“How much of it do you possess, Miss Slocum?”
“I own a thousand shares, and my father told me not to part with them, because he was certain that some day they would be valuable.”
For a few moments there was silence in the car, and the girl, glancing up at her companion, found his ardent gaze fixed upon her with an intensity that was embarrassing. She flushed slightly and turned her head to look out of the window at the familiar scenery they were passing. It would have surprised the young man could he have read the thoughts that occupied the mind of this extremely pretty and charmingly modest girl who sat opposite him. Here is practically what she said to herself: “I am tired of this deadly dull village in which I live, and here, at last, is a way out. I read in his eyes the beginning of admiration. He shall be the youthful Moses to lead me into the Promised Land. Through this lucky meeting I shall attain the city if I but play my cards rightly.”
It would have astonished the girl if she had known what was in the man’s mind. The ardent gaze was not for her, as she had supposed. Although he appeared to be looking directly at her, he was in reality almost ignorant of her presence, and saw unfolded before him a scene far beyond her—the whole range of the Eastern States. The power that enabled him to stop the fast express at Slocum Junction gave a hint of Steele’s position in the railway world to the station-master, but it conveyed no meaning to the girl. It was his business to be intimately acquainted with the railway situation in northwestern America, and that involved the knowledge of what was going on in the Eastern States. He knew that the Rockervelt system was making for somewhere near this point, and that, ultimately, it would need to cross the State, in spite of the opposition it must meet from the Wheat Belt Line. Whoever possessed the Farmers’ bankrupt road held the right of way across the State, so far as a belt of one hundred and twenty miles was concerned. It seemed incredible that Rockervelt, this Napoleon of the railway world, should be ignorant of the obstacle that lay in his path. Rockervelt was in the habit of buying legislatures and crushing opposition; still, he never spent money where it was not required, and it would be infinitely cheaper to buy the Farmers’ Road, and thus secure the privileges pertaining to it, than to purchase the repeal of the obstructing law. At that moment John Steele determined to camp across the path of the conqueror. If Napoleon accepted battle, John was under no delusion as to the result. The name of Steele would disappear from the roll of rising young men in Chicago, and he might be forced to begin at the bottom of the ladder again. However, he knew that Napoleon’s eye was fixed on the Pacific coast, and that he never wasted time in a fight if a reasonable expenditure of money would cause the enemy to withdraw. Steele calculated that he could control the road for something under three thousand dollars, which would give him the majority of the stock at the price the girl had named. That was a mere bagatelle. Then he would withdraw from Rockervelt’s front for anything between three hundred thousand dollars and half a million. If he succeeded, he would at least recover all the money he had lost in the panic which followed the trickery of Rock-ervelt, Blair and Beck. But success meant more than this. Aside from the joy of relieving Rockervelt of a substantial sum, there would also follow the practical defeat of T. Acton Blair, for the Farmers’ Road was situated in that Western district on which the general manager was supposed to keep his eye, in the interests of the Rockervelt system.
A sigh from the girl brought him to a realisation of his neglect of social duties, and the brilliant vision of loot faded from his eyes.
“What pretty scenery we are passing!” he said. “The wooded dell, and the sparkling little rivulet running through it. It is sweet and soothing after the rush and turmoil of a great city. It must be a delight to live here.”
“Indeed it isn’t!” cried the girl; “it is horrid! Deadly dull, utterly commonplace, with little chance of improving the mind, and none at all for advancing one’s material condition. I loathe the life and yearn for the city.”
As she said this she bestowed upon him a fascinating glimpse of a pair of lovely eyes, and veiled within them he saw what he took to be a tender appeal for sympathy and, perhaps, for help. After all, he was a young man, and perhaps that glance had carried a hypnotic suggestion to his very soul; and, added to all this, the girl was undoubtedly beautiful.
“Really,” he said, leaning forward towards her, “I think that might be managed, you know.”
“Do you?” she asked, looking him full in the face.