The Valley of the Giants Part 30

Mr. Ogilvy's eyes popped with interest. "Oh," he breathed. "You have an eye to the main chance yourself have you? Have you proposed to the lady as yet?"

"No, you idiot."

"Then I'll match you for her--or rather for the chance to propose first." Buck produced a dollar and spun it in the air.

"Nothing doing, Buck. Spare yourself these agonizing suspicions. The fact of the matter is that you give me a wonderful inspiration. I've always been afraid Moira would fall in love with some ordinary fellow around Sequoia--propinquity, you know--"

"You bet. Propinquity's the stuff. I'll stick around."

"--and I we been on the lookout for a fine man to marry her off to.

She's too wonderful for you, Buck, but in time you might learn to live up to her."

"Duck! I'm liable to kiss you."

"Don't be too precipitate. Her father used to be our woods-boss. I fired him for boozing."

"I wouldn't care two hoots if her dad was old Nick himself. I'm going to marry her--if she'll have me. Ah, the glorious creature!" He waved his long arms despairingly. "O Lord, send me a cure for freckles.

Bryce, you'll speak a kind word for me, won't you--sort of boom my stock, eh? Be a good fellow."

"Certainly. Now come down to earth and render a report on your stewards.h.i.+p."

"I'll try. To begin, I've secured rights of way, at a total cost of twelve thousand, one hundred and three dollars and nine cents, from the city limits of Sequoia to the southern boundary of your timber in Towns.h.i.+p Nine. I've got my line surveyed, and so far as the building of the road is concerned, I know exactly what I'm going to do, and how and when I'm going to do it, once I get my material on the ground."

"What steps have you taken toward securing your material?"

"Well, I can close a favourable contract for steel rails with the Colorado Steel Products Company. Their schedule of deliveries is O.

K. as far as San Francisco, but it's up to you to provide water transportation from there to Sequoia."

"We can handle the rails on our steam schooners. Next?"

"I have an option of a rattling good second-hand locomotive down at the Santa Fe shops, and the Hawkins & Barnes Construction Company have offered me a steam shovel, half a dozen flat-cars, and a lot of fresnos and sc.r.a.pers at ruinous prices. This equipment is pretty well worn, and they want to get rid of it before buying new stuff for their contract to build the Arizona and Sonora Central. However, it is first-rate equipment for us, because it will last until we're through with it; then we can sc.r.a.p it for junk. We can buy or rent teams from local citizens and get half of our labour locally. San Francisco employment bureaus will readily supply the remainder, and I have half a dozen fine boys on tap to boss the steam shovel, pile- driver, bridge-building gang, track-layer and construction gang. And as soon as you tell me how I'm to get my material ash.o.r.e and out on the job, I'll order it and get busy."

"That's exactly where the shoe begins to pinch, Pennington's main- line tracks enter the city along Water Street, with one spur into his log-dump and another out on his mill-dock. From the main-line tracks we also have built a spur through our drying-yard out to our log-dump and a switch-line out on to our milldock. We can unload our locomotive, steam shovel, and flat-cars on our own wharf, but unless Pennington gives us permission to use his main-line tracks out to a point beyond the city limits--where a Y will lead off to the point where our construction begins--we're up a stump."

"Suppose he refuses, Bryce. What then?"

"Why, we'll simply have to enter the city down Front Street, paralleling Pennington's tracks on Water Street, turning down B Street, make a jump-crossing of Pennington's line on Water Street, and connecting with the spur into our yard."

"Can't have an elbow turn at Front and B streets?"

"Don't have to. We own a square block on that corner, and we'll build across it, making a gradual turn."

"See here, my son," Buck said solemnly, "is this your first adventure in railroad building?"

Bryce nodded.

"I thought so; otherwise you wouldn't talk so confidently of running your line over city streets and making jump-crossings on your compet.i.tor's road. If your compet.i.tor regards you as a menace to his pocketbook, he can give you a nice little run for your money and delay you indefinitely."

"I realize that, Buck. That's why I'm not appearing in this railroad deal at all. If Pennington suspected I was back of it, he'd fight me before the city council and move heaven and earth to keep me out of a franchise to use the city streets and cross his line. Of course, since his main line runs on city property, under a franchise granted by the city, the city has a perfect right to grant me the privilege of making a jump-crossing of his line---"

"Will they do it? That's the problem. If they will not, you're licked, my son, and I'm out of a job."

"We can sue and condemn a right of way."

"Yes, but if the city council puts up a plea that it is against the best interests of the city to grant the franchise, you'll find that except in most extraordinary cases, the courts regard it as against public policy to give judgment against a munic.i.p.ality, the State or the Government of the United States. At any rate, they'll hang you up in the courts till you die of old age; and as I understand the matter, you have to have this line running in less than a year, or go out of business."

Bryce hung his head thoughtfully. "I've been too c.o.c.ksure," he muttered presently. "I shouldn't have spent that twelve thousand for rights of way until I had settled the matter of the franchise."

"Oh, I didn't buy any rights of way--yet," Ogilvy hastened to a.s.sure him. "I've only signed the land-owners up on an agreement to give or sell me a right of way at the stipulated figures any time within one year from date. The cost of the surveying gang and my salary and expenses are all that you are out to date."

"Buck, you're a wonder."

"Not at all. I've merely been through all this before and have profited by my experience. Now, then, to get back to our muttons.

Will the city council grant you a franchise to enter the city and jump Pennington's tracks?"

"I'm sure I don't know, Buck. You'll have to ask them--sound them out. The city council meets Sat.u.r.day morning."

"They'll meet this evening--in the private diningroom of the Hotel Sequoia, if I can arrange it," Buck Ogilvy declared emphatically.

"I'm going to have them all up for dinner and talk the matter over.

I'm not exactly aged, Bryce, but I've handled about fifteen city councils and county boards of supervisors, not to mention Mexican and Central American governors and presidents, in my day, and I know the breed from cover to cover. Following a preliminary conference, I'll let you know whether you're going to get that franchise without difficulty or whether somebody's itchy palm will have to be crossed with silver first. Honest men never temporize. You know where they stand, but a grafter temporizes and plays a waiting game, hoping to wear your patience down to the point where you'll ask him bluntly to name his figure. By the way, what do you know about your blighted old city council, anyway?"

"Two of the five councilmen are for sale; two are honest men--and one is an uncertain quant.i.ty. The mayor is a politician. I've known them all since boyhood, and if I dared come out in the open, I think that even the crooks have sentiment enough for what the Cardigans stand for in this county to decline to hold me up."

"Then why not come out in the open and save trouble and expense?"

"I am not ready to have a lot of notes called on me," Bryce replied dryly. "Neither am I desirous of having the Laguna Grande Lumber Company start a riot in the redwood lumber market by cutting prices to a point where I would have to sell my lumber at a loss in order to get hold of a little ready money. Neither do I desire to have trees felled across the right of way of Pennington's road after his trainloads of logs have gone through and before mine have started from the woods. I don't want my log-landings jammed until I can't move, and I don't want Pennington's engineer to take a curve in such a hurry that he'll whip my loaded logging-trucks off into a canon and leave me hung up for lack of rolling-stock. I tell you, the man has me under his thumb, and the only way I can escape is to slip out when he isn't looking. He can do too many things to block the delivery of my logs and then dub them acts of G.o.d, in order to avoid a judgment against him on suit for non-performance of his hauling contract with this company."

"Hum-m-m! Slimy old beggar, isn't he? I dare say he wouldn't hesitate to buy the city council to block you, would he?"

"I know he'll lie and steal. I dare say he'd corrupt a public official."

Buck Ogilvy rose and stretched himself. "I've got my work cut out for me, haven't I?" he declared with a yawn. "However, it'll be a fight worth while, and that at least will make it interesting. Well?"

Bryce pressed the buzzer on his desk, and a moment later Moira entered. "Permit me, Moira, to present Mr. Ogilvy. Mr. Ogilvy, Miss McTavish." The introduction having been acknowledged by both parties, Bryce continued: "Mr. Ogilvy will have frequent need to interview me at this office, Moira, but it is our joint desire that his visits here shall remain a profound secret to everybody with the exception of ourselves. To that end he will hereafter call at night, when this portion of the town is absolutely deserted. You have an extra key to the office, Moira. I wish you would give it to Mr. Ogilvy."

The girl nodded. "Mr. Ogilvy will have to take pains to avoid our watchman," she suggested.

"That is a point well taken, Moira. Buck, when you call, make it a point to arrive here promptly on the hour. The watchman will be down in the mill then, punching the time-clock."

Again Moira inclined her dark head and withdrew. Mr. Buck Ogilvy groaned. "G.o.d speed the day when you can come out from under and I'll be permitted to call during office hours," he murmured. He picked up his hat and withdrew, via the general office. Half an hour later, Bryce looked out and saw him draped over the counter, engaged in animated conversation with Moira McTavish. Before Ogilvy left, he had managed to impress Moira with a sense of the disadvantage under which he laboured through being forced, because of circ.u.mstances Mr.

Cardigan would doubtless relate to her in due course, to abandon all hope of seeing her at the office--at least for some time to come.

Then he spoke feelingly of the unmitigated horror of being a stranger in a strange town, forced to sit around hotel lobbies with drummers and other lost souls, and drew from Moira the a.s.surance that it wasn't more distressing than having to sit around a boardinghouse night after night watching old women tat and tattle.

This was the opening Buck Ogilvy had sparred for. Fixing Moira with his bright blue eyes, he grinned boldly and said: "Suppose, Miss McTavish, we start a league for the dispersion of gloom. You be the president, and I'll be the financial secretary."

"How would the league operate?" Moira demanded cautiously.

"Well, it might begin by giving a dinner to all the members, followed by a little motor-trip into the country next Sat.u.r.day afternoon,"