“I can, and I will!”

“I say you can’t.  I know a good bit more now than I knew this morning!”

“Catalogue it,” said Blount tersely.

“Mr. McVickar came in on the noon train to-day, and I had an interview with him.”

“That doesn’t tell me anything.”

Again the traffic manager took time to smoke and to reflect.

“You made some pretty savage threats this morning, Evan; about shoving this thing to the point where the grand juries, Federal and State, could take hold of it.  As a lawyer, you know even better than I do what that would mean.”

“I told you what it would mean.  In the present state of public sentiment it would mean prison sentences for every man of you caught with the goods.”

“Yes, for every man of us,” said Gantry slowly; “for the railroad man who has given, and for the other man who has taken.  Evan, the jails of this State wouldn’t be big enough to hold us all.”

“I can readily believe you.  That is the full weight of the stick with which I am going to club you fellows into decency.”

“And you’ll let the club fall wherever it may?”

“I’ve got to do that, Dick; I can’t do any less.”

For the third time Gantry paused.  The train-waiting interval was half gone, and he had been feeling purposefully for the climaxing moment without finding it.  But now he decided that it had come.

“In the talk this morning there was some reference made to your father and his attitude in this fight, Evan.  Do you remember what was said?”

“Perfectly.”

“Well, suppose I should tell you that I know now—­what I didn’t know certainly then—­that when you hit out at us you hit him?”

“You mean that he is with you in this scheme to hoodwink the people?”

“Ask yourself,” was the low-toned reply.

“I have asked myself a hundred times, Dick; I’ve been hoping against hope.  I’ll be utterly frank with you, as man to man.  We’ve kept pretty obstinately out of the political field, both of us, father and I, since the first day when I told him my views on machine-made government.  But from a few little things he has said, I’ve gathered that he isn’t with you; that there has been a quarrel of some kind between him and Mr. McVickar—­”

“There was a set-to—­a battle royal,” Gantry put in.  “The last act of it was played to a finish that evening when Mr. McVickar took you down to his car and hired you.  But there has been a meeting since.  Ask yourself again, Evan.  Haven’t you had good and sufficient reasons for believing that you are bucking, not only the railroad company, but your own flesh and blood?”

This time it was Blount who took time for reflection.  The shot had gone home.  He told himself that there were only too many reasons for believing that Gantry was stating the simple fact.  None the less, he made a final effort to break down the conclusion that Gantry was relentlessly thrusting upon him.