“I don’t suppose you can help playing the goat, Osterman,” remarked Annixter, “but what’s your idea? What do you think we can do? I’m not saying,” he hastened to interpose, “that you’ve anyways convinced me by all this cackling. I know as well as you that we are in a hole. But I knew that before I came here to-night. YOU’VE not done anything to make me change my mind. But just what do you propose? Let’s hear it.”
“Well, I say the first thing to do is to see Disbrow. He’s the political boss of the Denver, Pueblo, and Mojave road. We will have to get in with the machine some way and that’s particularly why I want Magnus with us. He knows politics better than any of us and if we don’t want to get sold again we will have to have some one that’s in the know to steer us.”
“The only politics I understand, Mr. Osterman,” answered Magnus sternly, “are honest politics. You must look elsewhere for your political manager. I refuse to have any part in this matter. If the Railroad Commission can be nominated legitimately, if your arrangements can be made without bribery, I am with you to the last iota of my ability.”
“Well, you can’t get what you want without paying for it,” contradicted Annixter.
Broderson was about to speak when Osterman kicked his foot under the table. He, himself, held his peace. He was quick to see that if he could involve Magnus and Annixter in an argument, Annixter, for the mere love of contention, would oppose the Governor and, without knowing it, would commit himself to his—Osterman’s—scheme.
This was precisely what happened. In a few moments Annixter was declaring at top voice his readiness to mortgage the crop of Quien Sabe, if necessary, for the sake of “busting S. Behrman.” He could see no great obstacle in the way of controlling the nominating convention so far as securing the naming of two Railroad Commissioners was concerned. Two was all they needed. Probably it WOULD cost money. You didn’t get something for nothing. It would cost them all a good deal more if they sat like lumps on a log and played tiddledy-winks while Shelgrim sold out from under them. Then there was this, too: the P. and S. W. were hard up just then. The shortage on the State’s wheat crop for the last two years had affected them, too. They were retrenching in expenditures all along the line. Hadn’t they just cut wages in all departments? There was this affair of Dyke’s to prove it. The railroad didn’t always act as a unit, either. There was always a party in it that opposed spending too much money. He would bet that party was strong just now. He was kind of sick himself of being kicked by S. Behrman. Hadn’t that pip turned up on his ranch that very day to bully him about his own line fence? Next he would be telling him what kind of clothes he ought to wear. Harran had the right idea. Somebody had got to be busted mighty soon now and he didn’t propose that it should be he.
“Now you are talking something like sense,” observed Osterman. “I thought you would see it like that when you got my idea.”
“Your idea, YOUR idea!” cried Annixter. “Why, I’ve had this idea myself for over three years.”
“What about Disbrow?” asked Harran, hastening to interrupt. “Why do we want to see Disbrow?”
“Disbrow is the political man for the Denver, Pueblo, and Mojave,” answered Osterman, “and you see it’s like this: the Mojave road don’t run up into the valley at all. Their terminus is way to the south of us, and they don’t care anything about grain rates through the San Joaquin. They don’t care how anti-railroad the Commission is, because the Commission’s rulings can’t affect them. But they divide traffic with the P. and S. W. in the southern part of the State and they have a good deal of influence with that road. I want to get the Mojave road, through Disbrow, to recommend a Commissioner of our choosing to the P. and S. W. and have the P. and S. W. adopt him as their own.”
“Who, for instance?”
“Darrell, that Los Angeles man—remember?”
“Well, Darrell is no particular friend of Disbrow,” said Annixter. “Why should Disbrow take him up?”
“PREE-cisely,” cried Osterman. “We make it worth Disbrow’s while to do it. We go to him and say, ‘Mr. Disbrow, you manage the politics for the Mojave railroad, and what you say goes with your Board of Directors. We want you to adopt our candidate for Railroad Commissioner for the third district. How much do you want for doing it?’ I KNOW we can buy Disbrow. That gives us one Commissioner. We need not bother about that any more. In the first district we don’t make any move at all. We let the political managers of the P. and S. W. nominate whoever they like. Then we concentrate all our efforts to putting in our man in the second district. There is where the big fight will come.”
“I see perfectly well what you mean, Mr. Osterman,” observed Magnus, “but make no mistake, sir, as to my attitude in this business. You may count me as out of it entirely.”
“Well, suppose we win,” put in Annixter truculently, already acknowledging himself as involved in the proposed undertaking; “suppose we win and get low rates for hauling grain. How about you, then? You count yourself IN then, don’t you? You get all the benefit of lower rates without sharing any of the risks we take to secure them. No, nor any of the expense, either. No, you won’t dirty your fingers with helping us put this deal through, but you won’t be so cursed particular when it comes to sharing the profits, will you?”
Magnus rose abruptly to his full height, the nostrils of his thin, hawk-like nose vibrating, his smooth-shaven face paler than ever.
“Stop right where you are, sir,” he exclaimed. “You forget yourself, Mr. Annixter. Please understand that I tolerate such words as you have permitted yourself to make use of from no man, not even from my guest. I shall ask you to apologise.”
In an instant he dominated the entire group, imposing a respect that was as much fear as admiration. No one made response. For the moment he was the Master again, the Leader. Like so many delinquent school-boys, the others cowered before him, ashamed, put to confusion, unable to find their tongues. In that brief instant of silence following upon Magnus’s outburst, and while he held them subdued and over-mastered, the fabric of their scheme of corruption and dishonesty trembled to its base. It was the last protest of the Old School, rising up there in denunciation of the new order of things, the statesman opposed to the politician; honesty, rectitude, uncompromising integrity, prevailing for the last time against the devious manoeuvring, the evil communications, the rotten expediency of a corrupted institution.
For a few seconds no one answered. Then, Annixter, moving abruptly and uneasily in his place, muttered:
“I spoke upon provocation. If you like, we’ll consider it unsaid. I don’t know what’s going to become of us—go out of business, I presume.”
“I understand Magnus all right,” put in Osterman. “He don’t have to go into this thing, if it’s against his conscience. That’s all right. Magnus can stay out if he wants to, but that won’t prevent us going ahead and seeing what we can do. Only there’s this about it.” He turned again to Magnus, speaking with every degree of earnestness, every appearance of conviction. “I did not deny, Governor, from the very start that this would mean bribery. But you don’t suppose that I like the idea either. If there was one legitimate hope that was yet left untried, no matter how forlorn it was, I would try it. But there’s not. It is literally and soberly true that every means of help—every honest means—has been attempted. Shelgrim is going to cinch us. Grain rates are increasing, while, on the other hand, the price of wheat is sagging lower and lower all the time. If we don’t do something we are ruined.”
Osterman paused for a moment, allowing precisely the right number of seconds to elapse, then altering and lowering his voice, added:
“I