On the following morning, Blount found a telegram on his desk. It bore
the vice-president's name, and the date-line was Twin Canyons City. It
directed him to go to a remote portion of the State beyond the Lost
River Mountains to examine the papers in a right-of-way case which was
coming up for trial at the next term of court. This was in Kittredge's
department, and Blount called the superintendent on the phone. Kittredge
was in his office, and he evidently knew about the vice-president's
telegram. Also, he seemed anxious to have the division counsel go to
Lewiston at once; so anxious that he offered his own service-car to be
run as a special train.
Blount saw no way to evade a positive order from the vice-president, but
he was more than suspicious that Gantry or Kittredge, or possibly both
of them, had misrepresented the right-of-way case to Mr. McVickar, in an
attempt to get him away from the city and so to postpone a reiteration
of the demand for a new freight tariff. What he did not suspect was that
Mr. McVickar's telegram might possibly have originated in Kittredge's
office.
Asking the superintendent to have the service-car made ready
immediately, he packed his handbag, left a note for Patricia, who was
not yet visible, and another for Gantry, who was not in his office, and
began the roundabout journey.
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