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 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 incorporating 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 Argus 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 sundry journeys he had made for the sole purpose of enlisting 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 was from Receiver Guilford. The post of general counsel 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?"