The Valley of the Giants Part 38

"Of course I am right. I take it, therefore, that when the N.C.O.

applies for its franchise to run through Sequoia, neither you nor your city council will consider the proposition at all."

"I cannot, of course, speak for the city council--" Poundstone began, but Pennington's cold, amused smile froze further utterance.

"Be frank with me, Poundstone. I am not a child. What I would like to know is this: will you exert every effort to block that franchise in the firm conviction that by so doing you will accomplish a laudable public service?"

Poundstone squirmed. "I should not care, at this time, to go on record," he replied evasively. "When I have had time to look into the matter more thoroughly--"

"Tut-tut, my dear man! Let us not straddle the fence. Business is a game, and so is politics. Neither knows any sentiment. Suppose you should favour this N.C.O. crowd in a mistaken idea that you were doing the right thing, and that subsequently numberless fellow- citizens developed the idea that you had not done your public duty?

Would some of them not be likely to invoke a recall election and retire you and your city council--in disgrace?"

"I doubt if they could defeat me, Colonel."

"I have no such doubt," Pennington replied pointedly.

Poundstone looked up at him from under lowered lids. "Is that a threat?" he demanded tremulously.

"My dear fellow! Threaten my guest!" Pennington laughed patronizingly. "I am giving you advice, Poundstone--and rather good advice, it strikes me. However, while we're on the subject, I have no hesitancy in telling you that in the event of a disastrous decision on your part, I should not feel justified in supporting you."

He might, with equal frankness, have said: "I would smash you." To his guest his meaning was not obscure. Poundstone studied the pattern of the rug, and Pennington, watching him sharply, saw that the man was distressed. Then suddenly one of those brilliant inspirations, or flashes of rare intuition, which had helped so materially to fashion Pennington into a captain of industry, came to him. He resolved on a bold stroke.

"Let's not beat about the bush, Poundstone," he said with the air of a father patiently striving to induce his child to recant a lie, tell the truth, and save himself from the parental wrath. "You've been doing business with Ogilvy; I know it for a fact, and you might as well admit it."

Poundstone looked up, red and embarra.s.sed. "If I had known--" he began.

"Certainly, certainly! I realize you acted in perfect good faith.

You're like the majority of people in Sequoia. You're all so crazy for rail-connection with the outside world that you jump at the first plan that seems to promise you one. Now, I'm as eager as the others, but if we are going to have a railroad, I, for one, desire the right kind of railroad; and the N.C.O. isn't the right kind--that is, not for the interests I represent. Have you promised Ogilvy a franchise?"

There was no dodging that question. A denial, under the present circ.u.mstances, would be tantamount to an admission; Poundstone could not guess just how much the Colonel really knew, and it would not do to lie to him, since eventually the lie must be discovered. Caught between the horns of a dilemma, Poundstone only knew that Ogilvy could never be to him such a powerful enemy as Colonel Seth Pennington; so, after the fashion of his kind, he chose the lesser of two evils. He resolved to "come clean."

"The city council has already granted the N.C.O. a temporary franchise," he confessed.

Pennington sprang furiously to his feet. "Dammit." he snarled, "why did you do that without consulting me?"

"Didn't know you were remotely interested." Now that the ice was broken, Poundstone felt relieved and was prepared to defend his act vigorously. "And we did not commit ourselves irrevocably," he continued. "The temporary franchise will expire in twenty-eight days --and in that short time the N.C.O. cannot even get started."

"Have you any understanding as to an extension of that temporary franchise, in case the N.C.O. desires it?"

"Well, yes--not in writing, however. I gave Ogilvy to understand that if he was not ready in thirty days, an extension could readily be arranged."

"Any witnesses?"

"I am not such a fool, sir," Poundstone declared with asperity. "I had a notion--I might as well admit it--that you would have serious objection to having your tracks cut by a jump-crossing at B and Water streets." And for no reason in life except to justify himself and inculcate in Pennington an impression that the latter was dealing with a crafty and far-seeing mayor, Poundstone smiled boldly and knowingly. "I repeat," he said, "that I did not put it in writing."

He leaned back nonchalantly and blew smoke at the ceiling.

"You oily rascal!" Pennington soliloquized. "You're a smarter man than I thought. You're trying to play both ends against the middle."

He recalled the report of his private detective and the incident of Ogilvy's visit to young Henry Poundstone's office with a small leather bag; he was more than ever convinced that this bag had contained the bribe, in gold coin, which had been productive of that temporary franchise and the verbal understanding for its possible extension.

"Ogilvy did business with you through your son Henry," he challenged.

Poundstone started violently. "How much did Henry get out of it?"

Pennington continued brutally.

"Two hundred and fifty dollars retainer, and not a cent more,"

Poundstone protested virtuously--and truthfully.

"You're not so good a business man as I gave you credit for being,"

the Colonel retorted mirthfully "Two hundred and fifty dollars! Oh, Lord! Poundstone, you're funny. Upon my word, you're a scream." And the Colonel gave himself up to a sincerely hearty laugh. "You call it a retainer," he continued presently, "but a grand jury might call it something else. However," he went on after a slight pause, "you're not in politics for your health; so let's get down to bra.s.s tacks.

How much do you want to deny the N.C.O. not only an extension of that temporary franchise but also a permanent franchise when they apply for it?"

Poundstone rose with great dignity. "Colonel Pennington, sir," he said, "you insult me."

"Sit down. You've been insulted that way before now. Shall we say one thousand dollars per each for your three good councilmen and true, and for yourself that sedan of my niece's? It's a good car. Last year's model, but only run about four thousand miles and in tiptop condition. It's always had the best of care, and I imagine it will please Mrs. P. immensely and grant you surcease from sorrow. Of course, I will not give it to you. I'll sell it to you--five hundred down upon the signing of the agreement, and in lieu of the cash, I will take over that jitney Mrs. Poundstone finds so distasteful. Then I will employ your son Henry as the attorney for the Laguna Grande Lumber Company and give him a retainer of twenty-five hundred dollars for one year. I will leave it to you to get this twenty-five hundred dollars from Henry and pay my niece cash for the car. Doesn't that strike you as a perfectly safe and sane proposition?"

Had a vista of paradise opened up before Mr. Poundstone, he could not have been more thrilled. He had been absolutely honest in his plea to Mrs. Poundstone that he could not afford a thirty-two-hundred-and- fifty-dollar sedan, much as he longed to oblige her and gain a greatly to be desired peace. And now the price was dangling before his eyes, so to speak. At any rate it was parked in the porte-cochere not fifty feet distant!

For the s.p.a.ce of a minute the Mayor weighed his son's future as a corporation attorney against his own future as mayor of Sequoia--and Henry lost.

"It might be arranged, Colonel," he murmured in a low voice--the voice of shame.

"It is already arranged," the Colonel replied cheerfully. "Leave your jit at the front gate and drive home in Shirley's car. I'll arrange matters with her." He laughed shortly. "It means, of course, that I'll have to telegraph to San Francisco to-morrow and buy her a later model. Thank goodness, she has a birthday to-morrow! Have a fresh cigar, Mayor."

Riding home that night in Shirley Sumner's car Mrs. Poundstone leaned suddenly toward her husband, threw a fat arm around his neck and kissed him. "Oh, Henry, you darling!" she purred. "What did I tell you? If a person only wishes hard enough--"

"Oh, go to the devil!" he roared angrily. "You've nagged me into it.

Shut up and take your arm away. Do you want me to wreck the car before we've had it an hour?"

As for Colonel Pennington, he had little difficulty in explaining the deal to Shirley, who was sleepy and not at all interested. The Poundstones had bored her to extinction, and upon her uncle's a.s.surance that she would have a new car within a week, she thanked him and for the first time retired without offering her cheek for his good-night kiss. Shortly thereafter the Colonel sought his own virtuous couch and prepared to surrender himself to the first good sleep in three weeks. He laid the flattering unction to his soul that Bryce Cardigan had dealt him a poor hand from a marked deck and he had played it exceedingly well. "Lucky I blocked the young beggar from getting those rails out of the Laurel Creek spur," he mused, "or he'd have had his jump-crossing in overnight--and then where the devil would I have been? Up Salt Creek without a paddle--and all the courts in Christendom would avail me nothing."

He was dozing off, when a sound smote upon his ears. Instantly he was wide awake, listening intently, his head c.o.c.ked on one side. The sound grew louder; evidently it was approaching Sequoia--and with a bound the Colonel sat up in bed, trembling in every limb.

Suddenly, out of the deep, rumbling diapason he heard a sharp click-- then another and another. He counted them--six in all.

"A locomotive and two flat-cars!" he murmured. "And they just pa.s.sed over the switch leading from the main-line tracks out to my log-dump.

That means the train is going down Water Street to the switch into Cardigan's yard. By George, they've outwitted me!"

With the agility of a boy he sprang into his clothes, raced downstairs, and leaped into Mayor Poundstone's jitney, standing in the darkness at the front gate.

CHAPTER x.x.x

The success of Bryce Cardigan's plan for getting Ms rails down from Laurel Creek depended entirely upon the whimsy which might seize the crew of the big mogul that hauled the last load of logs out of Cardigan's redwoods on Thursday afternoon. Should the engineer and fireman decide to leave the locomotive at the logging-camp for the night, Bryce's task would be as simple as turning a hose down a squirrel-hole. On the other hand, should they run back to Sequoia with the engine, he and Ogilvy faced the alternative of "borrowing"

it from the Laguna Grande Lumber Company's roundhouse; and that operation, in view of the fact that Pennington's night watchman would be certain to hear the engine leaving, offered difficulties.

Throughout the afternoon, after having sent his orders in writing to the woods-boss, via George Sea Otter (for he dared not trust to the telephone), be waited in his office for a telephone-call from the logging-camp as to what action the engine-crew had taken. He could not work; he could not think. He only knew that all depended upon the success of his coup to-night. Finally, at a quarter of six, Curtis, his woods-boss rang in.

"They're staying here all night, sir," he reported.