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im Captain In the Ranks ml ilTniiiiiimiiinwmiii^liir\ Copyright. 1904, by A. S. Barnes Co.. Publishers, 156 Fifth Avenue, New York CHAPTER IX fOW did you come to do that?" That was the first question Captain Hallam fired at Dun can after the hotel waiter had quitted the room to bring a fur ther supply of coffee and broiled bacon. "Why, it's simple enough," answered Duncan, with a touch of embarrass ment in his tone. "You see, I was up there yesterday gauging coal. I knew the barges were anchored in a danger ous position, and so when the storm broke there wasn't anything else to do but get into my clothes and send the tug up there to the rescue." "But it wasn't your business to look after the coal up in the bend?" Duncan slowly drank three sips of coffee before answering that eagerly questioning remark. Then he leaned forward and said slowly and with em phasis: "I conceive it to be my business and my duty, as well as my pleasure, to do all that I can to promote the interest of the man who employs me." "But that was a risky thing to do. You took your life in your hands, you know?" "I suppose I did, but that's a small matter. There were twenty other lives in danger. And what is one man's life when there is a duty to be done? We've all got to die some time." Captain Hallam did not utter the thought that was in him. That thought was: "Well, of all the queer men I have ever had to deal with you are certain ly the queerest. Still, I think I under stand you, and that's queerer still." "What do you want, Duncan, for last night's work?" Duncan looked at his companion for half a minute before answering. Then he said: "I want that tug captain of yours discharged. "Why?" "Because he's a coward and an ut terly unfit man. Human life may de pend upon his courage at any mo ment, and he has no courage." "Is that all you want?" "Yes. That's all." "Why don't you demand an increase in your salary? Anybody else would. But perhaps you don't care for a big ger salary. You're a queer sort, you know." "Oh, yes, I care very much for an increase," answered Duncan. "Then why didn't you seize upon the opportunity to ask for it?" "Must I tell you frankly?" "I wish you would. It might help me to understand you." "Well, it is simple enough. You gave me employment when I was desperate ly in need of it. I should be an in grate if I did not consider your inter ests in all that I do. I think I ought to have a larger salary than you are now paying me. I think I earn it, and it has been my purpose to ask for it when the proper time should come." "Then why haven't you been in a hurry to ask for it now? There couldn't be abetter time." "Pardon me, but I cannot agree with you. It so happens that just at this moment I have several very important matters of yours in my charge. You have intrusted them to me, and they have come so exclusively under my control that nobody else, not even you, could conduct them to a successful issue so well as I can. Under such circumstances, of course, I cannot make any personal demand upon you without indecency. To do so would be to take advantage of your necessities. It would amount to a threat that if you refused my demands I would abandon these en terprises and leave you to get out of all their difficulties as best you could. Don't you see, Captain Hallam, that under such circumstances I simply could not make a demand upon you for more salary or for anything else of personal advantage to myself?" "No, I don't see it at all, and yet somehow I seem to understand you. If I were in your place I'd regard these circumstances as trump cards, and I'd lead them for all they are worth. So would any other man in the Mississippi valley or anywhere else, I think." "That may perhaps be so, and I sup pose I am 'queer,' as you say. But to me it would seem a despicable thing to take advantage of the fact that you need me in these affairs of yours. You have bidden me be frank. I will be so. When I came to Cairo I sought work of the hard physical kind at the small wages that such work commands. You quickly gave me better work and lar ger pay than I had expected to earn for months to come. Little by little you have advanced me In your regard until now I seem to enjoy your con fidence. When you first brought me into contact with the big men of af fairsmore or less big I was op pressed with an exaggerated sense of their greatness. Presently I discovered that, while you are always deferential toward them, you are distinctly their superior in intellect and in your grasp of affairs. You allow them to think that they are your masters, while in fact you never fail to have your way, and to compel them and the many mil lions of other people's money whose use they control to your own pur poses." At this point Hallam uttered a low By... GEORGE CARY EGGLESTON chuckle. "A little later I discovered another fact," continued Duncan. "It slowly dawned upon my mind that you put me forward in your conferences with them because you valued my sugges tions and my initiative more than you did theirs. Thinking of that, I came at last to the conclusion that I must, in fact, be superior to these men in those qualities that originate, execute, achieve otherwise, with your genius for affairs, you would have suppressed me and listened to them." Again Hallam chuckled. "Then another thought occurred to me. The only reason why they can execute plans that I conceive, while I cannot, is that they lia-se considerable money of their own and command of much greater sums not their own, while I have neither. They have the tools and the materials I have neither. The clumsiest mechanic who has tools and materials to work with can do things that the most skillful mechanic who has neither tools nor materials cannot do. "I have decided, therefore, to possess myself of tools and materials in order that I may make myself a master workman and do my part in the great nation building enterprises of the time and country." "Would you mind explaining what you mean by that?" interrupted Hal lam. "What is going on here in the west does not impress you in the same way In which it impresses me," said Dun can. "You men of affairs are just now beginning to do the very greatest work of nation building that has ever been done since time began, but you are so close to your work that you do not appreciate its colossal proportions. You have no perspective. In that I have the advantage of you. May I go on and set forth the whole of my thought?" "Yes certainly. I want to hear. Go on." "Well, then, let me explain and illus trate. A little while ago, in going over your accounts, I discovered that the cotton and grain you shipped from Cairo to New York must be five times transferred from one car to another. That entailed enormous and needless expense in addition to the delay. A few weeks ago I suggested to a confer ence of railroad nabobs at your house that you should organize a line of through freight cars, which should be loaded at Cairo, St. Louis, Chicago or anywhere else in the west and hauled through to New York, Boston or any where else in the east without breaking bulk. The saving of expense was so obvious that you put a hundred thou sand dollars into the line, and the rail road magnates made specially good terms for the hauling of the car. You expect and will get dividends from your investment. The railroad men see profit for their companies in the oper ation of the line. That is all that you and they foresee of advantage. In my view that is the very smallest part of the matter." "How do you mean?" "Why, taking cotton as a basis of reckoning, this through line system of transportation, owned independently of the railroads, will make an impor tant saving in the cost of raw mate terials to the owners of New England mills. They will run more spindles and set more looms a-going than they would have done without the through line's cheapening of raw material. They will pay better wages and reap larger profits. They will produce more goods, and they will sell them at a smaller price. The farmer in the west will pay less for his cotton goods and get more for his grain because of the through line's cheapening of transpor tation. He and his wife and his chil dren will dress better at less cost than they otherwise could do. Bear in mind that the line's cars will carry other things than cotton. The people of the east will get their breadstuff and their bacon and their beef far cheaper be cause of its existence than they other wise could. "Now, again, a little while ago you were in Washington. You found it necessary to execute certain papers and to file them in Chicot county, Ark., before a certain fixed date. You or dered me by telegraph to prepare the papers and bring them to you in Wash ington in the speediest way possible in order that I might carry them within the time limit to their destination. I started for Washington within five minutes by the quickest possible route, preparing the papers on the train. I had to change cars five times between Cairo and Washington and seven times more between Washington and Mem phis. All that will presently be chang ed. The railroads of this country, to gether with* the new ones now build ing, will presently be consolidated into great systems. Transportation, both as to freight and as to passengers, is now done at retail, and the cost is enormous. It will, after a while, be done at wholesale and at a proportion ate reduction in cost. "Now, the thought that is in my mind is this: We have got to build this great nation anew upon lines marked out by the events of the last few years. The war has been costly, enormously costly. It has saddled the country with a debt of about S3.000.000.000. be- sides the incalculable waste, but it has awakened a great national self con sciousness which will speedily pay off the debt and incidentally develop the resources of the country in a way nev er dreamed of before. These resources, so far as they are undeveloped or only partially developed, lie mainly in the west and south. It is our duty to de velop them. "The government is building a rail road to the Pacific coast That, when It is done, will annex a vast and singu larly fruitful country to the Union." "Why do you not include the south in your reckoning?" asked Hallam. "I do. Under the new conditions the south will produce more cotton than it ever did, and its coal and iron resources will be enormously developed, but the south is for the present handicapped by disturbed conditions and a disorganized labor system. It will be long before that region shall take its full share in national developmentin what I call 'nation building.' "Pardon me for wandering so far afield. I have meant only to show you what I regard as the true character of the work that you and your associates are doing. Now, I wish and intend to do my share in that work. To that end Why do you not include the south in your reckoning I must have money of my own and that control of other people's money which comes only to men who have money of their own. I don't care a fig for money for it's own sake. I want it as a tool with which I may do my work." "I think I understand you," answered Hallam after a few minutes' reflection. "You shall have the tools. You have already put away two-thirds of your salary from month to month. I have today multiplied that salary by three. You'll soon have 'grub stakes' for any enterprise you may choose to enter up on, but that isn't all. If it were it would mean that I am to lose you pres ently. I don't mean to do that. You are too good a man for a clerk. I pro pose to make of you a partner in all my outside enterprises. I must go now. Pve five people to meet at 10 o'clock. Come to me after that hour if you're sufficiently rested and we'll talk busi- ness." "But how about Kennedy and his discharge?" asked Duncan. "Oh, that's settled. I've sent him his quittance papers, and he's your ene my for all time. You can stand that." "Yes, so long as you are my friend." CHAPTER X. DURING THE PBINCBTON UNION THTJBSDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1906. all this time Guilford Duncan had been taking his meals at the little boarding house of Mrs. Deming. The other boarders, a dozen in all perhaps, did not interest him at first, and for a time he took his meals in silence, ex cept for courteous "good mornings" and "good evenings." His table com panions were mainly young clerks of various grades, with whose ideas and aspirations young Duncan was very slightly in sympathy. After a time, however, he decided that it was his duty to cultivate ac quaintance with these table compan ions, in whom he recognized private soldiers in the great army of work the men upon whom the commanders of all degrees must rely for the execu tion of their plans. Accordingly, Duncan began to take an active part in the conversations go ing on about him, and little by little he injected so much of interest into them that whenever he spoke he was listened to with special attention. Without assuming superiority of any kind, he came to be recognized as in fact superior. He came to be a sort of autocrat of the breakfast table, direct ing the conversations there into new channels and better ones. It was his practice to buy and read all the magazines as they appeared, including the particularly interesting eclectic periodicals of that time, in which the best European thought was fairly represented. His reading furnished him many in teresting themes for table talk, and presently the brightest ones among his companions there began to question him further concerning the subjects he thus mentioned. After a little while some of them occasionally borrowed reading matter of him by way of still further satisfying their interest in the matters of which he talked at table. A little later still these brighter young men one by one began to visit Duncan's room in the evenings. In the free and easy fashion of that time and region he made them welcome without permitting their coming or go ing to disturb his own evening occu pations In any serious way. His room was very large, well warmed and abundantly lighted, for he had almost a passion for light. There was al ways a litter of new magazines, week ly periodicals and the like on the big table in the center of the room, and there were always piles of older ones In the big closet Still further, there was a stand of bookshelves which was beginning to be crowded with books bought one by one as they came out or as Duncan felt the need of them. Lit erature was the young man's only ex travagance, and that was not a ver* expensive one. "Welcome. Help yourself. Read what you like and you won't disturb me." That was the spirit of his greeting to all these, his friends, when ever they entered his doer, and it was not long before tne room of the young Virginian became a center of good in fluence among the young men of the town. Cairo was an ill organized communi ty at that time. The great majority of its people were "newcomers" from all quarters of the country, who had as yet scarcely learned to know each oth er. War operations had filled the town for several years past with shifting crowds of adventurers of all sorts, who found in disturbed conditions their op portunity to live by prey. There were gambling houses and other evil resorts in dangerous numbers, where soldiers and discharged soldiers on their way through the place were tempted to their ruin by every lure of vice and every ease of opportunity to go astray. The solid men deplored these condi tions, but were as yet powerless to bet ter them. After the rush of discharged soldiers through the town ceased the evil influences began to operate more directly upon the clerks and other young men of the city itself. Under such circumstances even the least cultivated of the hard headed business men could not fail to regard with special pleasure the silent work that Duncan was doing for the salva tion of at least a considerable group of young men who might otherwise have fallen victims to the evil condi tions that beset them. Apart from his association with the young men who frequented his room Duncan had no social life at all. He never visited at any house except that Captain Hallam frequently had him to a meal over -which the two might "talk business" or where he might meet and help entertain prominent men of af fairs from other cities whose visits were inspired by commercial purposes far more than by considerations of a social nature. It created some little astonishment, therefore, when one day at the board ing house table Duncan said to those about him: "I hear that you fellows are organ izing some sort of club for social pur poses. Why haven't you given me a chance to join?" "We didn't think you would care for such things. You never go out, you know, and" "What is the purpose of your organ ization, if you don't mind my asking?" "Oh, certainly not. We're simply making up a little group, which we call 'The Coterie,' to have a few danc ing parties and amateur concerts and the like in the big hotel dining room during the winter. We've a notion that the young people of Cairo ought to know each other better. Our idea is to promote social intercourse, and so .we're all chipping in to pay the cost, which won't be much." "Well, may I chip in with the rest?" Seeing glad assent in every counte nance, he held out his hand for the subscription paper and put down his name for just double the largest sub scription on it. Then, passing it back, he said: "I think I may be able to secure some support for so good an undertaking from the business men of the city and from othersthe lawyers, doctors and the like." He did what he could, and what he could was much. The solid men, when he brought the subject to their atten tion, felt that this was an extension of that work of Duncan's for the bet terment of the town, which they so heartily approved. They subscribed freely to the expense, and, better still, they lent personal countenance to the entertainments. Guilford Duncan also attended one of the entertainments, though it had been his fixed purpose not to do so. The reason was that Guilford Duncan was altogether human and a full blooded young man. From the time of his? ar rival at Cairo until now he had not had any association with women. When such association came to him he accepted it as a boon without relax ing in any degree his devotion to af fairs. CHAPTER XI. HE person who had originated and who conducted Mrs. Deal ing's boarding housefamous for its farewas, in fact, not Mrs. Deming at all. That good lady would pretty certainly have scored a failure if she had tried actively to man age such an establishment. She had never in her life known necessity for work of any kind or acquired the least skill in its doing. She had been bred in luxury and had never known any other way of living until a few months before Guilford Duncan went to take his meals at what was known as her "table." She had lived in a spacious and sumptuously furnished suburban house near an eastern city until two years or so before the time of this story. When Barbara Verne, her only sis ter's child, was born and orphaned within a single day the aunt had adopt ed her quite as a matter of course. No sooner had Barbara ceased to be an infant in arms than she began to manifest strong and peculiar traits of character. Even as a little child she was wondered at as "so queerso old fashioned, don't you know." She had a healthy child's love for her dolls, and, though the persons around her had not enough clearness of vision to see that she was fruitfully and cre atively imaginative in her peculiar way, her dolls' nursery was full of wonderful stories, known only to her self and the dolls. Every doll there bad a personality, a history and a character of its own. Barbara was the intimate of them allthe confidential friend and companion, who listened XSfP iX Q. ^r^#^^^r?3 iX 7:-*W PROFESSIONAL CARDS. R. D. A. McRAE DENTIST Office in Odd Fellows Block. PRINCETON, R. F. L. SMALL, DENTIST. Office hours 9 a. m. to 12 m. 2 p. m. to 5 p. m. Over E. B. Anderson's store. Princeton, Minn., ROSS CALEY, M. D., PHYSICIAN AND SUBGEON. Office and Residence over Jack's Drugstore Tel.Rural, 36. Princeton, Minn. JLVERO L. MCMILLAN, LAWYEB. Office in Odd Fellows' Building. Princeton, A.ROSS, ATTOBNEY AT LAW. 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