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But Kent was at no loss to account for the official silence. If the secret could be kept for a few hours longer, the junto would unload the Trans-Western, strike, tie-up and general demoralization, upon an unsuspecting Overland management.
When Receiver Guilford took possession of the properties, appurtenances and appendages of the sequestered Trans-Western Railway, one of the luxuries to which he fell heir was private car "Naught-seven," a commodious hotel on wheels originally used as the directors' car of the Western Pacific, and later taken over by Loring to be put in commission as the general manager's special.
Everybody knows what the policy of the road was under the old régime: 'All the tariff the traffic will stand. But now a Bucks man has hold of it, and liberality is the word. Every man in Trans-Western territory is swearing by Bucks and Guilford. Ah, my dear friend, his Excellency the governor is a truly great man!" She nodded. "I've been trying to impress you with that fact all along.
Having thus reawakened public interest in the Trans-Western affair, Hildreth sounded a new note of alarm pitched upon the efforts of the Universal Oil Company to establish itself in the Belmount oil region; a cry which was promptly taken up by other State editors. This editorial was followed closely by others in the same strain, and at the end of a fortnight Kent was fain to call a halt.
By the way, has the capitol gang any notion of your part in all this upstirring?" Kent smiled and handed the editor an open letter. It was from Receiver Guilford. The post of general counsel for the Trans-Western was vacant, and the letter was a formal tender of the office to the "Hon. David Kent." "H'm," said the editor. "I don't understand that a little bit." "Why?"
In the earliest beginnings of the determinate plan to wrest the Trans-Western out of the grasp of the junto he had known that it must come finally to some desperate duel with the master-spirit of the ringsters. Was Jasper Bucks behind those lighted windows alone? Kent had not meant to make the open attack until he should have a weapon in his hands which would arm him to win.
This view of Harnwicke's, colored perhaps by the fact that the Trans-Western was a business competitor of the Short Line, was the generally accepted one in railroad and financial circles at the capital. Civilization apart, there is still a deal of the primitive in human nature, and wolves are not the only creatures that are prone to fall upon the disabled member of the pack and devour him.
He is a ruined man, politically and socially, and he is desperate. While I couldn't make him give me any of the details in the Trans-Western affair, he made a clean breast of the oil field deal, and I have his statement locked up with the other papers in the Security vaults." It was Penelope who gave David Kent his due meed of praise.
Later, when he was fairly driven in upon his reserves, he began to speak of himself, and of the hopeless fight for enlargement in the Trans-Western struggle. Marston lighted the match-devouring stogie for the twentieth time, squared himself on the end of the divan and listened attentively. At the end of the recounting he said: "It seems to be a failure of justice, Mr. Kent.
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