our wives and our little children, they'll come
down and quit watering their stock with the sweat of
our brows; and that hold-up motto of theirs, 'All the
tariff the traffic will stand,' will be no more known in
Israel!"
Again the clamor of applause rose like fine dust on
the throng-heated air, and Kent looked at his watch.


26
THE GRAFTERS
"It is time we were going/' he said; adding: "I
guess you have had enough of it, haven't you?"
Lorfng was silent for the better part of the way back
to the railway station. When he spoke it was in an-
swer to a delayed question of Kent's.
"What do I think of him? I don't know, David;
and that's the plain truth. He is not the man he ap-
pears to be as he stands there haranguing that crowd.
That is a pose, and an exceedingly skilful one. He is
not altogether apparent to me; but he strikes me as be-
ing a man of immense possibilities—whether for good
or evil, I can't say."
"You needn't draw another breath of uncertainty on
that score," was the curt rejoinder. "He is a dema-
gogue, pure and unadulterated."
Loring did not attempt to refute the charge.
"Are he and his party likely to win?" he asked.
"God knows," said Kent. "We have had so many
lightning transformations in politics in the State that
nothing is impossible."
"I'd like to know," was Loring's comment. "It
might make some difference to me, personally."
"To you?" said Kent, inquiringly. "That reminds
me: I haven't given you a chance to say ten words
about yourself."
"The chance hasn't been lacking. But my business
out here is—well, it isn't exactly a Star Chamber mat-


A MAN OF THE PEOPLE
27
ter, but I'm under promise in a way not to talk about
it until I have had a conference with our people at the
capital. I'll write you about it in a few days."
They were ascending the steps at the end of the
passenger platform again, and Loring broke away from
the political and personal entanglement to give Kent
one more opportunity to hear his word of negative com-
fort.
"We dug up the field of recollection pretty thoroughly
in our after-dinner seance in your rooms, David, but I
noticed there was one corner of it you left undisturbed.
Was there any good reason?"
Kent made no show of misunderstanding.
"There was the excellent reason which must have
been apparent to you before you had been an hour in
Gaston. I've made my shot, and missed."
Loring entered the breach with his shield held well
to the fore. He was the last man in the world to as-
sault a friend's confidence recklessly.
"I thought a good while ago, and I still think, that
you are making a mountain out of a mole-hill, David.
Elinor Brentwood is a true woman in every inch of
her. She is as much above caring for false notions of
caste as you ought to be."
"I know her nobility: which is all the more reason
why I shouldn't take advantage of it. We may scoff at
the social inequalities as much as we please, but we can't


28
THE GRAFTERS
laugh them out of court. As between a young woman
who is an heiress in her own right, and a briefless law-
yer, there are differences which a decent man is bound
to efface. And I haven't been able."
"Does Miss Brentwood know?"
"She knows nothing at all. I was unwilling to en-
tangle her, even with a confidence."
"The more fool you," said Loring, bluntly. "You
call yourself a lawyer, and you have not yet learned one
of the first principles of common justice, which is that a
woman has some rights which even a besotted lover is
bound to respect. You made love to her that summer
at Croydon; you needn't deny it. And at the end of
things you walk off to make your fortune without com-
mitting yourself; without knowing, or apparently car-
ing, what your stiff-necked poverty-pride may cost her
in years of uncertainty. You deserve to lose her."
Kent's smile was a fair measure of his unhopeful
mood.
"You can't well lose what you have never had. I'm
not such an ass as to believe that she cared greatly."
"How do you know? Not by anything you ever gave
her a chance to say, I'll dare swear. I've a bit of qual-
ified good news for you, but the spirit is moving me
mightily to hold my tongue."
"Tell me," said Kent, his indifference vanishing in
the turning of a leaf.


A MAN OF THE PEOPLE 29
"Well, to begin with, Miss Brentwood is still unmar-
ried, though the gossips say she doesn't lack plenty of
eligible offers."
"Half of that I knew; the other half I took for
granted. Go on."
"Her mother, under the advice of the chief of the
clan Brentwood, has been making a lot of bad invest-
ments for herself and her two daughters: in other
words, she has been making ducks and drakes of the
Brentwood fortune."
Kent was as deeply moved as if the loss had been his
own, and said as much, craving more of the particulars.
"I can't give them. But I may say that the blame
lies at your door, David."
"At my door? How do you arrive at that?"
"By the shortest possible route. If you had done
your duty by Elinor in the Croydon summer, Mrs.
Brentwood would have had a bright young attorney for
a son-in-law and adviser, and the bad investments
would not have been made."
Kent's laugh was entirely devoid of mirth.
"Don't trample on a man when he's down. I was
neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet. But how
bad is the smash? Surely you know that?"
"No, I don't. Bradford was telling me about it the
day I left Boston. He gave me to understand that the


30
THE GRAFTERS
principal family holding at present is in the stock of a
certain western railway."
"Did he happen to know the name of the stock?"
asked Kent, moistening his lips.
"He did. Fate flirts with you two in the usual
fashion. Mrs. Brentwood's little fortune—and by con-
sequence, Elinor's and Penelope's—is tied up in the
stock of the company whose platform we are occupy-
ing at the present moment—the Western Pacific."
Kent let slip a hard word directed at ill-advisers in
general, and Loring took his cue from the malediction.
"You swear pretty feelingly, David. Isn't our prop-
erty as good a thing as we of the Boston end have been
cracking it up to be?"
"You know better about the financial part of it than
I do. But—well, you are fresh from this anarchistic
conclave at the Opera House. You can imagine what
the stock of the Western Pacific, or of any other foreign
corporation doing business in this State, will be worth
in six months after Bucks and his crowd get into the
saddle."
"You speak as if the result of the election were a
foregone conclusion. I hope it isn't. But we were
talking more particularly of Miss Brentwood, and your
personal responsibilities." The belated train was whis-
tling for the lower yard, and Loring was determined to
say all that was in his mind.


A MAN OF THE PEOPLE 31
"Yes; go on. I'm anxious to hear—more anxious
than I seem to be, perhaps."
''Well, she is coming West, after a bit. She, and her
sister and the mother. Mrs. Brentwood's asthma w
worse, and the wise men have ordered her to the in-
terior. I thought you'd like to know."
"Is she—are they coming this way?" asked Kent.
The train was in, and the porter had fetched Loring's
hand-bag from the check-stand. The guest paused with
one foot on the step of the sleeping-car.
"If I were you, David, I'd write and ask; I should,
by Jove. It would be a tremendously cheeky thing to
do, of - course, having such a slight acquaintance with
her as you have; but I'll be hanged if I shouldn't chance
it. And in the mean time, if I don't go back East
next week, you'll hear from me. When you do, or if
you do, take a day off and run up to the capital. I
shall need you. Good-by."
Kent watched the train pull out; stood looking after
it until the two red eyes of the rear signals had disap-
peared in the dusty darkness of the illimitable plain.
Then he went to his rooms, to the one which was called
by courtesy his office, and without allowing himself
time for a nice balancing of the pros and cons, squared
himself at the desk to write a letter.


Ill
THE BOSTONIANB
It was precisely on the day set for the Brentwoods'
westward flitting that the postman, making his morn-
ing round, delivered David Kent's asking at the
house in the Back Bay sub-district. Elinor was busy
packing for the migration, but she left Penelope and
the maid to cope with the problem of compressing two
trunkfuls into one while she read the letter, and she
was reading it a second time when Mr. Brookes Orms-
by's card came up.
"You go, Penelope," she begged. "There is so much
to do."
"Not I," said the younger sister, cavalierly; "he
didn't come to see me." Whereupon Elinor smoothed
the two small wrinkles of impatience out of her brow,
tucked her letter into her bosom, and went down to meet
the early morning caller.
Mr. Brookes Ormsby, club-man, gentleman of ath-
letic leisure, and inheritor of the Ormsby millions, was
(32)


THE BOSTONIANS
33
pacing back and forth before the handful of fire in
the drawing-room grate when she entered.
"You don't deserve to have a collie sheep-dog friend,"
he protested reproachfully. "How was I to know that
you were going away?"
Another time Elinor might have felt that she owed
him an explanation, but just now she was careful, and
troubled about the packing.
"How was I to know you didn't know?" she retorted.
"It was in the Transcript."
"Well!" said Ormsby. "Things have come to a
pretty pass when I have to keep track of you through
the society column. I didn't see the paper. Dyckman
brought me word last night at Vineyard Haven, and
we broke a propeller blade on the Amphitrite trying to
get here in time."
"I am so sorry—for the Amphitrite," she said. "But
you are here, and in good season. Shall I call mother
and Nell?"
"No. I ran out to see if I'm in time to do your er-
rands for you—take your tickets, and so on."
"Oh, we shouldn't think of troubling you. James
can do all those things. And failing James, there is
a very dependable young woman at the head of this
household. Haven't I 'personally conducted' the fam-
ily all over Europe?"
"James is a base hireling," said the caller, blandly.


34
THE GRAFTERS
"And as for the capable young woman: do I or do I
not recollect a dark night- on the German frontier when
she was glad enough to call on a sleepy fellow pilgrim
to help her wrestle with a particularly thick-headed
customs officer?"
"If you do, it is not especially kind of you to remind
her of it."
He looked up quickly, and the masterful soul of the
man, for which the clean-cut, square-set jaw and the
athletic figure were the outward presentments, put on a
mask of deference and humility.
"You are hard with me, Elinor—always flinty and
adamantine, and that sort. Have you no soft side at
all?"
She laughed.
"The sentimental young woman went out some time
ago, didn't she? One can't be an anachronism."
"I suppose not. Yet I'm always trying to make my-
self believe other things about you. Don't you like to
be cared for like other women?"
"I don't know; sometimes I think I should.' But I
have had to be the man of the house since father died."
"I know," he said. "And it is the petty anxieties
that have made you put the woman to the wall. I'm
here this morning to save you some of them; to take the
man's part in your outeetting, or as much of it as I can.


THE BOSTONIANS
35
When are you going to give me the right to come be-
tween you and all the little worries, Elinor?"
She turned from him with a faint gesture of cold
impatience.
"You are forgetting your promise," she said quite
dispassionately. "We were to be friends; as good
friends as we were before that evening at Bar Harbor.
I told you it would be impossible, and you said you
were strong enough to make it possible."
He looked at her with narrowing eyes.
"It is possible, in a way. But I'd like to know
what door of your heart it is that I haven't been able
to open."
She ignored the pleading and took refuge in a
woman's expedient.
"If you insist on going back to the beginnings, I shall
go back, also—to Abigail and the trunk-packing."
He planted himself squarely before her, the mask
lifted and the masterful soul asserting itself boldly.
"It wouldn't do any good, you know. I am going
with you."
"To Abigail and the trunk-room?"
"Oh, no; to the jumping-off place out West—wher-
ever it is you are going to hibernate."
"No," she said decisively; "you must not."
"Why?"


36
THE GEAFTEES
"My saying so ought to be sufficient reason."
"It isn't," he contended, frowning down on her
good-naturedly. "Shall I tell you why you don't want
me to go? It is because you are afraid."
"I am not," she denied.
"Yes, you are. You know in your own heart there
is no reason why you should continue to make me un-
happy, and you are afraid I might over-persuade you."
Her eyes—they were the serene eyes of cool gray
that take on slate-blue tints in stressful moments—
met his defiantly.
"If you think that, I withdraw my objection," she
said coldly. "Mother and Penelope will be delighted,
I am sure."
"And you will be bored, world without end," he
laughed. "Never mind; I'll be decent about it and
keep out of your way as much as you like."
Again she made the little gesture of petulant im-
patience.
"You are continually placing me in a false position.
Can't you leave me out of it entirely?"
It is one of the prime requisites of successful mas-
tership to know when to press the point home, and
when to recede gracefully. Ormsby abruptly shut the
door upon sentiment and came down to things prac-
tical.
"It is your every-day comfort that concerns me


THE BOSTONIANS
37
chiefly. I am going to take all three of you in charge,
giving the dependable young person a well-earned holi-
day—a little journey in which she won't have to chaf-
fer with the transit people. Have you chosen your
route to the western somewhere?"
Miss Brentwood had the fair, transparent skin that
tells tales, and the blue-gray eyes were apt to confirm
them. David Kent's letter was hidden in the folds of
her loose-waisted morning gown, and she fancied it
stirred like a thing alive to remind her of its message.
Ormsby was looking past her to the old-fashioned or-
molu clock on the high mantel, comparing the time
with his watch, but he was not oblivious of the tell-
tale flush.
"There is nothing embarrassing about the choosing
of a route, is there ?" he queried.
"Oh, no; being true Americans, we don't know one
route from another in our own country," she con-
fessed. "But at the western end of it we want to go
over the Western Pacific."
Ormsby knew the West by rail routes as one who
travels much for time-killing purposes.
"It's a rather roundabout cow-path," he objected.
"The Overland Short Line is a good bit more direct;
not to mention the service, which is a lot better."
But Elinor had made her small concession to David
Kent's letter, and she would not withdraw it.


38
THE GEAFTERS
"Probably you don't own any Western Pacific
stock," she suggested. "We do; and we mean to be
loyal to our salt."
Ormsby laughed.
"I see Western Pacific has gone down a few points
since the election of Governor Bucks. If I had any, I'd
wire my broker to sell."
"We are not so easily frightened," she asserted; add-
ing, with a touch of the austerity which was her Puri-
tan birthright: "Nor quite so conscienceless as you
men."
"Conscience," he repeated half absently; "is there
any room for such an out-of-date thing in a nation
of successfulists? But seriously; you ought to get
rid of Western Pacific. There can be no possible ques-
tion of conscience involved."
"I don't agree with you," she retorted with prompt
decision. "If we were to sell now it would be because
we were afraid it might prove to be a bad investment.
Therefore, for the sake of a presumably ignorant buyer,
we have no right to sell."
He smiled leniently.
"All of which goes to prove that you three lone
women need a guardian. But I mustn't keep you any
longer from Abigail and the trunks. What time shall
I send the expediters after your luggage?"


THE BOSTONIANS
39
She told him, and went with him to the door.
"Please don't think me ungrateful," she said, when
she had thrown the night-latch for him. "I don't mean
to be."
"I don't think anything of you that I ought not to
think: in that I am as conscientious as even you could
wish. Good-by, until this evening. I'll meet you all
at the station."
As had come to be the regular order of things, Elinor
found herself under fire when she went above stairs
to rejoin her mother and sister.
Mrs. Brentwood was not indifferent to the Ormsby
millions; neither had she forgotten a certain senti-
mental summer at the foot of Old Croydon. She was
a thin-lipped little person, plain-spoken to the verge
of unfriendliness; a woman in whom the rugged, self-
reliant, Puritan strain had become panic-acidulous.
And when the Puritan stock degenerates in that di-
rection, it is apt to lack good judgment on the busi-
ness side, and also the passivity which smooths the
way for incompetence in less assertive folk.
Kent had stood something in awe, not especially of
her personality, but of her tongue; and had been forced
to acquiesce silently in Loring's summing-up of Eli-
nor's mother as a woman who had taken culture and
the humanizing amenities of the broader life much


40
THE GRAPTEES
as the granite of her native hills takes polish—reluc-
tantly, and without prejudice to its inner granular
structure.
"Elinor, you ought to be ashamed to keep Brookes
Ormsby dangling the way you do," was her comment
when Elinor came back. 'TTou are your father's
daughters, both of you: there isn't a drop of the
Grimkie blood in either of you, I do believe."
Elinor was sufficiently her father's daughter to hold
her peace under her mother's reproaches: also, there
was enough of the Grimkie blood in her veins to stiffen
her in opposition when the need arose. So she said
nothing.
"Since your Uncle Ichabod made such a desperate
mess of that copper business in Montana, we have all
been next door to poverty, and you know it," the mother
went on, irritated by Elinor's silence. "I don't care so
much for myself: your father and I began with nothing,
and I can go back to nothing, if necessary. But you
can't, and neither can Penelope; you'd both starve.
I should like to know what Brookes Ormsby has done
that you can't tolerate him."
"It isn't anything he has done, or failed to do," said
Elinor, wearily. "Please let's not go over it all again,
mother."
Mrs. Brentwood let that gun cool while she fired
another.


THE BOSTONIANS
41
"I suppose he came to say good-by: what is he go-
ing to do with himself this winter?"
The temptation to equivocate for pure perversity's
sake was strong upon Elinor, and she yielded to it.
"How should I know? He has the Amphitrite and
the Florida coast, hasn't he?"
Mrs. Brentwood groaned.
"To think of the way he squanders his money in sheer
dissipation!" she exclaimed. "Of course, he will take
an entire house-party with him, as usual, and the cost
of that one cruise would set you up in housekeeping."
Penelope laughed with a younger daughter's license.
She was a statuesque young woman with a pose, ripe
lips, flashing white teeth, laughing eyes with an imp
of mischief in them, and an exquisitely turned-up
nose that was neither the Brentwood, which was se-
verely classic, nor the Grimkie, which was pure Puri-
tan renaissance.
"Which is to intimate that he won't have money
enough left to do it when he comes back," she com-
mented. "I wish there were some way of making
him believe he had to give me what remains of his
income after he has spent all he can on the Florida
cruise. I'd wear Worth gowns and be lapped in luxury
for the next ten years at the very least."
"He isn't going to Florida this winter," said Eli-


48
THE GRAFTERS
nor, repenting her of the small quibble. "He is going
West."
Mrs. Brentwood looked up sharply.
"With us?" she queried.
"Yes."
Penelope clasped her hands and tried to look soul-
ful.
"Oh, Ellie!" she said; "have you—"
"No," Elinor retorted; "I have not."


44
THE GRAFTERS
Two sections away the inevitable newly married pair
posed unconsciously to point the moral for Miss Brent-
wood. She marked the eagerly anticipative solicitude
of the boyish groom, contrasting it now and then with
Ormsby's less obtrusive attentions. It was all very
absurd and sentimental, she thought; and yet she was
not without a curious heart-stirring of envy provoked
by the self-satisfied complacency of the bride.
What had that chit of a girl done to earn her im-
munity from self-defendings and the petty anxieties?
Nothing, Elinor decided; at least, nothing more pur-
poseful than the swimmer does when he lets himself
drift with the current. None the less, the immunity
was hers, undeniably, palpably. For the first time in
her life Miss Brentwood found herself looking, with
a little shudder of withdrawal and dismay, down the
possible vista—possible to every unmarried woman of
twenty-four—milestoned by unbroken years of spin-
sterhood and self-helpings.
Was she strong enough to walk this hedged-up path
alone?—single-hearted enough to go on holding out
against her mother's urgings, against Ormsby's mas-
terful wooing, against her own unconquerable longing
for a sure anchorage in some safe haven of manful
care and supervision; all this that she might continue
to preserve her independence and live the life which,
despite its drawbacks, was yet her own?


THE FLESH-POTS OF EGYPT 45
There were times when she doubted her resolution;
and this first night of the westward journey was one of
them. She had thought at one time that she might be
able to Idealize David Kent, but he had gone his way
to hew out his fortune, taking her upstirrings of his
ambition in a purely literal and selfish sense, so far as
she could determine. And now there was Brookes
Ormsby. She could by no possibility idealize him.
He was a fixed fact, stubbornly asserted. Yet lie was
a great-hearted gentleman, unspoiled by his millions,
thoughtful always for her comfort, generous, self-effac-
ing. Just now, for example, when he had done all,
he had seemed to divine her wish to be alone and had
betaken himself to the smoking-compartment.
"I promised not to bore you," he had said, "and I
sha'n't. Send the porter after me if there is anything
I have forgotten to do."
She took up the magazine he had left on the seat
beside her and sought to put away the disquieting
thoughts. But they refused to be dismissed; and now
among them rose up another, dating back to that ideal-
izing summer at the foot of Old Croydon, and having
its genesis in a hard saying of her mother's.
She closed her eyes, recalling the words and the
occasion of them. 'You are merely wasting time and
sentiment on this young upstart of a country lawyer,.
Elinor. So long as you were content to make it a sum-


THE FLESH-POTS OF EGYPT 47
afford to indulge in ideals it would be different; but I
can't—not when one word of mine will build a barrier
so high that all the soul-killing little skimpings can
never climb over it. And besides, I owe something to
mother and Nell."
It was the final straw. When any weakness of the
human heart can find a seeming virtue to go hand in
hand with it, the battle is as good as lost; and at that
moment Brookes Ormsby, placidly refilling his short
pipe in the smoking-room of the Pullman, was by no
means in the hopeless case he was sometimes tempted
to fancy himself.
As may be surmised, a diligent suitor, old enough
to plan thoughtfully, and yet young enough to simu-
late the youthful ardor of a lover whose hair has not
begun to thin at the temples, would lose no ground
in a three days' journey and the opportunities it af-
forded.
In Penelope's phrase, Elinor "suffered him", enjoy-
ing her freedom from care like a sleepy kitten; shut-
ting the door on the past and keeping it shut until
the night when their through sleeper was coupled to
the Western Pacific Flyer at A. & T. Junction. But
late that evening, when she was rummaging in her hand-
bag for a handkerchief, she came upon David Kent's
letter and read it again.
"Loring tells me you are coming West," he wrote.


48
THE GRAFTERS
"I assume there is at least one chance in three that
you will pass through Gaston. If you do, and if the
hour is not altogether impossible, I should like to
meet your train. One thing among the many the past
two years have denied me—the only thing I have cared
much about, I think—is the sight of your face. I
shall be very happy if you will let me look at you—
just for the minute or two the train may stop."
There was more of it; a good bit more: but it was
all guarded commonplace, opening no window in the
heart of the man David Kent. Yet even in the com-
monplace she found some faint interlinings of the
change in him; not a mere metamorphosis of the out-
ward man, as a new environment might make, but a
radical change, deep and biting, like the action of a
strong acid upon a fine-grained metal.
She returned the letter to its envelope, and after
looking up Gaston on the time-table fell into a heart-
stirring reverie, with unseeing eyes fixed on the rest-
ful blackness of the night rushing rearward past the
car windows.
"He has forgotten," she said, with a little lip-curl
of disappointment. "He thinks he ought to remem-
ber, and he is trying—trying because Grantham said
something that made him think he ought to try. But
it's no use. It was only a little summer idyl, and we
have both outlived it."


THE FLESH-POTS OF EGYPT 49
She was still gazing steadfastly upon the wall of
outer darkness when the porter began to make down the
berths and Penelope came over to sit in the opposite
seat. A moment later the younger sister made a dis-
covery, or thought she did.
"Why, Elinor Brentwood!" she said. "I do believe
you are crying!"
Elinor's smile was serenity undisturbed.
"What a vivid imagination you have, Nell, dear,"
she scoffed. Then she changed the subject arbitrarily:
"Is mother quite comfortable? Did you have the por-
ter put a screen in her window?—you know she al-
ways insists she can't breathe without it."
Penelope evaded the queries and took her turn at
subject-wrenching—an art in which she excelled.
"We are on our own railroad now, aren't we?" she
asked, with purposeful lack-interest. "And—let me
see—isn't Mr. Kent at some little town we pass
through?"
"It is a city," said Elinor. "And the name is Gas-
ton."
"I remember now," Penelope rejoined. "I wonder
if we shall see him?"
"It is most unlikely. He does not know we are
coming, and he wouldn't be looking for us."
Penelope's fine eyes clouded. At times Elinor's


50
THE GRATTERS
thought-processes were as plain as print to the younger
sister; at other times they were not.
"I should think the least we could do would he to
let him know," she ventured. "Does anybody know
what time the train passes Gaston?"
"At seven-fifteen to-morrow evening," was the un-
guarded reply; and Penelope drew her own conclu-
sions from the ready answer and the folded time-table
in Elinor's lap.
"Well, why don't you send him a wire? I'm sure
I should."
"Why should I?" said Elinor, warily.
"Oh, I don't know: any other young woman of his
acquaintance would, I fancy. I have half a mind to
do it myself. / like him, if you don't care for him
any more."
Thus Penelope; and a little while afterward, find-
ing herself in the library compartment with blanks
and pen and ink convenient and nothing better to do,
she impulsively made the threat good in a ten-word
message to Kent.
"If he should happen to drop in unexpectedly it will
give Ellie the shock of her life," she mused; and the
telegram was smuggled into the hands of the porter
to be sent as occasion offered.
Those who knew Mr. Brookes Ormsby best were wont


THE FLESH-POTS OF EGYPT 51
to say that the world of action, a world lusting avidly
for resourceful men, had lost the chance of acquir-
ing a promising leader when he was born heir to
the Ormsby millions. Be that as it may, he made the
most of such opportunities for the exercising of his
gift as came to one for whom the long purse leveled
most barriers; had been making the most of the present
leaguer of a woman's heart—a citadel whose capitula-
tion was not to be compassed by mere money-might,
he would have said.
Up to the final day of the long westward flight all
things had gone well with him. True, Elinor had
not thawed visibly, but she had been tolerant; Pene-
lope had amused herself at no one's expense save her
own—a boon for which Ormsby did not fail to be duly
thankful; and Mrs. Brentwood had contributed her
mite by keeping hands off.
But at the dining-car luncheon on the last day's run,
Penelope, languishing at a table for two with an un-
responsive Ormsby for a vis-a-vis, made sly mention
of the possible recrudescence of one David Kent at
a place called Gaston: this merely to note the effect
upon an unresponsive table-mate.
In Penelope's observings there was no effect per-
ceptible. Ormsby said "Ah?" and asked if she would
have more of the salad. But later, in a contemplative


52
THE GEAFTEES
half-hour with his pipe in the smoking-compartment,
he let the scrap of information sink in and take root.
Hitherto Kent had been little more than a name to
him; a name he had never heard on Elinor's lips.
But if love be blind in the teens and twenties, it is
more than apt to have a keen gift of insight in the
thirties and beyond. Hence, by the time Ormsby
had come to the second filling of his pipe, he had
pieced together bits of half-forgotten gossip about the
Croydon summer, curious little reticences on Elinor's
part, vague hints let fall by Mrs. Brentwood; enough
to enable him to chart the rock on which his love-
argosy was drifting, and to name it—David Kent.
Now to a well-knit man of the world—who happens
to be a heaven-born diplomatist into the bargain—to be
forewarned is to be doubly armed. At the end of the
half-hour of studious solitude in the smoking-room,
Ormsby had pricked out his course on the chart to a
boat's-length; had trimmed his sails to the minutest
starting of a sheet. A glance at his watch and another
at the time-table gave him the length of his respite.
Six hours there were; and a dining-car dinner inter-
vened. Those six hours, and the dinner, he decided,
must win or lose the race.
Picturing for ourselves, if we' may, how nine men
out of ten would have given place to panic-ardor,
turning a possible victory into a hopeless rout, let us


THE FLESH-POTS OF EGYPT 53
liold aloof and mark the generalship of the tenth, who
chances to be the heaven-born.
For five of the six precious hours Ormsby merely
saw to it that Elinor was judiciously marooned. Then
the dining-car was reopened and the evening meal was
announced. Waiting until a sufficient number of pas-
sengers had gone forward to insure a crowded car,
Ormsby let his party fall in with the tail of the pro-
cession, and the inevitable happened. Single seats
only could be had, and Elinor was compelled to dine
in solemn silence at a table with three strangers.
Dinner over, there remained but twenty minutes
of the respite; but the diplomatist kept his head, going
back to the sleeping-car with his charges and dropping
into the seat beside Elinor with the light of calm assur-
ance in his eye.
"You are quite comfortable?" he began. "Sha'n't
I have the Presence in the buffet make you a cup of
tea? That in the diner didn't deserve the name."
She was regarding him with curious anger in the
gray eyes, and her reply quite ignored the kindly
offer of refreshment.
"You are the pink of dragomans," she said. "Don't
you want to go and smoke?"
"To be entirely consistent, I suppose I ought to,"
he confessed, wondering if his throw had failed. "Do
you want me to go?"


54
THE GRAFTERS
"I have been alone all the afternoon: I can endure it
a little while longer, I presume."
Ormsby permitted himself a single heart-throb of
exultation. He had deliberately gone about to break
down her poise, her only barrier of defense, and it
began to look as if he had succeeded.
"I couldn't help it, you know," he said, catching
his cue swiftly. "There are times when I'm obliged
to keep away from you—times when every fiber of
me rebels against the restraints of the false position
you have thrust me into. When I'm taken that way
I don't dare play with the fire."
"I wish I could know how much you mean by that,"
she said musingly. Deep down in her heart she knew
she was as far as ever from loving this man; but his
love, or the insistent urging of it, was like a strong
current drifting her whither she would not go.
"I mean all that an honest man can mean," he re-
joined. "I have fought like a soldier for standing-
room in the place you have assigned me; I have tried
sincerely—and stupidly, you will say—to be merely your
friend, just the best friend you ever had. But it's no
use. Coming or going, I shall always be your lover."
"Please don't," she said, neither coldly nor warmly.
"You are getting over into the domain of the very
young people when you say things like that."


THE FLESH-POTS OF EGYPT 55
It was an unpleasant thing to say, and he was not
beyond wincing a little. None the less, he would
not be turned aside.
"You'll overlook it in me if I've pressed the thing
too hard on the side of sentiment, won't you? Apart
from the fact that I feel that way, I've been going on
the supposition that you'd like it, if you could only
make up your mind to like me."
"I do like you," she admitted; "more than any one
I have ever known, I think."
The drumming wheels and a long-drawn trumpet
blast from the locomotive made a shield of sound to
isolate them. The elderly banker in the opposite section
was nodding over his newspaper; and the newly married
ones were oblivious, each to all else but the other. Mrs.
Brentwood was apparently sleeping peacefully three
seats away; and Penelope was invisible.
"There was a time when I should have begged hard
for something more, Elinor; but now I'm willing to
take what I can get, and be thankful. Will you give
me the right to make you as happy as I can on the
unemotional basis?"
She felt herself slipping.
"If you could fully understand—"
"I understand that you don't love me, in the novel-
ist's sense of the word, and I am not asking more than


THE FLESH-POTS OF EGYPT 57
asked, fighting hard for the self-control that usually
came so easily.
Ormsby consulted his watch.
"I am not quite sure. It ought to be—"
He broke off when he saw that she was no longer
listening to him. There was a stir in the forward
vestibule, and the porter came in with a hand-bag.
At his heels was a man in a rough-weather box-
coat; a youngish man, clean-shaven and wind-tanned
to a healthy bronze, with an eager face and alert eyes
that made an instant inventory of the car and its
complement of passengers. So much Ormsby saw.
Then Penelope stood up in her place to greet the new-
comer.
"Why, Mr. Kent!" she exclaimed. "Are you really
going on with us? How nice of you!"
Elinor turned coolly upon her seat-mate, self-posses-
sion once more firmly seated in the saddle.
"Did you know Mr. Kent was going to board the
train here?" she asked abruptly.
"Do you mean the gentleman Penelope has waylaid?
I haven't the pleasure of his acquaintance. Will you
introduce us?"


JOURNEYS END—
It had been a day of upsettings for David Kent, be-
ginning with the late breakfast at which Neltje, the
night watchman at the railway station, had brought
him Penelope's telegram.
At ten he had a case in court: Shotwell vs. Western
Pacific Co., damages for stock-killing; for the plaintiff
—Hawk; for the defendant—Kent. With the thought
that he was presently going to see Elinor again, Kent
went gaily to the battle legal, meaning to wring vic-
tory out of a jury drawn for the most part from the
plaintiff's stock-raising neighbors. By dint of great
perseverance he managed to prolong the fight until the
middle of the afternoon, was worsted, as usual, and
so far lost his temper as to get himself called down
by the judge, MaeFarlane.
Whereupon he went back to the Farquhar Build-
ing and to his office and sat down at the type-writer
to pound out a letter to the general counsel, resigning
(58)


JOURNEYS END—
59
his sinecure. The Shotwell case was the third he had
lost for the company in a single court term. Justice
for the railroad company, under present agrarian con-
ditions, was not to be had in the lower courts, and he
was weary of fighting the losing battle. Therefore—
In the midst of the type-rattling the boy that served
the few occupied offices in the Farquhar Building had
brought the afternoon mail. It included a letter from
Loring, and there was another reversive upheaval for
the exile. Loring's business at the capital was no
longer a secret. He had been tendered the resident
management of the Western Pacific, with headquarters
on the ground, and had accepted. His letter was a brief
note, asking Kent to report at once for legal duty in the
larger field.
"I am not fairly in the saddle yet, and shall not
be for a week or so," wrote the newly appointed man-
ager. "But I find I am going to need a level-headed
lawyer at my elbow from the jump—one who knows
the State political ropes and isn't afraid of a scrap.
Come in on Number Three to-day, if you can; if not,
send a wire and say when I may look for you. Or,
better still, wire anyway."
David Kent struggled with his emotions until he
had got his feet down to the solid earth again. Then
he tore up the half-written resignation and began to
smite things in order for the flight. Could he make-


GO
THE GRAFTEES
Number Three? Since that was the train named in
Penelope's message, nothing short of a catastrophe
should prevent his making it.
He did make it, with an hour to spare; an hour
which he proceeded to turn into a time of sharp trial
for the patient telegraph operator at the station, with
his badgerings of the man for news of Number Three.
The train reported—he took it as a special miracle
wrought in his behalf that the Flyer was for this once
abreast of her schedule—he fell to tramping up and
down the long platform, deep in anticipative prefigur-
ings. The mills of the years grind many grists besides
the trickling stream of the hours: would he find Miss
Brentwood as he had left her? Could he be sure of
meeting her on the frank, friendly footing of the Croy-
-don summer? He feared not; feared all things—lover-
like.
He hoped there would be no absence-reared barrier
to be painfully leveled. A man among men, a leader
in some sort, and in battle a soldier who could hew
his way painstakingly, if not dramatically, to his end,
David Kent was no carpet knight, and he knew his
lack. Would Elinor make things easy for him, as she
used to daily in the somewhat difficult social atmos-
phere of the exclusive summer hotel?
Measuring it out in all its despairing length and
breadth after the fact, he was deeply grateful to Pe-


JOURNEYS END—
61
nelope. Missing her ready help at the moment of cata-
clysms when he entered the sleeping-car, he might have
betrayed himself. His first glance lighted on Elinor
and Ormsby, and he needed no gloss on the love-text.
He had delayed too long; had asked too much of the
Fates, and Atropos, the scissors-bearing sister, had
snipped his thread of hope.
It is one of the consequences of civilization that we
are denied the privilege of unmasking at the behest of
the elemental emotions; that we are constrained to
bleed decorously. Making shift to lean heavily on
Penelope, Kent came through without doing or saying
anything unseemly. Mrs. Brentwood, who had been
sleeping with one eye open, and that eye upon Elinor
and Ormsby, made sure that she had now no special
reason to be ungracious to David Kent. For the
others, Ormsby was good-naturedly suave; Elinor was
by turns unwontedly kind and curiously silent; and
Penelope—but, as we say, it was to Penelope that Kent
owed most.
So it came about that the outcome of the cataclysm
was a thing which happens often enough in a conven-
tionalized world. David Kent, with his tragedy fresh
upon him, dropped informally into place as one of the
party of five; and of all the others, Penelope alone sus-
pected how hard he was hit. And when all was said;
when the new modus vivendi had been fairly estab-


THE GRAFTERS
lished and the hour grew late, Kent went voluntarily
with Ormsby to the smoking-compartment, "to play the
string out decently," as he afterward confessed to
Loring.
"I see you know how to get the most comfort out of
your tobacco," said the club-man, when they were com-
panionably settled in the men's room and Kent pro-
duced his pipe and tobacco pouch. "I prefer the pipe
myself, for a steady thing; but at this time of night a
light Castilla fits me pretty well. Try one?" tendering
his cigar-case.
Fighting shrewdly against a natural prompting to
regard Ormsby as an hereditary enemy, Kent forced
himself to be neighborly.
"I don't mind," he said, returning the pipe to its
case. And when the Havanas were well alight, and
the talk had circled down upon the political situa-
tion in the State, he was able to bear his part with a
fair exterior, giving Ormsby an impressionistic outline
of the late campaign and the conditions that had made
the sweeping triumph of the People's Party possible.
"We have been coming to it steadily through the last
administration, and a part of the preceding one," he ex-
plained. "Last year the drought cut the cereals in
half, and the country was too new to stand it without
borrowing. There was little local capital, and the east-
ern article was hungry, taking all the interest the law


JOURNEYS END—
63
allows, and as much more as it could get. This year the
crop broke all records for abundance, but the price is
down and the railroads, trying to recoup for two bad
years, have stiffened the freight rates. The net result
is our political overturn."
"Then the railroads and the corporations are not pri-
marily to blame?" said Ormsby.
"Oh, no. Corporations here, as elsewhere, are look-
ing out for the present dollar, but if the country were
generally prosperous, the people would pay the tax
carelessly, as they do in the older sections. With us it
has been a sort of Donnybrook Fair: the agricultural
voter has shillalahed the head he could reach most
easily."
The New Yorker nodded. His millions were solidly
placed, and he took no more than a sportsman's interest
in the fluctuations of the stock market.
"Of course, there have been all sorts of rumors East:
'bull' prophecies that the triumph of the new party
means an era of unexampled prosperity for the State—
and by consequence for western stocks; *bear' growlings
that things are sure to go to the bow-wows under the
Bucks regime. What do you think of it?"
Kent blew a series of smoke rings and watched them
rise to become a part of the stratified tobacco cloud
overhead before replying.
"I may as well confess that I am not entirely an un-


64
THE GRAFTERS
prejudiced observer," he admitted. "For one thing, I
am in the legal department of one of the best-hated of
the railroads; and for another, Governor Bucks, Meigs,
the attorney-general, and Hendricks, the new secretary
of State, are men whom I know as, it is safe to say, the
general public doesn't know them. If I could be sure
that these three men are going to be able to control their
own party majority in the Assembly, I should take the
first train East and make my fortune selling tips in
Wall Street."
"You put it graphically. Then the Bucks idea is
likely to prove a disturbing element on 'Change?"
"It is; always providing it can dominate its own ma-
jority. But this is by no means certain. The political
earthquake is essentially a popular protest against hard
conditions brought about, as the voters seem to believe,
by the oppressions of the alien corporations and extor-
tionate railroad rates. Yet there are plenty of steady-
going, conservative men in the movement; men who
have no present idea of revolutionizing things. Mars-
ton, the lieutenant-governor, is one of that kind. It all
depends on whether these men will allow themselves to
be whipped into line by the leaders, who, as I am very
well convinced, are a set of conscienceless demagogues,
fighting solely for their own hand."
Ormsby nodded again.


JOURNEYS END—
65
"You are likely to have good hunting this winter,
Mr. Kent. It hasn't begun yet, I take it?"
"Oh, no; the Assembly does not convene for a fort-
night, and nobody short of an inspired prophet can
foretell what legislation will be sprung. But one thing
is safe to count on: the leaders are out for spoils. They
mean to rob somebody, and, if my guess is worth any-
thing, they are sharp enough to try first to get their
schemes legalized by having enabling laws passed by the
Assembly."
"Urn," said the eastern man. Then he took the meas-
ure of his companion in a shrewd overlook. ''You are
the man on the ground, Mr. Kent, and I'll ask a
straightforward question. If you had a friend owning
stock in one of the involved railways, what would you
advise?"
Kent smiled.
"We needn't make it a hypothetical case. If I had
the right to advise Mrs. Brentwood and her daughters,
I should counsel them to sit tight in the boat for the
present."
"Would you? But Western Pacific has gone off several
points already."
"I know it has; and unfortunately, Mrs. Brentwood
bought in at the top of the market. That is why I coun-
sel delay. If she sells now, she is sure to lose. If she


66
THE GRAFTERS
holds on, there is an even chance for a spasmodic up-
ward reaction before worse things happen."
"Perhaps: you know more about the probabilities
than I pretend to. But on the other hand, she may lose
more if she holds on."
Kent bit deep into his cigar.
"We must see to it that she doesn't lose, Mr. Orms-
by."
The club-man laughed broadly.
"Isn't that a good bit like saying that the shallop
must see to it that the wind doei't blow too hard
for it?"
"Possibly. But in the sorriest wreck there is usually
some small chance for salvage. I understand Mrs.
Brentwood's holding is not very large?"
"A block of some three thousand shares, held jointly
by her and her two daughters, I believe."
"Exactly: not enough to excite anybody's cupidity;
and yet enough to turn the scale if there should ever be
a fight for a majority control."
"There is no such fight in prospect, is there?"
"No; not that I know of. But I was thinking of the
possibilities. If a smash comes there will be a good
deal of horse-swapping in the middle of the stream—
buying up of depressed stocks by people who need the
lines worse than the original owners do."


JOURNEYS END—
67
"I see," said Ormsby. "Then you would counsel de-
lay?"
"I should; and I'll go a step farther. I am on the
inside, in a way, and any hint I can give you for Miss
—for Mrs. Brentwood's benefit shall be promptly forth-
coming."
"By Jove! that's decent," said Ormsby, heartily.
"You are a friend worth having, Mr. Kent. But which
'inside' do you mean—the railroad or the political?"
"Oh, the railroad, of course. And while I think of it,
my office will be in the Quintard Building; and you—I
suppose you will put up at the Wellington?"
"For the present, we all shall. It is Mrs. Brentwood's
notion to take a furnished house later on for herself and
daughters, if she can find one. I'll keep in touch with
you."
"Do. It may come to a bit of quick wiring when our
chance arrives. You know Loring—Grantham Lor-
ing?"
"Passably well. I came across him one summer in
the mountains of Peru, where he was managing a rail-
road. He is a mighty good sort. I had mountain fever,
and he took me in and did for me.""
"He is with us now," said David Kent; "the newly
appointed general manager of the Western Pacific."
"Good!" said the club-man.. "I think a lot of him;


68 THE GRAFTERS
he is an all-around dependable fellow, and plenty capa-
ble. I'm glad to know he has caught on higher up."
The locomotive whistle was droning again, and a
dodging procession of red-eyed switch-lights flicked past
the windows. Kent stood up and flung away the stump
of his cigar.
"The capital," he announced. "I'll go back with yon
and help out with the shawl-strap things." And in the
vestibule he added: "I spoke of Loring because he will,
be with us in anything we have to do in Mrs. Brent-
wood's behalf. Look him up when you have time—
fourth floor of the Quintard."


VI
OF THE MAKING OP LAWS
The session, the shortest in the history of the State,
and thus far the least eventful, was nearing its close;
and the alarmists who had prophesied evil and evil only
of the "Populist" victory were fast losing credit with
the men of their own camp and with the country at
large.
After the orthodox strife over the speakership of the
House, and the equally orthodox wrangle over contested
seats, the State Assembly had settled down to routine
business, despatching it with such unheard-of celerity
as to win columns of approval from the State press as a
whole; though there were not wanting a few radical
editors to raise the ante-election cry of reform, and to
aek pointedly when it was to begin.
Notwithstanding the lack of alarms, however, the six
weeks had been a period of unceasing vigilance on the
part of the interests which were supposed to be in jeop-
ardy. Every alien corporation owning property and
(69)


70
THE GRAFTERS
doing business in the State had its quota of watchful
defenders on the ground; men who came and went, in
the lobbies of the capitol, in the visitors' galleries, at
the receptions; men who said little, but who saw and
heard all things down to the small talk of the corridors
and the clubs, and the gossip of the hotel rotundas.
David Kent was of this silent army of observation,
doing watch-dog duty for the Western Pacific; thankful
enough, if the truth be told, to have a thing to do which
kept him from dwelling overmuch upon the wreck of his
hopes. But in the closing days of the session, when a
despatchful Assembly, anxious to be quit of its task, had
gone into night sittings, the anodyne drug of work be-
gan to lose its effect.
The Brentwoods had taken furnished apartments in
Tejon Avenue, two squares from the capitol, and Kent
had called no oftener than good breeding prescribed.
Yet their accessibility, and his unconquerable desire to
sear his wound in the flame that had caused it, were con-
stant temptations, and he was battling with them for
the hundredth time on the Friday night when he sat in
the House gallery listening to a perfunctory debate
which concerned itself with a bill touching State water-
ways.
"Heavens! This thing is getting to be little short of
deadly!" fumed Crenshawe, his right-hand neighbor,
who was also a member of the corps of observation.


OF THE MAKING OF LAWS 71
"I'm going to the club for a game of pool. Won't you
come along?"
Kent nodded and left his seat with the bored one.
But in the great rotunda he changed his mind.
"You'll find plenty of better players than I am at the
club," he said in extenuation. "I think I'll smoke a
whiff or two here and go back. They can't hold on
much longer for to-night."
Five minutes later, when he had lighted a cigar and
was glancing over the evening paper, two other members
of the corporation committee of safety came down
from the Senate gallery and stopped opposite Kent's
pillar to struggle into their overcoats.
"It's precisely as I wrote our people two weeks ago—
a timidity scare, pure and simple," one of them was
saying. "I've a mind to start home to-morrow. There
is nothing doing here, or going to be done."
"No," said the other. "If it wasn't for House Bill
Twenty-nine, I'd go to-night. They will adjourn to-
morrow or Monday."
"House Bill Twenty-nine is much too dead to bury,"
was the reassuring rejoinder. "The committee is ours,
and the bill will not be heard of again at this session.
If that is all you are holding on for—"
They passed out of earshot, and Kent folded his news-
paper absently. House Bill Twenty-nine had been the
one measure touching the sensitive "vested interests";


72
THE GRAFTERS
the one measure for the suppression of which the cor-
porations' lobby had felt called on to take steps. It
was an omnibus bill put forth as a substitute for the ex-
isting law denning the status of foreign corporations.
It had originated in the governor's office,—a fact which
Kent had ferreted out within twenty-four hours of its
first reading,—and for that reason he had procured a
printed copy, searching it diligently for the hidden
menace he was sure it embodied.
When the search proved fruitless, he had seen the bill
pass the House by a safe majority, had followed it to the
Senate, and in a cunningly worded amendment tacked
on in the upper house had found what he was seeking.
Under the existing law foreign corporations were sub-
ject to State supervision, and were dealt with as pre-
sumably unfriendly aliens. But the Senate amendment
to House Bill Twenty-nine fairly swept the interstate
corporations, as such, out of existence, by making it ob-
ligatory upon them to acquire the standing of local cor-
porations. Charters were to be refiled with the secretary
of State; resident directories and operating headquarters
were to be established within the boundaries and juris-
diction of the State; in short, the State proposed, by the
terms of the new law, to deal only with creatures of its
own creation.
Kent saw, or thought he saw, the fine hand of the
junto in all this. It was a still hunt in which the long-


OF THE MAKING OF LAWS 73
est way around was the shortest way home. Like all
new-country codes, the organic law of the State favored
local corporations, and it might be argued that a bill
placing the foreign companies on a purely local footing
was an unmixed blessing to the aliens. But on the
other hand, an unprincipled executive might easily make
the new law an engine of extortion. To go no further
into the matter than the required refiling of charters:
the State constitution gave the secretary of State quasi-
judicial powers. It was within his province to pass
upon the applications for chartered rights, and to deny
them if the question pro bono publico were involved.
Kent put two and two together, saw the wide door of
exactions which might be opened, and passed the word
of warning among his associates; after which he had
watched the course of the amended House Bill Twenty-
nine with interest sharp-set, planning meanwhile with
Hildreth, the editor of the Daily Argus, an expose
which should make plain the immense possibilities for
corruption opened up by the proposed law; a journal-
istic salvo of publicity to be fired as a last resort.
The measure as amended had passed the Senate with-
out debate, and had gone back to the House. Here, after
the second reading, and in the very hour when the
Argus editorial was getting itself cast in the linotypes,
there was a hitch. The member from the Bio Blanco,
,favoring the measure in all its parts, and fearful only


74 • THE GRAFTEES
lest corporation gold might find a technical flaw in it,
moved that it be referred to the committee on judiciary
for a report on its constitutionality; and, accordingly,
to the committee on judiciary it had gone.
Kent recalled the passing of the crisis, remembering
how he had hastened to telephone the Argus editor to
kill the expose at the last moment. The incident was
now a month in the past, and the committee had not
yet reported; would never report, Kent imagined. He
knew the personnel of the committee on judiciary;
knew that at least three members of it were down on
the list, made up at the beginning of the session by his
colleagues in the army of observation, as "approach-
ables". Also, he knew by inference at least, that these
three men had been approached, not without success,
and that House Bill Twenty-nine, with its fee-gathering
amendment, was safely shelved.
"It's an ill-smelling muck-heap!" he frowned, re-
calling the incidents of the crisis at the suggestion let
fall by the two outgoing lobbyists. "And so much of this
dog-watch as isn't sickeningly demoralizing is deadly
dull, as Crenshawe puts it. If I had anywhere to go,
I'd cut the galleries for to-night."
He was returning the newspaper to his pocket when
it occurred to him that his object in buying it had been
to note the stock quotations; a daily duty which, for
Elinor's sake, he had never omitted. Whereupon he re-


OF THE MAKING OF LAWS 75
opened it and ran his eye down the lists. There was a
decided upward tendency in westerns. Overland Short
Line had gained two points; and Western Pacific—
He held the paper under the nearest electric globe to
make sure: Western Pacific, preferred, was quoted at
fifty-eight and a half, which was one point and a half
above the Brentwood purchase price.
One minute later an excited life-saver was shut in
the box of the public telephone, gritting his teeth at
the inanity of the central operator who insisted on giv-
ing him "A-1224" instead of "A-1234," the Hotel
Wellington.
"No, no! Can't you understand? I want twelve-
thirty-four; one, two, three, four; the Hotel Welling-
ton."
There was more skirling of bells, another nerve-try-
ing wait, and at last the clerk of the hotel answered.
"What name did you say? Oh, it's you, is it, Mr.
Kent? Ormsby? Mr. Brookes Ormsby? No, he isn't
here; he went out about two minutes ago. What's that
you say? Damn? Well, I'm sorry, too. No message
that I can take? All right. Oood-by."
This was the beginning. For the middle part Kent
burst out of the telephone-box and took the nearest short-
cut through the capitol grounds for the street-car cor-
ner. At a quarter of nine he was cross-questioning the
clerk face to face in the lobby of the Wellington. There


THE GRAFTEES
was little more to be learned about Ormsby. The club-
man had left his key and gone out. He was in evening
dress, and had taken a cab at the hotel entrance.
Kent dashed across to his rooms and, in a feverish
race against time, made himself fit to chase a man in
evening dress. There was no car in sight when he came
down, and he, too, took a cab with an explosive order
to the driver: "124 Tejon Avenue, and be quick
about it!"
It was the housemaid that answered his ring at the
door of the Brentwood apartment. She was a Swede, a
recent importation; hence Kent learned nothing be-
yond the bare fact that the ladies had gone out. "With
Mr. Ormsby?" he asked.
"Yaas; Aye tank it vill pee dat yentlemans."
The pursuer took the road again, rather unhopefully.
There were a dozen places where Ormsby might have
taken his charges. Among them there was the legislative
reception at Portia Van Brock's. Kent flipped a figura-
tive coin, and gave the order for Alameda Square. The
reception was perhaps the least unlikely place of the
dozen.
He was no more than fashionably late at the Van
Brock house, and fortunately he was able to reckon him-
self among the chosen few for whom Miss Portia's door
swung on hospitable hinges at all hours. Loring had
known her in Washington, and he had stood sponsor for


OF THE MAKING OF LAWS 77
Kent in the first week of the exile's residence at the
capital. Thereafter she had taken Kent up on his own
account, and by now he was deep in her debt. For one
thing, she had set the fashion in the matter of legislative
receptions—her detractors, knowing nothing whatever
about it, hinted that she had been an amateur social
lobbyist in Washington, playing the game for the pure
zest of it—and at these functions Kent had learned
many things pertinent to his purpose as watch-dog for
the railroad company and legal adviser to his chief—
things not named openly on the floor of the House or
of the Senate chamber.
There was a crush in the ample mansion in Alameda
Square, as there always was at Miss Van Brock's "open
evenings," and when Kent came down from the cloak-
room he had to inch his way by littles through the-
crowded reception-parlors in the search for the Brent-
wood party. It was unsuccessful at first; but later,,
catching a glimpse of Elinor at the piano, and another
of Penelope inducting an up-country legislator into the
mysteries of social small-talk, he breathed freer. His
haphazard guess had hit the mark, and the finding of
Ormsby was now only a question of moments.
It was Miss Van Brock herself who told him where-
to look for the club-man—though not at his first ask-
ing.
"You did come, then," she said, giving him her hand


78
THE GEAFTEES
-with a frank little smile of welcome. "Some one said
you were not going to be frivolous any more, and I won-
dered if you would take it out on me. Have you been
at the night session?"
"Yes; at what you and your frivolities have left of it.
A good third of the Solons seem to be sitting in per-
manence in Alameda Square."
"'Solons'/' she repeated. "That recalls Editor
Brownlo's little joke—only he didn't mean it. He wrote
of them as 'Solons/ but the printer got it 'solans'. The
member from Caliente read the article and the word
stuck in his mind. In an unhappy hour he asked Col-
onel Mack's boy—Harry, the irrepressible, you know—
to look it up for him. Harry did it, and of course took
the most public occasion he could find to hand in his
answer. 'It's geese, Mr. Hackett!' he announced tri-
umphantly; and after we were all through laughing at
him the member from the warm place turned it just
as neatly as a veteran. 'Well, I'm Hackett/ he said."
David Kent laughed, as he was in duty bound, but he
still had Ormsby on his mind.
"I see you have Mrs. Brentwood and her daughters
here: can you tell me where I can find Mr. Brookes
Ormsby?"
"I suppose I could if I should try. But you mustn't
hurry me. There is a vacant corner in that davenport


OF THE MAKING OF LAWS 79
beyond the piano: please put me there and fetch me an
ice. I'll wait for you."
He did as he was bidden, and when she was served he
stood over her, wondering, as other men had wondered,
what was the precise secret of her charm. Loring had
told him Miss Van Brock's story. She was southern
born, the only child of a somewhat ill-considered match
between a young California lawyer, wire-pulling in the
national capital in the interest of the Central Pacific
Railroad, and a Virginia belle tasting the delights of
her first winter in Washington.
Later, the young lawyer's state, or his employers, had
sent him to Congress; and Portia, left motherless in her
middle childhood, had grown up in an atmosphere of
statecraft, or what passes for such, in an era of frank
commercialism. Inheriting her mother's rare beauty of
face and form, and uniting with it a sympathetic gift
in grasp of detail, political and other, she soon became
her father's confidante and loyal partizan, taking the
place, as a daughter might, of the ambitious young wife
and mother, who had set her heart on seeing the Van
Brock name on the roll of the United States Senate.
Rensselaer Van Brock had died before the senatorial
dream could be realized, but not before he had made a
sufficient number of lucky investments to leave his
daughter the arbitress of her own future. What that


THE GRAFTEES
future should be, not even Loring could guess. Since
her father's death Miss Van Brock had been a citizen
of the world. With a widowed aunt for the shadowiest
of chaperons, she had drifted with the tide of inclina-
tion, coming finally to rest in the western capital for
no better reason, perhaps, than that some portion of
her interest-bearing securities were emblazoned with the
great seal of this particular western State.
Kent was thinking of Loring's recountal as he stood
looking down on her. Other women were younger—
and with features more conventionally beautiful; Kent
could find a round dozen within easy eye-reach, to say
nothing of the calm-eyed, queenly improvisatrice at the
piano—his constant standard of all womanly charm and
grace. Unconsciously he fell to comparing the two, his
hostess and his love, and was brought back to things
present by a sharp reminder from Portia.
"Stop looking at Miss Brentwood that way, Mr. Da-
vid. She is not for you; and you are keeping me wait-
ing."
He smiled down on her.
"It is the law of compensation. I fancy you have
kept many a man waiting—and will keep many an-
other."
There was a little tang of bitterness in her laugh.
"You remind me of the time when I went home from
school—oh, years and years ago. Old Chloe—she was


OF THE MAKING OF LAWS 81
my black mammy, you know—had a grown daughter of
her own, and her effort to dispose of her 'M'randy5 was a
standing joke in the family. In answer to my stereo-
typed question she stood back and folded her arms.
'Naw, honey; dat M'randy ain't ma'ied yit. She gwine
be des lak you; look pretty, an' say, Howdy! Misteh
Jawnson, an' go 'long by awn turrer side de road.'"
"A very pretty little fable," said Kent. "And the
moral?"
"Is that I amuse myself with you—all of you; and in
your turn you make use of me—or you think you do.
Of what use can I be to Mr. David Kent this evening?"
"See how you misjudge me!" he protested. "My er-
rand here to-night is purely charitable. Which brings
me back to Ormsby: did you say you could tell me
where to look for him?"
"He is in the smoking-room with five or six other
tobacco misanthropes. What do you want of him?"
"I want to say two words in his ear; after which I
shall vanish and make room for my betters."
Miss Van Brock was gazing steadfastly at the impas-
sioned face lighted by the piano candles.
"Is it about Miss Brentwood?" she asked abruptly.
"In a way—yes," he confessed.
She rose and stood beside him—a bewitching figure of
a woman who knew her part in the human comedy and
played it well.


82
THE GRAFTEES
"Is it wise, David?" she asked softly. "I am not de-
nying the possibilities: you might come between them
if you should try—I'm rather afraid you could. But
you mustn't, you know; it's too late. You've marred her,
between you; or rather that convention, which makes a
woman deaf, blind and dumb until a man has fairly
committed himself, has marred her. For your sake she
can never be quite all she ought to be to him: for his
sake she could never be quite the same to you."
He drew apart from her, frowning.
"If I should say that I don't fully understand what
you mean?" he rejoined.
"I should retort by saying something extremely un-
complimentary about your lack of perspicacity," she
cut in maliciously.
"I beg pardon," he said, a little stiffly. "You are la-
boring under an entirely wrong impression. What I
have to say to Mr. Brookes Ormsby does not remotely
concern the matter you touch upon. It's an affair of
the Stock Exchange."
"As if I didn't know!" she countered. "You merely
reminded me of the other thing. But if it is only a
business secret you may as well tell me all about it at
first hands. Some one is sure to tell me sooner or later."
Now David Kent was growing impatient. Down in
the inner depths of him he was persuaded that Ormsby


OF THE MAKING OF LAWS 83
might have difficulty in inducing Mrs. Brentwood to
sell her Western Pacific stock even at an advance; might
require time, at least. And time, with a Bucks majority
tinkering with corporate rights in the Assembly, might
well be precious.
"Forgive me if I tell Ormsby first," he pleaded. "Af-
terward, if you care to know, you shall."
Miss Van Brock let him go at that, but now the way
to the smoking-den on the floor above was hedged up.
He did battle with the polite requirements, as a man
must; shaking hands or exchanging a word with one
and another of the obstructors only as he had to. None
the less, when he had finally wrought his way to the
smoking-room Ormsby had eluded him again.
He went back to the parlors, wondering how he had
missed the club-man. In the middle rocm of the suite
he found Portia chatting with Marston, the lieutenant-
governor; and a young woman in the smartest of re-
ception gowns had succeeded to Elinor's place at the
piano.
"You found him?" queried the hostess, excusing her-
self to the tall, saturnine man who had shared the hon-
ors at the head of the People's Party ticket with Jasper
G. Bucks.
"No," said Kent. "Have you seen him?"
"Why, yes; they all came to take leave just a few mo-


84
THE GRAFTERS
ments after you left me. I thought of telling Mr.
Ormsby you were looking for him, but you shut me off
60 snippily—"
"Miss Van Brock! What have you done? I must go
at once."
"Really? I am complimented. But if you must, you
must, I suppose. I had something to tell you—some-
thing of importance; but I can't remember what it was
now. I never can remember things in the hurry of
leave-takings."
As we have intimated, Kent had hitherto found Miss
Portia's confidences exceedingly helpful in a business
way, and he hesitated. "Tell me," he begged.
"No, I can't remember it: I doubt if I shall ever re-
member it unless you can remind me by telling me why
you are so desperately anxious to find Mr. Ormsby."
"I wonder if you hold everybody up like this," he
laughed. "But I don't mind telling you. Western Pa-
cific preferred has gone to fifty-eight and a half."
"And Mr. Ormsby has some tor sell? I wish I had.
Do you know what I'd do?" She drew closer and laid a
hand on his arm. "I'd sell—by wire—to-night; at
least, I'd make sure that my telegram would be the first
thing my broker would lay his hands on in the morn-
ing."
"On general principles, I suppose: so should I, and


OP THE MAKING OF LAWS 85
for the same reason. But have I succeeded in remind-
ing you of that thing you were going to tell me?"
"Not wholly; only partly. You said this matter of
Mr. Ormsby's concerned Miss Brentwood—in a way—
didn't you?"
"You will have your pound of flesh entire, won't you?
The stock is hers, and her mother's and sister's. I want
Ormsby to persuade them to sell. They'll listen to him.
That is all; all the all."
"Of course!" she said airily. "How simple of me not
to have been able to add it up without your help. I
saw the quotation in the evening paper; and I know,
better, perhaps, than you do, the need for haste. Must
you go now?" She had taken his arm and was edging
him through the press in the parlors toward the en-
trance hall.
"You haven't paid me yet," he objected.
"No; I'm trying to remember. Oh, yes; I have it
now. Wasn't some one telling me that you are inter-
ested in House Bill Twenty-nine?"
They had reached the dimly lighted front vestibule,
and her hand was still on his arm.
"I was interested in it," he admitted, correcting the
present to the past tense.
"But after it went to the House committee on judi-
ciary you left it to more skilful, or perhaps we'd better
say, to less scrupulous hands?"


86
THE GRAFTERS
"I believe you are a witch. Is there anything you
don't know?"
"Plenty of things. For example, I don't know ex-
actly how much it cost our good friends of the 'vested
interests' to have that bill mislaid in the committee
room. But I do know they made a very foolish bar-
gain."
"Beyond all doubt a most demoralizing bargain,
which, to say the best of it, was only a choice between
two evils. But why foolish?"
"Because—well, because mislaid things have a way
of turning up unexpectedly, you know, and—"
He stopped her in a sudden gust of feverish excite-
ment.
"Tell me what you mean in one word, Miss Van
Brock. Don't those fellows intend to stay bought?"
She smiled pityingly.
"You are very young, Mr. David—or very honest.
Supposing those 'fellows', as you dub the honorable
members of the committee on judiciary, had a little
plan of their own; a plan suggested by the readiness of
certain of their opponents to rush into print with
statements which might derange things?"
"I am supposing it with all my might."
"That is right; we are only supposing, you must re-
member. We may suppose their idea was to let the ex-
citement about the amended bill die down; to let people


OF THE MAKING OF LAWS 87
generally, and one fiercely honest young corporation at-
torney in particular, have time to forget that there was
such a thing as House Bill Twenty-nine. And in such
a suppositional case, how much they would be surprised,
and how they would laugh in their sleeves, if some one
came along and paid them handsomely for doing pre-
cisely what they meant to do."
David Kent's smile was almost ferocious.
ccM.y argument is as good now as it was in the begin-
ning: they have yet to reckon with the man who will
dare to expose them."
She turned from him and spoke to the footman at the
door.
"Thomas, fetch Mr. Kent's coat and hat from the
dressing-room." And then to Kent, in the tone she might
have used in telling him of the latest breeziness of the
member from the Eio Blanco: "I remember now what
it was that I wanted to tell you. While you have been
trying to find Mr. Ormsby, the committee on judiciary
has been reporting the long-lost House Bill Twenty-
nine. If you hurry you may be in time to see it passed
—it will doubtless go through without any tiresome de-
bate. But you will hardly have time to obstruct it by
arousing public sentiment through the newspapers."
David Kent shook the light touch of her hand from
his arm and set his teeth hard upon a word hot from
the furnace of righteous indignation. For a moment he


88
THE GRAFTERS
fully believed she was in league with the junto; that she
had been purposely holding him in talk while the very
seconds were priceless.
She saw the scornful wrath in his eyes and turned it
aside with a swift denial.
"No, David; I didn't do that," she said, speaking to
his inmost thought. "If there had been anything you
could do—the smallest shadow of a chance for you—I
should have sent you flying at the first word. But there
wasn't; it was all too well arranged—"
But he had snatched coat and hat from the waiting
Thomas and was running like a madman for the near-
est cab-stand.


VII
THE SENTIMENTALIST8
Kent's time from Alameda Square to the capitol was
the quickest a flogged eab-horse could make, but he
might have spared the horse and saved the double fee.
On the broad steps of the south portico he, uprushing
three at a bound, met the advance guard of the gallery
contingent, down-coming. The House had adjourned.
"One minute, Harnwicke!" he gasped, falling upon
the first member of the corporations' lobby he could
identify in the throng. "What's been done?"
"They've taken a fall out of us," was the brusk re-
ply. "House Bill Twenty-nine was reported by the
committee on judiciary and rushed through after you
left. Somebody engineered it to the paring of a finger-
nail: bare quorum to act; members who might have
filibustered weeded out, on one pretext or another, to a
man; pages all excused, and nobody here with the priv-
ilege of the floor. It was as neat a piece of gag-work
as I ever hope to see if I live to be a hundred."
(89)


90
THE GRAFTEES
Kent faced about and joined the townward dispersal
with his informant.
"Well, I suppose that settles it definitely; at least,
until we can test its constitutionality in the courts," he
said.
Harnwicke thought not, being of the opinion that the
vested interests would never say die until they were
quite dead. As assistant counsel for the Overland Short
Line, he was in some sense the dean of the corps of ob-
servation, and could speak with authority.
"There is one chance left for us this side of the
courts," he went on; "and now I think of it, you are
the man to say how much of a chance it is. The bill still
lacks the. governor's signature."
Kent shook his head.
"It is his own measure. I have proof positive that
he and Meigs and Hendricks drafted it. And all this
fine-haired engineering to-night was his, or Meigs'."
"Of course; we all know that. But we don't know
the particular object yet. Do they need the new law in
their business as a source of revenue? Or do they want
to be hired to kill it? In other words, does Bucks want
a lump sum for a veto? You know the man better than
any of us."
"By Jove!" said. Kent. "Do you mean to say you
would buy the governor of a state?"
Harnwicke turned a cold eye on his companion as


THE SENTIMENTALISTS 91
they strode along. He was of the square-set, plain-
spoken, aggressive type—a finished product of the mod-
ern school of business lawyers.
"I don't understand that you are raising the question
of ethics at this stage of the game, do I?" he remarked.
Kent fired up a little.
"And if I am?" he retorted.
"I should say you had missed your calling. It is
baldly a question of business—or rather of self-preserva-
tion. We needn't mince matters among ourselves. If
Bucks is for sale, we buy him."
Kent shrugged.
"There isn't any doubt about his purchasability. But
I confess I don't quite see how you will go about it."
"Never mind that part of it; just leave the ways and
means with those of us who have riper experience—and
fewer hamperings, perhaps—than you have. Your share
in it is to tell us how big a bid we must make. As I
say, you know the man."
David Kent was silent for the striding of half a
square. The New England conscience dies hard, and
while it lives it is given to drawing sharp lines on all the
boundaries of culpability. Kent ended by taking the
matter in debate violently out of the domain of ethics
and standing it upon the ground of expediency.
"It will cost too much. You would have to bid
high—not to overcome his scruples, for he has none;


THE SENTIMENTALISTS 93
the benefits with other interstate interests; you'll have
to come in."
Kent hesitated, but not now on the ground of the
principle to be defended.
"That brings in a question which I am not competent
to decide. Loring is your man. You will call a con-
ference of the 'powers/ I take it?"
"It is already called. I sent Atherton out to notify
everybody as soon as the trap was sprung in the House.
We meet in the ordinary at the Camelot. You'll be
there?"
"A little later—if Loring wants me. I have some
telephoning to do before this thing gets on the wires."
They parted at the entrance to the Camelot Club,
and Kent went two squares farther on to the Welling-
ton. Ormsby had not yet returned, and Kent went to
the telephone and called up the Brentwood apartments.
It was Penelope that answered.
"Well, I think you owe it," she began, as soon as he
had given his name. "What did I do at Miss Van
Brock's to make you cut me dead?"
"Why, nothing at all, I'm sure. I—I was looking
for Mr. Ormsby, and—"
"Not when I saw you," she broke in flippantly. "You
were handing Miss Portia an ice. Are you still looking
for Mr. Ormsby?"
"I am—just that. Is he with you?"


THE SENTIMENTALISTS 95
"Is that you, Miss Penelope? All right; I wasn't quite
through. When Ormsby comes, you must do as he tells
you to, and you and Miss Elinor must help him convince
your mother. Do you understand?"
"No, I don't understand anything. For goodness'
sake, find Mr. Ormsby and make him run! This is
perfectly dreadful!"
"Isn't it? And I'm awfully sorry. Good-by."
Kent hung up the receiver, and when he was asking a
second time at the clerk's desk for the missing man,
Ormsby came in to answer for himself. Whereupon the
crisis was outlined to him in brief phrase, and he rose
to the occasion, though not without a grimace.
"I'm not sure just how well you know Mrs. Hepzibah
Brentwood," he demurred; "but it will be quite like her
to balk. Don't you think you'd better go along? You
are the company's attorney, and your opinion ought to
carry some weight."
David Kent thought not; but a cautious diplomatist,
having got the idea well into the back part of his head,
was not to be denied.
"Of course, you'll come. You are just the man I'll
need to back me up. I sha'n't shirk; I'll take the
mother into the library and break the ice, while you
are squaring things with the young women. Penelope
won't care the snap of her finger either way; but Elinor
has some notions that you are fitter to cope with than


96
THE GEAFTEES
I am. After, if you can give me a lift with Mrs. Hep-
zibah, I'll call you in. Come on; it's getting pretty
late to go visiting."
Kent yielded reluctantly, and they took a car for the
sake of speed. It was Penelope who opened the door
for them at 124 Tejon Avenue; and Ormsby made it
easy for his coadjutor, as he had promised.
"I want to see your mother in the library for a few
minutes," he began. "Will you arrange it, and take
care of Mr. Kent until I come for him?"
Penelope "arranged" it, not without another added
pang of curiosity, whereupon David Kent found him-
self the rather embarrassed third of a silent trio gath-
ered about the embers of the sitting-room fire.
"Is it to be a Quaker meeting?" asked Penelope,
sweetly, when the silence had grown awe-inspiring.
Kent laughed for pure joy at the breaking of the
spell.
"One would think we had come to drag you all off to
jail, Ormsby and I," he said; and then he went on to
explain. "It's about your Western Pacific stock, you
know. To-day's quotations put it a point and a half
above your purchase price, and we've come to persuade
you to unload, pronto, as the member from the Rio
Blanco would say."
"Is that all?" said Penelope, stifling a yawn. "Then


THE SENTIMENTALISTS
97
I'm not in it: I'm an infant." And she rose and went to
the piano.
"You haven't told us all of it: what has happened?"
queried Elinor, speaking for the first time since her
greeting of Kent.
He briefed the story of House Bill Twenty-nine for
her, pointing out the probabilities.
"Of course, no one can tell what the precise effect
will be," he qualified. "But in my opinion it is very
likely to be destructive of dividends. Skipping the dry
details, the new law, which is equitable enough on its
face, can be made an engine of extortion in the hands
of those who administer it. In fact, I happen to know
that it was designed and carried through for that very
purpose."
She smiled.
"I have understood you were in the opposition. Are
you speaking politically?"
"I am stating the plain fact," said Kent, nettled a
little by her coolness. "Decadent Rome never lifted a
baser set of demagogues into office than we have here
in this State at the present moment."
He spoke warmly, and she liked him best when he
put her on the footing of an equal antagonist.
"I can't agree with your inference," she objected.
"As a people we are neither obsequious nor stupid."


98
THE GRAFTERS
"Perhaps not. But it is one of the failures of a popu-
lar government that an honest majority may be con-
trolled and directed by a small minority of shrewd
rascals. That is exactly what has happened in the pas-
sage of this bill. I venture to say that not one man in
ten who voted for it had the. faintest suspicion that it
was a 'graft'."
"If that be true, what chances there are for men
with the gift of true leadership and a love of pure jus-
tice in their hearts!" she said half-absently; and he
started forward and said: "I beg pardon?"
She let the blue-gray eyes meet his and there was a
passing shadow of disappointment in them.
"I ought to beg yours. I'm afraid I was thinking
aloud. But it is one of my dreams. If I were a man
I should go into politics."
"To purify them?"
"To do my part in trying. The great heart of the
people is honest and well-meaning: I think we all ad-
mit that. And there is intelligence, too. But human
nature is the same as it used to be when they set up a
man who could and called him a king. Gentle or sim-
ple, it must be led."
"There is no lack of leadership, such as it is," he
hazarded.
"No; but there seems to be a pitiful lack of the
right kind: men who will put self-seeking and un-


THE SENTIMENTALISTS 99
worthy ambition aside and lift the standard of justice
and right-doing for its own sake. Are there any such
men nowadays?"
"I don't know," he rejoined gravely. "Sometimes
I'm tempted to doubt it. It is a frantic scramble for
place and power for the most part. The kind of man
you have in mind isn't in it; shuns it as he would a
plague spot."
She contradicted him firmly.
"No, the kind of man I have in mind wouldn't shun
it; he would take hold with his hands and try to make
things better; he would put the selfish temptations
under foot and give the people a leader worth follow-
ing—be the real mind and hand of the well-meaning
majority."
Kent shook his head slowly.
"Not unless we admit a motive stronger than the ab-
straction which we call patriotism."
"I don't understand," she said; meaning, rather, that
she refused to understand.
"I mean that such a man, however exalted his views
might be, would have to have an object more personal
to him than the mere dutiful promptings of patriotism
to make him do his best."
"But that would be self-seeking again."
"Not necessarily in the narrow sense. The old
knightly chivalry was a beautiful thing in its way, and


100
THE GRAFTEES
it gave an uplift to an age which would have been
frankly brutal without it: yet it had its well-spring in
what appeals to us now as being a rather fantastic senti-
ment."
"And we are not sentimentalists?" she suggested.
"No; and it's the worse for us in some respects. You
will not find your ideal politician until you find a man
with somewhat of the old knightly spirit in him. And
I'll go further and say that when you do find him he
will be at heart the champion of the woman he loves
rather than that of a political constituency."
She became silent at that, and for a time the low sweet
harmonies of the nocturne Penelope was playing filled
the gap.
Kent left his chair and began to wish honestly for
Ormsby's return. He was searing the wound again, and
the process was more than commonly painful. They
had been speaking in figures, as a man and a woman
will; yet he made sure the mask of metaphor was trans-
parent, no less to her than to him. As many times be-
fore, his heart was crying out to her; but now behind
the cry there was an upsurging tidal wave of emotion
new and strange; a toppling down of barriers and a
sweeping inrush of passionate rebellion.
Why had she put it out of her power to make him her
champion in the Field of the Lust of Mastery? In-
stantly, and like a revealing lightning flash, it dawned


THE SENTIMENTALISTS 101
upon him that this was his awakening. Something of
himself she had shown him in the former time: how he
was rusting inactive in the small field when he should
be doing a man's work, the work for which his train-
ing had fitted him, in the larger. But the glamour of
sentiment had been over it all in those days, and to the
passion-warped the high call is transmitted in terms of
self-seeking.
He turned upon her suddenly.
"Did you mean to reproach me?" he asked abruptly.
"How absurd!"
"No, it isn't. You are responsible for me, in a cer-
tain sense. You sent me out into the world, and some-
how I feel as if I had disappointed you."
"'But what went ye out for to see?'" she quoted
softly.
"I know," he nodded, sitting down again. "You
thought you were arousing a worthy ambition, but it
was only avarice that was quickened. I've been trying
to be a money-getter."
"You can be something vastly better."
"No, I am afraid not; it is too late."
Again the piano-mellowed silence supervened, and
Kent put his elbows on his knees and hi* face in his
hands, being very miserable. He believed now what
he had been slow to credit before: that he had it in
him to hew his way to the end of the line if only


102
THE GRAFTERS
the motive were strong enough to call out all the re-
serves of battle-might and courage. That motive she
alone, of all the women in the world, might have sup-
plied, he told himself in keen self-pity. With her love
to arm him, her clear-eyed faith to inspire him. . . .
He sat up straight and pushed the cup of bitter herbs
aside. There would be time enough to drain it farther
on.
"Coming back to the stock market and the present
crisis," he said, breaking the silence in sheer self-de-
fense; "Ormsby and I—"
She put the resurrected topic back into its grave
with a little gesture of apathetic impatience she used
now and then with Ormsby.
"I suppose I ought to be interested, but I am not,"
she confessed. "Mother will do as she thinks best, and
we shall calmly acquiesce, as we always do."
David Kent was not sorry to be relieved in so many
words of the persuasive responsibility, and the talk
drifted into reminiscence, with the Croydon summer
for a background.
It was a dangerous pastime for Kent; perilous, and
subversive of many things. One of his meliorating
comforts had been the thought that however bitter his
own disappointment was, Elinor at least was happy.
But in this new-old field of talk a change came over
her and he was no longer sure she was entirely happy.


THE SENTIMENTALISTS 103
She was saying things with a flavor akin to cynicism
in them, as thus:
"Do you remember how we used to go into raptures
of pious indignation over the make-believe sentiment
of the summer man and the summer girl? I recollect
your saying once that it was wicked; a desecration of
things which ought to be held sacred. It isn't so very
long ago, but I think we were both very young that
summer—years younger than we can ever be again.
Don't you?"
"Doubtless," said David Kent. He was at a pass in
which he would have agreed with her if she had asserted
that black was white. It was not weakness; it was
merely that he was absorbed in a groping search for
the word which would fit her changed mood.
"We have learned to be more charitable since," she
went on; "more charitable and less sentimental, per-
haps. And yet we prided ourselves on our sincerity
in that young time, don't you think?"
"I, at least, was sincere," he rejoined bluntly. He
had found the mood-word at last: it was resentment;
though, being a man, he could see no good reason why
the memories of the Croydon summer should make her
resentful.
She was not looking at him when she said: "No;
sincerity is always just. And you were not quite just,
I think."


104
THE GRAFTERS
"To you?" he demanded.
"Oh, no; to yourself."
Portia Van Brock's accusation was hammering itself
into his brain. You have marred her between you.
. . . For your sake she can never be quite all she
ought to be to him; for his sake she could never be
quite the same to you. A cold wave of apprehension
submerged him. In seeking to do the most unselfish
thing that offered, had he succeeded only in making
her despise him?
The question was still hanging answerless when there
came the sound of a door opening and closing, and
Ormsby stood looking in upon them.
"We needn't keep these sleepy young persons out of
bed any longer," he announced briefly; and the co-
adjutor said good-night and joined him at once.
"What luck?" was David Kent's anxious query when
they were free of the house and had turned their faces
townward.
"Just as much as we might have expected. Mrs.
Hepzibah refuses point-blank to sell her stock—won't
talk about it. 'The idea of parting with it now, when
it is actually worth more than it was when we bought
it!'" he quoted, mimicking the thin-lipped, acidulous
protest. "Later, in an evil minute, I tried to drag you
in, and she let you have it square on the point of the


THE SENTIMENTALISTS 105
jaw—intimated that it was a deal in which some of you
inside people needed her block of stock to make you
whole. She did, by Jove!"
Kent's laugh was mirthless.
"I was never down in her good books," he said, by
way of accounting for the accusation.
If Ormsby thought he knew the reason why, he was
magnanimous enough to steer clear of that shoal.
"It's a mess," he growled. "I don't fancy you had
any better luck with Elinor."
"She seemed not to care much about it either way.
She said her mother would have the casting vote."
"I know. What I don't know is, what remains to be
done."
"More waiting," said Kent, definitively. "The fight
is fairly on now—as between the Bucks crowd and the
corporations, I mean—but there will probably be ups
and downs enough to scare Mrs. Brentwood into letting
go. We must be ready to strike when the iron is hot;
that ' s all."
The New Yorker tramped a full square in thought-
ful silence before he said: "Candidly, Kent, Mrs. Hep-
zibah's little stake in Western Pacific isn't altogether
a matter of life and death to me, don't you know? If
it comes to the worst, I can have my broker play the
part of the god in the car. Happily, or unhappily,


106
THE GHAFTEES
whichever way you like to put it, I sha'n't miss what
he may have to put up to make good on her three thou-
sand shares."
David Kent stopped short and wheeled suddenly upon
his companion.
"Ormsby, that's a thing I've been afraid of, all along;
and it's the one thing you must never do."
"Why not?" demanded the straightforward Ormsby.
Kent knew he was skating on the thinnest of ice,
but his love for Elinor made him fearless of conse-
quences.
"If you don't know without being told, it proves that
your money has spoiled you to that extent. It is be-
cause you have no right to entrap Miss Brentwood into
an obligation that would make her your debtor for the
very food she eats and the clothes she wears. You will
say she need never know: be very sure she would find
out, one way or another; and she would never forgive
you."
"Um," said Ormsby, turning visibly grim. "You
are frank enough—to draw it mildly. Another man in
my place might suggest that it isn't Mr. David Kent's
affair."
Kent turned about and caught step again.
"I've said my say—all of it," he rejoined stolidly.
"We've been decently modern up to now, and we won't
go back to the elemental things so late in the day. All


THE SENTIMENTALISTS 107
the same, you'll not take it amiss if I say that I know
Miss Brentwood rather better than you do."
Ormsby did not say whether he would'or would not,
and the talk went aside to less summary ways and
means preservative of the Brentwood fortunes. But at
the archway of the Camelot Club, where Kent paused,
Ormsby went back to the debatable ground in an out-
spoken word.
"I know pretty well now what there is between us,
Kent, and we mustn't quarrel if we can help it," he
said. "If you complain that I didn't give you a fair
show, I'll retort that I didn't dare to. Are you satis-
fied?"
"No," said David Kent; and with that they separated.


VIII
THE HAYMAKERS
By the terms of its dating clause the new trust and
corporation law became effective at once, "the public
welfare requiring it"; and though there was an im-
mediate sympathetic decline in the securities involved,
there was no panic, financial or industrial, to mark the
change from the old to the new.
Contrary to the expectations of the alarmists and the
lawyers, and somewhat to the disappointment of the
latter, the vested interests showed no disposition to
test the constitutionality of the act in the courts. So
far, indeed, from making difficulties, the various alien
corporations affected by the new law wheeled promptly
into line in compliance with its provisions, vying with
one another in proving, or seeming to prove, the time-
worn aphorism that capital can never afford to be other-
wise than strictly law-abiding.
In the reorganization of the Western Pacific, David
Kent developed at once and heartily into that rare and
(108)


THE HAYMAKERS
109
much-sought-for quantity, a man for an emergency.
Loring, also, was a busy man in this transition period,
yet he found time to keep an appreciative eye on Kent,
and, true to his implied promise, pushed him vigorously
for the first place in the legal department of the lo-
calized company. Since the resident manager stood
high in the Boston counsels of the company, the push-
ing was not without results; and while David Kent was
still up to his eyes in the work of flogging the affairs
of the newly named Trans-Western into conformity
with the law, his appointment as general counsel came
from the Advisory Board.
At one time, when success in his chosen vocation
meant more to him than he thought it could ever mean
again, the promoted subordinate would have had an at-
tack of jubilance little in keeping with the grave re-
sponsibilities of his office. As it fell out, he was too busy
to celebrate, and too sore on the sentimental side to re-
joice. Hence, his recognition of the promotion was
merely a deeper plunge into the flood of legalities and
the adding of two more stenographers to his office force.
Now there is this to be said of such submersive bat-
tlings in a sea of work: while the fierce toil of the buf-
feting may be good for the swimmer's soul, it neces-
sarily narrows his horizon, inasmuch as a man with his
head in the sea-smother lacks the view-point of the cap-
tain who fights his ship from the conning tower.


110
THE GRAFTERS
So it befell that while the newly appointed general
counsel of the reorganized Western Pacific was bolting
his meals and clipping the nights at both ends in a stren-
uous endeavor to clear the decks for a possible battle-
royal at the capital, events of a minatory nature were
shaping themselves elsewhere.
To bring these events down to their focusing point
in the period of transition, it is needful to go back a
little; to a term of the circuit court held in the third
year of Gaston the prosperous.
Who Mrs. Melissa Varnum was; how she came to be
traveling from Midland City to the end of the track on a
scalper's ticket; and in what manner she was given
her choice of paying fare to the conductor or leaving
the train at Gaston—these are details with which we
need not concern ourselves. Suffice it to say that Kent,
then local attorney for the company, mastered them;
and when Mrs. Varnum, through Hawk, her counsel,
sued for five thousand dollars damages, he was able to
get a continuance, knowing from long experience that
the jury would certainly find for the plaintiff if the case
were then allowed to go to trial.
And at the succeeding term of court, which was the
one that adjourned on the day of Kent's transfer to
the capital, two of the company's witnesses had dis-
appeared; and the one bit of company business Kent
had been successful in doing that day was to postpone


112
THE GRAFTERS
disappearances figured in the local notes of the Gaston
Clarion as "business trips," object and objective point
unknown or at least unstated; but since his election
the newspapers were usually more definite. On this
occasion, the public was duly informed that "Governor
Bucks, with one or two intimate friends, was taking a
few days' recreation with rod and gun on the headwaters
of Jump Creek"—a statement which the governor's
private secretary stood ready to corroborate to all and
sundry calling at the gubernatorial rooms on the second
floor of the capitol.
Now it chanced that, like all gossip, this statement
was subject to correction as to details in favor of the ex-
act fact. It is true that the governor, his gigantic figure
clad in sportsmanlike brown duck, might have been
seen boarding the train on the Monday evening; and in
addition to the ample hand-bag there were rod and
gun cases to bear out the newspaper notices. None the
less, it was equally true that the keeper of the Gun
Club shooting-box at the terminus of the Trans-West-
ern's Jump Creek branch was not called upon to enter-
tain so distinguished a guest as the State executive.
Also, it might have been remarked that the governor
traveled alone.
Late that same night, Stephen Hawk was keeping a
rather discomforting vigil with a visitor in the best
suite of rooms the Mid-Continent Hotel in Gaston af-


THE HAYMAKERS
113
forded. Tke guest of honor was a brother lawyer—
though he might have refused to acknowledge the re-
lationship with the ex-district attorney—a keen-eyed,
busine6s-like gentleman, whose name as an organizer of
vast capitalistic ventures had traveled far, and whose
present attitude was one of undisguised and angry con-
tempt for Gaston and all things Gastonian.
"How much longer have we to wait?" he demanded
impatiently, when the hands of his watch pointed to the
quarter-hour after ten. "You've made me travel two
thousand miles to see this thing through: why didn't
you make sure of having your man here?"
Hawk wriggled uneasily in his chair. He was used
to being bullied, not only by the good and great, but by
the little and evil as well. Yet there was a rasp to the
great man's impatience that irritated him.
"I've been trying to tell you all the evening that I'm
only the hired man in this business, Mr. Falkland. I
can't compel the attendance of the other parties."
"Well, it's damned badly managed, as far as we've
gone," was the ungracious comment. 'You say the
judge refuses to confer with me?"
"Ab-so-lutely."
"And the train—the last train the other man can
come on; is that in yet?"
Hawk consulted his watch.
"A good half-hour ago."


114
THE GRAFTERS
"You had your clerk at the station to meet it?"
"I did."
"And he hasn't reported?"
"Not yet."
Falkland took a cigar from his case, bit the end of it
like a man with a grudge to satisfy, and began again.
"There is a very unbusinesslike mystery about all
this, Mr. Hawk, and I may as well tell you shortly that
my time is too valuable to make me tolerant of half-
confidences. Get to the bottom of it. Has your man
weakened?"
"No; he is not of the weakening kind. And, besides,
the scheme is his own from start to finish, as you know."
"Well, what is the matter, then?"
Hawk rose.
"If you will be patient a little while longer, I'll go
to the wire and try to find out. I am as much in the
dark as you are."
This last was not strictly true. Hawk had a tele-
gram in his pocket which was causing him more un-
easiness than all the rasping criticisms of the New York
attorney, and he was re-reading it by the light of the
corridor bracket when a young man sprang from the
ascending elevator and hurried to the door of the parlor
suite. Hawk collared his Mercury before he could rap
on the door.
"Well?" he queried sharply.


THE HAYMAKEES
115
"It's just as you suspected—what Mr. Hendricks'
telegram hinted at. I met him at the station and
couldn't do a thing with him."
"Where has he gone?"
"To the same old place."
"You followed him?"
"Sure. That is what kept me so long."
Hawk hung upon his decision for the barest fraction
of a second. Then he gave his orders concisely.
"Hunt up Doctor Macquoid and get him out to the
club-house as quick as you can. Tell him to bring his
hypodermic. I'll be there with all the help he'll need."
And when the young man was gone, Hawk smote the
air with a clenched fist and called down the Black
Curse of Shielygh, or its modern equivalent, on all the
fates subversive of well-laid plans.
A quarter of an hour later, on the upper floor of the
club-house at the Gentlemen's Driving Park, four men
burst in upon a fifth, a huge figure in brown duck,
crouching in a corner like a wild beast at bay. A bottle
and a tumbler stood on the table under the hanging
lamp; and with the crash of breaking glass which fol-
lowed the mad-bull rush of the duck-clothed giant, the
reek of French brandy filled the room.
"Hold him still, if you can, and pull up that sleeve."
It was Macquoid who spoke, and the three apparitors,
breathing hard, sat upon the prostrate man and bared


116
THE GRAFTERS
his arm for the physician. When the apomorphia be-
gan to do its work there was a struggle of another sort,
out of which emerged a pallid and somewhat stricken
reincarnation of the governor.
"Falkland is waiting at the hotel, and he and Mac-
Farlane can't get together," said Hawk, tersely, when
the patient was fit to listen. "Otherwise we shouldn't
have disturbed you. It's all day with the scheme if you
can't show up."
The governor groaned and passed his hand over his
eyes.
"Get me into my clothes—Johnson has the grip—
and give me all the time you can," was the sullen re-
joinder; and in due course the Honorable Jasper G.
Bucks, clothed upon and in his right mind, was en-
abled to keep his appointment with the New York at-
torney at the Mid-Continent Hotel.
But first came the whipping-in of MacFarlane. Bucks
went alone to the judge's room on the floor above the
parlor suite. It was now near midnight, but MacFar-
lane had not gone to bed. He was a spare man, with
thin hair graying rapidly at the temples and a care-worn
face; the face of a man whose tasks or responsibilities,
or both, have overmatched him. He was walking the
floor with his head down and his hands—thin, nerve-
less hands they were—tightly locked behind him, when
the governor entered.


THE HAYMAKERS
117
For a large man the Honorable Jasper was usually
able to handle his weight admirably; but now he clung
to the door-knob until he could launch himself at a
chair and be sure of hitting it.
"What's this Hawk's telling me about you, MacFar-
lane?" he demanded, frowning portentously.
"I don't know what he has told you. But it is too
flagrant, Bucks; I can't do it, and that's all there is
about it." The protest was feebly fierce, and there was
the snarl of a baited animal in the tone.
"It's too late to make difficulties now," was the harsh
reply. "You've got to do it."
"I tell you I can not, and I will not!"
"A late attack of conscience, eh?" sneered the gov-
ernor, who was sobering rapidly now. "Let me ask
a question or two. How much was that security debt
your son-in-law let you in for?"
"It was ten thousand dollars. It is an honest debt,
and I shall pay it."
"But not out of the salary of a circuit judge," Bucks
interposed. "Nor yet out of the fees you make your
clerks divide with you. And that isn't all. Have you
forgotten the gerrymander business? How would you
like to see the true inwardness of that in the newspa-
pers?"
The judge shrank as if the huge gesturing hand had
struck him.


118
THE GRAFTEES
"You wouldn't dare," he began. "You were in that,
too, deeper than—"
Again the governor interrupted him.
"Cut it out," he commanded. "I can reward, and I
can punish. You are not going to do anything tech-
nically illegal; but, by the gods, you are going to walk
the line laid down for you. If you don't, I shall give
the documents in the gerrymander affair to the papers
the day after you fail. Now we'll go and see Falkland."
MacFarlane made one last protest.
"For God's sake, Bucks! spare me that. It is noth-
ing less than the foulest collusion between the judge,
the counsel for the plaintiff—and the devil!"
"Cut that out, too, and come along," said the gover-
nor, brutally; and by the steadying help of the chair,
the door-post and the wall of the corridor, he led the
way to the parlor suite on the floor below.
The conference in Falkland's rooms was chiefly a
monologue with the sharp-spoken New York lawyer in
the speaking part. When it was concluded the judge
took his leave abruptly, pleading the lateness of the
hour and his duties for the morrow. When he was gone
the New Yorker began again.
'You won't want to be known in this, I take it," he
said, nodding at the governor. "Mr. Hawk here will
answer well enough for the legal part, but how about


THE HAYMAKERS
119
the business end of it. Have you got a man you can
trust?"
The governor's yellow eyebrows met in a meaning
scowl.
"I've got a man I can hang, which is more to the pur-
pose. It's Major Jim Guilford. He lives here; want to
meet him?"
"God forbid!" said Falkland, fervently. He rose and
whipped himself into his overcoat, turning to Hawk:
"Have your young man get me a carriage, and see to it
that my special is ready to pull east when I give the
word, will you?"
Hawk went obediently, and the New Yorker had his
final word with the governor alone.
"I think we understand each other perfectly," he
said. "You are to have the patronage: we are to pay for
all actual betterments for which vouchers can be shown
at the close of the deal. All we ask is that the stock be
depressed to the point agreed upon within the half-
year."
"It's going to be done," said the governor, trying as
he could to keep the eye-image of his fellow conspirator
from multiplying itself by two.
"All right. Now as to the court affair. If it is man-
aged exactly as I have outlined, there will be no trouble
—and no recourse for the other fellows. When I say


120
THE GEAFTEES
that, I'm leaving out your Supreme Court. Under cer-
tain conditions, if the defendant's hardship could be
definitely shown, a writ of certiorari and supersedeas
might issue. How about that?"
The governor closed one eye slowly, the better t«
check the troublesome multiplying process.
"The Supreme Court won't move in the matter. The
ostensible reason will be that the court is now two years
behind its docket."
"And the real reason?"
"Of the three justices, one of them was elected on
our ticket; another is a personal friend of Judge Mac-
Farlane. The goods will be delivered."
"That's all, then; all but one word. Your judge is
a weak brother. Notwithstanding all the pains I took
to show him that his action would be technically un-
assailable, he was ready to fly the track at any moment.
Have you got him safe?"
Bucks held up one huge hand with the thumb and
forefinger tightly pressed together.
"I've got him right there," he said. "If you and
Hawk have got your papers in good shape, the thing
will go through like a hog under a barbed-wire fence."


IX
THE SHOCKING OF HUNNICOTT
It was two weeks after the date of the governor's
fishing trip, and by consequence Judge MacFarlane's
court had been the even fortnight in session in Gas-
ton, when Kent's attention was recalled to the forgot-
ten Varnum case by another letter from the local at-
torney, Hunnicott.
"Varnum vs. Western Pacific comes up Friday of this
week, and they are going to press for trial this time, and
no mistake," wrote the local representative. "Hawk has
been chasing around getting affidavits; for what pur-
pose I don't know, though Lesher tells me that one
of them was sworn by Houligan, the sub-contractor
who tried to fight the engineer's estimates on the Jump
Creek work.
"Also, there is a story going the rounds that the suit
is to be made a blind for bigger game, though I guess
this is all gossip, based on the fact that Mr. Semple
Falkland's private car stopped over here two weeks ago,
(121)


122
THE GBAFTEES
from three o'clock in the afternoon till midnight of the
same day. Jason, of the Clarion, interriewed the New
Yorker, and Falkland told him he had stopped over to
look up the securities on a mortgage held by one of his
New York clients."
Kent read this unofficial letter thoughtfully, and
later on took it in to the general manager.
"Just to show you the kind of jackal we have to
deal with in the smaller towns," he said, by way of
explanation. "Here is a case that Stephen Hawk built
up out of nothing a year ago. The woman was put
off one of our trains because she was trying to travel
on a scalper's ticket. She didn't care to fight about it;
but when I had about persuaded her to compromise for
ten dollars and a pass to her destination, Hawk got
hold of her and induced her to sue for five thousand
dollars."
"Well?" said Loring.
"We fought it, of course—in the only way it could
be fought in the lower court. I got a continuance,
and we choked it off in the same way at the succeeding
term. The woman was tired out long ago, but Hawk
will hang on till his teeth fall out."
"Do you 'continue' again?" asked the general man-
ager.
Kent nodded.


THE SHOCKING OF HUNNICOTT 123;
"I so instructed Hunnicott. Luckily, two of our
most important witnesses are missing. They have al-
ways been missing, in point of fact."
Loring was glancing over the letter.
"How about this affidavit business, and the Falk-
land stop-over?" he asked.
"Oh, I fancy that's gossip, pure and simple, as Hunni-
cott says. Hawk is sharp enough not to let lis know
if he were baiting a trap. And Falkland probably told
the Clarion man the simple truth."
Loring nodded in his turn. Then he broke away
from the subject abruptly. "Sit down," he said; and
when Kent had found a chair: "I had a caller this
morning—Senator Duvall."
State Senator Duvall had been the father, or the os-
tensible father, of the Senate amendment to House Bill
Twenty-nine. He was known to the corporations' lobby
as a legislator who would sign a railroad's death-war-
rant with one hand and take favors from it with the
other; and Kent laughed.
"How many did he demand passes for, this time? Or
was it a special train he wanted?"
"Neither the one nor the other, this morning, as it
happened," said the general manager. "Not to put
too fine an edge upon it, he had something to sell, and
he wanted me to buy it."


124
THE GRAFTERS
"What was it?" Kent asked quickly.
Loring was rubbing his eye-glasses absently with the
corner of his handkerchief.
"I guess I made a mistake in not turning him over
to you, David. He was too smooth for me. I couldn't
find out just what it was he had for sale. He talked
vaguely about an impending crisis and a man who had
some information to dispose of; said the man had come
to him because he was known to be a firm friend of the
Trans-Western, and so on."
Kent gave his opinion promptly.
"It's a capitol-gang deal of some sort to hold us
up; and Duvall is willing to sell out his fellow con-
spirators if the price is right."
''Have you any notion of what it is?"
Kent shook his head.
"Not the slightest. The ways have been tallowed for
us, thus far, and I don't fully understand it. I presented
our charter for re-filing yesterday, and Hendricks
passed it without a word. As I was coming out of the
secretary's office I met Bucks. We were pretty nearly
open enemies in the old days in Gaston, but he went
out of his way to shake hands and to congratulate me
on my appointment as general counsel."
"That was warning in itself, wasn't it?"
"I took it that way. But I can't fathom his drift;


126
THE GRAFTEES
Judge MacFarlane's docket—but really, it is worth our
while to be present in the Gaston court-room to see and
hear what befalls.
When the Varnum case was called, Hunnicott
promptly moved for a third continuance, in accord-
ance with his instructions. The judge heard his argu-
ment, the old and well-worn one of the absence of im-
portant witnesses, with perfect patience; and after list-
ening to Hawk's protest, which was hardly more than
mechanical, he granted the continuance.
Then came the after-piece. Court adjourned, and
immediately Hawk asked leave to present, "at cham-
bers," an amended petition. Hunnicott was waylaid
by a court officer as he was leaving the room; and a
moment later, totally unprepared, he was in the judge's
office, listening in some dazed fashion while Hawk went
glibly through the formalities of presenting his peti-
tion.
Not until the papers were served upon him as the
company's attorney, and the judge was naming three
o'clock of the following afternoon as the time which
he would appoint for the preliminary hearing, did the
local attorney come alive.
"But, your Honor!—a delay of only twenty-four
hours in which to prepare a rejoinder to this petition—
to allegations of such astounding gravity?" he began,


THE SHOCKING OF HUNNICOTT 12?
shocked into action by the very ungraspable magnitude
of the thing.
"What more could you ask, Mr. Hunnicott?" said
the judge, mildly. "You have already had a full meas-
ure of delay on the original petition. Yet I am will-
ing to extend the time if you can come to an agreement
with Mr. Hawk, here."
Hunnicott knew the hopelessness of that and did
not make the attempt. Instead, he essayed a new line
of objection.
"The time would be long enough if Gaston were the
headquarters of the company, your Honor. But in
such a grave and important charge as this amended
petition brings, our general counsel should appear in
person, and—"
"You are the company's attorney, Mr. Hunnicott,"
said the judge, dryly; "and you have hitherto been
deemed competent to conduct the case in behalf of the
defendant. I am unwilling to work a hardship to any
one, but I can not entertain your protest. The pre-
liminary hearing will be at three o'clock to-morrow."
Hunnicott knew when he was definitely at the string's
end; and when he was out of the judge's room and
the Court House, he made a dash for his office, dry-
lipped and panting. Ten minutes sufficed for the writ-
ing of a telegram to Kent, and he was half-way down


128
THE GRAFTERS
to the station with it when it occurred to him that it
would never do to trust the incendiary thing to the
wires in plain English. There was a little-used cipher
code in his desk provided for just such emergencies,
and back he went to labor sweating over the task of se-
curing secrecy at the expense of the precious minutes
of time. Wherefore, it was about four o'clock when
he handed the telegram to the station operator, and ad-
jured him by all that was good and great not to delay
its sending.
It was just here he made his first and only slip,
since he did not stay to see the thing done. It chanced
that the regular day operator was off on leave of ab-
sence, and his substitute, a young man from the
train-despatcher's office, was a person who considered
the company wires an exclusive appanage of the
train service department. At the moment of Hunni-
cott's assault he was taking an order for Number 17;
and observing that the lawyer's cipher "rush" covered
four closely written pages, he hung it upon the send-
ing hook with a malediction on the legal department
for burdening the wires with its mail correspondence,
and so forgot it.
It was nine o'clock when the night operator came
on duty; and being a careful man, he not only looked
first to his sending hook, but was thoughtful enough


THE SHOCKING OF HUNNICOTT 129
to run over the accumulation of messages waiting to be
transmitted, to the end that he might give precedence
to the most important. And when he came to Hunni-
cott's cipher with the thrice-underlined "RUSH" writ-
ten across its face, and had marked the hour of its
handing in, he had the good sense to hang up the en-
tire wire business of the railroad until the thing was
safely out of his office.
It was half-past nine when the all-important cipher
got itself written out in the headquarters office at the
capital; and for t.vo anxious hours the receiving op-
erator tried by all means in his power to find the gen-
eral counsel—tried and failed. For, to make the chain
of mishaps complete in all its links, Kent and Loring
were spending the evening at Miss Portia Van Brock's,
having been bidden to meet a man they were both will-
ing to cultivate—Oliver Marston, the lieutenant-gov-
ernor. And for this cause it wanted but five minutes of
midnight when Kent burst into Loring's bedroom on the
third floor of the Clarendon, catastrophic news in hand.
"For heaven's sake, read that!" he gasped; and Lor-
ing sat on the edge of the bed to do it.
"So! they've sprung their mine at last: this is what
Senator Duvall was trying to sell us," he said quietly,
when he had mastered the purport of Hunnicott's war
news.


130
THE GRAFTERS
Kent had caught his second wind in the moment of
respite, and was settling into the collar in a way to
strain the working harness to the breaking point.
"It's a put-up job from away back," he gritted. "If
I'd had the sense of a pack-mule I should have been on
the lookout for just such a trap as this. Look at the
date of that message!"
The general manager did look, and shook his head.
"^Received, 3:45, P. M.; Forwarded, 9:17, P. M.' That
will cost somebody his job. What do we do?"
"We get busy at the drop of the hat. Luckily, w*
have the news, though I'll bet high it wasn't Hawk's
fault that this message came through with no more than
eight hours' delay. Get into your clothes, man! Th«
minutes are precious, now!"
Loring began to dress while Kent walked the floor ia
a hot fit of impatience.
"The mastodonic cheek of the thing!" he kept T&
peating, until Loring pulled him down with another
quiet remark.
"Tell m3 what we have to do, David. I am a little
lame in law matters."
"Do? We have to appear in Judge MacFarlane's
court to-morrow afternoon prepared to show that this
thing is only a hold-up with a blank cartridge. Hawk
meant to take a snap judgment. He counted on throw-
ing the whole thing up against Hunnicott, knowing


THE SHOCKING OF HUNNICOTT 131
perfectly well that a little local attorney at a way-station
couldn't begin to secure the necessary affidavits."
Loring paused with one end of his collar flying loose.
"Let me understand," he said. "Do we have to dis-
prove these charges by affidavits?"
"Certainly; that is the proper rejoinder—the only
one, in fact," said Kent; then, as a great doubt laid
hold of him and shook him: "You don't mean to
say there is any doubt about our ability to do it?"
"Oh, no; I suppose not, if it comes to a show-down.
But I was thinking of your man Hunnicott. Doesn't
it occur to you that he is in just about as good a fix to
secure those affidavits in Gaston as we are here,
David?"
"Good Lord! Do you mean that we have to send to
Boston for our ammunition?"
"Haven't we? Don't you see how nicely the thing
is timed? Ten days later our Trans-Western reor-
ganization would be complete, and we could swear our
own officers on the spot. These people know what they
are about."
Kent was walking the floor again, but now the
strength of the man was coming uppermost.
"Never mind: we'll wire Boston, and then we'll do
what we can here. Could you get me to Gaston on a
special engine in three hours?"
"Yes."


132
THE GEAFTEES
"Then we have till eleven o'clock to-morrow to pre-
pare. I'll be ready by that time."
"David, you are a brick when it comes to the in-
fighting," said the general manager; and then he fin-
ished buttoning his collar.


X
WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLEEGT
At ten forty-eight on the Saturday morning Kent was
standing with the general manager on the Union Sta-
tion track platform beside the engine which was to
make the flying run to Gaston.
Nine hours of sharp work lay between the hurried
conference in Loring's bedroom and the drive to the
station at a quarter before eleven. Boston had been
wired; divers and sundry friends of the railway com-
pany had been interviewed; some few affidavits had
been secured; and now they were waiting to give Bos-
ton its last chance, with a clerk hanging over the
operator in the station telegraph office to catch the
first word of encouragement.
"If the Advisory Board doesn't send us something
pretty solid, I'm going into this thing lame," said
Kent, dubiously. "Of course, what Boston can send us
will be only corroborative; unfortunately we can't wire
(133)


134
THE GRAFTEES
affidavits. But it will help. What we have secured here
lacks directness."
"Necessarily," said Loring. "But I'm banking on
the Board. If we don't get the ammunition before you
have to start, I can wire it to you at Gaston. That
gives us three hours more to go and come on."
"Yes; and if it comes to the worst—if the decision
be unfavorable—it can only embarrass us temporarily.
This is merely the preliminary hearing, and nothing per-
manent can be established until we have had a hear-
ing on the merits, and we can go armed to that, at all
events."
The general manager was looking at his watch, and
he shut the case with a snap.
"Don't you let it come to that, as long as you have
a leg to stand on, David," he said impressively. "An
interregnum of ten days might make it exceedingly
difficult for us to prove anything." Then, as the tele-
graph office watcher came to the door and shook his
head as a sign that Boston was still silent: "Your
time is up. Off with you, and don't let Oleson scare
you when he gets 219 in motion. He is a good runner,
and you have a clear track."
Kent clambered to the footplate of the smart eight-
wheeler.
"Can you make it by two o'clock?" he asked, when


WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY 135
the engineer, a big-boned, blue-eyed Norwegian, dropped
the reversing lever into the corner for the start.
"Ay tank maybe so, ain'd it? Yust you climb opp
dat odder box, Mester Kent, and hoi' you' hair on.
Ve bane gone to maig dat time, als' ve preak some-
dings, ja!" and he sent the light engine spinning down
the yards to a quickstep of forty miles an hour.
Kent's after-memory of that distance-devouring rush
was a blurred picture of a plunging, rocking, clamoring
engine bounding over mile after mile of the brown
plain; of the endless dizzying procession of oncom-
ing telegraph poles hurtling like great side-flung pro-
jectiles past the cab windows; of now and then a
lonely prairie station with waving semaphore arms,
sighted, passed and left behind in a whirling sand-
cloud in one and the same heart-beat. And for the
central figure in the picture, the one constant quantity
when all else was mutable and shifting and indistinct,
the big, calm-eyed Norwegian on the opposite box, hurl-
ing his huge machine doggedly through space.
At 12:45 they stopped for water at a solitary tank
in the midst of the brown desert. Kent got down
stiffly from his cramped seat on the fireman's box and
wetted his parched lips at the nozzle of the tender hose.
"Do we make it, Jarl?" he asked.
The engineer wagged his head.


WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLEEGY 13T
heard from; and Kent's first care was to report to Lor-
ing, and to ask if there were anything from Boston.
The reply was encouraging. A complete denial of
everything, signed by the proper officials, had been re-
ceived and repeated to Kent at Gaston—was there now
awaiting him. Kent saw in anticipation the nicely cal-
culated scheme of the junto crumbling into small dust
in the precise moment of fruition, and had a sharp at-
tack of ante-triumph which he had to walk off in turns
up and down the long platform. But as the waiting grew
longer, and the dragging minutes totaled the quarter-
hour and then the half, he began to perspire again.
Half-past two came and went, and still there was no-
hopeful word from Lesterville. Kent had speech with
Oleson, watch in hand. Would the engineer take the
risk of a rear-end collision on a general manager's or-
der? Oleson would obey orders if the heavens fell; and
Kent flew to the wire again. Hunnicott, at Gaston, was
besought to gain time in the hearing by any and all
means; and Loring was asked to authorize the risk of a
rear-end smash-up. He did it promptly. The light
engine was to go on until it should "pick up" the de-
layed train between stations.
The Juniberg man gave Oleson his release and the
order to proceed with due care while the sounder was
still clicking a further communication from headquar-
ters. Loring was providing for the last contingency by


138
THE GRAFTEES
sending Kent the authority to requisition Number 17's
engine for the completion of the run in case the track
should be blocked, with the freight engine free beyond
the obstruction.
Having his shackles stricken off, the Norwegian pro-
ceeded "with due care," which is to say that he sent the
eight-wheeler darting down the line toward Lesterville
at the rate of a mile a minute. The mystery of the delay
was solved at a point half-way between the two stations.
A broken flange had derailed three cars of the freight,
and the block was impassable.
Armed with the general manager's mandatory wire,
Kent ran forward to the engine of the freight train and
was shortly on his way again. But in the twenty-mile
run to Gaston more time was lost by the lumbering
freight locomotive, and it was twenty minutes past
three o'clock when the county seat came in sight and
Kent began to oscillate between two sharp-pointed horns
of a cruel dilemma.
By dropping off at the street-crossing nearest the
Court House, he might still be in time to get a hearing
with such documentary backing as he had been able to
secure at the capital. By going on to the station he
could pick up the Boston wire which, while it was not
strictly evidence, might create a strong presumption in
his favor; but in this case he would probably be too late
to use it. So he counted the rail-lengths, watch in hand,


WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLEEGY 139
with a curse to the count for his witlessness iu failing to
have Loring repeat the Boston message to him during
the long wait at Juniberg; and when the time for the de-
cision arrived he signaled the engineer to slow down,
jumped from the step at the nearest crossing and has-
tened up the street toward the Court House.
In the mean time, to go back a little, during this day
of hurryings to and fro Blashfield Hunnicott had been
having the exciting experiences of a decade crowded into
a corresponding number of hours. Early in the morn-
ing he had begun besieging the headquarters wire office
for news and instructions, and, owing to Kent's good in-
tentions to be on the ground in person, had got little
enough of either.
At length, to his unspeakable relief, he had news of
the coming special; and with the conviction that help
was at hand he waited at the station with what coolness
there was in him to meet his chief. But as the time for
the hearing drew near he grew nervous again; and all
the keen pains of utter helplessness returned with re-
newed acuteness when the operator, who had overheard
the Juniberg-Lesterville wire talk, told him that the
special was hung up at the former station.
"0 my good Lord !" he groaned. "I'm in for it with
empty hands!" None the less, he ran to the baggage-
room end of the building and, capturing an express
wagon, had himself trundled out to the Court House.


140
THE GRAFTERS
The judge was at his desk when Hunnicott entered,
and Hawk was on hand, calmly reading the morning
paper. The hands of the clock on the wall opposite the
judge's desk pointed to five minutes of the hour, and
for five minutes Hunnicott sat listening, hoping against
hope that he should hear the rush and roar of the incom-
ing special.
Promptly on the stroke of three the judge tapped
upon his desk with his pencil.
"Now, gentlemen, proceed with your case; and I
must ask you to be as brief as possible. I have an ap-
pointment at four which can not be postponed," he said
quietly; and Hawk threw down his paper and began at
once.
Hunnicott heard his opponent's argument mechan-
ically, having his ear attuned for whistle signals and
wheel drummings. Hawk spoke rapidly and straight
to his point, as befitted a man speaking to the facts and
with no jury present to be swayed by oratorical effort.
When he came to the summarizing of the allegations in
the amended petition, he did it wholly without heat,
piling up the accusations one upon another with the
careful method of a bricklayer building a wall. The
wall-building simile thrust itself upon Hunnicott with
irresistible force as he listened. If the special engine
should not dash up in time to batter down the wall—
Hawk closed as dispassionately as he had begun, and


WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY 141
the judge bowed gravely in Hunnicott's direction. The
local attorney got upon his feet, and as he began to
speak a telegram was handed in. It was Kent's wire
from Juniberg, beseeching him to gain time at all haz-
ards, and he settled himself to the task. For thirty drag-
ging minutes he rang the changes on the various steps
in the suit, knowing well that the fatal moment was ap-
proaching when—Kent still failing him—he would be
compelled to submit his case without a scrap of an affi-
davit to support it.
The moment came, and still there was no encouraging
whistle shriek from the dun plain beyond the open win-
dows. Hawk was visibly disgusted, and Judge MacFar-
lane was growing justly impatient. Hunnicott began
again, and the judge reproved him mildly.
"Much of what you are saying is entirely irrelevant,
Mr. Hunnicott. This hearing is on the plaintiff'^
amended petition."
No one knew better than the local attorney that he
was wholly at the court's mercy; that he had been so
from the moment the judge began to consider his purely
formal defense, entirely unsupported by affidavits or
evidence of any kind. None the less, he strung his de-
nials out by every amplification he could devise, and,
having fired his last shot, sat down in despairing breath-
lessness to hear the judge's summing-up and decision.
Judge MacFarlane was mercifully brief. On the part


142
THE GRAFTERS
of the plaintiff there was an amended petition fully
fortified by uncontroverted affidavits. On the part of the
defendant company there was nothing but a formal de-
nial of the allegations. The duty of the court in the
premises was clear. The prayer of the plaintiff was
granted, the temporary relief asked for was given, and
the order of the court would issue accordingly.
The judge was rising when the still, hot air of the
room began to vibrate with the tremulous thunder of
the sound for which Hunnicott had been so long strain-
ing his ears. He was the first of the three to hear it,
and he hurried out ahead of the others. At the foot of
the stair he ran blindly against Kent, dusty, travel-worn
and haggard.
"You're too late!" he blurted out. "We're done up.
Hawk's petition has been granted and the road is in the
hands of a receiver."
Kent dashed his fist upon the stair-rail.
"Who is the man?" he demanded.
"Major Jim Guilford," said Hunnicott. Then, as
footfalls coming stairward were heard in the upper cor-
ridor, he locked arms with Kent, faced him about and
thrust him out over the door-stone. "Let's get out of
this. You look as if you might kill somebody."


XI
THE LAST DITCH
It was a mark of the later and larger development of
David Kent that he was able to keep his head in the
moment of catastrophes. In boyhood his hair had been
a brick-dust red, and having the temperament which be-
longs of right to the auburn-hued, his first impulse was
to face about and make a personal matter of the legal
robbery with Judge MacFarlane.
Happily for all concerned, Hunnicott's better coun-
sels prevailed, and when the anger fit passed Kent found
himself growing cool and determined. Hunnicott was
crestfallen and disposed to be apologetic; but Kent did
him justice.
"Don't blame yourself: there was nothing else you
could have done. Have you a stenographer in your
office?"
"Yes."
"A good one?"
"It's young Perkins: you know him."
(143)


144
THE GRAFTERS
"He'll do. 'Phone him to run down to the station and
get what telegrams there are for me, and we'll talk as
we go."
Once free of the Court House, Kent began a rapid-
fire of questions.
"Where is Judge MacFarlane stopping?"
"At the Mid-Continent."
"Have you any idea when he intends leaving town?"
"No; but he will probably take the first train. He
never stays here an hour longer than he has to after
adjournment."
"That would be the Flyer east at six o'clock. Is he
going east?"
"Come to think of it, I believe he is. Somebody said
he was going to Hot Springs. He's in miserable
health."
Kent saw more possibilities, and worse, and quick-
ened his pace a little.
"I hope your young man won't let the grass grow
under his feet," he said. "The minutes between now
and six o'clock are worth days to us."
"What do we do?" asked Hunnicott, willing to take
a little lesson in practice as he ran.
"The affidavits I have brought with me and the tele-
grams which are waiting at the station, must convince
MacFarlane that he has made a mistake. We shall pre-
pare a motion for the discharge of the receiver and for


THE LAST DITCH
145
the vacation of the order appointing him, and ask the
judge to set an early day for the hearing on the merits
of the case. He can't refuse."
Hunnicott shook his head.
"It has been all cut and dried from 'way back," he ob-
jected. "They won't let you upset it at the last mo-
ment."
"We'll give them a run for their money," said Kent.
"A good bit of it depends upon Perkins' speed as a
stenographer."
As it befell, Perkins did not prove a disappointment,
and by five o'clock Kent was in the lobby of the Mid-
Continent, sending his card up to the judge's room.
Word came back that the judge was in the caf6 fortify-
ing the inner man in preparation for his journey, and
Kent did not stand upon ceremony. From the archway
of the dining-room he marked down his man at a small
table in the corner, and went to him at once, plunging
promptly into the matter in hand.
"The exigencies of the case must plead my excuse for
intruding upon you here, Judge MacFarlane," he began
courteously. "But I have been told that you were leav-
ing town—"
The judge waved him down with a deprecatory fork.
"Court is adjourned, Mr. Kent, and I must decline
to discuss the case ex parte. Why did you allow it to
go by default?"


146 THE GRAFTERS
"That is precisely what I am here to explain/' said
Kent, suavely. "The time allowed us was very short;
and a series of accidents—"
Again the judge interrupted.
"A court can hardly take cognizance of accidents,
Mr. Kent. Your local attorney was on the ground and
he had the full benefit of the delay."
"I know," was the patient rejoinder. "Technically,
your order is unassailable. None the less, a great in-
justice has been done, as we are prepared to prove. I
am not here to ask you to reopen the case at your din-
ner-table, but if you will glance over these papers I am
sure you will set an early day for the hearing upon the
merits."
Judge MacFarlane forced a gray smile.
"You vote yea and nay in the same breath, Mr. Kent.
If I should examine your papers, I should be reopening
the case at my dinner-table. You shall have your hear-
ing in due course."
"At chambers?" said Kent. "We shall be ready at
any moment; we are ready now, in point of fact."
"I can not say as to that. My health is very pre-
carious, and I am under a physician's orders to take a
complete rest for a time. I am sorry if the delay shall
work a hardship to the company you represent; but
under the circumstances, with not even an affidavit of-
fered by your side, it is your misfortune. And now I


THE LAST DITCH 147
shall have to ask you to excuse me. It lacks but a few
minutes of my train time."
The hotel porter was droning out the call for the
east-bound Flyer, and Kent effaced himself while Judge
MacFarlane was paying his bill and making ready for
his departure. But when the judge set out to walk to the
station, Kent walked with him. There were five squares
to be measured, and for five squares he hung at MacFar-
lane's elbow and the plea he made should have won him
a hearing. Yet the judge remained impassible, and at
the end of the argument turned him back in a word to
his starting point.
"I can not recall the order at this time, if I would,
Mr. Kent; neither can I set a day for the hearing on the
merits. What has been done was done in open court and
in the presence of your attorney, who offered no evidence
in contradiction of the allegations set forth in the plain-
tiff's amended petition, although they were supported
by more than a dozen affidavits; and it can not be un-
done in the streets. Since you have not improved your
opportunities, you must abide the consequences. The
law can not be hurried."
They had reached the station and the east-bound train
was whistling for Gaston. Kent's patience was nearly
gone, and the auburn-hued temperament was clamoring
hotly for its innings.
"This vacation of yours, Judge MacFarlane: how


148
THE GRAFTEKS
long is it likely to last?" he inquired, muzzling his
wrath yet another moment.
"I can not say; if I could I might be able to give you
a more definite answer as to the hearing on the merits.
But my health is very miserable, as I have said. If I
am able to return shortly, I shall give you the hearing
at chambers at an early date."
"And if not?"
"If not, I am afraid it will have to go over to the
next term of court."
"Six months," said Kent; and then his temper broke
loose. "Judge MacFarlane, it is my opinion, speaking
as man to man, that you are a scoundrel. I know what
you have done, and why you have done it. Also, I know
why you are running away, now that it is done. So help
me God, I'll bring you to book for it if I have to make a
lifetime job of it! It's all right for your political back-
ers; they are thieves and bushwhackers, and they make
no secret of it. But there is one thing worse than a
trickster, and that is a trickster's tool!"
For the moment while the train was hammering in
over the switches they stood facing each other fiercely,
all masks flung aside, each after his kind; the younger
man flushed and battle-mad; the elder white, haggard,
tremulous. Kent did not guess, then or ever, how near
he came to death. Two years earlier a judge had been
shot and maimed on a western circuit and since then,


THE LAST DITCH
149
MacFarlane had taken a coward's precaution. Here was
a man that knew, and while he lived the cup of trem-
bling might never be put aside.
It was the conductor's cry of "All aboard!" that broke
the homicidal spell. Judge MacFarlane started guiltily,
shook off the angry eye-grip of his accuser, and went to
take his place in the Pullman. One minute later the
east-bound train was threading its way out among the
switches of the lower yard, and Kent had burst into the
telegraph office to wire the volcanic news to his chief.


$
<
XII
THE MAN IN POSSESSION
Appraised at its value in the current coin of street
gossip, the legal seizure of the Trans-Western figured
mainly as an example of the failure of modern business
methods when applied to the concealment of a working
corporation's true financial condition.
This unsympathetic point of view was sufficiently de-
fined in a bit of shop-talk between Harnwicke, the cold-
blooded, and his traffic manager in the office of the
Overland Short Line the morning after the newspaper
announcement of the receivership.
"I told you they were in deep water," said the lawyer,
confidently. "They haven't been making any earnings
—net earnings—since the Y. S. & F. cut into them at
Rio Verde, and the dividends were only a bluff for stock-
bracing purposes. I surmised that an empty treasury
was what was the matter when they refused to join us
in the veto affair."
"That is one way of looking at it," said the traffic
(150)


152
THE GRAFTEES
nature, and wolves are not the only creatures that are
prone to fall upon the disabled member of the pack and
devour him.
But in the State at large the press was discussing the
event from a political point of view; one section, small
but vehement, raising the cry of trickery and judicial
corruption, and prophesying the withdrawal of all for-
eign capital from the State, while the other, large and
complacent, pointed eloquently to the beneficent work-
ing of the law under which the cause of a poor woman,
suing for her undoubted right, might be made the whip
to flog corporate tyranny into instant subjection.
As for the dispossessed stock-holders in the far-away
East, they were slow to take the alarm, and still slower
to get concerted action. Like many of the western
roads, the Western Pacific had been capitalized largely
by popular subscription; hence there was no single
holder, or group of holders, of sufficient financial weight
to enter the field against the spoilers.
But when Loring and his associates had fairly got
the wires hot with the tale of what had been done, and
the much more alarming tale of what was likely to be
done, the Boston inertness vanished. A pool of the stock
was formed, with the members of the Advisory Board
as a nucleus; money was subscribed, and no less a legal
light than an ex-attorney-general of the state of Massa-
chusetts was despatched to the seat of war to advise


THE MAN IN POSSESSION 153
with the men on the ground. None the less, disaster
out-travels the swiftest of "limited" trains. Before the
heavily-feed consulting attorney had crossed the Hud-
son in his westward journey, Wall Street had taken no-
tice, and there was a momentary splash in the troubled
pool of the Stock Exchange and a vanishing circle of
ripples to show where Western Pacific had gone down.
In the meantime Major James Guilford, somewhile
president of the Apache National Bank of Gaston, and
antecedent to that the frowning autocrat of a twenty-
five-mile logging road in the North Carolina mountains,
had given bond in some sort and had taken possession
of the company's property and of the offices in the Quin-
tard Building.
His first official act as receiver was to ask for the
resignations of a dozen heads of departments, beginning^
with the general manager and pausing for the moment
with the supervisor of track. That done, he filled the
vacancies with political troughsmen; and with these as,
assistant decapitators the major passed rapidly down the
line, striking off heads in daily batches until the over-
flow of the Bucks political following was provided for
on the railroad's pay-rolls to the wife's cousin's nephew.
This was the work of the first few administrative days
or weeks, and while it was going on, the business atti-
tude of the road remained unchanged. But once seated
firmly in the saddle, with his awkward squad well in


154
THE GRAFTERS
hand, the major proceeded to throw a bomb of conster-
nation into the camp of his competitors.
Kent was dining with Ormsby in the grill-room of
the Camelot Club when the waiter brought in the even-
ing edition of the Argus, whose railroad reporter had
heard the preliminary fizzing of the bomb fuse. The
story was set out on the first page, first column, with ap-
propriate headlines.
WAR TO THE KNIFE AND THE KNIFE
TO THE HILT!
TRANS-WESTERN CUTS COMMODITY RATE.
Great Excitement in Railroad Circles. Receiver
Guilford's Hold-up.
Kent ran his eye rapidly down the column and passed
the paper across to Ormsby.
"I told you so," he said. "They didn't find the road
insolvent, but they are going to make it so in the short-
est possible order. A rate war will do it quicker than
anything else on earth."
Ormsby thrust out his jaw.
"Have we got to stand by and see 'em do it?"
"The man from Massachusetts says yes, and he
knows, or thinks he does. He has been here two weeks


THE MAN IN POSSESSION 155
now, and he has nosed out for himself all the dead-
walls. We can't appeal, because there is no decision to
appeal from. We can't take it out of the lower court
until it is finished in the lower court. We can't enjoin
an officer of the court; and there is no authority in the
State that will set aside Judge MacFarlane's order
when that order was made under technically legal con-
ditions."
"You could have told him'all that in the first five
minutes," said Ormsby.
"I did tell him, and was mildly sat upon. To-day he
came around and gave me back my opinion, clause for
clause, as his own. But I have no kick coming. Some-
body will have to be here to fight the battle to a finish
when the judge returns, and our expert will advise the
Bostonians to retain me."
"Does he stay?" Ormsby asked.
"Oh, no; he is going back with Loring to-night.
Loring has an idea of his own which may or may not be
worth the powder it will take to explode it. He is going
to beseech the Boston people to enlarge the pool until
it controls a safe majority of the stock."
"What good will that do?"
"None, directly. It's merely a safe preliminary to any-
thing that may happen. I tell Loring he is like all the
others: he knows when he has enough and is willing to
stand from under. I'm the only fool in the lot."


THE MAN IN POSSESSION 157
and the only one, perhaps: I don't know when I'm
beaten. And I'll down this crowd of political plunderers
yet, if Bucks doesn't get me sand-bagged."
His listener pushed back his chair.
"If you stood to lose anything more than your job
I could understand it," he commented. "As it is, I
can't. Any way you look at it, your stake in the game
isn't worth the time and effort it will take to play the
string out. And I happen to know you're ambitious to
do things—things that count."
"What is it you don't understand—the motive?"
"That's it."
Kent laughed.
"You are not as astute as Miss Van Brock. She
pointed it out to me last night—or thought she did—
in two words."
Ormsby's eyes darkened, and he did not affect to mis-
understand.
"It would be a grand-stand play," he said half-
musingly, "if you should happen to worry it through,
I mean. I believe Mrs. Hepzibah would be ready to fall
on your neck and forgive you, and turn me down."
Then, half-jestingly: "Kent, what will you take to drop
this thing permanently and go away?"
David Kent's smile showed his teeth.
"The one thing you wouldn't be willing to give. You


158
THE GRAFTERS
asked me once when we had fallen over the fence upon
this forbidden ground if I were satisfied, and I told you
I wasn't. Do we understand each other?"
"I guess so," said Ormsby. "But— Say, Kent, I
like you too well to see you go up against a stone fence
blindfolded. I'm like Guilford: I am the man in pos-
session. And possession is nine points of the law."
Kent rose and took the proffered cigar from Ormsby's
case.
"It depends a good bit upon how the possession is
gained—and held—doesn't it?" he rejoined coolly.
"And your figure is unfortunate in its other half. I
am going to beat Guilfori."


XIII
THE WRECKERS
Just why Receiver Guilford, an officer of the court
who was supposed to be nursing an insolvent railroad to
the end that its creditors might not lose all, should be-
gin by declaring war on the road's revenue, was a ques-
tion which the managers of competing lines strove vainly
to answer. But when, in defiance of all precedent, he
made the cut rates effective to and from all local sta-
tions on the Trans-Western, giving the shippers at in-
termediate and non-competitive points the full benefit
of the reductions, the railroad colony denounced him as
a madman and gave him a month in which to find the
bottom of a presumably empty treasury.
But the event proved that the major's madness was
not altogether without method. It is an axiom in the
carrying trade that low rates make business; create it,
so to speak, out of nothing. Given an abundant crop,
low prices, and high freight rates in the great cereal
belt, and, be the farmers never so poor, much of the
(159)


160
THE GRAFTERS
grain will be stored and held against the chance of bet-
ter conditions.
So it came about that Major Guilford's relief measure
was timed to a nicety, and the blanket cut in rates
opened a veritable flood-gate for business in Trans-
Western territory. From the day of its announcement
the traffic of the road increased by leaps and bounds.
Stored grain came out of its hiding places at every
country cross-roads to beg for cars; stock feeders drove
their market cattle unheard-of distances, across the
tracks of competing lines, over and around obstacles of
every sort, to pour them into the loading corrals of the
Trans-Western.
Nor was the traffic all outgoing. With the easing of
the money burden, the merchants in the tributary towns
began thriftily to take advantage of the low rates to re-
new their stocks; long-deferred visits and business trips
suddenly became possible; and the saying that it was
cheaper to travel than to stay at home gained instant
and grateful currency.
In a short time the rolling stock of the road was taxed
to its utmost capacity, and the newly appointed pur-
chasing agent was buying cars and locomotives right
and left. Also, to keep pace with the ever-increasing
procession of trains, a doubled construction force
wrought night and day installing new side tracks and
passing points.


THE WEECKERS
161
Under the fructifying influence of such a golden
shower of prosperity, land values began to rise again,
slowly at first, as buyers distrusted the continuance of
the golden shower; more rapidly a little later, as the
Guilford policy denned itself in terms of apparent per-
manence.
Towns along the line—hamlets long since fallen into
the way-station rut of desuetude—awoke with a start,
bestirring themselves joyfully to meet the inspiriting
conditions. At Midland City, Stephen Hawk, the new
right-of-way agent, ventured to ask municipal help to
construct a ten-mile branch to Lavabee: it was forthcom-
ing promptly; and the mass meeting, at which the bond
loan was anticipated by public subscription shouted it-
self hoarse in enthusiasm.
At Gaston, where Hawk asked for a donation of land
whereon the company might build the long-promised
division repair-shops, people fought with one another
to be first among the donors. And at Juniberg, where
the company proposed to establish the first of a series
of grain subtreasuries—warehouses in which the farm-
ers of the surrounding country could store their prod-
ucts and borrow money on them from the railroad
company at the rate of three per cent, per annum—at
Juniberg enough money was subscribed to erect three
such depots as the heaviest tributary crop could possibly
fill.


162
THE GRAFTERS
It was while the pendulum of prosperity was in full
swing that David Kent took a day off from sweating
over his problem of ousting the receiver and ran down
to Gaston. Single-eyed as he was in the pursuit of jus-
tice, he was not unmindful of the six lots standing in
his name in the Gaston suburb, and from all accounts
the time was come to dispose of them.
He made the journey in daylight, with his eyes wide
open and the mental pencil busy at work noting the
changes upon which the State press had been dilating
daily, but which he was now seeing for the first time.
They were incontestable—and wonderful. He admitted
the fact without prejudice to a settled conviction that
the sun-burst of prosperity was merely another brief
period of bubble-blowing. Towns whose streets had been
grass-grown since the day when each in turn had sur-
rendered its right to be called the terminus of the west-
ward-building railroad, were springing into new life.
The song of the circular saw, the bee-boom of the plan-
ing-mill and the tapping of hammers were heard in the
land, and the wayside hamlets were dotted with new
roofs. And Gaston—
But Gaston deserved a separate paragraph in the men-
tal note-book, and Kent accorded it, marveling still
more. It was as if the strenuous onrush of the climax-
ing Year Three had never been interrupted. The ma-


THE WRECKERS
163
terial for the new company shops was arriving by train-
loads, and an army of men was at work clearing the
grounds. On a siding near the station a huge grain ele-
vator was rising. In the streets the hustling activity of
the "terminus" period was once more in full swing; and
at the Mid-Continent Kent had some little difficulty in
securing a room.
He was smoking his after-dinner cigar in the lobby of
the hotel and trying as he might to orient himself when
Blashfield Hunnicott drifted in. Kent gave the some-
time local attorney a cigar, made room for him on the
plush-covered settee, and proceeded to pump him dry of
Gaston news. Summed up, the inquiries pointed them-
selves thus: was there any basis for the Gaston revival
other than the lately changed attitude of the railroad?
In other words, if the cut rates should be withdrawn
and the railroad activities cease, would there not be a
second and still more disastrous collapse of the Gaston
bubble?
Pressed hardly, Hunnicott admitted the probability;
given another turn, the screw of inquiry squeezed out
an admission of the fact, slurred over by the revivalist,
that the railway company's treasury was really the alms-
box into which all hands were dipping.
"One more question and I'll let up on you," said
Kent. "It used to be said of you in the flush times that


164
THE GRAFTEES
you kept tab on the real estate transfers when everybody
else was too busy to read the record. Do you still do
it?"
Hunnicott laughed uneasily.
"Rather more than ever just now, as you'd imagine."
"It is well. Now you know the members of the old
gang, from his Excellency down. Tell me one thing:
are they buying or selling?"
Hunnicott sprang up and slapped his leg.
"By Jupiter, Kent! They are selling—every last man
of them!"
"Precisely. And when they have sold all they have to
sell?"
"They'll turn us loose—drop us—quit booming the
town, if your theory is the right one. But say, Kent,
I can't believe it, you know. It's too big a thing to be
credited to Jim Guilford and his handful of subs in the
railroad office. Why, it's all along the line, everywhere."
"I'm telling you that Guilford isn't the man. He is.
only a cog in the wheel. There is a bigger mind than
his behind it."
"I can't help it," Hunnicott protested. "I don't be-
lieve that any man or clique could bring this thing about
unless we were really on the upturn."
"Very good; believe what you please, but'do as I tell
you. Sell every foot of Gaston dirt that stands in
your name; and while you are about it, sell those six


THE WRECKERS
165
lots for me in Subdivision Five. More than that, do it
pretty soon."
Hunnieott promised, in the brokerage affair, at least.
Then he switched the talk to the receivership.
"Still up in the air, are you, in the railroad grab*
case?"
Kent nodded.
"No news of MacFarlane?"
"Plenty of it. His health is still precarious, and will
likely remain so until the spoilsmen have picked the
skeleton clean."
Hunnieott was silent for a full minute. Then he said:
"Say, Kent, hasn't it occurred to you that they are
rather putting meat on the bones instead of taking it
off? Their bills for betterments must be out of sight."
It had occurred to Kent, but he gave his own explana-
tion of Major Guilford's policy in a terse sentence.
"It is a part of the bluff; fattening the thing a little
before they barbecue it."
"I suppose so. It's a pity we don't live a little far-
ther back in the history of the world: say at a time
when we could hire MacFarlane's doctor to obliterate
the judge, and no questions asked."
Who can explain how it is that some jesting word,
trivial and purposeless it may be, will fire a hidden train
of thought which was waiting only for some chance
spark? "Obliterate the judge," said Hunnieott in grim


166
THE GRAFTERS
jest; and straightway Kent saw possibilities; saw a thing
to be done, though not yet the manner of its doing.
"If you'll excuse me," he said abruptly to his com-
panion, "I believe I'll try to catch the Flyer back to the
capital. I came down to see about selling those lots of
mine, but if you will undertake it for me—"
"Of course," said Hunnicott; "I'll be only too glad.
You've ten minutes: can you make it?"
Kent guessed so, and made the guess a certainty with
two minutes to spare. The through sleeper was lightly
loaded, and he picked out the most unneighbored sec-
tion of the twelve, being wishful only for undisturbed
thinking ground. But before the train had swung past
the suburb lights of Gaston, the smoker's unrest seized
him and the thought-wheels demanded tobacco. Kent
fought it as long as he could, making sure that the
smoking-compartment liars' club would be in session;
but when the demand became a nagging insistence, he
found his pipe and tobacco and went to the men's room.
The little den behind the drawing-room had but one
occupant besides the rear-end brakeman—a tall, satur-
nine man in a gray grass-cloth duster who was smoking a
Porto Rican stogie. Kent took a second look and held
out his hand.
"This is an unexpected pleasure, Judge Marston. I
was counting on three hours of solitary confinement."
The lieutenant-governor acknowledged the hand-clasp,


THE WRECKERS
167
nodded, and made room on the leather-covered divan for
the new-comer. Hildreth, the editor of the Argus, put
it aptly when he said that the grim-faced old cattle king
had "blown" into politics. He was a compromise on the
People's Party ticket; was no part of the Bucks pro-
gramme, and had been made to feel it. Tradition had it
that he had been a terror to the armed and organized
cattle thieves of the early days; hence the brevet title of
"Judge." But those that knew him best did not know
that he had once been the brightest man upon the Su-
preme Bench of his native state: this before failing
health had driven him into exile.
As a mixer, the capital had long since voted Oliver
Marston a conspicuous failure. A reticent, reserved man
by temperament and habit, and with both temperament
and habit confirmed by his long exile on the cattle
ranges, he had grown rather less than more talkative
after his latest plunge into public life; and even Miss
Van Brock confessed that she found him impossible on
the social side. None the less, Kent had felt drawn to-
ward him from the first; partly because Marston was a
good man in bad company, and partly because there was
something remindful of the elder Kent in the strong
face, the slow smile and the introspective eye of the old
man from the hill country.
For a time the talk was a desultory monologue, with
Xent doing his best to keep it from dying outright.


168
THE GRAFTERS
Later, when he was fairly driven in upon his reserves, he
began to speak of himself, and of the hopeless fight for
enlargement in the Trans-Western struggle. Marston
lighted the match-devouring stogie for the twentieth
time, squared himself on the end of the divan and list-
ened attentively. At the end of the recounting he said:
"It seems to be a failure of justice, Mr. Kent. Can
you prove your postulate?"
"I can. With fifteen minutes more on the day of the
preliminary hearing I should have shown it to any one's
satisfaction."
Marston went into a brown study with his eyes fixed
upon the stamped-leather devil in the panel at the oppo-
site end of the compartment. When he spoke again,
Kent wondered at the legal verbiage, and still more at
the clear-cut, judicial opinion.
"The facts in the case, as you state them, point to ju-
dicial connivance, and we should always be slow to
charge that, Mr. Kent. Technically, the court was not
at fault. Due notice was served on the company's attor-
ney of record, and you admit, yourself, that the delay,
short as it was, would have been sufficient if you had not
been accidentally detained. And, since there were no
contravening affidavits submitted, Judge MacFarlane
was technically warranted in granting the prayer for a
temporary receiver."
"I'm not trying to refute that," said Kent. "But


THE WRECKERS
16»
afterward, when I called upon the judge with the evi-
dence in hand—"
"He was under no absolute obligation to retry the case
out of court, as you know, Mr. Kent. Neither was he
obliged to give you an unofficial notice of the day upon
which he would hear your motion for the discharge of
the receiver and the vacation of his order appointing
him."
"Under no absolute legal obligation, perhaps," re-
torted Kent. "But the moral obligation—"
"We are coming to that. I have been giving you what
would probably be a minority opinion of an appellate
court, if you could take an appeal. The majority opin-
ion might take higher ground, pointing to the manifest
injustice done to the defendant company by the short-
ness of the delay granted; by Judge MacFarlane's re-
fusal to continue the hearing for one hour, though your
attorney was present and pleading for the same; and
lastly for the indefinite postponement of the hearing on
the merits on insufficient grounds, since the judge was
not at the time, and has not since been, too ill to attend
to the routine duties of his office."
Kent looked up quickly.
"Judge Marston, do you know that last assertion to
be true?" he demanded.
The slow smile came and went in the introspective
eyes of the older man.


170
THE GEAFTERS
"I have been giving you the opinion of the higher
court," he said, with his nearest approach to jocoseness.
"It is based upon the supposition that your allegations
would be supported by evidence."
Kent smoked on in silence while the train measured
the rail-lengths between two of the isolated prairie sta-
tions. When he spoke again there was honest deference
in his manner.
"Mr. Marston, you have a far better right to your
courtesy title of 'Judge' than that given by the Great
American Title Company, Unlimited," he said. "Will
you advise me?"
"As plain Oliver Marston, and a man old enough to
be your father, yes. What have you been doing? Try-
ing to oust the receiver, I suppose."
"Yes; trying to find some technical flaw by which he
could be ousted."
"It can't be done. You must strike higher. Are you
fully convinced of Judge MacFarlane's venality?"
"As fully as I can be without having seen with my
own eyes and heard with my own ears."
Marston opened his watch and looked at it. Then he
lighted another of the villainous little cigars.
"We have an hour yet," he said. "You have been giv-
ing me the legal points in the case: now give me the in-
ferences—all of them."
Kent laughed.


THE WEECKEES
171
"I'm afraid I sha'n't be able to forget the lieutenant-
governor. I shall have to call some pretty hard names."
"Call them/' said his companion, briefly; and Kent
went deep into the details, beginning with the formation
of the political gang in Gaston the dismantled.
The listener in the gray dust-coat heard him through
without comment. When Kent reached the end of the
inferences, telling the truth without scruple and letting
the charge of political and judicial corruption lie where
it would, the engineer was whistling for the capital.
"You have told me some things I knew, and some
others that I only suspected," was all the answer he got
until the train was slowing into the Union Station.
Then as he flung away the stump of the little cigar the
silent one added: "If I were in your place, Mr. Kent,
I believe I should take a supplementary course of read-
ing in the State law."
"In what particular part of it?" said Kent, keen
anxiety in every word.
"In that part of the fundamental law which relates
to the election of circuit judges, let us say. If I had
your case to fight, I should try to obliterate Judge Mac-
Farlane."
Kent had but a moment in which to remark the cu-
rious coincidence in the use of precisely the same word
by both Hunnicott and his present adviser.
"But, my dear sir! we should gain nothing by Mac-


172
THE GEAFTEES
Parlane's removal when his successor would be appointed
by the executive!"
Marston turned in the doorway of the smoking-com-
partment and laid a fatherly hand on the younger man's
shoulder.
"My boy, I didn't say 'remove'; I said 'obliterate'.
Good night."


XIV
THE GERRYMANDER
With Judge Marston's hint partly to point the way,
Kent was no long time in getting at work on the new
lead.
Having been at the time a practitioner in one of the
counties affected, he knew the political deal by which
MacFarlane had been elected. Briefly described, it was
a swapping of horses in midstream. In the preliminary
canvass it was discovered that in all probability Judge
MacFarlane's district, as constituted, would not reelect
him. But the adjoining district was strong enough to
spare a county without loss to the party; and that
county added to MacFarlane's voting strength would tip
the scale in his favor. The Assembly was in session,
and the remedy was applied in the shape of a bill read-
justing the district lines to fit the political necessity.
While this bill was still in the lower house an obsta-
cle presented itself in the form of a vigorous protest
(173)


174
THE GRAFTEES
from Judge Whitcomb, whose district was the one to
suffer loss. The county in question was a prosperous
one, and the court fees—which a compliant clerk might
secretly divide with the judge appointing him—were
large: wherefore Whitcomb threatened political reprisals
if Kiowa County should be taken away from him. The
outcome was a compromise. For elective purposes the
two districts were gerrymandered as the bill proposed;
but it was expressly provided that the transferred county
should remain judicially in Whitcomb's district until
the expiration of Whitcomb's term of office.
Having refreshed his memory as to the facts, Kent
spent a forenoon in the State library. He stayed on
past the luncheon hour, feeding on a dry diet of Di-
gests; and it was not until hunger began to sharpen his
faculties that he thought of going back of the statutory
law to the fountain-head in the constitution of the
State. Here, after he had read carefully section by sec-
tion almost through the entire instrument, his eye
lighted upon a clause which gradually grew luminous
as he read and re-read it.
"That is what Marston meant; it must be what he
meant," he mused; and returning the book to its niche
in the alcove he sat down to put his face in his hands
and sum up the status in logical sequence.
The conclusion must have been convincing, since he
presently sprang up and left the room quickly to have


THE GERRYMANDER 175
himself shot down the elevator shaft to the street level.
The telegraph office in the capitol was closed, but there
was another in the Hotel Brunswick, two squares dis-
tant, and thither he went.
"Hold the pool in fighting trim at all hazards.
Think I have found weak link in the chain," was his
wire to Loring, at Boston; and having sent it, he went
around to Cassatti's and astonished the waiter by order-
ing a hearty luncheon at half-past three o'clock in the
afternoon.
It was late in the evening before he left the tiny of-
fice on the fifth floor of the Quintard Building where
one of his former stenographers had set up in business
for herself. Since five o'clock the young woman had
been steadily driving the type-writer to Kent's dictation.
When the final sheet came out with a whirring rasp of
the ratchet, he suddenly remembered that he had prom-
ised Miss Van Brock to dine with her. It was too late
for the dinner, but not too late to go and apologize, and
he did the thing that he could, stopping at his rooms on
the way to dress while his cab-driver waited.
He found Portia alone, for which he was glad; but
her greeting was distinctly accusative.
"If I should pretend to be deeply offended and tell
Thomas to show you the door, what could you say for
yourself?" she began, before he could say a word in ex-
culpation.


176
THE GEAFTEES
"I should say every sort of excuseful thing I could
think of, knowing very well that the most ingenious lie
would fall far short of atoning for the offense," he re-
plied humbly.
"Possibly it would be better to tell the truth—had
you thought of that?" she suggested, quite without
malice.
"Yes, I had; and I shall, if you'll let me begin back
a bit." He drew up a chair to face her and sat on the
«dge of it. 'TTou know I told you I was going to Gaston
to sell my six lots while Major Guilford's little boom is
on?"
"I'm trying to remember: go on."
"Well, I went yesterday morning and returned late
last night. Do you know, it's positively marvelous!"
"Which—the six lots, the boom, or the celerity of
your movements?" she asked, with a simulation of the
deepest interest.
"All three, if you please; but I meant the miraculous
revival of things along the Trans-Western. But that is
neither here nor there—"
"I think it is very much here and there," she inter-
rupted.
"I see you don't want me to tell the truth—the whole
truth; but I am determined. The first man I met after
dinner was Hunnicott, and when I had made him my
broker in the real estate affair we fell to talking about


THE GERRYMANDER
177
the railroad steal. Speaking of MacFarlane's continued
absence, Hunnicott said, jokingly, that it was a pity we
couldn't go back to the methods of a few hundred years
ago and hire the Hot Springs doctor to 'obliterate' him.
The word stuck in my mind, and I broke away and
took the train chiefly to have a chance to think out the
new line. In the smoking-room of the sleeper I found
—whom, do you suppose?"
"Oh, I don't know: Judge MacFarlane, perhaps,
coming back to give you a chance to poison him at short
range?"
"No; it was Marston."
"And he talked so long and so fast that you couldn't
get here in time for dinner this evening? That would
be the most picturesque of the little fictions you spoke
of."
Kent laughed.
"For the first hour he wouldn't talk at all; just
sat there wooden-faced, smoking vile little cigars that
made me think I was getting hay-fever. But I wouldn't
give up; and after I had worn out all the common-
places I began on the Trans-Western muddle. At that
he woke up all at once, and before I knew it he was
giving me an expert legal opinion on the case; meaty
and sound and judicial. Miss Van Brock, that man is a
lawyer, and an exceedingly able one, at that."
"Of course," she said coolly. "He was one of the


178
THE GRAFTERS
justices of the Supreme Court of his own state at forty-
two : that was before he had to come West for his health.
I found that out a long time ago."
"And you never told me!" said Kent, reproachfully.
"Well, no matter; I found out for myself that he is a
man to tie to. After we had canvassed the purely legal
side of the affair, he wanted to know more, and I went
in for the details, telling him all the inferences which
involve Bucks, Meigs, Hendricks, MacFarlane and the
lot of them."
Miss Portia's eyes were flashing.
"Good, good, good!" she said. "David, I'm proud of
you. That took courage—heaps of it."
"I did have to forget pretty hard that he was the
lieutenant-governor and nominally one of the gang.
But if he is not with us, neither is he against us. He
took it all in quietly, and when I was through, he said:
'You have told me some things that I knew, and some
others that I only suspected.'"
"Was that all?" asked Miss Van Brock, eagerly.
"No; I took a good long breath and asked his advice."
"Did he give it?"
"He did. He said in sober earnest just what Hunni-
cott had said in a joke: 'If I had your case to fight, I
should try to obliterate Judge MacFarlane.' I began to
say that MacFarlane's removal wouldn't help us so long
as Bucks has the appointing of his successor, and then-


THE GERRYMANDER 179
he turned on me and hammered it in with a last word
just as we were leaving the train: 'I didn't say remove;
I said obliterate.' I caught on, after so long a time, and
I've been hard at work ever since."
"You are obliterating me," said Miss Portia. "I
haven't the slightest idea what it is all about."
"It's easy from this on," said Kent, consolingly. "You
know how MacFarlane secured his reelection?"
"Everybody knows that."
''Well, to cut a long story short, the gerrymander deal
won't stand the light. The constitution says—"
"Oh, please don't quote law books at me. Put it in
English—woman-English, if you can."
"I will. The special act of the Assembly is void;
therefore there was no legal election, and, by conse-
quence, there is no judge and no receiver."
Miss Van Brock was silent for a reflective minute.
Then she said:
"On second thought, perhaps you would better tell
me what the constitution says, Mr. David. Possibly I
could grasp it."
"It is in the section on elections. It says: 'All circuit
or district judges, and all special judges, shall be elected
by the qualified voters of the respective circuits or dis-
tricts in which they are to hold their court.' Kiowa
County was cut out of Judge Whitcomb's circuit and
placed in Judge MacFarlane's for electoral purposes


180
THE GEAFTERS
only. In all other respects it remains a part of Judge
Whitcomb's circuit, and will so continue until Whit-
comb's term expires. Without the vote of Kiowa, Mac-
Farlane could not have been elected; with it he was il-
legally elected, or, to put it the other way about, he was
not elected at all. Since he is not lawfully a judger
his acts are void, among them this appointment of
Major Guilford as receiver for the Trans-Western."
She was not as enthusiastic as he thought she ought
to be. In the soil prepared for it by the political confi-
dences of the winter there had grown up a many-branch-
ing tree of intimacy between these two; a frank, sexless
friendship, as Kent would have described it, in which a
man who was not very much given to free speech with
any one unburdened himself, and the woman made him
believe that her quick, apprehending sympathy was the
one thing needful—as women have done since the world
began.
Since the looting of the railroad which had taken
him out of the steadying grind of regular work, Kent
had been the prey of mixed motives. From the first he
had thrown himself heartily into the problem of re-
trieval, but the pugnacious professional ambition to
break the power of the machine had divided time pretty
equally with sentiment. Elinor had said little about the
vise-nip of hardship which the stock-smashing would


THE GEEEYMANDEB 181
impose upon three unguardianed women; but Penelope
had been less reticent. Wanting bare justice at the
hands of the wreckers, Elinor would go to her wedding
with Ormsby as the beggar maid went to King Co-
phetua; and all the loyalty of an unselfish love rose up
in Kent to make the fight with the grafters a personal
duel.
At every step in the hitherto discouraging struggle
Portia Van Brock had been his keen-sighted adviser,
prompter, ally of proof. He told himself now and again
in a flush of gratitude that he was coming to owe her
more than he had ever owed any woman; that where
other men, more—or less—fortunate, were not denied
the joy of possession, he, the disappointed one, was find-
ing a true and loyal comradeship next best, if not quite
-equal to the beatitudes of passion.
In all of which David Kent was not entirely just to
himself. However much he owed to Portia—and the
debt was large—she was not his only creditor. Some-
thing he owed to the unsatisfied love; more, perhaps, to
the good blood in his veins; but most of all to the battle
itself. For out of the soul-harrowings of endeavor was
emerging a better man, a stronger man, than any his
friends had known. Brutal as their blind gropings
were, the Flagellants of the Dark Ages plied their whips
to some dim purpose. Natures there be that rise only


THE GERRYMANDER 183
"I suppose I do: all men do, don't they?"
She was tying little knots in the fringe of the table
scarf, but the prophetess-eyes, as Penelope called them,
were not following the deft intertwinings of the slender
fingers.
"You mean to set about 'obliterating' Judge MacFar-
lane forthwith?" she asked.
"Assuredly. I have been whipping the thing into
shape all afternoon: that is what kept me from dining
with you."
"It involves some kind of legal procedure?"
"Yes; a rather complicated one."
"Could you explain it so that I could understand it?"
"I think so. In the first place the question is raised
by means of an information or inquiry called a quo war-
ranto. This is directed to the receiver, and is a demand
to know by what authority he holds. Is it clear thus
far?"
"Pellucidly," she said.
"In reply the receiver cites his authority, which is the
order from Judge MacFarlane; and in our turn we pro-
ceed to show that the authority does not exist—that the
judge's election was illegal and that therefore his acts
are void. Do I make it plain?"
"You make it seem as though it were impossible to
fail. And yet I know you will fail."
"How do you know it?"


184
THE GEAFTEES
"Don't ask me; I couldn't begin to tell you that. But
in some spiritual or mental looking-glass I can see you
coming to me with the story of that failure—coming to
ask my help."
He smiled.
"You don't need to be the prophetess Penelope says
you are to foresee part of that. I always come to you
with my woes."
"Do you ?—oftener than you go to Miss Brentwood?"
This time his smile was a mere tightening of the lips.
"You do love to grind me on that side, don't you?"
he said. "I and my affairs are less than nothing to Miss
Brentwood, and no one knows it any better than you do."
"But you want to go to her," she persisted. "I am
only the alternative."
He looked her full in the eyes.
"Miss Van Brock, what is it you want me to say?
What can I say more than I said a moment ago—that
you are the truest friend a man ever had?"
The answering look out of the brown eyes was age-old
in its infinite wisdom.
"How little you men know when you think you know
the most," she said half -musingly; then she broke off
abruptly. "Let us talk about something else. If Major
Guilford is wrecking the railroad, why is he spending so
much money on improvements? Have you thought to
ask yourself that question?"


THE GERRYMANDER 185
"A good many times," he admitted, following her
promptly back to first principles.
"And you have not found the answer?"
"Not one that fully satisfies me—no."
"I've found one,"
"Intuitively?" he smiled.
"No; it's pure logic, this time. Do you remember
showing me a letter that Mr. Hunnicott wrote you just
before the explosion—a letter in which he repeated a
bit of gossip about Mr. Semple Falkland and his mys-
terious visit to Gaston?"
"Yes, I remember it."
"Do you know who Mr. Falkland is?"
"Who doesn't?" he queried. "He has half of Wall
Street in his clientele."
"Yes; but particularly he is the advisory counsel of
the Plantagould System. Ever since you showed me
that letter I have been trying to account for his pres-
ence in Gaston on the day before Judge MacFarlane's
spring term of court. I should never have found out
but for Mrs. Brentwood."
"Mrs. Brentwood!"
Miss Van Brock nodded.
"Yes; the mother of my—of the young person for
whom I am the alternative, is in a peck of trouble; I
quote her verbatim. She and her two daughters hold
some three thousand shares of Western Pacific stock. It


186
THE GRAFTERS
was purchased at fifty-seven, and it is now down to
twenty-one."
"Twenty and a quarter to-day," Kent corrected.
"Never mind the fractions. The mother of the in-
comparable^—Penelope, has heard that I am a famous
business woman; a worthy understudy for Mrs. Hetty
Green; so she came to me for advice. She had a letter
from a New York broker offering her a fraction more
than the market price for her three thousand shares of
Western Pacific."
"Well?" said Kent.
"Meaning what did I do? I did what you did not
do—what you are not doing even now; I put two and
two together in the twinkling of a bedstaff. Why should
a New York broker be picking up outlying Western Pa-
cific at a fraction more than the market when the stock
is sinking every day? I was curious enough to pass the
'why' along to a friend of mine in Wall Street."
"Of course he told you all about it," said Kent, in-
credulously.
"He told me what I needed to know. The broker in
question is a Plantagould man."
"Still I fail to 'connect up,' as the linemen say."
"Do you? Ah, David, David! will you leave it for a
woman to point out what you should have suspected the
moment you read that bit of gossip in Mr. Hunnicott's
letter?"


THE GERRYMANDER 18?
Her hand was on the arm of her chair. He covered
it with his own.
"I'll leave it for you, Portia. You are my good angel."
She withdrew the hand quickly, but there was no
more than playful resentment in her retort.
"Shame on you!" she scoffed. "What would Misfe
Brentwood say?"
"I wish you would leave her out of it," he frowned.
"You are continually ignoring the fact that she has
promised to be the wife of another man."
"And has thereby freed you from all obligations of
loyalty? Don't deceive yourself: women are not made
that way. Doubtless she will go on and marry the other
man in due season; but she will never forgive you if
you smash her ideals. But we were talking about the
things you ought to have guessed. Fetch me the atlas
from the book-case—lower shelf; right-hand corner;
that's it."
He did it; and in further obedience opened the thin
quarto at the map of the United States. There were
heavy black lines, inked in with a pen, tracing out the
various ramifications of a great railway system. The
nucleus of the system lay in the middle West, but there
was a growing network of the black lines reaching out
toward the Pacific. And connecting the trans-Missis-
sippi network with the western was a broad red line
paralleling the Trans-Western Railway.


188
THE GRAFTERS
She smiled at his sudden start of comprehension.
"Do you begin to suspect things?" she asked.
He nodded his head.
"You ought to be a man. If you were, I should never
give you a moment's peace until you consented to take a
partnership with me. It's as plain as day, now."
"Is it? Then I wish you would make it appear so to
me. I am not half as subtile as you give me credit for
being."
"Yet you worked this out."
"That was easy enough; after I had seen Mrs. Brent-
wood's letter, and yours from Mr. Hunnicott. The
Plantagould people want your railroad, and the receiver-
ship is a part of a plan for acquiring it. But why is
Major Guilford spending so much money for improve-
ments?"
"His reasons are not far to seek now that you have
shown me where to look. His instructions are to run
the stock down so that the Plantagould can buy it in.
Cut rates and big expenditures will do that—have done
it. On the other hand, it is doubtless a condition of the
deal that the road shall be turned over whole as to its
property values—there is to be no wrecking in the gen-
eral acceptance of the word. The Plantagould doesn't
want a picked skeleton."
Miss Portia's eyes narrowed.
"It's a skilful bit of engineering, isn't it?" she said.


THE GERRYMANDER 189
"You'd admire it as artistic work yourself if your point
of view were not so hopelessly personal."
"You don't know half the artistic skill of it yet," he
went on. "Besides all these different ends that are be-
ing conserved, the gang is taking care of its surplus
heelers on the pay-rolls of the company. More than
that, it is making immense political capital for it-
self. Everybody knows what the policy of the road was
under the old regime: 'All the tariff the traffic will
stand.' But now a Bucks man has hold of it, and liber-
ality is the word. Every man in Trans-Western terri-
tory is swearing by Bucks and Guilford. Ah, my dear
friend, his Excellency the governor is a truly great
man!"
She nodded.
"I've been trying to impress you with that fact all
along. The mistake you made was in not joining the
People's Party early in the campaign, David."
But Kent was following out his own line of thought
and putting it in words as it came.
"Think of the brain-work it took to bring all these
things into line. There was no hitch, no slip, and noth
ing was overlooked. They picked their time, and it was
a moment when we were absolutely helpless. I had filed
our charter, but our local organization was still incom-
plete. They had their judge and the needful case in his
court, pending and ready for use at the precise moment.


190
THE GRAFTERS
They had Hawk on the ground, armed and equipped;
and they knew that unless a miracle intervened they
would have nobody but an unprepared local attorney to
obstruct them."
"Is that all?" she asked.
"No. The finest bit of sculpture is on the capstone
of the pyramid. Since we have had no hearing on the
merits, Guilford is only a temporary receiver, subject
to discharge if the allegations in Hawk's amended peti-
tion are not sustained. After the major has sufficiently
smashed the stock, Judge MacFarlane will come back,
the hearing on the merits will be given, we shall doubt-
less make our point, and the road will revert to the
stock-holders. But by that time enough of the stock
will have changed hands on the 'wreck' price to put the
Plantagould people safely in the saddle, and the freeze-
out will be a fact accomplished."
Miss Van Brock drew a long breath that was more
than half a sigh.
"You spoke the simple truth, David, when you said
that his Excellency is a great man. It seems utterly
hopeless now that we have cleared up all the little mys-
teries."
Kent rose to take his leave.
"No; that is where they all go out and I stay in," he
said cheerfully. "The shrewder he is, the more credit


THE GEERYMANDER 191
there will be in making him let go. And you mark my
words: I am going to make him let go. Good night."
She had gone with him to the door; was in the act of
closing it behind him, when he turned back for a be-
lated question.
"By the way, what did you tell Mrs. Brentwood to
do?"
"I told her not to do anything until she had consulted
you and Mr. Loring and Brookes Ormsby. Was that
right?"
"Quite right. If it comes up again, rub it in some
more. We'll save her alive yet, if she will let us. Did
you say I might come to dinner to-morrow evening?
Thank you: you grow sweeter and more truly compas-
sionate day by day. Good night again."


XV
THE JUNKETERS
When Receiver Guilford took possession of the prop-
erties, appurtenances and appendages of the sequestered
Trans-Western Railway, one of the luxuries to which he
fell heir was private car "Naught-seven," a commodious
hotel on wheels originally used as the directors' car of
the Western Pacific, and later taken over by Loring to
be put in commission as the general manager's special.
In the hands of a friendly receiver this car became a
boon to the capitol contingent; its observation platform
served as a shifting rostrum from which a deep-chested
executive or a mellifluous Hawk often addressed ad-
miring crowds at way stations, and its dining saloon
was the moving scene of many little relaxative feasts, at
which Veuve Oliquot flowed freely, priceless cigars were
burned, and the members of the organization unbent,
each after his kind.
But to the men of the throttle and oil-can, car
Naught-seven, in the gift of a hospitable receiver, short-
(192)


THE JUNKETERS
193
ly became a nightmare. Like most private cars, it was
heavier than the heaviest Pullman; and the engineer
who was constrained to haul it like a dragging anchor
at the tail end of a fast train was prone to say words
not to be found in any vocabulary known to respectable
philologists.
It was in the evening of a wind-blown day, a week
after Kent's visit to Gaston, that Engineer "Red" Calla-
han, oiling around for the all-night run with the Flyer
on the Western Division, heard above the din and clamor
of Union Station noises the sullen thump betokening
the addition of another car to his train.
"Now fwhat the divvle will that be?" he rasped, paus-
ing, torch in hand, to apostrophize his fireman.
The answer came up out of the shadows to the rear
on the lips of M'Tosh, the train-master.
"You have the Naught-seven to-night, Callahan, and
a pretty severe head wind. Can you make your time?"
"Haven't thim bloody fools in the up-town office any-
thing betther to do than to tie that sivinty-ton ball-
an'-chain to my leg such a night as this?" This is not
what Callahan said: it is merely a printable paraphrase
of his rejoinder.
M'Tosh shook his head. He was a hold-over from the
Loring administration, not because his place was not
worth taking, but because as yet no political heeler had
turned up with the requisite technical ability to hold it.


THE JTTNKETEES
195
It was for this reason that Mr. Brookes Ormsby,
looking for a comfortable resort to which he might
take Mrs. Brentwood and her daughters for an outing,
hit upon the expedient of going first in person to
Breezeland, partly to make sure of accommodations, and
partly to check up the attractions of the place against
picturesque descriptions in the advertisements.
When he turned out of his sleeper in the early morn-
ing at Agua Caliente station, car Naught-seven had been
thrown in on a siding a little farther up the line, and
Ormsby recognized the burly person of the governor and
the florid face and pursy figure of the receiver, in the
group of men crossing from the private car to the wait-
ing Inn tally-ho. Being a seasoned traveler, the club-
man lost no time in finding the station agent.
"Isn't there some way you can get me up to the
hotel before that crowd reaches?" he asked; adding:
"I'll make it worth your while."
The reply effaced the necessity for haste.
"The Inn auto will be down in a few minutes, and
you can go up in that. Naught-seven brought Gover-
nor Bucks and the receiver and their party, and they're
going down to Megilp, the mining camp on the other
side of the State line. They've chartered the tally-ho
for the day."
Ormsby waited, and a little later was whisked away
to the hotel in the tonneau of the guests' automobile.


THE JUNKETERS
197
shooting?" Whether the information came or not,
Ormsby did not know, for at this conjuncture the tele-
graph instruments on the table set up a furious chat-
tering, and the railway man dropped the receiver and
sprang to his key.
This left the listener out of it completely, and Orms-
by strolled out to the platform, wondering what had
happened and where it had happened. He glanced up
at the telephone wires: two of them ran up the graveled
driveway toward Breezeland Inn; the poles of the other
two sentineled the road to the west down which the
tally-ho had driven in the early morning.
In the reflective instant the telegraph operator dashed
out of his bay-windowed retreat and ran up the track
to the private car. In a few minutes he was back again,
holding an excited conference with the chauffeur of
the Inn automobile, who was waiting to see if the Flyer
should bring him any fares for the hotel.
Curiosity is said to be peculiarly a foible feminine. It
is not, as every one knows. But of the major masculine
allotment, Ormsby the masterful had rather less than
his due share. He saw the chauffeur turn his car in
the length of it and send it spinning down the road
and across the line into the adjoining State; heard
the mellow whistle of the incoming train, and saw the
station man nervously setting his stop signal; all with


198
THE GRAFTERS
no more than a mild desire to know the reason for so
much excitement and haste—a desire which was con-
tent to wait on the explanation of events.
The explanation, such as it was, did not linger. The
heavy train thundered in from the west; stopped barely
long enough to allow the single passenger to swing up
the steps of the Pullman; and went on again to stop
a second time with a jerk when it had passed the side-
track switch.
Ormsby put his head out of the window and saw that
the private car was to be taken on; remarked also that
the thing was done with the utmost celerity. Once
out on the main line with car Naught-seven coupled in,
the train was backed swiftly down to the station and the
small mystery of hurryings was sufficiently solved. The
governor and his party were returning, and they did not
wish to miss connections.
Ormsby had settled back into the corner of his sec-
tion when he heard the spitting explosions of the auto-
mobile and the crash of hoofs and iron-tired wheels on
the sharp gravel. He looked out again and was in time
to see the finish of the race. Up the road from the west-
ward came the six-horse tally-ho, the horses galloping in
the traces and the automobile straining in the lead at
the end of an improvised tow-line. In a twinkling the
coach was abreast of the private car, the transfer of
passengers was effected, and Ormsby was near enough


THE JUNKETERS
199
at his onlooking window to remark several things: that
there was pell-mell haste and suppressed excitement;
that the governor was the coolest man in the group; and
that the receiver had to be helped across from the coach
to the car. Then the train moved out, gathering speed
with each added wheel-turn.
The onlooker leaned from his window to see what
became of the tangle of horses and auto-car precipi-
tated by the sudden stop of the tally-ho. Mirage effects
are common on the western plains, and if Ormsby had
not been familiar with them he might have marveled
at the striking example afforded by the backward look.
In the rapidly increasing perspective the six horses of
the tally-ho were suddenly multiplied into a troop; and
where the station agent had stood on the platform there
seemed to be a dozen gesticulating figures fading into
indistinctness, as the fast train swept on its way east-
ward.
The club-man saw no more of the junketing party
that night. Once when the train stopped to cut out
the dining-car, and he had stepper" down for a breath of
fresh air on the station platform, he noticed that the
private car was brilliantly lighted, and that the curtains
and window shades were closely drawn. Also, he heard
the popping of bottle corks and the clink of glass, be-
tokening that the governor's party was still celebrating
its successful race for the train. Singularly enough,


200
THE GRAFTEES
Ormsby's reflections concerned themselves chiefly with
the small dishonesty.
"I suppose it all goes into the receiver's expense ac-
count and the railroad pays for it," he said to himself.
"So and so much for an inspection trip to Megilp and
return. I must tell Kent about it. It will put an-
other shovelful of coal into his furnace—not that he
is especially needing it."
At the moment of this saying—it was between ten
and eleven o'clock at night—David Kent's wrath-fire
was far from needing an additional stoking. Once more
Miss Van Brock had given proof of her prophetic gift,
and Kent had been moodily filling in the details of
the picture drawn by her woman's intuition. He had
gone late to the house in Alameda Square, knowing
that Portia had dinner guests. And it was imperative
that he should have her to himself.
"You needn't tell me anything but the manner of
its doing," she was saying. "I knew they would find a
way to stop you—or make one. And you needn't be
spiteful at me," she added, when Kent gripped the arms
of his chair.
"I don't mind your saying 'I told you so'," he fumed.
"It's the fact that I didn't have sense enough to see
what an easy game I was dealing them. It didn't take
Meigs five minutes to shut me off."








THE JUNKETEES
201
"Tell me about it," she said; and he did it crisply.
"The quo warranto inquiry is instituted in the name-
of the State; or rather the proceedings are brought by
some person with the approval of the governor or the
attorney-general, one or both. I took to-day for ob-
taining this approval because I knew Bucks was out of
town and I thought I could bully Meigs."
"And you couldn't?" she said.
"Not in a thousand years. At first he said he would
take the matter under advisement: I knew that meant
a consultation with Bucks. Then I put the whip on;
told him a few of the things I know, and let him
imagine a lot more; but it was no good. He was as
smooth as oil, admitting nothing, denying nothing. And
what grinds me worst is that I let him put me in fault;
gave him a chance to show conclusively how absurd it
was for me to expect him to take up a question of such
magnitude on the spur of the moment."
"Of course," she said sympathetically. "I knew they
would find a way. What are you doing?"
Kent laughed in spite of his sore amour-propre.
"At this present moment I am doing precisely what
you said I should: unloading my woes upon you."
"Oh, but I didn't say that. I said you would come to
me for help. Have you?"
"I'd say yes, if I didn't know so well just what I am
up against."


202
THE GRAFTERS
Miss Van Brock laughed unfeelingly.
"Is it a man's weakness to fight better in the dark?"
"It is a man's common sense to know when he is
knocked out," he retorted.
She held him with her eyes while she said:
"Tell me what you want to accomplish, David; at
the end of the ends, I mean. Is it only that you wish
to save Miss Brentwood's little marriage portion?"
He told the simple truth, as who could help, with
Portia's eyes demanding it.
"It was that at first; I'll admit it. But latterly—"
"Latterly you have begun to think larger things?"
She looked away from him, and her next word seemed
to be part of an unspoken thought. "I have been won-
dering if you are great enough, David."
He shook his head despondently.
"Haven't I just been showing you that I am not?"
"You have been showing me that you can not always
out-plan the other person. That is a lack, but it is not
fatal. Are you great enough to run fast and far when
it is a straight-away race depending only upon mere
man-strength and indomitable determination?"
Her words fired him curiously. He recalled the little
thrill of inspiration which a somewhat similar appeal
from Elinor had once given him, and tried to compare
the two sensations. There was no comparison. The
one was a call to moral victory; the other to material


THE JUNKETERS
205
success. None the less, he decided that the present was
the more potent spell, perhaps only because it was the
present.
"Try me," he said impulsively.
"If I do . . David, no man can serve two mas-
ters—or two mistresses. If I do, will you agree to put
the sentimental affair resolutely in the background?"
He took his head in his hands and was a long minute
making up his mind. But his refusal was blunt
enough when it came.
"No; at least, not until they are married."
It would have taken a keener discernment than
Kent's or any man's to have fathomed the prompting
of her laugh.
"I was only trying you," she said. "Perhaps, if you
had said yes I should have deserted you and gone over
to the other side."
He got up and went to sit beside her on the pillowed
divan.
"Don't try me again, please—not that way. I am
only a man."
"I make no promises—not even good ones," she re-
torted. And then: "Would you like to have your quo
warranto blind alley turned into a thoroughfare?"
"I believe you can do it if you try," he admitted,
brightening a little.
"Maybe I can; or rather maybe I can put you in the


204
THE GRAFTEES
way of doing it. You say Mr. Meigs is obstinate, and
the governor is likely to prove still more obstinate.
Have you thought of any way of softening them?"
"You know I haven't. It's a stark impossibility
from my point of view."
"Nothing is impossible; it is always a question of
ways and means." Then, suddenly: "Have you been
paying any attention to the development of the Bel-
mount oil field?"
"Enough to know that it is a big thing; the biggest
since the Pennsylvania discoveries, according to all ac-
counts."
"And the people of the State are enthusiastic about
it, thinking that now the long tyranny of the oil mo-
nopoly will be broken?"
"That is the way most of the newspapers talk, and
there seems to be some little ground for it, granting
the powers of the new law."
She laid the tips of her fingers on his arm and
knotted the thread of suggestion in a single sentence.
"In the present state of affairs—with the People's
Party as yet on trial, and the public mind ready to take
fire at the merest hint of a foreign capitalistic monop-
oly in the State—tell me what would happen to the
man who would let the Universal Oil Company into
the Belmount field in defiance of the new trust and
corporation law?"


THE JUNKETERS
205
"By Jove!" Kent exclaimed, sitting up as if the
shapely hand had given him a buffet. "It would ruin,
him politically, world without end! Tell me; is Bucks
going to do that?"
She laughed softly.
"That is for you to find out, Mr. David Kent; not
by hearsay, but in good, solid terms of fact that will
appeal to a level-headed, conservative newspaper ed-
itor like—well, like Mr. Hildreth, of the Argus, let us
say. Are you big enough to do it?"
"I am desperate enough to try," was the slow-spoken
answer.
"And when you have the weapon in your hands;
when you have found the sword and sharpened it?"
"Then I can go to his Excellency and tell him what
will happen if he doesn't instruct his attorney-general
in the quo warranto affair."
"That will probably suffice to save your railroad—
and Miss Brentwood's marriage portion. But after,
David; what will you do afterward?"
"I'll go on fighting the devil with fire until I have
burned him out. If this is to be a government of dicta-
tors, I can be one of them, too."
She clapped her hands enthusiastically.
"There spoke the man David Kent; the man I have
been trying to discover deep down under the rubbish of


206
THE GEAFTEES
ill-temper and hesitancy and—yes, I will say it—of sen-
timent. Have you learned your lesson, David mine?"
It was a mark of another change in him that he rose
and stood over her, and that his voice was cool and dis-
passionate when he said:
"If I have, it is because I have you for an inspired
text-book, Portia dear."
And with that he took his leave.


208
THE GEAFTEES
sell the State out if the price is right. But to impli-
cate Bucks and the capitol gang in printable shape is
quite another matter."
"I know," Kent admitted. "But it isn't impossi-
ble; it has got to be possible."
The night editor sat back in his chair and chewed his
-cigar reflectively. Suddenly he asked:
"What's your object, Kent? It isn't purely pro
bono publico, I take it?"
Kent could no longer say truthfully that it was, and
he did not lie about it.
"No, it's purely personal, I guess. I need to get a
grip on Bucks and I mean to do it."
Hildreth laughed.
"And, having got it, you'll telephone me to let up—
as you did in the House Bill Twenty-nine fiasco. Where
do we come in?"
"No; you shall come in on the ground floor this
time; though I may ask you to hold your hand until I
have used my leverage. And if you'll go into it to stay,
you sha'n't be alone. Giving the Argus precedence in
any item of news, I'll engage to have every other oppo-
sition editor in the State ready to back you."
"Gad! you're growing, Kent. Do you mean to down
the Bucks crowd ded-defmitely?" demanded the ed-
itor, who stammered a little under excitable provoca-
tion. "Bigger men than you have tried it—and failed."


SHARPENING THE SWORD 209
"But no one of them with half my obstinacy, Hil-
dreth. It can be done, and I am going to do it."
The night editor laughed again.
"If you can show that gang up, Kent, nothing in
this State will be too good for you."
"I've got it to do," said Kent. "Afterward, perhaps
I'll come around for some of the good things. I am not
in this for health or pleasure. Can I count on you
after the mud-slinging begins?"
Hildreth reflected further, disregarding the fore-
man's reproachful calls for copy.
"I'll go you," he said at last; "and I'll undertake
to swing the chief into line. But I am going to disa-
gree with you flat on the project of a sudden expose.
Eight or wrong, Bucks has pup-popular sentiment on
his side. Take the Trans-Western territory, for exam-
ple: at the present speaking these grafters—or their
man Guilford; it's all the same—own those people down
there body and soul. You couldn't pry Bucks out of
their affections with a crowbar—suddenly, I mean.
We'll have to work up to it gradually; educate the peo-
ple as we go along."
"I concede that much," said Kent. "And you may
as well begin on this same Trans-Western deal,"—where-
with he pieced together the inferences which pointed to
the stock-smashing project behind the receivership.
"Don't use too much of it," he added, in conclusion.


210
THE GEAFTEES
"It i6 all inference and deduction as yet, as I say. But
you will admit it's plausible."
The editor was sitting far back in his chair again,
chewing absently on the extinct cigar.
"Kent, did you fuf-figure all that out by yourself?"
"No," said Kent, briefly. "There is a keener mind
than mine behind it—and behind this oil field business,
as well."
"I'd like to give that mind a stunt on the Argus"
said the editor. "But about the Belmount mix-up:
you will give us a stickful now and then as we go along,
if you unearth anything that the public would like to
read?"
"Certainly; any and everything that won't tend to
interfere with my little intermediate scheme. As I have
intimated, I must bring Bucks to terms on my own ac-
count before I turn him over to you and the people
of the State. But I mean to be in on that, too."
Hildreth wagged his head dubiously.
"I may be overcautious; and I don't want to seem
to scare you out, Kent. You ought to know your man
better than I do—better than any of us; but if I had
your job, I believe I should want to travel with a body-
guard. I do, for a fact."
David Kent's laugh came easily. Fear, the fear of
man, was not among his weaknesses.


SHARPENING THE SWORD 211
"I am taking all the chances," he said; and so the
conference ended.
Two days later the "educational" campaign was
opened by an editorial in the Argus setting forth some
hitherto unpublished matter concerning the manner in
which the Trans-Western had been placed in the hands
of a receiver. In its next issue the paper named the
receivership after its true author, showing by a list of
the officials that the road under Major Guilford had
been made a hospital for Bucks politicians, and hinting
pointedly that it was to be wrecked for the benefit of a
stock-jobbing syndicate of eastern capitalists.
Having thus reawakened public interest in the Trans-
Western affair, Hildreth sounded a new note of alarm
pitched upon the efforts of the Universal Oil Company
to establish itself in the Belmount oil region; a cry
which was promptly taken up by other State editors.
This editorial was followed closely by others in the same
strain, and at the end of a fortnight Kent was fain to
call a halt.
"Not too fast, Hildreth," he cautioned, dropping into
the editor's den late one night. "You are doing mighty
good work, but you are making it infinitely harder for
me—driving the game to deeper cover. One of my men
had a clue: Bucks and Meigs were holding conferences
with a man from the Belmount field whose record runs


212
THE GRAFTERS
back to New York. But they have taken the alarm and
thrown us off the track."
"The secretary of State's office is the place you want
to watch," said Hildreth. "New oil companies are in-
corporating every day. Pretty soon one of these will
swallow up all the others: that one will be the Universal
under another name, and in its application for a charter
you'll find askings big enough to cover all the rights
and privileges of the original monopoly."
"That is a good idea," said Kent, who already had
a clerk in the secretary of State's office in his pay.
"But how are we coming on in the political field?"
"We are doing business there, and you have the Ar-
gus to thank for it. You—or your idea, I should say—
has a respectable following all over the State now; as
it didn't have until we began to leg for it."
Again Kent acquiesced, making no mention of sun-
dry journeys he had made for the sole purpose of enlist-
ing other editors, or of the open house Miss Van Brock
was keeping for out-of-town newspaper men visiting the
capital.
"Moreover, we've served your turn in the Trans-
Western affair," Hildreth went on. "Public interest is
on the qui vive for new developments in that. By the
way, has the capitol gang any notion of your part in all
this upstirring?"
Kent smiled and handed the editor an open letter. It


SHARPENING THE SWORD 213
was from Receiver Guilford. The post of general coun-
sel for the Trans-Western was vacant, and the letter
was a formal tender of the office to the "Hon. David
Kent."
"H'm," said the editor. "I don't understand that a
little bit."
"Why?"
"If they could get you to accept a general agency in
Central Africa or New Zealand, or some other anti-
podean place where you'd be safely out of the way, it
would be evident enough. But here they are proposing
to take you right into the heart of things."
Kent got a match out of the editor's desk and relight-
ed his cigar.
"You've got brain-fag to-night, Hildreth. It's a
bribe, pure and simple. They argue that it is merely a
matter of dollars and cents to me, as it would be to one
of them; and they propose to retain me just as they
would any other attorney whose opposition they might
want to get rid of. Don't you see?"
"Sure. I was thinking up the wrong spout. Have
you replied to the major?"
"Yes. I told him that my present engagements pre-
clude the possibility of considering his offer; much to
my regret."
"Did you say that? You're a cold-plucked one, Kent,
and I'm coming to admire you. But now is the time for


214
THE GRAFTEES
you to begin to look out. They have spotted you, and
their attempt to buy you has failed. I don't know how
deeply you have gone into Bucks' tinkering with the
Universal people, but if you are in the way of getting
the grip you spoke of—as this letter seems to indicate
—you want to be careful."
Kent promised and went his way. One of his saving
graces was the ability to hold his tongue, even in a
confidential talk with as good a friend as Hildreth.
As for example: he had let the suggestion of watching
the secretary of State's office come as a new thing from
the editor, whereas in fact it was one of the earliest
measures he had taken.
And on that road he had traveled far, thanks to a
keen wit, to Portia Van Brock's incessant promptings,
and to the help of the leaky clerk in Hendricks' office; so
far, indeed, that he had found the "stool pigeon" oil
company, to which Hildreth's hint had pointed—a com-
pany composed, with a single exception, of men of
"straw," the exception being the man Rumford, whose
conferences with the governor and the attorney-general
had aroused his suspicions.
It was about this time that Hunnicott reported the
sale of the Gaston lots at a rather fancy cash figure,
and the money came in good play.
"Two things remain to be proved," said Portia, in
one of their many connings of the intricate course;


SHARPENING THE SWORD 215
"two things that must be proved before you can attack
openly: that Rumford is really representing the Uni-
versal Oil Company; and that he is bribing the junto
to let the Universal incorporate under the mask of his
'straw* company. Now is the time when you can not
afford to be economical. Have you money?"
Since it was the day after the Hunnicott remittance,
Kent could answer yes with a good conscience.
"Then spend it," she said; and he did spend it like a
millionaire, lying awake nights to devise new ways of
employing it.
And for the abutments of the arch of proof the
money-spending sufficed. By dint of a warm and some-
what costly wire investigation of Rumford's antece-
dents, Kent succeeded in placing the Belmount promo-
ter unquestionably as one of the trusted lieutenants of
the Universal; and the leaky clerk in the secretary of
State's office gave the text of the application for the
"straw" company charter, showing that the powers
asked for were as despotic as the great monopoly could
desire.
But for the keystone of the arch, the criminal impli-
cation of the plotters themselves, he was indebted to a
fit of ill-considered anger and to a chapter of accidents.


XVII
THE CONSPIRATORS
It was chiefly due to Portia's urgings that Kent took
Ormsby into his confidence when the campaign was
fairly opened. She put it diplomatically on the ground!
of charity to an exiled millionaire, temporarily out of
a job; but her real reason went deeper. From its in-
ception as a one-man fight against political chicanery
in high places, the criticism of the Bucks formula was
beginning to shape itself in a readjustment of party
lines in the field of State politics; and Miss Van Brock,
whose designs upon Kent's future ran far in advance of
her admissions to him, was anxiously casting about for
a managerial promoter.
A little practice-play in municipal politics made the
need apparent. It came in the midst of things, basing
itself upon the year-gone triumph of agrarianism in the
State. In the upheaval, the capital city had partici-
pated to the extent of electing a majority of the alder-
men on the People's Party ticket; and before long it
(216)


THE CONSPIRATORS 217
developed that a majority of this aldermanic majority
could be counted among the spoilsmen—was in fact a
creature of the larger ring.
Late in the summer an ordinance was proposed by
the terms of which a single corporation was to be given
a franchise granting a complete monopoly of the streets
for gas and water mains and transit rights of way.
Thereupon a bitter struggle ensued. Party lines were
obliterated, and men who shunned the primaries and
otherwise shirked their political duties raised the cry
of corruption, and a Civic League was formed to fight
the ring.
Into this struggle, as giving him the chance to front
the enemy in a fair field, David Kent flung himself with
all the ardor of a born fighter. Mass meetings were
held, with Kent as spokesman for the League, and the
outcome was a decency triumph which brought Kent's
name into grateful public prominence. Hildreth played
an able second, and by the time the obnoxious ordinance
had been safely tabled, Kent had a semi-political fol-
lowing which was all his own. Men who had hither-
to known him only as a corporation lawyer began to
prophesy large things of the fiery young advocate, whose
arguments were as sound and convincing as his invec-
tive was keen and merciless.
Figuratively speaking, Portia stood in the wings and
applauded. Also, she saw that her protege had reached


218
THE GRAFTERS
the point where he needed grooming for whatever race
lay before him. Hence her urgings, which made a tri-
umvirate out of the council of two, with Brookes Orms-
by as the third member.
"You understand, I'm not interested a little bit in
the merits of the case," said the newly elected chair-
man, in his first official interview with Miss Van Brock.
"So far as the internal politics of this particularly wild
and woolly State are concerned, I'm neither in them nor
of them. But I am willing to do what I can for Kent."
"Owing him a good turn?" said Portia, with malice
aforethought.
Ormsby's laugh was an Englishman's deep-chested
haw-haw.
"So he has been making you his confidante in that,
too, has he?"
"There was no confidence needed," she retorted. "I
have eyes; and, to use one of your own pet phrases, I
was not born yesterday. But let that go: you are will-
ing to help us?"
"I said I was willing to help Kent. If you bracket
yourself with him, I am more than willing. But I am
rather new to the game. You will have to tell me the
moves."
"We are only in the opening," she said, continuing
the figure. "You will learn as you go along. By and
by you will have to spend money; but just now the need


THE CONSPIRATORS 219
is for a cool head to keep our young firebrand out of
the personalities. Where is he to-night?"
Ormsby's smile was a grin.
"I left him at 124 Tejon Avenue half an hour ago.
Do you think he is likely to get into trouble there?"
On the porch of the Brentwood apartment house
David Kent was answering that question measurably
well for himself. With the striking of the City Hall
clock at nine Mrs. Brentwood had complained of the
glare of the electric crossing-lamp and had gone in,
leaving the caller with Penelope in the hammock on
one side of him and Elinor in a basket chair on the
other.
Their talk had been of the late municipal struggle,
and of Kent's part in it; and, like Miss Van Brock,
Penelope was applausive. But Elinor's congratulations
were tempered with deprecation.
"I am glad you won for the League, of course; every-
body must be glad of that," she said. "But I hope the
Argus didn't report your speeches correctly. If it did,,
you have made a host of bitter enemies."
"What does a man—a real man—care for that?"
This from the depths of the hammock.
"I, at least, can afford to be .careless," said Kent.
"I am not running for office, and I have nothing to lose,
politically or otherwise."
"Can any man say that truthfully?" Elinor queried.


220
THE GRAFTERS
"I think I can. I have given no hostages to for-
tune."
Penelope lifted the challenge promptly.
"Lord Bacon said that, didn't he?—about men mar-
rying. If he were alive now he wouldn't need to say
it. Men don't have to be discouraged."
"Don't they?" said Kent.
"No, indeed; they are too utterly selfish for any
matrimonial use, as it is. No, don't argue with me,
please. I'm fixed—irrevocably fixed."
Elinor overtook the runaway conversation and drove
it back into the path of her own choosing.
"But I do think you owe it to yourself to be more
careful in your public utterances," she insisted. "If
these men on the other side are only half as unprinci-
pled as your accusations make them out to be, they
would not stop short of personal violence."
"I am not hunting clemency or personal immunity
just now," laughed Kent. "On the contrary, I am only
anxious to make the score as heavy as possible. And so
far from keeping prudently in the background, I'll con-
fess that I went into this franchise fight chiefly to let
the capitol gang know who I am and where I stand."
A sudden light came into Elinor's eyes and burned
there steadily. She was of those who lay votive offer-
ings upon the shrine of manly courage.
"One part of me approves as much as another part


THE CONSPIRATORS 221
disapproves," she said after a time. "I suppose it isn't
possible to avoid making political enemies; but is it
needful to turn them into personal enemies?"
He looked at her curiously.
"I am afraid I don't know any middle path, not be-
ing a politician," he objected. "And as for the enmity
of these men, I shall count it an honor to win it. If
I do not win it, I shall know I am not succeeding."
Silence for another little space, which Mie3 Brent-
wood broke by saying:
"Don't you want to smoke? You may."
Kent felt in his pocket.
"I have no cigar."
She looked past him to the hammock. "Penelope!"
she called softly; and when there was no response she
went to spread the hammock rug over her sister.
"You may smoke your pipe," she said; and when she
had passed behind him to her chair she made another
concession: "Let me fill it for you—you used to."
He gave her the pipe and tobacco, and by a curious
contradiction of terms began to wonder if he ought not
to go. Notwithstanding his frank defiance of Brookes
^Ormsby, and his declaration of intention in the senti-
mental affair, he had his own notions about the sanctity
of a betrothal. Mrs. Brentwood had vanished, and Pe-
nelope was asleep in the hammock. Could he trust him-
self to be decently loyal to Ormsby if he should stay?


222
THE GEAFTERS
Nice questions of conscience had not been troubling
him much of late; but this was new ground—or if not
new, so old that it had the effect of being new.
He let the question go unanswered—and stayed. But
he was minded to fling the biggest barrier he could lay
hands on in the way of possible disloyalty by saying
good things of Ormsby.
"I owe you much for my acquaintance with him," he
said, when the subject was fairly introduced. "He has
been all kinds of a good friend to me, and he promises
to be more."
"Isn't your debt to Penelope, rather than to me?"
she returned.
"No, I think not. You are responsible, in the broader
sense, at all events. He did not come West for Penel-
ope's sake." Then he took the plunge: "May I know
when it is to be—or am I to wait for my bidding with
the other and more formally invited guests?"
She laughed, a low little laugh that somehow grated
upon his nerves.
"You shall know—when I know."
"Forgive me," he said quickly. "But from something
Ormsby said—"
"He should not have spoken of it; I have given him
no right," she said coldly.
"You make me twice sorry: once if I am a trespasser,


THE CONSPIRATORS 223
and again if I have unwittingly broken a confidence.
But as a friend—a very old friend—I ventured—"
She interrupted him again, but this time her laugh
did not hurt him.
"Yes; our friendship antedates Mr. Ormsby; it is
old enough to excuse anything you said—or were going
to say."
"Thank you," he rejoined, and he meant it. "What
I was going to say touches a matter which I believe
you haven't confided to any one. May I talk business
for a few minutes?"
"If you will light your pipe and go on smoking. It
makes me nervous to have people hang on the brink of
things."
He lighted the pipe, wondering what other thing he
might do to allay her nervousness. None the less, he
would not go back from his purpose, which was barrier-
building.
"I have thought, wholly without warrant, perhaps,
that your loss in this railroad steal has had something-
to do with the postponement of your happiness—and
Ormsby's. Has it?"
"And if it should have?"
"I merely wanted to say that we still have a fighting
chance. But one of the hard and fast conditions is
that every individual stockholder shall hang on to his.
or her holdings like grim death."


224
THE GRAFTERS
She caught her breath with a little gasp.
"The encouragement comes too late for us. We have
parted with our stock."
Kent turned cold and hot and cold again while she
was saying it. Then the lawyer in him came uppermost.
"Is it gone beyond recall? How much too late am
I?" he demanded.
"My mother wrote the letter to-day. She had an offer
from some one in New York."
Kent was on his feet instantly.
"Has that letter been mailed? Because if it has,
it must be stopped by wire!"
Miss Brentwood rose.
"It was on the hall table this afternoon; I'll go and
see," and in a moment she returned with the letter in
her hand.
Kent took it from her as if it had been an edged
weapon or a can of high explosives.
"Heavens! what a turn you gave me!" he said, sitting
down again. "Can I see your mother 7"
"I think she has gone to bed. What do you want to
do?"
"I want to tell her that she mustn't do any such sui-
cidal thing as this."
"You don't know my mother," was the calm reply.
"Mr. Ormsby said everything he could think of."


226
THE GRAFTERS
In the silence that followed his dismissal of the sub-
ject, Kent became aware of a vague prompting which
was urging him to cut his visit short. There was no
definable reason for his going. He had finally brought
himself to the point of speaking openly to Elinor of her
engagement, and they were, as he fondly believed, safely
beyond the danger point in that field. Moreover, Pe-
nelope was stirring in her hammock and the perilous
privacy was at an end. Nevertheless, he rose and said
good-night, and was half-way to the next corner before
he realized how inexcusably abrupt his leave-taking had
been.
When he did realize it, he was of two minds whether
to go back or to let the apology excuse another call the
following evening. Then the insistent prompting seized
him again; and when next he came to a competent sense
of things present he was standing opposite the capitol
building, staring fixedly up at a pair of lighted win-
dows in the second story.
They were the windows of the governor's room; and
David Kent's brain cleared suddenly. In the earliest
beginnings of the determinate plan to wrest the Trans-
Western out of the grasp of the junto he had known
that it must come finally to some desperate duel with
the master-spirit of the ringsters. Was Jasper Bucks
behind those lighted windows—alone?


THE CONSPIRATORS 227
Kent had not meant to make the open attack until he
should have a weapon in his hands which would arm
him to win. But now as he stood looking up at the
beckoning windows a mad desire to have it out once
for all with the robber-in-chief sent the blood tingling
to his finger-tips. True, he had nothing as yet in the
oil-field conspiracy that the newspapers or the public
would accept as evidence of fraud and corruption. But
on the other hand, Bucks was only a man, after all;
a man with a bucaneer's record, and by consequence
vulnerable beneath the brazen armor of assurance. If
the attack were bold enough—
Kent did not stop to argue it out. When a man's
blood is up the odds against him shrink and become as
naught. Two minutes later he was in the upper cor-
ridor of the capitol, striding swiftly to the door of the
lighted room.
Recalling it afterward he wondered if the occult
prompting which had dragged him out of his chair on
the Brentwood porch saw to it that he walked upon the
strip of matting in the tile-paved corridor and so made
his approach noiseless. Also, if the same silent monitor
bade him stop short of the governor's office: at the door,
namely, of the public anteroom, which stood ajar?
A low murmur of voices came from beyond, and for
a moment he paused listening. Then he went boldly


228
THE GRAFTERS
within, crossing the anteroom and standing fairly in
the broad beam of light pouring through the open door
of communication with the private office.
Four men sat in low-toned conference around the
governor's writing-table, and if any one of them had
looked up the silent witness must have been discovered.
Kent marked them down one by one: the governor;
Hendricks, the secretary of State; Rumford, the oil
man; and Senator Duvall. For five pregnant minutes
he stood looking on, almost within arm's reach of the
four; hearing distinctly what was said; seeing the pa-
pers which changed hands across the table. Then he
turned and went away, noiselessly as he had come, the
thick-piled carpet of the anteroom muffling his footfalls.
It was midnight when he reached his quarters in the
Clarendon and flung himself full length upon the bed,
sodden with weariness. For two hours he had tramped
the deserted streets, striving in sharp travail of soul to
fit the invincible, chance-given weapon to his hand.
When he came in the thing was done, and he slept the
Eleep of an outworn laborer.


XVIII
DOWN, BRUNO!
For six days after the night of revelations Kent
dived deep, personally and by paid proxy, in a sea of
secrecy which, bnt for the five pregnant minutes in the
doorway of the governor's office, might easily have
proved fathomless.
On the seventh day the conflagration broke out. The
editor of the Belmount Refiner was the first to smell
smoke and to raise the cry of "Fire!" but by midnight
the wires were humming with the news and the entire
State was ablaze.
The story as it appeared under the scare headlines
the next morning was crisply told. An oil company
had been formed with Senator Duvall at its head. After
its incorporation it was ascertained that it not only
held options on all the most valuable wells in the Bel-
mount region, but that its charter gave it immunity
from the law requiring all corporations to have their
organizations, officers, and operating headquarters in
(229)


232
THE GRAFTERS
Kent's apparent failure. "They played it too fuf-fine
for you."
"Did they?" said Kent.
"It looks pretty much that way, doesn't it? Duvall
is the scapegoat, and the only one. About day after
to-morrow Bucks' organ, the Tribune, will come out
with an 'inspired' editorial whitewashing the entire
capitol outfit. It will show how Rumford's application
for the charter was refused, and how a truly good and
beneficent state government has been hoodwinked and
betrayed by one of its most trusted supporters."
Kent threw off his street coat and went to get his
dressing-gown from the wardrobe in the bedroom.
When he came back he said: "Hildreth, you have taken
me at my word thus far, and you haven't had occasion to
call me either a knave or a fool. Do it a little longer
and I'll put you in the way of touching off a set-piece
of pyrotechnics that will double discount this mild lit-
tle snap-cracker of the Belmount business."
"Can't you do it now?"
"No; the time isn't ripe yet. We must let the Trib-
une's coat of whitewash dry in first."
Hildreth wriggled in his chair.
"Kent, if I thought it would do any good, I'd cuc-
curse you out; I would for a fact. You are too blamed
close-mouthed for any ordinary newspaper use."
But Kent only laughed at him. Now that the strain


DOWN, BRUNO!
233
was in some measure relaxed he could stand any amount
of abuse from so good a friend as the night editor.
"Turn on the hot water if you want to, and if it will
relieve the pressure. I know about how you feel; and
I'd be as sore as you are if I didn't know that I am
going to make it up to you a little later on. But about
this oil blaze and to-morrow's—or to-day's—issue of the
Argus. I hope you haven't said too much."
"I haven't sus-said anything. The stuff trickled in
by Associated wire at the last minute, and we had to
cut and slash for space and run it pretty much as it
came—the bare story."
"All right; that's better. Now suppose you hint
darkly that only half of the truth has come out; that
more—and more startling—developments may be safely
predicted in the immediate hence. Hit it up hard to-
ward the capitol, and don't be afraid of libeling any-
body."
Hildreth's eyes narrowed.
"Say, Kent; you have grown a lot in these last few
weeks: what is your diet?"
"Hard work—and a determination to make my brag
good."
"To down the ring, you mean?"
"Yes; to down the ring."
"Are you any nearer to it than you were when you
began?"


234
THE GRAFTERS
"A good many parasangs."
"By Jove! I more than half believe you've got hold
of something ded-definite at last!"
"I have, indeed. Hildreth, I have evidence—print-
able evidence—enough to dig a dozen political graves,
one of them big enough to hold Jasper G. Bucks' six-
feet-two."
"Let me see it!" said the night editor, eagerly; but
Kent laughed and pushed him toward the door.
"Go home and go to bed. I wouldn't show it to you
to-night if I had it here—as I have not. I don't go
around with a stick of dynamite in my pocket."
"Where is it?" Hildreth asked.
"It is in a safety-deposit box in the vault of the
Security Bank; where it is going to stay until I am
ready to use it. Go home, I say, and let me go to bed.
I'm ragged enough to sleep the clock around."
In spite of his weariness, which was real enough,
Kent was up betimes the next morning. He had a wire
appointment with Blashfield Hunnicott and two others
in Gaston, and he took an early train to keep it. The
ex-local attorney met him at the station with a two-
seated rig; and on the way to the western suburbs they
picked up Frazee, the county assessor, and Orton, the
appraiser of the Apache Building and Loan Associa-
tion.
"Hunnicott has told you what I am after," said Kent,


DOWN, BRUNO! 235-
when the surrey party was made up. "We all know the
property well enough, but to have it all fair and above-
board, we'll drive out and look it over so that our knowl-
edge may be said to be fully up to date."
Twenty minutes afterward the quartet was locat-
ing the corners of a square in Gaston's remotest suburb;
an "addition" whose only improvements were the weath-
ered and rotting street and lot stakings on the bare,
brown plain.
"'Lots 1 to 56 in Block 10, Guilford & Hawk's Addi-
tion,'" said Kent, reading from a memorandum in his
note-book. "It lies beautif ully, doesn't it?"
"Yes; for a chicken farm," chuckled the assessor.
"Well, give me your candid opinion, you two: what
is the property worth?"
The Building and Loan man scratched his chin.
"Say fifty dollars for the plot—if you'll fence it."
"No, put it up. You are having a little boom here
now: give it the top boom price, if you like."
The two referees drew apart and laid their heads to-
gether.
"As property is going here just now, fifty dollars for
the inside lots, and one hundred dollars apiece for the
corners; say three thousand for the plot. And that is
just about three times as much as anybody but a land-
crazy idiot would give for it." It was Frazee who an-
nounced the decision.


236
THE GEAFTEES
"Thank you both until you are better paid. Now
we'll go back to town and you can write me a joint let-
ter stating the fact. If you think it will get you dis-
liked here at home, make the figure higher; make it
high enough so that all Gaston will be dead sure to ap-
prove."
"You are going to print it?" asked the Building and
Loan appraiser.
"I may want to. You may shape it to that end."
"I'll stand by my figures," said Frazee. "It will
give me my little chance to get back at the governor.
I had it assessed as unimproved suburban property at
so much the lot, but he made a kick to the board of
equalization and got it put in as unimproved farm land
at fifty dollars an acre." Then, looking at his watch:
"We'd better be getting back, if you have to catch the
Accommodation. Won't you stay over and visit with
us?"
"I can't, this time; much obliged," said Kent; and
they drove to the Building and Loan office where the
joint letter of appraisal was written and signed.
Kent caught his train with something to spare, and
was back at the capital in good time to keep a dinner
engagement at Miss Van Brock's. He had understood
that Ormsby would be the only other guest. But Por-
tia had a little surprise in store for him. Loring had
dropped in, unannounced, from the East; and Por-


DOWN, BEUNO!
237
tia, having first ascertained that Mrs. Brentwood's
asthma was prohibitive of late dinings-out", had in-
structed Ormsby to bring Elinor and Penelope.
Kent had been saving the results of his deep-sea
divings in the oil-field investigation to spread them out
before Miss Van Brock and Ormsby "in committee,"
but he put a padlock on his lips when he saw the others.
Portia gave him Elinor to take out, and he would
have rejoiced brazenly if the table talk, from the bouil-
lon to the ices, had not been persistently general, turn-
ing most naturally upon the Universal Oil Company's
successful coup in the Belmount field. Kent kept out
of it as much as he could, striving manfully to monopo-
lize Elinor for his own especial behoof; but finally
Portia laid her commands upon him.
"You are not to be allowed to maroon yourself with
Miss Brentwood any longer," she said dictatorially.
"You know more about the unpublished part of this
Belmount conspiracy than any one else excepting the
conspirators themselves, and you are to tell us all about
it."
Kent looked up rather helplessly.
"Beally, I—I'm not sure that I know anything worth
repeating at your dinner-table," he protested.
But Miss Van Brock made a mock of his caution.
"You needn't be afraid. I pledged everybody to se-
crecy before you came. It is understood that we are in


DOWN, BEUNO!
239
Kent had a sharp little tussle with his inborn reti-
cence, thrust it to the wall and told a plain tale.
"It begins in a piece of reckless folly. Shortly after
I left Mrs. Brentwood's last Thursday evening I had a
curious experience. The shortest way down-town is
diagonally through the capitol grounds, but some un-
definable impulse led me to go around on the Capitol
Avenue side. As I was passing the right wing of the
building I saw lights in the governor's room, and in a.
sudden fit of desperation resolved to go up and have it
out with Bucks. It was abnormally foolish, I'll con-
fess. I had nothing definite to go on; but I—well, I
was keyed up to just about the right pitch, and I
thought I might bluff him."
"Mercy me! You do need a guardian angel worse
than anybody I know 1" Portia cut in. "Do go on."
Kent nodded.
"I had one that night; angel or demon, whichever
you please. I was fairly dragged into doing what I
did. When I reached the upper corridor the door of
the public anteroom was ajar, and I heard voices. The
outer room was not lighted, but the door between it and
the governor's private office was open. I went in and
stood in that open doorway for as much as five minutes,
I think, and none of the four men sitting around the:
governor's writing-table saw me."


240
THE GRAFTEES
He had his small audience well in hand by this time,
and Ormsby's question was almost mechanical.
"Who were the four?"
"After the newspaper rapid-fire of this morning you
might guess them all. They were his Excellency. Graf-
ton Hendricks, Eumford, and Senator Duvall. They
were in the act of closing the deal as I became an on-
looker. Eumford had withdrawn his application for
a charter, and another 'straw' company had been formed
with Duvall at its head. I saw at once what I fancy
Duvall never suspected; that he was going to be made
the scapegoat for the ring. They all promised to stand
by him—and you see how that promise has been kept."
"Good heavens!" ejaculated Loring. "What a des-
picable lot of scoundrels! But the bribe: did you
learn anything about that?"
"I saw it," said Kent, impressively. "It was a slip
of paper passed across the table by Eumford to Bucks,
face down. Bucks glanced at it before he thrust it into
his pocket, and I had my glimpse, too. It was a draft
on a Chicago bank, but I could not read the figures, and
I doubt if either of the other conspirators knew the
amount. Then the governor tossed a folded paper over
to the oil man, saying, 'There is your deed to the choic-
est piece of property in all Gaston, and you've got it
dirt cheap.' I came away at that."


DOWN, BEUNO!
241
Elinor's sigh was almost a sob; but Miss Van Brock's
eyes were dancing.
"Go on, go on," she exclaimed. "That is only the
beginning."
Kent's smile was of reminiscent weariness.
"I found it so, I assure you. So far as any usable
evidence was concerned, I was no better off than before;
it was merely my assertion against their denial—one
man against four. But I have had a full week, and it
has not been wasted. I needn't bore you with the me-
chanical details. One of my men followed Bucks' mes-
senger to Chicago—he wouldn't trust the banks here
or the mails—and we know now, know it in black on
white, with the proper affidavits, that the draft was for
two hundred thousand dollars, payable to the order of
1 Jasper G. Bucks. The ostensible consideration was the
transfer from Bucks to Rumford of a piece of property
in the outskirts of Gaston. I had this piece of land ap-
prarsed for me to-day by two disinterested citizens of
Gaston, and they valued it at a possible, but highly im-
probable, three thousand."
"Oh, how clumsy!" said Portia, in fine scorn. "Does
his Excellency imagine for a moment that any one
would be deceived by such a primitive bit of dust-throw-
ing?" and Ormsby also had something to say about the
fatal mistakes of the shrewdest criminals.


242
THE GRAFTERS
"It was not so bad," said Kent. "If it should ever
be charged that he took money from Rumford, here is a
plain business transaction to account for it. The deed,
as recorded, has nothing to say of the enormous price
paid. The phrasing is the common form used when
the parties to the transfer do not wish to make the price
public: 'For one dollar to me in hand paid, and other
valuable considerations.' Luckily, we are able to es-
tablish conclusively what the 'other valuable considera-
tions' were."
"It seems to me that these documents arm and equip
you for anything you want to do," said Loring, polish-
ing his eye-glasses after his ingrained habit.
Kent shook his head.
"No; thus far the evidence is all circumstantial, or
rather inferential. But I picked up the final link in
the chain—the human link—yesterday. One of the de-
tectives had been dogging Duvall. Two days ago the
senator disappeared, unaccountably. I put two and two
together, and late last evening took the liberty of break-
ing into his house."
"Alone?" said Elinor, with the courage-worshiping
light in the blue-gray eyes.
"Yes; it didn't seem worth while to double the risk.
I did it rather clumsily, I suppose, and my greeting was
a shot fired at random in the darkness—the senator
mistaking me for a burglar, as he afterward explained.


244
THE GEAFTERS
Kent laughed.
"You want to make me say some melodramatic thing
about having the shackles forged and snapping them
upon the gubernatorial wrists, don't you? It will be
prosaic enough from this on. I fancy we shall have no
difficulty now in convincing his Excellency of the jus-
tice of our proceedings to quash Judge MacFarlane and
his receiver."
"But how will you go about it? Surely you can not
go personally and threaten the governor of the State!"
this from Miss Brentwood.
"Can't I?" said Kent. "Having the score written
out and safely committed to memory, that will be quite
the easiest number on the programme, I assure you."
But Loring had something to say about the risk.
"Thus far you have not considered your personal
safety—haven't had to, perhaps. But you are coming
to that now. You are dealing with a desperate man,
David; with a gang of them, in fact."
"That is so," said Ormsby. "And, as chairman of
the executive committee, I shall have to take steps.
We can't afford to bury you just yet, Kent."
"I think you needn't select the pall-bearers yet a
while," laughed the undaunted one; and then Miss
Van Brock gave the signal and the "executive com-
mittee" adjourned to the drawing-room. Here the talk,,
already so deeply channeled in the groove political, ran


DOWN, BEUNO!
245
easily to forecastings and predictions for another elec-
toral year; and when Penelope began to yawn behind
her fan, Ormsby took pity on her and the party broke
up.
It was at the moment of leave-taking that Elinor
sought and found her chance to extract a promise from
David Kent.
"I must have a word with you before you do what
you say you are going to do," she whispered hurriedly.
"Will you come to see me?"
"Certainly, if you wish it. But you mustn't let Lor-
ing's nervousness infect you. There is no danger."
"There is a danger," she insisted, "a much greater
danger than the one Mr. Loring fears. Come as soon as
you can, won't you?"
It was a new thing for her to plead with him, and he
promised in an access of tumultuous hope reawakened
by her changed attitude. But afterward, when he was
walking down-town with Loring, the episode troubled
him a little; would have troubled him more if he had
not been so deeply interested in Loring's story of the
campaign in the East.
Taking it all in all, the ex-manager's report was en-
couraging. The New Englanders were by no means
disposed to lie down in the harness, and since the West-
ern Pacific proper was an interstate line, the Advisory
Board had taken its grievance to Washington. Many


246
THE GRAFTERS
of the small stockholders were standing firm, though
there had been panicky defections in spite of all that
could be done. Loring had no direct evidence to sus-
tain the stock deal theory; but it was morally certain
that the Plantagould brokers were picking up Western
Pacific by littles wherever they could find it.
"I am inclined to believe we haven't much time to
lose," was Kent's comment. "Things will focus here
long before Washington can get action. The other
lines are bringing a tremendous pressure to bear on
Guilford, whose cut rates are demoralizing business
frightfully. The fictitious boom in Trans-Western traffic
is about worked out; and for political reasons Bucks
can't afford to have the road in the hands of his hench-
men when the collapse comes. The major is bolstering
things from week to week now until the Plantagould
people get what they are after—a controlling majority
of the stock—and then Judge MacFarlane will come
back."
They were within two squares of the Clarendon, and
the cross-street was deserted save for a drunken cow-
boy in shaps and sombrero staggering aimlessly around
the corner.
"That's curious," Loring remarked. "Don't you
know, I saw that same fellow, or his double, lurching
across the avenue as we came out of Alameda Square,
and I wondered what he was doing out in that region."


DOWN, BEUNO!
247
"It was his double, I guess," said Kent. "This one
is many pegs too drunk to have covered the distance as
fast as we have been walking."
But drunk or sober, the cow-boy turned up again
most unexpectedly; this time at the entrance of the
alley half-way down the block. In passing he stumbled
heavily against Kent; there was a thick-tongued oath,
and Loring struck out smartly with his walking-stick.
By consequence the man's pistol went off harmlessly in
the air. The shot brought a policeman lumbering heav-
ily up from the street beyond, and the skirling of relief
whistles shrilled on the night. But the man with a
pistol had twisted out of Kent's grasp and was gone in
a flash.
"By Jove!" said Loring, breathing hard; "he wasn't
as drunk as he seemed to be!"
Kent drew down his cuffs and shook himself straight
in his coat.
"No; he wasn't drunk at all; I guess he was the man
you saw when we came out of the square." Then, as
the policeman came up puffing: "Let me do the talk-
ing; the whisky theory will be good enough for the
newspapers."


XIX
DEEP-SEA SOUNDINGS
"Oof! I feel as if I had been dipped in a warm bath
of conspiracy and hung up to dry in the cold storage
of nihilism! If you take me to any more meetings of
your committee of safety, I shall be like the man with-
out music in his soul—'fit for treasons, stratagems and
spoils.'"
Thus Penelope, after the breaking up of the Van
Brock dinner party. Elinor had elected to walk the
few blocks intervening between Alameda Square and
Tejon Avenue, and Ormsby had dismissed his chauffeur
with the motor-car.
"I told you beforehand it was going to be a political
confab," said the club-man in self-defense. "And you
mustn't treat it lightly, either. Ten prattling words
of what you have heard to-night set afloat on the gossip
pool of this town might make it pretty difficult for our
David."
"We are not very likely to babble," retorted Penelope.
(248)


DEEP-SEA SOUNDINGS 2i&
"We are not so rich in intimates in this aboriginal
desert." But Elinor spoke to the penal clause in his
warning.
"Then Mr. Kent's danger is more real than he ad-
mitted?" she said.
"It's real enough, I fancy; more real for him than
it might be for another man in his place. He is a
curious combination, is David: keen and sharp-witted
and as cold as an icicle in the planning part; but when
it comes to the in-fighting he hasn't sense enough to
pound sand, as his New Hampshire neighbors would
say."
"I like that side of him best," Penelope averred.
"Deliver me from a man of the cold and calculating
sort who sits on his impulses, sleeps on his injuries, and
takes money-revenge for an insult. Mr. Loring tells a
story of a transplanted Vermonter in South America.
A hot-headed Peruvian called him a liar, and he said:
'Oh, pshaw! you can't prove it.'"
"What a merciless generalizer you are!" said Ormsby,
laughing. "The man who marries you will have his
work cut out for him if he proposes to fill the require-
ments."
"Won't he?" said Penelope. "I can fancy him sitting
up nights to figure it all out."
They had reached the Tejon Avenue apartment house,
and to Elinor's "Won't you come in?" Ormsby said:


DEEP-SEA SOUNDINGS 25L
the first parallel thrown up so skilfully on the last night
of the westward journey. It was not that Elinor was
lacking in loyalty or in acquiescence; she scrupulously
gave him both as an accepted suitor. But though he
could not put his finger upon the precise thing said or
done which marked the loosening of his hold, he knew
he was receding rather than advancing.
Now to a man of expedients the interposition of an
obstacle suggests only ways and means for overcoming
it. Ormsby had certain clear-cut convictions touching
the subjugation of women, and as his stout heart gave
him resolution he lived up to them. When he spoke
again it was of the matter which concerned him most
deeply; and his plea was a gentle repetition of many
others in the same strain.
"Elinor, I have waited patiently for a long time, and
I'll go on doing it, if that is what will come the nearest
to pleasing you. But it would be a prodigious comfort
if I might be counting the days or the weeks. Are you
still finding it impossible to set the limit?"
She nodded slowly, and he took the next step like
a man feeling his way in the dark.
"That is as large an answer as you have ever given
me, I think. Is there any speakable reason?"
"You know the reason," she said, looking away from
him.
"I am not sure that I do. Is it because the money-


DEEP-SEA SOUNDINGS
253
"In what way?" she asked.
"In the only way the thing can he stood squarely
upon its feet. It's hard—desperately hard; and hardest
of all for a man of my peculiar build. I am no longer
what you would call a young man, Elinor, and I have
never learned to turn back and begin all over again
with any show of heartiness. They used to say of me
in the Yacht Club that if I gained a half-length in
a race, I'd hold it if it took the sticks out of my boat."
"I know," she assented absently.
"Well, it's the same way now. But for your sake—
or rather for the sake of my love—I am going to turn
back for once. You are free again, Elinor. All I
ask is that you will let me begin where I left off some-
where on the road between here and Boston last fall."
She sat with clasped hands looking steadily at the
darkened windows of the opposite house, and he let
her take her own time. When she spoke there was a
thrill in her voice that he had never heard before.
"I don't deserve it—so much consideration, I mean,"
she said; and he made haste to spare her.
"Yes, you do; you deserve anything the best man
in the world could do for you, and I'm a good bit short
of that."
"But if I don't want you to go back?"
He had gained something—much more than he knew


254
THE GBAFTEBS
and for a tremulous instant he was near to losing it
again by a passionate retraction of all he had been say-
ing. But the cool purpose came to his rescue in time.
"I should still insist on doing it. You gave me what
you could, but I want more, and I am willing to do
what is necessary to win it."
Again she said: "You are too good to me," and again
he contradicted her.
"No; it is hardly a question of goodness; indeed, I
am not sure that it escapes being selfish. But I am
very much in earnest, and I am going to prove it.
Three years ago you met a man whom you thought you
could love—don't interrupt me, please. He was like
some other men we know: he didn't have the courage of
his convictions, lacking the few dollars which might
have made things more nearly equal. May I go on?"
"I suppose you have earned the right to say what
you please," was the impassive reply.
It was the old struggle in which they were so evenly
matched—of the woman to preserve her poise; of the
man to break it down. Another lover might have given
up in despair, but Ormsby's strength lay in holding
on in the face of all discouragements.
"I believe, as much as I believe anything in this
world, that you were mistaken in regard to your feel-
ing for .the other man," he went on calmly. "But I


DEEP-SEA SOUNDINGS
255
want you to be sure of that for yourself, and you can't
be sure unless you are free to choose between us."
"Oh, don't!—you shouldn't say such things to me,"
she broke out; and then he knew he was gaining ground.
"Yes, I must. We have been stumbling around in
the dark all these months, and I mean to be the lan-
tern-bearer for once in a way. You know, and I know,
and Kent is coming to know. That man is going to
be a success, Elinor: he has it in him, and he sha'n't
lack the money-backing he may need. When he ar-
rives—"
She turned on him quickly, and the blue-gray eyes
were suspiciously bright.
"Please don't bury me alive," she begged.
He saw what he had done; that the nicely calculated
purpose had carried straight and true to its mark; and
for a moment the mixed motives, which are at the bot-
tom of most human sayings and doings, surged in him
like the sea at the vexed tide-line of an iron-bound
coast. But it was the better Brookes Ormsby that
struggled up out of the elemental conflict.
"Don't mistake me," he said. "I am neither bet-
ter nor worse than other men, I fancy. My motives,
such as they are, would probably turn out to be purely
selfish in the last analysis. I am proceeding on the the-
ory that constraint breeds the desire for the thing it for-


256
THE GRAFTERS
bids; therefore I remove it. Also, it is a part of that
theory that the successful David Kent will not appeal
to you as the unspoiled country lawyer did. No, I'm
not going to spoil him; if I were, I shouldn't be tell-
ing you about it. But—may I be brutally frank ?—the
David Kent who will come successfully out of this po-
litical prize-fight will not be the man you have ideal-
ized."
There was a muttering of thunder in the air, and
the cool precursory breeze of a shower was sweeping
through the tree-tops.
"Shall we go into the house?" she asked; and he
took it as his dismissal.
"You may; I have kept you up long enough." And
then, taking her hand: "Are we safely ashore on the
new continent, Elinor? May I come and go as here-
tofore?"
"You were always welcome, Brookes; you will be
twice welcome, now."
It was the first time she had ever called him by his
Christian name and it went near to toppling down the
carefully reared structure of self-restraint. But he made
shift to shore the tottering walls with a playful retort.
"If that is the case, I'll have to think up some more
jself-abnegations. Good night."


XX
THE WINNING LOSER
Editor Hildreth's prophecy concerning the probable
attitude of the administration newspapers in the dis-
cussion of the oil field affair waited but a day for its
fulfilment. On the Friday morning there appeared in
the Capital Tribune, the Midland City Chronicle, the
'Range County Maverick and the Agriculta Ruralist
able editorials exonerating the People's Party, its policy
and the executive, and heaping mountains of obloquy
on the name of Duvall. These editorials were so simi-
lar in tone, tenor and texture, as pointedly to suggest
a common model—a coincidence which was not allowed
to pass unremarked by Hildreth and other molders
of public opinion on the opposite side of the political
fence.
But Hildreth did not pause at generalities. Two
days after the Universal s triumph in the Belmount
field, the Argus began to "hit it up" boldly toward the
capitol, and two things came of it. The first was an
(257)


258
THE GEAFTERS
attempt by some party or parties unknown to buy up a
controlling interest in the Argus. The second was the
waylaying of David Kent in the lobby of the Clarendon
Hotel by no less a personage than the Honorable Mel-
ton Meigs, attorney-general of the State.
In his first conversation with Ormsby, Kent had
spoken of the three leading spirits of the junto as from
personal knowledge; but of the three, Bucks, Hen-
dricks and Meigs, the attorney-general was the least
known to him. Prior to his nomination on the
State ticket Meigs had been best known as the most
astute criminal lawyer in the State, his astuteness lying
not so much in his ability as a pleader as in a certain
oratorical gift by which he was able to convince not
only a jury but the public of the entire innocence of
his client.
He was a small man physically, with womanish hands
and feet, and a beardless face of that prematurely
aged cast which is oftenest seen in dwarfs and pre-
cocious infants; and his distinguishing characteristic,
the one which stuck longest in the mind of a chance
acquaintance or a casual observer, was a smile of the
congealed sort which served to mask whatever emotion
there might be behind it.
Kent had seen little of Meigs since the latter had
turned him down in the quo warranto matter; and his
guard went up quickly when the attorney-general ac-


2G0
THE GRAFTERS
quo warranto information questioning Judge MaeFar-
lane's election and status. You will admit, I presume,
that your demand was a little peremptory?"
"I admit nothing," said Kent, curtly. "But for the
sake of expediting present matters—"
"Precisely," was the smiling rejoinder. "You will
note that I said 'at that time.' Later developments—
more especially this charge made openly by the pub-
lic press of juggling with foreign corporations—have
led me to believe that as the public prosecutor I may
have duties which transcend all other considerations—
of loyalty to a party standard—of—"
Kent took his turn at interrupting.
"Mr. Meigs, there is nothing to be gained by indi-
rection. May I ask you to come to the point?"
"Briefly, then: the course pursued by Senator Du-
vall in the Belmount affair leaves an unproved charge
against others; a charge which I am determined to
sift to the bottom—you see, I am speaking quite frankly.
That charge involves the reputation of men high in
authority; but I shall be strong to do my sworn duty,
Mr. Kent; I ask you to believe that."
Kent nodded and waved him on.
"You will readily understand the delicacy of the task,
and how, in the nature of things, I am handicapped and
hedged up on every side. Evidence—of a kind to enable


THE WINNING LOSEE 261
me to assail a popular idol—is exceedingly difficult to
procure."
"It is," said Kent, grimly.
"Exactly. But in revolving the matter in my owr
mind, I thought of you. You are known at the capi-
tol, Mr. Kent, and I may say throughout the State, as
the uncompromising antagonist of the State adminis-
tration. I have asked myself this: Is it possible that
a cool-headed, resolute attorney like Mr. David Kent
would move so far and so determinedly in this matter of
antagonism without substantially paving the ground
under his feet with evidence as he went along?"
Kent admitted that it was possible, but highly im-
probable.
"So I decided," was the smile-tempered rejoinder.
"In that case it only remains for me to remind you of
your public duty, Mr. Kent; to ask you in the name of
justice and of the people of the State, to place your in-
formation in the hands of the public prosecutor."
Kent's face betrayed nothing more than his appre-
ciation of the confidence reposed in him by the man
whose high sense of official honor was making him turn
traitor to the party leader who had dragged him
through a successful election.
"I have what evidence I need, Mr. Meigs," he de-
clared. "But if I make no secret of this, neither do I


262
THE GRAFTERS
conceal the fact that the motive pro bono publico has
had little to do with its accumulating. I want jus-
tice first for what might be called a purely private end,
and I mean to have it."
"Pre-cisely," smiled the attorney-general. "And now
we are beginning to see our way a little clearer. It is
not too late for us to move in the quo warranto pro-
ceedings. If you will call at my office I shall be glad
to reopen the matter with you."
"And the price?" said Kent, shortly.
"Oh, my dear sir! must we put it upon the ground
of a quid pro quo? Rather let us say that we shall
help each other. You are in a position to assist me
very materially: I may be in a position to serve your
turn. Come to my office to-morrow morning prepared
to do your duty as an honest, loyal citizen, and you
will find me quite willing to meet you half-way."
Kent rose and opened his watch.
"Mr. Meigs, I have given you your opportunity, and
you have seemed to give me mine," he said coolly..
"Will you pardon me if I say that I can paddle my own
canoe—if I ask you to assure his Excellency that one
more device of his to escape punishment has been tried
and found wanting?"
For a flitting moment the cast-iron smile faded from
the impassive face of the attorney-general and an un-


THE WINNING LOSEE 263
relenting devil came to peer out of the colorless eyes.
Then Meigs rose cat-like and laid his hand on the
door-knob.
"Do I understand that you refuse to move in a mat-
ter which should be the first duty of a good citizen,
Mr. Kent?" he asked purringly.
"I certainly do refuse to fall into any such clumsy
trap as you have been trying to bait for me, Mr.
Meigs," said David Kent, dropping back into his
former curtness.
The door opened slowly under the impulse of the
slender womanish hand.
"You have a task of some magnitude before you,
Mr. Kent. You can scarcely hope to accomplish it
alone."
"Meaning that you would like to know if the fight
will go on if I should chance to meet another drunken
cow-boy with a better aim? It will."
The door closed softly behind the retreating figure
of the attorney-general, and Kent released the spring
of the night-latch. Then he went to the dropped por-
tiere at the farther end of the room, drew it aside and
looked in on a man who was writing at a table pushed
out between the windows.
^You heard him, Loring?" he asked.
vine ex-manager nodded.


THE WINNING LOSER 265-
he speculated upon the probable object of Elinor's tele-
phoning him.
Now there is no field in which the inconsistency of
human nature is so persistent as in that which is bound-
ed by the sentimentally narrowed horizon of a man in
love. With Ormsby at the nodus of his point of view,
David Kent made no secret of his Open rivalry of the
millionaire, declaring his intention boldly and taking
no shame therefor. But when he faced about toward
Elinor he found himself growing hotly jealous for her
good faith; careful and fearful lest she should say or
do something not strictly in accordance with the letter
and spirit of her obligations as Ormsby's fiancee.
For example: at the "conspiracy dinner," as Loring
dubbed it, Ormsby being present to fight for his own
hand, Kent, as we have seen, had boldly monopolized
Miss Brentwood, and would have committed himself
still more pointedly had the occasion favored him. None
the less, when Elinor had begged him privately to see
her before moving in the attack on the junto, he had al-
most resented the implied establishing of confidential
relations with her lover's open rival.
For this cause he had been postponing the promised
visit, and thereby postponing the taking of the final
step in the campaign of intimidation. The unexplained
telephone call decided him, however. He would go and
see Elinor and have the ordeal over with.


266
THE GRAFTERS
But as a preliminary he dined that evening with
Ormsby at the Camelot Club, and over the coffee had
it out with him.
"I am going out to see Miss Brentwood to-night," he
announced abruptly. "Have you any objection?"
The millionaire gave him the shrewdest of over-
looks, ending with a deep-rumbling laugh.
"Kent, you are the queerest lot I have ever discovered,
and that is saying a good bit. Why, in the name of all
the proprieties, should I object?"
"Your right is unchallenged," Kent admitted.
"Is it? Better ask Miss Brentwood about that. She
might say it isn't."
"I don't understand," said Kent, dry-tongued.
"Don't you? Perhaps I'd better explain: she might
find it a little difficult. You have been laboring under
the impression that we are engaged, haven't you?"
"Laboring under the—why, good heavens, man! it's
in everybody's mouth!"
"Curious, isn't it, how such things get about," com-
mented the player of long suits. "How do you sup-
pose they get started?"
"I don't suppose anything about it, so far as we two
are concerned; I have your own word for it. You
said you were the man in possession."
Ormsby laughed again.


THE WINNING LOSEE 267
"You are something of a bluffer yourself, David.
Did you let my little stagger scare you out?"
David Kent pushed his chair back from the table and
nailed Ormsby with a look that would have made a
younger man betray himself.
"Do you mean to tell me that there is no engage-
ment between you and Miss Brentwood?"
"Just that." Ormsby put all the nonchalance he
could muster into the laconic reply, but he was antici-
pating the sequent demand which came like a shot out
of a gun.
"And there never has been?"
Ormsby grinned.
"When you are digging a well and hav« found your
stream of water, it's folly to go deeper, David. Can't
you let 'good enough' alone?"
Kent turned it over in his mind, frowning thought-
fully into his coffee-cup. When he spoke it was out
of the mid-heart of manliness.
"I wish you would tell me one thing, Ormsby. Am
I responsible for—for the present state of affairs?"
Ormsby stretched the truth a little; partly for Eli-
nor's sake; more, perhaps, for Kent's.
"You have done nothing that an honorable rival—
and incidentally a good friend of mine—might not do.
Therefore you are not responsible."


2GS
THE GEAFTERS
"That is putting it very diplomatically," Kent
mused. "I am afraid it does not exonerate me wholly."
"Yes, it does. But it doesn't put me out of the run-
ning, you understand. I'm 'forninst' you yet; rather
more stubbornly than before, I fancy."
Kent nodded.
"That, of course; I should think less of you if you
were not. And you shall have as fair a show as you
are giving me—which is saying a lot. Shall we go and
smoke?"


XXI
A WOMAN INTERVENES
It was still early in the evening when Kent mounted
the steps of the Brentwood apartment house. Mother
and daughters were all on the porch, but it was Mrs.
Brentwood who welcomed him.
"We were just wondering if you would imagine the
message which Elinor was going to send, and didn't,
and come out to see what was wanted," she said. "I
am in need of a little legal advice. Will you give me
a few minutes in the library?"
Kent went with her obediently, but not without
wondering why she had sent for him, of all the retain-
able lawyers in the capital. And the wonder became
amazement when she opened her confidence. She had
received two letters from a New York broker who
offered to buy her railroad stock at a little more than
the market price. To the second letter she had replied,
asking a price ten points higher than the market. At
this the broker had apparently dropped the attempted
negotiation, since there had been no more letters. What
would Mr. Kent advise her to do—write again?
(269)


270
THE GEAFTEES
Kent smiled inwardly at the good lady's definition of
"legal advice," but he rose promptly to the occasion. If
he were in Mrs. Brentwood's place, he would not write
again; nor would he pay any attention whatever to any
similar proposals from any source. Had there been any
others?
Mrs. Brentwood confessed that there had been; that
a firm of Boston brokers had also written her. Did Mr.
Kent know the meaning of all this anxiety to buy in
Western Pacific when the stock was going down day by
day?
Kent took time for reflection before he answered. It
was exceedingly difficult to eliminate the personal factor
in the equation. If all went well, if by due process of
law the Trans-Western should be rescued out of the
hands of the wreckers, the property would be a long
time recovering from the wounds inflicted by the cut
rates and the Guilford bad management. In conse-
quence, any advance in the market value of the stock
must be slow and uncertain under the skilfullest hand-
ling. But, while it might be advisable for Mrs. Brent-
wood to take what she could get, the transfer of the
three thousand shares at the critical moment might be
the death blow to all his hopes in the fight for retrieval.
Happily, he hit upon the expedient of shifting the re-
sponsibility for the decision to other shoulders.
"I scarcely feel competent to advise you in a matter


A WOMAN INTERVENES 271
which is personal rather than legal," he said at length.
"Have you talked it over with Mr. Ormsby?"
Mrs. Brentwood's reply was openly contemptuous.
"Brookes Ormsby doesn't know anything about dol-
lars. You have to express it in millions before he can
grasp it. He says for me not to sell at any price."
Kent shook his head.
"I shouldn't put it quite so strongly. At the same
time, I am not the person to advise you."
The shrewd eyes looked up at him quickly.
"Would you mind telling me why, Mr. Kent?"
"Not in the least. I am an interested party. For
weeks Mr. Loring and I have been striving by all means
to prevent transfers of the stock from the hands of the
original holders. I don't want to advise you to your
hurt; but to tell you to sell might be to undo all that
has been done."
"Then you are still hoping to get the railroad out of
Major Guilford's hands?"
"Yes."
"And in that case the price of the stock will go up
again?"
"That is just the difficulty. It may be a long time
recovering."
"Do you think the gale of my three thousand shares
would make any difference?" she asked.


THE GRAFTERS
"There is reason to fear that it would make all the
difference."
She was silent for a time, and when she spoke again
Kent realized that he was coming to know an entirely
unsuspected side of Elinor's mother.
"It makes it pretty hard for me," she said slowly.
'This little drib of railroad stock is all that my girls
have left out of what their father willed them. I want
to save it if I can."
"So do I," said David Kent, frankly; "and for the
same reason."
Mrs. Brentwood confined herself to a dry "Why?"
"Because I have loved your elder daughter well and
truly ever since that summer at the foot of Old Croy-
don, Mrs. Brentwood, and her happiness and well-being
concern me very nearly."
"You are pretty plain-spoken, Mr. Kent. I suppose
you know Elinor is to be married to Brookes Ormsby?"
Mrs. Brentwood was quite herself again.
Kent dexterously equivocated.
"I know they have been engaged for some time," he
said; but the small quibble availed him nothing.
"Which one of them was it told you it was broken
off?" she inquired.
He smiled in spite of the increasing gravity of the
situation.
"You may be sure it was not Miss Elinor."


A WOMAN INTERVENES 273
"Humph!" said Mrs. Brentwood. "She didn't tell
me, either. 'Twas Brookes Ormsby, and he said he
wanted to begin all over again, or something of that
sort. He is nothing but a foolish boy, for all his hair
is getting thin."
"He is a very honorable man," said Kent.
"Because he is giving you another chance? I don't
mind telling you plainly that it won't do any good, Mr.
Kent."
"Why?" he asked in his turn.
"For several reasons: one is that Elinor will never
marry without my consent; another is that she can't
afford to marry a poor man."
Kent rose.
"I am glad to know how you feel about it, Mrs.
Brentwood: nevertheless, I shall ask you to give your
consent some day, God willing."
He expected an outburst of some sort, and was telling
himself that he had fairly provoked it, when she cut the
ground from beneath his (feet.
"Don't you go off with any such foolish notion as that,
David Kent," she said, not unsympathetically. "She's
in love with Brookes Ormsby, and she knows it now,
if she didn't before." And it was with this arrow rank-
ling in him that Kent bowed himself out and went to
join the young women on the porch.


XXII
A BORROWED CONSCIENCE
The conversation on the Brentwood porch was chiefly
of Breezeland Inn as a health and pleasure resort, until
an outbound electric car stopped at the corner below,
and Loring came up to make a quartet of the trio be-
hind the vine-covered trellis.
Later, the ex-manager confessed to a desire for music
—Penelope's music—and the twain went in to the sit-
ting-room and the piano, leaving Elinor and Kent to
make the best of each other as the spirit moved them.
It was Elinor's chance for free speech with Kent—the
opportunity she had craved. But now it was come, the
simplicity of the thing to be said had departed and an
embarrassing complexity had taken its place. Under
other conditions Kent would have been quick to see her
difficulty, and would have made haste to efface it; but
he was fresh from the interview with Mrs. Brentwood,
and the Parthian arrow was still rankling. None the
less, he was the first to break away from the common-
places.
(274)


A BORROWED CONSCIENCE 275
"What is the matter with us this evening?" he queried.
"We have been sitting here talking the vaguest trivial-
ities ever since Penelope and Loring side-tracked us. I
haven't been doing anything I am ashamed of; have
you?"
"Yes," she confessed, looking away from him.
"What is it?"
"I asked a certain good friend of mine to come to
see me when there is good reason to believe he didn't
want to come."
"What makes you think he didn't want to come?"
"Why—I don't know; did he?" She had turned upon
him swiftly with an outflash of the playful daring which
had been one of his major fetterings in time past—the
ecstatic little charm that goes with quick repartee and
instant and sympathetic apprehension.
"You have never yet asked anything of him that he
wasn't glad enough to give," he rejoined, keeping up
the third person figurative.
"Is that saying very much—or very little?"
"Very little, indeed. But it is only your askings that
have been lacking—not his good will."
"That was said like the David Kent I used to know.
Are you really quite the same?"
"I hope not," he protested gravely. "People used to
say of me that I matured late, and year by year as I look
back I can see that it was a true saying. I have done


276
THE GRAFTERS
some desperately boyish things since I was a man grown;
things that make me tingle when I recall them."
"Like wasting a whole summer exploring Mount
Croydon with a—a somebody who did not mature late?"
"No;T wasn't counting that among my lapses. An
older man than I ever hope to be might find excuses for
the Croydon summer. I meant in other ways. For one
thing, I have craved success as I think few men have
ever craved it; and yet my plowings in that field have
been ill-timed and boyish to a degree."
She shook her head.
"I don't know how you measure success; it is a word
of so many, many meanings. But I think you are your
own severest critic."
"That may be; but the fact remains. It is only with-
in the past few months that I have begun to get a true
inkling of things; to know, for example, that opportuni-
ties are things to be compelled—not waited for."
She was looking away from him again.
"I am not sure that I like you better for your having
discovered yourself. I liked the other David Kent."
He smiled rather joylessly.
"Somebody has said that for every new point of view
gained we have to sacrifice all the treasures of the old.
I am sorry if I am disappointing you."
"I don't know that you are. And yet, when you were
sitting at Miss Van Brock's table the other evening tell-


A BORROWED CONSCIENCE 277
ing us about your experience with the politicians, I kept
saying to myself that I didn't know you—that I had
never known you."
"I wish I knew just how to take that," he said du-
biously.
"I wish I knew how to make you understand," she re-
turned; and then: "I could have made the other David
Kent understand."
"You are in duty bound to try to make this one un-
derstand, don't you think? You spoke of a danger
which was not the violent kind, such as Loring fears.
What is it?"
'You have had two whole days," she rejoined.
"Haven't you discovered it?"
"I haven't found anything to fear but failure," was
his reply.
"That is it; you have given it a name—its only true
name—failure."
"But I am not going to fail."
"You mean you are going to take our railroad away
from these men who have stolen it?"
"That is what I mean."
"And you will do it by threatening to expose them?"
"I shall tell Governor Bucks what I know about the
oil field deal, assuring him that I shall publish the facts
if he doesn't let the law take its course in ousting Judge
MacFarlane and the receiver."


278
THE GRAFTEES
She rose and stood before him, leaning against one of
the vine-clad porch pillars with her hands behind her.
"David Kent, are there any circumstances in which
you would accept a bribe?"
He answered her in all seriousness.
"They say every man has his price: mine is higher
than any bid they have yet made—or can make, I hope."
"Why don't you let them bribe you?" she asked coolly.
"Is it because it is inexpedient—because there is more
'success' the other way?"
He tried to emulate her coolness and made a failure
of it.
"Have I ever done anything to make you think I had
thrown common honesty and self-respect overboard?" he
demanded.
Her answer was another question, sharp-edged and
well thrust home.
"Is it any worse to take a bribe than it is to give
one? You have just admitted that you are going to buy
the governor's neutrality, you know."
"I don't see it in that light at all."
"The other David Kent would have seen it. He would
have said: These men are public criminals. If I can
not bring them to justice, I can at least expose them to
the scorn of all good men. Therefore I have no right
to bargain with them."








A BOEEOWED CONSCIENCE 279
Kent was silent for a long time. When he spoke it was
to say:
"Why have you done this, Elinor?"
"Because I had to, David. Could I do less?"
"I suppose not. It's in the blood—in your blood and
mine. Other folk call it the Puritan virus of over-
righteousness, and scoff at it. I don't know: sometimes
I think they have the best of the argument."
"I can't believe you are quite sincere when you say
that," she asserted.
"Yes, I am. One can not compromise with con-
science; that says itself. But I have come to believe
latterly that one's conscience may be morbidly acute, or
even diseased. I'll admit I've been taking treatment."
"That sounds very dreadful," she rejoined.
"It does, doesn't it? Yet it had to be done. As I in-
timated a few minutes ago, my life has hitherto been a
sort of unostentatious failure. I used to think it was
because I was outclassed: I know now it has been be-
cause I wouldn't do as other men do. It has been a
rather heart-breaking process—to sort out the scruples,
admitting the just and overriding the others—but I
have been given to see that it is the price of success."
"I want you to succeed," she said.
"Pardon me; I don't think you do. You have re-
opened the door to doubt, and if I admit the doubt I
shall fail."


282
THE GRAFTERS
host of innocent people will suffer loss." Then, seeing
the quick-springing tears in her eyes: "But you mustn't
be sorry for haying done what you had to do; you have
nothing to reproach yourself for."
"Oh, but I have!" she said; and so they parted.


XXIII
THE INSUREECTIONAEIES
When the Receiver Guilfords, great and small, set
their official guillotines at work lopping off department
heads, they commonly ignore a consequence overlooked
by many; namely, the possible effect of such wholesale
changes in leadership upon the rank and file.
The American railroad in its unconsolidated stage is
a modern feudalism. Its suzerains are the president
and board of directors; its clan chiefs are the men who
have built it and fought for its footing in the sharply
contested field of competition. To these leaders the
rank and file is loyal, as loyalty is accorded to the men
who build and do, rather than to their successors who
inherit and tear down. Add to this the supplanting of
competent executive officers by a staff of political trench-
ermen, ignorant alike of the science of railroading, and
the equally important sub-science of industrial man-
handling, and you have the kindling for the fire of in-
surrection which had been slowly smoldering in the
(283)


284
THE GEAFTEES
Trans-Western service since the day when Major Guil-
ford had issued his general order Number One.
At first the fire had burned fitfully, eating its way
into the small economies; as when the section hands
pelt stray dogs with new spikes from the stock keg, and
careless freight crews seed down the right of way with
cast-off links and pins; when engineers pour oil where
it should be dropped, and firemen feed the stack instead
of the steam-dome.
But later, when the incompetence of the new officials
became the mocking gibe of the service, and the cut-rate
avalanche of traffic had doubled all men's tasks, the
flames rose higher, and out of the smoke of them loomed
the shape of the dread demon of demoralization.
First it was Hank Brodrick, who misread his orders
and piled two freights in a mountain of wreckage in
the deep cut between Long Pine and Argenta. Next it
was an overworked night man who lost his head and
cranked a switch over in front of the west-bound Flyer,
laying the 1020 on her side in the ditch, with the postal
and the baggage-car neatly telescoped on top to hold her
down.
Two days later it was Patsy Callahan; and though he
escaped with his life and his job, it was a close call. He
was chasing a time freight with the fast mail, and the
freight was taking the siding at Delhi to let him pass.
One of the red tail-lights of the freight had gone out,


THE INSUEEECTIONARIES 285
and Callahan mistook the other for the target lamp of
the second switch. He had time to yell at his fireman,
to fling himself upon the throttle-bar and to set the air-
brake before he began to turn Irish handsprings down
the embankment; but the wrecking crew camped two
whole days at Delhi gathering up the debris.
It was well on in the summer, when the two divisions,
east and west, were strewn with wreckage and the pit
tracks in the shops and shop yard were filled to over-
flowing with crippled engines, that the insurrectionaries
began to gather in their respective labor groups to dis-
cuss the growing hazards of railroading on the Trans-
Western.
The outcome was a protest from the Brotherhood of
Locomotive Engineers, addressed to the receiver in the
name of the organization, setting forth in plain terms
the grievance of the members, and charging it bluntly to
bad management. This was followed immediately by
similar complaints from the trainmen, the telegraphers,
and the firemen; all praying for relief from the incubus
of incompetent leadership. Not to be behind these, came
the Amalgamated Machinists, demanding an increase of
pay for night work and overtime; and last, but not least,
an intimation went forth from the Federative Council
of all these labor unions hinting at possible political
consequences and the alienation of the labor vote if the
abuses were not corrected.


286
THE GRAFTERS
"What d'ye calc'late the major will do about it?"
said Brodrick, in the roundhouse conclave held daily
by the trainmen who were hung up or off duty. "Will
he listen to reason and give us a sure-enough railroad
man or two at the top?"
"Not in ein t'ousand year," quoth "Dutch" Tischer,
Callahan's alternate on the fast mail. "Haf you not de
Arkoos been reading? It is bolotics from der beginning
to der ent; mit der governor vorw'drts."
"Then I am tellin' you-all right now there's goin' to
be a heap o' trouble," drawled "Pike County" Griggs,
the oldest engineer on the line. "The shopmen are
b'ilin'; and if the major puts on that blanket cut in
wages he's talkin' about—"
"'If'," broke in Callahan, with fine scorn. "'Tis
slaping on yer injuries ye are, Misther Griggs. The
notice is out; 'twas posted in the shops this day."
"Then that settles it," said Griggs, gloomily. "When
does it take hold?"
"The first day av the month to come. An' they're
telling me it catches everybody, down to the missinger
b'ys in the of'ces."
Griggs got upon his feet, yawning and stretching be-
fore he dropped back into his corner of the wooden set-
tle.
"You lissen at me: if that's the fact, I'm tellin' you-
all that every wheel on this blame', hoodooed railroad


288
THE GRAFTERS
"You should read dose Arhoos newsbapers: den you
should know somet'ings alretty, ain'd it?" said Tischer.
Brodrick laughed.
"If you see it in the papers, it's so," he quoted.
"What the Argus doesn't say would make a 'nough
sight bigger book than what it does. But I've been
kind o' watchin' that man Kent. He's been hot after
the major, right from the jump. You rec'lect what he
said in them Civic League talks o' his: said these poli-
ticians had stole the road, hide, hair an' horns."
"I'm onto him," said Callahan. "'Tis a bird he is.
Oleson was telling me. The Scandehoovian was thryin'
to get him down to Gaston the day they ray-ceivered us.
Jarl says he wint a mile a minut', an' the little man
never turned a hair."
"Is he here yet; or did he go back to God's country?"
asked Engineer Scott, leaning from the cab window of
the 1031.
"He's here; and so is Mr. Loring. They're stopping
at the Clarendon," said Brodrick.
"Then they haven't quit," drawled Griggs; adding:
"I wonder if they have a ghost of a show against the
politicals?"
"Has annybody been to see 'em?" asked Callahan.
"There's a notion for you, Scott," said Brodrick.
Scott was the presiding officer in the B. of L. E. local.


290
THE GEAFTERS
which stood in the angle formed by the diverging
tracks of the two divisions. Beyond the yard the
street became a country road, well traveled as the prin-
cipal southern inlet to the city. When Dixon was with-
in two train-lengths of the crossing, a farm wagon ap-
peared, driven between the cut freight trains on the
sidings directly in the path of the Flyer. The men at
the roundhouse window heard the crash of the splinter-
ing wagon above the roar of the train; and the wiper
on the window seat yelped like a kicked dog and went
sickly green under his mask of grime.
"There it is again," said Scott, when Dixon had
brought his train to a stand two hundred yards beyond
the "limits" office where he should have stopped for
orders. "We're all hoodooed, the last one of us. I'll
get that committee together this afternoon and go and
buzz Mr. Loring."
Now it fell out that these things happened on a day
when the tide of retrieval was at its lowest ebb; the
day, namely, in which Kent had told Loring that he
was undecided as to his moral right to use the evidence
against Bucks as a lever to pry the Trans-Western out
of the grip of the junto. It befell, also, that it was the
day chosen by two other men, not members of the labor
unions, in which to call upon the ex-manager; and
Loring found M'Tosh, the train-master, and Durgan,
the master-mechanic, waiting for him in the hotel cor-


292
THE GRAFTERS
be sure of getting a train out of the yards without
accident. Dixon is as careful a man as ever stepped on
an engine, and he smashed a farmer's wagon and killed
the farmer this morning within two train-lengths of
the shop junction."
"Drunk?" inquired the ex-manager.
"Never a drop; Dixon's a Prohibitionist, dyed in the
wool. But just before he took his train, Halkett had
him in the sweat-box, jacking him up for not making
his time. He came out red in the face, jumped on his
engine, and yanked the Flyer down the yards forty
miles an hour."
"And what is your trouble, Durgan?" asked Loring.
"Another side of the same thing. I wrote Major Guil-
ford yesterday, telling him that six pit gangs, all the
roundhouse 'emergencies' and two outdoor repair squads
couldn't begin to keep the cripples moving; and within
a week every one of the labor unions has kicked through
its grievance committee. His reply is an order announc-
ing a blanket cut in wages, to go into effect the first of
the month. That means a strike and a general tie-up."
Loring shook his head regretfully.
"It hurts me," he admitted. "We had the best-hand-
led piece of railroad in the West, and I give the credit
to the men that did the handling. And to have it
wrecked by a gang of incompetent salary-grabbers—"
The two left-overs nodded.


THE INSUEEECTIONARIES 293
'That's just it, Mr. Loring," said M'Tosh. "And
we're here to ask you if it's worth while for us to stick
to the wreck any longer. Are you folks doing any-
thing?"
"We have been trying all legal means to break the
grip of the combination—yes."
"And what are the prospects?" It was the master-
mechanic who wanted to know.
"They are not very bright at present, I must confess.
We have the entire political ring to fight, and the odds
are overwhelming."
"You say you've been trying legal means'," M'Tosh
put in. "Can't we down them some other way? I be-
lieve you could safely count on the help of every man
in the service, barring the politicals."
Loring smiled.
"I don't say we should scruple to use force if there
were any way to apply it. But the way doesn't offer."
"I didn't know," said the train-master, rising to close
the interview. "But if the time ever comes, all you or
Mr. Kent will have to do will be to pass the word.
Maybe you can think of some way to use the strike.
It hasn't been declared yet, but you can bet on it to a
dead moral certainty."
It was late in the afternoon of the same day that
the Federative Council sent its committee, chairmaned
by Engineer Scott, to interview the ex-general manager


294
THE GEAFTEES
at his rooms in the Clarendon. Scott acted as spokes-
man, stating the case with admirable brevity and con-
ciseness, and asking the same question as that pro-
pounded by the train-master, to wit, if there were any
prospect of a return of the road to its former manage-
ment.
Loring spoke more hopefully to the committee than
he had to Durgan and M'Tosh. There had been a little
more time for reflection, and there was the heartening
which comes upon the heels of unsolicited help-tender-
ings, however futile. So he told the men that the stock-
holders were moving heaven and earth in the effort to
recover their property; that until the road should be
actually sold under an order from the court, there was
always room for hope. The committee might rest as-
sured that no stone would be left unturned; also that
the good will of the rank and file would not be forgotten
in the day of restitution, if that day should ever dawn.
When Loring was through, Engineer Scott did a thing
no union man had ever done before: he asked an ex-
general manager's advice touching the advisability of a
strike.
"I can't say as to that," was the prompt reply. "You
know your own business best—what it will cost, and
what it may accomplish. But I've been on the other
side often enough to be able to tell you why most strikes
fail, if you care to know."


XXIV
IXTO THE PRIMITIVE
Tested upon purely diplomatic principles, Miss Van
Brock's temper was little less than angelic, exhibiting
itself under provocation only in guarded pin-pricks of
sarcasm, or in small sharp-clawed kitten-buffetings of
repartee. But she was at no pains to conceal her scorn-
ful disappointment when David Kent made known his
doubts concerning his moral right to use the weapon
he had so skilfully forged.
He delayed the inevitable confession to Portia until
he had told Loring; and in making it he did not tell
Miss Van Brock to whom he owed the sudden change
in the point of view. But Portia would have greatly
discredited her gift of insight if she had not instantly
reduced the problem to its lowest terms.
"You have been asking Miss Brentwood to lend you
her conscience, and she has done it," was the form in
which she stated the fact. And when Kent did not
deny it: "You lack at least one quality of greatness,
David; you sway too easily."
(296)


INTO THE PRIMITIVE 299
outskirts of the eastern suburb of the city. Following a
boyish habit he had never fully outgrown, Kent had once
more taken his problem to the open, and the hour after
luncheon time found him plodding wearily back to the
end of the car line, jaded, dusty and stiff from much
tramping of the brown plain, but with the long duel
finally fought out to some despairing conclusion.
The City Hall clock was upon the stroke of three
when the inbound trolley-car landed him in front of
the Clarendon. It was a measure of his purposeful
abstraction that he went on around the corner to the
Security Bank, dusty and unpresentable as he was, and
transferred the packet of incriminating affidavits from
the safety deposit box to his pocket before going to his
rooms in the hotel.
This paper weapon was the centering point of the
struggle which had now lasted for nearly a fortnight.
So long as the weapon was his to use or to cast away,
the outcome of the moral conflict hung in the balance.
But now he was emerging from the night wanderings
among the tombs of the undecided.
"I can't give it up; there is too much at stake," he
muttered, as he trudged heavily back to the hotel. And
before he went above stairs he asked the young woman
at the house telephone exchange to ascertain if Gov-
ernor Bucks were in his office at the capitol, and if so,
if he were likely to remain there for an hour.


300
THE GRAFTERS
When he reached his rooms he flung the packet of
papers on the writing-table and went to freshen him-
self with a bath. That which lay before him called for
fitness, mental and physical, and cool sanity. In other
times of stress, as just before a critical hour in court,
the tub and the cold plunge had been his fillip where
other men resorted to the bottle.
He was struggling into clean linen, and the packet
was still lying where he had tossed it on entering,
when a bell-boy came up with a card. Kent read the
name with a ghost of a smile relaxing the care-drawn
lines about his mouth. There are times when a man's
fate rushes to meet him, and he had fallen upon one
of them.
"Show him up," was the brief direction; and when
the door of the elevator cage clacked again, Kent was
waiting.
His visitor was a man of heroic proportions; a large
man a little breathed, as it seemed, by the swift upward
rush of the elevator. Kent admitted him with a nod;
and the governor planted himself heavily in a chair
and begged a light for his cigar. In the match-passing
he gathered his spent breath and declared his errand.
"I think we have a little score to settle between us as
man to man, Kent," he began, when Kent had clipped
the end from his own cigar and lighted it in stolid
silence.


INTO THE PEIMITIVE 301
"Possibly: that is for you to say," was the unencour-
aging reply.
Bucks rose deliberately, walked to the bath-room door,
and looked beyond it into the bedroom.
"We are quite alone, if that is what you want to make
sure of," said Kent, in the same indifferent tone; and
the governor came back and resumed his chair.
"I came up to see what you want—what you will
take to quit," he announced, crossing his legs and lock-
ing the huge ham-like hands over his knee. "That is
putting it rather abruptly, but business is business, and
we can dispense with the preliminaries, I take it."
"I told your attorney-general some time ago what I
wanted, and he did not see fit to grant it," Kent re-
sponded. "I am not sure that I want anything now—
anything you can have to offer." This was not at
all what he had intended to say; but the presence of
the adversary was breeding a stubborn antagonism that
was more potent on the moral side than all the prick-
ings of conscience.
The yellow-lidded eyes of the governor began to close
down, and the look came into them which had been
there when he had denied a pardon to a widow pleading
for the life of her convicted son.
"I had hoped you were in the market," he demurred.
"It would be better for all concerned if you had some-
thing to sell, with a price attached. I know what you


302
THE GRAFTEES
have been doing, and what you think you have got hold
of. It's a tissue of mistakes and falsehoods and baek-
bitings from beginning to end, but it may serve your
purpose with the newspapers. I want to buy that pack-
age of stuff you've got stowed away in the Security
vaults."
The governor's chair was on one side of the writing-
table, and Kent's was on the other. In plain sight be-
tween the two men lay the packet Bucks was willing
to bargain for. It was inclosed in a box envelope, bear-
ing the imprint of the Security Bank. Kent was look-
ing steadily away from the table when he said:
"What if I say it isn't for sale?"
"Don't you think it had better be?"
"I don't know. I hadn't thought much about the
advisable phase of it."
"Well, the time has come when you've got it to do,"
was the low-toned threat.
"But not as a matter of compulsion," said Kent,
coolly enough. "What is your bid?"
Bucks made it promptly.
"Ten thousand dollars: and you promise to leave the
State and stay away for one year from the first Tuesday
in November next."
"That is, until after the next State election." Kent
blew a whiff of smoke to the ceiling and shook his head
slowly. "It is not enough."


INTO THE PEIMITIVE 303
The governor uncrossed his legs, crossed them the
other way, and said:
"I'll make it twenty thousand and two years."
"Or thirty thousand and three years," Kent sug-
gested amiably. "Or suppose we come at once to the
end of that string and say one hundred thousand and
ten years. That would still leave you a fair price for
your block of suburban property in Guilford and
Hawk's addition to the city of Gaston, wouldn't it?"
The governor set his massive jaw with a sharp little
click of the teeth.
"You are joking on the edge of your grave, my young
friend. I taught you in Gaston that you were not big
enough to fight me: do you think you are big enough
now?"
"I don't think; I know," said Kent, incisively. "And
since you have referred to the Gaston days: let me ask
if I ever gave you any reason to believe that I could be
scared out?"
"Keep to the point," retorted Bucks, harshly. "This
State isn't broad enough to hold you and me on op-
posite sides of the fence. I could make it too hot to
hold you without mixing up in it myself, but I choose
to fight my own battles. Will you take twenty thousand
dollars spot cash, and MacFarlane's job as circuit judge
when I'm through with him? Yes or no."
"No."


INTO THE PRIMITIVE 305
"I say yes!" came the explosive reassertion; and
Kent found himself looking down the bright barrel of
a pistol thrust into his face across the table.
For a man who had been oftenest an onlooker on the
football half of life, Kent was measurably quick and re-
sourceful. In one motion he clamped the weapon and
turned it aside; in another he jammed the fire end of
his cigar among the fingers of the grasping hand. The
governor jerked free with an oath, pain-extorted; and
Kent dropped the captured weapon into the table
drawer. It was all done in two breaths, and when it
was over, Kent flung away the broken cigar and lighted
a fresh one.
"That was a very primitive expedient, your Excel-
lency, to say the best of it," he remarked. "Have you
nothing better to offer?"
The reply was a wild-beast growl, and taking it for a
negative, Kent went on.
"Then perhaps you will listen to my proposal. The
papers you are so anxious about are here,"—tapping the
envelope on the table. "No, don't try to snatch them;
you wouldn't get out of here alive with them, lacking
my leave. Such of them as relate to your complicity in
the Universal Oil deal are yours—on one condition;
that your health fails and you get yourself ordered out
of the State for the remainder of your term."
"No!" thundered the governor.


306
THE GBAFTEES
"Very well; yon may stay and take a course of home
treatment, if yon prefer. It's optional."
"By God! I don't know what keeps me from throt-
tling you with my hands!" Bucks got upon his feet,
and Kent rose, also, slipping the box envelope into his
pocket and laying a precautionary hand on the drawer-
pull.
The governor turned away and walked to the window,
nursing his burned fingers. When he faced about it
was to return to the charge.
"Kent, what is it you want? Say it in two words."
"Candidly, I didn't know, until a few minutes ago,
Governor. It began with a determination to break your
grip on my railroad, I believe."'
"Yon can have your railroad, if you can get it—and
be damned to it, and to you, too!"
"I said it began that way. My sole idea in gathering
up this evidence against you and your accomplices was
to whittle out a club that would make you let go of the
Trans-Western. For two weeks I have been debating
with myself as to whether I should buy you or break
you; and half an hour before you came, I went to the
bank and took these papers out, meaning to go and hunt
you up."
"Well?" said the governor, and the word bared his
teeth because his lips were dry.
"I thought I knew, in the old Gaston days, how many


INTO THE PEIMITIVB 307
different kinds of a scoundrel you could be, but you've
succeeded in showing me some new variations in the last
few minutes. It's a thousand pities that the people of
a great State should be at the mercy of such a gang of
pirates as you and Hendricks and Meigs and MacFar-
lane, and—"
"Break it off!" said Bucks.
"I'm through. I was merely going to add that I
have concluded not to buy you."
"Then it's to be war to the knife, is it?"
"That is about the size of it," said Kent; and the
governor found his hat.
"I'll trouble you to return my property," he growled,
pointing to the table drawer.
"Certainly." Kent broke the revolver over the blot-
ting pad, swept the ejected cartridges into the open
drawer, and passed the empty weapon to its owner.
When the door closed behind the outgoing visitor the
victor in the small passage at arms began to walk the
floor; but at four o'clock, which was Hildreth's hour for
coming down-town, he put on his hat and went to climb
the three flights of stairs to the editor's den in the
Argus building.


310
THE GEAFTERS
made out, with the evidence in sound legal form. What
is to prevent your trying it?"
"The one thing that you ought to be lawyer enough
to see at a glance. There is no court to try it in. With
the Assembly in session we might do something: as it
is, we can only yap at the heels of the ringsters, and
our yapping won't help you in the railroad fight. What
do you hear from Boston?"
"Nothing new. The stock is still fiat on the market,
with the stock-holders' pool holding a bare majority,
and the Plantagould brokers buying in driblets wher-
ever they can find a small holder who is willing to let
go. It is only a question of time; and a very short
time at that."
The editor wagged his head in sympathy.
"I wish I could help you, David. You've done a big
thing for me—for the Argus; and all I have to hand
you in return is a death sentence. MacFarlane is back."
"Here? In town?"
"Yes. And that isn't the worst of it. The governor
sent for him."
"Have you any idea what is in the wind?" asked
Kent, dry-lipped.
"I am afraid I beve. My young men have been nos-
ing around in the Trans-Western affair, and several
things have developed. Matters are approaching a cri-
sis. The cut-rate boom is about to collapse, and there


DEAD WATER AND QUICK 311
is trouble brewing in the labor organizations. If Bucks
doesn't get his henchmen out of it pretty soon, they will
be involved in the smash—which will be bad for them
and for him, politically."
"I developed most of that a good while ago," Kent
cut in.
"Yes; I know. But there is more to follow. The
stock-smashing plan was all right, but it is proving too
slow. Now they are going to do something else."
"Can you give it a name?" asked Kent, nerving him-
self.
"I can. But first tell me one thing: as matters stand,
could Guilford dispose of the road—sell it or lease it?"
"No; he would first have to be made permanent re-
ceiver and be given authority by the court."
"Ah! that explains Judge MacFarlane's return. Now
what I am going to tell you is the deadest of secrets.
It came to me from one of the Overland officials, and
I'm not supposed to gossip. Did you know the Over-
land Short Line had passed under Plantagould domi-
nation?"
"I know they elected a Plantagould directory at the
annual meeting."
"Exactly. Well, Guilford is going to lease the Trans-
Western to its competitor for a term of ninety-nine
years. That ' s your death sentence."
Kent sprang to his feet, and what he said is unre-


312
THE GRAFTEES
cordable. He was not a profane man, but the sanguine
temperament would assert itself explosively in moments
of sudden stress.
"When is this thing to be done?" he demanded, when
the temperamental gods were appeased a little.
Hildreth shrugged.
"I have told you all I could, and rather more than
I had any right to. Open the door behind you, won't
you? The air is positively sulphurous."
Kent opened the door, entirely missing the point of
the sarcasm in his heat.
"But you must have some idea," he insisted.
"I haven't; any more than the general one that they
won't let the grass grow under their feet."
"No. God blast the whole—I wish I could swear in
Sanscrit. The mother-tongue doesn't begin to do jus-
tice to it. Now I know what Bucks meant when he told
me to take my railroad, if I could get it. He had the
whole thing coopered up in a barrel at that minute."
"I take it you have no alternative to this," said the
editor, tapping the pile of affidavits.
"Not a cursed shred of an idea! And, Hildreth—"
he broke off short because once again the subject sud-
denly grew too large for coherent speech.
Hildreth disentangled himself from the legs of his.
chair and stood up to put his hands on Kent's shoulders.
"You are up against it hard, David," he said; and


DEAD WATEE AND QUICK 313
he repeated: "I'd give all my old shoes to be able to
help you out."
"I know it," said Kent; and then he turned abruptly
and went away.
Between nine and ten o'clock the same evening Kent
was walking the floor of his room, trying vainly to per-
suade himself that virtue was its own reward, and won-
dering if a small dose of chloral hydrate would be de-
fensible under the cruel necessity for sleep. He had
about decided in favor of the drug when a tap at the
door announced the coming of a bell-boy with a note.
It was a message from Portia.
"If you have thrown away your chance definitely, and
are willing to take a still more desperate one, come to
see me," she wrote; and he went mechanically, as a
drowning man catches at a straw, knowing it will not
save him.
The house in Alameda Square was dark when he
went up the walk; and while he was feeling for the bell-
push his summoner called to him out of the electric
stencilings of leaf shadows under the broad veranda.
"It is too fine a night to stay indoors," she said.
"Come and sit in the hammock while I scold you as you
deserve." And when he had taken the hammock: "Now
give an account of yourself. Where have you been for
the past age or two?"


314
THE GEAFTEES
''Wallowing around in the lower depths of the place
that Dante visited," he admitted.
"Don't you think you deserve a manhandling?"
"I suppose so; and if you have it in mind, I shall
probably get it. But I may say I'm not especially anx-
ious for a tongue-lashing to-night."
"Poor boy!" she murmured, in mock sympathy.
"Does it hurt to be truly good?"
"Try it some time when you have a little leisure, and
see for yourself," he retorted.
She laughed.
"No; I'll leave that for the Miss Brentwoods. By
the way, did you go to tell the household good-by?
Penelope was wondering audibly what had become of
you."
"I didn't know they were gone. I have been nowhere
since the night you drove me out with contumely and
opprobrium."
She laughed again.
"You must have dived deep. They went a week ago
Tuesday, and you lost your ghostly adviser and your
political stage manager at one fell swoop. But it isn't
wonderful that you haven't missed Mr. Ormsby. Hav-
ing elected Miss Brentwood your conscience-keeper-in-
chief, you have no further use for the P. S. M."
"And you have no further use for me, apparently,"


DEAD WATEE AND QUICK 315-
he complained. "Did you send for me so that you
might abuse me in the second edition?"
"No; I wanted to give you a bit of news, and to re-
peat an old question of mine. Do you know what they
are going to do next with your railroad?"
"Yes; Hildreth told me this afternoon."
"Well, what are you going to do?"
"Nothing. There is nothing to be done. They have
held to the form of legal procedure thus far, but they
won't do it any more. They will take MacFarlane off
in a corner somewhere, have him make Guilford per-
manent receiver, and the lease to the Overland will be
consummated on the spot. I sha'n't be in it."
"Probably not; certainly not if you don't try to get
in it. And that brings me back to the old question.
Are you big enough, David?"
"If you think I haven't been big enough to live up to
my opportunities thus far, I'm afraid I may disappoint
you again," he said doubtfully.
"You have disappointed me," she admitted. "That
is why I am asking: I'd like to be reasonably sure your
Jonathan Edwardsy notions are not going to trip us
again."
"Portia, if I thought you really meant that. . .
A conscienceless man is bad enough, God knows; but a
conscienceless woman—"


316
THE GRAFTERS
Her laugh was a decorous little shriek.
"David, you are not big; you are narrow, narrow,
narrow.1 Is there then no other code of morals in the
round world save that which the accident of birth has
interleaved with your New England Bible? What is
conscience? Is it an absolute standard of right and
wrong? Or is it merely your ideal or mine, or Shafiz
Ullah Khan's?"
"You may call it all the hard names you can lay
tongue to," he allowed. "I'm not getting much com-
fort out of it, and I rather enjoy hearing it abused.
But you are thrusting at a shadow in the present in-
stance. Do you know what I did this afternoon?"
"How should I know?"
"I don't know why you shouldn't: you know every-
thing that happens. But I'll tell you. I had been
fighting the thing over from start to finish and back
again ever since you blessed me out a week ago last
Monday, and at the wind-up this afternoon I took the
papers out of the bank vault, having it in mind to go
and give his Excellency a bad quarter of an hour."
"But you didn't do it?"
"No, he saved me the trouble. While I was getting
ready to go and hunt him, his card came up. We had
it out in my rooms."
"I'm listening," she said; and he rehearsed the facts
iot her, concealing nothing.


DEAD WATER AND QUICK 317
"What a curious thing human nature is!" she com-
mented, when he had made an end. "My better judg-
ment says you were all kinds of a somebody for not
clinching the nail when you had it so well driven home.
And yet I can't help admiring your exalted fanaticism.
I do love consistency, and the courage of it. But tell
me, if you can, how far these fair-fighting scruples of
yours go. You have made it perfectly plain that if a
thief should steal your pocketbook, you would suffer
loss before you'd compromise with him to get it back.
But suppose you should catch him at it: would you feel
compelled to call a policeman—or would you—"
He anticipated her.
"You are doing me an injustice on the other side,
now. I'll fight as furiously as you like. All I ask is to
be given a weapon that won't bloody my hands."
"Good!" she said approvingly. "I think I have
found the weapon, but it's desperate, desperate! And
0 David! you've got to have a cool head and a steady
hand when you use it. If you haven't, it will kill every-
body within the swing of it—everybody but the man you
are trying to reach."
"Draw it and let me feel its edge," he said shortly.
Her chair was close beside the low-swung hammock.
She bent to his ear and whispered a single sentence.
For a minute or two he sat motionless, weighing and


THE GRAFTERS
balancing the chance of success against the swiftly mul-
tiplying difficulties and hazards.
"You call it desperate," he said at length; "if there
is a bigger word in the language, you ought to find it
and use it. The risk is that of a forlorn hope; not so
much for me, perhaps, as for the innocent—or at least
ignorant—accomplices I'll have to enlist."
She nodded.
"That is true. But how much is your railroad
worth?"
"It is bonded for fifty millions first, and twenty mil-
lions second mortgage."
"Well, seventy millions are worth fighting for: worth
a very considerable risk, I should say."
"Yes." And after another thoughtful interval: "How
did you come to think of it?"
"It grew out of a bit of talk with the man who will
have to put the apex on our pyramid after we have done
our part."
"Will he stand by us? If he doesn't, we shall all
be no better than dead men the morning after the fact."
She clasped her hands tightly over her knee, and
said:
"That is one of the chances we must take, David; one
of the many. But it is the last of the bridges to be
•crossed, and there are lots of them in between. Are


DEAD WATER AND QUICK 319
the details possible? That was the part I couldn't go
into by myself."
He took other minutes for reflection.
"I can't tell," he said doubtfully. "If I could only
know how much time we have."
Her eyes grew luminous.
"David, what would you do without me?" she asked.
"To-morrow night, in Stephen Hawk's office in Gaston,
you will lose your railroad. MacFarlane is there, or if
he isn't, he'll be there in the morning. Bucks, Guil-
ford and Hawk will go down from here to-morrow eve-
ning; and the Overland people are to come up from
Midland City to meet them."
There was awe undisguised in the look he gave her,
and it had crept into his voice when he said:
"Portia, are you really a flesh-and-blood woman?"
She smiled.
"Meaning that your ancestors would have burned
me for a witch? Perhaps they would: I think quite
likely they burned women who made better martyrs.
But I didn't have to call in Flibbertigibbet. The pro-
gramme is a carefully guarded secret, to be sure; but
it is known—it had to be known—to a number of people
outside of our friends the enemy. You've heard the
story of the inventor and his secret, haven't you?"
"No."


320
THE GRAFTERS
"Well, the man had invented something, and he told
the secret of it to his son. After a little the son wanted
to tell it to a friend. The old man said, 'Hold on; I
know it—that's one'—holding up one finger—'you know
it—that's eleven'—holding up another finger beside the
first; 'and now if you tell this other fellow, that'll be
one hundred and eleven'—holding up three fingers.
That is the case with this programme. One of the one
hundred and eleven—he is a person high up in the man-
agement of the Overland Short Line—dropped a few
words in my hearing and I picked them up. That's
all."
"It is fearfully short—the time, I mean," he said
after another pause. "We can't count on any help from
any one in authority. Guilford's broom has swept the
high-salaried official corners clean. But the wage-peo-
ple are mutinous and ripe for anything. I'll go and
find out where we stand." And he groped on the floor
of the veranda for his hat.
"No, wait a minute," she interposed. "We are not
quite ready to adjourn yet. There remains a little mat-
ter of compensation—your compensation—to be con-
sidered. You are still on the company's pay-rolls?"
"In a way, yes; as its legal representative on the
_ground."
"That won't do. If you carry this thing through


DEAD WATER AND QUICK 321
successfully it must be on your own account, and not
as the company's paid servant. You must resign and
make terms with Boston beforehand; and that, too,
without telling Boston what you propose to do."
He haggled a little at that.
"The company is entitled to my services," he as-
serted.
"It is entitled to what it pays for—your legal services.
But this is entirely different. You will be acting upon
your own initiative, and you'll have to spend money
like water at your own risk. You must be free to deal
with Boston as an outsider."
"But I have no money to spend," he objected.
Again the brown eyes grew luminous; and again she
said:
"What would you do without me? Happily, my in-
formation came early enough to enable me to get a let-
ter to Mr. Ormsby. He answered promptly by wire this
morning. Here is his telegram."
She had been winding a tightly folded slip of paper
around her fingers, and she smoothed it out and gave
it to him. He held it in a patch of the electric light
between the dancing leaf shadows and read:
"Plot Number Two approved. Have wired one hun-
dred thousand to Kent's order Security Bank. Have
him draw as he needs."


322
THE GRAFTEES
"So now you see," she went on, "you have the sinews
of war. But you must regard it as an advance and name
your fee to the Boston folk so you can pay it back."
He protested again, rather weakly.
"It looks like extortion; like another graft," he said;
and now she lost patience with him.
"Of all the Puritan fanatics!" she cried. "If it were
a simple commercial transaction by which you would
6ave your clients a round seventy million dollars, which
would otherwise be lost, would you scruple to take a
proportionate fee?"
"No; certainly not."
"Well, then; you go and tell Mr. Loring to wire his
Advisory Board, and to do it to-night."
"But I'll have to name a figure," said Kent.
"Of course," she replied.
Kent thought about it for a long minute. Then he
said: "I wonder if ten thousand dollars, and expenses,
would paralyze them?"
Miss Van Brock's comment was a little shriek of de-
rision.
"I knew you'd make difficulties when it came to the
paying part of it, and since I didn't know, myself, I
wired Mr. Ormsby again. Here is what he says," and
she untwisted a second telegram and read it to him.
"'Fee should not be less than five per cent, of bonded


326
THE GRAFTEKS
"That would be different," Elinor contended. "We
are not his guests here; we are his pensioners."
"Nonsense!" frowned the mother. "Isn't it begin-
ning to occur to you that beggars shouldn't be choosers?
And, besides, so far as you are concerned, you are only
anticipating a little."
It was an exceedingly injudicious, not to say brutal
way of putting it; and the blue-gray eyes flashed fire.
"Can't you see that you are daily making a marriage
between us more and more impossible?" was the bitter
rejoinder. Elinor's metier was cool composure under
fire, but she was not always able to compass it.
Mrs. Brentwood fanned herself vigorously. She had
been aching to have it out with this self-willed young
woman who was playing fast and loose with attainable
millions, and the hour had struck.
"What made you break it off with Brookes Ormsby?"
she snapped; adding: "I don't wonder you were
ashamed to tell me about it."
"I did not break it off; and I was not ashamed."
Elinor had regained her self-control, and the angry
light in the far-seeing eyes was giving place to the cool
gray blankness which she cultivated.
"That is what Brookes told me, but I didn't believe
him," said the mother. "It's all wrong, anyway, and I
more than half believe David Kent is at the bottom of
it."


ON THE HIGH PLAINS 327
Elinor left her chair and went to the window, which
looked down on the sanatorium, the ornate parterre,
and the crescent driveway. These family bickerings
were very trying to her, and the longing to escape them
was sometimes strong enough to override cool reason
and her innate sense of the fitness of things.
In her moments of deepest depression she told her-
self that the prolonged struggle was making her hard
and cynical; that she was growing more and more on the
Grimkie side and shrinking on the Brentwood. With
the unbending uprightness of the Grimkie forebears
there went a prosaic and unmalleable strain destructive
alike of sentiment and the artistic ideals. This strain
was in her blood, and from childhood she had fought it,
hopefully at times, and at other times, as now, despair-
ingly. There were tears in her eyes when she turned
to the window; and if they were merely tears of self-
pity, they were better than none. Once, in the halcyon
summer, David Kent had said that the most hardened
criminal in the dock was less dangerous to humanity
than the woman who had forgotten how to cry.
But into the turmoil of thoughts half indignant,
half self-compassionate, came reproach and a great wave
of tenderness filial. She saw, as with a sudden gift of
retrospection, her mother's long battle with inadequacy,
and how it had aged her; saw, too, that the battle had
been fought unselfishly, since she knew her mother's


328
THE GRAFTERS
declaration that she could contentedly "go back to noth-
ing" was no mere petulant boast. It was for her daugh-
ters that she had grown thin and haggard and irritable
under the persistent reverses of fortune; it was for them
that she was sinking the Grimkie independence in the
match-making mother.
The tears in Elinor's eyes were not altogether of self-
pity when she put her back to the window. Ormsby
was coming up the curved driveway in his automobile,
and she had seen him but dimly through the rising
mist of emotion.
"Have you set your heart upon this thing, mother ?—
but I know you have. And I—I have tried as I could
to be just and reasonable; to you and Penelope, and
to Brookes Ormsby. He is nobleness itself: it is a
shame to give him the shadow when he so richly de-
serves the substance."
She spoke rapidly, almost incoherently; and the
mother-love in the woman who was careful and troubled
about the things that perish put the match-maker to the
wall. It was almost terrifying to see Elinor, the strong-
hearted, the self-contained, breaking down like other
mothers' daughters. So it was the mother who held out
her arms, and the daughter ran to go down on her knees
at the chair-side, burying her face in the lap of com-
forting.
"There, there, Ellie, child; don't cry. It's terrible


330
THE GRAFTEES
have applauded him if he had gone on; and there wa.
only one woman in all the world to pry into the secret
places of his soul and stir up the sleeping doubt!"
Now, if all the thrifty, gear-getting "faculty" of the
dead and gone Grimkies had become thin and diluted
and inefficient in this Mrs. Hepzibah, last of the name,
the strong wine and iron of the blood of uprightness had
come down to her unstrained.
"Tell me all about it, daughter," she adjured; and
when the tale was told, she patted the bowed head ten-
derly and spoke the words of healing.
"You did altogether right, Ellie, dear; I—I am proud
of you, daughter. And if, as you say, you were the only
one to do it, that doesn't matter; it was all the more
necessary. Are you sure he gave it up?"
Elinor rose and stood with clasped hands beside her
mother's chair; a very pitiful and stricken half-sister
of the self-reliant, dependable young woman who had
boasted herself the head of the household.
"I have no means of knowing what he has done," she
said slowly. "But I know the man. He has turned
back."
There was a tap at the door and a servant was come
to say that Mr. Brookes Ormsby was waiting with his
auto-car. Was Miss Brentwood nearly ready?
Elinor said, "In a minute," and when the door closed,


ON THE HIGH PLAINS 331
she made a confidante of her mother for the first time
since her childhood days.
"I know what you have suspected ever since that sum-
mer in New Hampshire, and it is true," she confessed.
"I do love him—as much as I dare to without knowing
whether he cares for me. Must I—may I—say yes
to Brookes Ormsby without telling him the whole
truth?"
"Oh, my dear! You couldn't do that!" was the quick
reply.
"You mean that I am not strong enough? But I
am; and Mr. Ormsby is manly enough and generous
enough to meet me half-way. Is there any other honest
thing to do, mother?"
Mrs. Hepzibah shook her head deliberately and de-
terminedly, though she knew she was shaking the Orms-
by millions into the abyss of the unattainable.
"No; it is his just due. But I can't help being sorry
for him, Ellie. What will you do if he says it doesn't
make any difference?"
The blue-gray eyes were downcast.
"I don't know. Having asked so much, and accepted
so much from him—it shall be as he says, mother."
The afternoon had been all that a summer afternoon
on the brown highlands can be, and the powerful tour-


ON THE HIGH PLAINS 333
such signal of acquiescence as Marie Antoinette may
have given the waiting headsman.
"You have been afraid every day lest I should begin
a second time to press you for an answer, haven't you?"
She could not thrust and parry with him. They were
past all that.
"Yes," she admitted briefly.
"You break my heart, Elinor," he said, after a long
pause. "But"—with a sudden tightening of the lips—
"I'm not going to break yours."
She understood him, and her eyes filled quickly with
the swift shock of gratitude.
"If you had made a study of womankind through
ten lifetimes instead of a part of one, you could not
know when and how to strike truer and deeper," she-
said; and then, softly: "Why can't you make me love
you, Brookes?"
He took his foot from the brake-pedal, and for ten
seconds the released car shot down the slope unhindered.
Then he checked the speed and answered her.
"A little while ago I should have said I didn't know;
but now I do know. It is because you love David Kent:
you loved him before I had my chance."
She did not deny the principal fact, but she gave
him his opportunity to set it aside if he could—and
would.


ON THE HIGH PLAINS 335
and I saw then that my only hope was to make a hand-
fast friend of him. And I did it."
"I believe you can do anything you try to do," she
said warmly.
This time his smile was a mere grimace.
"You will have to make one exception, after this; and
so shall I. And since it is the first of any consequence
in all my mounting years, it grinds. I can't throw an-
other man out of the window and take his place."
"If you were anything but what you are, you would
have thrown him out of the window another way," she
rejoined.
"That would have been a dago's trick; not a white
man's," he asserted. "I suppose I might have got in
his way and played the dog in the manger generally,
and you would have stuck to your word and married
me, but I am not looking for that kind of a winning. I
don't mind confessing that I played my last card when
I released you ?rom your engagement. I said to my-
self: If that doesn't break down the barriers, nothing
will."
She looked up quickly.
"You will never know how near it came to doing it,
Brookes."
"But it didn't quite?"
"No, it didnt quite."


ON THE HIGH PLAINS 337
"Oh!" she exclaimed; and there was dismay and
sharp disappointment in her voice. "You don't mean
that he is going to bribe these men?"
"No," he said, relenting. "As a matter of fact, I
don't know precisely what he is doing with the money,
but I guess it is finding its way into legitimate chan-
nels. I'll make him give me an itemized expense ac-
count for your benefit when it's all over, if you like."
"It would be kinder to tell me more about it now,"
she pleaded.
"No; I'll let him have that pleasure, after the fact—
if we can get him pardoned out before you go back
East."
She was silent so long that he stole another sidewise
look between his snubbings of the brake-pedal. Her
face was white and still, like the face of one suddenly
frost-smitten, and he was instantly self-reproachful.
"Don't look that way," he begged. "It hurts me;
makes me feel how heavy my hand is when I'm doing
my best to make it light. He is trying a rather desper-
ate experiment, to be sure, but he is in no immediate
personal danger. I believe it or I shouldn't be here; I
should be with him."
She asked no more questions, being unwilling to
tempt him to break confidence with Kent. But she was
thinking of all the desperate things a determined man


338
THE GRAFTERS
with temperamental unbalancing might do when the
touring car rolled noiselessly down the final hill into
the single street of Megilp.
There was but one vehicle in the street at the mo-
ment; a freighter's ore-wagon drawn by a team of
mules, meekest and most shambling-prosaic of their
tribe. The motor-car was running on the spent ve-
locity of the descent, and Ormsby thought to edge past
without stopping. But at the critical instant the mules
gave way to terror, snatched the heavy wagon into the
opposite plank walk, and tried to climb a near-by tele-
phone pole. Ormsby put his foot on the brake and
something snapped under the car.
"What was that?" Elinor asked; and Ormsby got
down to investigate.
"It is our brake connection," he announced, after a
brief inspection. "And we are five good miles from
Hudgins and his repair kit."
A ring of town idlers was beginning to form about
them. An automobile was still enough of a rarity in
the mining-camp to draw a crowd.
"Busted?" inquired one of the onlookers.
Ormsby nodded, and asked if there were a machinist
in the camp.
"Yep," said the spokesman; "up at the Blue Jay
mine."


340
THE GRAFTERS
ting the repairs take care of themselves while he went
in search of one Jud Byers. The deputy sheriff was
not hard to find. Normally and in private life he was
the weigher for the Blue Jay; and Ormsby was directed
to the scale shanty which served as the weigher's office.
The interview was brief and conclusive; was little
more than a rapid fire of question and answer; and for
the greater part the sheriff's affirmatives were heartily
eager. Yes, certainly; if the thing could be brought
to pass, he, Byers, would surely do his part. All he
asked was an hour or two in which to prepare.
"You shall have all the time there is," was the re-
ply. "Have you a Western Union wire here?"
"No; nothing but the railroad office."
"That won't do; they'd stop the message. How about
the Inn?"
"Brcezeland has a Western Union all right; wire
your notice there, and I'll fix to have it 'phoned over.
I don't believe it can be worked, though," added the
deputy, doubtfully.
"We can't tell till we try," said Ormsby; and he
hurried back to his car to egg on the machinist with
golden promises contingent upon haste.
Miss Brentwood found her companion singularly si-
lent on the five-mile race to Breezeland; but the light-
ning speed at which he drove the car put conversation


ON THE HIGH PLAINS 341
out of the question. At the hotel he saw her into the
lift with decent deliberation; but the moment she was
off his hands he fairly ran to the telegrapher's alcove
in the main hall.
"Have you a Western Union wire to the capital di-
rect ?" he inquired.
The young man snapped his key and said he had.
"It has no connection with the Trans-Western rail-
road offices?"
"None whatever."
Ormsby dashed off a brief message to Kent, giving
three or four addresses at which he might be found.
"Send that, and have them try the Union Station
train platform first. Don't let them spare expense at
the other end, and if you can bring proof of delivery to
Eoom 261 within half an hour, it means a month's pay
to you, individually. Can you do it?"
But the operator was already claiming the wire, writ-
ing "deth," "deth," "deth," as rapidly as his fingers
could shake off the dots and dashes.


344
THE GRAFTEBS
Tischer backed his train in on track nine his berth was
beside the 1010. Callahan swung down from his cab
and climbed quickly to that of the mail engine.
"Annything new at the shops, Dutchy?" he inquired.
"I was not somet'ings gehearing, nein. You was dot
Arkoos newsbaper dis evening sehen? He says nodings
too, alretty, about dot strike."
"Divil a worrd. Ye might think Scotty'd handed the
major a bit av blank paper f'r all the notice he's taking.
More thin that, he's lavin' town, wid me to pull him.
The Naught-seven's to run special to Gaston—bad cess
tout!"
"Veil, I can'd hellup id," said the phlegmatic Ba-
varian. "I haf the mail and egspress got, and I go mit
dem t ' rough to Pighorn. You haf der brivate car got,
and you go mit dem t ' rough to Gaston. Den ve qvits,
ain'd it?"
Callahan nodded and dropped to the platform. But
before he could mount to the foot-board of the 1010,
M'Tosh collared him.
"Patsy, I have your orders, at last. Your passengers
will be down in a few minutes, and you are to pull out
ahead of the express."
"Is it to Gaston I'm goin', Misther M'Tosh?"
The fireman was standing by with the oil can and
torch, ready to Callahan's hand, and the train-master
drew the engineer aside.


BY OEDER OF THE COURT 345
"Shovel needn't hear," he said in explanation. And
then: "Are you willing to stand with us, Patsy?
You've had time enough to think it over."
Callahan stood with his arms folded and his cap
drawn down over his eyes.
"'Tis not f'r meself I'm thinkin', Misther M'Tosh,
as ye well know. But I'm a widely man; an' there's the
bit colleen in the convint."
"She'll be well cared for, whatever happens to you,'*
was the quick reply.
"Thin I'm yer man," said Callahan; and when the
train-master was gone, he ordered Shovel to oil around
while he did two or three things which, to an initiated
onlooker, might have seemed fairly inexplicable. First
he disconnected the air-hose between the car and the
engine, tying the ends up with a stout cord so that the
connection would not seem to be broken. Next he
crawled under the Naught-seven and deliberately bled
the air-tank, setting the cock open a mere hair's-breadth
so that it would leak slowly but surely until the pressure
was entirely gone.
Then he got a hammer and sledge out of the engine
tool-box, and after hooking up the safety-chain coup-
lings between the private car and the 1010, he crippled:
the points of the hooks with the hammer so that they
could not be disengaged without the use of force and
the proper tools.


346
THE GRAFTEES
"There ye are, ye ould divil's band-wagon," he said,
apostrophizing the private car when his work was done.
"Ye'll ride this night where Patsy Callahan dhrives,
an' be dommed to ye."
Meanwhile the train-master had reached the iron
grille at the other end of the long track platform. At
a small wicket used by the station employees and train-
men, Kent was waiting for him.
"Is it all right, M'Tosh? Will he do it?" he asked
anxiously.
"Yes, Patsy's game for it; I knew he would be. He'd
put his neck in a rope to spite the major. But it's a
crazy thing, Mr. Kent."
"I know it; but if it will give me twenty-four
hours—"
"It won't. They can't get home on our line because
we'll be tied up. But they can get the Naught-seven
put on the Overland's Limited at A. & T. Junction,
and that will put them back here before you've had time
to turn around twice. Have they come down yet?"
"No," said Kent; and just then he saw Loring com-
ing in from the street entrance and went to meet him.
"I have the final word from Boston," said the ex-
manager, when he had walked Kent out of earshot of
the train-takers. "Your terms are accepted—with all
sorts of safeguards thrown about the 'no cure, no pay'
proviso; also with a distinct repudiation of you and


BY OEDER OF THE COURT 347
your scheme if there is anything unlawful afoot. Do
you still think it best to keep me in the dark as to what
you are doing?"
"Yes; there are enough of us involved, as it stands.
You couldn't help; and you might hinder. Besides,
if the mine should happen to explode in our direction
it'll be a comfort to have a foot-loose friend or two on
the outside to pick up the pieces of us."
Loring was polishing his eye-glasses with uncommon
vigor.
"I wish you'd drop it, David, if it isn't too late. I
can't help feeling as if I had prodded you into it, what-
ever it is."
Kent linked arms with him and led him back to the
street entrance.
"Go away, Grantham, and don't come back again,"
he commanded. "Then you can swear truthfully that
you didn't know anything about it. It is too late to
interfere, and you are not responsible for me. Go up
to see Portia; she'll keep you interested while you wait."
When Loring was gone, Kent went back to the wicket
in the grille; but M'Tosh, who was always a busy man
at train-time, had disappeared again.
It was a standing mystery to the train-master, and to
the rank and file, why Receiver Guilford had elected to
ignore the fact that he was within three hours of a
strike which promised to include at least four-fifths of


343
THE GRAFTERS
hie operatives; had taken no steps for defense, and had
not confided, as it appeared, in the members of his own
official staff.
But Kent was at no lose to account for the official
silence. If the secret could be kept for a few hours
longer, the junto would unload the Trans-Western,
.strike, tie-up and general demoralization, upon an un-
suspecting Overland management.
None the less, there were other things unexplainable
even to Kent; for one, this night flitting to Gaston to
put the finishing touch on an edifice of fraud which had
been builded shamelessly in the light of day.
Kent had not the key to unlock this door of mystery;
but here the master spirit of the junto was doing, not
what he would, but what he could. The negotiations
for the lease had consumed much time at a crisis when
time was precious. Judge MacFarlane had to be re-
called and once more bullied into subjection; and Falk-
land, acting for the Plantagould interest, had insisted
upon some formal compliance with the letter of the law.
Bucks had striven masterfully to drive and not be
driven; but the delays were inexorable, and the impend-
ing strike threatened to turn the orderly charge into a
rout. The governor had postponed the coup from day
to day, waiting upon the leisurely movements of Falk-
land; and at the end of the ends there remained but
three hours of the final day of grace when the telegram


BY OEDER OF THE COURT 349
came from Falkland with the welcome news that the
Overland officials were on their way from Midland City
to keep the appointment in Gaston.
Of all this Kent knew nothing, and was anxious in
just proportion as the minutes elapsed and the time for
the departure of the east-bound express drew near. For
the success of the desperate venture turned upon this:
that the receiver's special must leave ahead of the pas-
senger train. With the express blocking the way the
difficulties became insurmountable.
Kent was still standing at the trainmen's wicket
when Callahan sent the private car gently up to the
trackhead of track eight. M'Tosh had been telephoning
again, and the receiver and his party were on the way
to the station.
"1 was afraid you'd have to let the express go first,"
said Kent, when the train-master came his way again.
"How much time have we?"
"Five minutes more; and they are on the way down—
there they come."
Kent looked and saw a group of six men making for
the nearest exit in the grille. Then he smote his fist
into his palm.
"Damn!" he muttered; "they've got the vice-presi-
dent of the Overland with them! That's bad."
"It's bad for Mr. Callafield," growled M'Tosh.
"We're in too deep now to back down on hiB account."


350
THE GRAFTERS
Kent moved nearer and stood in the shadow of the
gate-keeper's box, leaving M'Tosh, who was on the track
platform, free to show himself. From his new point of
espial Kent checked off the members of the party.
When Major Guilford left it to come back for a word
with M'Tosh, there were five others: the governor, his
private secretary, Hawk, Halkett, the general superin-
tendent, and the Overland's vice-president.
"All ready, M'Tosh?" said the receiver.
"Ready and waiting, Major," was the bland reply.
"Who is our engineer?"
"Patrick Callahan."
"That wild Irishman? The governor says he'd as
soon ride behind the devil."
"Callahan will get you there," said the train-master,
with deliberate emphasis. Then he asked a question of
his own. "Is Mr. Callafield going with you?"
"No. He came down to see us off. How is the fast
mail to-night?"
"She's just in—an hour and thirty-five minutes late."
The major ^wore pathetically. He was of the gener-
ation of railway officials, happily fast passing, which
cursed and swore itself into authority.
"That's another five hundred dollars' forfeit to the
Post-office Department! Who's taking it west?"
"Tischer."
"Give him orders to cut out all the stops. If he is


BY ORDER OF THE COURT 351
more than fifty-five minutes late at Bighorn, he can
come in and get his time."
Tischer had just got the word to go, and was pulling
out on the yard main line.
"I'll catch him with the wire at yard limits," said
M'Tosh. Then: "Would you mind hurrying your
people a little, Major? The express is due to leave."
Guilford was a heavy man for his weight, and he
waddled back to the others, waving his arms as a signal
for them to board the car.
Kent saw the vice-president of the Overland Short
Line shake hands with Bucks and take his leave, and
was so intent upon watching the tableau of departure
that he failed to notice the small boy in Western Union
blue who was trying to thrust a telegram, damp from
the copying rolls, into his hand.
"It's a rush, sir," said the boy, panting from his
quick dash across the track platforms.
It was Ormsby's message from Breezeland; and while
Kent was trying to grasp the tremendous import of it,
M'Tosh was giving Callahan the signal to go. Kent
sprang past the gate-keeper and gave the square of
damp paper to the train-master.
"My God! read that!" he gasped, with a dry sob of
excitement. "It was our chance—one chance in a mil-
lion—and we've lost it!"
M'Tosh was a man for a crisis. The red tail-lights of


352
THE GRAFTEBS
the private-car special were yet within a sprinter's dash
of the trackhead, but the train-master lost no time
chasing a ten-wheel flyer with -"Red" Callahan at the
throttle.
"Up to my office!" he shouted; and ten seconds later
Kent was leaning breathless over the desk in the des-
patched room while M'Tosh called Durgan over the
yard limits telephone.
"Is that you, Durgan?" he asked, when the reply
came. Then: "Drop the board on the mail, quick! and
send somebody to tell Tischer to side-track, leaving the
main line Western Division clear. Got that?"
The answer was evidently prompt and satisfactory,
.since he began again almost in the same breath.
"Now go out yourself and flag Callahan before he
Teaches the limits. Tell him the time-card's changed
and he is to run west with the special to Megilp as first
section of the mail—no stops, or Tischer will run him
down. Leg it! He's half-way down the yard, now!"
The train-master dropped the ear-piece of the tele-
phone and crossed quickly to the despatcher's table.
"Orders for the Western Division, Donohue," he said
/Curtly, "and don't let the grass grow. 'Receiver's car,
Callahan, engineer, runs to Megilp as first section of
fast mail. Fast mail, Hunt, conductor; Tischer, engi-
neer; runs to the end of the division without stop, mak-


BY OEDER OF THE COURT 353
ing up all time possible.' Add to that last, 'By order of
the receiver.'"
The orders were sent as swiftly as the despatcher
could rattle them off on his key; and then followed an
interval of waiting more terrible than a battle. Kent
tried to speak, but his lips were parched and his tongue
was like a dry stick between his teeth. What was doing
in the lower yard? Would Durgan fail at the pinch
and mismanage it so as to give the alarm? The min-
utes dragged leaden-winged, and even the sounders on
the despatched table were silent.
Suddenly the clicking began again. The operator at
"yard limits" was sending the 0. K. to the two train
orders. So far, so good. Now if Callahan could get
safely out on the Western Division. . .
But there was a hitch in the lower yard. Durgan had
obeyed his orders promptly and precisely, and had suc-
ceeded in stopping Callahan at the street-crossing
where Engineer Dixon had killed the farmer. Durgan
climbed to the cab of the 1010, and the changed plan
was explained in a dozen words. But now came the
crux.
"If I stand here till you'd be bringin' me my orders,
I'll have the whole kit av thim buzzin' round to know
fwhat's the matther," said Callahan; but there was no
other thing to do, and Durgan hurried back to the tele-
graph office to play the messenger.


354
THE GRAFTEES
He was too long about it. Before he got back,
Halkett was under the cab window of the 1010, demand-
ing to know—with many objurgations—why Callahan
had stopped in the middle of the yards.
"Get a move on you!" he shouted. "The express is
right behind us, and it'll run us down, you damned
bog-trotter 1"
Callahan's gauntleted hand shot up to the throttle-
bar.
"I'm l'avin', Misther Halkett," he said mildly. "Will
yez go back to the car, or ride wit' me?"
The general superintendent took no chance of catch-
ing the Naught-seven's hand-rails in the darkness, and
he whipped up into the cab at the first sharp cough of
the exhaust.
"I'll go back when you stop for your orders," he said;
but a shadowy figure had leaped upon the engine-step a
scant half-second behind him, and Callahan was stuff-
ing the crumpled copy of the order into the sweat-band
of his cap. The next instant the big 1010 leaped for-
ward like a blooded horse under an unmerited cut of the
whip, slid past the yard limits telegraph office and shot
out upon the main line of the Western Division.
"Sit down, Misther Halkett, an' make yerself aisy!"
yelled Callahan across the cab. "'Tis small use Jimmy
Shovel '11 have for his box this night."


BY OEDER OF THE COURT 355
"Shut off, you Irish madman!" was the shouted com-
mand. "Don't you see you're on the wrong division?"
Callahan gave the throttle-bar another outward hitch,
tipped his seat and took a hammer from the tool-box.
"I know where I'm goin', an' that's more thin you
know, ye blandhanderin' divil! Up on that box wit'
you, an' kape out av Jimmy Shovel's road, or I'll be the
death av yez! Climb, now!"
It was at this moment that the tense strain of sus-
pense was broken in the despatched room on the sec-
ond floor of the Union Station. The telephone skirled
joyously, and the train-master snatched up the ear-piece.
"What does he say?" asked Kent.
"It's all right. He says Callahan is out on the West-
ern Division, with Tischer chasing him according to
programme. Halkett's in the cab of the 1010 with
Patsy, and—hold on— By George! he says one of them
jumped the car as it was passing the limits station!"
"Which one was it?" asked Kent; and he had to wait
till the reply came from Durgan.
"It was Hawk, the right-of-way man. He broke and
ran for the nearest electric-car line the minute he hit
the ground, Durgan says. Does he count?"
"No," said Kent; but it is always a mistake to under-
rate an enemy's caliber—even that of his small arms.



XXVIII
THE NIGHT OP ALARMS
If Editor Hildreth had said nothing in his evening
edition about the impending strike on the Trans-West-
ern, it was not because public interest was waning.
For a fortnight the newspapers in the territory tribu-
tary to the road had been full of strike talk, and
Hildreth had said his say, deprecating the threatened
appeal to force as fearlessly as he condemned the mis-
management which was provoking it.
But it was Kent who was responsible for the dearth
of news on the eve of the event. Early in the morning
of the last day of the month he had sought out the editor
and begged him to close the columns of the Evening
Argus to strike news, no matter what should come in
during the course of the day.
"I can't go into the reasons as deeply now as I hope
to a little later," he had said, his secretive habit holding
good to the final fathom of the slipping hawser of
events. "But you must bear with me once more, and
(356)


THE NIGHT OF ALAEMS 357
whatever you hear between now and the time you go to
press, don't comment on it. I have one more chance to
win out, and it hangs in a balance that a feather's
weight might tip the wrong way. I'll be with you be-
tween ten and twelve to-night, and you can safely save
two columns of the morning paper for the sensation I'm
going to give you."
It was in fulfilment of this promise that Kent be-
stirred himself after he had sent a wire to Ormsby, and
M'Tosh had settled down to the task of smoothing Cal-
lahan's way westward over a division already twitching
in the preliminary rigor of the strike convulsion.
"I am going to set the fuse for the newspaper explo-
sion," he said to his ally. "Barring accidents, there is
no reason why we shouldn't begin to figure definitely
upon the result, is there?"
M'Tosh was leaning over Despatcher Donohue's
shoulder. He had slipped Donohue's fingers aside from
the key to cut in with a peremptory "G. S." order sus-
pending, in favor of the fast mail, the rule which re-
quires a station operator to drop his board on a follow-
ing section that is less than ten minutes behind its file-
leader.
"The fun is beginning," said the train-master.
"Tischer has his tip from Durgan to keep Callahan's
tail-lights in sight. With the mail treading on their
heels the gentlemen in the Naught-seven will be chary


358
THE GRATTERS
about pulling Patsy down too suddenly in mid career.
They have just passed Morning Dew, and the operator
reports Tischer for disregarding his slow signal."
"Can't you fix that?" asked Kent.
"Oh, yes; that is one of the things I can fix. But
there are going to be plenty of others."
"Still we must take something for granted, Mr.
M'Tosh. What I have to do up-town won't wait until
Callahan has finished his run. I thought the main diffi-
culty was safely overcome."
"Umph!" said the train-master; "the troubles are
barely getting themselves born. You must remember
that we swapped horses at the last minute. We were
ready for the race to the east. Everybody on the Prairie
Division had been notified that a special was to go
through to-night without stop from Lesterville to A. &
T. Junction."
"Well?"
"Now we have it all to straighten out by wire on an-
other division; meeting points to make, slow trains to
side-track, fool operators to hold down; all on the dizzy
edge of a strike that is making every man on the line
lose his balance. But you go ahead with your news-
paper business. I'll do what a man can here. And if
you come across that right-of-way agent, I wish you'd
make it a case of assault and battery and get him
locked up. I'm leery about him."


THE NIGHT OF ALARMS 359
Kent went his way dubiously reflective. In the mo-
ment of triumph, when Durgan had announced the suc-
cess of the bold change in the programme, he had made
light of Hawk's escape. But now he saw possibilities.
True, the junto was leaderless for the moment, and
Bucks had no very able lieutenants. But Hawk would
give the alarm; and there was the rank and file of the
machine to reckon with. And for weapons, the ring
controlled the police power of the State and of the city.
Let the word be passed that the employees of the Trans-
Western were kidnapping their receiver and the gov-
ernor, and many things might happen before "Red"
Callahan should finish his long race to the westward.
Thinking of these things, David Kent walked up-
town when he might have taken a car. When the toxin
of panic is in the air there is no antidote like vigorous
action.
Passing the Western Union central office, he stopped
to send Ormsby a second telegram, reporting progress
and asking him to be present in person at the denoue-
ment to put the facts on the wire at the earliest possible
instant of time. "Everything depends upon this," he
added, when he had made the message otherwise em-
phatic. "If we miss the morning papers, we are done."
While he was pocketing his change at the receiving
clerk's pigeon-hole, a cab rattled up with a horse at a
gallop, and Stephen Hawk sprang out. Kent saw him


360
THE GKAFTERS
through the plate-glass front and turned quickly to the
public writing-desk, hoping to be overlooked. He was.
For once in a way the ex-district attorney was too nearly
rattled to be fully alert to his surroundings. There
were others at the standing desk; and Hawk wrote his
message, after two or three false starts, almost at Kent's
elbow.
Kent heard the chink of coin and the low-spoken
urgings for haste at the receiving clerk's window; but
he forbore to move until the cab had rattled away.
Then he gathered up the spoiled blanks left behind by
Hawk and smoothed them out. Two of them bore
nothing but the date line, made illegible, it would seem,
by the writer's haste and nervousness. But at the third
attempt Hawk had got as far as the address: "To All
Trans-Western agents on Western Division."
Kent stepped quickly to the receiver's window. The
only expedient he could think of was open to reproach,
but it was no time to be over-scrupulous.
"Pardon me," he began, "but didn't the gentleman
who was just here forget to sign his message?"
The little hook caught its minnow. The receiving
clerk was folding Hawk's message to place it in the
leather carrier of the pneumatic tube, but he opened
and examined it.
"No," he said; "it's signed all right: 'J. B. Halkett,
G. S.'"


THE NIGHT OF ALARMS 361
"Ah!" said Kent. "That's a little odd. Mr. Halkett
is out of town, and this gentleman, Mr. Hawk, is not in
his department. I believe I should investigate a little
before sending that, if I were you."
Having thus sown the small seed of suspicion, which,
by the by, fell on barren soil, Kent lost no time in
calling up M'Tosh over the nearest telephone.
"Do our agents on the Western Division handle West-
ern Union business?" he asked.
The reply came promptly.
"Yes; locally. The W-U. has an independent line
to Breezeland Inn and points beyond."
"Well, our right-of-way man has just sent a telegram
to all agents, signing Halkett's name. I don't know
what he said in it, but you can figure that out for your-
self."
"You bet I can!" was the emphatic rejoinder. And
then: "Where are you now?"
"I'm at the Clarendon public 'phone, but I am going
over to the Argus office. I'll let you know when I leave
there. Good-by."
When Kent reached the night editor's den on the
third floor of the Argus building he found Hildreth
immersed chin-deep in a sea of work. But he quickly
extricated himself and cleared a chair for his visitor.
"Praise be!" he ejaculated. "I was beginning to get
anxious. Large things are happening, and you didn't


362
THE GRAFTERS
tnrn up. I've had Manville wiring all over town for
you."
"What are some of the large things?" asked Kent,
lighting his first cigar since dinner.
"Well, for one: do you know that your people are on
the verge of the much-talked-of strike?"
"Yes; I knew it this morning. That was what I
wanted you to suppress in the evening edition."
"I suppressed it all right; I didn't know it—day and
date, I mean. They kept it beautifully quiet. But that
isn't all. Something is happening at the capitol. I was
over at the club a little while ago, and Hendricks was
there. Somebody sent in a note, and he positively ran
to get out. When I came back, I sent Rogers over to
Cassatti's to see if he could find you. There was a junto
dinner confab on; Meigs, Senator Crowley, three or four
of the ring aldermen and half a dozen wa-ward politi-
cians. Rogers has a nose for news, and when he had
'phoned me you weren't there, he hung around on the
edges."
"Good men you have, Hildreth. What did the unim-
peachable Rogers see?"
"He saw on a large scale just what I had seen on a
small one: somebody pup-passed a note in, and when it
had gone the round of the dinner-table those fellows
tumbled over each other trying to get away."
"Is that all?" Kent inquired.


3C4
THE GRAFTERS
right behind him, with the receiver's order to smash
anything that gets in its way; so you see—"
"That will do," said the night editor. "We don't
print fairy stories in the Argus."
"None the less, you are going to print this one to-
morrow morning, just as I'm telling it to you," Kent
asserted confidently. "And when you get the epilogue
you will say that it makes my little preface wearisome
by contrast."
The light was slowly dawning in the editorial mind.
"My heaven!" he exclaimed. "Kent, you're good for
twenty years, at the very lul-least!"
"Am I? It occurs to me that the prosecuting attor-
ney in the case will have a hard time proving anything.
Doesn't it look that way to you? At the worst, it is
only an unhappy misunderstanding of orders. And if
the end should happen to justify the means—"
Hildreth shook his head gravely.
"You don't understand, David. If you could be sure
of a fair-minded judge and an unbiased jury—you and
those who are implicated with you: but you'll get
neither in this machine-ridden State."
"We are going to have both, after you have filled
your two columns—by the way, you are still saving
those two columns for me, aren't you?—in to-morrow
morning's Argus. Or rather, I'm hoping there will be
no need for either judge or jury."


366
THE GEAFTERS
If you'd only unbutton yourself a little, and let me see
what my backing is going to be—"
"All in good season," laughed Kent. "Your business
for the present moment is to write; I'm going down to
the Union Station."
"What for?" demanded the editor.
"To see if our crazy engineer is still mistaking his
orders properly."
"Hold on a minute. How did the enemy get wind of
your plot so quickly? You can tell me that, can't you?"
"Oh, yes; I told you Hawk was one of the party in
the private car. He fell off at the yard limits station
and came back to town."
The night editor stood up and confronted his visitor.
"David, you are either the coolest plunger that ever
drew breath—or the bub-biggest fool. I wouldn't be
standing in your shoes to-night for two such railroads
as the T-W."
Kent laughed again and opened the door.
"I suppose not. But you know there is no accounting
for the difference in tastes. I feel as if I had never
really lived before this night; the only thing that
troubles me is the fear that somebody or something will
get in the way of my demented engineer."
He went out into the hall, but as Hildreth was closing
the door he turned back.
"There is one other thing that I meant to say: when


THE NIGHT OF ALAEMS 367
you get your two columns of sensation, you've got to be
decent and share with the Associated Press."
"I'm dud-dashed if I do!" said Hildreth, fiercely.
"Oh, yes, you will; just the bare facts, you know.
You'll have all the exciting details for an 'exclusive,' to
say nothing of the batch of affidavits in the oil scandal.
And it is of the last importance to me that the facts
shall be known to-morrow morning wherever the Asso-
ciated has a wire."
"Go away!" said the editor, "and dud-don't come
back here till you can uncork yourself like a man and a
Cuc-Christian! Go off, I say!"
It wanted but a few minutes of eleven when Kent
mounted the stair to the despatcher's room in the Union
Station. He found M'Tosh sitting at Donohue's elbow,
and the sounders on the glass-topped table were crack-
ling like overladen wires in an electric storm.
"Strike talk," said the train-master. "Every man
on both divisions wants to know what's doing. Got your
newspaper string tied up all right?"
Kent made a sign of assent.
"We are waiting for Mr. Patrick Callahan. Any
news from him?"
"Plenty of it. Patsy would have a story to tell, all
right, if he could stop to put it on the wires. Durgan
ought to have caught that blamed right-of-way man
find chloroformed him."


TEE NIGHT OF ALAEMS 369
"Bicknell has. He is Halkett's representative,
and—"
The door opened suddenly and Hawk danced in, fol-
lowed by a man bareheaded and in his shirt-sleeves, the
superintendent's chief clerk, and the two officers.
"Now, then, we'll trouble you and your man to get
out of here, Mr. M'Tosh," said the captain of the junto
forces, vindictively.
But the train-master was of those who die hard. He
protested vigorously, addressing himself to Bicknell
and ignoring the ex-district attorney as if he were not.
He, McTosh, was willing to surrender the office on an
official order in writing over the chief clerk's signature.
But did Bicknell fully understand what it might mean
in loss of life and property to put a new man on the
wires at a moment's notice?
Bicknell would have weakened again, but Hawk was
not to be frustrated a second time.
"Don't you see he is only sparring to gain time?" he
snapped at Bicknell. Then to M'Tosh: "Get out of
here, and do it quick! And you can go, too," wheeling
suddenly upon Kent.
Donohue had taken no part in the conflict of author-
ity. But now he threw down his pen and clicked his
key to cut in with the "G. S.," which claims the wire
instantly. Then distinctly, and a word at a time so that
the slowest operator on the line could get it, he spelled


370
THE GRAFTERS
out the message: "All Agents: Stop and hold all trains
except first and second fast mail, west-bound. M'Tosh
fired, and office in hands of police—"
"Stop him!" cried the shirt-sleeved man. "He's
giving it away on the wire!"
But Donohue had signed his name and was putting
on his coat.
"You're welcome to what you can find," he said,
scowling at the interloper. "If you kill anybody now,
it'll be your own fault."
"Arrest that man!" said Hawk to his policemen; but
Kent interposed.
"If you do, the force will be two men shy to-morrow.
The Civic League isn't dead yet." And he took down
the numbers of the two officers.
There were no arrests made, and when the ousted
three were clear of the room and the building, Kent
asked an anxious question.
"How near can they come to smashing us, M'Tosh?"
"That depends on Callahan's nerve. The night oper-
ators at Donerail, Schofield and Agua Caliente are
all Guilford appointees, and when the new man explains
the situation to them, they'll do what they are told to
do. But I'm thinking Patsy won't pull up for anything
milder than a spiked switch."
"Well, they might throw a switch on him. I wonder
somebody hasn't done it before this."


XXIX
THE RELENTLESS WHEELS
But Engineer Callahan had no notion of failing.
When he had drawn the hammer on his superior officer,
advising discretion and a seat on Jimmy Shovel's box,
the 1010 was racking out over the switches in the West-
ern Division yards. Three minutes later the electric
beam of Tischer's following headlight sought and found
the first section on the long tangent leading up to the
high plains, and the race was in full swing.
At Morning Dew, the first night telegraph station out
of the capital, the two sections were no more than a
scant quarter of a mile apart; and the operator tried to
flag the second section down, as reported. This did not
happen again until several stations had been passed,
and Callahan set his jaw and gave the 1010 more throt-
tle. But at Lossing, a town of some size, the board was
down and a man ran out at the crossing, swinging a red
light.
Callahan looked well to the switches, with the steam
shut off and his hand dropping instinctively to the air;
(372)


THE EELENTLESS WHEELS 373
and the superintendent shrank into his corner and
gripped the window ledge when the special roared past
the warning signals and on through the town beyond.
He had maintained a dazed silence since the episode of
the nourished hammer, but now he was moved to yell
across the cab.
"I suppose you know what you're in for, if you live to
get out of this! It's twenty years, in this State, to pass
a danger signal!" This is not all that the superin-
tendent said: there were forewords and interjections,
emphatic but unprintable.
Callahan's reply was another nourish of the hammer,
and a sudden outpulling of the throttle-bar; and the
superintendent subsided again.
But enforced 6ilence and the grindstone of conscious
helplessness will sharpen the dullest wit. The swerving
lurch of the 1010 around the next curve set Halkett
clutching for hand-holds, and the injector lever fell
within his grasp. What he did not know about the
working parts of a modern locomotive was very con-
siderable ; but he did know that an injector, half opened,
will waste water as fast as an inch pipe will discharge
it. And without water the Irishman would have to stop.
Callahan heard the chuckling of the wasting boiler
feed before he had gone a mile beyond the curve. It was
a discovery to excuse bad language, but his protest was
lamb-like.


374
THE GRAFTERS
"No more av that, if ye plaze, Misther Halkett, or
me an' Jimmy Shovel'll have to—Ah! would yez, now?"
Before his promotion to the superintendency Halkett
had been a ward boss in the metropolis of the State.
Thinking he saw his chance, he took it, and the blow
knocked Callahan silly for the moment. Afterward
there was a small free-for-all buffeting match in the
narrow cab in which the fireman took a hand, and dur-
ing which the racing 1010 was suffered to find her way
alone. When it was over, Callahan spat out a broken
tooth and gave his orders concisely.
"Up wid him over the coal, an' we'll put him back in
the car where he belongs. Now, thin!"
Halkett had to go, and he went, not altogether un-
willingly. And when it came to jumping across from
the rear of the tender to the forward vestibule of the
Naught-seven, or being chucked across, he jumped.
Now it so chanced that the governor and his first lieu-
tenant in the great railway steal had weighty matters to
discuss, and they had not missed the superintendent or
the lawyer, supposing them to be still out on the rear
platform enjoying the scenery. Wherefore Halkett's
sudden appearance, mauled, begrimed and breathless
from his late tussle with the two enginemen, was the
first intimation of wrong-going that had penetrated t«
the inner sanctum of the private car.


THE RELENTLESS WHEELS 375
"What's that you say, Mr. Halkett ?—on the Western
Division? Whereabouts?" demanded the governor.
"Between Lossing and Skipjack siding—if we haven't
passed the siding in the last two or three minutes. I've
been too busy to notice," was the reply.
"And you say you were on the engine? Why the
devil didn't you call your man down?"
"I knocked him down," gritted the superintendent,
savagely, "and I'd have beat his face in for him if there
hadn't been two of them. It's a plot of some kind, and
Callahan knows what he is about. He had me held up
with a hammer till just a few minutes ago, and he's
running past stop-signals and over red lights like a
madman!"
Bucks and Guilford exchanged convictions by the
road of the eye, and the governor said:
"This is pretty serious, Major. Have you anything
to suggest?" And without waiting for a reply he turned
upon Halkett: "Where is Mr. Hawk?"
"I don't know. I supposed he was in here with you.
Or maybe he's out on the fear platform."
The three of them went to the rear, passing the pri-
vate secretary comfortably asleep in his wicker chair.
When they stepped out upon the recessed observation
platform they found it empty.
"He must have suspected something and dropped off


THE RELENTLESS WHEELS 377
be done is to stop this train without getting ourselves
ripped open by that fellow behind the headlight yon-
der. The stop-signals prove that Hawk and the others
are doing their best, but we must do ours. What do you
say, Halkett?"
"There is only one thing," replied the superintend-
ent; "we've got to make the Irishman run ahead fast
enough and far enough to give us room to stop or take
a siding."
The governor planned it in a few curt sentences.
Was there a weapon to be had? Danforth, the private
secretary, roused from his nap in the wicker chair, was
able to produce a serviceable revolver. Two minutes
later, the sleep still tingling in his nerves to augment
another tingling less pleasurable, the secretary had
spanned the terrible gap separating the car from the
engine and was making his way over the coal, flutter-
ing his handkerchief in token of his peaceful intentions.
He was charged with a message to Callahan, manda-
tory in its first form, and bribe-promising in its sec-
ond; and he was covered from the forward vestibule of
the private car by the revolver in the hands of a reso-
lute and determined state executive.
"One of them's eomin' ahead over the coal," warned
James Shovel; and Callahan found his hammer.
"Run ahead an' take a siding, is ut?" he shouted, glar-


378
THE GRAFTERS
ing down on the messenger. "I have me ordhers fr'm
betther men than thim that sint you. Go back an' tell
thim so."
"You'll be paid if you do, and youll be shot if you
don't," yelled the secretary, persuasively.
"Tell the boss he can't shoot two av us to wanst; an'
the wan that's left '11 slap on the air," was Callahan's
answer; and he slacked off a little to bring the follow-
ing train within easy striking distance.
Danforth went painfully and carefully back with
this defiance, and while he was bridging the nerve-try-
ing gap, another station with the stop-board down and
red lights frantically swinging was passed with a roar
and a whistle shriek.
"Pwhat are they doing now?" called Callahan to his
fireman.
"They've gone inside again," was the reply.
"Go back an' thry the tank," was the command; and
Jimmy Shovel climbed over the coal and let himself
down feet foremost into the manhole. When he slid
back to the footplate his legs were wet to the mid shin.
"It's only up to there," he reported, measuring with
his hand.
Callahan looked at his watch. There was yet a full
hour's run ahead of him, and there was no more than a
scant foot of water in the tank with which to make it
Thereafter he forgot the Naught-seven, and whatever


380
THE GRAFTERS
Guilford's sigh of relief was almost a groan.
"My God V he said; "it makes me cold to think what
might happen if he should pull us over into the other
State!"
But Halkett was still smarting from the indignities
put upon him, and his comment was a vindictive threat.
"I'll send that damned Irishman over the road for
this, if it is the last thing I ever do!" he declared; and
he confirmed it with an oath.
But Callahan was getting his punishment as he went
along. He had scarcely settled the 1010 into her gait
for the final run against the failing water supply when
another station came in sight. It was a small cattle
town, and in addition to the swinging red lights and a
huge bonfire to illuminate the yards, the obstruction-
ists had torn down the loading corral and were piling
the lumber on the track.
Once again Callahan's nerve flickered, and he shut
-off the steam. But before it was too late he reflected
that the barrier was meant only to scare him into stop-
ping. One minute later the air was full of flying splint-
ers, and that danger was passed. But one of the broken
planks came through the cab window, missing the en-
gineer by no more than a hand's-breadth. And the
shower of splinters, sucked in by the whirl of the train,
broke glass in the private car and sprinkled the quar-
tet on the platform with split kindling and wreckage.


382
THE GRAFTERS
and the engine shot ahead to the length of the safety-
chains; thus far, but no farther.
Halkett stood up.
"It's up to you, Danforth," he said, raising his voice
to be heard above the pounding roar of the wheels.
"You're the youngest and lightest: get down on the
1010's brake-beam and unhook those chains."
The secretary looked once into the trap with the
dodging jaws and the backward-flying bottom and de-
clined the honor.
"I can't get down there," he cried. "And I shouldn't
know what to do if I could."
Once more the superintendent exhibited his nerve.
He had nothing at stake save a desire to defeat Calla-
han; but he had the persistent courage of the bull-
terrier. With Bucks and the secretary to steady him
he lowered himself in the gap till he could stand upon
the brake-beam of the 1010's tender and grope with
one free hand for the hook of the nearest safety-chain.
Death nipped at him every time the engine gave or
took up the slack of the loose coupling, but he dodged
and hung on until he had satisfied himself.
"It's no good," he announced, when they had dragged
him by main strength back to a footing in the nar-
row vestibule. "The hooks are bent into the links.
We're due to go wherever that damned Irishman is
taking us."


THE KELENTLESS WHEELS 383
Shovel was firing, and the trailing smoke and cin-
ders quickly made the forward vestibule untenable.
When they were driven in, Bucks and the receiver went
through to the rear platform, where they were pres-
ently joined by Halkett and Danforth.
"I've been trying the air again," said the superin-
tendent, "but it's no go. What's next?"
The governor gave the word.
"Wait," he said; and the four of them clung to the
hand-rails, swaying and bending to the bounding
lurches of the flying car.
Mile after mile reels from beneath the relentless
wheels, and still the speed increases. Station Done-
rail is passed, and now the pace is so furious that the
watchers on the railed platform can not make out
the signals in the volleying wake of dust. Station
Schofield is passed, and again the signals, if any there
be, are swiftly drowned in the gray dust-smother. From
Schofield to Agua Caliente is but a scant ten miles;
and as the flying train rushes on toward the State
boundary, two faces in the quartet of watchers show
tense and drawn under the yellow light of the Pintsch
platform lamp.
The governor swings himself unsteadily to the right-
hand railing and the long look ahead brings the twink-
ling arc-etar of the tower light on Breezeland Inn


THE EELENTLESS WHEELS 385
his weapon. Apparently it is not going to be neces-
sary to kill the engineer, after all.
But Callahan's nerve has failed him only for the mo-
ment. There is one chance in ten thousand that the
circumambulating side track is empty; one and one
only, and no way to make sure of it. Beyond the station,
as Callahan well knows, the siding comes again into
the main line, and the switch is a straight-rail "safety."
Once again the thought of his motherless child nickers
into the engineer's brain; then he releases the air and
throws his weight backward upon the throttle-bar. Two
gasps and a heart-beat decide it; and before the man
in the vestibule can level his weapon and fire, the one-
car train has shot around the station, heaving and
lurching over the uneven rails of the siding, and grind-
ing shrilly over the points of the safety switch to race
on the down grade to Megilp.
At the mining-camp the station is in darkness save
for the goggle eyes of an automobile drawn up beside
the platform, and deep silence reigns but for the muffled,
irregular thud of the auto-car's motor. But the beam of
the 1010's headlight shows the small station building
massed by men, a score of them poising for a spring to
the platforms of the private car when the slackening
speed shall permit. A bullet tears into the woodwork at
Callahan's elbow, and another breaks the glass of the


3S6
THE GEAFTEES
window be6ide him, but he makes the stop as steadily as
if death were not snapping at him from behind and
roaring in his ears from the belly of the burned engine.
"Be doomping yer fire lively, now, Jimmy, b'y," he
says, dropping from his box to help. And while they
wrestle with the dumping-bar, these two, the poising
figures have swarmed upon the Naught-seven, and a
voice is lifted above the Babel of others in sharp protest.
"Put away that rope, boys! There's law here, and by
God, we're going to maintain it!"
At this a man pushes his way out of the thick of the
crowd and climbs to a seat beside the chauffeur in the
waiting automobile.
"They've got him," he says shortly. 'To the hotel
for all you're worth, Hudgins; our part is to get thii
on the wires before one o'clock. Full speed; and never
mind the ruts."


388
THE GRAFTERS
"Thank you; not before breakfast," was the hasty
reply. Then, without another word of preface: "Judge
Marston, for the time being you are the governor of
the State, and I have come to—"
"One moment," interrupted his listener. "There are
some stories that read better for a foreword, however
brief. What has happened?"
"This: last night it was the purpose of Governor
Bucks and Receiver Guilford to go to Gaston by special
train. In some manner, which has not yet been fully
explained, there was a confusion of orders. Instead of
proceeding eastward, the special was switched to the
tracks of the Western Division; was made the first sec-
tion of the fast mail, which had orders to run through
without stop. You can imagine the result."
Marston got upon his feet slowly and began pacing
the length of the long room. Kent waited, and the
shrill cries of the newsboys floated up and in through
the open windows. When the judge finally came back
to his chair the saturnine face was gray and haggard.
"I hope it was an accident that can be clearly
proved," he said; and a moment later: "You spoke of
Bucks and Guilford; were there others in the private
car?"
"Two others; Haikett, and the governor's private
secretary."


SUBHI SADIK
389
"And were they all killed?"
A great light broke in upon Kent when he saw how
Marston had misapprehended. Also, he saw how much
it would simplify matters if he should be happy enough
to catch the ball in the reactionary rebound.
"They are all alive and uninjured, to the best of my
knowledge and belief; though I understand that one of
them narrowly escaped lynching at the hands of an ex-
cited mob."
The long lean figure erected itself in the chair, and
the weight of years seemed to slip from its shoulders.
"But I understood you to say that the duties of the
executive had devolved upon me, Mr. Kent. You also
said I could imagine the result of this singular mis-
taking of train-orders, and I fancied I could. What
was the result?"
"A conclusion not quite as sanguinary as that you
had in mind, though it is likely to prove serious enough
for one member of the party in the private car. The
special train was chased all the way across the State by
the fast mail. It finally outran the pursuing section and
was stopped at Megilp. A sheriff's posse was in wait-
ing, and an arrest was made."
"Go on," said the lieutenant-governor.
"I must first go back a little. Some weeks ago there
was a shooting affray in the mining-camp, arising out
of a dispute over a 'salted' mine, and a man was killed.


350
THE GRAFTERS
The murderer escaped across the State line. Since the
authorities of the State in which the crime was com-
mitted had eTery reason to believe that a governor's
requisition for this particular criminal would not ba
honored, two courses were open to them: to publish
the facts and let the moral sentiment of the neighbor-
ing commonwealth punish the criminal as it could, or
world; or, suppressing the facts, to bide their chance
of catching their man beyond the boundaries of the
State which gave him an asylum. They chose the
latter."
A second time Marston left his chair and began to
pace the floor. After a little he paused to say:
"This murderer is James Guilford, I take it; and
the governor—"
"No," said Kent, gravely. "The murderer is—Jas-
per G. Bucks." He handed the judge a copy of the
Argus. "You will find it all in the press despatches;
all I have told you, and a great deal more."
The lieutenant-governor read the newspaper story as
he walked, lighting the electric chandelier to enable
him to do so. When it was finished he sat down again.
"What a hideous cesspool it is!" was his comment.
"But we shall clean it, Mr. Kent; we shall clean it if it
shall leave the People's Party without a vote in the
State. Now what can I do for you? You didn't come


SUBHI SADIK
391
here at this hour in the morning merely to bring me the
news."
"No, I didn't, Judge Marston. I want my railroad."
"Yon shall have it," was the prompt response. "What
have you done since our last discussion of the subject?"
"I tried to 'obliterate' Judge MacFarlane, as you
suggested. But I failed in the first step. Bucks and
Meigs refused to approve the quo warranto."
The judge knitted his brows thoughtfully.
"That way is open to you now; but it is long and
devious, and delays are always dangerous. You spoke
of the receivership as being part of a plan by which
your road was to be turned over to an eastern monopoly.
How nearly has that plan succeeded?"
Kent hesitated, not because he was afraid to trust
the man Oliver Marston, but because there were some
things which the governor of the State might feel
called upon to investigate if the knowledge of them
were thrust upon him. But in the end he took counsel
of utter frankness.
"So nearly that if Bucks and the receiver had reached
Gaston last night, our road would now be in the hands
of the Plantagoulds under a ninety-nine-year lease."
The merest ghost of a smile flitted over the lieuten-
ant-governor's face when he said, with his nearest ap-
proach to sarcasm:


394
THE GRAFTERS
rooms he sent for Loring, stretching himself on the
bed in a very ecstasy of relaxation until the ex-manager
came np. Then he emptied his mind as an overladen
ass spills its panniers.
"I'm done, Grantham," he said; "and that is more
different kinds of truth than you have heard in a week.
Go and reorganize your management, and M'Tosh is
the man to put in Halkett's place. The strike will be
declared off at the mere mention of your name and his.
That's all. Now go away and let me sleep."
"Oh, hold on!" was the good-natured protest; "I'm
not more curious than I have to be, but I'd like to know
how it was done."
"I don't know, myself; and that's the plain fact.
But I suspect Marston fell upon Judge McFarlane:
gave him a wire hint of what was due to arrive if he
didn't give us a clean bill of health. I had my pre-
liminary interview with the governor at daybreak this
morning; and I was with him again between nine and
ten. He went over the original papers with me, and
about all he said was, 'Be in Gaston by two o'clock this
afternoon, and MacFarlane will give you the hearing
in chambers.' I went on my knees to the Federative
Council to get a train."
"You shouldn't have had any trouble there."
"I didn't have, after the men understood what was
in the wind. Jarl Oleson took me down and brought


400
THE GRAFTERS
I could neither run nor walk. Do you suppose I am
so besotted as not to realize that you have been the
head, while I have been only the hand?"
"Nonsense!" she said lightly. "You are in the
dumps of the reaction now. You mustn't say things
that you will be sorry for, later on."
"I am going to say one thing, nevertheless; and will
remain for you to make it a thing hard to be remem-
bered, or the other kind. Will you take what there
is of me and make what you can of it?"
She laughed in his face.
"No, my dear David; no, no, no." And after a little
pause: "How deliciously transparent you are, to be
sure!"
He would have been less than a man if his self-love
had not been touched in its most sensitive part.
"I am glad if it amuses you," he frowned. "Only
I meant it in all seriousness."
"No, you didn't; you only thought you did," she
contradicted, and the brown eyes were still laughing at
him. "Let me tell you what you did mean. You are
pleased to think that I have helped you—that an obli-
gation has been incurred; and you meant to pay your
debt like a man and a gentleman in the only coin a
woman is supposed to recognize."
"But if I should say that you are misinterpreting
the motive?" he suggested.


STJBHI SADIK
401
"It would make your nice little speech a perjury in-
stead of a simple untruth, and I should say no, again,
on other, and perhaps better, grounds."
"Name them," he said shortly.
"I will, David, though I am neither a stick nor a
stone to do it without wincing. You love another
woman with all your heart and soul, and you know it."
"Well? You see I am neither admitting nor deny-
ing."
"As if you needed to!" she scoffed. "But don't inter-
rupt me, please. You said I might take what there is
of you and make what I can of it: I might make you
anything and everything in the world, David, except
that which a woman craves most in a husband—a lover."
His eyes grew dark.
"I wish I knew how much that word means to you,
Portia."
"It means just as much to me as it does to every
woman who has ever drawn the breath of life in a pas-
sionate world, David. But that isn't all. Leaving Miss
Brentwood entirely out of the question, you'd be mis-
erably unhappy."
"Why should I?"
"Because I shouldn't be able to realize a single one of
your ideals. I know what they are—what you will ex-
pect in a wife. I could make you a rich man, a suc-
cessful man, as the world measures success, and perhaps


402
THE GRAFTEES
I could even give you love: after the first flush of youth
is past, the heavenly-affinity sentiment loses its hold
and a woman comes to know that if she cares to try hard
enough she can love any man who will be thoughtful
and gentle, and whose habits of life are not hopelessly at
war with her own. But that kind of love doesn't breed
love. Your vanity would pique itself for a little while,
and then you would know the curse of unsought love
and murder me in your heart a thousand times a day.
No, David, I have read you to little purpose if these are
the things you will ask of the woman who takes your
name and becomes the mother of your children." She
had risen and was standing beside his chair, with her
hand lightly touching his shoulder. "Will you go now?
There are others coming, and—"
He made his adieux gravely and went away half
dazed and a prey to many emotions, but strangely light-
hearted withal: and as once before, he walked when he
might have ridden. But the mixed-emotion mood was
not immortal. At the Clarendon he found a committee
of Civic Leaguers waiting to ask him if he would stand
as a "Good Government" candidate in the special elec-
tion to fill the House vacancy in the capital district;
and in the discussion of ways and means, and the set-
ting of political pins which followed there was little
food for sentiment.


STJBHI SADIK
403
It was three weeks and more after Governor Mars-
ton's call summoning the Assembly for an investiga-
tive session. Kent had fought his way triumphantly
through the special election to a seat in the House,
aided and abetted manfully by Ormsby, Hildreth, and
the entire Trans-Western influence and vote. And now
men were beginning to say that without the tireless
blows of the keen-witted, sharp-tongued young corpo-
ration lawyer, the junto might still have reasserted it-
self.
But the House committee, of which Kent was the
youngest member and the chairman, had proved incor-
ruptible, and the day of the Gaston wolf-pack was over.
Hendricks resigned, to escape a worse thing; Meigs
came over to the majority with a show of heartiness that
made Kent doubly watchful of him; heads fell to the
right and left, until at the last there was left only one
member of the original cabal to reckon with; the ju-
dicial tool of the capitol ring.
Kent had hesitated when MacFarlane's name came
up; and the judge never knew that he owed his escape
from the inquisitorial House committee, and his per-
mission to resign on the plea of broken health, to a
young woman whom he had never seen.
It was Elinor Brentwood who was his intercessor;
and the occasion was the last day of the third week


404
THE GRAFTEES
of the extra session—a Saturday afternoon and a legis-
lative recess when Kent had borrowed Ormsby's auto-
car, and had driven Elinor and Penelope out to Pent-
land Place to look at a house he was thinking of buy-
ing. For with means to indulge it, Kent's Gaston-
bred mania for plunging in real estate had returned
upon him with all the acuteness of a half-satisfied pas-
sion.
They had gone all over the house and grounds with
the caretaker, and when there was nothing more to see,
Penelope had prevailed on the woman to open the
Venetians in the music-room. There was a grand piano
in the place of honor, presided over by a mechanical
piano-player; and Penelope went into ecstasies of
mockery.
"Wait till I can find the music scrolls, and I'll hyp-
notize you," she said gleefully; and Kent and Elinor
beat a hasty retreat to the wide entrance hall.
"I don't quite understand it," was Elinor's comment,
when they had put distance between themselves and
Penelope's joyous grinding-out of a Wagner scroll.
"It looks as if the owners had just walked out at a
moment's notice."
"They did," said Kent. "They went to Europe, I
believe. And by the way; I think I have a souvenir
here somewhere. Will you go up to the first landing
of the stair and point your finger at that window?"


STJBHI SADIK
405
She did it, wondering; and when he had the line of
direction he knelt in the cushioned window-seat and
began to probe with the blade of his pen-knife in a
small round hole in the woodwork.
"What is it?" she asked, coming down to stand be-
side him.
"This." He had cut out a flattened bullet and was
holding it up for her to see. "It was meant for me,
and I've always had an idea that I heard it strike the
woodwork."
"For you? Were you ever here when the house was
occupied?"
"Yes, once; it is the Senator Duvall place. This
is the window where I broke in."
She nodded intelligence.
"I know now why you are going to buy it. The
senator is another of those whom you haven't forgiven."
His laugh was a ready denial.
"I have nothing against Duvall. He was one of
Bucks' dupes, and he is paying the price. The prop-
erty is to be sold at a forced sale, and it is a good in-
vestment."
"Is that all it means to you? It is too fine to be
hawked about as a thing to make money with. It's a
splendidly ideal home—leaving out that thing that
Penelope is quarreling with." And she made a feint
of stopping her ears.





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