Читать книгу The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush - Lynde Francis - Страница 5

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It is a far cry from Boston to the land of broken mountain ranges, lone buttes, and irrigated mesas, and a still farther one from the veranda of an exclusive North Shore club to a private dining-room in the Inter-Mountain Hotel, whose entrance portico faces the Capitol grounds in the chief city of the Sage-brush State, whose eastern windows command a magnificent view of the Lost River Range, and from whose roof, on a clear day, one may see the snowy peaks of the Sierras notching the distant western horizon.

Allowing for the difference between Eastern and Mountain time, the dinner for two in the private dining-room of the Inter-Mountain synchronized very fairly with the threshing out of college reminiscences by the two young men whose apparently fortuitous meeting on the veranda of the far-away North Shore club-house one of them, at least, was ascribing to the good offices of the god of chance.

On the guest-book of the Inter-Mountain one of the men at the table in the private dining-room had registered from Chicago. The name was illegible to the cursory eye, but since it was the signature of a notable empire-builder, it was sufficiently well known in all the vast region served by the Transcontinental Railway System. The owner of the name had finished his ice, and was sitting back to clip the end from a very long and very black cigar. He was a man past middle-age, large-framed and heavy, with the square, resolute face of a born master of circumstances. Like the younger generation, he was clean shaven; hence there was no mask for the deeply graven lines of determination about the mouth and along the angle of the strong, leonine jaw. In the region traversed by the great railway system the virile face with the massive jaw was as familiar as the illegible signature on the Inter-Mountain's guest-book. Though he figured only as the first vice-president of the Transcontinental Company, Hardwick McVickar was really the active head of its affairs and the dictator of its policies.

Across the small round table sat the railway magnate's dinner-guest, a man who was more than McVickar's match in big-boned, square-shouldered physique, and whose half-century was written only in the thick, grizzled hair and heavy, graying mustaches. Like McVickar, he had the lion-like face of mastership, but the fine wrinkles at the corners of the wide-set eyes postulated a sense of humor which was lacking in his table companion. His mouth, half hidden by the drooping mustaches, needed the relieving wrinkles at the corners of the eyes; it was a grim, straight-lined inheritance from his pioneer ancestors—the mouth of a man who may yield to persuasion but not easily to opposition.

"I wish I could convince you that it isn't worth while to hold me at arm's-length, Senator," McVickar was saying, as he clipped the end from his cigar. "You know as well as I do that under the present law in this State we are practically bankrupt. We are not making enough to pay the fixed charges. We do a losing business from the moment we cross your State line."

"Yes; it seems to me I have heard something that sounded a good deal like that before," was the noncommittal rejoinder.

"You have heard the simple truth, then. And it is a bald injustice, not only to the railroad company, but to the people it serves. We can't give adequate service when the cost exceeds the earnings. That is the simplest possible proposition in any business undertaking."

"And you can't make out to convince the members of the State Railroad Commission of the simpleness?" asked the man whom the vice-president addressed as "Senator."

"You know well enough that we can't hope to convince a rabidly anti-railroad commission," was the half-angry retort.

"Yet you are still running your railroad," suggested the other. "We don't hear anything about your shutting down and tearing up the track."

"No; luckily, the Transcontinental System does not lie wholly within your State boundaries. If it did, we might as well surrender our charter and go out of business—shut down and tear up the track, as you put it."

"All of which has come to be a pretty old and well-worn story with us, McVickar," said the listener quietly. "I'm sure you didn't make me motor thirty miles to hear you tell it all over again. What do you want?"

"We want a square deal," was the curt reply.

"So do the people of this State," asserted the man across the table. "You bled us, Hardwick—bled us to the queen's taste—while you had the chance; and the chance lasted a blamed long time. You are equitably, if not legally, in debt to every man in this State who had ever shipped a car-load of freight or paid a passenger fare over your line before the present rate law went into effect. You can shuffle and side-step all you want to, but that is the plain fact of the matter."

The vice-president sat up and braced his arms on the edge of the table.

"You are too much for me, Blount—you hold out too many cards; and I'm no apprentice at the game, either. In all these years we've been dickering together you've always been a hard-bitted and consistent fighter for your own hand. What's happened to you lately? Have you acquired a new set of convictions? Or have you been figuring out a different way of whipping the devil around the stump?"

"Oh, I don't know," returned the guest, with large good-nature. "We are all growing older—and wiser, perhaps. You don't deny the debt you owe us, do you?"

"Do we owe you anything, Blount?" asked the magnate pointedly, and with a definite emphasis upon the personal pronoun. "If we do, we are willing to pay it in spot cash, on demand."

The big man on the other side of the table was leaning back in his chair with his hands in his pockets, and the smile wrinkling at the corners of his eyes was half-genial, half-satirical.

"It's lucky we're alone, McVickar," he remarked. "A third fellow standing around and hearing you talk might imagine that you are trying to bribe me."

"That's all right, Blount; this is between us two, and we understand each other. Nothing for nothing is the accepted rule the world over, and we both recognize it. You are figuring on something; I know you are. Name it. If it is anything less than a mortgage on the earth and one or two of the planets I'll get it for you."

"I'm afraid we are a good deal more than a mile or two apart yet, McVickar," said the man who was not smoking, after a long minute. "Let's ride back to the beginning and get us a fresh start. I said that Gordon is going to be the next governor of the State."

"I know you did; and I said—and I say it again—he isn't going to be—not if we can help it," declared the railway magnate, with emphatic determination.

"The methods you will take to defeat him will insure his election, McVickar. You fellows are mighty slow to learn your lesson; mighty slow and obstinate, Hardwick. You don't know anything but wire-pulling and crookedness and bribery. The times have changed, and you haven't had the common-sense or the courage or the business shrewdness to change with them. I say Gordon will be the next governor."

Again there was a strained silence like that which follows the hand-shake in the prize-ring when the two antagonists have drawn apart and are warily watching each for his opening. After the pause the vice-president said:

"If we had the safest kind of a majority in both houses of the legislature, we couldn't be sure of accomplishing anything worth while with Gordon in the governor's office; you know that, Blount. If Gordon runs and is elected, his platform will be flatly anti-railroad."

"Oh, I don't know," was the calm rejoinder. "Gordon is a mighty square fellow; an honest man and a fair one. If you could stay out of the fight and go to him with clean hands—but you couldn't do that, McVickar; you're too badly out of practice."

"We needn't go into that phase of it. We are so savagely handicapped in this State that we can't afford to take a divided chance; can't afford to pass our case up to a man who has been elected by an unfriendly opposition. If we should wash our hands of the fight, as you suggest, we might just as well throw up our franchises and quit, so far as any prospect of earning a reasonable return upon our investment here is concerned."

"I know; that is what you always say, and you have said it so often—you and your fellow railroad string-pullers—that you have lost the straightforward combination completely. If you ever knew how to make a clean fight you've forgotten the moves, and it's your own fault."

Once more the man with the fierce eyes and the dominating jaw took time to consider. Like others of his class, he was partisan only in the sense of one fighting hardily for the side upon which he had happened to be drawn in the great world battle. If he had not long ago parted with his convictions, the heat and smoke of the battle had obscured them, and he chose his weapons now with little regard for anything beyond their possible efficacy.

"You are sparring with me, Blount," he said finally. "You are talking to me as you might talk to a committee of the Good Government League—and possibly for the same reason. Let's get together. You control the political situation in your State, and we frankly recognize that fact. It's a matter of business, and we can settle it on a business basis. I have been outspoken and above-board with you and have told you what we want. Meet me halfway and tell me what you want."

"I want a square deal all around, Hardwick; that's all. You've got to take the same ground and make a clean fight if you want me with you. I can't make it any plainer than that, can I?"

"I don't know yet what you are driving at," frowned the vice-president, "nor just why you have taken this particular occasion to read me a kindergarten lecture on political methods. In times past I suppose we have both done some things that we would like to have decently buried and forgotten, but—"

"But right there we break apart, McVickar," cut in the other, setting his jaw with a peculiar hardening of the facial muscles that gave him the appearance of a fierce old viking attacking at the head of his squadrons. "I'm telling you over again that a new day has dawned in American politics; I and my kind recognize it, and you and your kind don't seem to be big enough to recognize it. That is the difference between us. In the present instance it comes down to this: you are going to fight for a railroad majority in the legislature, and you want Reynolds for the head of the ticket because you know that you can depend upon his veto if you don't get your majority in the House and Senate. You are not going to get Reynolds, or the majority either, without the help of the party organization."

"We can put it much more elementally than that," supplemented the railroad man. "We get nothing without your say-so as the head of the party organization. That is precisely why I have come a couple of thousand miles to ask you to eat dinner with me here to-night."

"I reckon I ought to feel right much set up and biggitty over that, Hardwick," smiled the veteran spoilsman, relapsing, as he did now and then, into the speech of his Southern boyhood. And then half-quizzically: "Are you tolerably well satisfied that you've got around to the place where you are willing to tote fair with me? You recollect, I gave you a straight pointer two years ago; you wouldn't take it, and we did you up. Are you right certain you are ready now to holler 'enough'?"

Once again the vice-president refused to be hurried into making a capitulative admission. When he spoke, the militant second thought of the fighting corporation commander chose the words.

"There is a limit to all things, Senator, and you are pushing us pretty well up to it. I suppose you can crack the whip and swing the vote on the legislature, and you can take it and be damned. But, by God, we'll have our governor and our attorney-general!"

"You are betting confidently on that, are you?" said the veteran mildly. "Is that your declaration of war?"

"Call it anything you like. We are not going to be legislated off the map if we can help it. Strong as your machine is, you can't swing Gordon in against Reynolds if we concede your bare majority in the legislature and put up the right kind of a fight. And when it comes to Rankin, our candidate for attorney-general, you simply haven't another man in the party to put up against him. You'd have to run in a dummy, and even you are not big enough to do that, Blount, and put it over."

"You've settled this definitely in your own mind, have you, Hardwick?" was the placable rejoinder. "I'm sorry—right sorry. I've been hoping that you had learned your lesson—you and your tribe. I came to town this evening prepared to show you a decent way out of your troubles, so far as this State is concerned; but since you have posted your 'de-fi,' as we cow-punchers say, I reckon it isn't worth while to wade any deeper into the creek."

Again the railroad magnate rested his arms on the table-edge. "What was your 'decent way,' Senator?" he asked, fixing his gaze upon the shrewd old eyes of the other, which, for the first time in the conference, seemed to be losing a little of their grimly good-natured aggressiveness.

"I don't mind telling you, though you will likely call it an old man's foolishness. I have a grown son, McVickar. Did you know that?"

The vice-president nodded, and the big man opposite went on half-reminiscently:

"He is a lawyer, and a mighty bright one, so they tell me. As I happen to know, he is pretty well up on the corporation side of the argument, and the one thing I've been afraid of is that he would marry and settle down somewhere in the East, where the big corporations have their home ranches. I'm getting old, Hardwick, and I'd like mighty well to have the boy with me. Out of that notion grew another. I said to myself this: Now, here's McVickar; if he could have a good, clean-cut young man in this State representing his railroad—a man who not only knew his way around in a court-room, but who might also know how to plead his client's case before the public—if McVickar could have such a young fellow as that for his corporation counsel, and would agree to make his railroad company live somewhere within shouting distance of such a young fellow's ideals, we might all be persuaded to bury the hatchet and live together in peace and amity."

A slow smile was spreading itself over the strong face of the railway magnate as he listened.

"Say, David," he retorted mildly, "it isn't much like you to go forty miles around when there is a short way across. Why didn't you tell me plainly in the beginning that you wanted a place for your boy?"

"Hold on; don't let's get too far along before we get started; I'm not saying it now," was the sober protest. "You forget that you've just been telling me that you don't intend to comply with the one hard-and-fast condition to such an arrangement as the one I've been pipe-dreaming about."

"What condition?"

"That you turn over a brand-new leaf and meet the people of this State half-way on a proposition of fair play for everybody."

"There isn't any half-way point in a fight for life, David. You know that as well, or better, than I do. But let that go. We'll give your son the place you want him to have, and do it gladly."

The man who had once been his own foreman of round-ups straightened himself in his chair and smote the table with his fist.

"No, by God, you won't—not in a thousand years, McVickar! Maybe you could buy me—maybe you have bought me in times past—but you can't buy that boy! Listen, and I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I telegraphed the boy this afternoon, telling him to throw up his job in Boston and come out here. If he comes within a reasonable time he will be legally a citizen of the State before election. You said we didn't have anybody but Rankin to run for attorney-general. By Heavens, Hardwick, I'll show you if we haven't!"

Mr. Hardwick McVickar was not of those who fight as one beating the air. While the deft waiter was clearing the table and serving the small coffees he kept silence. But when the time was fully ripe he said what there was to be said.

"You've got us by the nape of the neck, as usual, Blount. Name your terms."

"I have named them. Get in line with the new public opinion and we'll do what we can for you."

During the long pause following this curt ultimatum the masterful dictator of railroad policies deliberated thoughtfully upon many things. With the ex-senator as the all-powerful head of the machine in this State of many costly battle-fields, it would have been a weakness inexcusable on the part of so astute a commander as McVickar if David Blount's history, political and personal, had not been known to him in all its details. As a contingency to be met sooner or later, the vice-president had anticipated the thing which had now come to pass. That Blount should wish to push the fortunes of his son was perfectly natural; and it was no less natural that he should push them by making the railroad company's pay-roll furnish the motive-power. The magnate smiled inwardly when he remembered that he had given Gantry, the division traffic manager of the Transcontinental, a quiet hint to look up one Evan Blount, a young lawyer, on his next visit to Boston. By all odds it would be better to wait for Gantry's report before taking any irrevocable steps in the bargaining with Evan Blount's father; but unhappily the crisis had arrived, and in all probability it could not be postponed. None the less, the vice-president tried craftily for the postponement.

"You're asking a good deal, Blount, and you don't seem to realize it. You are practically demanding that we lay down our arms and put a possible enemy in the saddle on the eve of a battle. If we should agree to meet the people of this State half-way, as you suggest, what guarantee have we that we won't be compelled to go all the way?"

The fine-lined wrinkles were appearing again at the corners of the hereditary Blount eyes.

"You can't quite rise to the occasion, can you, Hardwick?" smiled the boss. "You'd like to behave yourself and be good, of course; but you want to be cocksure beforehand that it isn't going to cost too much."

"Well, anyway, I'm going to ask for a little time in which to consider it," was the vice-president's final word.

"Sure! You have all the time there is between now and the election. Go on and do your considering. I've told you what I'm going to do."

"You know very well that we can't allow you to do what you propose. With an unfriendly attorney-general we might as well throw up our hands first as last."

"All right; it's right pointedly up to you," was the calm reply.

The vice-president rose and dusted the cigar-ash from his coat-sleeve with the table-napkin. When he looked up, the heavy frown was again furrowing itself between his eyes.

"Let me know when your son is coming and I'll try to make it possible to meet him here," he said rather gratingly.

And thus, at the precise moment when Richard Gantry, some three thousand miles away to the eastward, was declaring his weariness and his intention of going to bed, the two-man conference in the Inter-Mountain private dining-room was closed.