William MacLeod Raine

“ I am going there to take what the law allows me—what I have bought and paid for in the open market,” broke in Gray harshly.
“In a world primeval.”
“Yes, the law allows it to you, and it doesn’t allow me to interfere. That is where the law is defective. It is true, too, that you have manipulated the market in such a way as to get temporary control of a majority of the stock. But that does not affect the fact that my father and his friends have the moral right to direct the affairs of the Consolidated. Their whole life is bound up in it. You are interested simply for speculative purposes. ”

“ He was the type of man that women find fascinating, especially women of the high-spirited, chivalrous order. You know the sort of scamp I mean—the kind whose dark, unscrupulous eyes and devil-may-care fearlessness draw the poor moths to the singeing flame. ”

“ You can’t help being little,” she was pleased to say, and I swear I heard the chuckle in her voice.
“Any more than you can help being offensive when you are in the humor.”
“Don’t take it so to heart. You may grow yet. You are very young, you know.” ”

“ I seem to be playing blind euchre with my eyes shut. First one finds Miss Katherine Gray, daughter and sole heir to Simon Gray, the Copper King, scudding over the mountains with Mr. Corduroy’s revolver barking at her.”
“I told you it was accidental,” growled the bass voice. “I couldn’t catch her, so I took out my gun to frighten her into stopping.”
“Then one hears that the Copper King himself is viewing scenery he does not enjoy, under enforced restraint at the hands of a young man who used to lead cotillions with his daughter before he fell into evil ways. ”

“ You are working under instructions from your father to keep me until after the election this afternoon. But the thing is too barefaced. It won’t hold in law. It’s a conspiracy.”
Halloway’s masterful eyes looked straight at him.
“I have not seen or heard from my father in two years, Mr. Gray. He does not have anything to do with his scalawag son. You do not need to look beyond me to place the responsibility for this. But you’re right in one thing. I intend that you shall not reach Denver in time for the Copper Consolidated meeting.” ”

“ Gray here till night as you threaten. You invited him here to a picnic. You have no right to detain him a moment longer than he desires. Your outrageous course is very much against the law, Mr. Halloway,” I said stiffly. ”

“ They point to the fact that since his marriage Bob has been in every way equal to the business responsibilities of his important position in the Consolidated. One understands that he has now entirely sown his wild oats. He reaps golden opinions everywhere. ”

“ Miss Gray and I are engaged to be married. We arranged it while you were buying my partner in crime.”
I offered my congratulations with a wooden face.
Katherine has always been able to twist her father round that supple little finger of hers. It did not surprise me at all to read in the papers two days later that an adjustment of the affairs of the C. C. C. had been made satisfactory to the warring factions and that by this arrangement President Halloway was allowed to retain his position and continue his policy. The breach between Bob Halloway and his father was immediately healed. ”