"The way Barslow puts these property matters," said he, "you are called upon to think that all arrangements have been made upon a cold cash basis; and, actually, that's the fact. But you mustn't either of you think that in dealing with you we have forgotten that you are dear to us—friends. We should have had to act in the same way if you had been enemies, perhaps, but if there had been any way in which our—regard could have shown itself, that way would have been followed."

"Yes," said Mrs. Trescott, "we understand that. Mr. Lattimore said almost the same thing, and we know that in what he did Mr. Cornish—"

"We must go now, mamma," said Josie. "Thank you both very much. It won't do any harm for me to take a day or so for considering this in all its phases; but I know now what I shall do. The thought of the distress that might come to people here and elsewhere as a result of these mistakes here is a new one, and a little big for me, at first."

Jim sat by the desk, after they went away, folding insurance blotters and savagely tearing them in pieces.

"I wish to God," said he, "that I could throw my hand into the deck and quit!"

"What's the matter?" said I.

"Oh—nothing," he returned. "Only, look at the situation. She comes in, filled with the idea that it was Cornish who proposed this plan, and that he did it for her sake. I couldn't very well say, like a boy, ''Twasn't Cornish; 'twas me!', could I? And in showing her the purely mercenary character of the deal, I'm put in the position of backcapping Cornish, and she goes away with that impression! Oh, Al, what's the good of being able to convince and control every one else, if you are always further off than Kamschatka with the only one for whose feelings you really care?"

"I don't think it struck her in that way at all," said I. "She could see how it was, and did, whatever her mother may think. But what possessed Lattimore to tell Mrs. Trescott that Cornish story?"

"Oh, Lattimore never said anything like that!" he returned disgustedly. "He told her that it was proposed by a friend, or one of the syndicate, or something like that; and they are so saturated with the Cornish idea up there lately, that they filled up the blank out of their own minds. Another mighty encouraging symptom, isn't it?"

Not more than a day or two after this, and after the news of the "purchase" of the Trescott estate was being whispered about, my telephone rang, just before my time for leaving the office, and, on answering, I found that Antonia was at the other end of the wire.

"Is this Mr. Barslow?" said she. "How do you do? Alice is with us this afternoon, and she and mamma have given me authority to bring you home to dinner with us. Do you surrender?"

"Always," said I, "at such a summons."

"Then I'll come for you in ten minutes, if you'll wait for me. It's ever so good of you."

From her way of finishing the conversation, I knew she was coming to the office. So I waited in pleasurable anticipation of her coming, thinking of the perversity of the scheme of things which turned the eyes of both Jim and Cornish to Josie, while this girl coming to fetch me yearned so strongly toward one of them that her sorrow—borne lightly and cheerfully as it was—was an open secret. When she came she made her way past the clerks in the first room and into my private den. Not until the door closed behind her, and we were alone, did I see that she was not in her usual spirits. Then I saw that unmistakable quiver in her lips, so like a smile, so far from mirth, which my acquaintance with the girl, so sensitive and free from secretiveness, had made me familiar with.

"I want to know about some things," said she, "that papa hints about in a blind sort of a way, but doesn't tell clearly. Is it true that Josie and her mother are poor?"

"That is something which ought not to be known yet," said I, "but it is true."

"Oh," said she tearfully, "I am so sorry, so sorry!"

"Antonia," said I, as she hastily brushed her eyes, "these tears do your kind heart credit!"

"Oh, don't, don't talk to me like that!" she exclaimed passionately. "My kind heart! Why, sometimes I hate her; and I would be glad if she was out of the world! Don't look like that at me! And don't pretend to be surprised, or say you don't understand me. I think every one understands me, and has for a long time. I think everybody on the street says, after I pass, 'Poor Antonia!' I must talk to somebody! And I'd rather talk to you because, even though you are a man and can't possibly know how I feel, you understand him better than any one else I know—and you love him too!"

I started to say something, but the situation did not lend itself to words. Neither could I pat her on the shoulders, or press her hand, as I might have done with a man. Pale and beautiful, her jaunty hat a little awry, her blonde ringlets in some disorder, she sat unapproachable in her grief.

"You look at me," said she, with a little gasping laugh, "as if I were a drowning girl, and you chained to the bank. If you haven't pitied me in the past, Albert, don't pity me now; for the mere saying openly to some human being that I love him seems almost to make me happy!"

I lamely murmured some inanity, of which she took not the slightest notice.

"Is it true," she asked, "that Mr. Elkins is to pay their debts, and that they are to be—married?"

"No," said I, glad, for some reason which is not very clear, to find something to deny. "Nothing of the sort, I assure you."

And again, this time something wearily, for it was the second time over it in so short a time, I explained the disposition of the Trescott estate.

"But he urged it?" she said. "He insisted upon it?"

"Yes."

She arose, buttoned her jacket about her, and stood quietly as if to test her mastery of herself, once or twice moving as if to speak, but stopping short, with a long, quivering sigh. I longed to take her in my arms and comfort her; for, in a way, she attracted me strongly.

"Mr. Barslow," said she at last, "I have no apology to make to you; for you are my friend. And I have no feeling toward Mr. Elkins of which, in my secret heart, and so long as he knows nothing of it, I am not proud. To know him ... and love him may be death ... but it is honor!... I am sorry Josie is poor, because it is a hard thing for her; but more because I know he will be drawn to her in a stronger way by her poverty. Shake hands with me, Albert, and be jolly, I'm jollier, away down deep, than I've been for a long, long time; and I thank you for that!"

We shook hands warmly, like comrades, and passed down to her carriage together. At dinner she was vivacious as ever; but I was downcast. So much so that Mrs. Hinckley devoted herself to me, cheering me with a dissertation on "Sex in Mind." I asked myself if the atmosphere in which she had been reared had not in some degree contributed to the attitude of Antonia toward the expression to me of her regard for Jim.

So the Trescott estate matter was arranged. In a few days the boom was strengthened by newspaper stories of the purchase, by heavy financial interests, of the entire list of assets in the hands of the administrator.

"This immense deal," said the Herald, "is new proof of the desirability of Lattimore property. The Acme Investment Company, which will handle the properties, has bought for investment, and will hold for increased prices. It may be taken as certain that in no other city in the country could so large and varied a list of holdings be so quickly and advantageously realized upon."

This was cheering—to the masses. But to us it was like praise for the high color of a fever patient. Even while the rehabilitated Giddings thus lifted his voice in paeans of rejoicing, the lurid signals of danger appeared in our sky.



CHAPTER XXI.

Of Conflicts, Within and Without.

I have often wished that some sort of a business weather-chart might be periodically got out, showing conditions all over the world. It seems to me that with such a map one could forecast financial storms and squalls with an accuracy quite up to the weather-bureau standard.

Had we at Lattimore been provided with such a chart, and been reminded of the wisdom of referring to it occasionally, we might have saved ourselves some surprises. We should have known of certain areas of speculative high pressure in Australasia, Argentina, and South Africa, which existed even prior to my meeting with Jim that day in the Pullman smoking-room coming out of Chicago. These we should have seen changing month by month, until at the time when we were most gloriously carrying things before us in Lattimore, each of these spots on the other side of the little old world showed financial disturbances—pronounced "lows." We should have seen symptoms of storm on the European bourses; and we should have thought of the natural progress of the moving areas, and derived much benefit from such consideration. We should certainly have paid some attention to it, if we could have seen the black isobars drawn about London, when the great banking house of Fleischmann Brothers went down in the wreck of their South African and Argentine investments. But having no such chart, and being much engrossed in the game against the World and Destiny, we glanced for a moment at the dispatches, seeing nothing in them of interest to us, congratulated ourselves that we were not as other investors and speculators, and played on.

Once in a while we found some over-cautious banker or broker who had inexplicable fears for the future.

"Here is an idiot," said Cornish, while we were placing the paper to float the Trescott deal, "who is calling his loans; and why, do you think?"

"Can't guess," said Jim, "unless he needs the money. How does he account for it?"

"Read his letter," said Cornish. "Says the Fleischmann failure in London is making his directors cautious. I'm calling his attention to the now prevailing sun-spots, as bearing on Lattimore property."

Mr. Elkins read the letter carefully, turned it over, and read it again.

"Don't," said he; "he may be one of those asses who fail to see the business value of the reductio ad absurdum.... Fellows, we must push this L. & G. W. business with Pendleton. Some of us ought to be down there now."

"That is wise counsel," I agreed, "and you're the man."

"No," said he positively, "I'm not the man. Cornish, can't you go, starting, say, to-morrow?"

"No indeed," said Cornish with equal positiveness; "since my turn-down by Wade on that bond deal, I'm out of touch with the lower Broadway and Wall Street element. It seems clear to me that you are the only one to carry this negotiation forward."

"I can't go, absolutely," insisted Jim. "Al, it seems to be up to you."

I knew that Jim ought to do this work, and could not understand the reasons for both himself and Cornish declining the mission. Privately, I told him that it was nonsense to send me; but he found reasons in plenty for the course he had determined upon. He had better control of the hot air, he said, but as a matter of fact I was more in Pendleton's class than he was, I was more careful in my statements, and I saw further into men's minds.

"And if, as you say," said he, "Pendleton thinks me the whole works here, it will show a self-possession and freedom from anxiety on our part to accredit a subordinate (as you call yourself) as envoy to the court of St. Scads. Again, affairs here are likely to need me at any time; and if we go wrong here, it's all off. I don't dare leave. Anyhow, down deep in your subconsciousness, you know that in diplomacy you really have us all beaten to a pulp: and this is a matter as purely diplomatic as draw-poker. You'll do all right."

My wife was skeptical as to the necessity of my going.

"Why doesn't Mr. Cornish go, then?" she inquired, after I had explained to her the position of Mr. Elkins. "He is a native of Wall Street, I believe."

"Well," I repeated, "they both say positively that they can't go."

"Your natural specialty may be diplomacy," said she pityingly, "but if you take the reasons they give as the real ones, I must be permitted to doubt it. It's perfectly obvious that if Josie were transferred to New York, the demands of business would take them both there at once."

This remark struck me as very subtle, and as having a good deal in it. Josie had never permitted the rivalry between Jim and Cornish to become publicly apparent; but in spite of the mourning which kept the Trescott's in semi-retirement, it was daily growing more keen. Elkins was plainly anxious at the progress Cornish had seemed to make during his last long absence, and still doubtful of his relations with Josie after that utterance over her father's body. But he was not one to give up, and so, whenever she came over for an evening with Alice, Jim was sure to drop in casually and see us. I believe Alice telephoned him. On the other hand, Cornish was calling at the Trescott house with increasing frequency. Mrs. Trescott was decidedly favorable to him, Alice a pronounced partisan of Elkins; and Josie vibrated between the two oppositely charged atmospheres, calmly non-committal, and apparently pleased with both. But the affair was affecting our relations. There was a new feeling, still unexpressed, of strain and stress, in spite of the familiarity and comradeship of long and intimate intercourse. Moreover, I felt that Mr. Hinckley was not on the same terms with Jim as formerly, and I wondered if he was possessed of Antonia's secret.

It was with a prevision of something out of the ordinary, therefore, that I received through Alice a request from Josie for a private interview with me. She would come to us at any time when I would telephone that I was at home and would see her. Of course I at once decided I would go to her. Which, that evening, my last in Lattimore before starting for the East, I did.

There was a side door to my house, and a corresponding one in the Trescott home across the street. We were all quite in the habit, in our constant visiting between the households, of making a short cut by crossing the road from one of these doors to the other. This I did that evening, rapped at the door, and imagining I heard a voice bid me come in, opened it, and stepping into the library, found no one. The door between the library and the front hall stood open, and through it I heard the voice of Miss Trescott and the clear, carrying tones of Mr. Cornish, in low but earnest conversation.

"Yes," I heard him say, "perhaps. And if I am, haven't I abundant reason?"

"I have told you often," said she pleadingly, "that I would give you a definite answer whenever you definitely demand it—"

"And that it would in that case be 'No,'" he added, completing the sentence. "Oh, Josie, my darling, haven't you punished me enough for my bad conduct toward you in that old time? I was a young fool, and you a strange country girl; but as soon as you left us, I began to feel your sweetness. And I was seeking for you everywhere I went until I found you that night up there by the lake. Does that seem like slighting you? Why, I hope you don't deem me capable of being satisfied in this hole Lattimore, under any circumstances, if it hadn't been for the hope and comfort your being here has given me!"

"I thought we were to say no more about that old time," said she; "I thought the doings of Johnny Cornish were not to be remembered by or of Bedford."

"The name I've asked you to call me by!" said he passionately. "Does that mean—"

"It means nothing," said she. "Oh, please, please!—Good-night!"

I retired to the porch, and rapped again. She came to the door blushing redly, and so fluttered by their leave-taking that I thanked God that Jim was not in my place. There would have been division in our ranks at once; for it seemed to me that her conduct to Cornish was too complaisant by far.

"I came over," said I, "because Alice said you wanted to see me."

I think there must have been in my tone something of the reproach in my thoughts; for she timidly said she was sorry to have given me so much trouble.

"Oh, don't, Josie!" said I. "You know I'd not miss the chance of doing you a favor for anything. Tell me what it is, my dear girl, and don't speak of trouble."

"If you forbid reference to trouble," said she, smiling, "it will stop this conference. For my troubles are what I want to talk to you about. May I go on?—You see, our financial condition is awfully queer. Mamma has some money, but not much. And we have this big house. It's absurd for us to live in it, and I want to ask you first, can you sell it for us?"

It was doubtful, I told her. A year or so ago, I went on, it would have been easy; but somehow the market for fine houses was dull now. We would try, though, and hoped to succeed. We talked at length, and I took copious memoranda for my clerks.

"There is another thing," said she when we had finished the subject of the house, "upon which I want light, something upon which depends my staying here or going away. You know General Lattimore and I are friends, and that I place great trust in his conclusions. He says that the most terrible hard times here would result from anything happening to your syndicate. You have said almost the same thing once or twice, and the other day you said something about great operations which you have in view which will, somehow, do away with any danger of that kind. Is it true that you would all be—ruined by a—breaking up—or anything of that sort?"

"Just now," I confessed, "such a thing would be dangerous; but I hope we shall soon be past all that."

I told her, as well as I could, about our hopes, and of my mission to New York.

"You must suspect," said she, "that my presence here is danger to your harmony; and through you, to all these people whose names even we have never heard. Shall I go away? I can go almost anywhere with mamma, and we can get along nicely. Now that pa is gone, my work here is over, and I want to get into the world."

I thought of the parallelism between her discontent and the speech Mr. Cornish had made, referring so contemptuously to Lattimore. I began to see the many things in common between them, and I grew anxious for Jim.

"Of all things," said she, "I want to avoid the role of Helen setting a city in flames. It would be so absurd—and so terrible; and rather than do such a hackneyed and harmful thing, I want to go away."

"Do you really mean that?" I asked, "Haven't you a desire to make your choice, and stay?"

"You mustn't ask that question, Albert," said she. "The answer is a secret—from every one. But I will say—that if you succeed in this mission, so as to put people here quite out of danger—I may not go away—not for some time!"

She was blushing again, just as she blushed when she admitted me. I thought once more of the fluttering cry, "Oh, please—please!" and the pause before she added the good-night, and my jealousy for Jim rose again.

"Well," said I, rising, "all I can say is that I hope all will be safe when I return, and that you will find it quite possible to—remain. My advice is: do nothing looking toward leaving until I return."

"Don't be cross with me, Mr. Barslow," said she, "for really, really—I am in great perplexity."

"I am not cross," said I, "but don't you see how hard it is for me to advise? Things conflict so, and all among your friends!"

"They do conflict," she assented, "they do conflict, every way, and all the time—and do, do give me a little credit for keeping the conflict from getting beyond control for so long; for there are conflicts within, as well as without! Don't blame Helen altogether, or me, whatever happens!"

She hung on my arm, as she took me to the door, and seemed deeply troubled. I left her, and walked several times around the block, ruminating upon the extraordinary way in which these dissolving views of passion were displaying themselves to me. Not that the mere matter of outburst of confidences surprised me; for people all my life have bored me with their secret woes. I think it is because I early formed a habit of looking sympathetic. But these concerned me so nearly that their gradual focussing to some sort of climax filled me with anxious interest.

The next day I spent in the sleeping-car, running into Chicago. As the clickety-clack, clickety-clack, clickety-clack of the wheels vibrated through my couch, I pondered on the ridiculous position of that cautious Eastern bank as to the Fleischmann Brothers' failure; then on the Lattimore & Great Western and Belt Line sale; and finally worked around through the Straits of Sunda, in a suspicious lateen-rigged craft manned by Malays and Portuguese. Finally, I was horrified at discovering Cornish, in a slashed doublet, carrying Josie away in one of the boats, having scuttled the vessel and left Jim bound to the mast.

"Chicago in fifteen minutes, suh," said the porter, at this critical point. "Just in time to dress, suh."

And as I awoke, my approach toward New York brought to me a sickening consciousness of the struggle which awaited me there, and the fatal results of failure.



CHAPTER XXII.

In which I Win my Great Victory.

My plan was our old one—to see both Pendleton and Halliday, and, if possible, to allow both to know of the fact that we had two strings to our bow, playing the one off against the other. Whether or not there was any likelihood of this course doing any good was dependent on the existence of the strained personal relations, as well as the business rivalry, generally supposed to prevail between the two Titans of the highways. As conditions have since become, plans like mine are quite sure to come to naught; but in those days the community of interests in the railway world had not reached its present perfection of organization. Men like Pendleton and Halliday were preparing the way for it, but the personal equation was then a powerful factor in the problem, and these builders of their own systems still carried on their private wars with their own forces. In such a war our properties were important.

The Lattimore & Great Western with the Belt Line terminals would make the Pendleton system dominant in Lattimore. In the possession of Halliday it would render him the arbiter of the city's fortunes, and would cut off from his rival's lines the rich business from this feeder. Both men were playing with the patience of Muscovite diplomacy the old and tried game of permitting the little road to run until it got into difficulties, and then swooping down upon it; but either, we thought, and especially Pendleton, would pay full value for the properties rather than see them fall into his opponent's net.

I wired Pendleton's office from home that I was coming. At Chicago I received from his private secretary a telegram reading: "Mr. Pendleton will see you at any time after the 9th inst. SMITH."

We had been having some correspondence with Mr. Halliday's office on matters of disputed switching and trackage dues. The controversy had gone up from subordinate to subordinate to the fountain of power itself. A contract had been sent on for examination, embodying a modus vivendi governing future relations. I had wired notice of my coming to him also, and his answer, which lay alongside Pendleton's in the same box, was evidently based on the supposition that it was this contract which was bringing me East, and was worded so as to relieve me of the journey if possible.

"Will be in New York on evening of 11th," it read, "not before. With slight modifications, contract submitted as to L. & G. W. and Belt Line matter will be executed. HALLIDAY."

I spent no time in Chicago, but pushed on, in the respectable isolation of a through sleeper on a limited train. Once in a while I went forward into the day coach, to give myself the experience of the complete change in the social atmosphere. On arrival, I began killing time by running down every scrap of our business in New York. My gorge rose at all forms of amusement; but I had a sensation of doing something while on the cars, and went to Boston, and down to Philadelphia, all the time feeling the pulse of business. There was a lack of that confident hopefulness which greeted us on our former visits. I heard the Fleischmann failure spoken of rather frequently. One or two financial establishments on this side of the water were looked at askance because of their supposed connections with the Fleischmanns. Mr. Wade, in hushed tones, advised me to prepare for some little stringency after the holidays.

"Nothing serious, you know, Mr. Borlish," said he, still paying his mnemonic tribute to the other names of our syndicate; "nothing to be spoken of as hard times; and as for panic, the financial world is too well organized for that ever to happen again! But a little tightening of things, Mr. Cornings, to sort of clear the decks for action on lines of conservatism for the year's business."

I talked with Mr. Smith, Mr. Pendleton's private secretary, and with Mr. Carson, who spoke for Mr. Halliday. In fact I went over the L. & G. W. proposition pretty fully with each of them, and each office had a well-digested and succinct statement of the matter for the examination of the magnates when they came back. Once while Mr. Carson and I were on our way to take luncheon together, we met Mr. Smith, and I was glad to note the glance of marked interest which he bestowed upon us. The meeting was a piece of unexpected good fortune.

On the 10th I had my audience with Mr. Pendleton. He had the typewritten statement of the proposition before him, and was ready to discuss it with his usual incisiveness.

"I am willing to say to you, Mr. Barslow," said he, "that we are willing to take over your line when the propitious time comes. We don't think that now is such a time. Why not run along as we are?"

"Because we are not satisfied with the railroad business as a side line, Mr. Pendleton," said I. "We must have more mileage or none at all, and if we begin extensions, we shall be drawn into railroading as an exclusive vocation. We prefer to close out that department, and to put in all our energies to the development of our city."

"When must you know about this?" he asked.

"I came East to close it up, if possible," I answered. "You are familiar with the situation, and we thought must be ready to decide."

"Two and a quarter millions," he objected, "is out of the question. I can't expect my directors to view half the price with any favor. How can I?"

"Show them our earnings," I suggested.

"Yes," said he, "that will do very well to talk to people who can be made to forget the fact that you've been building a city there from a country village, and your line has been pulling in everything to build it with. The next five years will be different. Again, while I feel sure the business men of your town will still throw things our way, as they have your way—tonnage I mean—there might be a tendency to divide it up more than when your own people were working for the trade. And the next five years will be different anyhow."

"Do you remember," said I, "how skeptical you were as to the past five?"

"I acknowledge it," said he, laughing. "The fact is I didn't give you credit for being as big men as you are. But even a big man, or a big town, can reach only as high as it can. But we can't settle that question. I shouldn't expect a Lattimore boomer ever to adopt my view of it. I shall give this matter some attention to-day, and while I feel sure we are too far apart ever to come together, come in in the morning, and we will look at it again."

"I hope we may come together," said I, rising; "we built the line to bring you into Lattimore, and we want to keep you there. It has made our town, and we prize the connection highly."

"Ah, yes," he answered, countering. "Well, we are spread out a good deal now, you know; and some of our directors look with suspicion upon your sudden growth, and would not feel sorry to withdraw. I don't agree with 'em, you know, but I must defer to others sometimes. Good-morning."

I passed the evening with Carson at the theatre, and supped with him afterward. He gave me every opportunity to indulge in champagne, and evinced a desire to know all about business conditions in Lattimore, and the affairs of the L. & G. W. I suspected that the former fact had some connection with the latter. I went to my hotel, however, in my usual state of ebriety, while Mr. Carson had attained a degree of friendliness toward me bordering on affection, as a direct result of setting the pace in the consumption of wine. I listened patiently to his complaints of Halliday's ungratefulness toward him in not giving him the General Managership of one of the associated roads; but when he began to confide to me the various pathological conditions of his family, including Mrs. Carson, I drew the line, and broke up the party. I retired, feeling a little resentful toward Carson. His device seemed rather cheap to try on a full-grown man. Yet his entertainment had been undeniably good.

Next morning I was admitted to the presence of the great man with less than half an hour's delay. He turned to me, and plunged at once into the midst of the subject. Evidently some old misunderstanding of the question came up in his mind by association of ideas, as a rejected paper will be drawn with its related files from a pigeon-hole.

"That terminal charge," said he, "has not counted for much against the success of your road, yet; but the contract provides for increasing rentals, and it is already too much. The trackage and depots aren't worth it. It will be a millstone about your necks!"

"Well," said I, "you can understand the reason for making the rentals high. We had to show revenue for the Belt Line system in order to float the bonds, but the rentals become of no consequence when once you own both properties—and that's our proposal to you."

"Oh, yes!" said he, and at once changed the subject.

This was the only instance, in all my observation of him, in which he forgot anything, or failed correctly to see the very core of the situation. I felt somehow elated at being for a moment his superior in any respect.

We began discussing rates and tonnage, and he sent for his freight expert again. I took from my pocket some letters and telegrams and made computations on the backs of them. Some of these figures he wanted to keep for further reference.

"Please let me have those figures until this afternoon," said he. "I must ask you to excuse me now. At two I'll give the matter another half-hour. Come back, Mr. Barslow, prepared to name a reasonable sum, and I will accept or reject, and finish the matter."

I left the envelopes on his desk and went out. At the hotel I sat down to think out my program and began arranging things for my departure. Was it the 11th or the 12th that Mr. Halliday was to return? I would look at his message. I turned over all my telegrams, but it was gone.

Then I thought. That was the telegram I had left with Pendleton! Would he suspect that I had left it as a trick, and resent the act? No, this was scarcely likely, for he himself had asked for it. Suddenly the construction of which it was susceptible flashed into my mind. "With slight modifications contract submitted as to L. & G. W. and Belt Line matter will be executed. HALLIDAY."

I was feverish until two o'clock; for I could not guess the effect of this telegram, should it be read by Pendleton. I found him impassive and keen-eyed, and I waited longer than usual for that aquiline swoop of his, as he turned in his revolving chair. I felt sure then that he had not read the message. I think differently now.

"Well, Mr. Barslow," said he smilingly, "how far down in the millions are we to-day?"

"Mr. Pendleton," I replied, steady as to tone, but with a quiver in my legs, "I can say nothing less than an even two millions."

"It's too much," said he cheerfully, and my heart sank, "but I like Lattimore, and you men who live there, and I want to stay in the town. I'll have the legal department prepare a contract covering the whole matter of transfers and future relations, and providing for the price you mention. You can submit it to your people, and in a short time I shall be in Chicago, and, if convenient to you, we can meet there and close the transaction. As a matter of form, I shall submit it to our directors; but you may consider it settled, I think."

"One of our number," said I, as calmly as if a two-million-dollar transaction were common at Lattimore, "can meet you in Chicago at any time. When will this contract be drawn?"

"Call to-morrow morning—say at ten. Show them in," this last to his clerk, "Good-morning, Mr. Barslow."

One doesn't get as hilarious over a victory won alone as when he goes over the ramparts touching elbows with his charging fellows. The hurrah is a collective interjection. So I went in a sober frame of mind and telegraphed Jim and Alice of my success, cautioning my wife to say nothing about it. Then I wandered about New York, contrasting my way of rejoicing with the demonstration when we three had financed the Lattimore & Great Western bonds. I went to a vaudeville show and afterward walked miles and miles through the mysteries of the night in that wilderness. I was unutterably alone. The strain of my solitary mission in the great city was telling upon me.

"Telegram for you, Mr. Barslow," said the night clerk, as I applied for my key.

It was a long message from Jim, and in cipher. I slowly deciphered it, my initial anxiety growing, as I progressed, to an agony.

"Come home at once," it read. "Cornish deserting. Must take care of the hound's interest somehow. Threatens litigation. A hold-up, but he has the drop. Am in doubt whether to shoot him now or later. Stop at Chicago, and bring Harper. Bring him, understand? Unless Pendleton deal is made, this means worse things than we ever dreamed of; but don't wait. Leave Pendleton for later, and come home. If I follow my inclinations, you will find me in jail for murder. ELKINS."

All night I sat, turning this over in my mind. Was it ruin, or would my success here carry us through? Without a moment's sleep I ate my breakfast, braced myself with coffee, engaged a berth for the return journey, and promptly presented myself at Pendleton's office at ten. Wearily we went over the precious contract, and I took my copy and left.

All that day I rode in a sort of trance, in which I could see before my eyes the forms of the hosts of those whom Jim had called "the captives below decks," whose fortunes were dependent upon whether we striving, foolish, scheming, passionate men went to the wall. A hundred times I read in Jim's telegram the acuteness of our crisis; and a sense of our danger swept dauntingly over my spirit. A hundred times I wished that I might awake and find that the whole thing—Aladdin and his ring, the palaces, gnomes, genies, and all—could pass away like a tale that is told, and leave me back in the rusty little town where it found me.

I slept heavily that night, and was very much much more myself when I went to see Harper in Chicago. He had received a message from Jim, and was ready to go. He also had one for me, sent in his care, and just arrived.

"You have saved the fight," said the message; "your success came just as they were counting nine on us. With what you have done we can beat the game yet. Bring Harper, and come on."

Harper, cool and collected, big and blonde, with a hail-fellow-well-met manner which spoke eloquently of the West, was a great comfort to me. He made light of the trouble.

"Cornish is no fool," said he, "and he isn't going to saw off the limb he stands on."

I tried to take this view of it; but I knew, as he did not, the real source of the enmity between Elkins and Cornish, and my fears returned. Business differences might be smoothed over; but with two such men, the quarrel of rivals in love meant nothing but the end of things between them.



CHAPTER XXIII.

The "Dutchman's Mill" and What It Ground.

We sat in conclave about the table. I saw by the lined faces of Elkins and Hinckley that I had come back to a closely-beleaguered camp, where heavy watching had robbed the couch of sleep, and care pressed down the spirit. I had returned successful, but not to receive a triumph: rather, Harper and myself constituted a relief force, thrown in by stratagem, too weak to raise the siege, but bearing glad tidings of strong succor on the way.

It was our first full meeting without Cornish; and Harper sat in his place. He was unruffled and buoyant in manner, in spite of the stock in the Grain Belt Trust Company which he held, and the loans placed with his insurance company by Mr. Hinckley.

"I believe," said he, "that we are here to consider a communication from Mr. Cornish. It seems that we ought to hear the letter."

"I'll read it in a minute," said Jim, "but first let me say that this grows out of a talk between Mr. Cornish and myself. Hinckley and Barslow know that there have been differences between us here for some time."

"Quite natural," said Harper; "according to all the experience-tables, you ought to have had a fight somewhere in the crowd long before this."

"Mr. Cornish," went on Mr. Elkins, "has favored the policy of converting our holdings into cash, and letting the obligations we have floated stand solely on the assets by which they are secured. The rest of us have foreseen such rapid liquidation, as a certain result of such a policy, that not only would our town receive a blow from which it could never recover, but the investment world would suffer in the collapse."

"I should say so," said Harper; "we'll have to look closely to the suicide clause in our policies held in New England, if that takes place!"

"Well," said Jim, continuing, "last Tuesday the matter came to an issue between us, and some plain talk was indulged in; perhaps the language was a little strong on my part, and Mr. Cornish considered himself aggrieved, and said, among other things, that he, for one, would not submit to extinguishment, and he would show me that I could not go on in opposition to his wishes."

"What did you say to that?" asked Hinckley.

"I informed him," said Jim, "that I was from Missouri, or words to that effect; and that my own impression was, the majority of the stock in our concerns would control. My present view is that he's showing me."

A ghost of a smile went round at this, and Jim began reading Cornish's letter.

"Events of the recent past convince me," the secessionist had written, "that no good can come from the further continuance of our syndicate. I therefore propose to sell all my interest in our various properties to the other members, and to retire. Should you care to consider such a thing, I am prepared to make you an alternative offer, to buy your interests. As the purchase of three shares by one is a heavier load than the taking over of one share by three, I should expect to buy at a lower proportional price than I should be willing to sell for. As the management of our enterprises seems to have abandoned the tried principles of business, for some considerations the precise nature of which I am not acute enough to discern, and as a sale to me would balk the very benevolent purposes recently avowed by you, I assume that I shall not be called upon to make an offer.

"There is at least one person among those to whom this is addressed who knows that in beginning our operations in Lattimore it was understood that we should so manage affairs as to promote and take advantage of a bulge in values, and then pull out with a profit. Just what may be his policy when this reaches him I cannot, after my experience with his ability as a lightning change artist, venture to predict; but my last information leads me to believe that he is championing the utopian plan of running the business, not only past the bulge, but into the slump. I, for one, will not permit my fortune to be jeopardized by so palpable a piece of perfidy.

"I may be allowed to add that I am prepared to take such measures as may seem to my legal advisers best to protect my interests. I am assured that the funds of one corporation will not be permitted by the courts to be donated to the bolstering up of another, over the protest of a minority stockholder. You may confidently assume that this advice will be tested to the utmost before the acts now threatened are permitted to be actually done.

"I attach hereto a schedule of our holdings, with the amount of my interest in each, and the price I will take. I trust that I may have an answer to this at your earliest convenience. I beg to add that any great delay in answering will be taken by me as a refusal on your part to do anything, and I shall act accordingly.

"Very respectfully, "J. Bedford Cornish."

"Huh!" ejaculated Harper, "would he do it, d'ye think?"

"He's a very resolute man," said Hinckley.

"He calculates," said Jim, "that if he begins operations, he can have receiverships and things of that kind in his interest, and in that way swipe the salvage. On the other hand, he must know that his loss would be proportioned to ours, and would be great. He's sore, and that counts for something. I figure that the chances are seven out of ten that he'll do it—and that's too strong a game for us to go up against."

"What would be the worst that could happen if he began proceedings?" said I.

"The worst," answered Jim laconically. "I don't say, you know," he went on after a pause, "that Cornish hasn't some reason for his position. From a cur's standpoint he's entirely right. We didn't anticipate the big way in which things have worked out here, nor how deep our roots would strike; and we did intend to cash in when the wave came. And a cur can't understand our position in the light of these developments. He can't see that in view of the number of people sucked down with her when a great ship like ours sinks, nobody but a murderer would needlessly see her wrecked. What he proposes is to scuttle her. Sell to him! I'd as soon sell Vassar College to Brigham Young!"

This tragic humorousness had the double effect of showing us the dilemma, and taking the edge off the horror of it.

"If it were my case," said Harper, "I'd call him. I don't believe he'll smash things; but you fellows know each other best, and I'm here to give what aid and comfort I can, and not to direct. I accept your judgment as to the danger. Now let's do business. I've got to get back to Chicago by the next train, and I want to go feeling that my stock in the Grain Belt Trust Company is an asset and not a liability. Let's do business."

"As for going back on the next train," said Mr. Elkins, "you've got another guess coming: this one was wrong. As for doing business, the first thing in my opinion is to examine the items of this bill of larceny, and see about scaling them down."

"We might be able," said I, "to turn over properties instead of cash, for some of it."

Elkins appointed Harper and Hinckley to do the negotiating with Cornish. It was clear, he said, that neither he nor I was the proper person to act. They soon went out on their mission and left me with Jim.

"Do you see what a snowfall we've had?" he asked. "It fell deeper and deeper, until I thought it would never stop. No such sleighing for years. And funny as it may seem, it was that that brought on this crisis. Josie and I went sleighing, and the hound was furious. Next time we met he started this business going."

I was studying the schedule, and said nothing. After a while he began talking again, in a slow manner, as if the words came lagging behind a labored train of thought.

"Remember the mill the Dutchman had?... Ground salt, and nothing but salt ... Ours won't grind anything but mortgages ... Well, the hair of the dog must cure the bite ... Fight fire with fire ... Similia similibus curantur ... We can't trade horses, nor methods, in the middle of the ford.... The mill has got to go on grinding mortgages until we're carried over; and Hinckley and the Grain Belt Trust must float 'em. Of course the infernal mill ground salt until it sent the whole shooting-match to the bottom of the sea; but you mustn't be misled by analogies. The Dutchman hadn't any good old Al to lose telegrams in an absent-minded way where they would do the most good, and sell railroads to old man Pendleton ... As for us, it's the time-worn case of electing between the old sheep and the lamb. We'll take the adult mutton, and go the whole hog ... And if we lose, the tail'll have to go with the hide.... But we won't lose, Al, we won't lose. There isn't treason enough in all the storehouses of hell to balk or defeat us. It's a question of courage and resolution and confidence, and imparting all those feelings to every one else. There isn't malice enough, even if it were a whole pack, instead of one lone hyena, to put out the fires in those furnaces over there, or stop the wheels in that flume, or make our streets grow grass. The things we've built are going to stay built, and the word of Lattimore will stand!"

"My hand on that!" said I.

* * * * *

There was little in the way of higgling: for Cornish proudly refused much to discuss matters; and when we found what we must pay to prevent the explosion, it sickened us. Jim strongly urged upon Harper the taking of Cornish's shares.

"No," said Harper, "the Frugality and Indemnity is too good a thing to drop; and I can't carry both. But if you can show me how, within a short time, you can pay it back, I'll find you the cash you lack."

We could not wait for the two millions from Pendleton; and the interim must be bridged over by any desperate means. We took, for the moment only, the funds advanced through Harper; and Cornish took his price.

The day after Harper went away we were busy all day long, drawing notes and mortgages. Every unincumbered piece of our property, the orts, dregs, and offcast of our operations, were made the subjects of transfers to the rag-tag and bobtail of Lattimore society. A lot worth little or nothing was conveyed to Tom, Dick, or Harry for a great nominal price, and a mortgage for from two-thirds to three-fourths of the sum given back by this straw-man purchaser. Our mill was grinding mortgages.

I do not expect that any one will say that this course was justified or justifiable; but, if anything can excuse it, the terrible difficulty of our position ought to be considered in mitigation, if not excuse. Pressed upon from without, and wounded by blows dealt in the dark from within; with dreadful failure threatening, and with brilliant success, and the averting of wide-spread calamity as the reward of only a little delay, we used the only expedient at hand, and fought the battle through. We were caught in the mighty swirl of a modern business maelstrom, and, with unreasoning reflexes, clutched at man or log indifferently, as we felt the waters rising over us; and broadcast all over the East were sown the slips of paper ground out by our mill, through the spout of the Grain Belt Trust Company; and wherever they fell they were seized upon by the banks, which had through years of experience learned to look upon our notes and bonds as good.

"Past the bulge," quoted Jim, "and into the slump! We'll see what the whelp says when he finds that, in spite of all his attempts to scuttle, there isn't going to be any slump!"

By which observation it will appear that, as our operations began to bring in returns in almost their old abundance, our courage rose. At the very last, some bank failures in New York, and a bad day on 'Change in Chicago, cut off the stream, and we had to ask Harper to carry over a part of the Frugality and Indemnity loan until we could settle with Pendleton; but this was a small matter running into only five figures.

Perhaps it was because we saw only a part of the situation that our courage rose. We saw things at Lattimore with vivid clearness. But we failed to see that like centers of stress were sprinkled all over the map, from ocean to ocean; that in the mountains of the South were the Lattimores of iron, steel, coal, and the winter-resort boom; and in the central valleys were other Lattimores like ours; that among the peaks and canyons further west were the Lattimores of mines; that along the Pacific were the Lattimores of harbors and deep-water terminals; that every one of these Lattimores had in the East and in Europe its clientage of Barr-Smiths, Wickershams, and Dorrs, feeding the flames of the fever with other people's money; and that in every village and factory, town and city, where wealth had piled up, seeking investment, were the "captives below decks," who, in the complex machinery of this end-of-the-century life, were made or marred by the same influences which made or marred us.

The low area had swept across the seas, and now rested on us. The clouds were charged with the thunder and lightning of disaster. Almost any accidental disturbance might precipitate a crash. Had we known all this, as we now know it, the consciousness of the tragical race we were running to reach the harbor of a consummated sale to Pendleton might have paralyzed our efforts. Sometimes one may cross in the dark, on narrow footing, a chasm the abyss of which, if seen, would dizzily draw one down to destruction.



CHAPTER XXIV.

The Beginning of the End.

Court parties and court factions are always known to the populace, even down to the groom and scullions. So the defection of Cornish soon became a matter of gossip at bars, in stables, and especially about the desks of real-estate offices. Had it been a matter of armed internecine strife, the Elkins faction would have mustered an overwhelming majority; for Jim's bluff democratic ways, and his apparent identity of fibre with the mass of the people, would have made him a popular idol, had he been a thousand times a railroad president.

While these rumors of a feud were floating about, Captain Tolliver went to Jim's office several times, dressed with great care, and sat in silence, and in stiff and formal dignity, for a matter of five minutes or so, and then retired, with the suggestion that if there was any way in which he could serve Mr. Elkins he should be happy.

"Do you know," said Jim to me, "that I'm afraid Hamlet's 'bugs and goblins' are troubling Tolliver; in other words, that he's getting bughouse?"

"No," said I; "while I haven't the slightest idea what ails him, you'll find that it's something quite natural for him when you get a full view of his case."

Finally, Jim, in thanking him for his proffered assistance, inquired diplomatically after the thing which weighed upon the Captain's mind.

"I may be mistaken, suh," said he, drawing himself up, and thrusting one hand into the tightly-buttoned breast of his black Prince Albert, "entiahly mistaken in the premises; but I have the impression that diffe'ences of a pussonal nature ah in existence between youahself and a gentleman whose name in this connection I prefuh to leave unmentioned. Such being the case, I assume that occasion may and naturally will arise foh the use of a friend, suh, who unde'stands the code—the code, suh—and is not without experience in affaiahs of honah. I recognize the fact that in cehtain exigencies nothing, by Gad, but pistols, ovah a measu'ed distance, meets the case. In such an event, suh, I shall be mo' than happy to suhve you; mo' than happy, by the Lord!"

"Captain," said Jim feelingly, "you're a good fellow and a true friend, and I promise you I shall have no other second."

"In that promise," replied the Captain gravely, "you confeh an honah, suh!"

After this it was thought wise to permit the papers to print the story of Cornish's retirement; otherwise the Captain might have fomented an insurrection.

"The reasons for this step on the part of Mr. Cornish are purely personal," said the Herald. "While retaining his feeling of interest in Lattimore, his desire to engage in certain broader fields of promotion and development in the tropics had made it seem to him necessary to lay down the work here which up to this time he has so well done. He will still remain a citizen of our city. On the other hand, while we shall not lose Mr. Cornish, we shall gain the active and powerful influence of Mr. Charles Harper, the president of the Frugality and Indemnity Life Insurance Company. It is thus that Lattimore rises constantly to higher prosperity, and wields greater and greater power. The remarkable activity lately noted in the local real-estate market, especially in the sales of unconsidered trifles of land at high prices, is to be attributed to the strengthening of conditions by these steps in the ascent of the ladder of progress."

Cornish, however, was not without his partisans. Cecil Barr-Smith almost quarreled with Antonia because she struck Cornish off her books, Cecil insisting that he was an entirely decent chap. In this position Cecil was in accord with the clubmen of the younger sort, who had much in common with Cornish, and little with the overworked and busy railway president. Even Giddings, to me, seemed to remain unduly intimate with Cornish; but this did not affect the utterances of his paper, which still maintained what he called the policy of boost.

The behavior of Josie, however, was enigmatical. Cornish's attentions to her redoubled, while Jim seemed dropped out of the race—and therefore my wife's relations with Miss Trescott were subjected to a severe strain. Naturally, being a matron, and of the age of thirty-odd years, she put on some airs with her younger friend, still in the chrysalis of maidenhood. Sometimes, in a sweet sort of a way, she almost domineered over her. On this Elkins-Cornish matter, however, Josie held her at arms' length, and refused to make her position plain; and Alice nursed that simulated resentment which one dear friend sometimes feels toward another, because of a real or imagined breach of the obligations of reciprocity.

One night, as we sat about the grate in the Trescott library, some veiled insinuations on Alice's part caused a turning of the worm.

"If there is anything you want to say, Alice," said Josie, "there seems to be no good reason why you shouldn't speak out. I have asked your advice—yours and Albert's—frequently, having really no one else to trust; and therefore I am willing to hear your reproof, if you have it for me. What is it?"

"Oh, Josie," said I, seeking cover. "You are too sensitive. There isn't anything, is there, Alice?"

Here I scowled violently, and shook my head at my wife; but all to no effect.

"Yes, there is," said Alice. "We have a dear friend, the best in the world, and he has an enemy. The whole town is divided in allegiance between them, about nine on one side to one on the other—"

"Which proves nothing," said Josie.

"And now," Alice went on, "you, who have had every opportunity of seeing, and ought to know, that one of them is, in every look, and thought, and act, a man, while the other is—"

"A friend of mine and of my mother's," said Josie; "please omit the character-sketch. And remember that I refuse even to consider these business differences. Each claims to be right; and I shall judge them by other things."

"Business differences, indeed!" scoffed Alice, albeit a little impressed by the girl's dignity. "As if you did not know what these differences came from! But it isn't because you remain neutral that we com—"

"You complain, Alice," said I; "I am distinctly out of this."

"That I complain, then," amended Alice reproachfully. "It is because you dismiss the man and keep the—other! You may say I have no right to be heard in this, but I'm going to complain Josie Trescott, just the same!"

This seemed to approach actual conflict, and I was frightened. Had it been two men, I should have thought nothing of it, but with women such differences cut deeper than with us. Josie stepped to her writing-desk and took from it a letter.

"We may as well clear this matter up," said she, "for it has stood between us for a long time. I think that Mr. Elkins will not feel that any confidences are violated by my showing you this—you who have been my dearest friends—"

She stopped for no reason, unless it was agitation.

"Are," said I, "I hope, not 'have been.'"

"Well," said she, "read the letter, and then tell me who has been 'dismissed.'"

I shrank from reading it; but Alice was determined to know all. It was dated the day before I left New York.

"Dear Josie," it read, "I have told you so many times that I love you that it is an old story to you; yet I must say it once more. Until that night when we brought your father home, I was never able to understand why you would never say definitely yes or no to me; but I felt that you could not be expected to understand my feeling that the best years of our lives were wasting—you are so much younger than I—and so I hoped on. Sometimes I feared that somebody else stood in the way, and do fear it now, but that alone would have been a much simpler thing, and of that I could not complain. But on that fearful night you said something which hurt me more than anything else could, because it was an accusation of which I could not clear myself in the court of my own conscience—except so far as to say that I never dreamed of doing your father anything but good. Surely, surely you must feel this!

"Since that time, however, you have been so kind to me that I have become sure that you see that terrible tragedy as I do, and acquit me of all blame, except that of blindly setting in motion the machinery which did the awful deed. This is enough for you to forgive, God knows; but I have thought lately that you had forgiven it. You have been very kind and good to me, and your presence and influence have made me look at things in a different way from that of years ago, and I am now doing things which ought to be credited to you, so far as they are good. As for the bad, I must bear the blame myself!"

Thus far Alice had read aloud.

"Don't, don't," said Josie, hiding her face. "Don't read it aloud, please!"

"But now I am writing, not to explain anything which has taken place, but to set me right as to the future. You gave me reason to think, when we met, that I might have my answer. Things which I cannot explain have occurred, which may turn out very evilly for me, and for any one connected with me. Therefore, until this state of things passes, I shall not see you. I write this, not that I think you will care much, but that you may not believe that I have changed in my feelings toward you. If my time ever comes, and I believe it will, and that before very long, you will find me harder to dispose of without an answer than I have been in the past. I shall claim you in spite of every foe that may rise up to keep you from me. You may change, but I shall not.

"'Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds.'

And mine will not alter. J. R. E."

"My dear," said Alice very humbly, "I beg your pardon. I have misjudged you. Will you forgive me?"

Josie came to take her letter, and, in lieu of other answer, stood with her arm about Alice's waist.

"And now," said Alice, "have you no other confidences for us?"

"No!" she cried, "no! there is nothing more! Nothing, absolutely nothing, believe me! But, now, confidence for confidence, Albert, what is this great danger? Is it anything for which any one here—for which I am to blame? Does it threaten any one else? Can't something be done about it? Tell me, tell me!"

"I think," said I, "that the letter was written before my telegram from New York came, and after—some great difficulties came upon us. I don't believe he would have written it five hours later; and I don't believe he would have written it to any one in anything but the depression of—the feeling he has for you."

"If that is true," said she, "why does he still avoid me? Why does he still avoid me? You have not told me all; or there is something you do not know."

As we went home, Alice kept referring to Jim's letter, and was as much troubled by it as was Josie.

"How do you explain it?" she asked.

"I explain it," said I, "by ranging it with the well-known phenomenon of the love-sick youth of all lands and in every time, who revels in the thought of incurring danger or death, and heralding the fact to his loved one. Even Jim is not exempt from the feelings of the boy who rejoices in delicious tears at the thought of being found cold and dead on the doorstep of the cruel maiden of his dreams. And that letter, with a slight substratum of fact, is the result. Don't bother about it for a moment."

This answer may not have been completely frank, or quite expressive of my views; but I was tired of the subject. It was hardly a time to play with mammets or to tilt with lips, and it seemed that the matter might wait. There was a good deal of the pettishness of nervousness among us at that time, and I had my full share of it. Insomnia was prevalent, and gray hairs increased and multiplied. The time was drawing near for our meeting with Pendleton in Chicago. We had advices that he was coming in from the West, on his return from a long journey of inspection, and would pass over his Pacific Division. We asked him to run down to Lattimore over our road, but Smith answered that the running schedule could not be altered.

There seemed to be no reason for doubting that the proposed contract would be ratified; for the last desperate rally on our part appeared to have put a crash out of the question, for some time at least. To him that hath shall be given; and so long as we were supposed to possess power, we felt that we were safe. Yet the blow dealt by Cornish had maimed us, no matter how well we hid our hurt; and we were all too keenly conscious of the law of the hunt, by which it is the wounded buffalo which is singled out and dragged down by the wolves.

On Wednesday Jim and I were to start for Chicago, where Mr. Pendleton would be found awaiting us. On Sunday the weather, which had been cold and snowy for weeks, changed; and it blew from the southeast, raw and chill, but thawy. All day Monday the warmth increased; and the farmers coming into town reported great ponds of water dammed up in the swales and hollows against the enormous snow-drifts. Another warm day, and these waters would break through, and the streams would go free in freshets. Tuesday dawned without a trace of frost, and still the strong warm wind blew; but now it was from the east, and as I left the carriage to enter my office I was wet by a scattering fall of rain. In a few moments, as I dictated my morning's letters, my stenographer called attention to the beating on the window of a strong and persistent downpour.

Elkins, too much engrossed in his thoughts to be able to confine himself to the details of his business, came into my office, where, sometimes sitting and sometimes walking uneasily about, he seemed to get some sort of comfort from my presence. He watched the rain, as one seeing visions.

"By morning," said he, "there ought to be ducks in Alderson's pond. Can't we do our chores early and get into the blind before daylight, and lay for 'em?"

"I heard Canada geese honking overhead last night," said I.

"What time last night?"

"Two o'clock."

"Well, that lets us out on the Alderson's pond project," said he; "the boys who hunted there weren't out walking at two. In those days they slept. It can't be that we're the fellows.... Why, there's Antonia, coming in through the rain!"

"I wonder," said I, "if la grippe isn't taking a bad turn with her father."

She came in, shedding the rain from her mackintosh like a water-fowl, radiant with health and the air of outdoors.

"Gentlemen," said she gaily, "who but myself would come out in anything but a diving-suit to-day!"

"It's almost an even thing," said Jim, "between a calamity, which brings you, and good fortune, which keeps you away. I hope it's only your ordinary defiance of the elements."

"The fact is," said she, "that it's a very funny errand. But don't laugh at me if it's absurd, please. It's about Mr. Cornish."

"Yes!" said Jim, "what of him?"

"You know papa has been kept in by la grippe for a day or so," she went on, "and we haven't been allowing people to see him very much; but Mr. Cornish has been in two or three times, and every time when he went away papa was nervous and feverish. To-day, after he left, papa asked—" here she looked at Mr. Elkins, as he stood gravely regarding her, and went on with redder cheeks—"asked me some questions, which led to a long talk between us, in which I found out that he has almost persuaded papa to—to change his business connections completely."

"Yes!" said Jim. "Change, how?"

"Why, that I didn't quite understand," said Antonia, "except that there was logwood and mahogany and Mexico in it, and—and that he had made papa feel very differently toward you. After what has taken place recently I knew that was wrong—you know papa is not as firm in his ideas as he used to be; and I felt that he—and you, were in danger, somehow. At first I was afraid of being laughed at—why, I'd rather you'd laugh at me than to look like that!"

"You're a good girl, Antonia," said Jim, "and have done the right thing, and a great favor to us. Thank you very much; and please excuse me a moment while I send a telegram. Please wait until I come back."

"No, I'm going, Albert," said she, when he was gone to his own office. "But first you ought to know that man told papa something—about me."

"How do you know about this?" said I.

"Papa asked me—if I had—any complaints to make—of Mr. Elkins's treatment of me! What do you suppose he dared to tell him?"

"What did you tell your father?" I asked.

"What could I tell him but 'No'?" she exclaimed. "And I just had a heart-to-heart talk with papa about Mr. Cornish and the way he has acted; and if his fever hadn't begun to run up so, I'd have got the rubber, or Peruvian-bark idea, or whatever it was, entirely out of his mind. Poor papa! It breaks my heart to see him changing so! And so I gave him a sleeping-capsule, and came down through this splendid rain; and now I'm going! But, mind, this last is a secret."

And so she went away.

"Where's Antonia?" asked Jim, returning.

"Gone," said I.

"I wanted to talk further about this matter."

"I don't like it, Jim. It means that the cruel war is not over."

"Wait until we pass Wednesday," said Jim, "and we'll wring his neck. What a poisonous devil, to try and wean from us, to his ruin, an old man in his dotage!—I wish Antonia had stayed. I went out to set the boys wiring for news of washouts between here and Chicago. We mustn't miss that trip, if we have to start to-night. This rain will make trouble with the track.—No, I don't like it, either. Wasn't it thoughtful of Antonia to come down! We can line Hinckley up all right, now we know it; but if it had gone on—we can't stand a third solar-plexus blow...."

The sky darkened, until we had to turn on the lights, and the rain fell more and more heavily. Once or twice there were jarring rolls of distant thunder. To me there was something boding and ominous in the weather. The day wore on interminably in the quiet of a business office under such a sky. Elkins sent in a telegram which he had received that no trouble with water was looked for along our way to Chicago, which was by the Halliday line. As the dark day was lowering down to its darker close, I went into President Elkins's office to take him home with me. As I entered through my private door, I saw Giddings coming in through the outer entrance.

"Say," said he, "I wanted to see you two together. I know you have some business with Pendleton, and you've promised the boys a story for Thursday or Friday. Now, you've been a little sore on me because I haven't absolutely cut Cornish."

"Not at all," said Jim. "You must have a poor opinion of our intelligence."

"Well, you had no cause to feel that way," he went on, "because, as a newspaperman, I'm supposed to have few friends and no enemies. Besides, you can't tell what a man might sink to, deprived all at once of the friendship of three such men as you fellows!"

"Quite right," said I; "but get to the point."

"I'm getting to it," said he. "I violate no confidence when I say that Cornish has got it in for your crowd in great shape. The point is involved in that. I don't know what your little game is with old Pendleton, but whatever it is, Cornish thinks he can queer it, and at the same time reap some advantages from the old man, if he can have a few minutes' talk with Pen before you do. And he's going to do it, if he can. Now, I figure, with my usual correctness of ratiocination, that your scheme is going to be better for the town, and therefore for the Herald, than his, and hence this disclosure, which I freely admit has some of the ear-marks of bad form. Not that I blame Cornish, or am saying anything against him, you know. His course is ideally Iagoan: he stands in with Pendleton, benefits himself, and gets even with you all at one fell—"

"Stop this chatter!" cried Jim, flying at him and seizing him by the collar. "Tell me how you know this, and how much you know!"

"My God!" said Giddings, his lightness all departed, "is it as vital as that? He told me himself. Said it was something he wouldn't put on paper and must tell Pendleton by word of mouth, and he's on the train that just pulled out for Chicago."

"He'll beat us there by twelve hours," said I, "and he can do all he threatens! Jim, we're gone!"

Elkins leaped to the telephone and rang it furiously. There was the ring of command sounding through the clamor of desperate and dubious conflict in his voice.

"Give me the L. & G. W. dispatcher's office, quick!" said he. "I can't remember the number ... it's 420, four, two, naught. Is this Agnew? This is Elkins talking. Listen! Without a moment's delay, I want you to find out when President Pendleton's special, east-bound on his Pacific Division, passes Elkins Junction. I'm at my office, and will wait for the information here.... Don't let me wait long, please, understand? And, say! Call Solan to the 'phone.... Is this Solan? Mr. Solan, get out the best engine you've got in the yards, couple to it a caboose, and put on a crew to make a run to Elkins Junction, as quick as God'll let you! Do you understand? Give me Schwartz and his fireman.... Yes, and Corcoran, too. Andy, this is a case of life and death—of life and death, do you understand? See that the line's clear, and no stops. I've got to connect east at Elkins Junction with a special on that line.... Got to, d'ye see? Have the special wait at the State Street crossing until we come aboard!"



CHAPTER XXV.

That Last Weird Battle in the West.

There was still some remnant of daylight left when we stepped from a closed carriage at the State Street crossing and walked to the train prepared for us. The rain had all but ceased, and what there was came out of some northern quarter of the heavens mingled with stinging pellets of sleet, driven by a fierce gale. The turn of the storm had come, and I was wise enough in weather-lore to see that its rearguard was sweeping down upon us in all the bitterness of a winter's tempest.

Beyond the tracks I could see the murky water of Brushy Creek racing toward the river under the State Street bridge.

"I believe," said I, "that the surface-water from above is showing the flow from the flume."

"Yes," said Jim absently, "it must be about ready to break up. I hope we can get out of the valley before dark."

The engine stood ready, the superabundant power popping off in a deafening hiss. The fireman threw open the furnace-door and stoked the fire as we approached. Engineer Schwartz, the same who had pulled us over the road that first trip, was standing by his engine, talking with our old conductor, Corcoran.

"Here's a message for you, Mr. Elkins," said Corcoran, handing Jim a yellow paper, "from Agnew."

We read it by Corcoran's lantern, for it was getting dusky for the reading of telegraph operator's script.

"Water out over bottoms from Hinckley to the Hills," so went the message. "Flood coming down valley. Snow and drifting wind reported from Elkins Junction and Josephine. Look out for washouts, and culverts and bridges damaged by running ice and water. Pendleton special fully up to running schedule, at Willow Springs."

"Who've you got up there, Schwartz? Oh, is that you, Ole?" said Mr. Elkins. "Good! Boys, to-night our work has got to be done in time, or we might as well go to bed. It's a case of four aces or a four-flush, and no intermediate stations. Mr. Pendleton's special will pass the Junction right around nine—not ten minutes either way. Get us there before that. If you can do it safely, all right; but get us there. And remember that the regular rule in railroading is reversed to-night, and we are ready to take any chance rather than miss—any chances, mind!"

"We're ready and waiting, Mr. Elkins," said Schwartz, "but you'll have to get on, you know. Looks like there was time enough if we keep the wheels turning, but this snow and flood business may cut some figure. Any chances, I believe you said, sir. All right! Ready when you are, Jack."

"All aboard!" sang out Corcoran, and with a commonplace ding-dong of the bell, and an every-day hiss of steam, which seemed, somehow, out of keeping with the fearful and unprecedented exigency now upon us, we moved out through the yards, jolting over the frogs, out upon the main line; and soon began to feel a cheering acceleration in the recurrent sounds and shocks of our flight, as Schwartz began rolling back the miles under his flying wheels.

We sat in silence on the oil-cloth cushions of the seats which ran along the sides of the caboose. Corcoran, the only person who shared the car with us, seemed to have some psychical consciousness of the peril which weighed down upon us, and moved quietly about the car, or sat in the cupola, as mute as we.

There was no need for speech between my friend and me. Our minds, strenuously awake, found a common conclusion in the very nature of the case. Both doubtless had considered and rejected the idea of telegraphing Pendleton to wait for us at the Junction. No king upon his throne was more absolute than Avery Pendleton, and to ask him to waste a single quarter-hour of his time might give great offense to him whom we desired to find serene and complaisant. Again, any apparent anxiety for haste, any symptom of an attempt to rush his line of defenses, would surely defeat its object. No, we must quietly and casually board his train, and secure the signing of the contract before we reached Chicago, if possible.

"You brought that paper, Al?" said Jim, as if my thoughts had been audible to him.

"Yes," said I, "it's here."

"I think we'd better be on our way to St. Louis," said he. "He can hardly refuse to oblige us by going through the form of signing, so as to let us turn south at the river."

"Very well," said I, "St. Louis—yes."

Out past the old Trescott farm, now covered with factories, cottages, and railway tracks, leaving Lynhurst Park off to our left, curving with the turnings of Brushy Creek Valley, through which our engineers had found such easy grades, dropping the straggling suburbs of the city behind us, we flew along the rails in the waning twilight of this grewsome day. On the windward windows and the roof rattled fierce flights of sleet and showers of cinders from the engine. Occasionally we felt the car sway in the howling gusts of wind, as we passed some opening in the hills and neared the more level prairie. Stories of cars blown from the rails flitted through my mind; and in contemplating such an accident my thoughts busied themselves with the details of plans for getting free from the wrecked car, and pushing on with the engine, the derailing of which somehow never occurred to me.

"We're slowing down!" cried Jim, after a half-hour's run. "I wonder what's the matter!"

"For God's sake, look ahead!" yelled Corcoran, leaping down from the cupola and springing to the door. We followed him to the platform, and each of us ran down on the step and, swinging out by the hand-rail, peered ahead into the dusk, the sleet stinging our cheeks like shot.

We were running along the right bank of the stream, at a point where the valley narrowed down to perhaps sixty rods of bottom. At the first dim look before us we could see nothing unusual, except that the background of the scene looked somehow as if lifted by a mirage. Then I noticed that up the valley, instead of the ghostly suggestions of trees and hills which bounded the vista in other directions, there was an appearance like that seen on looking out to sea.

"The flood!" said Jim. "He's not going to stop, is he Corcoran?"

At this moment came at once the explanation of Schwartz's hesitation and the answer to Jim's question. We saw, reaching clear across the narrow bottom, a great wave of water, coming down the valley like a liquid wall, stretching across the track and seeming to forbid our further progress, while it advanced deliberately upon us, as if to drown engine and crew. Driven on by the terrific gale, it boiled at its base, and curled forward at its foamy and wind-whipped crest, as if the upper waters were impatient of the slow speed of those below. Beyond the wave, the valley, from bluff to bluff, was a sea, rolling white-capped waves. Logs, planks, and the other flotsam of a freshet moved on in the van of the flood.

It looked like the end of our run. What engineer would dare to dash on at such speed over a submerged track—possibly floated from its bed, possibly barricaded by driftwood? Was not the wave high enough to put out the fires and kill the engine? As we met the roaring eagre we felt the engine leap, as Schwartz's hesitation left him and he opened the throttle. Like knight tilting against knight, wave and engine met. There was a hissing as of the plunging of a great red-hot bar into a vat. A roaring sheet of water, thrown into the air by our momentum, washed cab and tender and car, as a billow pours over a laboring ship; and we stood on the steps, drenched to the skin, the water swirling about our ankles as we rushed forward. Then we heard the scream of triumph from the whistle, with which Schwartz cheered us as the dripping train ran on through shallower and shallower water, and turning, after a mile or so, began climbing, dry-shod, the grade which led from the flooded valley and out upon the uplands.

"Come in, Mr. Elkins," said Corcoran. "You'll both freeze out there, wet as you are."

Not until I heard this did I realize that we were still standing on the steps, our clothes congealing about us, peering through the now dense gloom ahead, as if for the apparition of some other grisly foe to daunt or drive us back.

We went in, and sat down by the roaring fire, in spite of which a chill pervaded the car. We were now running over the divide between the valley we had just left and that of Elk Fork. Up here on the highlands the wind more than ever roared and clutched at the corners of the car, and sometimes, as with the palm of a great hand, pressed us over, as if a giant were striving to overturn us. We could hear the engine struggling with the savage norther, like a runner breathing hard, as he nears exhaustion. Presently I noticed fine particles of snow, driven into the car at the crevices, falling on my hands and face, and striking the hot stove with little hissing explosions of steam.

"We're running into a blizzard up here," said Corcoran. "It's a terror outside."

"A terror; yes," said Jim. "What sort of time are we making?"

"Just about holding our own," said Corcoran. "Not much to spare. Got to stop at Barslow for water. But there won't be any bad track from there on. This snow won't cut any figure for three hours yet, and mebbe not at all, there's so little of it."

"Kittrick has been asking for an appropriation to rebuild the Elk Fork trestle," said Jim. "Will it stand this flood?"

"Well," said Corcoran, "if the water ain't too high, and the ice don't run too swift in the Fork, it'll be all right. But if there's any such mixture of downpour and thaw as there was along the Creek back there, we may have to jump across a gap. It'll probably be all right."

I remembered the Elk Fork, and the trestle just on the hither side of the Junction. I remembered the valley, green with trees, and populous with herds, winding down to the lake, and the pretty little town of Josephine. I remembered that gala day when we christened it. I groaned in spirit, as I thought of finding the trestle gone, after our hundred-and-fifty-mile dash through storm and flood. Yet I believed it would be gone. The blows showered upon us had beaten down my courage. I felt no shrinking from either struggle or danger; but this was merely the impulse which impels the soldier to fight on in despair, and sell his life dearly. I believed that ruin fronted us all; that our great system of enterprises was going down; that, East and West, where we had been so much courted and admired, we should become a by-word and a hissing. The elements were struggling against us. That vengeful flood had snatched at us, and barely missed; the ruthless hurricane was holding us back; and somehow fate would yet find means to lay us low. I had all day kept thinking of the lines:

"Nor ever yet had Arthur fought a fight Like this last dim, weird battle of the west. A death-white mist slept over land and sea: Whereof the chill, to him who breathed it, drew Down to his blood, till all his heat was cold With formless fear: and even on Arthur fell Confusion, since he saw not whom he fought."

And this, thought I, was the end of the undertaking upon which we had entered so lightly, with frolic jests of piracy and Spanish galleons and pieces-of-eight, and with all that mock-seriousness with which we discussed hypnotic suggestion and psychic force! The bitterness grew sickening, as Corcoran, hearing the long whistle of the engine, said that we were coming into Barslow. The tragic foolery of giving that name to any place!

Out upon the platform here, in the blinding whirl of snow. The night operator came out and talked to us of the news of the line, while the engine ran on to the tank for water. There was another telegram from Agnew, saying that the Pendleton special was on time, and that Mr. Kittrick was following us with another train "in case of need."

The operator was full of wild stories of the Brushy Creek flood, caused by the thaw and the cloudburst. We cut him short in this narration, and asked him of the conditions along the Elk Fork.

"She's up and boomin'," said he. "The trestle was most all under water an hour ago, and they say the ice was runnin' in blocks. You may find the track left without any underpinnin'. Look out for yourselves."

"Al," said Jim slowly, "can you fire an engine?"

"I guess so," said I, seeing his meaning dimly. "Why?"

"Al," said he, as if stating the conclusion of a complicated calculation, "we must run this train in alone!"

I saw his intent fully, and knew why he walked so resolutely up to the engine, now backed down to take us on again. Schwartz leaned out of his cab, a man of snow and ice. Ole stood with his shovel in his hand white and icy like his brother worker. Both had been drenched, as we had; but they had had no red-hot stove by which to sit; and buffeted by the blizzard and powdered by the snow, they had endured the benumbing cold of the hurricane-swept cab.

"Get down here, boys," said Jim. "I want to talk with you."

Ole leaped lightly down, followed by Schwartz, who hobbled laboriously, stiffened with cold. Youth and violent labor had kept the fireman warm.

"Schwartz," said Jim, "there is a chance that we'll find the trestle weakened and dangerous. We'll stop and examine it if we have time, but if it is as close a thing as I think it will be, we propose to make a run for it and take chances. Barslow and I are the ones, and the only ones, who ought to do this, because we must make this connection. We can run the engine. You and Ole and Corcoran stay here. Mr. Kittrick will be along with another train in a few hours. Uncouple the caboose and we'll run on."

Schwartz blew his nose with great deliberation.

"Ole," said he, "what d'ye think of the old man's scheme?"

"Ay tank," said Ole, "dat bane hellufa notion!"

"Come," said Mr. Elkins, "we're losing time! Uncouple at once!"

We started to mount the engine; but Schwartz and Ole were before us, barring the way.

"Wait," said Schwartz. "Jest look at it, now. It's quite a run yet; and the chances are you'd have the cylinder-heads knocked out before you'd got half way; and then where'd you be with your connections?"

"Do you mean to say," said Jim, "that there's any likelihood of the engine's dying on us between here and the Junction?"

"It's a cinch!" said Schwartz.

"For God's sake, then, let's get on!" said Jim. "I believe you're lying to me, Schwartz. But do this: As you come to the trestle, stop. From the approach we can see down the other track for ten miles. If Pendleton's train is far enough off so as to give us time, we'll see how the bridge is before we cross. If we're pressed for time too much for this, promise me that you'll stop and let us run the engine across alone."

"I'll think about it," said Schwartz; "and if I conclude to, I will. It's got to clear up, if we can see even the headlight on the other road very far. Ready, Jack?"

We wrung their hard and icy hands, leaped upon the train, and were away again, spinning down the grade toward the Elk Fork, and comforted by our speed. Jim and I climbed into the cupola and watched the track ahead, and the two homely heroes in the cab, as the light from the furnace blazed out upon them from time to time. Now we could see Schwartz stoking, to warm himself; now we could see him looking at his watch and peering anxiously out before him.

It was wearing on toward nine, and still our goal was miles away. Overhead the sky was clearing, and we could see the stars; but down on the ground the light, new snow still glided whitely along before the lessening wind. Once or twice we saw, or thought we saw, far ahead, lights, like those of a little prairie town. Was it the Junction? Yes, said Corcoran, when we called him to look; and now we saw that we were rising on the long approach to the trestle.

Would Schwartz stop, or would he run desperately across, as he had dashed through the flood? That was with him. His hand was on the lever, and we were helpless; but, if there was time, it would be mere foolhardiness to go upon the trestle at any but the slowest speed, and without giving all but one an opportunity to walk across. One, surely, was enough to go down with the engine, if it, indeed, went down.

"Don't stay up there," shouted Corcoran, "go out on the steps so you can jump for it if you have to!"

Out upon the platform we went in the biting wind, which still came fiercely on, sweeping over the waste of waters which covered the fields like a great lake. There was no sign of slowing down: right on, as if the road were rock-ballasted, and thrice secure, the engine drove toward the trestle.

"She's there, anyhow, I b'lieve," said Corcoran, swinging out and looking ahead; "but I wouldn't bet on how solid she is!"

"Can't you stop him?" said Jim.

"Stop nothing!" said Corcoran. "Look over there!"

We looked, and saw a light gleaming mistily, but distinct and unmistakable, across the water on the other track. It was the Pendleton special! Not much further from the station than were we, the train of moving palaces to which we were fighting our way was gliding to the point beyond which it must not pass without us. There was now no more thought of stopping; rather our desires yearned forward over the course, agonizing for greater speed. I did not see that we were actually upon the trestle until for some rods we had been running with the inky water only a few feet below us; but when I saw it my hopes leaped up, as I calculated the proportion of the peril which was passed. A moment more, and the solid approach would be under our spinning wheels.

But the moment more was not to be given us! For, even as this joy rose in my breast, I felt a shock; I heard a confused sound of men's cries, and the shattering of timbers; the caboose whirled over cornerwise, throwing up into the air the step on which I stood; the sounds of the train went out in sudden silence as engine and car plunged off into the stream; and I felt the cold water close over me as I fell into the rushing flood. I arose and struck out for the shore; then I thought of Jim. A few feet above me in the stream I saw something like a hand or foot flung up out of the water, and sucked down again. I turned as well as I could toward the spot, and collided with some object under the surface. I caught at it, felt the skirt of a garment in my hand, and knew it for a man. Then, I remember helping myself with a plank from some washed-out bridge, and soon felt the ground under my feet, all the time clinging to my man. I tried to lift him out, but could not; and I locked my hands under his arm-pits and, slowly stepping backwards, I half carried, half dragged him, seeking a place where I could lay him down. I saw the dark line of the railroad grade, and made wearily toward it. I walked blindly into the water of the ditch beside the track, and had scarcely strength to pull myself and my burden out upon the bank. Then I stopped and peered into his face, and saw uncertainly that it was Jim—with a dark spot in the edge of the hair on his forehead, from which black streaks kept stealing down as I wiped them off; and with one arm which twisted unnaturally, and with a grating sound as I moved it; and from whom there came no other sound or movement whatever.

And over across the stream gleamed the lights of the Pendleton special as it sped away toward Chicago.



CHAPTER XXVI.

The End—and a Beginning.

As to our desperate run from Lattimore to the place where it came to an end in a junk-heap which had been once an engine, a car reduced to matchwood, a broken trestle, and a chaos of crushed hopes, and of the return to our homes thereafter, no further details need be set forth. The papers in Lattimore were filled with the story for a day or two, and I believe there were columns about it in the Associated Press reports. I doubt not that Mr. Pendleton and Mr. Cornish each read it in the morning papers, and that the latter explained it to the former in Chicago. From these reports the future biographer may glean, if he happens to come into being and to care about it, certain interesting facts about the people of this history. He will learn that Mr. Barslow, having (with truly Horatian swimming powers) rescued President Elkins from a watery grave, waited with his unconscious derelict in great danger from freezing, until they were both rescued a second time by a crew of hand-car men who were near the trestle on special work connected with the flood and its ravages. That President Elkins was terribly injured, having sustained a broken arm and a dangerous wound in the forehead. Moreover, he was threatened with pneumonia from his exposure. Should this disease really fasten itself upon him, his condition would be very critical indeed. That Mr. Barslow, the hero of the occasion, was uninjured. And I am ashamed to say that such student of history will find in an inconspicuous part of the same news-story, as if by reason of its lack of importance, the statement that O. Hegvold, fireman, and J. J. Corcoran, conductor of the wrecked train, escaped with slight injuries. And that Julius Schwartz, the engineer, living at 2714 May Street, and the oldest engineer on the L. & G. W., being benumbed by the cold, sank like a stone and was drowned. Poor Schwartz! Magnificent Schwartz! No captain ever went down, refusing to leave the bridge of his sinking ship, with more heroism than he; who, clad in greasy overalls, and sapped of his strength by the icy hurricane, finding his homely duty inextricably entangled with death, calmly took them both, and went his way.