Fortunately for the situation which had so suddenly confronted him, Bryce Cardigan had Mr. Buck Ogilvy; and out of the experiences gained in other railroad-building enterprises, the said Ogilvy, while startled, was not stunned by the suddenness and immensity of the order so casually given him by his youthful employer, for he had already devoted to the matter of that crossing the better part of the preceding night. Also he had investigated, indexed, and cross-indexed the city council with a view to ascertaining how great or how little would be the effort he must devote to obtaining from it the coveted franchise.
“Got to run a sandy on the Mayor,” Buck soliloquized as he walked rapidly uptown. “And I'll have to be mighty slick about it, too, or I'll get my fingers in the jam. If I get the Mayor on my side—if I get him to the point where he thinks well of me and would like to oblige me without prejudicing himself financially or politically—I can get that temporary franchise. Now, how shall I proceed to sneak up on that oily old cuss's blind side?”
Two blocks farther on, Mr. Ogilvy paused and snapped his fingers vigorously. “Eureka!” he murmured. “I've got Poundstone by the tail on a downhill haul. Is it a cinch? Well, I just guess I should tell a man!”
He hurried to the telephone building and put in a long-distance call for the San Francisco office of the Cardigan Redwood Lumber Company. When the manager came on the line, Ogilvy dictated to him a message which he instructed the manager to telegraph back to him at the Hotel Sequoia one hour later; this mysterious detail attended to, he continued on to the Mayor's office in the city hall.
Mayor Poundstone's bushy eyebrows arched with interest when his secretary laid upon his desk the card of Mr. Buchanan Ogilvy, vice-president and general manager of the Northern California Oregon Railroad. “Ah-h-h!” he breathed with an unpleasant resemblance to a bon vivant who sees before him his favourite vintage. “I have been expecting Mr. Ogilvy to call for quite a while. At last we shall see what we shall see. Show him in.”
The visitor was accordingly admitted to the great man's presence and favoured with an official handshake of great heartiness. “I've been hoping to have this pleasure for quite some time, Mr. Poundstone,” Buck announced easily as he disposed of his hat and overcoat on an adjacent chair. “But unfortunately I have had so much preliminary detail to attend to before making an official call that at last I grew discouraged and concluded I'd just drop in informally and get acquainted.” Buck's alert blue eyes opened wide in sympathy with his genial mouth, to deluge Mayor Poundstone with a smile that was friendly, guileless, confidential, and singularly delightful. Mr. Ogilvy was a man possessed of tremendous personal magnetism when he chose to exert it, and that smile was ever the opening gun of his magnetic bombardment, for it was a smile that always had the effect of making the observer desire to behold it again—of disarming suspicion and establishing confidence.
“Glad you did—mighty glad,” the Mayor cried heartily. “We have all, of course, heard of your great plans and are naturally anxious to hear more of them, in the hope that we can do all that anybody reasonably and legally can to promote your enterprise and incidentally our own, since we are not insensible to the advantages which will accrue to this county when it is connected by rail with the outside world.”
“That extremely broad view is most encouraging,” Buck chirped, and he showered the Mayor with another smile. “Reciprocity is the watchword of progress. I might state, however, that while you Humboldters are fully alive to the benefits to be derived from a feeder to a transcontinental road, my associates and myself are not insensible of the fact that the success of our enterprise depends to a great extent upon the enthusiasm with which the city of Sequoia shall cooperate with us; and since you are the chief executive of the city, naturally I have come to you to explain our plans fully.”
“I have read your articles of incorporation, Mr. Ogilvy,” Mayor Poundstone boomed paternally. “You will recall that they were published in the Sequoia SENTINEL. It strikes me—-”
“Then you know exactly what we purpose doing, and any further explanation would be superfluous,” Buck interrupted amiably, glad to dispose of the matter so promptly. Again he favoured the Mayor with his bright smile, and the latter, now fully convinced that here was a young man of vast emprise whom it behooved him to receive in a whole-hearted and public-spirited manner, nodded vigorous approval.