第36章

Now, we want you with us, Governor; perhaps not openly, if you don't wish it, but tacitly, at least.I won't ask you for an answer to-night, but what I do ask of you is to consider this matter seriously and think over the whole business.Will you do it?"Osterman ceased definitely to speak, leaning forward across the table, his eves fixed on Magnus's face.There was a silence.

Outside, the rain fell continually with an even, monotonous murmur.In the group of men around the table no one stirred nor spoke.They looked steadily at Magnus, who, for the moment, kept his glance fixed thoughtfully upon the table before him.In another moment he raised his head and looked from face to face around the group.After all, these were his neighbours, his friends, men with whom he had been upon the closest terms of association.In a way they represented what now had come to be his world.His single swift glance took in the men, one after another.Annixter, rugged, crude, sitting awkwardly and uncomfortably in his chair, his unhandsome face, with its outthrust lower lip and deeply cleft masculine chin, flushed and eager, his yellow hair disordered, the one tuft on the crown standing stiffly forth like the feather in an Indian's scalp lock; Broderson, vaguely combing at his long beard with a persistent maniacal gesture, distressed, troubled and uneasy;Osterman, with his comedy face, the face of a music-hall singer, his head bald and set off by his great red ears, leaning back in his place, softly cracking the knuckle of a forefinger, and, last of all and close to his elbow, his son, his support, his confidant and companion, Harran, so like himself, with his own erect, fine carriage, his thin, beak-like nose and his blond hair, with its tendency to curl in a forward direction in front of the ears, young, strong, courageous, full of the promise of the future years.His blue eyes looked straight into his father's with what Magnus could fancy a glance of appeal.Magnus could see that expression in the faces of the others very plainly.They looked to him as their natural leader, their chief who was to bring them out from this abominable trouble which was closing in upon them, and in them all he saw many types.They--these men around his table on that night of the first rain of a coming season--seemed to stand in his imagination for many others--all the farmers, ranchers, and wheat growers of the great San Joaquin.Their words were the words of a whole community;their distress, the distress of an entire State, harried beyond the bounds of endurance, driven to the wall, coerced, exploited, harassed to the limits of exasperation.

"I will think of it," he said, then hastened to add, "but I can tell you beforehand that you may expect only a refusal."After Magnus had spoken, there was a prolonged silence.The conference seemed of itself to have come to an end for that evening.Presley lighted another cigarette from the butt of the one he had been smoking, and the cat, Princess Nathalie, disturbed by his movement and by a whiff of drifting smoke, jumped from his knee to the floor and picking her way across the room to Annixter, rubbed gently against his legs, her tail in the air, her back delicately arched.No doubt she thought it time to settle herself for the night, and as Annixter gave no indication of vacating his chair, she chose this way of cajoling him into ceding his place to her.But Annixter was irritated at the Princess's attentions, misunderstanding their motive.

"Get out!" he exclaimed, lifting his feet to the rung of the chair."Lord love me, but I sure do hate a cat.""By the way," observed Osterman, "I passed Genslinger by the gate as I came in to-night.Had he been here?""Yes, he was here," said Harran, "and--" but Annixter took the words out of his mouth.

"He says there's some talk of the railroad selling us their sections this winter.""Oh, he did, did he?" exclaimed Osterman, interested at once.

"Where did he hear that?"

"Where does a railroad paper get its news? From the General Office, I suppose.""I hope he didn't get it straight from headquarters that the land was to be graded at twenty dollars an acre," murmured Broderson.

"What's that?" demanded Osterman."Twenty dollars! Here, put me on, somebody.What's all up? What did Genslinger say?""Oh, you needn't get scared," said Annixter."Genslinger don't know, that's all.He thinks there was no understanding that the price of the land should not be advanced when the P.and S.W.

came to sell to us."

"Oh," muttered Osterman relieved.Magnus, who had gone out into the office on the other side of the glass-roofed hallway, returned with a long, yellow envelope in his hand, stuffed with newspaper clippings and thin, closely printed pamphlets.

"Here is the circular," he remarked, drawing out one of the pamphlets."The conditions of settlement to which the railroad obligated itself are very explicit."He ran over the pages of the circular, then read aloud: