“I don’t know, certainly; I haven’t had a chance to talk with Ford since early in the summer. But I have my own guess. If the Transcontinental could control this five-hundred-mile stretch of ours from Copah to Lorchi, it would have the short line to southern California.”
“Therefore and wherefore, if Mr. Ford doesn’t happen to have the votes in the coming stockholders’ meeting, you’ll be out of a job. Is that about the size of it?”
“Probably,” admitted Maxwell. “Not that it makes any special difference to me, personally. As you know, I have a mine up on the Gloria that beats railroading out of sight. But I’d fight like a dog for Ford, and for my own rank and file here on the Short Line. Of course, Transcontinental control would mean a clean sweep of everybody: there wouldn’t be baskets enough this side of the main range to hold the heads that would be cut off.”
“I suppose not. But, as you say, you have the ‘come-back’ right there under your hand in those proxies. How will you get them to New York?”
“My chief clerk, Calmaine, will deliver them in person. He’ll meet us at Brewster and go right along on this train, which, by the way, is the next to the last one he could take and make New York on time. It’s all arranged.”
The guest smoked on in silence for a little time and when he spoke again it was to ask the name of the junction station at which the late stop had been made.
“It’s Little Butte—where our Red Butte branch comes in from the north.”
“You’d been stopping over there?” Sprague asked.
“No; I had my car brought down from Red Butte on the local, which doubles back on the branch.”
“Um; Little Butte; good name. You people out here run pretty persistently to ‘Buttes,’ don’t you? Did I, or didn’t I, see a funeral at this particular Butte as we came along?”