Then they struck the hills. Up with a snort, over with a groan, and down with a rumble and slide, they flew. Here Jawn's eyes shifted to the water gauge. Jim locked one arm around the window post, and sat with eyes fixed on his watch. The minute hand crept around to eleven, passed it, and on to five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five. At thirty-five clusters of cottages began to shoot by. Jawn's arm began to straighten—the roar diminished a trifle. Thirty-seven they passed rows of coal-laden flat cars; thirty-nine, they slackened through a tangle of tracks; forty-one, the big engine rolled under the train shed and stopped in a cloud of steam.
Jim stepped down and stretched himself. The fireman had staggered back into the tender, and lay in a heap, fanning himself with his cap. Jawn took a final glance at the water gauge, then he swung around and removed his cold pipe.
“Mr. Weeks,” he said gruffly, “I brung ye a hundred and three mile in eighty-one minutes. There ain't another man on the line could 'a' done it. I reckon that's why there's nothing for me but a switch engine.” Without waiting for a reply he seized an oil-can and swung out of the cab. Jim followed in silence, and hurried away with a grim smile.
At two-thirty Jim was in his Chicago office. For some time he was closeted with Myers, treasurer of the road, then he closed his desk and went out. He spent an hour with Spencer, a capitalist and an M. & T. director. From four to six he was locked in his office, going through his various collateral securities. At six he locked his office and went home with a feeling of relief. The battle was on, and Jim was ready. There would be a meeting at his house that evening between Spencer, Myers, and himself; not a long meeting, but one productive of results.
CHAPTER V. — TUESDAY EVENING
Harvey West liked to be comfortable. His rooms were in a quiet apartment house on the West Side, within easy reach of the Metropolitan Elevated, and not far from the big house where Jim Weeks held bachelor sway. Harvey was not a musician, but a good piano stood in his sitting room. He had accumulated a few etchings and two bronzes; and on the centre table were piled the latest books. Harvey read these about as he listened to Grand Opera—he recognized that a man should keep in touch with such things. In a vague way he enjoyed them, but he was too honest to cultivate the glib generalities that give so many men a rating as connoisseurs of art, music, and literature. Harvey liked action. Business appealed to him, anything with motion and excitement; then, after the fever of the day, he was drawn to a few friends and a good cigar. But back behind his straightforward democratic temperament there was a dash of good blood, the sifting down of generations of gentlemen and gentlewomen, that accounted for Harvey's inherent good taste. He could not criticise the technique of a picture, but he never selected a poor one. And the few books he really liked were the kind one can read once a year with profit.
Early on this Tuesday evening Harvey was trying to read, but his eyes would wander and his brow contract. At intervals he would turn in his chair and endeavor to bring his thoughts back to the book. Finally he shut it with a bang and, walking to the window, stood looking out over the city. It had been a hard day for Harvey. He had passed hours waiting to learn the result of Jim's efforts to head off McNally. The news that C. & S.C. would undoubtedly control the Tillman City stock at election had been closely followed by the discovery of unexpected strength in the opposition directors. People used to say of Jim that he was never so happy as when fighting in his last ditch, but Harvey derived no pleasure from such operations. On this occasion he was particularly troubled. He felt that his failure to tend to business the preceding afternoon had contributed largely to the loss of Tillman City; and, worst of all, what a fool Miss Porter must think him.
The boulevard below was hedged with two long rows of gas-lamps which converged far away to the south. Sounds of the street floated up to him—the clatter of hoofs on the asphalt, disjointed conversations from wheelmen, juvenile calls and whistles. Harvey looked down at the strolling crowds on the sidewalk, and felt lonely. He turned away from the window, and took a cigar from the hospitable box on the mantel. Near the box was a kodak picture of Miss Porter which he had taken some time before. He held the picture to the light, and gazed at it earnestly. “You had a fine laugh over me yesterday, didn't you, when your father told you all about it?”