Empire Builders eBook

Francis Lynde Stetson
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 322 pages of information about Empire Builders.

Empire Builders eBook

Francis Lynde Stetson
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 322 pages of information about Empire Builders.

After breakfast the party separated.  Mrs. Adair and Miss Alicia were to spend the day with friends in South Chicago, and Mr. Colbrith carried the attorney off to his room to dig still deeper into the possible legal complications which might arise out of the proposed transfer of the three short roads.  Ford and Adair sat in the lobby and smoked while they were waiting for the president and the general counsel to conclude their conference, and the young millionaire gave his companion the story of the fight in the directory.

“We have Brewster to thank for the lift which finally pulled our wheel out of the mud,” said the young man, modestly effacing himself in the summing up.  “Or rather I should say that we have the enemy to thank for stirring Brewster into action.  Brewster’s got some copper mines out in Utah that he nurses like a sick child.  Just at the critical moment some of the people who control the Transcontinental began to worry his copper stock.  In the hot part of it he came to me and said, ’Adair, will that western extension of yours be able to fry any fat out of Transcontinental?’ I told him it would, most assuredly; that next to making money for ourselves, and, incidentally, saving the Pacific Southwestern from going smash, our chief object was to give the Transcontinental a wholesome drubbing.”

“You are progressing rapidly,” said Ford, with a grin of appreciation.  “Did that fetch him?”

“It did, for a fact.  He looked like one of those old bushy-bearded vikings when he said, ’By thunder, I’m with you, young man!  And I’ll answer for Scott and Magnus and Harding.  Get your board together, and we’ll settle it to-day.”

Ford looked up quickly.  “If Mr. Colbrith wasn’t the chief of your family clan, Adair, I could wish that we had this Mr. Brewster at the head of things.”

The rejoinder was heartily prompt.  “You don’t wish it any more fervently than I do, Ford.  That is why I am here to-day.  The board, in spite of all that our handful of revolutionaries could do, has armed Uncle Sidney with almost dictatorial powers in this stock-purchasing deal; and if he doesn’t contrive to strangle things by the slow process, it will be simply and solely because you and Kenneth and I are here to see that he does not.  Do you know what the men call him out on the main line?  When they see the Nadia trundling in, they say, ’Here comes old Automatic Air-Brakes.’  And it fits him.”

“But I don’t quite understand why he should want to put the brakes on here and now,” Ford interposed.  “I know he is against the scheme, personally; but he is here as the representative of a majority which has committed itself to the expansion measure, isn’t he?”

“Oh, yes; and he has no thought of playing the traitor—­you mustn’t think that of him.  But it isn’t in his nature to facilitate things.  In the present crisis he will feel that he is personally responsible for the expenditure of five million dollars.  He will examine and investigate, and probe and pry, and will want to worry through every pen-scratch which has been made up to date.”

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Project Gutenberg
Empire Builders from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.