The Wreckers

he Str

-and rolled up his sleeves. It wasn't his way to talk much about what he was going to do: he'd jump

nent way generally. Mr. Hornack was told to put on an extra office force to ransack the traffic records and make reports showing the fairness or un

and with a young fellow named Juneman, an ex-newspaper man who was on the pay-rolls as "Advertising Manager," but whose real business see

hat Juneman didn't publish broadcast in the newspapers; it was kept so dark that not a line of it got into the office records, and even I, who was as close to the boss as anybody in our

y on the legal points involved. Red Tower is the one outfit we'll have to kill off and put out of business. Under one name or another, it is engineering e

ross tur

ork stopped at once on the Saw Horse branch, and all the

asi-public, utilities Red Tower has everybody else shut out, because the railroad has given them-in fee simple, it seems-all the yard room, switches, track facilities

Now tell me how far you hav

ey. Public sentiment is still incredulous, of course. It's mighty hard to make people believe that we are in earnest

," said Mr

ther the gang element, in politics. They own or control a dozen or more prominent newspapers in the State, and, as you know, they are making an open fight on you and your management through these papers. The net result so far has

" was the boss's curt comment

kers and local capitalists were held, and we had a man at each one of them to explain our plan and to pledge the backing o

y?" querie

oncern. Of course, there were some doubters, and some few greedy ones. The doubters wanted to know how much of the stock was going to be held by officia

e greed

f each town only; they wanted more than their share. Also, they protested against the fixed dividend scheme; they didn't

along, and it is the chief grievance of these same people who now want a chance to

o have railroad ground to build on, and ample track facilities in perpetuity, conditioned strict

drew a lo

"Now we are ready to fire the blast. How was the proposal to ta

tter enough to want to smash the big monopoly, root and branch. But they agreed to abide by a majority vote of the stock

chair and blew a cloud of c

down to the actual give and take. I don't play the waiting game very successfully, Billoughby. Keep in touch, and ke

cleaned up he came at me on a little matter that had been allowed to sleep ever since the day, now some time back, when I had given him Mrs. Sheila's hint about the identity

w the belt, if I can help it; but on the other hand, it's just as well to be able to give the punch if it is needed. You remember what you told me about

would,

-up was a criminal act, and you are the witness who can convict the pair of them. Of course, we'll leave Mrs.

nted with Major Basil Kendrick and had been made at home in the transplanted Kentucky mansion in the northern suburb. I'd been there too, sometimes to carry a box of flowers when the boss was suddenly called out of town, and some other evenings when I had to go and hunt him up

. Norcross, being pretty sure he wasn't going to have that evening off, had sent me out to "Kenwood" with a note and a

g, when I broke in. He looked as if he'd been mixing it

he said it without asking me how I had found M

et Mr. Hatch on th

nything to you,

a w

ght the new company to a finish, and he merely came up here to tell me so-and to add that I might as well resign firs

everybody s

a man, and that is without gloves. I told him we had the goods on him in the matter of Mr. Chadwick's kidnapping adventure. At first he said I couldn't prove it. Then he broke out cursing

ll the way back from Major Kendrick's. It was this way. When I had jiggled the bell out at the house it was Maisie Ann who let me in and took the box of flowe

that Mr. Van Britt was dividing time pretty evenly with the boss in the Major Kendrick house visits. That wasn't anything to be scared up a

only just good friends. But there is something you ought to know, Jimmie-for Mr. Norcross's sake. He has been sending lots of flowe

but my mouth had

living. Men send them to their women friends just as they pass their cigar-cases

ifferent

hing that made me swel

t, Jimmie. Cousin Sheil

I corrected; and then she gav

w, and her husband

at he had fallen in love, first with the back of her neck and then with her pretty face and then with all of her; and that the one big reason why he had let Mr. Chadwick persuade

ip back a little I was ri

around telling people she

to have to make. They've separated, you know-years ago, and Cousin Sheila has taken her mother's maiden name, Macrae. If we were going to live

e back to the office. And this was why I couldn't get very deep into the Hatch business wit

ople tangle me up so that my evidence, if I should have to give it, would be made to look like a faked-u

letters and tidying up a bit around my own desk. But I couldn't make up my mind either to work or to go to bed. I wanted a chan

g no notion of ever turning back. I had once heard our Oregon Midland president, Mr. Lepaige, say that it was not good for a man always to succeed; never to be beaten; that without a setback, now and then, a ma

bout how the most cold-blooded surgeon that ever lived wouldn't trust himself to stick a knife into a member of his own family, and I

n me, the night despatcher's boy came in with a message. It was from Mr

Norcros

tal

getting nervous. Wire from New York says bondholders are stirring and talking receivership. General opinion

adw

other telegram. It was a hot wire from President Dunton, one of a series that he had been s

Norcros

l City

Tower. Stop it immediately and assure Mr. Hatch that we are friendly, as we have always been. If

nto

was up to me to find the boss as quickly as I could and have the three-cornered surgical operation over with. I knew the telegrams wouldn't kill him-or I thought they wouldn't. I thought they'd probably ma

ter office. At first I thought it was the despatcher's boy coming with another wire, but when I looked up, a s

the hot end of his black cigar glared at me like