The Valley of the Giants Part 34

Henry Poundstone, Junior, proved to be the sole inhabitant of one rather bare office in the Cardigan Block. Buck had fully resolved to give him a retainer of a thousand dollars, or even more, if he asked for it, but after one look at Henry he cut the appropriation to two hundred and fifty dollars. Young Mr. Poundstone was blonde and frail, with large round spectacles, rabbit teeth, and the swiftly receding chin of the terrapin. Moreover, he was in such a flutter of antic.i.p.ation over the arrival of his client that Buck deduced two things--to wit, that the Mayor had telephoned Henry he was apt to have a client, and that as a result of this miracle, Henry was in no fit state to discuss the sordid subject of fees and retainers. Ergo, Mr. Ogilvy decided to obviate such discussion now or in the future.

He handed Henry a check for two hundred and fifty dollars, which he wrote out on the spot, and with his bright winning smile remarked: "Now, Mr. Poundstone, we will proceed to business. That retainer isn't a large one, I admit, but neither is the job I have for you to- day. Later, if need of your services on a larger scale should develop, we shall of course expect to make a new arrangement whereby you will receive the customary retainer of all of our corporation attorneys I trust that is quite satisfactory."

"Eminently so," gasped the young disciple of Blackstone.

"Very well, then; let us proceed to business." Buck removed from a small leather bag a bale of legal-looking doc.u.ments. "I have here,"

he announced, "agreements from landowners along the proposed right of way of the N. C. O. to give to that company, on demand, within one year from date, satisfactory deeds covering rights of way which are minutely described in the said agreements. I wish these deeds prepared for signing and recording at the earliest possible moment."

"You shall have them at this time to-morrow," Henry promised.

The head of Henry Poundstone, Junior, was held high for the first time since he had flung forth his modest s.h.i.+ngle to the breezes of Sequoia six months before, and there was an unaccustomed gleam of importance in his pale eyes as he rushed into big father's office in the city hall.

"By jinks, Dad!" he exulted. "I've hooked a fish at last--and he's a whopper."

"Omit the cheers, my boy. Remember I sent that fish to you," his father answered with a bland and indulgent smile. "What are you doing for Ogilvy, and how large a retainer did he give you?"

"I'm making out deeds to his rights of way. Ordinarily it's about a fifty-dollar job, but without waiting to discuss finances he handed me out two hundred and fifty dollars. Why, Dad, that's more than you make in a month from your job as Mayor."

"Well, that isn't a bad retainer. It's an opening wedge. However, it would be mere chicken-feed in San Francisco."

"Read this," Henry urged, and thrust a yellow telegraph-form under the Mayor's nose. The latter adjusted his gla.s.ses and read:

Imperative building operations commence immediately. Local skepticism injurious and delays dangerous. We must show good faith to our New York friends. J. P. M. insists upon knowing promptly where we stand with Sequoia city council. See them immediately and secure temporary franchise, if possible, to enable us to cross Water Street at B Street and build out Front Street. Your arrangement with Cardigan for use of his mill-dock and spur for unloading material from steamer ratified by board but regarded as hold-up. If your judgment indicates no hold-up on permanent franchise, commence active operations immediately upon acquisition of permanent franchise. Engage local labour as far as possible. Cannot impress upon you too fully necessity for getting busy, as road must be completed in three years if our plans are to bear fruit and time is all too short. Impress this upon city council and wire answer to-morrow.

HOCKLEY.

This telegram, as the Mayor observed, was dated that day and addressed to Mr. Buchanan Ogilvy, Hotel Sequoia, Sequoia, Calif.

Also, with a keen eye to minor details, lie noted that it had been filed at San Francisco SUBSEQUENT to Ogilvy's visit to him that afternoon.

"Ah-h-h!" breathed His Honour. "That accounts for his failure to bring the matter up at our interview. Upon his return to the hotel he found this telegram and got busy at once. By Jupiter, this looks like business. Henry, how did you come into possession of this telegram?"

"It must have been mixed up in the doc.u.ments Ogilvy left with me. I found it on my desk when I was sorting out the papers, and in my capacity of attorney for the N.C.O. I had no hesitancy in reading it."

"Well, I do declare! Wonder who Hockley is. Never heard of that fellow in connection with the N.C.O."

"Hockley doesn't matter," young Henry declared triumphantly, "although I'd bet a hat he's one of those heavy-weight Wall Street fellows and one of J.P.M's vice-presidents, probably. J.P.M., of course, is the man behind."

"Who the devil is J.P.M.?"

Henry smiled tolerantly upon his ignorant and guileless parent.

"Well, how would J. Pierpont Morgan do for a guess?" he queried.

"h.e.l.l's bells and panther-tracks!" Mayor Poundstone started as if snake-bitten. "I should say you have hooked a big fish. Boy, you've landed a whale!" And the Mayor whistled softly in his amazement and delight. "By golly, to think of you getting in with that bunch!

Tremendyous! Per-fect-ly tree-mend-yous! Did Ogilvy say anything about future business?"

"He did. Said if I proved satisfactory, he would probably take me on and pay the customary retainer given all of their corporation attorneys."

"Well, by golly, he'd better take you on! I had a notion that chap Ogilvy was smart enough to know which side his bread is b.u.t.tered on and who does the b.u.t.tering."

"If I could guarantee Mr. Ogilvy that temporary franchise mentioned in his telegram, it might help me to get in right with J.P.M, at the start," his hopeful suggested. "I guess it would be kind of poor to be taken on as one of the regular staff of attorneys for a Morgan corporation, eh? Say, they pay those chaps as high as fifty thousand dollars a year retainer!"

"Guarantee it!" his father shouted. "Guarantee it! Well, I should snicker! We'll just show J. P. M. and his crowd that they made no mistake when they picked you as their Sequoia legal representative.

I'll call a special meeting of that little old city council of mine and jam that temporary franchise through while you'd be saying 'Jack Robinson!'"

"I'll tell you what let's do," Henry suggested. "I'll draw up the temporary franchise to-night, and we'll put it through to-morrow at, say, ten o'clock without saying a word to Mr. Ogilvy about it. Then when the city clerk has signed and attested it and put the seal of the city on it, I'll just casually take it over to Mr. Ogilvy. Of course he'll be surprised and ask me how I came to get it, and--"

"And you LOOK surprised," his father cautioned. "--sort of as if you failed to comprehend what he's driving at. Make him repeat. Then you say: 'Oh, that! Why, that's nothing, Mr. Ogilvy. I found the telegram in those papers you left with me, read it, and concluded you'd left it there to give me the dope so I could go ahead and get the franchise for you. Up here, whenever anybody wants a franchise from the city, they always hire an attorney to get it for them, so I didn't think anything about this but just naturally went and got it for you. If it ain't right, why, say so and I'll have it made right.'" Old Poundstone nudged his son in the short ribs and winked drolly. "Let him get the idea you're a fly bird and on to your job."

"Leave it to yours truly," said Henry.

His father carefully made a copy of the telegram.

"H'm!" he grunted. "Wants to cross Water Street at B and build out Front Street. Well, I dare say n.o.body will kick over the traces at that. Nothing but warehouses and lumber-drying yards along there, anyhow. Still, come to think of it, Pennington will probably raise a howl about sparks from the engines of the N. C. O. setting his lumber piles afire. And he won't relish the idea of that crossing, because that means a watchman and safety-gates, and he'll have to stand half the cost of that."

"He'll be dead against it," Henry declared. "I know, because at the Wednesday meeting of the Lumber Manufacturers' a.s.sociation the subject of the N. C. O. came up, and Pennington made a talk against it. He said the N. C. O. ought to be discouraged, if it was a legitimate enterprise, which he doubted, because the most feasible and natural route for a road would be from Willits, Mendocino County, north to Sequoia. He said the N. C. O. didn't tap the main body of the redwood-belt and that his own road could be extended to act as a feeder to a line that would build in from the south. I tell you he's dead set against it."

"Then we won't tell him anything about it, Henry. We'll just pull off this special session of the council and forget to invite the reporters; after the job has been put over, Pennington can come around and howl all he wants. We're not letting a chance like this slip by us without grabbing a handful of the tail-feathers, Henry.

No, sir--not if we know it."

"You bet!" said Henry earnestly.

And it was even so. The entire council was present with the exception of Thatcher, who was home ill. His running mate Yates was heartily in favour of doing all and sundry of those things which would aid and encourage the building of the much-to-be-desired railroad and offered no objection to the motion to grant a sixty-day temporary franchise.

However, he always played ball with the absent Thatcher and he was fairly well acquainted with his other colleagues on the council; where they were concerned he was as suspicious as a rattlesnake in August--in consequence of which he considered it policy to play safe pending Thatcher's recovery. Rising in his place, he pointed out to the board the fact that many prominent citizens who yearned for such a road as the N. C. O. had warned him of the danger of lending official aid and comfort to a pa.s.sel of professional promoters and fly-by-nights; that after all, the N. C. O. might merely be the stalking-horse to a real-estate boom planned to unload the undesirable timber holdings of the Trinidad Redwood Lumber Company, in which event it might be well for the council to proceed with caution. It was Mr. Yates' opinion that for the present a temporary franchise for thirty days only should be given; if during that thirty days the N. C. O. exhibited indubitable signs of activity, he would gladly vote for a thirty-day extension to enable the matter of a permanent franchise to be taken up in regular order.

This amendment to the original motion met with the unqualified approval of the Mayor, as he was careful to announce for the benefit of the other members of the Solid Four. The fact of the matter was, however, that he was afraid to oppose Yates in such a simple matter through fear that Yates might grow cantankerous and carry his troubles to the Sequoia Sentinel--a base trick he had been known to do in the past. After explaining the advisability of keeping secret for the present the fact that a thirty-day franchise had been granted, His Honour, with the consent of the maker of the original motion and the second thereof, submitted the amended motion to a vote, which was carried unanimously.

At eleven-thirty Thursday morning, therefore, young Henry Poundstone, having worked the greater part of the previous night preparing the deeds, delivered both deeds and franchise to Buck Ogilvy at the latter's hotel. It was with difficulty that the latter could conceal his tremendous amazement when Henry casually handed him the franchise. True, he had slipped that fake telegram among the contracts as bait for Henry and his father, but in his wildest flights of fancy had not looked for them to swallow hook, line, and sinker. His fondest hope, at the time he conceived the brilliant idea, was that Henry would show the telegram to his father and thus inculcate in the old gentleman a friendly feeling toward the N. C. O.

not unmixed with pleasurable antic.i.p.ations of the day when Henry Poundstone, Junior, should be one of the most highly prized members of the legal staff of a public-service corporation.

When he could control his emotions, Mr. Ogilvy gazed approvingly upon Henry Poundstone. "Mr. Poundstone," he said solemnly, "I have met some meteoric young attorneys in my day, but you're the first genuine comet I have seen in the legal firmament. Do you mind telling me exactly how you procured this franchise--and why you procured it without explicit orders from me?"

Henry did his best to look puzzled. "Why," he said, "you left that telegram with me, and I concluded that you regarded it as self- explanatory or else had forgotten to mention it. I knew you were busy, and I didn't want to bother you with details, so I just went ahead and filled the order for you. Anything wrong about that?"

"Certainly not. It's perfectly wonderful. But how did you put it over?"

Henry smirked. "My dad's the engineer," he said bluntly. "If thirty days ain't enough time, see me and I'll get you thirty days more. And in the meantime n.o.body knows a thing about this little deal. What's more, they won't know. I figured Colonel Pennington might try to block you at that crossing so I--"

Buck Ogilvy extended his hand in benediction and let it drop lightly on Henry Poundstone's thin shoulder. Henry quivered with antic.i.p.ation under that gentle accolade and swallowed his heart while the great Ogilvy made a portentous announcement.

"My dear Poundstone," he said earnestly, "I am not a man to forget clever work. At the proper time I shall--" He smiled his radiant smile. "You understand, of course, that I am speaking for and can make you no firm promises. However--" He smiled again. "All I have to say is that you'll do!"

"Thank you," said Henry Poundstone, Junior. "Thank you ever so much."

CHAPTER XVII

An experience extending over a very active business career of thirty years had convinced Colonel Seth Pennington of the futility of wracking his brains in vain speculation over mysteries. In his day he had been interested in some small public-service corporations, which is tantamount to saying that he knew peanut politics and had learned that the very best way to fight the devil is with fire. Frequently he had found it of great interest and profit to him to know exactly how certain men spent their time and his money, and since he was a very busy man himself, naturally he had to delegate somebody else, to procure this information for him. When, therefore, the Northern California Oregon Railroad commenced to encroach on the Colonel's time-appropriation for sleep, he realized that there was but one way in which to conserve his rest and that was by engaging to fathom the mystery for him a specialist in the unravelling of mysteries. In times gone by, the Colonel had found a certain national detective- agency an extremely efficient aid to well-known commercial agencies, and to these tried and true subordinates he turned now for explicit and satisfying information anent the Northern California Outrage!