“A chance to get out of the country—eh, Maxwell?”
The superintendent nodded. “Yes; if he can get away before I can find a gun to kill him with.”
Bascom reached into his desk, found a scratch-pad and tossed it over to Starbuck. “Take ’em down,” he said briefly; and then followed a black-list that was simply heart-breaking to Richard Maxwell, a man who had built his reputation as a railroad executive, and would have staked it instantly, upon the loyalty of his rank and file. Shop foremen, roundhouse bosses, bridge men, yard foremen, section bosses, a travelling engineer, a clerk here and a telegraph operator there—the list seemed endless.
When Bascom paused, Sprague began again.
“What was the plan, Bascom, as it was outlined to these others?”
The master mechanic’s smile showed his fine even teeth.
“To make this jerk-water railroad a little easier to work for,” he sneered. “When we found the right kind of a man we made him believe that the discipline was keyed up too damned tight and showed him how he could loosen up a little, if he felt like it. Murtagh was barkeep’ and handed out the bug-juice. That’s all there was to it.”
“Not quite all,” said Sprague evenly. “You got Murtagh his job on The Times-Record in order to have him handy without being too much in the way or too much in evidence. How much do the Times-Record people know about the scheme for smashing the Nevada Short Line securities from the inside?”
Bascom laughed hardily.
“You’ll never catch a newspaper man,” he said. “But I’ll tell you this: Parker Higginson is a pretty smooth politician, and he’s got a mighty long arm when it comes to reaching for the thing he wants. He was the man who got me my job here, and I’ll bet those New York people who appointed me don’t know yet why they did it. Another thing: when I’m gone, Higginson will still be here—don’t you forget that!”