The Grafters

by Francis Lynde

  X

  WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY

  At ten forty-eight on the Saturday morning Kent was standing with thegeneral manager on the Union Station track platform beside the enginewhich was to make the flying run to Gaston.

  Nine hours of sharp work lay between the hurried conference in Loring'sbedroom and the drive to the station at a quarter before eleven. Bostonhad been wired; divers and sundry friends of the railway company had beeninterviewed; some few affidavits had been secured; and now they werewaiting to give Boston its last chance, with a clerk hanging over theoperator in the station telegraph office to catch the first word ofencouragement.

  "If the Advisory Board doesn't send us something pretty solid, I'm goinginto this thing lame," said Kent, dubiously. "Of course, what Boston cansend us will be only corroborative; unfortunately we can't wireaffidavits. But it will help. What we have secured here lacks directness."

  "Necessarily," said Loring. "But I'm banking on the Board. If we don't getthe ammunition before you have to start, I can wire it to you at Gaston.That gives us three hours more to go and come on."

  "Yes; and if it comes to the worst--if the decision be unfavorable--it canonly embarrass us temporarily. This is merely the preliminary hearing, andnothing permanent can be established until we have had a hearing on themerits, and we can go armed to that, at all events."

  The general manager was looking at his watch, and he shut the case with asnap.

  "Don't you let it come to that, as long as you have a leg to stand on,David," he said impressively. "An interregnum of ten days might make itexceedingly difficult for us to prove anything." Then, as the telegraphoffice watcher came to the door and shook his head as a sign that Bostonwas still silent: "Your time is up. Off with you, and don't let Olesonscare you when he gets 219 in motion. He is a good runner, and you have aclear track."

  Kent clambered to the footplate of the smart eight-wheeler.

  "Can you make it by two o'clock?" he asked, when the engineer, abig-boned, blue-eyed Norwegian, dropped the reversing lever into thecorner for the start.

  "Ay tank maybe so, ain'd it? Yust you climb opp dat odder box, MesterKent, and hol' you' hair on. Ve bane gone to maig dat time, als' ve preaksomedings, _ja_!" and he sent the light engine spinning down the yards toa quickstep of forty miles an hour.

  Kent's after-memory of that distance-devouring rush was a blurred pictureof a plunging, rocking, clamoring engine bounding over mile after mile ofthe brown plain; of the endless dizzying procession of oncoming telegraphpoles hurtling like great side-flung projectiles past the cab windows; ofnow and then a lonely prairie station with waving semaphore arms, sighted,passed and left behind in a whirling sand-cloud in one and the sameheart-beat. And for the central figure in the picture, the one constantquantity when all else was mutable and shifting and indistinct, the big,calm-eyed Norwegian on the opposite box, hurling his huge machine doggedlythrough space.

  At 12:45 they stopped for water at a solitary tank in the midst of thebrown desert. Kent got down stiffly from his cramped seat on the fireman'sbox and wetted his parched lips at the nozzle of the tender hose.

  "Do we make it, Jarl?" he asked.

  The engineer wagged his head.

  "Ay tank so. Ve maig it all right iff dey haf bane got dose track clear."

  "There are other trains to meet?"

  "_Ja_; two bane comin' dis vay; ant Nummer Samteen ve pass opp by."

  Oleson dropped off to pour a little oil into the speed-woundings while thetank was filling; and presently the dizzying race began again. For a timeall things were propitious. The two trains to be met were found snuglywithdrawn on the sidings at Mavero and Agriculta, and the stationsemaphores beckoned the flying special past at full speed. Kent checkedoff the dodging mile-posts: the pace was bettering the fastest run evermade on the Prairie Division--which was saying a good deal.

  But at Juniberg, twenty-seven miles out of Gaston, there was a delay.Train Number 17, the east-bound time freight, had left Juniberg at oneo'clock, having ample time to make Lesterville, the next station east,before the light engine could possibly overtake it. But Lesterville hadnot yet reported its arrival; for which cause the agent at Juniberg wasconstrained to put out his stop signal, and Kent's special came to a standat the platform.

  Under the circumstances, there appeared to be nothing for it but to waituntil the delayed Number 17 was heard from; and Kent's first care was toreport to Loring, and to ask if there were anything from Boston.

  The reply was encouraging. A complete denial of everything, signed by theproper officials, had been received and repeated to Kent at Gaston--wasthere now awaiting him. Kent saw in anticipation the nicely calculatedscheme of the junto crumbling into small dust in the precise moment offruition, and had a sharp attack of ante-triumph which he had to walk offin turns up and down the long platform. But as the waiting grew longer,and the dragging minutes totaled the quarter-hour and then the half, hebegan to perspire again.

  Half-past two came and went, and still there was no hopeful word fromLesterville. Kent had speech with Oleson, watch in hand. Would theengineer take the risk of a rear-end collision on a general manager'sorder? Oleson would obey orders if the heavens fell; and Kent flew to thewire again. Hunnicott, at Gaston, was besought to gain time in the hearingby any and all means; and Loring was asked to authorize the risk of arear-end smash-up. He did it promptly. The light engine was to go on untilit should "pick up" the delayed train between stations.

  The Juniberg man gave Oleson his release and the order to proceed with duecare while the sounder was still clicking a further communication fromheadquarters. Loring was providing for the last contingency by sendingKent the authority to requisition Number 17's engine for the completion ofthe run in case the track should be blocked, with the freight engine freebeyond the obstruction.

  Having his shackles stricken off, the Norwegian proceeded "with due care,"which is to say that he sent the eight-wheeler darting down the linetoward Lesterville at the rate of a mile a minute. The mystery of thedelay was solved at a point half-way between the two stations. A brokenflange had derailed three cars of the freight, and the block wasimpassable.

  Armed with the general manager's mandatory wire, Kent ran forward to theengine of the freight train and was shortly on his way again. But in thetwenty-mile run to Gaston more time was lost by the lumbering freightlocomotive, and it was twenty minutes past three o'clock when the countyseat came in sight and Kent began to oscillate between two sharp-pointedhorns of a cruel dilemma.

  By dropping off at the street-crossing nearest the Court House, he mightstill be in time to get a hearing with such documentary backing as he hadbeen able to secure at the capital. By going on to the station he couldpick up the Boston wire which, while it was not strictly evidence, mightcreate a strong presumption in his favor; but in this case he wouldprobably be too late to use it. So he counted the rail-lengths, watch inhand, with a curse to the count for his witlessness in failing to haveLoring repeat the Boston message to him during the long wait at Juniberg;and when the time for the decision arrived he signaled the engineer toslow down, jumped from the step at the nearest crossing and hastened upthe street toward the Court House.

  In the mean time, to go back a little, during this day of hurryings to andfro Blashfield Hunnicott had been having the exciting experiences of adecade crowded into a corresponding number of hours. Early in the morninghe had begun besieging the headquarters wire office for news andinstructions, and, owing to Kent's good intentions to be on the ground inperson, had got little enough of either.

  At length, to his unspeakable relief, he had news of the coming special;and with the conviction that help was at hand he waited at the stationwith what coolness there was in him to meet his chief. But as the time forthe hearing drew near he grew nervous again; and all the keen pains ofutter helplessness returned with renewed acuteness when the operator, whohad overheard the Juniberg-Lesterville wire talk, told him that thespecial was hung up at the former
station.

  "O my good Lord!" he groaned. "I'm in for it with empty hands!" None theless, he ran to the baggage-room end of the building and, capturing anexpress wagon, had himself trundled out to the Court House.

  The judge was at his desk when Hunnicott entered, and Hawk was on hand,calmly reading the morning paper. The hands of the clock on the wallopposite the judge's desk pointed to five minutes of the hour, and forfive minutes Hunnicott sat listening, hoping against hope that he shouldhear the rush and roar of the incoming special.

  Promptly on the stroke of three the judge tapped upon his desk with hispencil.

  "Now, gentlemen, proceed with your case; and I must ask you to be as briefas possible. I have an appointment at four which can not be postponed," hesaid quietly; and Hawk threw down his paper and began at once.

  Hunnicott heard his opponent's argument mechanically, having his earattuned for whistle signals and wheel drummings. Hawk spoke rapidly andstraight to his point, as befitted a man speaking to the facts and with nojury present to be swayed by oratorical effort. When he came to thesummarizing of the allegations in the amended petition, he did it whollywithout heat, piling up the accusations one upon another with the carefulmethod of a bricklayer building a wall. The wall-building simile thrustitself upon Hunnicott with irresistible force as he listened. If thespecial engine should not dash up in time to batter down the wall----

  Hawk closed as dispassionately as he had begun, and the judge bowedgravely in Hunnicott's direction. The local attorney got upon his feet,and as he began to speak a telegram was handed in. It was Kent's wire fromJuniberg, beseeching him to gain time at all hazards, and he settledhimself to the task. For thirty dragging minutes he rang the changes onthe various steps in the suit, knowing well that the fatal moment wasapproaching when--Kent still failing him--he would be compelled to submithis case without a scrap of an affidavit to support it.

  The moment came, and still there was no encouraging whistle shriek fromthe dun plain beyond the open windows. Hawk was visibly disgusted, andJudge MacFarlane was growing justly impatient. Hunnicott began again, andthe judge reproved him mildly.

  "Much of what you are saying is entirely irrelevant, Mr. Hunnicott. Thishearing is on the plaintiff's amended petition."

  No one knew better than the local attorney that he was wholly at thecourt's mercy; that he had been so from the moment the judge began toconsider his purely formal defense, entirely unsupported by affidavits orevidence of any kind. None the less, he strung his denials out by everyamplification he could devise, and, having fired his last shot, sat downin despairing breathlessness to hear the judge's summing-up and decision.

  Judge MacFarlane was mercifully brief. On the part of the plaintiff therewas an amended petition fully fortified by uncontroverted affidavits. Onthe part of the defendant company there was nothing but a formal denial ofthe allegations. The duty of the court in the premises was clear. Theprayer of the plaintiff was granted, the temporary relief asked for wasgiven, and the order of the court would issue accordingly.

  The judge was rising when the still, hot air of the room began to vibratewith the tremulous thunder of the sound for which Hunnicott had been solong straining his ears. He was the first of the three to hear it, and hehurried out ahead of the others. At the foot of the stair he ran blindlyagainst Kent, dusty, travel-worn and haggard.

  "You're too late!" he blurted out. "We're done up. Hawk's petition hasbeen granted and the road is in the hands of a receiver."

  Kent dashed his fist upon the stair-rail.

  "Who is the man?" he demanded.

  "Major Jim Guilford," said Hunnicott. Then, as footfalls coming stairwardwere heard in the upper corridor, he locked arms with Kent, faced himabout and thrust him out over the door-stone. "Let's get out of this. Youlook as if you might kill somebody."