There is a tone and movement to the air round Regan which electrifies his companion, and at once they are conspiring together.
"You will abandon the run; suspend the service," says Regan, deliberating; "and because your regular passengers might take hold and operate it themselves you shall drive the horse away into the woods with one trace broken and his side plastered over with clay as if he has been in an accident—having first wrecked the car."
Tim nods, his own eyes glittering red, as Regan makes plain how it is to be done. From the top of the high hill at the end of the line the car is to be turned loose with brakes unset, so that it will leave the track where it curves at the bottom.
"There it will take the plunge of thirty feet into the creek bed," he says; "and when it lies in splinters at the bottom you will be handed the money."
"And how will wrecking the car make the road belong to you?" asks Tim.
The man of power smiles at his shrewdness, and is frank with information so that he will not be tempted to ask someone else. The Barlow Suburban has an agreement with the state which is called a charter, he explains, which will be forfeited if cars are not run for a certain number of days. "So I can buy in the property from the state officials that I know," he adds, "and operate it with new cars." He does not say with steam cars, though by the foresight of old Craney the builder this is permitted by the charter.
The conspiracy is now complete and as Regans puts on his raincoat Tim makes bold to tell him: "Some day I will be boss like yourself, Mr. Regan."
"So you may," nods the other with rare good humor, and departs for his car.
And Dan can afford to be good-humored this night, having found a way of escape from difficulties which have threatened to ruin his new career at its very beginning. For a line of the P. D. building into this territory has been held up by the Great Southwest, which warns openly that it will bankrupt and destroy the town of Barlow if its competitor is granted right of way or terminals. To avoid long delay in the courts Regan himself, with the prestige of old command in this territory, has been sent to open the way. But never a friend has he found in his old headquarters town; the politicians whom he once ruled with a rod of iron are in fact rejoiced to break one of their own across the head of him. Not a loophole is left open to the P. D.
"'T is a wall of China," thinks Regan, "and what will my new directors say of a manager who cannot persuade or bribe his old fellow citizens to receive him with a new railroad in his hands?"