The Wreckers. Lynde Francis

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      "Mr. Bigelow, at the present moment I represent Pioneer Short Line, in management and in its policy, as it stands to-day. I can assure you emphatically that the railroad management has nothing whatever to do with Red Tower Consolidated or any of its subsidiaries."

      "Then you've broken with Hatch?"

      "No; simply because there hasn't been anything to break, so far as I am concerned."

      The banker man dropped into the nearest chair.

      "But, man alive! you can't stay here if you don't pull with the Hatch crowd," he exclaimed; and then: "Somebody ought to have tipped you off beforehand and not let you come here to commit suicide!"

      After that they went out together; up-town to Mr. Bigelow's bank, I guess, and as they pushed the corridor door open I heard the banker say: "You don't know what you are up against, Mr. Norcross. That outfit will get you, one way or another, as sure as the devil's a hog. If it can't break you, it will hire a gang of gunmen – I wouldn't put it an inch beyond Rufus Hatch; not a single inch."

      There it was again; but as he went out the boss was laughing easily and saying that he was raised in a gun country, and that the fear of a fight was the least of his troubles at the present moment.

      VIII

      With the Strings Off

      As soon as we returned from the inspection trip, the boss pulled off his coat – figuratively speaking – and rolled up his sleeves. It wasn't his way to talk much about what he was going to do: he'd jump in and do it first, and then talk about it afterward – if anybody insisted on knowing the reason why.

      Mr. Van Britt was given swift orders to fill up his engineering staff and get busy laying new steel, building new bridges and modernizing the permanent way generally. Mr. Hornack was told to put on an extra office force to ransack the traffic records and make reports showing the fairness or unfairness of existing tariffs and rates, and a widespread invitation was given to shippers to come in and air their grievances – which you bet they did!

      Sandwiched in between, there were long private conferences with Mr. Ripley, the bright young lawyer Mr. Chadwick had sent us from Chicago, and with a young fellow named Juneman, an ex-newspaper man who was on the pay-rolls as "Advertising Manager," but whose real business seemed to be to keep the Short Line public fully and accurately informed of everything that most railroad companies try to keep to themselves.

      The next innovation that came along was another young Chicago man named Billoughby, and his title on the pay-roll was "Special Agent." What he did to earn his salary was the one thing that Juneman didn't publish broadcast in the newspapers; it was kept so dark that not a line of it got into the office records, and even I, who was as close to the boss as anybody in our outfit, never once suspected the true nature of Billoughby's job until the day he came in to make his final report – and Mr. Norcross let him make it without sending me out on an errand.

      "Well, I think I'm ready to talk Johnson, now," was the way Billoughby began. "I've been into all the deals and side deals, and I've had it out with Ripley on the legal points involved. Red Tower is the one outfit we'll have to kill off and put out of business. Under one name or another, it is engineering every graft in this country; it is even backing the fake mining boom at Saw Horse – to which, by the way, this railroad company is now building a branch line."

      Mr. Norcross turned to me:

      "Jimmie, make a note to tell Mr. Van Britt to have the work stopped at once on the Saw Horse branch, and all the equipment brought in." And then to Billoughby: "Go on."

      "The main graft, of course, is in the grain elevators, the fruit packeries, the coal and lumber yards and the stock yards and handling corrals. In these public, or quasi-public, utilities Red Tower has everybody else shut out, because the railroad has given them – in fee simple, it seems – all the yard room, switches, track facilities, and the like. Wherever local competition has tried to break in, the railroad company has given it the cold shoulder and it has been either forced out or frozen out."

      "Exactly," said the boss. "Now tell me how far you have gone in the other field."

      "We are pretty well shaped up and are about ready to begin business. Juneman has done splendid work, and so has Ripley. Public sentiment is still incredulous, of course. It's mighty hard to make people believe that we are in earnest; that we have actually gone over to their side in the fight. They're all from Missouri, and they want to be shown."

      "Naturally," said Mr. Norcross.

      "We have succeeded, in a measure, though the opposition has been keeping up a steady bombardment. Hatch and his people haven't been idle. They have a strong commercial organization and a stout pull with the machine element, or rather the gang element, in politics. They own or control a dozen or more prominent newspapers in the State, and, as you know, they are making an open fight on you and your management through these papers. The net result so far has been merely to keep the people stirred up and doubtful. They know they can't trust Hatch and his crowd, and they're afraid they can't trust you. They say that the railroad has never played fair – and I guess it hasn't, in the past."

      "Not within a thousand miles," was the boss's curt comment. "But go on with your story."

      "We pulled the new deal off yesterday, simultaneously in eleven of the principal towns along the line. Meetings of the bankers and local capitalists were held, and we had a man at each one of them to explain our plan and to pledge the backing of the railroad. Notwithstanding all the doubt and dust that's been kicked up by the Hatch people, it went like wild-fire."

      "With money?" queried the boss.

      "Yes; with real money. Citizens' Storage & Warehouse was launched, as you might say, on the spot, and enough capital was subscribed to make it a going concern. Of course, there were some doubters, and some few greedy ones. The doubters wanted to know how much of the stock was going to be held by officials of the railroad company, and it was pretty hard to convince them that no Short Line official would be allowed to participate, directly or indirectly."

      "And the greedy ones?"

      "They kicked on that part of the plan which provides for the local apportionment of the stock to cover the local needs of each town only; they wanted more than their share. Also, they protested against the fixed dividend scheme; they didn't see why the new company shouldn't be allowed to cut a melon now and then if it should be fortunate enough to grow one."

      Mr. Norcross smiled. "That is precisely what the Hatch people have been doing, all along, and it is the chief grievance of these same people who now want a chance to outbid their neighbors. The lease condition was fully explained to them, wasn't it?"

      "Oh, yes; Ripley saw to that, and copies of the lease were in the exhibits. The new company is to have railroad ground to build on, and ample track facilities in perpetuity, conditioned strictly upon the limited dividend. If the dividend is increased, the leases terminate automatically."

      The boss drew a long breath.

      "You've done well, and better than well, Billoughby," he said. "Now we are ready to fire the blast. How was the proposal to take over the Red Tower properties at a fair valuation received?"

      "There was some opposition. Lesterburg, and three of the other larger towns, want to build their own plants. They are bitter enough to want to smash the big monopoly, root and branch. But they agreed to abide by a majority vote of the stock on that point, and my wire reports this morning say that a lump-sum offer will be made for the Red Tower plants to-day."

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