Show GE RANDOLPH I 1 c nd LILLIAN X e re af dp Y BY 6 r r C D RHODES codr 5 1 3 1 REO B 1 ora 0 y ayt CHAPTER continued llo homeward mevard again in the starlit night 3 till in that whirl of exultation it was 1 somewhat chillier now and allison bundled her into the machine with rough tenderness she felt the thrill f of him ashe sat beside her and the firm strength with which be he controlled the swiftly speeding runabout was part her strength they were ere kindred spirits these two to soaring above the affairs ot of earth in the serene compla bency of those who make male trifles of vastness itself they did not lalk much jor they had not much to talk about the details of a schema scheme so comprehensive as Alli allison sons s were ere not things to be explained they were things to be seen in a vis on once she asked him about the bringing of the foreign railroads into the bombina tion and he told her that this would only be accomplished by a cal eat up 4 beadal which would take place next month and would probably involve the ohof f eu zu 1 1 I n i another de t J and it lemed qu te natural ahe he was so interested that he told cr or al all about his foreign visitors in the park allison stopped abc a the tbt little outlook house where they had climbed on that snowy night and aboy stood there with the stars above the trees belo v and the twinkling lights stretching out to the horizon all alone above the world of civilization be low sounded the clang 0 of street cars and tar far off to the left k h kh in the air there gleamed the lights of a curving ti train that was a part of allison s world when rh eh ie I 1 e had IMS since con a part h h already held in the I 1 ollow of his ta rau taa a 1 the tact fact that every moving moning thing which i t ung upon a track in all this vast paio pa io tama was nas under his ills dominion sei set ed pd only to illustrate and make plain ue tle marvel of the ahi bi i was mas now under wj P beyond that d m he a ii a fotr anothy no tr and still another and T n khem all wherever things moved or were mere transported the lift of all son s finger was to start and stop ithe the wheels to the uttermost confines of the earth oh it was wonderful m wonderful olid erful and she was nas part ot of it it was there that he proposed to her it did not surprise her she had known it when nhen they had entered the park and that this was the place he ile t told old her that all this empire was being to lay at her feet that she was as the empress of it and he the t emperor but that their joy was 10 be bea not in the sway not in the scepter and crown but in the doing and in the having done and in the conceiving and having conceived was as this a cold painting of pomp I 1 and glory and advantage and reward he added to it the fire of a lover and to that the force and mastery and compulsion of his dynamic power she felt again the potent thrill of him and the might and sweep and drive of him and with the hot tumbling words of love in her ears and her senses a reel and her mind in its whirling exults lion she felt between them a sampa thy and a union which it was not in I 1 human strength to deny something 11 f held her back n J something made her F withhold the word of promise on the plea that she must have more time to think to consider to straighten out the tangle of her mind but she sut suf him to sweep her in his arms and rain hot kisses upon her face and to tell her over and over and over overhand ove and over that she belonged to him for or ever and fo forever reverl CHAPTER allison a private and particular devil the free and entirely uncurbed en joyed an unusual treat it had a sen sell bation which did not need to be sup ported by a hectic imagination or a lurid vocabulary vedder court had been condemned for the use of the municipal transportation compa company A new eight track double deck tube was to be constructed through crescent island to the mainland grand climax t through this tube and into vedder court at the plat forms of the surface and L and sub may a cars were to come the passenger trains of the new atlantic pacific rail road a line three hundred miles short er than any now stretching between broadway and the golden gate any 4 reader of 0 the dally press of whom there are beneral 1 knows precisely what the tree free and entirely entire lv uncurbed did with this bit of simon pure anfor matlon mation the glittering details began on the first page turned on the sec see ond end continued on the fourth jumped over to the seventh and finished back among the real estate ads it began early in the morning and it continued until late at night fresh details piling upon each other in mad profusion their importance limited only by the restrictions of type extra the trick by which the A P ran through the mountains over the inland pacific track low extra extra the compulsion by which the was brought to complete the big gap in the new A AP P system I 1 tremendous extra the contracts of freightage subject strictly to the conI merce law between A P and the cereal trust the metal trust the fuel trust the cloth trust and all the other iniquitous bombina eions in restraint of everything wow zowie that was mas the hot one the A P was the main stem and within thirteen seconds of the appearance on the streets of the tremendous extra every other fragile of a rail road not under the linked ate tion of the A P was as reduced to a shrivel and its stocks began to drop with the sickening plunge of an un opened parac parachute hutel gall sargent kept nanette on the rush for extras from the first yell on the streets and she read every word including the underlines on the ciscel laneous portra ts Is of allison and the tunny funny gilines pi lines which invariably oc burred in the middle of the most inter esting sentences it was true all truel truet here wag was the first step in allison a tremendous broj pia act an accomplished fact the rest of it would be gradually revealed from day to day as suited his hll needs and the empire he bad had planned would rc afi id until its circle touched and overlap overla pl cd pd and h oke into an intricate u at all ne land and water t of the earth and she was to be the empress was she 9 through all the night she had battled that question and the bat tie tle had left traces of darkness around her luminous eyes late in the afternoon jim sargent came home drawn fagged and with hollows hollor s under his e eyes es he had a vio lent headache and he looked ten years older he walked slowly into the if 11 arary where mrs sargent and mrs davies and gall were mere discussing the of vedder court eburt and dropped alfo a chair ita sargent rang a bell instantly V mi I 1 h jira jim felt that way he needed a hot dnn drin T first of all what a s t glitter she asked him the tb creases ct ef worry flashing into her brow broa it a been a hard day he epla explained ined for ing himself with an effort to an awer years of persistent experience ba hae taught him to follow the I 1 ne ot of least resistance there has been a panic on change railroads are going to smash all up and down the line al at lison s newa P road it its s the star it 0 e 0 b h a h brought bought into the railroad gime g ime the saime rough shod methods he used in his traction manipulations has your company been hurt jim I 1 asked his wife fully prepared for the worst and making up her mind to bear up bravely under it not yet replied sargent and he passed his hand over his brow he was already making a tremendous et ef fort to brace himself tor for tomorrow tomorrows a ordeal I 1 escaped today by an acci dent by some mistake the valley was mentioned as belonging to the new A P combination of course I 1 didn dian t correct it but tomorrow they 11 know mr allison was mas responsible tor for tha that statement gall serenely informed her uncle he d take care of you great guns exploded her uncle what did you know about this thing all of it smiled gall she had known that allison would keep his word but it gave her a strange sense of relief that he had done so her aunt helen turned to her with a commanding eye but gall merely dimpled of 0 course I 1 couldn coulden t say anything went on gall gail it was all in conn dence isn t it glorious uncle jim you would rit t have thought so if 11 you d been down town today respond ed her uncle trying again to erase from his brow the damage which had been done to his nerves they wanted to mob allison All lson he ile has cut the ground from under the entire railroad business of the united states their stocks have deflated an aggregate of billions of dollars and the slump Is permanent he ile has bankrupted a host of men rifled the pockets of a million poor investors he has demoralized the entire transportation commerce commer ct of the united states and he gave no one the show of a rat in a trap I 1 that business 7 asked gall the red spots beginning to come into her cheeks not quite snapped her uncle jim fiction has made that the universal idea but there are decent men in bust ness the majority of them are even in railroading most roads are organ iced and conducted for the sole pur pose of carrying freight and gers at a profit for the stockholders and spectacular stock jobbing deals are the exception rather than the rule has mr allison been more unfair than others who have made big con demanded gail again aware of the severely inquiring eye of aunt helen rotten replied her uncle with an emphasis in which there was much of personal feeling he has taken tricky advantage of every unprotected loop hole he ile won from the inland pacific at the mere cost of a pas sage which the inland built through the mountains by brilliant engineering and at an almost countless cost that accounted clever asked gall so Is the work ot of a confidence man or a N wire ire was the retort but they are sent to jail just the same the inland created something it built with brains and money and force and sincere commercial enterprise a line which won it a well earned supremacy of the pacific trade it m was as entitled to keep it yet all son by ma making king with it a tricky contract for t the he restricted use of the key to its supremacy uses that very device to destroy it he has bankrupted or will have d done one so a two thousand mile railroad system which Is of tremendous commercial value to the country in order to use a hundred miles of its track and remove it from competition allison has ere abed nothing he has only seized by stealth what others have created he is not even a commercial highwayman he Is a commercial gail had paled by now tell me one thing she demanded any of the railroad men hae hane employed this trick it if they bad had been shrewd enough to think of it A lot of them was the admirel n after rn awkward pause daiev de that make it morally and ethically cor you maybe may be prejudiced ed jim inter aunt helen moving closer to gal cal it if har ire feu 01 playing the game that way I 1 don t see why mr allison t receive applause tor for clever play I 1 lou ou bet I 1 im in prejudiced I 1 snarled sargent overcoming his weariness and pacing up and down the library floor he came near playing my road the same trick he did the inland pacific he secured control of the L C be cause it has a twenty year contract tor for passage over fifty miles of our track he d throw the rest of our line away like a peanut hull it if he had not aromi promised s ed gail gall to protect me I 1 in an object of chanty charity oh it was a scarcely audible cry of pain aunt helen moved closer and patted her hand gall did not notice the action why did he make you that promise 0 gall a H demanded her uncle turning ng on her suddenly with a physical motion so much like her father s that she was startled he ile wants me to 10 marry him tal fal gall aunt grace sat down by the other side of gail have you accepted urn lim dear she asked I 1 hare a as ft lu lop in balls gall s throat sl e could coald not answer she 11 never marry him m ith my consent stormed her uncle jim nor with miles allies rhe ille fellow s an nn un scrupulous scoundrel I 1 he s made of 0 cruelty from his toes to his hair jie I 1 A 0 when jim felt that way he needed a hot drink stops at nothing he even robbed market square church of six million dollars dollar sl 1 gails head suddenly went up in startled inquiry she wanted still to defend allison but she dreaded what was to come we wouldn t sell him vedder court at his price so he took it from us at six million less than he naly of fared he did that by a trick too all three women looked up at him in breathless interest he had the city condemn vedder court went on sargent it if he had condemned it outright for the munica pal transportation company he would have had to pay us about the amount of his original off offer er but his own vate and particular devil put the id idea ea into his head that the vedder co court urt tenements should be torn down any how for the good of the public so he had the buildings condemned first destroying six million dollars worth of value then he had the ground con tim corman probably got about a million dollars for that hu mani sanitarian job A wild fit of sobbing startled them all CHAPTER love allison swept gail gall into his arms and rained hot kisses upon her crush ing her closely to him she offered no resistance and the very fact that she held so supinely in h barms made allison release her sooner than he might otherwise have done she had known that this experienced must come that no look or gesture or word of hera hers could ward it off you must never do that again she told him stepping back from him and regaining her breath with an effort S she he had lingered in the front parlors to receive him before her uncle jim should know that he was in the bouse house and she had led him straight into the little tete a tete reception room she meant to tree free herself quickly why not he laughed and ad danced toward her taking her attitude lightly ascribing her action to a girl ish whim confident in his power over her he meant to dispose of her coy ness by taking her in his arms again she belonged to him mr air allison the tone was cold enough and deadly in earnest enough to arrest him what s the matter gall he pro tested ready to humor her to listen to wl wt at she had to say to smooth mat tera out you have no right che tou toll him yes I 1 have he jovially assured her I 1 hope I 1 don t have to wait until after marr age for a kiss it if that s the case III take you out and marry aru o 0 right now there was an infection in his laugh contagion in the assumption that all was right between them and that any difference was vas one which could be straightened out with jolly patience and gall gail though her determination would not have changed might have softened toward him had bad she not seen 1 in his face a look which paled he lips ever since last night he had antici her had rejoiced in his posses sion of her had dreamed on the time when he should take her for his own and his eyes were cloudy with big hi thoughts of her let us hae ha e a clear understand ng mr allison she was quite erect and looking him directly in the eyes her own were deep and troubled trouble d and the dark trace which had been about them in the morning had deepened I 1 told you last night that I 1 should need time in which to decide I 1 have decided 1 shall not marry you H he a re returned turned her gaze for a moment and his brow clouded IN V you ve changed since last night he charged her possibly she admitted 1 it Is more likely however that 1 have merely crystallized I 1 prefer not to discuss it she saw on his face the growing instinct to humiliate her you must discuss it he insisted last night when I 1 took you in my arms you made no objection I 1 was justified in doing it again tonight you re not a fool iou ou knew from the first that I 1 wanted ranted you and you en cou raged me now I 1 in entitled to know what hat has made |