A Captain in the Ranks Part 32

Instead of answering, she asked another question:

"Is he interested in the company you spoke of, that is building a line from Memphis to the Ohio River?"

"Yes. He's heavily in that. Indeed, he is president of it, I believe, or something like that, just as he is of our company--well, no, the parallel doesn't hold, for ours is only a projecting company, as yet, while that is a full-fledged railroad company actually engaged in building. I suppose that is one of the things that tied Tandy up at the time of the bank trouble. He had put a pot of money into it, and he could neither sell his stock nor raise money on it till the road should be finished and in operation. But why do you ask about that, Barbara?"

For answer, she crossed the room, and returning, spread out a map on a table.

"Look!" she said, putting her finger on the map. "At a point only a little east of that county line concerning which Tandy got the strange stipulation made, our proposed line will be much nearer to Paducah than the distance from that point to Cairo. May it not be possible----"

"By Jove, Barbara!" Duncan exclaimed, as he bent over the map, "you've solved the riddle. What a splendid combination it is! And how we must hustle to defeat it!"

"You must be calm, then, and let us work it all out, and be sure of everything before you tell Captain Will about it. I want you to have full credit for the timely discovery."

"Me? Why, it is all yours, Barbara, and you are to have all the credit of it."

"Oh, no. You told me the things that enabled me to guess it out, and I've only been trying to help _you_. I'm glad if I have helped, but positively my name mustn't be mentioned. I'm _only a woman_!"

"Only a woman!" Duncan echoed. "_Only_ a woman! Barbara, G.o.d's wisdom was never so wise as when he created 'only a woman' to be a 'helpmeet for man.'"

x.x.xII

THE RIDDLE EXPLAINED

The next half hour was spent, as Barbara expressed it, in "perfecting the guess" she had made.

"Tandy has gone into that Memphis and Ohio River enterprise up to his eyes," said Duncan. "Naturally, he has got his controlling interest in it at an extremely low price, as compared with the face value of the stock and bonds, for the reason that the road ends at Paducah, which is much the same thing as ending nowhere.

"But if he can succeed in diverting our line to Paducah instead of Cairo, thus securing an entirely satisfactory connection north and east, his Memphis and Ohio road will become part of one of the greatest trunk lines in this part of the country, and the advance in his stock and bond holdings will make him one of the richest men in the West."

"That is what I was thinking, Guilford, but I hardly dared suggest it--I know so little. I didn't know that it would be possible to change our line. I thought that maybe its charter compelled it to run to Cairo."

"No, unfortunately, it doesn't. Tandy secured the charter in the first place, before Hallam and Stafford went into the project. I wonder," he added with a puzzled look, "I wonder if the old schemer was looking this far ahead. At any rate, the charter, as Tandy had it drawn, requires only that the line shall be so located and constructed as to connect the railroads running east from its eastern terminus with the Mississippi River--it doesn't say at what point. That requirement would be fully met, of course, if the road should be diverted to Paducah, connecting there with the line to Memphis."

"But why did Tandy want that county line provision put into the bond subscription?"

"Look at the map again. Those two counties lie west of the point at which the road must be turned south if it is to be diverted to Paducah.

If we fail to build across that county line by noon of the fifteenth of next March, the subscriptions of both those counties will be forfeited.

Then Tandy will step in and offer the company that is building the line a much larger subscription of some sort from Paducah and from his Memphis road, as an inducement to shorten the line by taking it to Paducah instead of Cairo."

"That would ruin Cairo?" the girl asked, anxiously.

"It would be a terrible blow to the city's prosperity. But," looking at his watch, "I must lay this matter before Hallam and Stafford to-night, late as it is."

Then, going to the little telegraph instrument which, for his own convenience, he had installed in Barbara's house, he called Captain Hallam out of bed and clicked off the message:

The milk in the cocoanut is accounted for. I must see you and Stafford to-night, without fail. Summon him. I'll go up to your house at once.

It did not require much time or many words for Duncan to explain the situation as he now understood it. Nor was there the slightest ground for doubt that the solution reached was altogether the correct one.

"It's a deep game he's been playing," said Hallam.

"It is one of the finest combinations I ever heard of," responded Stafford. "You've a mighty long head, Duncan, to work out such a puzzle."

"Don't be too complimentary to my head. I didn't work it out," responded the younger man.

"You didn't? Who did, then?"

"Barbara Verne! She forbade me to mention her name, but I will not sail under false colors."

"Well, now, I want to say," said Stafford, "that you've a mighty long head, anyhow, to make a counselor of such a girl as Barbara Verne. It's the very wisest thing you ever did in your life, and the wisest you ever will do till you make her your wife. Of course, that will come in due time?"

"I hope so, but I am not sure I can accomplish that."

"Really?"

"Really."

"Why, I had supposed it was all arranged. Why haven't you----"

"Perhaps I have. At any rate, the doubt I spoke of is not due to any neglect of opportunity on my part. But we must get to business. It is two o'clock in the morning. We've found out old Napper's game. Now, what are we going to do about it?"

During this little side conversation, Hallam had been pacing the floor, thinking. He now began issuing his orders, like shots from a rapid-fire gun.

"Go to the instrument there, Duncan, and telegraph Temple to come to Cairo by the first train. Tell him to give instructions to his a.s.sistant as to the running of the mine during a long absence on his part."

When Duncan had finished the work of telegraphing, Hallam turned to him, saying:

"You, Duncan, are to start for New York on the seven o'clock train this morning. Leave your proxy with Stafford to vote your stock in the present company, and----"

"What's your plan, Hallam?" interrupted Stafford.

"To give old Napper Tandy the very hardest lesson he's ever had to learn at my hands. You and I will call a meeting of the company immediately, and make Duncan president."

"But how are we to get rid of Tandy?"

"Ask him to resign, and kick him out if he doesn't. But listen! We've no time to waste. We'll reorganize this company--making it a real railroad company to build the road, instead of being the mere projecting company it is now. You and I and Duncan will put all the money we can spare into it, and we'll make every man in Cairo who's got anything beyond funeral expenses put it in. All the subscriptions already made to the inducement fund we'll convert into permanent stock subscriptions. Then, with the county, city, and town subscriptions in hand, we'll have about four millions of our stock subscribed. We must have twelve millions of stock in all. It is for you, Duncan, to find the rest in New York. You must see capitalists and persuade them to go in with us, as subscribers, either to the stock or to the construction bonds that we'll issue. You are to use your own judgment and we'll back you up."

"What are you going to do with Temple?"

"Make him chief engineer to the company, and set him at work surveying and locating the line at once. It's now three o'clock. You must go and pack your trunk, Duncan. I'll telegraph you in New York, telling you everything you need to know. Take your copy of our private cipher code with you, in case we should have confidential communications to make.

Go, now. I'll smooth your way by telegraphing our correspondents in New York, and the officers of the Fourth National, asking them to help you.

Stafford, you'd better go home, now. You're getting along in life, you know, and need your sleep." Stafford was about ten years younger than Hallam.

So ended a conference that was destined, by the success or failure of its purpose, to decide the fate of a great enterprise and the future of a thriving city--to say nothing of the career of a brilliant young man.