"Perfectly."

"Well, suppose I should tell you that I know now--what I didn't know certainly then--that when you hit out at us you hit him?"

"You mean that he is with you in this scheme to hoodwink the people?"

"Ask yourself," was the low-toned reply.

"I have asked myself a hundred times, d.i.c.k; I've been hoping against hope. I'll be utterly frank with you, as man to man. We've kept pretty obstinately out of the political field, both of us, father and I, since the first day when I told him my views on machine-made government. But from a few little things he has said, I've gathered that he isn't with you; that there has been a quarrel of some kind between him and Mr.

McVickar--"

"There was a set-to--a battle royal," Gantry put in. "The last act of it was played to a finish that evening when Mr. McVickar took you down to his car and hired you. But there has been a meeting since. Ask yourself again, Evan. Haven't you had good and sufficient reasons for believing that you are bucking, not only the railroad company, but your own flesh and blood?"

This time it was Blount who took time for reflection. The shot had gone home. He told himself that there were only too many reasons for believing that Gantry was stating the simple fact. None the less, he made a final effort to break down the conclusion that Gantry was relentlessly thrusting upon him.

"In all our talks, d.i.c.k--there haven't been very many of them--my father has taken, or seemed to take, a different line. I don't recall anything specific just now, but he has given me the impression that he hasn't much in common with Mr. McVickar and his methods. To hear him talk--"

Gantry smiled. "You know your father very superficially, Evan, if you'll permit me to say so. What the Honorable David Blount says in talk with you or me or anybody outside of the inner circle is a mighty poor foundation upon which to build any idea of what's going on in the back of his head. No--hold on; don't get mad. What I'm trying to tell you is what everybody in the sage-brush hills--save and excepting yourself--knows like a book, and that is that the big boss's moves are all made strictly in the dark. He doesn't let his own right hand know what the left is doing. That's the secret of his absolutely Czarish power, I think."

The shriek of a distant locomotive whistle floated in through the open window at Blount's back and he got up stiffly.

"That's my train coming," he said. And then: "Tell me plainly, d.i.c.k: you brought me up here to throw a final brick--a bigger one than you have yet thrown--and I know it. What did Mr. McVickar tell you to-day that will make my job harder than I am already finding it?"

Gantry turned his head, refusing to meet the straightforward gaze of the questioner.

"You intimated this morning that you would go at it lawyer-fashion, Evan," he said; "which means, I suppose, that you would get the evidence on us. You can do it; the Lord knows, there's plenty of it to be had.

But when you pull out one set of props the whole thing will come down.

We haven't any of us been careful enough about what we put in writing--_not even your father_."

Blount staggered as if the words had been a blow.

"You're trying to tell me that my father would be involved in the disclosures you fellows might drive me to make?" he demanded, and his voice was husky.

Gantry was still looking away. "There always has to be an intermediary--you know that. We can't do business direct with these--with the people who have something to sell. You can draw your own inferences, Evan. I didn't send Hathaway to you; I sent him to your father."

The train was thundering into the station and Blount picked up his hand-bag and went out, stumbling blindly in the unlighted pa.s.sage at the stair-head. And in the private office behind him the traffic manager was crushing his dead cigar in his clenched hand and staring fixedly at the square of darkness framed by the open window.

XIV

BARRIERS INVISIBLE

During the three weeks following the night journey to Angora, a journey on which he once more fought the hard battle to a still sharper conclusion, Evan Blount scarcely saw his office in Temple Court for more than a brief hour or two at a time. One speaking appointment followed another in such rapid succession that he was constantly going or returning; and since there was everywhere a repet.i.tion of the welcome accorded him by the miners of the Carnadine district, there was no reason save physical weariness to make him wish to limit his opportunity.

It was not until he was deep into the fourth week of the hurryings to and fro that he began to admit a suspicion which grew like a juggler's rose once he had given it place. Could it be possible that these numerous invitations, coming now from all parts of the State, were purely spontaneous? If not, if they were so many subtle moves in the great game, he could see no possible end to be subserved by them save one: they were effectually keeping him away from the capital, which was naturally the nucleus and centre of the campaign activities. Was there something going on at headquarters that "the powers" did not wish him to find out? Of one thing he was well a.s.sured. Gantry was dodging him, was apparently keeping an accurate record of his movements; for whenever the hurryings permitted a flying return to the capital the traffic manager was always out of town.

These were small matters, but vital in their way. Failing to keep in touch with Gantry, Blount could never be sure that the policy of the railroad company had been reformed or changed in any respect. Moreover, his journeyings, which brought him in direct contact with the voters themselves, seemed to have the effect of isolating him curiously in the actual battle-field. That a hot political campaign was raging throughout the length and breadth of the State was not to be doubted; the newspapers were full of it, and in many districts the fight had become acrimonious and bitter. But although he was supposed to be in the thick of the fight, he knew that he was not; that some mysterious influence was shutting him out and holding him at arm's length.

Everywhere he went the cordial reception, the attentive and hospitable committeemen, the packed house, and the generous applause were always awaiting him. It was as if his progress had been carefully prearranged, like a sort of triumphal procession. None the less, the invisible barrier--the barrier which was excluding him from a hand-to-hand grapple with the inner workings of the campaign--was always there, and he could neither surmount it nor push it aside.

Notwithstanding the hard work and hard travelling, he did not allow the missionary effort and its curious isolation to obscure in any sense the st.u.r.dier purpose. By every means he could devise he was holding his princ.i.p.als up to the mirror of a vigilant watchfulness. Arguing that the opposition newspapers would be quick to seize upon any charge of corruption involving the railroad company, he read them faithfully. As yet there had been only innuendoes and a raking over of past misdeeds, though by this time many of the editors were openly claiming that the old alliance between the railroad and the machine had never been broken, and warning their readers accordingly.

Blount winced when he read such editorials as these. Though he was going about, striving to do his part manfully, and even with enthusiasm, the burden of the cruel responsibility he had voluntarily shouldered was never less than crushing. His only hope lay in success. If he could make Gantry and his superiors come clean-handed to the election, there need be no exposure, no cataclysm involving both the railroad officials and his father.

So ran the saving hope; and not content with mere watchfulness, Blount tried to get his finger upon the pulse of occasions whenever he could.

On his brief stop-overs in the capital he kept his eyes and ears open for the earliest hint of any charge of chicanery, and though he was unable to get hold of Gantry personally, he kept up a steady fire of letters and telegrams, all pointing to the same end--absolute and utter good faith, and the upholding of his hands in the public plea for a square deal. To these the traffic manager always replied guardedly and optimistically. Everybody was delighted with the good work done, and doing, by the railroad company's field manager; public opinion was slowly but surely changing; let the good work go on--and much more to the same effect.

Blount did let the good work go on; but as the critical pre-election weeks approached, he began to arm himself, reluctantly but resolutely. A little quiet investigation, which was made to dovetail cleverly with his speech-making journeys, revealed--as Gantry had confessed it would--convincing evidence of past corruption and present law-breaking.

Hathaway had told the truth when he had a.s.serted that his own involvement was only one of many similar bargains. Blount called upon the president of the Irrigation Alliance at Romero, in the heart of the agricultural district, upon the managers of several of the electric-power companies, and upon a number of influential mining men--all shippers, and all large employers of labor. It was the same story everywhere. Preferential freight rates had been given in return for votes controlled, and the rates were still in effect.

The investigator turned sick at heart when these men talked quite freely to him, thus showing conclusively that they were cynically discounting his public utterances. McDarragh, owner and manager of the "Wire-Gold"

properties in the Moscow district, winked slyly when Blount cautiously inserted the probe.

"You're on, Mr. Blount. I sat up there in the Op'ry-house last night listening to your game, and says I to myself, 'Thim railroad shift-bosses know their trade.' 'Twas a gr-reat talk you gave us, and it'll make the swinging of the har-rd-rock vote as easy as twice two. Of course, we have a thin paring on the ore rate; you'll be knowing that as well as annybody in the game, I'm thinking. 'Tis well that we fellows at the top know how to make one hand wash the other. Come again, Mr.

Blount, and give my regards to the sinator when ye see him. And ye might whisper in his ear that it's a waste of good wor-rk for him to be sinding his gum-shoe wire-pullers to be laboring with our min. We're safe as the clock up here in the Moscow."

This was not the first hint that Blount had been given pointing to the underground work of the machine. That this work was being directed toward the subversion of the popular will, he made no doubt; and there were times when he was strongly tempted to carry the war boldly into the wider field of graft and bossism. That he postponed the bigger battle was due quite as much to the singleness of purpose which was his best gift as to the desire to spare his father. Telling himself resolutely that the reformation of the railroad company's political methods was his chief object, and the only one which warranted him in retaining his place on the Company's payrolls, he held aloof when his father's name was mentioned and bent himself to the task of providing the means for the subjugation of Gantry--and of Gantry's and his own superiors, if need be.

The securing of evidence of the kind which would really give him the whip-hand promised to be a delicate undertaking. Men like McDarragh talked openly enough about the illegal special freight rates, but talk was not evidence. Curiously enough, while he was trying to devise some way of obtaining the tangible proof without using his semiofficial position in the company's service as a lever, the thing itself was thrown at him. From some mysterious source a rumor went out that the special rates were in jeopardy; and the very men with whom he had talked began to write him importunate letters begging him to deny the rumor.

With a sheaf of these letters in his pocket, each one inculpating both parties to the illegal "deals," Blount grew gayly exultant. The natural inference was that Gantry and "the powers" had been finally forced to yield--that he had won his victory. But if he had not yet won it, chance, or something better, had placed in his hands the weapon with which he could compel a return to fair dealing and honesty.

It was on a second speech-making visit to Ophir that Blount had his first face-to-face chance at Gantry. A meeting of the Mine-Owners'

a.s.sociation, moving for a readjustment of the cla.s.sification on copper matte and bullion at a time when the railroad company might be supposed to be on the giving hand, brought Gantry to the gold camp in the Carnadine Hills, and the first man he met at the hotel was the stubborn dictator of new policies for the Transcontinental Company.

"h.e.l.lo, d.i.c.k! made a mistake, didn't you--coming while I was here?" said the reformer, with a very lifelike replica of his father's grim smile.

"I suppose you have an immediate engagement to go somewhere else, or to do something that will give you a chance to dodge?"

"No; I wish to the Lord I had!" was the hearty admission. "You're a fright, Evan; you are getting to be a perfect nightmare, with your letters and telegrams. You've got me so I'm afraid to open my desk."

Blount nodded gravely. "I'm glad the letters and telegrams have had their effect at last," he rejoined.

"Had their effect? Yes, they've had the effect of turning my hair gray, if that's what you mean."

"I think you know what I mean, d.i.c.k."

"I'll be hanged if I do. What are you driving at?"

"At the fact that you have finally concluded to cancel the crooked deals with--wait, and I'll give you the names of the co-respondents"--and he drew a packet of neatly docketed letters from his pocket.

"Hold on a minute," protested the traffic manager; "you're getting in rather too deep for me. Will you let me see those letters?"

Blount put the letters back into his pocket and mechanically b.u.t.toned his light top-coat over them for additional safety.

"Do you mean to say that you haven't pa.s.sed the word to Hathaway and McDarragh and a dozen others I could name?" he asked.

"Of course I haven't. You call yourself a lawyer, and yet you ask us to set aside promises that are, or ought to be, as binding as so many written contracts with penalties attached. You're crazy, Evan; it can't be done, and that's all there is to it."