This was not the first hint that Blount had been given pointing to the underground work of the machine.  That this work was being directed toward the subversion of the popular will, he made no doubt; and there were times when he was strongly tempted to carry the war boldly into the wider field of graft and bossism.  That he postponed the bigger battle was due quite as much to the singleness of purpose which was his best gift as to the desire to spare his father.  Telling himself resolutely that the reformation of the railroad company’s political methods was his chief object, and the only one which warranted him in retaining his place on the Company’s payrolls, he held aloof when his father’s name was mentioned and bent himself to the task of providing the means for the subjugation of Gantry—­and of Gantry’s and his own superiors, if need be.

The securing of evidence of the kind which would really give him the whip-hand promised to be a delicate undertaking.  Men like McDarragh talked openly enough about the illegal special freight rates, but talk was not evidence.  Curiously enough, while he was trying to devise some way of obtaining the tangible proof without using his semiofficial position in the company’s service as a lever, the thing itself was thrown at him.  From some mysterious source a rumor went out that the special rates were in jeopardy; and the very men with whom he had talked began to write him importunate letters begging him to deny the rumor.  With a sheaf of these letters in his pocket, each one inculpating both parties to the illegal “deals,” Blount grew gayly exultant.  The natural inference was that Gantry and “the powers” had been finally forced to yield—­that he had won his victory.  But if he had not yet won it, chance, or something better, had placed in his hands the weapon with which he could compel a return to fair dealing and honesty.

It was on a second speech-making visit to Ophir that Blount had his first face-to-face chance at Gantry.  A meeting of the Mine-Owners’ Association, moving for a readjustment of the classification on copper matte and bullion at a time when the railroad company might be supposed to be on the giving hand, brought Gantry to the gold camp in the Carnadine Hills, and the first man he met at the hotel was the stubborn dictator of new policies for the Transcontinental Company.

“Hello, Dick! made a mistake, didn’t you—­coming while I was here?” said the reformer, with a very lifelike replica of his father’s grim smile.  “I suppose you have an immediate engagement to go somewhere else, or to do something that will give you a chance to dodge?”

“No; I wish to the Lord I had!” was the hearty admission.  “You’re a fright, Evan; you are getting to be a perfect nightmare, with your letters and telegrams.  You’ve got me so I’m afraid to open my desk.”

Blount nodded gravely.  “I’m glad the letters and telegrams have had their effect at last,” he rejoined.