The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush. Lynde Francis

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СКАЧАТЬ though you will likely call it an old man's foolishness. I have a grown son, McVickar. Did you know that?"

      The vice-president nodded, and the big man opposite went on half-reminiscently:

      "He is a lawyer, and a mighty bright one, so they tell me. As I happen to know, he is pretty well up on the corporation side of the argument, and the one thing I've been afraid of is that he would marry and settle down somewhere in the East, where the big corporations have their home ranches. I'm getting old, Hardwick, and I'd like mighty well to have the boy with me. Out of that notion grew another. I said to myself this: Now, here's McVickar; if he could have a good, clean-cut young man in this State representing his railroad—a man who not only knew his way around in a court-room, but who might also know how to plead his client's case before the public—if McVickar could have such a young fellow as that for his corporation counsel, and would agree to make his railroad company live somewhere within shouting distance of such a young fellow's ideals, we might all be persuaded to bury the hatchet and live together in peace and amity."

      A slow smile was spreading itself over the strong face of the railway magnate as he listened.

      "Say, David," he retorted mildly, "it isn't much like you to go forty miles around when there is a short way across. Why didn't you tell me plainly in the beginning that you wanted a place for your boy?"

      "Hold on; don't let's get too far along before we get started; I'm not saying it now," was the sober protest. "You forget that you've just been telling me that you don't intend to comply with the one hard-and-fast condition to such an arrangement as the one I've been pipe-dreaming about."

      "What condition?"

      "That you turn over a brand-new leaf and meet the people of this State half-way on a proposition of fair play for everybody."

      "There isn't any half-way point in a fight for life, David. You know that as well, or better, than I do. But let that go. We'll give your son the place you want him to have, and do it gladly."

      The man who had once been his own foreman of round-ups straightened himself in his chair and smote the table with his fist.

      "No, by God, you won't—not in a thousand years, McVickar! Maybe you could buy me—maybe you have bought me in times past—but you can't buy that boy! Listen, and I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I telegraphed the boy this afternoon, telling him to throw up his job in Boston and come out here. If he comes within a reasonable time he will be legally a citizen of the State before election. You said we didn't have anybody but Rankin to run for attorney-general. By Heavens, Hardwick, I'll show you if we haven't!"

      Mr. Hardwick McVickar was not of those who fight as one beating the air. While the deft waiter was clearing the table and serving the small coffees he kept silence. But when the time was fully ripe he said what there was to be said.

      "You've got us by the nape of the neck, as usual, Blount. Name your terms."

      "I have named them. Get in line with the new public opinion and we'll do what we can for you."

      During the long pause following this curt ultimatum the masterful dictator of railroad policies deliberated thoughtfully upon many things. With the ex-senator as the all-powerful head of the machine in this State of many costly battle-fields, it would have been a weakness inexcusable on the part of so astute a commander as McVickar if David Blount's history, political and personal, had not been known to him in all its details. As a contingency to be met sooner or later, the vice-president had anticipated the thing which had now come to pass. That Blount should wish to push the fortunes of his son was perfectly natural; and it was no less natural that he should push them by making the railroad company's pay-roll furnish the motive-power. The magnate smiled inwardly when he remembered that he had given Gantry, the division traffic manager of the Transcontinental, a quiet hint to look up one Evan Blount, a young lawyer, on his next visit to Boston. By all odds it would be better to wait for Gantry's report before taking any irrevocable steps in the bargaining with Evan Blount's father; but unhappily the crisis had arrived, and in all probability it could not be postponed. None the less, the vice-president tried craftily for the postponement.

      "You're asking a good deal, Blount, and you don't seem to realize it. You are practically demanding that we lay down our arms and put a possible enemy in the saddle on the eve of a battle. If we should agree to meet the people of this State half-way, as you suggest, what guarantee have we that we won't be compelled to go all the way?"

      The fine-lined wrinkles were appearing again at the corners of the hereditary Blount eyes.

      "You can't quite rise to the occasion, can you, Hardwick?" smiled the boss. "You'd like to behave yourself and be good, of course; but you want to be cocksure beforehand that it isn't going to cost too much."

      "Well, anyway, I'm going to ask for a little time in which to consider it," was the vice-president's final word.

      "Sure! You have all the time there is between now and the election. Go on and do your considering. I've told you what I'm going to do."

      "You know very well that we can't allow you to do what you propose. With an unfriendly attorney-general we might as well throw up our hands first as last."

      "All right; it's right pointedly up to you," was the calm reply.

      The vice-president rose and dusted the cigar-ash from his coat-sleeve with the table-napkin. When he looked up, the heavy frown was again furrowing itself between his eyes.

      "Let me know when your son is coming and I'll try to make it possible to meet him here," he said rather gratingly.

      And thus, at the precise moment when Richard Gantry, some three thousand miles away to the eastward, was declaring his weariness and his intention of going to bed, the two-man conference in the Inter-Mountain private dining-room was closed.

III

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A FALSE GALLOP OF MEMORIES

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      As a churlish fate decreed, it turned out that Evan Blount was not to have Gantry for a travelling companion beyond Chicago. On the second day of westward faring the railroad traffic manager, whose business followed him like an implacable Nemesis wherever he went, had wire instructions to stop and confer with his vice-president in the Illinois metropolis. Hence, on the morning of the following day, Blount continued his journey alone.

      Twenty-odd hours later the returning expatriate had crossed his Rubicon; in other words, his train had rolled through the majestic steel bridge spanning the clay-colored flood of the Missouri River at Omaha, and he was entering upon scenes which ought to have been familiar—which should have been and were not, so many and striking were the changes which had been wrought during his fourteen years of absence.

      Though he was far enough from realizing it, his education and the Eastern environment had given him a touch of Old-World insularity. The through sleeper in which he had his allotment of space was well filled, and there were the usual opportunities for the making of passing acquaintanceships in the smoking-compartment. But it was not until the second day, after the dining-car luncheon and its aftermath of a well-chosen cigar had broken down some of the barriers СКАЧАТЬ