Chapter 16

The culprit drew away from the touch of the hand on his knee, and there was fear, and behind the fear the courage of desperation, in his eyes when he lifted them.

"You can give me the third degree if you want to, Mr. Blount, but as long as I've got the breath to say no, I'll never tell you the next thing you're going to ask me!"

Blount sprang up and went to stand at the window. There was a street arc-lamp swinging in its high sling some distance below the window level, its scintillant spark changing weirdly to blue and green and back to blinding orange, and he stared so steadily at it that his eyes were full of tears when he turned to look down upon the waiting culprit.

"No, Collins; I'm not going to ask you the name of the other master for whom you have thrown me down," he said gravely; and then: "That's all--you may go now."

The young man got up and groped for the hat which had fallen from his hands to the floor and rolled away out of reach.

"You mean that I'm to get my time-check?" he asked.

"No," he grated--the harshness returning suddenly. "You are disloyal, and I know it; your successor would probably be the same, and I shouldn't know it."

Nerved to the strident pitch now by the new resolution, Blount hurriedly set his desk in order, slammed it shut, and followed the stenographer to the street level. In the avenue he hesitated for a moment, the thoughts shuttling swiftly. In a flash the inferences fell into place. Gantry had said that his father was responsible for the time-killing journey to Lewiston. Why had it been necessary? Was it to keep him out of Gryson's way? What did the ward-organizer have to communicate that made him so anxious to secure an interview? Was that anxiety the breach through which the wider field of corruption might be reached?

Again swift decision came to its own and Blount faced to the right, walking rapidly until he turned in at the foot of the worn double flight of stairs leading to the editorial rooms of _The Plainsman_. Blenkinsop, the editor, a lean, haggard man with a sallow face, coarse black hair worn always a little longer than the prevailing cut, and deep-set, gloomy eyes, was at his desk.

"Can you give me a few minutes of your time, Blenkinsop?" the caller asked shortly.

"I can sell 'em to you, maybe," said the editor, and the lift of the gloomy eyes merely served to turn the jest into a bit of morbid sarcasm. Then he gave the sarcasm a half-bitter twist: "You railroad gentlemen are always willing to buy what you can't reach out and take."

"I know that is what you believe," said Blount, drawing up a broken chair and planting himself carefully in it; "we are on opposite sides of the fence in this fight, if you are fighting the railroad merely because it is a railroad; otherwise, perhaps, we are not so far apart as we might be. I don't know whether or not you have listened to any of my speeches, but you've printed a good many of them."

The editor nodded. "I've read 'em, and I'm willing to be the hundredth man and say that I believe you are individually honest. I hope you're not going to ask me to go any further than that."

"I'm not; I came for quite another purpose. First, let me ask a frank question: Is _The Plainsman_ out for a square deal all around, regardless of who may be hit?"

Blenkinsop took time to consider the question and his answer, chewing thoughtfully upon his extinct cigar while he reflected.

"This is straight goods?" he asked finally. "You're not trying to pull me into an admission that can be used against us a little later on?"

"At the present moment you are talking to Evan Blount, the man, and not to the Transcontinental company's lawyer, Blenkinsop."

"All right; then I'll tell you flat that we are out for blood. We hold no brief for any living man. There are no strings tied to us, and we wear nobody's brass collar."

"Then you are fighting the machine as well as the railroad?" Blount put in quickly.

The editor sat back in his chair, and the two furrows which deepened upon either side of his hard-bitted mouth answered for a smile.

"When you find a machine that hasn't got 'T-C.R.' lettered on it somewhere, you let us know about it," was his rather cryptic reply.

"That is not the point," said Blount dryly. "Here is the question I wanted to ask: There are only five days intervening before the election. How wide a swath could you cut if the evidence of wholesale corruption could be placed in your hands within twenty-four hours?"

Again the editor took time to consider. When he spoke it was to say: "I can't quite believe that you are going to be disloyal to your salt at this late stage of the game, Blount. Do you mean that you are going to show your own company up for what it really is?"

"Never mind about that. I asked a question, and you haven't answered it."

"It was a question of time, wasn't it? There's time enough to tip the skillet over and spill all the grease into the fire, if that's what you mean; always time enough, up to the last issue before the polls open."

"And you'd do it--no matter who might happen to get in the way of the burning grease?"

"We print the news, and we try to get all the news there is. But it would have to be straight goods, Blount; no 'ifs' and 'ands' about it. I'm not saying that you couldn't produce the goods, you know. If you could break into Gantry's and Kittredge's private files, the trick would be turned. But I know well enough you're not going to do that."

Blount got up out of the broken chair and buttoned his coat.

"I needn't take any more of your time just now," he said. "I merely wanted to know how far you'd go if somebody should happen along at the last moment and give you a plain map of the road."

"We'll go as far, and drive as hard, as any newspaper this side of the Missouri River. But we've got to have the facts--don't forget that."

Blount was turning to go, but he faced around again sharply.

"Do you mean to tell me, Blenkinsop, that you don't know, as well as you know you're alive, that this campaign is honeycombed with deals and trades and dishonesty and trickery in every legislative district?" he demanded.

Again the ghastly smile which was only a deepening of the natural furrows flitted across the editor's face.

"Of course, I know it," he returned. "But you'll excuse me if I say that I scarcely expected to have the railroad company's field-manager come and tell me about it."

Blount's grim smile was a match for the editorial face-wrinkling. "You are like a good many others, Blenkinsop; you see red when you hear the noise of a railroad train. Perhaps, a little later, I may be able to persuade you to see another color--yellow, for example. Let it go at that. Good-night."

Once more in the avenue, Blount turned his steps toward the Inter-Mountain. Since the campaign was now in its final week, the clans were gathering in the capital, and the lobby of the great hotel was filled with groups of caucussing politicians. Blount was halted half a dozen times before he could make his way to the room-clerk's desk, and the pumping process to which he was subjected at each fresh stoppage would have amused him if the fiery resolution which was driving him on had not temporarily killed his sense of humor. It was evident that, in spite of all he had been saying and doing, a considerable majority of the caucussers were still regarding him as his father's lieutenant. He did not try very hard to remove the impression. It mattered little, in the present crisis, what the various party henchmen thought or believed.

It was a sharp disappointment when the room-clerk told him that his father and Mrs. Honoria and their guest had gone to the theatre. He was keyed to the fighting-pitch, and he wanted to have the deciding word spoken while his blood was up and there was still time to act. A glance at the clock showed him that he had a full half-hour to wait; and, as much to escape the buzzing lobbyists as to satisfy his hunger, he went to the _café_ and ordered a belated dinner, choosing a table from which he could look out through the open doors and command the main entrance through which the theatre-goers would return.

He was through with the dinner, and was slowly sipping his black coffee, when he saw them come in. Since it was no part of his plan to dull the edge of opportunity by holding it first upon the social grindstone, he let the party of three go on to the elevators, and a little later sent a card up-stairs asking his father to meet him in the lounge on the mezzanine floor.

Having the advantage of time, he was first at the appointed meeting-place. He had drawn a chair to the balustrade, and was glooming thoughtfully down at the lobby gathering, upon which even the lateness of the hour appeared to have no dispersing effect, when a mellow voice behind him said: "Well, son, taking a quiet little squint at the menagerie?"

Blount got up and gave the speaker his chair, dragging up another for himself. The senator sat down and stretched his great frame like a man wearied. "Ah, Lord!" he said. "The old man isn't as young as he used to be, Evan, boy. There was a time once when eleven o'clock didn't seem any later to me than it does now to you; but it's gone by, son, and I don't reckon it'll ever come back again."

Blount drew his chair nearer. "I have a hard thing to say to you to-night, dad," he began, "and you mustn't make it harder by speaking of your--of the things that get near to me. I am a man grown, and a Blount, like yourself; I want you to give me back those papers which your dynamiter or somebody else in your pay took from my office safe three nights ago."

The senator's eyes lighted with the gentle smile, and the tips of the great mustaches twitched slightly.

"So McVickar's been telling tales out of school, has he?" he inquired half-jocularly.

"I have had no communication with Mr. McVickar. It wasn't necessary, nor is it needful for us to go aside out of the straight road. I want those papers. They are mine, and they were stolen."

The elder man smiled again. "What if I should say that I haven't got 'em, son--what then?" he asked mildly.

"I don't want you to say that. I want to believe that, however bitter this fight may grow, we shall still speak the truth to each other."

There was silence for a little time, and then the father broke it to say: "Reckon I could ask you what papers you mean, without roiling the water any more than it's already been roiled, son?"

"You may ask and I'll answer, if you'll let me say that it is hardly worth while for you to spar with me to gain time. I had certain documents--letters--which would have enabled me to come through clean with my own people--with the railroad management. You knew I had them; I was imprudent enough to boast of it one evening when we were dining together in your rooms. I know what I'm talking about, dad, when I make this demand of you. One of my clerks has been tampered with. Three days ago, when I asked him to bring me the letters from the safe, he brought me, instead, a packet of blank paper which he allowed me to go and lock up in my safety-box in the Sierra National. I don't know why you had the safe blown up, unless it was to save Collins's face."

Again a silence intervened, and in the midst of it the senator sat up and began to feel half-absently in his pockets for a cigar. Blount offered his own pocket-case, following it with the tender of a lighted match. With the cigar going, the Honorable David settled back in the deep chair, chuckling thoughtfully.

"They wrote me from back yonder on the Eastern edge of things that you had the makings of a mighty fine lawyer in you, boy, and I'll be switched if I don't believe they had it about right. The way you've trailed this thing out doesn't leave the old man a hole as big as a dog-burrow to crawl out of, does it, now? Reckon you've sure-enough got to have those papers back before you can go on, do you?"

"You know I must. You know what I've been preaching and talking: I have meant every word of it in good faith, and when I began to doubt the good faith of those behind me, I was forced to cast about for a weapon. It was handed to me almost miraculously, and as long as I held it my good name before the people of the State was safe. As the matter stands now, I'm a broken man, dad. After the election I shall be billeted from one end of the State to the other as the most shameless liar that ever breathed!"

The senator was rocking his great head slowly upon the chair-pillow. "That's bad; that's mighty bad, son. I reckon we'll have to fix some way to trail you out of that bog-hole, sure enough!"

"I'm not asking for help; I'm asking for bare justice. Give me those papers and I'll fight myself clear."

"And if I say I can't give 'em to you, Evan, boy, what then?"

"Then, hard and unfilial as it may seem to you, I shall fight you and your machine to a finish. You think I can't do it? I'll show you. I've got five days, and they are all my own. This campaign has been rotten to the core from the very beginning. You have tried to keep me from finding it out, and you have partly succeeded. But I know a little, and inside of the next twenty-four hours I shall know more. That's my last word, dad, and it breaks my heart to have to say it. But, by the God who made us both, if you drive me to it, I shall stir up such a revolution in this State that the people will forget to curse me for the lies I have been allowed to tell them!"

Blount was upon his feet when he finished, and the senator was rising stiffly from the depths of the big chair.

"That's good, man-sized talk, son," he commented gently, "and I reckon I haven't a word to say against it. All I'm going to beg for is this: we're kin, boy--mighty close kin. Belt away as hard as you like in the big scrap; it does me good to see that all these little Eastern frills haven't made you any less a two-fisted, hard-hitting Blount; but don't let it make you turn your back when your old daddy comes into the room. That's all I ask. Now you'd better go to bed and sleep up some. There's another day coming, and if there isn't, none of these little things we've been haggling over is going to count for much to any of us."

Three minutes later the Honorable Senator Sage-Brush was letting himself into the sitting-room of his suite on the private dining-room floor by means of his night-key. The small person whom Gantry and a few others were still calling the court of last resort was sitting up, and the tiny embroidery-frame on the table had evidently just been laid aside.

"Well?" she said inquiringly.

The senator shook his head in patient tolerance.

"Whatever you've been doing, it's knocked the bottom clean out for the boy, Honoria. For a little spell he had me going, and I thought I'd just naturally have to turn loose and spill all the fat into the fire."

"You mustn't do that," she returned quickly. "There are five days yet, and I need at least three of them. He was very angry?"

"Fighting mad."

"Of course," said the small one thoughtfully. "But we can't allow that to get in the way of the bigger things. It won't make any family break, will it? For Patricia's sake I shall be sorry if he is desperate enough to make the quarrel a personal one."

"I did the best I could on that, little woman, and I reckon he's big enough to keep on telling us 'Howdy.' What comes next on the programme?"

"To-morrow I'm going to try to get him to take Patricia driving. Beyond that I haven't planned, and anyway it doesn't matter, now that you have Gryson out of the way." Then she offered a bit of news. "Richard Gantry telephoned me a few minutes ago. He has sent in his resignation, and is going to Peru."

The senator was opening the door to the adjoining bedroom and turning on the lights.

"Oh, no, I reckon not," he rejoined, with a mellow laugh rumbling deep in his great body. "Dick only thinks he is going to Peru. We all think such things now and then."

XXI

THE UNDER-DOG

Blount's first move on the morning following the militant interview with his father was telegraphic; he wired the campaign chairmen in the three towns remaining on his list, cancelling his speaking-engagements. Beyond that he went forth to institute a painstaking search in the purlieus of the city, a quest having for its object the unearthing of the man Thomas Gryson. More and more he was coming to believe that this man was the key to a larger situation in the field of political corruption than any which had as yet developed. Wherefore he made the search thorough.

Oddly enough, considering the man and his habits, the quest proved fruitless. Blount was too clean a man to be on familiar terms with the saloon men and dive-keepers of the capital-city underworld, or with the crooks and turnings of the underworld itself; but he found his way around easily enough in daylight, and had his labor for his pains. For when he went back to the hotel at the luncheon-hour he brought little with him save a stench in his nostrils and a slightly increased fund of mystification. Gryson had disappeared as completely as if the earth had opened and swallowed him. And Blount knew the disappearance was real, because the ward-heeler's own henchmen were searching for him.

Daunted but not beaten, Blount meant to continue the quest in the afternoon. But man proposes, and a small _dea ex machina_ may dispose. At the _café_ family luncheon, at which Blount was careful to make his appearance, not only because Patricia was there, but also for the sake of keeping the kinsman peace his father had begged for, it transpired that Patricia had been promised an auto drive to Fort Parker, the military reservation sixteen miles to the westward, and that there were difficulties. The senator's wife took his arm and explained her dilemma at the table dispersal.

"It is parade day at the Fort, you know, and Patricia has set her heart on going. I don't know how I came to be so absurdly thoughtless, but I promised her before I remembered that this is the Kismet Club election afternoon, and if I don't go, they'll make me president again in spite of everything," she said in low tones as they were leaving the _café_. "I simply _can't_ serve another year; and at the same time, I do so dislike to disappoint Patricia. She is such a dear girl!" Mrs. Honoria was strictly within the bounds of truth in claiming to have forgotten the date of the Kismet election of officers; but it was equally true that the club would re-elect her, present or absent, since she was its founder and chief patroness.

Blount saw the pointing of all this with perfect clarity, and he had no need to assure himself that it had every ear-mark of another expedient to get him out of the way. But while he was with Mrs. Honoria and listening to her persuasive little appeals it was much harder to maintain the antagonistic attitude than it was when she figured--at a distance--merely as his father's second wife and his mother's supplanter. Foolish? Oh, yes; but at times when the star of impulse is in the ascendant every man hath a fool in his sleeve.

"It _is_ too bad to disappoint her," he found himself saying, matching the little lady's low tone. "If I wasn't so terribly busy--"

"I know; and just now, with the election so near, you must be busier than ever. I suppose I shall have to explain to Patricia, and it hurts me, when she is going home so soon."

"Going home?" echoed the victim.

"Yes; in a few days now. The professor has already overstayed his leave of absence, so he says."

Blount clenched a figurative fist and shook it savagely at an unkind fate. Nevertheless, he fell.

"If you can shift your responsibility to my shoulders, Mrs. Blount--" he began, but she would not let him finish.

"Oh! that is _so_ good of you, Evan. Take the little car, and be sure to ask the garage man to put in new batteries. The magneto isn't working very well. And be here by half past one if you can. The parade is at half past two, you know."

Under other conditions the railroad company's "social secretary," as the society editors of the capital were still calling him, might have had a joyous half-holiday. The autumn afternoon was picture-fine, the little car ran well, and Patricia's mood was tempered with the gayety which strives to extract the final thrill of enjoyment out of the closing days of a delightful vacation. Blount was grateful for the light-hearted mood. He felt that it would be next to impossible to tell Patricia how wretchedly he had failed in the single-handed crusade, and, as to the desperate alternative, there could be no confidences with one whose every reference to his father was shot through with loving and loyal admiration.

At the military reservation there were fewer opportunities for the confidences, or rather fewer temptations to indulge in them. It was a gala day at the post, and there were a number of auto parties out from the city. Blount knew most of the officers and their wives, and Patricia was welcomed not less for her own sake than for the reason that she had figured in former visits as the _protégée_ of an ex-senator's wife. After the parade there was an impromptu game of baseball, with the broad verandas of the officers' quarters serving for the grandstand. Beyond the game there was tea, and the sunset gun had been fired before the young lieutenant, who had attached himself to Miss Anners at the earliest possible moment in the afternoon, reluctantly surrendered his prize and handed Patricia into the waiting runabout for the return to the capital.

"We shall be late for dinner, if we don't hurry," was the young woman's comment when Blount steered the little car clear of the post settlement and took the road well in the wake of the Weatherford touring machine. Then she added: "We mustn't be; we are dining out this evening--at the Gordons."

Blount was entirely willing to hurry. Half of one of the precious days of challenge had been wasted in the futile search for Gryson, and here was the other half worse than wasted, since the handsome young lieutenant had so brazenly monopolized Patricia.

"I'll get you home in time for dinner, never fear," he returned, but apparently the little car was no party to the promise. A short mile from the reservation the motor began to miss, and a few minutes farther along it stopped altogether. Blount got out and began to investigate. There was plenty of gasolene, but the spark appeared to be dead.

"I ought to have a leather medal!" he confided to Patricia, in great disgust. "Mrs. Blount told me that the batteries needed to be changed, and I had them changed, but neglected to have them tested. Sit still and let me spin it on the magneto a while."

She let him do it until the perspiration was standing in fine little beads on his forehead and he was hot and desperate. Then she said sweetly: "I don't believe I'd wear myself out that way, if I were you, Evan. Something happened to the magneto two or three weeks ago, and it has never been fixed."

Blount pushed his driving-cap back, mopped his face, and came around to dive once more into the wiring in the battery box. Dusk was coming on, and he had to light one of the side-lamps to serve as a lantern. By changing the wiring he was finally able to evoke a desultory response from the spark-coil, and a little later to start the motor after some limping fashion.

"Oh, my poor dinner!" said Miss Anners, who was still in the light-hearted mood; this after Blount's careful nursing had resulted in a creeping resumption of the cityward progress. And then: "I hope you didn't have any engagement for this evening?"

"I have but one ambition in life," he rejoined grimly, "and that is to get you back to the hotel in time for your engagement. Surely Mrs. Blount will wait for you."