Chapter 8

"I don't mind telling you that it is a part of the new policy," returned the social splasher, still smiling. "We are out to make friends this time; good, solid, open-eyed friends who will know just what we are doing and why we are doing it."

"H'm," mused the senator, "so publicity's the new word, is it?"

"Yes; publicity is the word. The Gordon people say they are going to show us up; there won't be anything to show up when the time comes. We are going to beat them to the billboards."

The grizzled veteran of a goodly number of political battles put down his coffee-cup; he was still old-fashioned enough to drink his coffee in generous measure with the meat courses.

"You can't do the circus act--ride two horses at once and do the same stunt on both, son," he remarked gravely. "If you're really going to put the saddle and bridle on the publicity nag, you've got to turn the other one out of the corral and let it go back to the short-grass."

"It is already turned out," asserted the young man, not affecting to misunderstand. "We neither buy votes nor spend illegitimate money in this campaign."

The stout assertion was good as far as it went; the new division counsel made it and believed it. But on his way to the governor's mansion, a little later, he could not help wondering if he had been altogether candid in making it. The offices in the up-town sky-scraper were not exclusively a railroad social centre where the disinterested voter could come and have the facts ladled out to him without fear or favor on the part of the ladler. They had come to be also a rallying-point for a heterogeneous crowd of ward-workers, wire-pullers, and small politicians, most of whom were anxious to be employed or retained as henchmen. Some of these "stretcher men," as Blount contemptuously called them, had been employed in past campaigns; others were still the beneficiaries of the railroad, holding pay-roll places which Blount acutely suspected were chiefly sinecures.

Latterly, this contingent of strikers and heelers had been greatly augmented, and it was beginning to make its demands more emphatic. A dozen times a day Blount had the worn phrase, "nothing for nothing," dinned into his ears, and he was beginning to harbor a suspicion that his office had been made a dumping-ground for all the other departments.

Seeing Gantry at madam the governor's lady's reception, Blount took an early opportunity of cornering the traffic manager in one of the otherwise deserted smoking-dens, and when he had made sure there were no eavesdroppers plunged at once into the middle of things.

"See here, Dick," he began, "you fellows downtown are making my office a cesspool, and I won't stand for it. Garrigan, that saloon-keeper in the second ward, came up to-day to ask for a free ticket to Worthington and return; and when I pinned him down he admitted that you'd sent him to me."

"I did," said Gantry, grinning. "Why otherwise have we got a post-graduate, double-certificated political manager, I'd like to know?"

Blount dropped into a chair and felt in his pockets for his cigar-case.

"I guess we may as well fight this thing to a finish right here and now, Dick," he said coolly. "I'm not chief vote buyer for the Transcontinental Company--I'm not any kind of a vote buyer."

"Who said you were?" retorted the traffic manager.

"It says itself, if I am supposed to cut the pie and hand out pieces of it to these grub-stakers that you and Carson and Bentley and Kittredge are continually sending to me."

This time Gantry's grin was playful, but behind it there was a shrewd flash of the Irish-blue eyes that Blount did not see.

"I guess the company would be plenty willing to furnish a few small pies for really hungry people, if you think you need them to go along with your Temple Court office fittings," he returned.

"Ah?" said Blount calmly, giving the exclamation the true Boston inflection. "You are either too shrewd or not quite shrewd enough, Dick. You covered that up with a laugh, so that I might take it as a joke if I happened to be too thin-skinned to take it in disreputable earnest. Let us understand each other; we are fighting squarely in the open in this campaign; publicity is the word--I have Mr. McVickar for my authority. Anybody who wants to know anything about the railroad company's business in this State can learn it for the asking, and at first-hand. Secrecy and all the various brands of political claptrap that have been admitted in the past are to be shown the door. This is the intimation that was made to me: wasn't it made to you?"

Gantry did not reply directly to the direct demand. On the other hand, he very carefully refrained from answering it in any degree whatsoever.

"You have your job to hold down and I have mine," he rejoined. "What you say goes as it lies, of course; but just the same, I shouldn't be too righteously hard on the little brothers, if I were you."

"If by the 'little brothers' you mean the pie-eaters, I'm going to fire them out, neck and crop, Richard. They make me excessively weary."

Gantry's playful mood fell away from him like a cast-off garment.

"I don't quite believe I'd do that, if I were you, Evan. There are pie-eaters on both sides in every political contest, and while they can't do any cause any great amount of good, they can often do a good bit of harm. I wouldn't be too hard on them, if I were you."

"What would you do?--or, rather, what did you do when you were managing the State campaign two years ago?" inquired Blount pointedly.

"I cut the pie," said the traffic manager simply.

"In other words, you let this riffraff blackmail you and, incidentally, put a big black mark against the company's good name."

"Oh, no; I wouldn't put it quite that strong. Not many of these little fellows ask for money, or expect it. A free ride now and then in the varnished cars is about all they look for."

"But you can't give them passes under the interstate law," protested the purist.

"Not outside of the State, of course. But inside of the State boundaries it's our own business."

"You mean it _was_ our own business, previous to the passage of the State rate law two years ago," corrected Blount.

"It is our own business to this good day--in effect. That part of the law has been a complete dead-letter from the day the governor signed it. Why, bless your innocent heart, Evan, the very men who argued the loudest and voted the most spitefully for it came to me for their return tickets home at the end of the session. Of course, we kept the letter of the law. It says that no 'free passes' shall be given. We didn't issue passes; we merely gave them tickets out of the case and charged them up to 'expense.'"

"Faugh!" said Blount, "you make me sick! Gantry, it's that same childish whipping of the devil around the stump by the corporations--an expedient that wouldn't deceive the most ignorant voter that ever cast a ballot--it's that very thing that has stirred the whole nation up to this unreasonable fight against corporate capital. Don't you see it?"

Gantry shrugged his shoulders.

"I guess I take the line of the least resistance--like the majority of them," was the colorless reply. "When it comes down to practical politics--"

"Don't say 'practical politics' to me, Dick!" rasped the reformer. "We've got the strongest argument in the world in the fact that the present law is an unfair one, needing modification or repeal. We mustn't spoil that argument by becoming law-breakers ourselves and descending to the methods of the grafters and the machine politicians the country over. If you have been sending these pie-eaters to me, stop it--don't do it any more. I have no earthly use for them; and they won't have any use for me after I open up on them and tell them a few things they don't seem to know, or to care to know."

"I don't believe I'd do anything brash," Gantry suggested mildly, and he was still saying the same thing in diversified forms when Blount led the way back to the crowded drawing-rooms.

Dating from this little heart-to-heart talk with the traffic manager, Blount began to carry out the new policy--the starvation policy, as it soon came to be known among the would-be henchmen. The result was not altogether reassuring. The first few rebuffs he administered left him with the feeling that he was winning Pyrrhic victories; it was as if he were trying to handle a complicated mechanism with the working details of which he was only theoretically familiar. There were wheels within wheels, and the application of the brakes to the smallest of them led to discordant janglings throughout the whole.

Many of the small grafters were on the pay-rolls of the railroad company, and Blount was soon definitely assured of what he had before only suspected--that they were merely nominal employees given a pay-roll standing so that there might be an excuse for giving them free transportation, and a retainer in the form of wages, if needful.

In many cases the ramifications of the petty graft were exasperatingly intricate. For example: one Thomas Gryson, who was on the pay-rolls as a machinist's helper in the repair shops, demanded free transportation across the State for eight members of his "family." Questioned closely, he admitted that the "family" was his only by a figure of speech; that the relationship was entirely political. Blount promptly refused to recommend the issuing of employees' passes for the eight, and the result was an immediate call from Bentley, the division master mechanic.

"About that fellow Gryson," Bentley began; "can't you manage some way to get him transportation for his Jonesboro crowd? He is going to make trouble for us if you don't."

Blount was justly indignant. "Gryson is on your pay-roll," he retorted. "Why don't you recommend the passes yourself, on account of the motive-power department, if he is entitled to them?"

"I can't," admitted the master mechanic. "I am held down to the issuing of passes to employees travelling on company business only. We can stretch it a little sometimes, of course, but we can't make it cover the whole earth."

"Neither can I!" Blount exploded. "Let it be understood, once for all, Mr. Bentley, that I am not the scape-goat for all the other departments! I have cut it off short; I am not recommending passes for anybody."

"But, suffering Scott, Mr. Blount, we've simply _got_ to take care of Tom Gryson! He's the boss of his ward, and he has influence enough to turn even our own employees against us!"

"Influence?" scoffed the young man from the East. "How does he acquire his influence? It is merely another illustration of the vicious circle; you put into his hands the club with which he proceeds to knock you down. Let me tell you what I'm telling everybody; if we want a square deal, we've got to set the example by being square. And, by Heavens, Mr. Bentley, we're going to set the example!"

The master mechanic went away silenced, but by no means convinced; and a week later Gryson, who in appearance was a typical tough, and who in reality was a post-graduate of the hard school of violence and ruffianage obtaining in the lawless mining-camps of the Carnadine Hills, sauntered into Blount's office with his cigar at the belligerent angle and an insolent taunt in his mouth.

"Well, pardner, we got them dickie-birds o' mine over to Jonesboro, after so long a time, and no thanks to you, neither. I just blew in to tell you that I'm goin' to hit you ag'in about day after to-morrow, and if you don't come across there's goin' to be somethin' doin'; see?"

Blount sprang from his chair and forgot to be politic.

"You needn't come to me the day after to-morrow, or any other time," he raged. "I'm through with you and your tribe. Get out!"

After Gryson, muttering threats, had gone, the young campaign manager had an attack of moral nausea. It seemed such a prodigious waste of time and energy to traffic and chaffer with these petty scoundrels. Thus far, every phase of the actual political problem seemed to be meanly degrading, and he was beginning to long keenly for an opportunity to do some really worthy thing.

Notwithstanding, his ideals were still unshaken. He still clung to the belief that the corporation, which was created by the law and could exist only under the protection of the law, must, of necessity, be a law-abiding entity. It was manifestly unfair to hold it responsible for the disreputable political methods of those whom it could never completely control--methods, too, which had been forced upon it by the necessity, or the fancied necessity, of meeting conditions as they were found.

As if in answer to the wish that he might find the worthier task, it was on this day of Gryson's visit that Blount was given his first opportunity of entering the wider field. A letter from a local party chairman in a distant mining town brought an invitation of the kind for which he had been waiting and hoping. He was asked to participate in a joint debate at the campaign opening in the town in question, and he was so glad of the chance that he instantly wired his acceptance.

That evening, at the Inter-Mountain _café_ dinner hour, he found his father dining alone and joined him. In a burst of confidence he told of the invitation.

"That's good; that's the real thing this time, isn't it?" was the senator's even-toned comment. "Gives you a right nice little chance to shine the way you can shine best." Then: "That was one of the things McVickar wanted you for, wasn't it?--speech-making and the like?"

"Why, yes; he intimated that there might be some public speaking," admitted the younger man.

"Well, what-all are you going to tell these Ophir fellows when you get over there, son?" asked the veteran quizzically. "Going to offer 'em all free passes anywhere they want to go if they'll promise to vote for the railroad candidates?"

"Not this year," was the laughing reply. "As I told you a while back, we've stopped all that."

"You have, eh? I reckon that will be mighty sorry news for a good many people in the old Sage-brush State--mighty sorry news. You really reckon you _have_ stopped it, do you, son?"

"I not only believe it; I am in a position to assert it definitely."

"McVickar has told you it was stopped?"

The newly fledged political manager tried to be strictly truthful.

"I have had but the one interview with Mr. McVickar, but in that talk he gave me to understand that my recommendations would be given due consideration. And I have said my say pretty emphatically."

The senator's smile was not derisive; it was merely lenient.

"Sat on 'em good and hard, did you? That's right, son; don't you ever be afraid to say what you mean, and to say it straight from the shoulder. That's the Blount way, and I reckon we've got to keep the family ball rolling--you and I. Don't forget that, when you're making your appeal to those horny-handed sons of toil over yonder at Ophir. Give 'em straight facts, and back up the facts with figures--if you happen to have the figures. When do you pull out for the mining-camp?"

"To-night, at nine-thirty. I can't get there in time if I wait for the morning train." Then, dismissing the political topic abruptly: "What do you hear from Professor Anners?"

"Oh, he's having the time of his life. I got him a State permit, and scraped him up a bunch of pick-and-shovel men, and he is digging out those fossil skeletons by the wagon-load."

"And Miss Anners?" pursued Patricia's lover.

"I shouldn't wonder if she was having the time of her life, too. I've given her the little four-seated car to call her own while she is out here, and she and Honoria go careering around the country--breaking the speed limit every minute in the day, I reckon."

"I'm glad you are giving her a good time," said Evan, and he looked glad. Then he added regretfully: "I wish I could get a chance to chase around a little with them. I have seen almost nothing of them since they came West. I should think Mrs. Blount might bring Patricia down to the city once in a while."

"Well, now! perhaps the young woman doesn't want to come," laughed the senator. "You told me you hadn't got her tag, son, and I'm beginning to believe it's the sure-enough truth. What has she got against you, anyway?"

"Nothing; nothing in the wide world, save that I don't fit into her scheme for her life-work."

The senator was eating calmly through his dessert. "If you hadn't made up your mind so pointedly to dislike Honoria, you might be getting a few tips on that 'career' business along about now, son," he remarked, and Evan was silent--had to be silent. For, you see, he had been charging Patricia's continued absence from the capital to nothing less than spiteful design on the part of his father's wife.

It was at the cigar smoking in the lobby, after the young man had made his preparations for the journey and was waiting for the train-caller's announcement, that the senator said quite casually: "It's too bad you're going out of town to-night, son. Honoria 'phoned me a little spell ago that she and Patricia would be driving down after their dinner to take in the Weatherford reception. You'll have to miss 'em, won't you?"

The announcer was chanting the call for the night train west, and the joint-debater got up and thrust his hand-bag savagely into the hand of the nearest porter.

"Isn't that just my infernal luck!" he lamented. Then: "Give them my love, and tell them I hope they will stay until I get back."

The senator rose and shook hands with the departing debater. "Shall I say that to both of 'em?" he asked, with the quizzical smile which Evan was learning to expect.

"Yes; to both of them, if you like--only I suppose Mrs. Blount will hold it against me. Good-night and good-by. I'll be back day after to-morrow, if the Ophir miners don't mob me."

It was only a few minutes after Evan Blount's train had steamed Ophir-ward out of the Sierra Avenue station that a dust-covered touring-car drew up at the curb in front of the Inter-Mountain, and the same porter who had put Blount's hand-bag into the taxicab opened the tonneau door for two ladies in muffling motor-coats and heavy veils.

The senator met the two late travellers in the vestibule, and while the three were waiting for an elevator a rapid fire of low-toned question and answer passed between husband and wife.

"You got Evan out of the way?" whispered the wife.

The husband nodded. "That was easy. I passed the word to Steuchfield, and he helped out on that--invited Evan to come to Ophir to speak in a joint debate. He left on the night train."

"And Hathaway? Will he be here?"

"He is here. Gantry has turned him down, according to instructions, and he is clawing about in the air, trying to get a fresh hold. I bluffed him; told him he'd have to make his peace with you for something, I didn't know what, before I could talk to him."

Miss Anners was watching the elevator signal glow as the car descended, and the wife's voice sank to a still lower whisper.

"He will be at the Weatherfords'?" she inquired eagerly.

"He is right sure to be; I told him you would be there."

The small plotter nodded approval.

"Give us half an hour to dress, and have the car ready," she directed; and then the senator put the two into the elevator and turned away to finish his cigar.

X

IN THE HERBARIUM

The Weatherfords, multimillionaire mine-people, and so newly rich that the crisp bank-notes fairly crackled when Mrs. Weatherford spent them, kept their lackeyed and liveried state in a castle-like mansion in Mesa Circle, the most expensive, if not the most aristocratic, no-thoroughfare of the capital city. Weatherford, the father, egged on by Mrs. Weatherford, had political aspirations pointing toward a United States senatorship, the election to which would fall within the province of the next legislature. The mine-owner himself, a pudgy little man with a bald spot on top of his head and a corner-grocery point of view carefully tucked away inside of it--an outlook upon life which was a survival from his hard-working past--would willingly have dodged, but Mrs. Weatherford was inexorable. There were two grown daughters and a growing son, and it was for these that she was socially ambitious.

The reception for which the senator's wife and her guest had driven thirty miles through the dust of the sage-brush hills was one of the many moves in Mrs. Weatherford's private campaign. For the opening-gun occasion the great house in Mesa Circle was lighted from basement to turret--to all of the numerous turrets; an awning fringed with electric bulbs sheltered the carpeted walk from the street to the grand entrance, an army of lackeys paraded in the vestibule, and the wives and daughters of the bravest and best in the capital city's political contingent stood with Mrs. Weatherford in the long receiving-line.

From room to room in the vast house a curiously assorted throng of the bidden ones worked its way as the jam and crush permitted. A firm believer in the maxim that in numbers there is strength, the hostess had made her invitation-list long and catholic. For the gossips there were the crowded drawing-rooms, for the hungry there were Lucullian tables, and for the sentimentalists there was the conservatory.

It was a mark of the unashamed newness of the Weatherford riches that the conservatory, a glass-and-iron greenhouse, built out as an extension of one of the drawing-rooms, was called "the herbarium." It was a reproduction, on a generous scale, of a tropical garden. Half-grown palms and banana-trees made a well-ordered jungle of the softly lighted interior; and if, in the gathering of her floral treasures, Mrs. Weatherford had omitted any precious bit of greenery whose cost would have shed additional lustre upon the Weatherford resources, it was because no one had remembered to mention the name of it to her.

Ex-Senator Blount's party of three was fashionably late at the function in Mesa Circle, but in the crush filling the spacious drawing-rooms the hostess and her long line of receiving assistants were still on duty. Having successfully passed the line with her husband and Patricia, little Mrs. Blount looked about her, saw Mr. Richard Gantry, signalled to him with her eyes, and, with the traffic manager for her centre-rush to wedge a way through the crowded rooms, was presently lost to sight--at least from Miss Anners's point of view.

Whether she knew it or not, from the moment of her appearance at the hostess's end of the long receiving-line, the senator's wife had been marked and followed in her slow progress through the rooms by a thin-faced man who seemed to be nervously trying to hunch himself into better relations with his ill-fitting dress-coat, an eager gentleman whose hawk-like eyes never lost sight of the little lady with her hand on Gantry's arm. Only the senator saw and remarked this bit of by-play, and he looked as if he were enjoying it, the shrewd gray eyes lighting humorously as he bent to hear what Patricia was saying.

When his quarry stopped, as she did frequently to chat with one or another of the guests, the man with the hawk-like profile and the nervous hunch circled warily, and once or twice seemed about to make the opportunity which was so slow in making itself. But it was not until the little lady in the claret-colored party-gown had drifted, still with a hand on Gantry's arm, in among the palm and banana trees of the herbarium that the bird-of-prey person made his swoop. A moment later Gantry, taking a low-toned command from his companion, was disappearing in the direction of the refreshment-tables, and the lady looked up to say: "Dear me, Mr. Hathaway, you almost startled me!"