XII
THE MAN IN POSSESSION
Appraised at its value in the current coin of street gossip, the legalseizure of the Trans-Western figured mainly as an example of the failureof modern business methods when applied to the concealment of a workingcorporation's true financial condition.
This unsympathetic point of view was sufficiently defined in a bit ofshop-talk between Harnwicke, the cold-blooded, and his traffic manager inthe office of the Overland Short Line the morning after the newspaperannouncement of the receivership.
"I told you they were in deep water," said the lawyer, confidently. "Theyhaven't been making any earnings--net earnings--since the Y.S.& F. cutinto them at Rio Verde, and the dividends were only a bluff forstock-bracing purposes. I surmised that an empty treasury was what was thematter when they refused to join us in the veto affair."
"That is one way of looking at it," said the traffic manager. "But some ofthe papers are claiming that it was a legal hold-up, pure and simple."
"Nothing of the kind," retorted the lawyer, whose respect for the law wasas great as his contempt for the makers of the laws. "Judge MacFarlane hadno discretion in the matter. Hawk had a perfect right to file an amendedpetition, and the judge was obliged to act upon it. I'm not saying itwasn't a devilish sharp trick of Hawk's. It was. He saw a chance to smitethem under the fifth rib, and he took it."
"But how about his client: the woman who was put off the train? Is she anybetter off than she was before?"
"Oh, she'll get her five thousand dollars, of course, if they don't takethe case out of court. It has served its turn. It's an ugly crusher forthe Loring management. Hawk's allegations charge all sorts of crookedness,and neither Loring nor Kent seemed to have a word to say for themselves. Iunderstand Kent was in court, either in person or by attorney, when thereceivership order was made, and that he hadn't a word to say forhimself."
This view of Harnwicke's, colored perhaps by the fact that theTrans-Western was a business competitor of the Short Line, was thegenerally accepted one in railroad and financial circles at the capital.Civilization apart, there is still a deal of the primitive in humannature, and wolves are not the only creatures that are prone to fall uponthe disabled member of the pack and devour him.
But in the State at large the press was discussing the event from apolitical point of view; one section, small but vehement, raising the cryof trickery and judicial corruption, and prophesying the withdrawal of allforeign capital from the State, while the other, large and complacent,pointed eloquently to the beneficent working of the law under which thecause of a poor woman, suing for her undoubted right, might be made thewhip to flog corporate tyranny into instant subjection.
As for the dispossessed stock-holders in the far-away East, they were slowto take the alarm, and still slower to get concerted action. Like many ofthe western roads, the Western Pacific had been capitalized largely bypopular subscription; hence there was no single holder, or group ofholders, of sufficient financial weight to enter the field against thespoilers.
But when Loring and his associates had fairly got the wires hot with thetale of what had been done, and the much more alarming tale of what waslikely to be done, the Boston inertness vanished. A pool of the stock wasformed, with the members of the Advisory Board as a nucleus; money wassubscribed, and no less a legal light than an ex-attorney-general of thestate of Massachusetts was despatched to the seat of war to advise withthe men on the ground. None the less, disaster out-travels the swiftest of"limited" trains. Before the heavily-feed consulting attorney had crossedthe Hudson in his westward journey, Wall Street had taken notice, andthere was a momentary splash in the troubled pool of the Stock Exchangeand a vanishing circle of ripples to show where Western Pacific had gonedown.
In the meantime Major James Guilford, somewhile president of the ApacheNational Bank of Gaston, and antecedent to that the frowning autocrat of atwenty-five-mile logging road in the North Carolina mountains, had givenbond in some sort and had taken possession of the company's property andof the offices in the Quintard Building.
His first official act as receiver was to ask for the resignations of adozen heads of departments, beginning with the general manager and pausingfor the moment with the supervisor of track. That done, he filled thevacancies with political troughsmen; and with these as assistantdecapitators the major passed rapidly down the line, striking off heads indaily batches until the over-flow of the Bucks political following wasprovided for on the railroad's pay-rolls to the wife's cousin's nephew.
This was the work of the first few administrative days or weeks, and whileit was going on, the business attitude of the road remained unchanged. Butonce seated firmly in the saddle, with his awkward squad well in hand, themajor proceeded to throw a bomb of consternation into the camp of hiscompetitors.
Kent was dining with Ormsby in the grill-room of the Camelot Club when thewaiter brought in the evening edition of the _Argus_, whose railroadreporter had heard the preliminary fizzing of the bomb fuse. The story wasset out on the first page, first column, with appropriate headlines.
WAR TO THE KNIFE AND THE KNIFE TO THE HILT!
TRANS-WESTERN CUTS COMMODITY RATE.
Great Excitement in Railroad Circles. Receiver Guilford's Hold-up.
Kent ran his eye rapidly down the column and passed the paper across toOrmsby.
"I told you so," he said. "They didn't find the road insolvent, but theyare going to make it so in the shortest possible order. A rate war will doit quicker than anything else on earth."
Ormsby thrust out his jaw.
"Have we got to stand by and see 'em do it?"
"The man from Massachusetts says yes, and he knows, or thinks he does. Hehas been here two weeks now, and he has nosed out for himself all thedead-walls. We can't appeal, because there is no decision to appeal from.We can't take it out of the lower court until it is finished in the lowercourt. We can't enjoin an officer of the court; and there is no authorityin the State that will set aside Judge MacFarlane's order when that orderwas made under technically legal conditions."
"You could have told him all that in the first five minutes," said Ormsby.
"I did tell him, and was mildly sat upon. To-day he came around and gaveme back my opinion, clause for clause, as his own. But I have no kickcoming. Somebody will have to be here to fight the battle to a finish whenthe judge returns, and our expert will advise the Bostonians to retainme."
"Does he stay?" Ormsby asked.
"Oh, no; he is going back with Loring to-night. Loring has an idea of hisown which may or may not be worth the powder it will take to explode it.He is going to beseech the Boston people to enlarge the pool until itcontrols a safe majority of the stock."
"What good will that do?"
"None, directly. It's merely a safe preliminary to anything that mayhappen. I tell Loring he is like all the others: he knows when he hasenough and is willing to stand from under. I'm the only fool in the lot."Ormsby's smile was heartening and good for sore nerves.
"I like your pluck, Kent; I'll be hanged if I don't. And I'll back you towin, yet."
Kent shook his head unhopefully.
"Don't mistake me," he said. "I am fighting for the pure love of it, andnot with any great hope of saving the stock-holders. These grafters haveus by the nape of the neck. We can't make a move till MacFarlane comesback and gives us a hearing on the merits. That may not be till the nextterm of court. Meanwhile, the temporary receiver is to all intents andpurposes a permanent receiver; and the interval would suffice to wreck adozen railroads."
"And still you won't give up?"
"No."
"I hope you won't have to. But to a man up a tree it looks very much likea dead cock in the pit. As I have said, if there is any backing to do, I'mwith you, first, last, and all the time, merely from a sportsman'sinterest in the game. But is there any use in a little handful of ustrying to buck up against a whole state government?"
The coffee had been served, and Ken
t dropped a lump of sugar into his cup.
"Ormsby, I'll never let go while I'm alive enough to fight," he saidslowly. "One decent quality I have--and the only one, perhaps: I don'tknow when I'm beaten. And I'll down this crowd of political plunderersyet, if Bucks doesn't get me sand-bagged."
His listener pushed back his chair.
"If you stood to lose anything more than your job I could understand it,"he commented. "As it is, I can't. Any way you look at it, your stake inthe game isn't worth the time and effort it will take to play the stringout. And I happen to know you're ambitious to do things--things thatcount."
"What is it you don't understand--the motive?"
"That's it."
Kent laughed.
"You are not as astute as Miss Van Brock. She pointed it out to me lastnight--or thought she did--in two words."
Ormsby's eyes darkened, and he did not affect to misunderstand.
"It would be a grand-stand play," he said half-musingly, "if you shouldhappen to worry it through, I mean. I believe Mrs. Hepzibah would be readyto fall on your neck and forgive you, and turn me down." Then,half-jestingly: "Kent, what will you take to drop this thing permanentlyand go away?"
David Kent's smile showed his teeth.
"The one thing you wouldn't be willing to give. You asked me once when wehad fallen over the fence upon this forbidden ground if I were satisfied,and I told you I wasn't. Do we understand each other?"
"I guess so," said Ormsby. "But--Say, Kent, I like you too well to see yougo up against a stone fence blindfolded. I'm like Guilford: I am the manin possession. And possession is nine points of the law."
Kent rose and took the proffered cigar from Ormsby's case.
"It depends a good bit upon how the possession is gained--andheld--doesn't it?" he rejoined coolly. "And your figure is unfortunate inits other half. I am going to beat Guilford."
The Grafters Page 12