"Ah, come!" says I. "Maybe he took you for one of these parlor spaniels and was tryin' to throw a scare into you with a few growls."
I could hear J. Bayard gasp protestin'; but Cuyler shrugs it off without wincin'. "Just how he regarded me was a subject to which I gave not the slightest thought," says he. "I was concerned only with his enterprise of crossing the Peoria & Dayton at grade in the face of an injunction issued by the State supreme court. You see, I happened to be president of the road at the time."
"Now we're gettin' to the plot of the piece," says I. "You blocked him off, eh?"
"I did my best," says Mr. De Kay. "Of course I was not a practical railroad man. I'd been somewhat of a figurehead, you understand. But in this emergency I was called back from Europe and at the urgent request of the directors I assumed active charge. My first step was to secure the injunction."
"Which worried him, I expect?" says I, winkin' at J. Bayard.
"Quite as much as if I had sent a note by my office boy," says Cuyler. "He rushed a construction train with two hundred men to the spot and gave the order himself to tear up our tracks. Well, it was rather a spirited contest. I mobilized our entire working force, had them sworn in as deputy sheriffs, and kept three switch engines moving up and down the line. For forty-eight hours we held them back."
"And then?" says I.
Cuyler executes that careless shoulder shrug once more. "Rifles," says he. "I suppose I should have retaliated with machine guns; but I preferred to put my trust in the law of the land. Of course I found out how absurd that was later on. Gordon crossed our grade. After four or five years of expensive litigation we gave up. By that time our road had become part of the Gordon system. I was glad to get 48 for my holdings; so you see his victory was quite complete. But the only real personal contact I had with him was during those two days of the crossing war when we took our meals at the wretched little hotel, facing each other across the table. Fancy! His coarse attempts to treat the situation humorously were more offensive, if anything, than his guerrilla business tactics. An ill-bred, barbarous fellow, this Gordon of yours."
"Huh!" says I. "He wa'n't any parlor entertainer, that's a fact; but take it from me, Mr. De Kay, he was a good deal of a man, for all that."
"So, I presume, was Captain Kidd," sneers Cuyler, "and Jesse James."