By the terms of its dating clause the new trust and corporation law became effective at once, "the public welfare requiring it"; and though there was an immediate sympathetic decline in the securities involved, there was no panic, financial or industrial, to mark the change from the old to the new.

Contrary to the expectations of the alarmists and the lawyers, and somewhat to the disappointment of the latter, the vested interests showed no disposition to test the constitutionality of the act in the courts. So far, indeed, from making difficulties, the various alien corporations affected by the new law wheeled promptly into line in compliance with its provisions, vying with one another in proving, or seeming to prove, the time-worn aphorism that capital can never afford to be otherwise than strictly law-abiding.

In the reorganization of the Western Pacific, David Kent developed at once and heartily into that rare and much-sought-for quantity, a man for an emergency. Loring, also, was a busy man in this transition period, yet he found time to keep an appreciative eye on Kent, and, true to his implied promise, pushed him vigorously for the first place in the legal department of the localized company. Since the resident manager stood high in the Boston counsels of the company, the pushing was not without results; and while David Kent was still up to his eyes in the work of flogging the affairs of the newly named Trans-Western into conformity with the law, his appointment as general counsel came from the Advisory Board.

At one time, when success in his chosen vocation meant more to him than he thought it could ever mean again, the promoted subordinate would have had an attack of jubilance little in keeping with the grave responsibilities of his office. As it fell out, he was too busy to celebrate, and too sore on the sentimental side to rejoice. Hence, his recognition of the promotion was merely a deeper plunge into the flood of legalities and the adding of two more stenographers to his office force.

Now there is this to be said of such submersive battlings in a sea of work: while the fierce toil of the buffeting may be good for the swimmer's soul, it necessarily narrows his horizon, inasmuch as a man with his head in the sea-smother lacks the view-point of the captain who fights his ship from the conning tower.

So it befell that while the newly appointed general counsel of the reorganized Western Pacific was bolting his meals and clipping the nights at both ends in a strenuous endeavor to clear the decks for a possible battle-royal at the capital, events of a minatory nature were shaping themselves elsewhere.

To bring these events down to their focusing point in the period of transition, it is needful to go back a little; to a term of the circuit court held in the third year of Gaston the prosperous.

Who Mrs. Melissa Varnum was; how she came to be traveling from Midland City to the end of the track on a scalper's ticket; and in what manner she was given her choice of paying fare to the conductor or leaving the train at Gaston—these are details with which we need not concern ourselves. Suffice it to say that Kent, then local attorney for the company, mastered them; and when Mrs. Varnum, through Hawk, her counsel, sued for five thousand dollars damages, he was able to get a continuance, knowing from long experience that the jury would certainly find for the plaintiff if the case were then allowed to go to trial.

And at the succeeding term of court, which was the one that adjourned on the day of Kent's transfer to the capital, two of the company's witnesses had disappeared; and the one bit of company business Kent had been successful in doing that day was to postpone for a second time the coming to trial of the Varnum case.

It was while Kent's head was deepest in the flood of reorganization that a letter came from one Blashfield Hunnicott, his successor in the local attorneyship at Gaston, asking for instructions in the Varnum matter. Judge MacFarlane's court would convene in a week. Was he, Hunnicott, to let the case come to trial? Or should he—the witnesses still being unproducible—move for a further continuance?

Kent took his head out of the cross-seas long enough to answer. By all means Hunnicott was to obtain another continuance, if possible. And if, before the case were called, there should be any new developments, he was to wire at once to the general office, and further instructions would issue.

It was about this time, or, to be strictly accurate, on the day preceding the convening of Judge MacFarlane's court in Gaston, that Governor Bucks took a short vacation—his first since the adjournment of the Assembly.

One of the mysteries of this man—the only one for which his friends could not always account plausibly—was his habit of dropping out for a day or a week at irregular intervals, leaving no clue by which he could be traced. While he was merely a private citizen these disappearances figured in the local notes of the Gaston Clarion as business trips, object and objective point unknown or at least unstated; but since his election the newspapers were usually more definite. On this occasion, the public was duly informed that "Governor Bucks, with one or two intimate friends, was taking a few days' recreation with rod and gun on the headwaters of Jump Creek"—a statement which the governor's private secretary stood ready to corroborate to all and sundry calling at the gubernatorial rooms on the second floor of the capitol.

Now it chanced that, like all gossip, this statement was subject to correction as to details in favor of the exact fact. It is true that the governor, his gigantic figure clad in sportsmanlike brown duck, might have been seen boarding the train on the Monday evening; and in addition to the ample hand-bag there were rod and gun cases to bear out the newspaper notices. None the less, it was equally true that the keeper of the Gun Club shooting-box at the terminus of the Trans-Western's Jump Creek branch was not called upon to entertain so distinguished a guest as the State executive. Also, it might have been remarked that the governor traveled alone.

Late that same night, Stephen Hawk was keeping a rather discomforting vigil with a visitor in the best suite of rooms the Mid-Continent Hotel in Gaston afforded. The guest of honor was a brother lawyer—though he might have refused to acknowledge the relationship with the ex-district attorney—a keen-eyed, business-like gentleman, whose name as an organizer of vast capitalistic ventures had traveled far, and whose present attitude was one of undisguised and angry contempt for Gaston and all things Gastonian.

"How much longer have we to wait?" he demanded impatiently, when the hands of his watch pointed to the quarter-hour after ten. "You've made me travel two thousand miles to see this thing through: why didn't you make sure of having your man here?"

Hawk wriggled uneasily in his chair. He was used to being bullied, not only by the good and great, but by the little and evil as well. Yet there was a rasp to the great man's impatience that irritated him.

"I've been trying to tell you all the evening that I'm only the hired man in this business, Mr. Falkland. I can't compel the attendance of the other parties."

"Well, it's damned badly managed, as far as we've gone," was the ungracious comment. "You say the judge refuses to confer with me?"

"Ab-so-lutely."

"And the train—the last train the other man can come on; is that in yet?"

Hawk consulted his watch.

"A good half-hour ago."

"You had your clerk at the station to meet it?"

"I did."

"And he hasn't reported?"

"Not yet."

Falkland took a cigar from his case, bit the end of it like a man with a grudge to satisfy, and began again.

"There is a very unbusinesslike mystery about all this, Mr. Hawk, and I may as well tell you shortly that my time is too valuable to make me tolerant of half-confidences. Get to the bottom of it. Has your man weakened?"

"No; he is not of the weakening kind. And, besides, the scheme is his own from start to finish, as you know."

"Well, what is the matter, then?"

Hawk rose.

"If you will be patient a little while longer, I'll go to the wire and try to find out. I am as much in the dark as you are."

This last was not strictly true. Hawk had a telegram in his pocket which was causing him more uneasiness than all the rasping criticisms of the New York attorney, and he was re-reading it by the light of the corridor bracket when a young man sprang from the ascending elevator and hurried to the door of the parlor suite. Hawk collared his Mercury before he could rap on the door.

"Well?" he queried sharply.

"It's just as you suspected—what Mr. Hendricks' telegram hinted at. I met him at the station and couldn't do a thing with him."

"Where has he gone?"

"To the same old place."

"You followed him?"

"Sure. That is what kept me so long."

Hawk hung upon his decision for the barest fraction of a second. Then he gave his orders concisely.

"Hunt up Doctor Macquoid and get him out to the club-house as quick as you can. Tell him to bring his hypodermic. I'll be there with all the help he'll need." And when the young man was gone, Hawk smote the air with a clenched fist and called down the Black Curse of Shielygh, or its modern equivalent, on all the fates subversive of well-laid plans.

A quarter of an hour later, on the upper floor of the club-house at the Gentlemen's Driving Park, four men burst in upon a fifth, a huge figure in brown duck, crouching in a corner like a wild beast at bay. A bottle and a tumbler stood on the table under the hanging lamp; and with the crash of breaking glass which followed the mad-bull rush of the duck-clothed giant, the reek of French brandy filled the room.

"Hold him still, if you can, and pull up that sleeve." It was Macquoid who spoke, and the three apparitors, breathing hard, sat upon the prostrate man and bared his arm for the physician. When the apomorphia began to do its work there was a struggle of another sort, out of which emerged a pallid and somewhat stricken reincarnation of the governor.

"Falkland is waiting at the hotel, and he and MacFarlane can't get together," said Hawk, tersely, when the patient was fit to listen. "Otherwise we shouldn't have disturbed you. It's all day with the scheme if you can't show up."

The governor groaned and passed his hand over his eyes.

"Get me into my clothes—Johnson has the grip—and give me all the time you can," was the sullen rejoinder; and in due course the Honorable Jasper G. Bucks, clothed upon and in his right mind, was enabled to keep his appointment with the New York attorney at the Mid-Continent Hotel.

But first came the whipping-in of MacFarlane. Bucks went alone to the judge's room on the floor above the parlor suite. It was now near midnight, but MacFarlane had not gone to bed. He was a spare man, with thin hair graying rapidly at the temples and a care-worn face; the face of a man whose tasks or responsibilities, or both, have overmatched him. He was walking the floor with his head down and his hands—thin, nerveless hands they were—tightly locked behind him, when the governor entered.

For a large man the Honorable Jasper was usually able to handle his weight admirably; but now he clung to the door-knob until he could launch himself at a chair and be sure of hitting it.

"What's this Hawk's telling me about you, MacFarlane?" he demanded, frowning portentously.

"I don't know what he has told you. But it is too flagrant, Bucks; I can't do it, and that's all there is about it." The protest was feebly fierce, and there was the snarl of a baited animal in the tone.

"It's too late to make difficulties now," was the harsh reply. "You've got to do it."

"I tell you I can not, and I will not!"

"A late attack of conscience, eh?" sneered the governor, who was sobering rapidly now. "Let me ask a question or two. How much was that security debt your son-in-law let you in for?"

"It was ten thousand dollars. It is an honest debt, and I shall pay it."

"But not out of the salary of a circuit judge," Bucks interposed. "Nor yet out of the fees you make your clerks divide with you. And that isn't all. Have you forgotten the gerrymander business? How would you like to see the true inwardness of that in the newspapers?"

The judge shrank as if the huge gesturing hand had struck him.

"You wouldn't dare," he began. "You were in that, too, deeper than——"

Again the governor interrupted him.

"Cut it out," he commanded. "I can reward, and I can punish. You are not going to do anything technically illegal; but, by the gods, you are going to walk the line laid down for you. If you don't, I shall give the documents in the gerrymander affair to the papers the day after you fail. Now we'll go and see Falkland."

MacFarlane made one last protest.

"For God's sake, Bucks! spare me that. It is nothing less than the foulest collusion between the judge, the counsel for the plaintiff—and the devil!"

"Cut that out, too, and come along," said the governor, brutally; and by the steadying help of the chair, the door-post and the wall of the corridor, he led the way to the parlor suite on the floor below.

The conference in Falkland's rooms was chiefly a monologue with the sharp-spoken New York lawyer in the speaking part. When it was concluded the judge took his leave abruptly, pleading the lateness of the hour and his duties for the morrow. When he was gone the New Yorker began again.

"You won't want to be known in this, I take it," he said, nodding at the governor. "Mr. Hawk here will answer well enough for the legal part, but how about the business end of it. Have you got a man you can trust?"

The governor's yellow eyebrows met in a meaning scowl.

"I've got a man I can hang, which is more to the purpose. It's Major Jim Guilford. He lives here; want to meet him?"

"God forbid!" said Falkland, fervently. He rose and whipped himself into his overcoat, turning to Hawk: "Have your young man get me a carriage, and see to it that my special is ready to pull east when I give the word, will you?"

Hawk went obediently, and the New Yorker had his final word with the governor alone.

"I think we understand each other perfectly," he said. "You are to have the patronage: we are to pay for all actual betterments for which vouchers can be shown at the close of the deal. All we ask is that the stock be depressed to the point agreed upon within the half-year."

"It's going to be done," said the governor, trying as he could to keep the eye-image of his fellow conspirator from multiplying itself by two.

"All right. Now as to the court affair. If it is managed exactly as I have outlined, there will be no trouble—and no recourse for the other fellows. When I say that, I'm leaving out your Supreme Court. Under certain conditions, if the defendant's hardship could be definitely shown, a writ of certiorari and supersedeas might issue. How about that?"

The governor closed one eye slowly, the better to check the troublesome multiplying process.

"The Supreme Court won't move in the matter. The ostensible reason will be that the court is now two years behind its docket."

"And the real reason?"

"Of the three justices, one of them was elected on our ticket; another is a personal friend of Judge MacFarlane. The goods will be delivered."

"That's all, then; all but one word. Your judge is a weak brother. Notwithstanding all the pains I took to show him that his action would be technically unassailable, he was ready to fly the track at any moment. Have you got him safe?"

Bucks held up one huge hand with the thumb and forefinger tightly pressed together.

"I've got him right there," he said. "If you and Hawk have got your papers in good shape, the thing will go through like a hog under a barbed-wire fence."