"Yes—meet me here at noon, and in the meantime I'll try to learn something about the matter——" But before I had time to finish he was out of the room, going downstairs two steps at a time.
When I told Superintendent Kitchell that morning in his office as much as I thought good for him to know at that time, and especially about Hiram's plans and what he had already accomplished, his face began to glow, and he otherwise evidenced intense interest.
"Taylor," he began, without any attempt now at inscrutability, "I would give ten years of my life to have that robbery matter ferreted out quickly. All the other division superintendents on the system are laughing at me and the General Super and President are raising Hell. It seems to me that the boy's theory as to how to round up the gang is good, and I will help you all I possibly can. I've looked at Becker's plant several times while passing and I think the boy is right. You can't really get the goods on him without getting into his plant, and that must be done by starting some kind of trade. Do you think he has any chance of getting a boat?"
"He will, or rather may have, something definite about that before night."
"I wonder——" hesitated the man of many troubles; "when I was up in Memphis the other day I met the man in charge of the Illinois division. He happened to mention that the state was killing whole herds of tubercular-infected cattle there. I wonder if I couldn't get a few carloads sent here and let the boy—Strong, did you say his name was?—get in by boating them up to him—but you are not sure of obtaining a boat?"
"I feel sure we can get some kind of a boat."
"Here is something—Ever since we entered the war Central and South America have been revolution incubators, especially for Mexico. Some never hatch but die in the shell, others hatch but die before they can walk, then once in a while, out of the great number one of them grows big enough to buy all sorts of ridiculous stuff they think they need or want, and ship it down here. Then they get shot, macheted, put in prison or exiled, and a lot of this stuff is never claimed, so we have to sell it for freight charges. We've got a whole warehouse of that kind of junk we should have disposed of long ago. Go down and look it over—anything you can use I will see that you get it pronto. We've had about everything except industry, virtue and honesty."
"Wire the Illinois division regarding the slaughtered cattle, and I will look over your unclaimed freight. I may find something——"
"And do you think," he interrupted, sore to the bone at the thought, "that it involves any one in the offices?"
I hesitated, recalling that I had not mentioned either Chief Clerk Burrell or Miss Bascom, or their conversations with Becker. "Yes—Becker couldn't work without some one to give him information about arrivals and keep him posted at the river."