Produced by Eric Eldred, Beth Trapaga and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team THE SHORT LINE WAR By Samuel Merwin CHAPTER I. JIM WEEKS II. MR. MCNALLY GOES TO TILLMAN CITY III. POLITICS AND OTHER THINGS IV. JIM WEEKS CLOSES IN V. TUESDAY EVENING VI. JUDGE BLACK VII. BETWEEN THE LINES VIII. JUDGE GREY IX. THE MATTER OF POSSESSION X. SOMEBODY LOSES THE BOOKS XI. A POLITICIAN XII. KATHERINE XIII. TRAIN NO. 14 XIV. A CAPTURE AT BRUSHINGHAM XV. DEUS EX MACHINA XVI. MCNALLY'S EXPEDIENT XVII. IN THE DARK XVIII. THE COMING OF DAWN XIX. KATHERINE DECIDES XX. HARVEY XXI. THE TILLMAN CITY STOCK XXII. THE WINNING OF THE ROAD XXIII. THE SURRENDER CHAPTER I JIM WEEKS James Weeks came of a fighting stock. His great-grandfather, Ashbel Weeks, was born in Connecticut in 1748; he migrated to New York in '70, and settled among the Oneida Indians on the Upper Mohawk. It was the kind of life he was built for; he sniffed at danger like a young horse catching a breath off the meadows. He did not take the war fever until St. Leger came up the valley, when he fought beside Herkimer in the ambush on Oriskany Creek. He joined the army of the North, and remained with it through the long three years that ended at Yorktown; then he married, and returned to his home among the half-civilized Oneidas. His oldest son, Jonathan, was born in '90. He grew like his father in physique and temperament, and his migrating disposition led him to Kentucky. The commercial instinct, which had never appeared in his father, was strong in him, so that he turned naturally to trading. He began in a small way, but he succeeded at it, and amassed what was then considered a large fortune. In 1823 he moved to Louisville, and interested himself in promoting the steamboat traffic on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. As the business developed, Jonathan Weeks's fortune grew with it. His only son, who was born in 1815, was sent to Harvard; he spent a very merry four years there, and a good deal of money. He fell in love in the meantime, and married immediately after his graduation. Not many months after his marriage he was killed by the accidental discharge of a rifle, and, shortly after this, his widow died in giving birth to a son. The care of the child devolved entirely upon Jonathan, the grandfather. He assumed it gladly, even eagerly, and his whole existence soon centred about the boy, and James--for so they had named him--became more to him than his son had ever been. It grew evident that he would have the Weeks build, and, by the time he was fifteen, he was as lean, big-boned, awkward a hobbledehoy as the old man could wish. His grandfather's wealth did not spoil him in the least; he was the kind of a boy it would have been difficult to spoil.