THE GREAT GAME
If Evan Blount, as the representative of the unpopular railroad, had been anticipating an unfriendly reception at the great gold-camp in the Carnadine Hills, he was agreeably disappointed. A committee of citizens, headed by Jasper Steuchfield, the "Paramounter" chairman for Carnadine County, met him at the train, escorted him to the hotel, and, during the afternoon which was at his disposal, gave him joyously and hilariously the freedom of the camp.
The political meeting, called for an early hour in the evening, was held in the Carnadine Mining Company's ore-shed, electric-lighted for the occasion. When the hour came the big shed was packed with an enthusiastic audience, and there were prolonged cheers and hand-clappings when the railroad advocate took his seat on the improvised platform as the guest of the local committee.
Later, when Judge Crowley, candidate prospective on the popular ticket for the State Senate, opened the joint debate with a shrewd arraignment of the methods of the railroad company, not only in its dealings with the public as a common carrier, but also in the pertinacity with which it invaded the political field, there was tumultuous applause; but it was no heartier than that which greeted Blount when he rose to present the railroad side of the argument.
During the journey from the capital, which had consumed the night and the greater portion of the forenoon, he had prepared his speech. His argument—the one unanswerable argument, as it appeared to him—was the absurdity and injustice of a law which presumed to limit the earning power of a corporation by fixing the maximum rates it might charge, without at the same time making a corresponding regulation fixing the price which the company should pay for its labor and material.
Upon this foundation he was able to build a fair structure of oratory. The judge, his opponent, was a rather turgid man whose speech had abounded in flights of denunciation and whose appeal had been made frankly to prejudice and party rancor. Blount took his cue shrewdly. Touching lightly upon the public grievances, some of which he characterized as just and entirely defensible, he rang the changes calmly and logically upon the square deal, no less for the corporations than for the individual. "Take it to yourselves, you merchants," he urged. "Imagine a law on the statute-books fixing the prices at which you shall sell your goods, and that same law leaving you at the mercy of those from whom you must buy! Take it to yourselves, you miners. Suppose the legislature had enacted a law fixing the maximum price at which you shall sell your skill and your labor, and at the same time leaving it optional with every man from whom you buy, the butcher, the baker, the grocer, to charge you what he pleases or what he can get! That, my good friends, is the situation of the railroad company in this State to-day"—and he went on to analyze the hard situation, filling his hour very creditably and, if the frequent bursts of applause could be taken to mean anything, to the complete satisfaction of his hearers. Indeed, at the end of his argument he was given what the local paper of the following day was pleased to call "a spontaneous and pandemonious ovation."
After the cheering and hand-shaking, Steuchfield and his fellow-committeemen went to the train with the visiting speaker, and no one in the throng of congratulators was more enthusiastic than the opposition chairman.
"That was a cracking good speech—a great speech, Mr. Blount!" he said, as the branch train rattled in from the north. "If you can go all over the State making as good talks as the one we've just heard, you'll tie the whole shooting-match up in a hard knot for us fellows. But McVickar won't let you do it—not by a long shot!"
The potential tier of hard knots laughed genially. "I don't blame you for wanting to be shown, Mr. Steuchfield. But I can assure you that the new policy has come to stay. I have the management behind me in this thing, and any day you'll come down to the capital I'll put my time against yours and try to show you that we are out for open publicity and a square deal for every man—including the railroad man."
"All right," was the cordial reply. "I'll be down along some of these days, and if you can convince me that McVickar isn't going into politics any further than you've gone here to-night, I'll promise you to come back to Carnadine and tell the boys the jig's up."
A few minutes later the branch train pulled out, and the chairman and his fellow-committeemen gave the departing joint-debater three cheers and another. After the red tail-lights of the train had disappeared around the first curve, Steuchfield turned to the others with a broad grin.
"Well, boys," he said, "there goes a mighty nice young fellow, and I guess we did it up all right for him and accordin' to orders. I don't know any more'n a sheep what sort of a game Dave Sage-brush is playin' this time, but whatever he says goes as she lays, and I figure it that we gave the young chip o' the old block a right jubilant little whirl. Anyhow, he seemed to think so."
Blount did not reach his office in the capital until the afternoon of the next day. There was an appalling accumulation of letters and telegrams waiting to be worked over, but he let the desk litter go untouched and called up the hotel, only to have a small disappointment sent in over the wire. His father, Mrs. Blount, and their guest had left for Wartrace Hall some time during the forenoon, and there had been nothing said in the clerk's hearing about their return to the city. Blount hung up the receiver, called it one more opportunity missed, and sat down to attack the desk litter.
Almost the first thing his eye lighted upon was a stenographer's note stating that Mr. Hathaway, president of the Twin Buttes Lumber Company, had been in several times, and was very anxious to obtain an interview. Blount pressed the desk button, and the stenographer came in promptly.
"This man Hathaway; what did he want?" was the brusque question shot at the clerk.
"I don't know. He said he was stopping at the Inter-Mountain, and he asked me to let him know when you got back."
"Phone him and tell him I'm here," said Blount; and in due time the lumber magnate made his appearance.
It was not at all in keeping with Mr. Simon Peter Hathaway's gifts and adroitness that he should begin by attempting a clumsy bit of acting.
"Well, I'll be shot!" he exclaimed. "So you're the senator's son, are you? If I'd known that, that day on the train when you were trying to make me believe you were one of Uncle Sam's men—"
Blount's smile was neither forgiving nor hostile.
"In a way, I had earned what was handed out to me afterward, Mr. Hathaway, and I'm not bearing malice," he said briefly. "I had no business to let you get away with the wrong impression, but you were so exceedingly anxious to identify me with the Forest Service that it seemed a pity to disappoint you. Since your scoundrels didn't kill me, we'll set one incident against the other and forget both. What can I do for you to-day?"
By this time the lumber lord was apparently recovering his breath and some measure of composure, though he had lost neither.
"Great Jehu!" he lamented. "If you had given me half a hint that you were Dave Blount's son—but you didn't, you know, and now I'm handicapped just when I oughtn't to be. I've come to talk business with you to-day, Mr. Blount, and here you've got me on the run the first crack out of the box!"
This time Blount's smile was entirely conciliatory.
"Don't let that little misfire in the Lost Mountain foot-hills embarrass you, Mr. Hathaway. I assure you I'm not at all vindictive."
"All right," said the visitor, only too willing to dismiss the Jack Barto incident and the forced awkwardness of the pretended surprise. "That being the case, I'll jump in on the other matter. But first I'd like to ask a sort of personal question: I've been given to understand that you are handling the political business for the railroad company in this campaign. Is that right?"
"It is and it isn't," was the prompt reply. "The railroad company isn't in politics in this campaign—as a political factor, I mean. What we are trying to do—and all we are trying to do—is to lay the entire matter plainly and fairly before the people of this State, with a frank appeal for the relief to which we are entitled."
"Ha—h'm—I guess I get you, Mr. Blount. That's the way to talk it; in public, anyway. But, just between us two—I guess we needn't beat the bushes in a little personal talk like this—we both know there are certain things that have to be done in every campaign; things you wouldn't want to publish in the newspapers."
Blount sat back in his chair and the conciliatory smile disappeared.
"What kind of things?" he asked abruptly.
"Oh, of course, I don't know all of 'em. But there was one little arrangement that was made two years ago with us, and it helped out both ways. I thought I'd come around and see if it couldn't be worked again."
"State the facts," said Blount shortly.
"It was like this. As you know, we've got a number of plants scattered around at different places in the State, and, one way and another, we employ a good many men. These men are residents of the State, but you couldn't call 'em citizens in the sense that they take any active interest in what's going on. They're here this year, and they may be up among the Oregon redwoods next year, and somewhere else the year after. When they vote at all they naturally ask us how we'd like to have 'em vote; and that's the way it was two years ago at election time."
"I see. But how does this concern the railroad company?"
"I'm coming to that, right now. Two years ago we found that our employees' vote was big enough to turn the scale in four of the legislative districts and to cut a pretty good-sized figure in a fifth. This vote was worth something to your people, and the fact was properly recognized. I don't know but what I'm telling you a lot of stale news, but—"
"Go on, Mr. Hathaway; if I wasn't greatly interested in the beginning, I am now. How was the fact recognized by the Transcontinental Railway Company?"
"It was just as easy as twice two. The Twin Buttes Lumber Company is practically the only heavy lumber-shipper in this inter-mountain territory, and it was given a preferential rate on its products; you might say that the amount of business we do entitles us to some special consideration, anyway. There wasn't any bargain and sale about it, you understand. It was just a sort of friendly recognition of our help in the election."
"This rate is lower than the rate made to other lumber-shippers?"
"Well, yes; but, after all, it isn't any big thing. If you were up on lumber rates, Mr. Blount—as I don't suppose you are—you'd know that the special tariff we get is all that enables us to live and do business."
Blount had opened his penknife and was absently sharpening a pencil.
"This special rate you refer to, Mr. Hathaway," he said, speaking slowly and quite distinctly—"am I right in inferring that it is not confined strictly to points within the State boundaries?"
At this the lumberman repeated a phrase which he had used in the anxious conference in the Weatherford herbarium.
"If I thought you didn't know, I'd go a long time without telling you, Mr. Blount. But of course you do know. If you wasn't on the inside of all the insides you wouldn't be sitting here pulling the strings for McVickar. The rate is a blanket; it covers all shipments."
Blount nodded and his apparent coolness was no just measure of the inward fires the crooked lumber-king was kindling.
"You interest me greatly, Mr. Hathaway. I am a little new to these things—as you intimated a few moments ago. How is this matter handled—by rebates, I suppose?"
"N-not exactly," was the hesitating denial. "That would be too risky for both of us. But the Transcontinental Company is a heavy buyer—lumber and cross-ties and bridge timber, you know—and the biggest part of the difference between our special and the regular rate is taken up in our bills for material furnished to the railroad."
"Let me be quite clear upon that point," said Blount; and if Hathaway had had eyes to see, he would have observed that the young lawyer's attitude was becoming more judicial with every fresh questioning. "Let me be quite sure that I understand. You mean that you are allowed to charge the railroad company more than the market price on the material it buys?"
Hathaway nodded. "Yes, that's the way of it."
"And this preferential rate is still in force?"
"It is."
"You're sure you have had no notice of its withdrawal—say within the past few weeks?"
It was at this point that the lumber lord began to fear that some one had slipped a cog in sending him to first one and then another, and finally to young Blount.
"Of course, it hasn't been withdrawn!" he retorted. And then: "You seem to think there is something off color in the deal, Mr. Blount, and I don't know whether you're stringing me or whether you're too new in the railroad game to have the dope. If you're going into this political knock-down-and-drag-out, you ought to have the dope. There isn't a big interest in this State—ore-shippers, power people, irrigation companies, or any of 'em—that ain't getting a rake-off. I guess you are stringing me; I guess you know all this a good deal better than I do. If you don't, I can tell you that it's a fact; not a 'has-been', but an 'is'! Ask Gantry; he'll tell you, if he tells the truth. We ain't asking or getting anything that other people ain't getting!"
"I see," said Blount soberly. "What do you expect me to do, Mr. Hathaway?"
"I want you to set the wheels in motion so that we can have our rate made good for another two years—on the same terms as before. You're going to need every vote you can get this year, and you can't afford to turn us down." Then the lumber-king shifted again to his own necessities. "It's the only way we can live and do business nowadays. Like every other large corporation, we've got an army of little investors to look out for: widows, orphans, charitable institutions, and trustees' accounts. I've got a list of our stockholders right here, and I'd like to have you look it over."
Blount took the paper mechanically, and quite as mechanically ran his eye down the list of names. At the bottom of it, written in with a pen, was the name of Patricia's father, with his residence and occupation. While he was staring at the pen-written name, Hathaway went on, eloquently emphasizing the disastrous results which would fall upon the people for whom he was, in the larger sense, a guardian and a trustee—the disaster hinging upon the withdrawal of the preferential rate.
Blount broke him abruptly in the midst of the special plea. "I see you have recently added one new name to this list: the name of Professor Anners. How—"
"Yes," interrupted the Twin Buttes diplomatist hastily, fearing that this legal-minded young man would presently be asking questions too hard to be answered; "now there's a case in point: Mr. Anners is a good example of our smaller stockholders. Men like Anners, college professors, preachers, and so on, buy stocks, when they buy 'em at all, for an investment—for the income—and they pay for 'em out of their hard-earned savings."
"I know," said Blount, and, since he was the last man in the world to be diverted from his purpose by any conversational dust-throwing, he pressed the question cut off by the hasty interruption. "What I was going to ask was how you happen to have added Professor Anners's name to your list—recently, it seems?"
The lumberman was reduced to the necessity of inventing a ready lie. He had obeyed his instructions blindly, on the supposition that young Blount would know and understand.
"Anners? Oh, he knows a good thing when he sees it; and I guess maybe your father put him on. He's a friend of the family, ain't he? Maybe the senator found a little chunk of 'Twin Buttes' that he didn't want himself, and passed it along."
Blount's blood ran cold at the sight of the cracking walls and crumbling foundations on every hand. The proof that the railroad company's lawless attitude was still unchanged was too strong to be doubted; and now there was an added blow from the hand of his father. He wheeled short upon the lumber-king.
"Who sent you to me, Mr. Hathaway?" he demanded.
The hawk-faced man laughed. "I guess you know just as well or better than I do. But just to show you that I can keep my mouth shut, I ain't going to tell you. It's all right and straight—and you might say it's all in the family, counting the professor in on the side, as it were."
"I see," Blount said, and this time he was only too sure that he did see. Then: "What is it you want me to do for you, Mr. Hathaway? You have told me once, but I'm afraid I didn't grasp it fully."
"Fix it with Gantry, or somebody, so that we can put the company vote where it's most needed and get our rate continued. It's simple enough."
"The simplicity is beyond question." Blount returned the list of stockholders and fell back upon the pencil-sharpening. "It is quite elementary, as you say; but there is another phase of the transaction which seems to have escaped you. Are you aware that the present arrangement which you have so accurately described, and the continuance of it which you are proposing, are crimes for which both parties involved may be called into court and punished?"
Hathaway started as if the comfortable chair in which he was lounging had been suddenly electrified.
"Say, Blount, are you working for the railroad, or not?" he demanded. "If you are, what in the name of Heaven are you driving at? I know the line of talk you've been handing out since McVickar gave you your job and set you up in business here, but that's for the dear public. You don't have to wear your halo when a man comes in to talk hard facts from the inside. It comes to just this: you do something for me, and I do something for you. You make it possible for us to live and sell lumber, and we do what we can to make it easy for your railroad to get its 'square deal' from a pie-cutting legislature. That's the whole thing in a nutshell."
"One more question," snapped Blount, striving to fix the roving gaze of the hawk-like eyes. "With whom did you make this arrangement two years ago?"
"With your boss, if you want to know; with Mr. McVickar himself!"
"And you think you can do it again?"
"I know damned well I can; only I don't care to go over your head unless I have to. They tell me you're handling this end of it for the railroad company, and I'm not going around hunting a chance to make enemies. That's all I've got to say"—and he rose to go—"all but this: you've got a lot to learn about this something-for-something business, and the quicker you get at it, Mr. Blount, the sooner you'll arrive somewhere. About this little matter of ours, there's no special hurry. Take your own time to think it over; take it up with McVickar, if you want to. Then, when you get things fixed, wire me one word to Twin Buttes. Just say 'Yes,' and sign your name to it. That'll be enough."
For a long half-hour after the president of the Twin Buttes Lumber Company and its allied corporations had closed the door of the private office behind him, Blount sat rocking gently in his pivot-chair. In the fulness of time the bitter thoughts wrought their way into words.
"So this is what I was hired for!" he mused, "a fence; a wretched mask put up to hide the trickery and chicanery and criminality—the crookedness which has never been put aside; which nobody ever meant to put aside! My God! they've let me stultify myself in a thousand ways; let me sit here day after day with a lie in my mouth, saying things that nobody in this God-forsaken homeland of mine has believed for a single minute! After it's all over, every man who has listened to me will say that I knew—that all this talk about openness and fair dealing was simply that much dust-throwing to hide the workings of a corrupt and criminal machine grinding away in the background!"
He turned to his desk and sat with his head propped in his hands, staring at the little photograph of Wartrace Hall which he had had mounted in a plateglass paper-weight. The sight gave an added twist to the torture screw and he broke out again.
"I've been nothing more than a bit of potter's clay, and the master potter—God help me!—is my own father! It's all plain enough now. He saw that I wasn't going to fall in with the attorney-general scheme; or perhaps he saw that I might be a stumbling-block if I should; so he planned this thing with McVickar—planned it deliberately! There is no fight, after all; it's merely one of the moves in the game that the 'boss' and the railroad should seem to be fighting each other. Good God! I can't believe it, and yet I've got to believe it. That man Hathaway is a self-confessed criminal, but he was telling the truth about the law-breaking trickery that is going on; he wouldn't be idiotic enough to lie and then give me a chance to prove the lie. And he didn't come to me of his own volition; he was sent—sent to break me down, and sent by.... Oh, dad, dad! how could you do it!"
With his face hidden in the crook of his arm, he was groping in vain outreachings for something to lay hold of, for some clear-minded, clean-hearted adviser who could tell him what to do; how he should clamber out of this pit of humiliation into which nothing more culpable than an honest zeal for civic righteousness had precipitated him. In his despair he told himself that there was no one, and then suddenly he remembered—Patricia would know, and she would understand better than any one else in a populous world how to point the way out of the labyrinth. He must go to her and tell her. In the meantime....
He got up and shut his desk with a slam. In the meantime there should be no more lies told—no more turns taken in the crooked path. Collins, the stenographer, heard the noise of the desk closing and came to the door of the private room, note-book and pencil in hand. "Anything to give me before you go out?" he asked.
"Yes," said Blount almost savagely. "Take a message to Mr. McVickar. Are you ready?"
The stenographer nodded.
Blount dictated curtly: "'Pending another interview with you in person, I shall close my offices in Temple Court and confine myself strictly to the routine legal business of the company. Meanwhile, my resignation is in your hands if you wish to appoint a new division counsel.' Have you got that, Collins? Very well; write it out and send it at once. I shall be at the Inter-Mountain for a little while, if you want to reach me between now and closing time."