“The letters contain proxies for the K. & A. election next Friday?”
He nodded his head. “The Missouri Western and the Great Southern are fighting for control,” he explained, “and we should have won but for three blocks of Eastern stock that had promised their proxies to the G. S. Rather than lose the fight, we arranged to learn when those proxies were mailed,—that was what kept me behind,—and then to hold up the train that carried them.”
“Was it worth the risk?” I ejaculated.
“If we had succeeded, yes. My father had put more than was safe into Missouri Western and into California Central. The G. S. wants control to end the traffic agreements, and that means bankruptcy to my father.”
I nodded, seeing it all as clear as day, and hardly blaming the Cullens for what they had done; for any one who has had dealings with the G. S. is driven to pretty desperate methods to keep from being crushed, and when one is fighting an antagonist that won’t regard the law, or rather one that, through control of legislatures and judges, makes the law to suit its needs, the temptation is strong to use the same weapons one’s self.
“The toughest part of it is,” Fred went on, “that we thought we had the whole thing ‘hands down,’ and that was what made my father go in so deep. Only the death of one of the M. W. directors, who held eight thousand shares of K. & A., got us in this hole, for the G. S. put up a relation to contest the will, and so delayed the obtaining of letters of administration, blocking his executors from giving a proxy. It was as mean a trick as ever was played.”
“The G. S. is a tough customer to fight,” I remarked, and asked, “Why didn’t you burn the letters?” really wishing they had done so.
“We feared duplicate proxies might get through in time, and thought that by keeping these we might cook up a question as to which were legal, and then by injunction prevent the use of either.”
“And those Englishmen,” I inquired, “are they real?”
“Oh, certainly,” he rejoined. “They were visiting my brother, and thought the whole thing great larks.” Then he told me how the thing had been done. They had sent Miss Cullen to my car, so as to get me out of the way, though she hadn’t known it. He and his brother got off the train at the last stop, with the guns and masks, and concealed themselves on the platform of the mail-car. Here they had been joined by the Britishers at the right moment, the disguises assumed, and the train held up as already told. Of course the dynamite cartridge was only a blind, and the letters had been thrown about the car merely to confuse the clerk. Then while Frederic Cullen, with the letters, had stolen back to the car, the two Englishmen had crept back to where they had stood. Here, as had been arranged, they opened fire, which Albert Cullen duly returned, and then joined them. “I don’t see now how you spotted us,” Frederic ended.