The Octopus, Frank Norris [books you need to read txt] 📗

around that, could he? There was Darrell and Lyman Derrick, both pledged to the ranches. Good Lord, he was never satisfied. He’d be obstinate till the very last gun was fired. Why, if he got drowned in a river he’d float upstream just to be contrary.

In the course of time, the new board was seated. For the first few months of its term, it was occupied in clearing up the business left over by the old board and in the completion of the railway map. But now, the decks were cleared. It was about to address itself to the consideration of a revision of the tariff for the carriage of grain between the San Joaquin Valley and tidewater.

Both Lyman and Darrell were pledged to an average ten per cent. cut of the grain rates throughout the entire State.

The typewriter returned with the letters for Lyman to sign, and he put away the map and took up his morning’s routine of business, wondering, the while, what would become of his practice during the time he was involved in the business of the Ranchers’ Railroad Commission.

But towards noon, at the moment when Lyman was drawing off a glass of mineral water from the siphon that stood at his elbow, there was an interruption. Some one rapped vigorously upon the door, which was immediately after opened, and Magnus and Harran came in, followed by Presley.

“Hello, hello!” cried Lyman, jumping up, extending his hands, “why, here’s a surprise. I didn’t expect you all till tonight. Come in, come in and sit down. Have a glass of sizz-water, Governor.”

The others explained that they had come up from Bonneville the night before, as the Executive Committee of the League had received a despatch from the lawyers it had retained to fight the Railroad, that the judge of the court in San Francisco, where the test cases were being tried, might be expected to hand down his decision the next day.

Very soon after the announcement of the new grading of the ranchers’ lands, the corporation had offered, through S. Behrman, to lease the disputed lands to the ranchers at a nominal figure. The offer had been angrily rejected, and the Railroad had put up the lands for sale at Ruggles’s office in Bonneville. At the exorbitant price named, buyers promptly appeared—dummy buyers, beyond shadow of doubt, acting either for the Railroad or for S. Behrman—men hitherto unknown in the county, men without property, without money, adventurers, heelers. Prominent among them, and bidding for the railroad’s holdings included on Annixter’s ranch, was Delaney.

The farce of deeding the corporation’s sections to these fictitious purchasers was solemnly gone through with at Ruggles’s office, the Railroad guaranteeing them possession. The League refused to allow the supposed buyers to come upon the land, and the Railroad, faithful to its pledge in the matter of guaranteeing its dummies possession, at once began suits in ejectment in the district court in Visalia, the county seat.

It was the preliminary skirmish, the reconnaisance in force, the combatants feeling each other’s strength, willing to proceed with caution, postponing the actual death-grip for a while till each had strengthened its position and organised its forces.

During the time the cases were on trial at Visalia, S. Behrman was much in evidence in and about the courts. The trial itself, after tedious preliminaries, was brief. The ranchers lost. The test cases were immediately carried up to the United States Circuit Court in San Francisco. At the moment the decision of this court was pending.

“Why, this is news,” exclaimed Lyman, in response to the Governor’s announcement; “I did not expect them to be so prompt. I was in court only last week and there seemed to be no end of business ahead. I suppose you are very anxious?”

Magnus nodded. He had seated himself in one of Lyman’s deep chairs, his grey top-hat, with its wide brim, on the floor beside him. His coat of black broadcloth that had been tightly packed in his valise, was yet wrinkled and creased; his trousers were strapped under his high boots. As he spoke, he stroked the bridge of his hawklike nose with his bent forefinger.

Leaning-back in his chair, he watched his two sons with secret delight. To his eye, both were perfect specimens of their class, intelligent, well-looking, resourceful. He was intensely proud of them. He was never happier, never more nearly jovial, never more erect, more military, more alert, and buoyant than when in the company of his two sons. He honestly believed that no finer examples of young manhood existed throughout the entire nation.

“I think we should win in this court,” Harran observed, watching the bubbles break in his glass. “The investigation has been much more complete than in the Visalia trial. Our case this time is too good. It has made too much talk. The court would not dare render a decision for the Railroad. Why, there’s the agreement in black and white—and the circulars the Railroad issued. How CAN one get around those?”

“Well, well, we shall know in a few hours now,” remarked Magnus.

“Oh,” exclaimed Lyman, surprised, “it is for this morning, then. Why aren’t you at the court?”

“It seemed undignified, boy,” answered the Governor. “We shall know soon enough.”

“Good God!” exclaimed Harran abruptly, “when I think of what is involved. Why, Lyman, it’s our home, the ranch house itself, nearly all Los Muertos, practically our whole fortune, and just now when there is promise of an enormous crop of wheat. And it is not only us.

There are over half a million acres of the San Joaquin involved. In some cases of the smaller ranches, it is the confiscation of the whole of the rancher’s land. If this thing goes through, it will absolutely beggar nearly a hundred men. Broderson wouldn’t have a thousand acres to his name. Why, it’s monstrous.”

“But the corporations offered to lease these lands,” remarked Lyman. “Are any of the ranchers taking up that offer—or are any of them buying outright?”

“Buying! At the new figure!” exclaimed Harran, “at twenty and thirty an acre! Why, there’s not one in ten that CAN. They are land-poor. And as for leasing—leasing land they virtually own— no, there’s precious few are doing that, thank God! That would be acknowledging the railroad’s ownership right away—forfeiting their rights for good. None of the LEAGUERS are doing it, I know. That would be the rankest treachery.”

He paused for a moment, drinking the rest of the mineral water, then interrupting Lyman, who was about to speak to Presley, drawing him into the conversation through politeness, said: “Matters are just romping right along to a crisis these days. It’s a make or break for the wheat growers of the State now, no mistake. Here are the land cases and the new grain tariff drawing to a head at about the same time. If we win our land cases, there’s your new freight rates to be applied, and then all is beer and skittles. Won’t the San Joaquin go wild if we pull it off, and I believe we will.”

“How we wheat growers are exploited and trapped and deceived at every turn,” observed Magnus sadly. “The courts, the capitalists, the railroads, each of them in turn hoodwinks us into some new and wonderful scheme, only to betray us in the end. Well,” he added, turning to Lyman, “one thing at least we can depend on. We will cut their grain rates for them, eh, Lyman?”

Lyman crossed his legs and settled himself in his office chair.

“I have wanted to have a talk with you about that, sir,” he said. “Yes, we will cut the rates—an average 10 per cent. cut throughout the State, as we are pledged. But I am going to warn you, Governor, and you, Harran; don’t expect too much at first. The man who, even after twenty years’ training in the operation of railroads, can draw an equitable, smoothly working schedule of freight rates between shipping point and common point, is capable of governing the United States. What with main lines, and leased lines, and points of transfer, and the laws governing common carriers, and the rulings of the InterState Commerce Commission, the whole matter has become so confused that Vanderbilt himself couldn’t straighten it out. And how can it be expected that railroad commissions who are chosen—well, let’s be frank—as ours was, for instance, from out a number of men who don’t know the difference between a switching charge and a differential rate, are going to regulate the whole business in six months’ time? Cut rates; yes, any fool can do that; any fool can write one dollar instead of two, but if you cut too low by a fraction of one per cent. and if the railroad can get out an injunction, tie you up and show that your new rate prevents the road being operated at a profit, how are you any better off?”

“Your conscientiousness does you credit, Lyman,” said the Governor. “I respect you for it, my son. I know you will be fair to the railroad. That is all we want. Fairness to the corporation is fairness to the farmer, and we won’t expect you to readjust the whole matter out of hand. Take your time. We can afford to wait.”

“And suppose the next commission is a railroad board, and reverses all our figures?”

The one-time mining king, the most redoubtable poker player of Calaveras County, permitted himself a momentary twinkle of his eyes.

“By then it will be too late. We will, all of us, have made our fortunes by then.”

The remark left Presley astonished out of all measure He never could accustom himself to these strange lapses in the Governor’s character. Magnus was by nature a public man, judicious, deliberate, standing firm for principle, yet upon rare occasion, by some such remark as this, he would betray the presence of a sub-nature of recklessness, inconsistent, all at variance with his creeds and tenets.

At the very bottom, when all was said and done, Magnus remained the Forty-niner. Deep down in his heart the spirit of the Adventurer yet persisted. “We will all of us have made fortunes by then.” That was it precisely. “After us the deluge.” For all his public spirit, for all his championship of justice and truth, his respect for law, Magnus remained the gambler, willing to play for colossal stakes, to hazard a fortune on the chance of winning a million. It was the true California spirit that found expression through him, the spirit of the West, unwilling to occupy itself with details, refusing to wait, to be patient, to achieve by legitimate plodding; the miner’s instinct of wealth acquired in a single night prevailed, in spite of all. It was in this frame of mind that Magnus and the multitude of other ranchers of whom he was a type, farmed their ranches. They had no love for their land. They were not attached to the soil. They worked their ranches as a quarter of a century before they had worked their mines. To husband the resources of their marvellous San Joaquin, they considered niggardly, petty, Hebraic. To get all there was out of the land, to squeeze it dry, to exhaust it, seemed their policy. When, at last, the land worn out, would refuse to yield, they would invest their money in something else; by then, they would all have made fortunes. They did not care. “After us the deluge.”

Lyman, however, was obviously uneasy, willing to change the subject. He rose to his feet, pulling down his cuffs.

“By the way,” he observed, “I want you three to lunch with me to-day at my club. It is close by. You can wait there for news of the court’s decision as well as anywhere else, and I should like to show you the place.