The Titan 14 страница

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of a demon. He turned away mortally terrified.

" My God! " he exclaimed, shaking like a leaf. " You want to keel

me, do you? I weel not have anything to do with you! I weel not

talk to you! I weel see my lawyer. I weel talk to my wife first. "

" Oh, no you won't, " replied Cowperwood, intercepting him as he

turned to go and seizing him firmly by the arm. " I am not going

to have you do anything of the sort. I am not going to kill you

if you are not going to kill me; but I am going to make you listen

to reason for once. Now here is what else I have to say, and then

I am through. I am not unfriendly to you. I want to do you a

good turn, little as I care for you. To begin with, there is

nothing in those charges my wife made, not a thing. I merely said

what I did just now to see if you were in earnest. You do not

love your wife any more. She doesn't love you. You are no good

to her. Now, I have a very friendly proposition to make to you.

If you want to leave Chicago and stay away three years or more, I

will see that you are paid five thousand dollars every year on

January first--on the nail--five thousand dollars! Do you hear?

Or you can stay here in Chicago and hold your tongue and I will

make it three thousand--monthly or yearly, just as you please.

But--and this is what I want you to remember--if you don't get out

of town or hold your tongue, if you make one single rash move

against me, I will kill you, and I will kill you on sight. Now,

I want you to go away from here and behave yourself. Leave your

wife alone. Come and see me in a day or two--the money is ready

for you any time. He paused while Sohlberg stared--his eyes round

and glassy. This was the most astonishing experience of his life.

This man was either devil or prince, or both. " Good God! " he

thought. " He will do that, too. He will really kill me. " Then

the astounding alternative--five thousand dollars a year--came to

his mind. Well, why not? His silence gave consent.

" If I were you I wouldn't go up-stairs again to-night, " continued

Cowperwood, sternly. " Don't disturb her. She needs rest. Go on

down-town and come and see me to-morrow--or if you want to go back

I will go with you. I want to say to Mrs. Sohlberg what I have

said to you. But remember what I've told you. "

" Nau, thank you, " replied Sohlberg, feebly. " I will go down-town.

Good night. " And he hurried away.

" I'm sorry, " said Cowperwood to himself, defensively. " It is too

bad, but it was the only way. "

Chapter XXI

A Matter of Tunnels

The question of Sohlberg adjusted thus simply, if brutally,

Cowperwood turned his attention to Mrs. Sohlberg. But there was

nothing much to be done. He explained that he had now completely

subdued Aileen and Sohlberg, that the latter would make no more

trouble, that he was going to pension him, that Aileen would remain

permanently quiescent. He expressed the greatest solicitude for

her, but Rita was now sickened of this tangle. She had loved him,

as she thought, but through the rage of Aileen she saw him in a

different light, and she wanted to get away. His money, plentiful

as it was, did not mean as much to her as it might have meant to

some women; it simply spelled luxuries, without which she could

exist if she must. His charm for her had, perhaps, consisted

mostly in the atmosphere of flawless security, which seemed to

surround him--a glittering bubble of romance. That, by one fell

attack, was now burst. He was seen to be quite as other men,

subject to the same storms, the same danger of shipwreck. Only

he was a better sailor than most. She recuperated gradually; left

for home; left for Europe; details too long to be narrated.

Sohlberg, after much meditating and fuming, finally accepted the

offer of Cowperwood and returned to Denmark. Aileen, after a few

days of quarreling, in which he agreed to dispense with Antoinette

Nowak, returned home.

Cowperwood was in no wise pleased by this rough denouement. Aileen

had not raised her own attractions in his estimation, and yet,

strange to relate, he was not unsympathetic with her. He had no

desire to desert her as yet, though for some time he had been

growing in the feeling that Rita would have been a much better

type of wife for him. But what he could not have, he could not

have. He turned his attention with renewed force to his business;

but it was with many a backward glance at those radiant hours when,

with Rita in his presence or enfolded by his arms, he had seen life

from a new and poetic angle. She was so charming, so naive--but

what could he do?

For several years thereafter Cowperwood was busy following the

Chicago street-railway situation with increasing interest. He

knew it was useless to brood over Rita Sohlberg--she would not

return--and yet he could not help it; but he could work hard, and

that was something. His natural aptitude and affection for

street-railway work had long since been demonstrated, and it was

now making him restless. One might have said of him quite truly

that the tinkle of car-bells and the plop of plodding horses' feet

was in his blood. He surveyed these extending lines, with their

jingling cars, as he went about the city, with an almost hungry

eye. Chicago was growing fast, and these little horse-cars on

certain streets were crowded night and morning--fairly bulging

with people at the rush-hours. If he could only secure an

octopus-grip on one or all of them; if he could combine and control

them all! What a fortune! That, if nothing else, might salve him

for some of his woes--a tremendous fortune--nothing less. He

forever busied himself with various aspects of the scene quite as

a poet might have concerned himself with rocks and rills. To own

these street-railways! To own these street-railways! So rang the

song of his mind.

Like the gas situation, the Chicago street-railway situation was

divided into three parts--three companies representing and

corresponding with the three different sides or divisions of the

city. The Chicago City Railway Company, occupying the South Side

and extending as far south as Thirty-ninth Street, had been organized

in 1859, and represented in itself a mine of wealth. Already it

controlled some seventy miles of track, and was annually being

added to on Indiana Avenue, on Wabash Avenue, on State Street, and

on Archer Avenue. It owned over one hundred and fifty cars of the

old-fashioned, straw-strewn, no-stove type, and over one thousand

horses; it employed one hundred and seventy conductors, one hundred

and sixty drivers, a hundred stablemen, and blacksmiths, harness-makers,

and repairers in interesting numbers. Its snow-plows were busy

on the street in winter, its sprinkling-cars in summer. Cowperwood

calculated its shares, bonds, rolling-stock, and other physical

properties as totaling in the vicinity of over two million dollars.

The trouble with this company was that its outstanding stock was

principally controlled by Norman Schryhart, who was now decidedly

inimical to Cowperwood, or anything he might wish to do, and by

Anson Merrill, who had never manifested any signs of friendship.

He did not see how he was to get control of this property. Its

shares were selling around two hundred and fifty dollars.

The North Chicago City Railway was a corporation which had been

organized at the same time as the South Side company, but by a

different group of men. Its management was old, indifferent, and

incompetent, its equipment about the same. The Chicago West

Division Railway had originally been owned by the Chicago City or

South Side Railway, but was now a separate corporation. It was

not yet so profitable as the other divisions of the city, but all

sections of the city were growing. The horse-bell was heard

everywhere tinkling gaily.

Standing on the outside of this scene, contemplating its promise,

Cowperwood much more than any one else connected financially with

the future of these railways at this time was impressed with their

enormous possibilities--their enormous future if Chicago continued

to grow, and was concerned with the various factors which might

further or impede their progress.

Not long before he had discovered that one of the chief handicaps

to street-railway development, on the North and West Sides, lay

in the congestion of traffic at the bridges spanning the Chicago

River. Between the street ends that abutted on it and connected

the two sides of the city ran this amazing stream--dirty, odorous,

picturesque, compact of a heavy, delightful, constantly crowding

and moving boat traffic, which kept the various bridges momentarily

turning, and tied up the street traffic on either side of the

river until it seemed at times as though the tangle of teams and

boats would never any more be straightened out. It was lovely,

human, natural, Dickensesque--a fit subject for a Daumier, a Turner,

or a Whistler. The idlest of bridge-tenders judged for himself

when the boats and when the teams should be made to wait, and how

long, while in addition to the regular pedestrians a group of

idlers stood at gaze fascinated by the crowd of masts, the crush

of wagons, and the picturesque tugs in the foreground below.

Cowperwood, as he sat in his light runabout, annoyed by a delay,

or dashed swiftly forward to get over before a bridge turned, had

long since noted that the street-car service in the North and West

Sides was badly hampered. The unbroken South Side, unthreaded by

a river, had no such problem, and was growing rapidly.

Because of this he was naturally interested to observe one day,

in the course of his peregrinations, that there existed in two

places under the Chicago River--in the first place at La Salle

Street, running north and south, and in the second at Washington

Street, running east and west--two now soggy and rat-infested

tunnels which were never used by anybody--dark, dank, dripping

affairs only vaguely lighted with oil-lamp, and oozing with water.

Upon investigation he learned that they had been built years

before to accommodate this same tide of wagon traffic, which now

congested at the bridges, and which even then had been rapidly

rising. Being forced to pay a toll in time to which a slight toll

in cash, exacted for the privilege of using a tunnel, had seemed

to the investors and public infinitely to be preferred, this traffic

had been offered this opportunity of avoiding the delay. However,

like many another handsome commercial scheme on paper or bubbling

in the human brain, the plan did not work exactly. These tunnels

might have proved profitable if they had been properly built with

long, low-per-cent. grades, wide roadways, and a sufficiency of

light and air; but, as a matter of fact, they had not been judiciously

adapted to public convenience. Norman Schryhart's father had been

an investor in these tunnels, and Anson Merrill. When they had

proved unprofitable, after a long period of pointless manipulation

--cost, one million dollars--they had been sold to the city for

exactly that sum each, it being poetically deemed that a growing

city could better afford to lose so disturbing an amount than any

of its humble, ambitious, and respectable citizens. That was a

little affair by which members of council had profited years before;

but that also is another story.

After discovering these tunnels Cowperwood walked through them

several times--for though they were now boarded up, there was still

an uninterrupted footpath--and wondered why they could not be

utilized. It seemed to him that if the street-car traffic were

heavy enough, profitable enough, and these tunnels, for a reasonable

sum, could be made into a lower grade, one of the problems which

now hampered the growth of the North and West Sides would be

obviated. But how? He did not own the tunnels. He did not own

the street-railways. The cost of leasing and rebuilding the tunnels

would be enormous. Helpers and horses and extra drivers on any

grade, however slight, would have to be used, and that meant an

extra expense. With street-car horses as the only means of traction,

and with the long, expensive grades, he was not so sure that this

venture would be a profitable one.

However, in the fall of 1880, or a little earlier (when he was

still very much entangled with the preliminary sex affairs that

led eventually to Rita Sohlberg), he became aware of a new system

of traction relating to street-cars which, together with the arrival

of the arc-light, the telephone, and other inventions, seemed

destined to change the character of city life entirely.

Recently in San Francisco, where the presence of hills made the

movement of crowded street-railway cars exceedingly difficult, a

new type of traction had been introduced--that of the cable, which

was nothing more than a traveling rope of wire running over guttered

wheels in a conduit, and driven by immense engines, conveniently

located in adjacent stations or " power-houses. " The cars carried

a readily manipulated " grip-lever, " or steel hand, which reached

down through a slot into a conduit and " gripped" the moving cable.

This invention solved the problem of hauling heavily laden

street-cars up and down steep grades. About the same time he also

heard, in a roundabout way, that the Chicago City Railway, of

which Schryhart and Merrill were the principal owners, was about

to introduce this mode of traction on its lines--to cable State

Street, and attach the cars of other lines running farther out

into unprofitable districts as " trailers. " At once the solution

of the North and West Side problems flashed upon him--cables.

Outside of the bridge crush and the tunnels above mentioned, there

was one other special condition which had been for some time past

attracting Cowperwood's attention. This was the waning energy of

the North Chicago City Railway Company--the lack of foresight on

the part of its directors which prevented them from perceiving the

proper solution of their difficulties. The road was in a rather

unsatisfactory state financially--really open to a coup of some

sort. In the beginning it had been considered unprofitable, so

thinly populated was the territory they served, and so short the

distance from the business heart. Later, however, as the territory

filled up, they did better; only then the long waits at the bridges

occurred. The management, feeling that the lines were likely to

be poorly patronized, had put down poor, little, light-weight

rails, and run slimpsy cars which were as cold as ice in winter

and as hot as stove-ovens in summer. No attempt had been made to

extend the down-town terminus of the several lines into the business

center--they stopped just over the river which bordered it at the

north. (On the South Side Mr. Schryhart had done much better for

his patrons. He had already installed a loop for his cable about

Merrill's store. ) As on the West Side, straw was strewn in the

bottom of all the cars in winter to keep the feet of the passengers

warm, and but few open cars were used in summer. The directors

were averse to introducing them because of the expense. So they

had gone on and on, adding lines only where they were sure they

would make a good profit from the start, putting down the same

style of cheap rail that had been used in the beginning, and

employing the same antique type of car which rattled and trembled

as it ran, until the patrons were enraged to the point of anarchy.

Only recently, because of various suits and complaints inaugurated,

the company had been greatly annoyed, but they scarcely knew what

to do, how to meet the onslaught. Though there was here and there

a man of sense--such as Terrence Mulgannon, the general superintendent;

Edwin Kaffrath, a director; William Johnson, the constructing engineer

of the company--yet such other men as Onias C. Skinner, the president,

and Walter Parker, the vice-president, were reactionaries of an

elderly character, conservative, meditative, stingy, and, worst of

all, fearful or without courage for great adventure. It is a sad

commentary that age almost invariably takes away the incentive to

new achievement and makes " Let well enough alone" the most appealing

motto.

Mindful of this, Cowperwood, with a now splendid scheme in his

mind, one day invited John J. McKenty over to his house to dinner

on a social pretext. When the latter, accompanied by his wife,

had arrived, and Aileen had smiled on them both sweetly, and was

doing her best to be nice to Mrs. McKenty, Cowperwood remarked:

" McKenty, do you know anything about these two tunnels that the

city owns under the river at Washington and La Salle streets? "

" I know that the city took them over when it didn't need them, and

that they're no good for anything. That was before my time, though, "

explained McKenty, cautiously. " I think the city paid a million

for them. Why? "

" Oh, nothing much, " replied Cowperwood, evading the matter for the

present. " I was wondering whether they were in such condition

that they couldn't be used for anything. I see occasional references

in the papers to their uselessness. "

" They're in pretty bad shape, I'm afraid, " replied McKenty. " I

haven't been through either of them in years and years. The idea

was originally to let the wagons go through them and break up the

crowding at the bridges. But it didn't work. They made the grade

too steep and the tolls too high, and so the drivers preferred to

wait for the bridges. They were pretty hard on horses. I can

testify to that myself. I've driven a wagon-load through them

more than once. The city should never have taken them over at all

by rights. It was a deal. I don't know who all was in it. Carmody

was mayor then, and Aldrich was in charge of public works. "

He relapsed into silence, and Cowperwood allowed the matter of the

tunnels to rest until after dinner when they had adjourned to the

library. There he placed a friendly hand on McKenty's arm, an act

of familiarity which the politician rather liked.

" You felt pretty well satisfied with the way that gas business

came out last year, didn't you? " he inquired.

" I did, " replied McKenty, warmly. " Never more so. I told you

that at the time. " The Irishman liked Cowperwood, and was grateful

for the swift manner in which he had been made richer by the sum

of several hundred thousand dollars.

" Well, now, McKenty, " continued Cowperwood, abruptly, and with a

seeming lack of connection, " has it ever occurred to you that

things are shaping up for a big change in the street-railway

situation here? I can see it coming. There's going to be a new

motor power introduced on the South Side within a year or two.

You've heard of it? "

" I read something of it, " replied McKenty, surprised and a little

questioning. He took a cigar and prepared to listen. Cowperwood,

never smoking, drew up a chair.

" Well, I'll tell you what that means, " he explained. " It means

that eventually every mile of street-railway track in this city--to

say nothing of all the additional miles that will be built before

this change takes place--will have to be done over on an entirely

new basis. I mean this cable-conduit system. These old companies

that are hobbling along now with an old equipment will have to

make the change. They'll have to spend millions and millions

before they can bring their equipment up to date. If you've paid

any attention to the matter you must have seen what a condition

these North and West Side lines are in. "

" It's pretty bad; I know that, " commented McKenty.

" Just so, " replied Cowperwood, emphatically. " Well, now, if I

know anything about these old managements from studying them,

they're going to have a hard time bringing themselves to do this.

Two to three million are two to three million, and it isn't going

to be an easy matter for them to raise the money--not as easy,

perhaps, as it would be for some of the rest of us, supposing we

wanted to go into the street-railway business. "

" Yes, supposing, " replied McKenty, jovially. " But how are you to

get in it? There's no stock for sale that I know of. "

" Just the same, " said Cowperwood, " we can if we want to, and I'll

show you how. But at present there's just one thing in particular

I'd like you to do for me. I want to know if there is any way

that we can get control of either of those two old tunnels that I

was talking to you about a little while ago. I'd like both if I

might. Do you suppose that is possible? "

" Why, yes, " replied McKenty, wondering; " but what have they got

to do with it? They're not worth anything. Some of the boys were

talking about filling them in some time ago--blowing them up. The

police think crooks hide in them. "

" Just the same, don't let any one touch them--don't lease them or

anything, " replied Cowperwood, forcefully. " I'll tell you frankly

what I want to do. I want to get control, just as soon as possible,

of all the street-railway lines I can on the North and West

Sides--new or old franchises. Then you'll see where the tunnels

come in. "

He paused to see whether McKenty caught the point of all he meant,

but the latter failed.

" You don't want much, do you? " he said, cheerfully. " But I don't

see how you can use the tunnels. However, that's no reason why I

shouldn't take care of them for you, if you think that's important. "

" It's this way, " said Cowperwood, thoughtfully. " I'll make you a

preferred partner in all the ventures that I control if you do as

I suggest. The street-railways, as they stand now, will have to

be taken up lock, stock, and barrel, and thrown into the scrap

heap within eight or nine years at the latest. You see what the

South Side company is beginning to do now. When it comes to the

West and North Side companies they won't find it so easy. They

aren't earning as much as the South Side, and besides they have

those bridges to cross. That means a severe inconvenience to a

cable line. In the first place, the bridges will have to be rebuilt

to stand the extra weight and strain. Now the question arises at

once--at whose expense? The city's? "

" That depends on who's asking for it, " replied Mr. McKenty, amiably.

" Quite so, " assented Cowperwood. " In the next place, this river

traffic is becoming impossible from the point of view of a decent

street-car service. There are waits now of from eight to fifteen

minutes while these tows and vessels get through. Chicago has

five hundred thousand populaion to-day. How much will it have in

1890? In 1900? How will it be when it has eight hundred thousand

or a million? "

" You're quite right, " interpolated McKenty. " It will be pretty

bad. "

" Exactly. But what is worse, the cable lines will carry trailers,

or single cars, from feeder lines. There won't be single cars

waiting at these draws--there will be trains, crowded trains. It

won't be advisable to delay a cable-train from eight to fifteen

minutes while boats are making their way through a draw. The

public won't stand for that very long, will it, do you think? "

" Not without making a row, probably, " replied McKenty.

" Well, that means what, then? " asked Cowperwood. " Is the traffic

going to get any lighter? Is the river going to dry up? "

Mr. McKenty stared. Suddenly his face lighted. " Oh, I see, " he

said, shrewdly. " It's those tunnels you're thinking about. Are

they in any shape to be used? "

" They can be made over cheaper than new ones can be built. "

" True for you, " replied McKenty, " and if they're in any sort of

repair they'd be just what you'd want. " He was emphatic, almost

triumphant. " They belong to the city. They cost pretty near a

million apiece, those things. "

" I know it, " said Cowperwood. " Now, do you see what I'm driving

at? "

" Do I see! " smiled McKenty. " That's a real idea you have, Cowperwood.

I take off my hat to you. Say what you want. "

" Well, then, in the first place, " replied Cowperwood, genially,

" it is agreed that the city won't part with those two tunnels under

any circumstances until we can see what can be done about this

other matter? "

" It will not. "

" In the next place, it is understood, is it, that you won't make

it any easier than you can possibly help for the North and West

Side companies to get ordinances extending their lines, or anything

else, from now on? I shall want to introduce some franchises for

feeders and outlying lines myself. "

" Bring in your ordinances, " replied McKenty, " and I'll do whatever

you say. I've worked with you before. I know that you keep your

word. "

" Thanks, " said Cowperwood, warmly. " I know the value of keeping

it. In the mean while I'll go ahead and see what can be done about

the other matter. I don't know just how many men I will need to

let in on this, or just what form the organization will take. But

you may depend upon it that your interests will be properly taken

care of, and that whatever is done will be done with your full

knowledge and consent. "

" All very good, " answered McKenty, thinking of the new field of

activity before them. A combination between himself and Cowperwood

in a matter like this must prove very beneficial to both. And he

was satisfied, because of their previous relations, that his own

interests would not be neglected.

" Shall we go and see if we can find the ladies? " asked Cowperwood,

jauntily, laying hold of the politician's arm.

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