The Miller press. [volume] (Miller, S.D.) 190?-current, 1913-12-04

complaints ON the one side, his direc-
tors Discreet grumbling on the other,
he paid as little attention on the one
hand as upon the other. John Rawn
had a dream. and he knew that his
dream must come true. His dream
was one of a w~ide-reaching and relent-
less power, shared by those few men
destined by fate to own the so'called
American republic. Let the people do
was his dream. 1t had come to him
in all its fullness one evening in the
great city of the east. He exulted
AS to the industrial situation in In
ternational Power, Rawn now began
to prove himself a good business man,
grudged confidence of his associates,
who came from almost every rank OF
big business. Through the aid and ad-
vice of these, his private fortune be-
gan to mount up enormously. So also
did International Power make money.
The only sore place of the directors
overstrained nerves centered in affairs
at the gaunt building in the suburb,
where a dozen mysterious machines,
toothed and armed, cogged and coiled,
still stood in a state Of h~alf-comple-
ton, as inchoate and mysterious now
as they had been at their inception.
There was something else, which
not the most suspicious guessed-John
Rawn himself did not know! His sue
cess was a vast bubble. Halsey was
the only man who ever had known the
full secret of mantling one of the mi
r~aculous receivers which they all had
seen and all had accepted. Rawn,
bold enough, kept this to himself, al
though he feared to go to Halsey and
make any demands. Halsey held grim
peace for months-indeed, for more
than four years in all, counting from
the first motor made in the Kelly row
woodshed. 1t was risky, but for once
Rawn dared make no desperate move
Halsey talked little. He was very sad
since the birth of his hunchbacked
child. Sometimes he talked to Vir-
ginia Delaware about it,; eve to his
wife, Grace.
And still the seven days wonder of
international Power remained to puz-
zle the industrial world. No inkling
of the real intention of the company
ever got out. There was, as Rawn had
predicted, no market for the stock. for
the reason that it WAS lot listed and
for the further reason thlt it was not
cold II wn hold IN o1ooA nAr,
munion Of h~ard-headed and close
mouthed men, and there we're no con.
fidences betrayed. The thing was too
big to conform to ordinary rules. In
the center of all this stood the figure
OF John Rawn, suddenly grown large
and strong. He ruled his army, Off.
GERS, staff and line. cavalry, infantry
and auxiliaries, as one born originally
to command. He brooked neither
parleying o thwarting of his will
except in one instance. He never made
any demands IN Halsey, never gave
him any peremptory orders after that
one day In the office, months earlier.
before Halsey made his first trip to
New York.
These months seemed to have aged
John Rawn, one the less. He grew
grimmer and grayer, more taciturn
and reserved. At the clubs he was
one of the most talked-of men in town.
and n who talked least himself. AS
his hair grew grayer at the temples,
his jaw grew harder, at the corner Of
his chin coming the triangular
wrinkles which go with hard-faced
middle age. Enigmatic, selfcentered,
he could not have been called a happy
man. He smiled but rarely, joked not
at all. engaged in no badinage, told
no stories, found no lighter side of
life, played no golf, had no vacations.
Like some vast engine of tremendous
driving power he went on his way, ad-
mired in a city and country full of
able men, as one competent to hold
his own with the best and strongest of
them all. And still of all his traits
stood out the n Of self-confidence.
He played a game Of enormous and
continuous risk-fundamental risk by
reason of Halsey, incidental by reason
Of his widely ballooned market opera
tons; yet his nerve held. Moreover,
he was learning the price of success
an absolute devotion to the means Of
success When he learned that the
child Of his daughter was not a son,
but a girl. and that 1t was a lunch
back for life, a sad-faced. unsmiling
child-he set his jaws for a moment,
but said few words Of coincidence.
either to his daughter or her husband.
In the headquarter offices a vast.
smooth running business machine had
now been built up. Rawn was an or
ganizer. The laxness and -looseness Of
the old railway Offices In ST. Louis,
where he had got his business school
ing, were missing In the headquarters
Of International Power. Employees had
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