The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, October 30, 1904, Page 2

D IO) SOSLTEITS SISO SISO b HIS is the last installment pad of “The Grafters,” the % novel of love and poli- bS] tics by Francis Lynde, Zfi £ which has proven so popular 2 % while running as a serial in the $ £ Sunday Call. On November 30 & 8w be published complete in 8 one ipstaliment, Stephen Con- { ¥ rad’s epic of ‘the mother-in- % law, “The Second Mrs. Jim,” as g 2 exemplified by Mrs. Jim herself, £ 8 2 woman in a)l respects remark- 3 % wbie, as befits one who “conld 2 ride twenty-five miles, go to a % i s get married, all in fi 8 onc da The Second Mrs. Jim Q shrewd, Lindly lovable sort & 3 ¢ e D) Copyrizgiit by Bobbs-Mcrrill Co. t his mas ck of th the edge end. I ta ve jaw u were not big ex you think you are big don I know,” said Ke g 1 since you have n gays, let me ask g4 u any reason to believe out? vint,” retorted Bucks e isn’t broad enough 1 i me on opposite sides e. I could make it too hot without mixing up hoose to fight my own you take twenty thou- t cash and MacFar- cuit judge when I'm m?, Yes or no.” will you take? ommitting myself in any t say that you are getting on your most liberal u and your friends ted a seventy-million-dollar ve stood in on that if Guilfora’s offer,” was der. “There was more ation lawyer's salary in d had sense enough to But I stayed out—and I nt to get in? -Is that your tend to get in—though not, per- n the way you have in mind. € y to recall Judge Mac- h instructions to give us n the merits?” wor's face was wooden Il you want? I understand is returning, and you will e your hearing in due less you autborize it,” Kent f 1 do? If I say that I have so, will u come in and your arms done I'm rough. Give me your key an order on the Securit those papers you are holding.” id Kent, again. came the explosive re- n; and Kent found himself ng down the bright barrel of a t into his face across the a man who had been oftenest onlooker on the football half of was measurably quick and il. In one motion he clamped and turned it aside; in an- ned the fire end of his he fingers of the grasp- e Governor jerked free d. T h an oaih. pain-extorted; and Kent ed the captured weapon into the er. It was all done in two ind when it jwas over, Kent away the broken cigar and light- a fresh one. ¢ W very primitive expedi- y, to say the best of “Have you nothing was a wild-beast growl, for a mnegative, Kent perhaps you will listen to my The papers you are so anx- are here, ope on the natch them here alive with them, lacking my leave. Snch of them as relate to your complicity in the Universal Oil deal ¢ yours—on one condition; that your health fails and you get yourself or- dered out of the State for the remain- der of your term.” “No!” thundered the Governor. “Very well; you may stay and take a course of home treatment, if you prefer. It's optional.” “By God! 1 don’t know what keeps rom throttling you with my 1" Bucks got upon his feet, and t rose, also, slipping the box en- velope into his pocket and laying a precautionary hand on the drawer- puil The Go ernor turned away and walked to the window, nursing his t ed fingers. Whaen he faced about itw to return to the charge. “Kent, what Is it you want? in two words.” “Candidly..I didn’t know, until a few minutes ago, Governor. It began with a determination to break your grip on my railroad, I believe.” “You can have wour railroad, if you n get it—end be damned to it, and to you. too!” I szid it began that way. My sole jdea in gathering up this evi@ence against you and your accomplices was to whittle out a club that would make you Jet m0 of the Transwestern. For two weeks I have been debating with myself as to whether I should buy you or break you: and half an hour before you came, I went to the bank and icok these papers out, meaning to go and hunt you up.” “Well?” said the Governor, and the Say it word bared his teeth because his lips were Ary “1 thought I knew, in the old Gas ton days, how many different kinds of a scoundrel wou could be, but you've cceeded in showing me some new ons in the last few minutes. It's usand pities that the people of a uld be the mercy of es as you and Hen- d MacFarlane, variat “Break it off!” said Bucks. “I'm through. 1 was merely going to add that I have concluded not td buy you “Then it's to be war to the knife, is it “That is about the size of it,” said Kent: and the Governor found his hat. “T'll trouble you to return my prop- erty,” he growled, pointing to the table irawer Kent broke the revolver over the blotting pad, swept the eject- ed cartridges into the open drawer, assed the empty weapon to its n the door closed behind the out- visitor the wictor in the small g began to walk the . which was Hil- h's downtown, he to climb the the editor’s nd went stairs to the Argus building. CHAPT XV. Dead Water and Quick. bby-hol which Hildreth cu in i by the sweat of his ¢ even at midday; and fur hours the editor sat u haped reflector in a « of electric light and desk and left com in a penumbra e of the cone g Hildreth's face d stolidly through the box envelope. It was ive study in thought dyna- There a gleam of battle satisfaction in the editorial eye when Hiiidreth faced the last t down v he accumulation of evidence, in’t overstate the faet in your the political graves. Only a steam shovel are giving me please?” Just that,” id Kent. “And you have made it serve your by Kent's voice was sharp and crisg Isn’t that what you got for it?” g n why don’t you use it?” That was what Bucks wanted to know a little while ago when he came to my rooi to try to buy me off. don’t think I succeeded in making him understand why 1 couldn’t traffic with it possibly you wouldn’t under- stand.” I guess I do. It's public property, 1 couldn’t divert it into private Is that the way it struck way it struck a friend ot mine whe of ultimate right and wrong he its fine edge in the world not want to do it.” aid the editor. “Giving s the loss of all you have been working for in the railroad game. I wish I could use it just as it stands. “Can’t y “I am a not—effectively. It would make an issue in a campaign; or, sprung on the eve of an el might down the ring think it would. But this is th and the people v is ical issug—couldn’t make themselves felt if they should. “I don’t agree with you. You have your case all made out, with the evi- dence in sound legal form. What is to prevent our trying it “The one thing that you ought to be lawyer enough to see at a glance. There is no court to try it in. With the As- sembly in’ session we might do some- thing; as it is we can only yap at the heels of the ringsters, and our yapping won't help you in the railroad fight. What do you hear from Boston?” “Nothing new. The stock is still flat on the market, with the stock- holders’ pool holding a bare majority and the Plantagould brokers buying in da g wherever they can find a small holder who is willing to let go. only a question of time, short time at that.” The editor wagged his head in sym- pathy. “I wish I could help you, David. You've done a big thing for me—for the Argus; and all I have to hand you It is and a very in return a death sentence. Mac- Farlane is back.’ “Here? In town?” “Yes. And that isn't the worst of it. The Governor sent for him."” “Have you any idea what is in the wind?” asked Kent, dry-lipped. “I'm afrald 1 have. My young men have been nosing around in the Trans- western affair and several things have developed. Matters are approach- ing a ecrigis. The cut-rate boom is about to collapse and there is trouble brewing in the labor organi- zations. If Bucks doesn’t get his hench- men out of it pretty soon, they will be involved in the smash—which will be bad for them and for him, politically.” “I developed most or that a good while ago,” Kent cut in. “Yes; I know. But there is more to fellow. The stock-smashing plan was all right, but it is proving too slow. Now they are going to do something <ty ‘Can you give it a name?” Kent, nerving himself. “I can. But first tell me one thing; as matters stand, could Guilford dis- pose of the road—sell it or lease {t? “No; he would first have to be made permanent recelver and be given au- thority by the court.” “Ah! that explains Judge MacFar- lane’s return. Now what I am going to tell you is the deadest of secrets. it came to me from one of the Over- land officials, and I'm not supposed to gossip. Did you know the Overland Short Liné had passed under Planta- gould domination?” “I krow they elected a Plantagould directory at the annual meeting.” “Exactly. Well, Guilford is going to lease the Transwestern to. its com- petitor for a term of ninety-nine years. That’s your death sentence.” Kent sprang to his feét, and what he said is unrecordable. He was not a profane man, but the sanguine temper- ament would assert itself explosively in moments of gudden stress. “When is this thing o bé done?” he demanded, when the temperamental god were apoeased a little. Hildreth shrugged. “I bave told you all'I could, and ratheg more than I had any right to. Open the door behind you, won't you? The air is positively sulphurous,” Kent opened the door, entirely miss- ing the point of the sarcasm in his heat. “But you must have some idea,” he insisted. “I haven’t; any more than the gen- asked THE SAN eral one that they won’t let the grass grow under their feet.” “No. God blast the whole—I wish I could swear in Sansecrit. The mother- tongue doesn't begin to do justice to it. w I know what Bucks meant when he told me to take my rafilroad, if I could get it. He had the whole thing coopered up in a barrel at that minute.” “I take it you have no alternative te this,” said the editor, tapping the pile of affidavits. “Not a cursed shred of an idea! And, Hildreth—" he broke off short because once again the subject suddenly grew too large for coherent speech. Hildreth disentangled himself from the legs of his chair and stood up to put his hands on Kent’s shoulders. “You are up against it hard, David,” he gaid; and he repeated: *T'd give all my old shoes to be able to help you out.” I know it,” sald Kent; and then he turned abruptly and went away. Between 9 and 10 o’clock the same evening Kent was walking the floor of his room, trying vainly to persuade himself that virtue was its own re- ward, and wondering if a small dose of chigral hydrate would be defensible under the cruel necessity for scleep. He had about decided in favor of the drug when a tap at the door announced the coming of a bellboy with a note It was a message from Portia. “If you have thrown away your chance definitely, and are willing to take a still more desperate one, come to see me,” she wrote; and he went mechanically, as a drowning man catches at a straw, knowing it will not save him. The house in Alameda square was dark when he went up the walk; and while he was feeling for the bell-push his summoner called to him out of the electric stercilings of leaf shadows un- der the broad veranda. “It too fine a night to stay in- doors,” she said. “Come and sit in the hammock while I scold you as you de- serve.” And when he had taken the hammock: “Now give an account of yourself. Where have you been for ihe past age or two?” “Wallowing around in the lower depths of the place that Dante vis- ited," he admitted. “Don’t you think you deserve a man- handling?”" “I suppose so; and if vou have it in mind, I shall probably get it. But I may say I'm not especially anxious for a tongue-lashing to-night.” “Poor boy!" she murmured, in mock sympathy. “Does it hurt to be truly good?” “Pry it some time when you have a little leisure, and see for yourself,” he retorted. = She laughed. “No; I'll leave that for the. Miss Brentwoods.- By the way, did you go to tell the household good-by? Penel- ope was wondering audibly what haa become of you."” “I didn’t know they were have been nowhere since the one. I ht you drove me out with contumely and op- probrium.” She laughed again. “You must have dived deep. They went a week ago Tuesday, and you lost your ghostly adviser and your po- litcal stage manager at one fell swoop. But it isn’t wonderful that you haven’t missed Mr, Ormsby. Having elected Miss Brentwood your conscience-keep- er-in-chief, you have no further use for ~him, his c; in my m&;‘ FRANCISCO SUNDAY “No; news, and to repeat an old question of mine. Do you know what they are going to do next with your railroad?” “Yes; Hildreth told me this after- noon.” “Well, what are you going to do?” “Nothing. There is nothing to be done. Théy have held to the form of legal procedure thus far, but they won't do it any more. They will take MacFarlane off in a corner somewhere, have him make Guiiford permanent re- ceiver, and the lease to the Overland will be consummated on the spot. I sha’'n’t be in it.” “Probably not; certainly not if you don’t try to get in it. And that brings me back to the old question. Are you big enough, David?” “If you think I haven't been big enough to live up to my opportunities thus far, I'm afraid I may disappoint you again,”” he said doubtfully. “You have disappointed me,” she ad- mitted. “That is why I am asking: I'd like to be reasonably sure your Jonathan Edwardsy notions are not going to trip us again.” “Portia, if I thought you really meant that. A consclenceless man is bad enough, God knows; but a con- scienceless woman—"' I wanted to give you a bit of Her laugh was a decorous little shriek. “David, you are not big; you are narrow, narrow, narrow! Is there then no other code of morals in the round world save that which the acci- dent of birth has interleaved with your New England Bible? What is con- science? Ig it an absolute standard of right and wrong? Or is it merely your ideal or mine, or Shaflz Ullah Khan's?"” “You may call it all the hard names you can lay tongue to,” he allowed. “I'm not getting much comfort out of it, and I rather ‘enjoy hearing it abus- ed- But you are thrusting at a shadow in the present instance. Do you know what I did this afternoon?” “How should T know?” “I don’t know why you shouldn't; you know everything that happens. But I'll tell you. I had been fighting the. thing over from start to finish and back again ever since you blessed me out a week ago last Monday, and at .the wind-up ‘this afternoon I took the papers out of the bank vault, haying it in* mind to go and give his Excellen- ¢y a bad quarter of an hour.” “But you didn’t do it?” “No; he saved me the tfouble. While I was getting ready to. and hunt came up. ‘e had it out “I'm listening,” she said; and he ‘re- hearsed the facts for her, concealing nothinz. “What a curious thing human na- ture is!” she cqmgented. when he-had.. the P. 8, M. made an end. *° better judgment “And you have no further use for me, says vou were all kiynd- of nrao‘m: loy apparently,” he compl! . “Did you for not cli .nail when you send for me so that you might abuse “ha : en home. And yet me in the secopd edition?” I can’t help admiring your exalted CALL. fanaticism. I do love consistency, and the courage of it. But tell me, if you can, how far these fair-fighting scru- ples of yours go. You have made it perfectly plain that if a thief should steal your pocketbook, you would suf- fer loss before you'd compromise with him to get it back. But suppose you should catch him at it; would you feel compelled to call a policeman—or would you—" He anticipated her. “You are doing me an injustice on the other side, now. I'll fight as furi- ously as you like. All I ask is to be given a weapon that won't bloody my hands.” “Good!” she said approvingly. “I think I have found the weapon, but it's desperate, desperate! And oh, David! you've got to have a cool head and a steady hand when you use it. If you haven’t, it will kill everybody within the swing of it—everybody but the man you are trying to reach.” “Draw it and let me feel its edge,” he said shortly. Her chair was close beside the low- swung hammock. She bent to his ear and whispered a single sentence. For a nifnute or two he sat motionless, weighing and balancing the chance of success against the swiftly multiplying difficulties and hazards. “You call it desperate,” he said at length; “if there is a ger word in the language, you ougl o find it ana: use it. The risk is that of a forlorn hope; not so much for me, perhaps, as for the innocent—or at least ignorant— accomplices I'll have to enlist.” She nodded. “That is true. But how much is your railroad worth?"” “It is bonded for fifty millions first, and twenty millicns second mortgage.” “Wall, seventy millions are Wwor.a fighting for: worth a very considerable risk, I should say.” “Yes.” And after another thought- ful interval: “How did you come to think of it? “It grew out of a bit of talk with the man who will have to put the apex on our pyramid after we have done our part.” “Will he stand by us? If he doesn't, we shall all be no better than dead men the morning after the fact.” She clasped her hands tightly over her knee, and said: 3 “That is one. of the chanées we must take, David; one of the many. But it is the last of the bridges to be crossed and ‘there are.lots of them in between. Are the details possible? That was the part 1 couldn’t go into by myself.” He took ‘other minutes for reflection. “I can't’ tell,”” he said doubtfully. “If I could only know how much time we have.” Her eyes grew luminous. . “David, what would you do without me?’ she asked. “Te-morrow night, in Stephen Hawk’s office in Gaston, you ose your railroad. MacFarlane is there, or i he isn’t, he'll be there in the morning. Bucks, Guilford and Hawk will go down from here to-mor- row evening, and the Overland people are to come up from Midland City to met them.” There was awe undisguised in the look he gave her, and it had crept into his voice when he said: “Portia, are you really a flesh-and- blood woman?" She ®miled. “Meaning that your ancestors would have burned me for a witch? Perhaps they would: I think quite llkely they burned women who made Dbetter martyrs. But I didn’t have to call in Flibbertigibbet. The programme is a carefully guarded secret, to be sure; but it is known—it had to be known— to a number of people outside of our friends the enemy. You've heard the story of the inventor and his secret, haven't you?”’ “No “Well, the man had invented some- thing and he told the sécret of it to his son. After a little the son wanted to tell it to a friend. The old man said, ‘Hold on; I know it—that's one—hold- ing up one finger—'you know it—that's eleven'—holding up &nother finger be- side the firet; '‘and now if you tell this other fello that’ll be one hundred and eleven'—holding up three fingers. That is the case with this programme. One of the one hundred and eleven— he is a person high up in the manage- ment of the Overland Short Line— dropped a few words in my hearing and I picked them up. That's all.” “It {s fearfully short—the time, I mean,” he said after another pause. ““We can't count on any help from any one in authority. Guilford's broom has swept the high salaried officlal cor- ners clean. But the wage people are mutinous and ripe for anything. I'll go and find out where we stand.” And he groped on the floor of the veranda for his hat. “No, walt a minute,” she interposed. “We are not quite ready to adjourn yet. There remains a little matter of compensation—your compensation ~— to be econsidered. You are still on the company’s payrolls?” “In a way, yes; as its legal repre- sentative on the ground.” “That won't do. If you carry this thing through successfully it must be on your own account, and not as the company's ‘paid servant. You must resign and make terms with Boston beforehand; and that,\Moo, without tell- ing Boston what you propose to do.” He haggled a little-at that. “The company is entitled to my serv- i¢es,” he asserted. “It is entitled to what it pays for— your legal services. But this is entire- iy different. You will be acting upon your own initiative, and you'll have to spend money like water at your own risk. You must be free to deal with .Boston as g noutsider.” “But I have no money to spend,” he objected. p ' “Again the brown eyes grew lumin- ous; and again She sald: “What would you do without me? Happily, my information came early engugh to enable me to get a-letter to Mr. Ormsby. He answered promptly by wire this morning. Here is his tele- gram.” 4 + She had been-winding a tightly folded slip of paper around her fingers, and she smoothed it out and gave it to-him. He helq it in a patch of the “electric light between the dancing leat shadows_and_read: “Plot No. 2 approved. Have wired one hundreg thousand to Kent's order Security Bank. Have him draw as he needs.” ‘ “So now you see,” she went on, “you -stralm was have the sinews of war. regard it as an adva your fee to the Boston f pay it bac! rotested again, rather weakly. 50 e extortion: like another and now she lost pa- atics!” she ommercial tion by which you ild save mi a round venty dollars, which would otherwise be lost vould you scruple to take a proportion- ite fee? “No; certainly not.” “Well, then: you go and tell Mr. Lor- ing to Advisory Board, and to do it to-night “But I'll have o name a figure,” sald Kent. “Of course,” she replied. Kent thought it for a long minute. Th h “I wonder if dollars, ten thousand expenses. would paralyze them Miss Van Brock's cor t was a lit- tle shriek of i “1 knew you'd make difficulties when paying t of it, and know, myself, I_wired 1. Here is what he sted a second tele- Fee should nt of bonded in stock at cure, no pay.' " d thousand v she mere- that much” " f it ly your guara good faith; it worth r t g now, and it will be ma I it goes to par, ev you are successtul in sav- ing its life So your ma ficent fee shrinks to seven hundred thousand dol- lars, less your expenses.” “But heavens ful and earth! that's aw- sald Kent Not when you consider it as a sur- 's risk. You happen to be th ne man who has the idea, and it isn't carried out, the patient is going to die to-morrow night, permanently Ycu are the specialist in this case, and specialists come high. Now you may g2 and attend to the preliminary de- it you like." found his hat and stood up, She ith him: but when he took her e made him sit down again. have at least three degrees of i imed; r is it only the three-million-five-hundred-thou- sand-dollar shock? been doing to yourseif f thing, I assure I haven't ng, very well for & few 3 that is only natural “And 1 said you must have a cool head! Will you do exactly as I tell u don’t make it too hard.” down town—don't walk you have made Mr. L g send his sage to Bostonm, straig! to Doctor Biddle. Tell him what matter with you, and that you need D the clock around “But time!™ he protested. “I shall need ev hour betweea now and to- morrow night “One clear-headed hour is worth a dozen muddled ones. ,You'do as I say “I hate drug: he sald, rising again “So do 1. but there is a time for everything under the sun. It is a ory ing necessity- that you go into this fight perfe fit and with all your wits about you. If you don’t, some- bedy—several somebodies—will land the pen r Will you mind me “Yes,” he promised; and this time he got away. CHAPTER XXVL On the High Plains. Much to Elinor’s relief, and quite as much, perhaps, to Penelope's, Mrs. Brent od tired of Breezeland Imn in less than a fortnight and began to talk of returning to the apartment-house in the capital. Pressed to give a reason for her dis- satisfaction, the younger sister might have been at a loss to account for it In words; but Elinor’s desire to cut the outing short was based upon pride and militant shame. After many trap-set- tings she had succeeded in making her mother confess that the stay at Breezeland was at Ormsby’s expens and not all of Mrs. Brentwood’s petu- lant justifyings could remove the sting of the nettle of obligation. “There is no reason in the world why you should make so rauch of it: T am your mother, and I ought to kmow,” was Mrs. Brentwood's dictum. *“You wouldn’t have any scruples if we were his guests on the Amphitrite or in his country house on Long Island.” “That would be different,” Hlinor contended. ‘“We are not his guests here; we are his pensioners.” onsense!” frowned the meother. “Isn’t it beginning to occur to you that beggars shouldn't be choosers? And, besides, so far as you are concérned, you are only anticipating a little." It was an exceedingly injudicious, not to say brutal way of putting it; and the blue-gray eyes flashed fire. “Can’t you see that you are dally making a marriage between us more and more impossible?”” was the bitter rejoinder. Elinor's metier was cool composure under fire, but she was not always able to compass it. Mrs. Brentwood fanned herself vigor- ously. She had been aching to have it out with this self-willed young woman who was playing fast and loose with attainable milllons, and the hour had struck. “What made you break it off with Brookes Ormsby?” she snapped; adad- ing: “I don’t wonder you were ashamed to tell me about it.” “I did not break it off; and I was not ashamed.” Elnor had regained her self-control, and the angry light in the far-seeing eyes was giving place to the cool gray blankness which she culti- vated. “That is what Brookes told me, but I didn’t believe him,” sald the mother. “It's all wromng, anyway, and I more than half believe David Kent is at the bottom of it.” Elinor léft her chair and went to the windew, which looked down on the sanitarium, the ornate parterre, and the crescent driveway. These family bickerings were very & to her, and the lonmng to escape was some- times strong enough to override cool reason and her innate sense of the fit- ness of thing: In her moments of deepest depression she told herseif that the prolonged struggle was making her hard and cynical; that she was growing more and more on the Grimkle side and shrinking on the Brentwood. With the unbending uprightness of the Grim- kie forebears there went a prosaic and unmalleable strain destructive altke of seatiment and the.arusuc ideais. This in her blood, and from childhoed she had fought #t, hopefully at times, and at other times, as now, despairingly. There were tears in her eyes when she turned te the window: and if they were merely tears of self- pity, they were better than nomne. Once, in the halcyon summer, David Kent had said that the most hardened erim- inal in the dock was less dangerous