The Short Line War Part 24

"He's State Senator Jones, Sporty Jones, you know. He says they're having no end of a time over on the railroad. When I left him he seemed to be trying to telephone all over the State at once."

"I've heard of him," said Katherine, "but I've never met him. I wish you'd bring him here after he gets through telephoning." And the man with some surprise said he would.

The Senator did not reappear from the office for nearly an hour, and in that time he worked fast. He began by calling up Representative Jim Cleary of the Seventh District, a man with influence who happened to be in the capital on business. The Senator wasted no oratory on him, he simply told him what it was necessary to do. After that he talked with other men about the State, and repeated what he had said to Jim Cleary, suggesting to them the proper way for putting "pressure" on the Governor. Then, having prepared his avalanche, he telephoned to the executive mansion and asked for the Governor. He learned from the Secretary that the Governor was busy, but would be at liberty in a few minutes.

"All right," said Sporty. "Let me know when he's ready to talk to me."

He rang off and rose from his chair, stiffly, for the damp and the cold had struck through. The man he knew appeared at his elbow, and leading him in to the fire introduced him to those who were still grouped about it, to Katherine last of all.

"You must have had an afternoon full of experiences," she said.

"Yes," answered the Senator. "I enjoyed my drive over from Sawyerville immensely. The weather was somewhat unpleasant, but I had an excellent horse and we made very good time, until we got a hot-box. I was obliged to leave the vehicle with a farmer, and walked the last two miles."

"Indeed?" said Katherine. "But please tell me about the riot. It must have been very exciting."

"I hardly think it would interest a lady," said Sporty, uneasily.

"Senator Jones,"--Katherine was speaking with much severity,--"I did not think when I first saw you that you could prove so disagreeable."

Sporty beamed. "It wasn't very much of a riot," he said. "They just hit the fireman behind the ear and put handcuffs on the engineer, and started out to grab the road. They'll have to fight for it."

"Was what they did legal?" she asked.

"Oh, no; not at all. It's just a hold-up."

The Senator was saying rather more than he meant to, and he was glad that the telephone bell broke off the conversation at this point. He excused himself abruptly and went to have a talk with the Governor.

Katherine walked to a window and stood staring out with unseeing eyes. At last she turned to a man who stood near her and said:--

"I don't believe it's going to rain any more. Will you have them bring up my trap, please?"

CHAPTER XVI

McNALLY's EXPEDIENT

Katherine's casual acquaintances thought of her as a cool, unemotional young woman, and when asked for their estimate of her would give it with confidence that it was accurate. The few who knew her better were less sure what they thought of her, and there was considerable diversity in their opinions. She had a strong will and plenty of confidence in it.

Until she had found herself standing between Harvey West and her father, she never had the least doubt that in any situation she would be able to do what she wanted. But without knowing it she liked to let her impulses direct her, and her confidence that her will could, if necessary, overrule them gave them freer play than they would have had in a weaker personality. She was keenly sensitive--and this she recognized--to the atmosphere of her immediate environment.

To-day the gray of the dripping sky and the sullen river and the pasty macadam road seemed to have got into her thoughts and to pervade everything. There was a feeling of eternity in the gathering twilight as though there had never been anything else and never would be. But she knew there had; it was only three days since she and Harvey had driven along this road. She recalled the glisten of the sunlight on the river, and the crimson of the hard maples stained by the first early frost, and she knew it was not the suns.h.i.+ne nor the tingle in the air nor the beautiful way in which Ned and Nick flew along stride for stride over the hard white road, but something else, something quite different, which had made her glad that Sunday morning. She looked straight ahead and tried to imagine that not the wooden English groom, but Harvey, sat beside her. Then realizing whither her imaginings were drifting, she pulled herself up sharply.

"You sentimental idiot!" she thought.

The groom spoke. "Beg pardon, Miss Katherine?" and she knew she must have thought aloud.

Just then a black tree stump at the roadside seemed to spring out of the ghostly twilight, and Nick, who never had the blues, amused himself by shying at it. Ned caught the spirit of the lark and over the next mile these two good friends of Katherine's supplied her with just the kind of tonic she needed.

It was late when she reached home and she had but a narrow margin of time left in which to dress for dinner; but telling the groom not to take the horses to the stable she hurried into the house and came out a moment later with a handful of sugar. The two beautiful heads turned toward her as she came down the steps and Nick gave a satisfied little whicker. She fed them alternately, a lump at a time, talking to them all the while in the friendly bantering way they liked. She was quite impartial with the sugar, but while Ned with lowered head was sniffing at her pockets for more, she laid her cheek against Nick's white, silky nose and whispered to him:--

"I think I like you best to-night. You did just right to shy at that stump. No, Ned, it wouldn't be good for you to eat any more sugar just before dinner. Good-by. If it wouldn't shock father and dent the floor, I'd take you into the house with me. But I don't suppose you'd like it, though."

Katherine was glad she was late and that she had to dress in a hurry. What she dreaded was being left alone with nothing to do but think. She had gone over the ground again and again until she had lost her sense of proportion. She had tried to believe that the raid was right and that her father's methods were above reproach; she had tried to be unwavering in her loyalty to his cause, but in spite of herself McNally's allusions and the fragmentary conversations she had overheard raised doubts which her father's evasions did not set at rest. In spite of herself her sympathies swung to the square, straightforward, courageous young fellow who had got into her heart without her knowing it. She had tried to make herself believe her father's insinuations about Jim Weeks; but what Harvey had told her, in his undiscriminating, hero-wors.h.i.+pping way, had made too deep an impression for that.

When she had finished dressing, as she stood before the mirror to take a final survey, she addressed a parting remark to the figure in the gla.s.s:--

"It won't do you any good to go on bothering this way. You haven't anything to do now but go down to dinner and be as charming as possible, particularly to Mr. McNally, whom you cordially detest. When the time comes to do something, I hope you'll do it right."

It was just seven o'clock when she came down the stairs to be informed by the butler that the gentlemen had not come home yet, and should he serve dinner at once?

Katherine waited nearly half an hour, trying to amuse herself with a very pictorial magazine, and, finding that tiresome, by playing c.o.o.n songs at the piano. But the piano reminded her of Mr. McNally, and she didn't want to think of him; so giving up trying to wait she ordered dinner.

Dining alone when you have made up your mind to it beforehand is not an unmixed evil; but in Katherine's frame of mind it was about as irritating as anything could be. When it was over she called for her coffee in a big cup, and she drank it, black and bitter, with a relish. The frown which for the last hour had been contracting her level brows disappeared, for she had thought of something to do. As she rose from the table she said to the butler:--

"Will you order the carriage, please, right away. I'm going out."

Porter was with McNally in one of the offices of the M. & T. station. The two had been sitting there ever since the building had been seized by the deputies, getting satisfactory reports from station after station as the raiders moved up the line. Porter was on the point of starting home for dinner when the reports began coming in from Tillman City. The first of the yellow sheets the boy brought them simply repeated the news that had come in so many times that afternoon. The station was in the hands of the C. & S.C. men, and there had been no resistance. But the second sheet was less satisfactory, for it told of Stevens's escape on the yard engine.

Porter read it and exclaimed petulantly, "McDowell must have been asleep when he let a man get away like that."

"Do you think there's much harm done?" asked McNally.

"I'm afraid so. Weeks will hear all about it in a few minutes, if he hasn't already, and he's sure to hit back. He moves quick, too."

"We can wire McDowell to stay right where he is, and rush through another train with re-enforcements," suggested McNally. "We may not be able to get the rest, but we can at least keep what we've got."

"You'd better make up another train, anyway. We can fill it up with men from our carshops. McDowell had better keep right on up the line. If we have to fight, it'll be better to do it at some small place than at Tillman. We're less likely to be interfered with. Tell McDowell to go slow and not too far."

The order to McDowell with the promise of reeforcements was sent out in time to catch him before he left Tillman, and then McNally turned his attention to ma.s.sing his reserve. At the end of an hour and a half of hard work he saw the last files of the rear guard march down the platform and into the train. His frown expressed dissatisfaction, for these men were not so good fighting material as those McDowell had captained. Their manner was sheepish; they did not finger lovingly the clubs they had been provided with, and altogether they seemed to feel a much greater respect for law and order than was appropriate to the occasion.

They were the best men available, however, and there were several hundred of them, and McNally was about to give the order which would send them up the road to the succor of McDowell, when Porter came hurrying toward him from the telegraph office.

"Don't send those men out yet, McNally," he said. "There's something wrong here. I think they've bagged McDowell."

The train despatcher came into the waiting room, and seeing them walked rapidly toward them.

"Something has gone wrong, gentlemen. We've been talking to Gilsonville and he's all balled up. He isn't the same man who was there fifteen minutes ago."

"They've got past McDowell then," said McNally. "And they couldn't have done that without catching him. We'd better get that train away as fast as possible then, hadn't we?"

"I don't think so," said Porter. "Have them ready to start at a minute's notice, and we'll plan out what's the best thing to do."

Back in the little office again Porter explained his plan. "You see," he said, "these fellows are not likely to be very much in a fight. We don't know how many men Weeks has got, but the farther down the line he comes the weaker he'll be. If we let him come far enough we can do the same trick to him that he must have done to McDowell; but if we meet him halfway, he may beat us. That leaves us at his mercy."

"Do you think Weeks is on the train himself?" asked McNally.

"Can't tell. It would be like him. If he isn't, that young West is. Most likely West is, anyway."