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 take to the sea. In short, it was a pernicious
revival of an obsolete state of affairs, competition, and if persisted
in, involved nothing less than a fight to a finish with the army, the
lobby of the Northeastern. Other favoured beings stood aghast when they
heard of it, and hastened to old Tom with timely counsel; but he had
reached a frame of mind which they knew well. He would listen to no
reason, and maintained stoutly that there