“Had their effect?  Yes, they’ve had the effect of turning my hair gray, if that’s what you mean.”

“I think you know what I mean, Dick.”

“I’ll be hanged if I do.  What are you driving at?”

“At the fact that you have finally concluded to cancel the crooked deals with—­wait, and I’ll give you the names of the co-respondents”—­and he drew a packet of neatly docketed letters from his pocket.

“Hold on a minute,” protested the traffic manager; “you’re getting in rather too deep for me.  Will you let me see those letters?”

Blount put the letters back into his pocket and mechanically buttoned his light top-coat over them for additional safety.

“Do you mean to say that you haven’t passed the word to Hathaway and McDarragh and a dozen others I could name?” he asked.

“Of course I haven’t.  You call yourself a lawyer, and yet you ask us to set aside promises that are, or ought to be, as binding as so many written contracts with penalties attached.  You’re crazy, Evan; it can’t be done, and that’s all there is to it.”

Blount was frowning thoughtfully. “‘Can’t’ goes out of the window when ‘must’ comes in at the door, Dick.  You remember what I told you—­that I’d get evidence, lawyer-fashion.  I’ve got it; evidence of the sort that would turn the people of this State into a howling mob to tear up your tracks if I should publish it.”

“But I tell you we can’t withdraw the specials, you wild-eyed fanatic!”

“All right; then level down the public’s rates to fit them.  And do it quickly, old man.  The time is growing fearfully short, and my patience isn’t what it used to be.”

“My Lord! anybody would think you owned the Transcontinental Company, lock, stock, and barrel!  Where under heaven did you get your nerve, Evan?  Blest if I don’t believe you could out-bluff the old—­er—­your father, himself, if you once got the fool notion into your head that it was your duty to try!”

“You are side-stepping again, Dick, and that won’t go any longer.  You’ve got to fish or cut bait, and do one or the other pretty soon.”

“I’d cut the bait all right, if I were Mr. McVickar, Evan.  I’d fire you so blamed far that you wouldn’t be able to find your way back in a month of Sundays.”

Blount tapped his pocket.  “As long as I have these documents, Mr. McVickar doesn’t dare to fire me.  And if you and he don’t come down within the next few days—­yes, it’s a matter of days, now—­I’ll fire myself and go over every foot of the ground again, telling what I know.”

Gantry’s eyes darkened.  He had graduated with honors from the particular department in railroading in which patience is more than a virtue.  Yet there are limits.

“You seem to have entirely forgotten that little talk we had in my office the night you were going to Angora,” he said.

“No; I haven’t forgotten it—­not for a single waking minute.”