forty odd sisters for
progression, the bills were still under consideration by those hardheaded
statesmen, Mr. Bascom and Mr. Botcher and their associates.

It could not be because these gentlemen did not know the arguments and
see the necessity. Mr. Crewe had had them to dinner, and had spent so
much time in their company presenting his case--to which they absolutely
agreed--that they took to a forced seclusion. The member from Leith also
wrote letters and telegrams, and sent long typewritten arguments and
documents to Mr. Flint. Mr. Crewe, although far from discouraged, began
to think there was something mysterious about all this seemingly
unnecessary deliberation.

Mr. Crewe, though of great discernment, was only mortal, and while he was
fighting his battle single-handed, how was he to know that the gods above
him were taking sides and preparing for conflict? The gods do not give
out their declarations of war for publication to the Associated Press;
and old Tom Gaylord, who may be likened to Mars, had no intention of
sending Jupiter notice until he got his cohorts into line. The strife,
because it was to be internecine, was the more terrible. Hitherto the
Gaylord Lumber Company, like the Winona Manufacturing Company of
Newcastle (the mills of which extended for miles along the Tyne), had
been a faithful ally of the Empire; and, on occasions when it was needed,
had borrowed the Imperial army to obtain grants, extensions, and
franchises.

The fact is that old Tom Gaylord, in the autumn previous, had quarreled
with Mr. Flint about lumber rates, which had been steadily rising. Mr.
Flint had been polite, but firm; and old Tom, who, with all his
tremendous properties, could ship by no other railroad than the
Northeastern, had left the New York office in a black rage. A more
innocent citizen than old Tom would have put his case (which was without
doubt a strong one) before the Railroad Commission of the State, but old
Tom knew well enough that the Railroad Commission was in reality an
economy board of the Northeastern system, as much under Mr. Flint's
orders as the conductors and brakemen. Old Tom, in consulting the map,
conceived an unheard-of effrontery, a high treason which took away the
breath of his secretary and treasurer when it was pointed out to him. The
plan contemplated a line of railroad from the heart of the lumber regions
down the south side of the valley of the Pingsquit to Kingston, where the
lumber could