Mr. Crawford put men to
work on the first preliminary survey. He had already the necessary
water concessions. He had studied his ground, made his plans with a
carefulness which overlooked nothing which a man could foresee, and
had every reason to believe, to be positive, that he could have all
the water he wanted in the valley a whole month before the first of
October.
"And I tell you he could have done it if they had just let him alone!
But they wouldn't. Within thirty days after the first shovelful of
earth was turned there was a strong organization perfected to defeat
him. Why? In the first place there is a certain bloated toad in our
local puddle named Oliver Swinnerton who has his hatchet out on
general principles for the Old Man. In the town of Bolton he's the
mayor and the chief of police and the board of city fathers and the
municipal janitor all rolled into one pompous, pot-bellied little
body. He's got money and he's got brains. No sooner does word get
about of the Old Man's contract with the P. C. & W. than Oliver
Swinnerton gets busy. He went straight to Colton Gray, and at first he
could do nothing with him. Gray had taken time for his investigations
of Mr. Crawford's scheme, had been convinced that it was feasible, and
now stood pat. But Swinnerton with his counter-scheme interested a lot
of other capital, and through some of the men he got in with him he
got the ear of some of the higher-ups on the P.
Pages:
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190