“Wonderfully they held the pace.”
“Wonderfully they held the pace.”
“Vat you waiting for?” cried a New Orleans man, feverishly. He had been drinking, and had lost his way among the languages. “Laissez passer! Laissez passer!”
The boys were cooler than the men—not knowing so well what it all meant. “Hi there,Oui-Oui, gimme a knife!” cried the youthful driver, shrilly.
He slashed at the harness, cut the mule loose, and drove on. And one by one the wagons circled by the struggling beast andpushed ahead to close up the gap in the line.
Eight hours were got through. It was four in the morning. The hills lay behind, an alkaline waste before. The mules were tugging heavily and dejectedly through the sand. Certain of the drivers sat upright with lined faces and ringed eyes, others lay sleeping on the seats with the reins tied. All were subdued. The penetrating dust aggravated their thirst.
Carhart pricked forward beside the guide.
“How much farther?” he asked.
“Well, it ain’t easy to say. We might be halfway there.”
“Halfway! Do you mean to say we’ve done only fifteen or eighteen miles in eight hours?”
“No, I didn’t say that.”
“Look here. How far is it to this pool!”
“Well, it’s hard to say.”
Carhart frowned and gave it up. The “thirty or thirty-five miles” had apparently been the roughest sort of an estimate.
Then the sun came up and beat upon them, and the sand began to radiate heat by way of an earnest of the day to follow; and then the wheels sank so deeply that the chief and Young Van tossed their reins to the guide and walked by the wagons to lend a hand now and then at the spokes. All the crazy energy of the evening was gone; men and mules were alike sullen and dispirited. Of the latter, many gave out and fell, and these were cut out and left there to die. So it went all through that blazing forenoon. They halted at twelve for lunch; but the dry bread and salt pork were hardly stimulating.
Carhart again sought the guide. “Do you know yourself where the pool is?”
The guide shaded his eyes and searched the horizon. “It was in a spot that looked something like this here,” he said in a weak, confidential sort of way.
Carhart answered sharply, “Why don’t you say you are lost, and be done with it!”
“Well, I ain’t lost exactly. I wouldn’t like to say that.”
“But you haven’t the least idea where the pool is.”
“Well, now, you see—”
“Is there any other water on ahead?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Where?”
“The Palos River can’t be more than a dozen miles beyond the place where we found the pool.”
He had unconsciously raised his voice. A laborer overheard the remark, whipped out his knife, hacked at the harness of the nearest mule,—it would have been simpler to loosen the braces, but he was past all thinking,—threw himself on the animal’s back, and rode off, lashing behind him with the end of the reins. The panic broke loose again. Man after man, the guide among them, followed after, until only the wagons and about half the animals remained.
“Come, Gus,” called the chief, “let them go.”
Young Van turned wearily, mounted hispanting horse, and the two followed the men. But Carhart turned in his saddle to look back at the property abandoned there in the sand.
Half an hour later, Young Van’s horse stumbled and fell, barely giving his rider time to spring clear.
“Is he done for?” asked Carhart, reining up.
“It looks like it.”
“What’s the matter—done up yourself?”
“A little. I’ll sit here a minute. You go ahead. I’ll follow on foot.”
“Not a bit of it. Here—can you swing up behind me?”
“That won’t do. Texas can’t carry double. Go ahead; I’m all right.”
But Carhart dismounted, lifted his assistant, protesting, into the saddle, and pushed on, himself on foot, leading the horse.
They went on in this way for nearly an hour. Young Van found it all he could do to hold himself in the saddle. Then the horse took to staggering, and finally came to his knees.
Carhart helped his assistant to the ground,pulled his hat brim down to shade his eyes, and looked ahead. A cloud of dust on the horizon, a beaten trail through the sand, here and there a gray-brown heap where a mule had fallen,—these marked the flight of his drivers and laborers.
His eyes came back to the fainting man at his feet. Young Van had lost all sense of the world about him. Carhart saw that his lips were moving, and knelt beside him. Then he smiled, a curious, unhumorous smile; for the young engineer was muttering those words which had of late been his brother’s favorites among all the words in our rich language: “D—n Peet!”
The chief stood up again to think. And as he gazed off eastward in the general direction of Sherman, toward the place where the arch enemy of the Sherman and Western sat in his office, perhaps devising new excuses to send to the front, those same two expressive words might have been used to sum up his own thoughts. What could the man be thinking of, who had brought the work practically to a stop, who was now in the coolest imaginable fashion leaving a thousand men to mingle their bones with the bones of the buffalo—that grim, broadcast expression of the spirit of the desert.
“They went on in this way for nearly an hour.”
“They went on in this way for nearly an hour.”
But these were unsafe thoughts. His own head was none too clear. It was reeling with heat and thirst and with the monotony of this desolate land. He drew a flask from his pocket,—an almost empty flask,—and placed it against Young Van’s hand. With their two hats propped together he shaded his face. Then, a canteen slung over each shoulder, he pushed ahead, on foot.
“The Palos River can’t be more than a dozen miles—” had said the guide, pointing southward. That was all. Somewhere off there in the desert it lay, flowing yellow and aimless. Perhaps it was a lie. Perhaps the guide was mistaken, as he had been in the search for the pool. But the last feeble tiethat bound these outcasts to reason had snapped at the sight of that unsteady, pointing finger, and only the original sin in them was left. The words of the guide had been heard by one man, and he was off at the instant, his only remark a curse as he knocked a boy out of his way. But others had seen the pointing finger. And still others were moved by the impulse which spurs men, in frantic moments, to any sort of action.
In the rush for mounts two men, a half-breed from the Territory and a Mexican, plunged at the same animal. The half-breed was hacking at the nigh trace and the Mexican at the off rein when their eyes met. The mule both had chosen was the nigh leader in a double team. But instead of turning to one of the other three, the men, each with a knife in his hand, fell to fighting; and while they struggled and fell and rolled over and over in the sand, a third man mounted their prize and galloped away.
But it was the boys who suffered most.None but hardy youngsters had been chosen for the drive, but their young endurance could not help them in personal combat with these grown men; and personal combat was what it came to wherever a boy stood or sat near a desirable mule. The odd thing was that every man and boy succeeded in getting away. Hats were lost. Shirts were torn to shreds, exposing skins, white and brown, to the merciless sun. Even the half-breed and the Mexican, dropping their quarrel as unreasonably as they had begun it, each bleeding from half-a-dozen small wounds, finally galloped off after the others. And when these last were gone, and the dust was billowing up behind them, something less than two minutes had passed since the guide had pointed southward.
The Palos River is probably the most uninviting stream in the Southwest. It was at this time sluggish and shallow. The water was so rich with silt that a pailful of it, after standing an hour, would deposit three inchesof mud. The banks were low and of the same gray sand as the desert, excepting that a narrow fringe of green announced the river to the eye. It was into and through this fringe that the first rider plunged. It had been a long two-hour ride, and the line straggled out for more than a mile behind him. But he was not interested in his companions. His eyes were fixed on the broad yellow river-bed with the narrow yellow current winding through it. Drinking could not satisfy him. He wanted to get into the water, and feel his wet clothes clinging about him, and duck his face and head under, and splash it about with his hands. His mount needed no lash to slip and scramble down the bank and spurt over the sand. The animal was so crazily eager that he stumbled in the soft footing and went to his knees. But the rider sailed on over his head, and with a great shout, arms and legs spread wide, he fell with a splash and a gurgle into the water. The mule regained his feet and staggered after him, and then the two of them,man and beast, rolled and wallowed and splashed, and drank copiously.
The second man reached the bank on foot, for his mule had fallen within sight of the promised land. He paused there, apparently bewildered, watching his fortunate comrade in the water. Then, with dazed deliberation, he removed his clothes, piled them neatly under a bush, and walked out naked, stepping gingerly on the heated sand. But halfway to the channel a glimmer of intelligence sparkled in his eyes, and he suddenly dashed forward and threw himself into the water.
One by one the others came crashing through the bushes, and rode or ran down the bank, swearing, laughing, shouting, sobbing. And not one of them could have told afterward whether he drank on the upstream or the downstream side of the mules.
When Paul Carhart, a long while later, parted the bushes and stood out in relief on the bank, leaning on a shrub for support, he saw a strange spectacle. For a quarterof a mile, up and down the channel, were mules, some drinking, some rolling and kicking some lying out flat and motionless. Near at hand, hanging from every bush, were shirts and trousers and stockings; at the edge of the bank was a long, irregular line of boots and shoes. And below, on the broad reach of sand, laughing, and bantering, and screaming like schoolboys, half a hundred naked men stood in a row, stooping with hands on knees, while a dozen others went dancing and high-stepping and vaulting over them.
They were playing leap-frog.
Carhart walked across to the upstream side of the mules and drank. Then, after filling two canteens, he returned to the bank and sat down in such small shade as he could find. It was at this moment that the men caught sight of him. The game stopped abruptly, and for a moment the players stood awkwardly about, as schoolboys would at the appearance of the teacher. Then, first one, and another, and a group of two or three more, and finally,all of them, resumed their simple clothing, and sat down along the bank to await orders. The panic was over.
Now the chief roused himself. “Here, you two!” he cried. “Take these canteens and the freshest mules you can find, and go back to Mr. Vandervelt. Ride hard.”
And almost at the word, eager, responsive, the men he had addressed were off.
As soon as the worst of the shakiness passed out of his legs, Carhart rose. His next task was to get the mules back to the wagons, and bring them on to the river in order to fill the barrels, and this promised a greater expenditure of time and strength than he liked to face. But there was no alternative, it seemed, so he caught a mule, mounted it, and rode back. And the men trailed after him, riding and walking, in a line half a mile long.
Carhart found Young Van sitting up, too weak to talk, supported by the two men whom he had sent back.
“How is he?” asked the chief.
“It’s hard to say, Mr. Carhart,” replied one of the men. “He don’t seem quite himself.”
Carhart dismounted, felt the pulse of the young man, and then bathed his temples with the warmish water. “Carry him over into the shade of that wagon, boys,” he said. “Here, I’ll give you a hand.”
The earth, even beneath the wagon, was warm, and Carhart and the two laborers spread out their coats before they laid him down. The chief poured a little water on his handkerchief, and laid it on Young Van’s forehead.
And then, when Carhart had got to his feet and was looking about, holding down his hat-brim to shade his eyes, an expression of inquiry, which had come into his face some little time before, slowly deepened.
“Boys,” he said, “what’s become of the mules that were left here?”
The men looked up. “Don’t know, Mr. Carhart,” replied the more talkative one. “I ain’t seen ’em.”
Carhart turned away, and again his eyes roved about over the beaten ground. Very slowly and thoughtfully he began walking around the deserted wagons in widening circles. Those of the men who were back from the river watched him curiously. After a time he stopped and looked at some tracks in the sand, and then, still walking slowly, followed them off to the right. A few of the men, the more observant ones, fell in behind him, but he did not glance around.
The foremost laborer stopped a moment and waited for the man next behind.
“The boss is done up,” he said in a low voice.
The other man nodded. “Unsteady in the legs,” he replied. “And he’s gone white. I see it when we was at the river.”
The tracks were distinct enough, but Carhart did not quicken his pace. He was talking to himself, half aloud: “It’ll go on until it’s settled,—those things have to, out here. He’s a coward, but he’ll drink it down every dayuntil the idea gets to running loose in his head.”—He staggered a little, then pulled himself up short.
“What’s the matter with me, anyway!” he muttered. “This is a pretty spectacle!” And he walked deliberately on.
The trail led him, and the quiet little file of men behind him, over and around a low ridge and a chain of knolls. “This heat keeps a dead rein on you,” he said, again speaking half aloud. “Let’s see, what was I thinking,—oh, the boys at the camp, they needed water too; I was going to load up and hurry back to help them out.”
And then, as he walked on with a solemn precision not unlike that of a drunken man, the scene shifted, and another scene—one which had long ago slipped out of his waking thoughts,—took its place. He was fishing a trout stream in the Adirondacks. He had found a series of pools in a narrow gorge where the brook came leaping merrily down from one low ledge to another. The underbrushon the steep banks was dark and impenetrable. The pine and hemlock and beech and maple and chestnut trees grew thick on either hand, and so matted their branches overhead that only a little checkered light could sift through. The rocks were dark with moss; the stream was choked at certain points with the debris of the last flood. He was tired after the day’s fishing. A storm came up. It grew very black and ugly in that little ravine. And then, for no reason, a thing happened which had not happened in his steady mind before or since. He fell into a curious horror, in which the tangled wilderness and the gloom and the rushing rain and the creaking trees and the noise of the falling water and that of the thunder all played some part. He recalled that he had found a hollow in the bank, where a large tree had been uprooted, and had taken shivering refuge there.
The wilderness had always before seemed man’s playground. It suddenly became asavage living and breathing thing to which a man was nothing.
And now the desert was showing its teeth, and Carhart knew that he was trembling again on the brink of the horrors. He understood the sort of thing very well. He had seen men grow crafty and cowardly or ugly and murderous out there on the frontier. He had been in Death Valley. And as he had seen the symptoms in other men’s faces, so he now felt them coming into his own. He knew how a man’s sense of proportion can go awry,—how a mere railroad, with its very important banker-officials in top hats and its very elaborate and impressive organization, could seem a child’s toy here in the desert where the wonderful spaces and the unearthly atmosphere and the morning and evening colors lie very close to the borders of another realm, and where the eye of God blazes forever down on the just and the unjust.
None of the little devices of a sophisticated world pass current in the desert. Carhartknew all this, as I have said, very well. He knew that a man’s mind is searched to the bottom out here, that the morbid tone and the yellow streak are inevitably dragged to the surface and displayed to the gaze of all men. But he also knew that where the mind is sound, the trouble may arise from physical exhaustion, and this knowledge saved him. He deliberately recalled the fact that for thirty-six hours he had not slept and that the work he had done and the strain he had been under would have sent many men to the nearest hospital, or, in the desert, to the nearest shallow excavation in the ground. And he walked slowly and steadily on, in that same shaky, determined manner.
On the summit of a knoll he stopped short, and looked down at something on the farther side. The men came up, one by one, and joined him; and they, too, stopped short and looked. And then Carhart raised his eyes and watched their faces steadily, eagerly wondering if they saw what he saw,—a water-hole, fringedwith green, and a mule lying at the water’s edge and a number of other mules quietly grazing. It was his test of himself. For a full half minute he gazed into those sweaty, drink-bleared faces. And then, at what he saw there, his own tense expression gave way to one of overwhelming relief. The men ran pell-mell down the slope, shouting with delight. And Carhart sat down there on the knoll, and his head fell a little forward over his knees.
“Will you have a little of this, Mr. Carhart?”
A big renegade with the face of a criminal was holding out a flask. The chief took it, and gulped down a few swallows. “Thank you,” he said quietly.
“One of the boys found this here, down among them tin cans, Mr. Carhart.”
It was the crumpled first page of thePierrepont Enterprise. Carhart stiffened up, spread it out on his knees, and read the date line. The paper was only two days old.
“Where’s Pierrepont?” he asked.
“About a day’s journey down the river, sir.”
Again the chief’s eyes ran over the sheet. Suddenly they lighted up. Here is what he saw:—
GOSSIP OF THE RAILROADSCommodore Durfee Gets the“Shaky & Windy”Mr. De Reamer and Mr.Chambers in contempt ofCourt—Durfee and Carringtondirectors allied atlast against De Reamer—Itis said that Durfee alreadyhas a majority—Meetingto be held nexwill be decidDe Rea
GOSSIP OF THE RAILROADSCommodore Durfee Gets the“Shaky & Windy”
Mr. De Reamer and Mr.Chambers in contempt ofCourt—Durfee and Carringtondirectors allied atlast against De Reamer—Itis said that Durfee alreadyhas a majority—Meetingto be held nexwill be decidDe Rea
The rest of it was torn off, but he read these headings three times. Then he lowered his knees, with the paper still lying across them, and looked over it at the little group of men and mules about the water-hole. “Can that be true, or can’t it?” he asked himself. “And what am I going to do about it? I don’t believeit; it’s another war of injunctions, that’s what it is, and it isn’t likely to be settled short of the Supreme Court. We can start back in an hour or so, and as soon as we reach camp I’ll take the five-spot”—Carhart’s two engines happened to bear the numbers five and six—“the five-spot and the private car and see if Bill Cunningham can’t make a record run toward Sherman. It’s a little puzzling, but I’m inclined to think it’s a mighty good thing that I found this paper.”
He tossed it away, and then, catching sight for the first time of the other side, he took it up again. The second page was nearly covered with crude designs, made with a blue pencil. There were long rows of scallops, and others of those aimless markings a man will make when pencil and paper are before him. And in the middle, surrounded by a sort of decorative border, was printed out “MR. CARHART,” then a blank space and the name “JACK FLAGG.”
Carhart rose to his feet, folded the paper,put it in his hip pocket, and looked cheerfully around. “So, Mr. Flagg, it’s you I’m indebted to for this information. I’m sure I’m greatly obliged.” Then he waved to the men. “Come on, boys,” he shouted. “Bring those animals back to the wagons. We’ll fill the barrels here.”
Slowly and not without difficulty he walked back. But the unsteadiness in his legs no longer disturbed him. The panic was over,—and something else was over too.
“How’s my pony?” said Young Van. “You haven’t told me.”
“I shot him.”
“Not yours too? Didn’t I see you riding Texas this morning? I—I’m a little hazy about what I have and haven’t seen these days.”
“Yes; Texas pulled through. He’s hitched on just behind us.”
The wagon train, with every barrel full, was drawing slowly toward Mr. Carhart’s camp. Young Van and Carhart were riding on the leading wagon, and the former was gazing off dejectedly to the horizon, where he could see a few moving black specks and the gray-yellow line of the grade. “I don’t know what you’ll think of me, Mr. Carhart,” he said,after a time. “I don’t seem to be good for much when it comes to real work.”
“Better forget about it, Gus,” the chief replied. “I’m going to. This isn’t railroad building.”
The long line of wagons wound into camp, and Carhart made it his first business to get his assistant undressed and comfortably settled on his cot. It would be a day or so before the young man would be able to resume his work. Then Carhart stepped out, walked part way down the knoll, and looked about him, and became conscious of an unusual stir about the job. Peering out through dusty spectacles, he saw that a party of strangers were coming up the slope toward him.
At the head walked Old Van, in boiled shirt and city clothes, with a tall man in frock coat and top hat whom Carhart recognized as Vice-president Chambers. After them came a party of ladies and one or two young men to whom Tiffany was explaining the methods of construction. It seemed that Mr. Chambers hadthought it worth while to adopt Tiffany’s suggestion that the vast quantities of dry bones in the desert be gathered up and shipped eastward to be ground up into fertilizer.
Carhart was presented to Mrs. Chambers and to the two Misses Chambers and the other young women. He took them in with a glance, then looked down over his own outrageously attired person and restrained a smile. Tiffany was the one he wished to see, and he told him so with a barely perceptible motion of the head.
Tiffany caught the signal, made his excuses, and walked off with this dusty, inconspicuous man on whose shoulders rested the welfare of the whole Sherman and Western system. He had observed that the young women drew instinctively away from the dingy figure, and his smile was not restrained. He was thinking of his first meeting with Paul Carhart, in Chicago,—it was at the farewell dinner to the Dutch engineers,—and of his distinguished appearance as he rose to speak, and of his delightfullyhumorous enumeration of the qualities required in an American engineer. Thinking of these things he almost spoke aloud: “And they never knew the difference,—not a blessed one of ’em! Even Mrs. Chambers don’t know a gentleman without he’s tagged. Ain’t it funny!” And the chief engineer of the S. & W., being a blunt, and not at all a subtle man, wisely gave up the eternal question.
“Look here, Tiffany,” Carhart began, “something’s going to happen to this man Peet.”
Tiffany plucked a straw from a convenient bale, and began meditatively to chew it. “I haven’t got a word to say, Carhart. You’ve got a clear case against us, and I guess I can’t object if you take it out of me.”
“No; I understand the thing pretty well, Tiffany. You’re doing what you can, but Peet isn’t.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Perfectly.”
“He’s having the devil’s own time himself, Carhart. The mills are going back on us steady with the rails. They just naturally don’t ship ’em. I’m beginning to think they don’t want to ship ’em.”
Carhart stopped short, plunged in thought. “Maybe you’re right,” he said after a moment. “I hadn’t thought of that before.”
“No, you oughtn’t to have to think of it. That’s our business, but it’s been worrying us considerable. Then there’s the connections, too. The rails have to come into Sherman by way of the Queen and Cumberland,—a long way ‘round—”
“And the Queen and Cumberland has ‘Commodore Durfee’ written all over it.”
“Yes, I guess it has.”
“And knowing that, you fellows have been sitting around waiting for the Commodore to deliver your material. No, Tiffany, don’t tell me that; I hate to think it of you.”
“I know we’re a pack of fools, Carhart, but—” the sentence died out. “But what can we do, man? We can’t draw a new map of the United States, can we? We’ve got our orders from the old man—!”
“‘Look here, Tiffany,’ Carhart began, ‘something’s going to happen to this man Peet.’”
“‘Look here, Tiffany,’ Carhart began, ‘something’s going to happen to this man Peet.’”
“Could you have the stuff sent around by the Coast and Crescent, and transferred over to Sherman by wagon?”
“Wait a minute; who owns the Coast and Crescent? Who’s got it all buttoned up in his pants pocket?”
“Oh,” said Carhart. They stood for a little while, then sat down on a pile of culls which had been brought up by the tie squad for supporting tent floors. “It begins to occur to me,” Carhart went on, “that we are working under the nerviest president that ever—But perhaps he can’t help it. He’s fixed pretty much as Washington was in the New Jersey campaign; he’s surrounded by the enemy and he’s got to fight out.”
“That’s it, exactly,” cried Tiffany. “He’s got to cut his way out. He ain’t a practical railroad man, and he’s just ordered us to do it for him. Don’t you see our fix?”
“Yes,” Carhart mused, “I see well enough. Look here, Tiffany; how far can I go in this business,—extra expenses, and that sort of things?”
Tiffany’s face became very expressive. “Well,” he said, “I guess if you can beat the H. D. & W. to Red Hills there won’t be any questions asked. If you can’t beat ’em, we’ll all catch hell. Why, what are you thinking of doing?”
“Not a thing. My mind’s a blank.”
From Tiffany’s expression it was plain that he was uncertain whether to believe this or not.
“It comes to about this,” Carhart went on. “It all rests on me, and if I’m willing to run chances, I might as well run ’em.”
Tiffany’s eyes were searching the lean, spectacled face. “I guess it’s for you to decide,” he replied. “I don’t know what else Mr. Chambers was thinking of when he the same as told me to leave you be.”
“By the way, Tiffany,”—Carhart was goingthrough his pockets,—“how long is it since you people left Sherman?”
“More than a week. Mr. Chambers wanted some shooting on the way out.”
“Do you suppose he knows about this?” And Carhart produced the torn sheet of thePierrepont Enterprise.
Tiffany read the headlines, and slowly shook his head. “I’m sure he don’t. There was no such story around Sherman when we left. But we found a message waiting here to-day, asking Mr. Chambers to hurry back; very likely it’s about this.”
“If it were true, if Commodore Durfee does own the line, what effect would it have on my work here?”
“Not a bit! Not a d—n bit!” Tiffany’s big hand came down on his knee with a bang. “This line belongs to Daniel De Reamer, and Old Durfee’s thievery and low tricks and kept judges don’t go at Sherman, or here neither. It’s jugglery, the whole business; there ain’t anything honest about it.” Carhart lookedaway, and again restrained a smile; he was thinking of where the money came from. “And I’ll tell you this,” Tiffany concluded, “if anybody comes into my office and tries to take possession for Old Durfee, I’ll say, ‘Hold on, my friend, who signed that paper you’ve got there?’ And if I find it ain’t signed by five judges—five, mind!—of the Supreme Court of the United States sittin’ in Washington, I’ll say, ‘Get out of here!’ And if they won’t get out, I’ll kick ’em out. And there’s five hundred men in Sherman, a thousand men, who’ll help me to do it. If it’s court business, I guess our judges are as good as theirs. And if it comes to shooting, by God we’ll shoot!”
“I agree with you, on the whole,” said Carhart. “Mr. De Reamer and Mr. Chambers have put me here to beat the H. D. & W. to Red Hills, and I’m going to do it. But—”
“That’s the talk, man!”
“But let’s get back to Peet. He could help us a little if he felt like it. You told me last month, Tiffany, that Peet had given you alist of the numbers of all my supply cars, with an understanding that they wouldn’t be used for anything else. Have you got that list with you?”
“No; it’s in my desk, at Sherman.”
“All right. I’ll call for it day after to-morrow.”
“At Sherman?”
“Yes. Peet isn’t sending those cars out here, and I’m going to find out where he is sending them.”
“There’s one thing, Carhart,” said Tiffany, as they rose, “I’m sure Peet don’t know how bad off you were for water. He was holding up the trains for material.”
“He ought to understand, Tiffany. I wired him to send the water anyway.”
“I know. But that would be wholesale murder. He didn’t realize—”
“I’m going to undertake the job of making him realize, Tiffany.”
The whistle of the vice-president’s special engine was tooting as they started back. Onthe one hand, as far as human beings could be distinguished with the naked eye, the groups and the long lines of laborers were shuffling to and from their work on the grade; the picked men of the iron squad, muscular, deep chested, were working side by side with the Mexicans and the negroes, as also were the spikers and strappers and the men of the tie squad. On the other hand, the ladies of the vice-president’s party were picking their way daintily back toward Mr. Chambers’s private car, where savory odors and a white-clad chef awaited them.
Carhart had time only to wash his face and hands before rejoining the party at the car steps. His clothing was downright disreputable, and he wanted the physique, the height and breadth and muscle display, which alone can give distinction to rough garments. Even his clean-cut face and reserved, studious expression were not positive features, and could hardly triumph over the obvious facts of his dress. Mrs. Chambers and the young womenagain glanced toward him, and again they had nothing to say to him. To the truth that this ugly, noisy scene was a resolving dissonance in the harmony of things, that this rough person in spectacles was heroically forging a link in the world’s girdle, these women were blind. They had been curious to come; and now that they were here and were conscious of the dirtiness and meanness of the hundreds of men about them, now that the gray hopelessness of the desert was getting on their nerves, they were eager to go back. And so the bell rang, the driving-wheels spun around, slipping under the coughing engine, the car began to rumble forward, the ladies bowed, the vice-president, taking a last look at things from the rear platform, nodded a good-by, and the incident was closed.
There were a number of things for Carhart to attend to after he had eaten supper and dressed, and before he could get away,—some of which will have to find a place in a later chapter,—andit was eleven o’clock at night when he finally put aside his maps and reports. He then wrote a note to Scribner, telling the engineer of the second division that the last report of his pile inspector was not satisfactory,—the third bent in the trestle over Tiffany Hollow on “mile fifty-two” showed insufficient resistance. He left for Young Van’s attention a pile of letters with memoranda for the replies. He sent for Old Van, and went over with him the condition of the work on the first division. And finally he wrote the following letter to John Flint:—
Dear John: I’m sending forward to-morrow the extra cable and the wheelers you asked for. I have to run back to Sherman to-night, possibly for a week or so, but there’ll be time enough to look over your plans for cutting and filling on the west bank when I get back. I haven’t figured it out yet, but I’m inclined to agree with you that we can make more of a fill there. But I’ll write you again about it.Thanks to our friend Peet I nearly killedTexas on a ride for water. Got to have another riding horse sent out here. My assistant’s pony had to be shot—that little brown beauty I pointed out to you the morning you started, with the white star.Yours,P. C.P. S. By the way, that Wall-street fight was only the opening skirmish. The Commodore is raiding S. & W. for business. I guess you know how he does these things. ThePierrepont Enterprisesays he has already got control of the board, so it will probably be our turn next. If you haven’t plenty of weapons, you’d better order what you need at Red Hills right away. And don’t forget that you’re working for Daniel De Reamer.P. C.
Dear John: I’m sending forward to-morrow the extra cable and the wheelers you asked for. I have to run back to Sherman to-night, possibly for a week or so, but there’ll be time enough to look over your plans for cutting and filling on the west bank when I get back. I haven’t figured it out yet, but I’m inclined to agree with you that we can make more of a fill there. But I’ll write you again about it.
Thanks to our friend Peet I nearly killedTexas on a ride for water. Got to have another riding horse sent out here. My assistant’s pony had to be shot—that little brown beauty I pointed out to you the morning you started, with the white star.
Yours,
P. C.
P. S. By the way, that Wall-street fight was only the opening skirmish. The Commodore is raiding S. & W. for business. I guess you know how he does these things. ThePierrepont Enterprisesays he has already got control of the board, so it will probably be our turn next. If you haven’t plenty of weapons, you’d better order what you need at Red Hills right away. And don’t forget that you’re working for Daniel De Reamer.
P. C.
He folded the letter, slipped it into an envelope, addressed it, and then tipped back and ran his long fingers through his hair. He was surprised to find that his forehead was beaded with sweat. “Lovely climate, this,” he said to himself; adding after a moment, “Now what have I forgotten?” For several minutes he balanced there, supporting himselfby resting the fingers of one hand against a tall case labelled, “A B C Spool Cotton,” in the flat, glass-fronted drawers of which he kept his maps and papers. Finally he muttered, “Well, if I have forgotten anything, I’ve forgotten it for good,” and the front legs of his chair came down, and he reached across the table for his hat.
But instead of rising, he lingered, fingering the wide hat-brim. The yellow lamplight fell gently on his face, now leaner than ever. “I wonder what they think a man is made of,” thought he. “Nothing very valuable, I guess, from what an engineer gets paid. I’m in the wrong business. It’s my sort of man who does the work, and it’s the speculators and that sort who get the money,—God help ’em!” Again he made as if to rise, and again he paused. “Oh!” he said, “of course, that was it.” He clapped his hat on the back of his head, reached out for a letter which he had that evening written to Mrs. Carhart, opened the envelope, and added these words:—
“Have Thomas Nelson plant the nasturtiums along the back fence. There isn’t enough sunshine out in front for anything but the honeysuckle and the Dutchman’s pipe. And he’d better screen the fence with golden glow, set out pretty thick the whole way, between the nasturtiums and the fence. The crab-apple tree will be in the way, but it’s so near dead that he’d better cut it down. I like your other arrangements first rate.”
“Have Thomas Nelson plant the nasturtiums along the back fence. There isn’t enough sunshine out in front for anything but the honeysuckle and the Dutchman’s pipe. And he’d better screen the fence with golden glow, set out pretty thick the whole way, between the nasturtiums and the fence. The crab-apple tree will be in the way, but it’s so near dead that he’d better cut it down. I like your other arrangements first rate.”
This, and a few other east-bound letters, he put in his handbag. Then he looked at his watch. “Hello!” said he, “it’s to-morrow morning.” He pulled his hat forward, took up the lamp, and stepped out through the tent opening, holding the lamp high and looking down, through the night, toward the track.
The silence, in spite of a throbbing locomotive, or perhaps because of it, was almost overwhelming. There was not a cloud in the sky; the stars were twinkling down.
“How horribly patient it is,” he thought. “We’re slap bang up against the Almighty.”
“Toot! Too-oo-oot!” came from the throbbing locomotive.
“All right, sir!” he muttered. “Be with you in a minute.”
He went back into the tent, put down the lamp, picked up his handbag, took a last look around, and then blew out the lamp and set off down the slope to the track.
The engineer was hanging out of his cab. “All ready, Mr. Carhart?”
“All ready, Bill.” The chief caught the hand-rail ofhisprivate car, tossed his bag to the platform, and swung himself up after it.
“You was in something of a hurry, Mr. Carhart?”
“In a little of a hurry, yes, Bill.”
They started off, rocking and bumping over the new track, and Carhart began stripping off his clothes. “It isn’t exactly like Mr. Chambers’s,” he said, “but I guess I’ll be able to get in a little sleep; that is, if Bill doesn’t smash me up, or jolt me to death.”
Three days later, at five o’clock in the afternoon, Carhart was writing a letter in the officeof the “Eagle House,” at Sherman. Sitting in rows along three sides of the room was perhaps a score of men, and in a corner by herself sat one young woman. The men were a mixed assortment,—locomotive engineers, photographers, travelling salesmen of tobacco, jewellery, shoes, clothing, and small cutlery, not to speak of an itinerant dentist and a team of “champion banjo and vocal artists.” As for the young woman, if you could have taken a peep into the sample case at her feet, you would have learned that she was prepared to disseminate a collection of literature which ranged from standard sets of Dickens and Thackeray to a fat volume devoted to the songs and scenes of Old Ireland, an illustrated life of the Pope, and a work on the character and the splendid career of Porfirio Diaz. Outside, at the window, stood or sat another score of men, each of whom bore the unmistakable dress and manner of the day laborer. And every pair of eyes, within and without the smoky room, was fixed on the back of theman who was writing a letter at the table in the corner.
But Carhart’s mind was wholly occupied with the work before him. He was travel-stained,—it was not yet an hour since he had come in from Crockett, the nearest division town on the H. D. & W.,—but there were few signs of weariness on his face, and none at all in his eyes. “How much had I better tell him?” he was asking himself. “I wonder what he is up to, anyway? Possibly he has an interest in the lumber company, or maybe Durfee’s men have bought him up.” For several minutes his pen occupied itself with dotting out a design on the blotter; then suddenly a twinkle came into his eyes, and he wrote rapidly as follows:—
Dear Mr. Peet: I beg to enclose herewith a list of the cars which were assigned to me at the beginning of the construction work. I am sure you will agree with me that I can spare none of these cars, least of all to supply a rival line. And in consideration of your future hearty cooperation with me in advancing this construction work, I will gladly take pains to see that my present knowledge of the use that has been made of these cars shall not interfere in any way with your continued enjoyment of your position with the Sherman and Western.Yours very truly,P. Carhart.
Dear Mr. Peet: I beg to enclose herewith a list of the cars which were assigned to me at the beginning of the construction work. I am sure you will agree with me that I can spare none of these cars, least of all to supply a rival line. And in consideration of your future hearty cooperation with me in advancing this construction work, I will gladly take pains to see that my present knowledge of the use that has been made of these cars shall not interfere in any way with your continued enjoyment of your position with the Sherman and Western.
Yours very truly,
P. Carhart.
He folded the letter, then opened it and read it over. “Yes,” he told himself, “it’s better to write it. Seeing the thing before him in black and white may have a stimulating effect.” He found in his pocket the worn and thumbed list of cars, enclosed it in his letter, addressed an envelope, and looked around. At once he was beset by the agents and the applicants for work, but he shoved through to the piazza, and called a boy.
“Here, son,” he said, “do you know Mr. Peet, of the railroad?”
The boy nodded.
“Take this letter to him. If he isn’t in his office, go to his house, but don’t come back until you have found him.”
“Will there be any answer?”
“No—no answer. Don’t give the letter to anybody but Mr. Peet himself. When you have done that, come to me and get a quarter.”
The boy started off, and Carhart reëntered the building, slipped past the office door, and walked up two flights of stairs to his room.
“And now,” thought he, “I guess a bath will feel about as good as anything.”
The Eagle House did not boast a bathroom, and so he set about the business in the primitive fashion to which he had learned to adapt himself. He dragged in from the hall a tin, high-backed tub, called down the stairway to the proprietor’s wife for hot water, and, undressing, piled his clothes on the one wooden chair in the room, taking care that they touched neither floor nor wall. The hostess knocked, and left a steaming pitcher outside the door. And soon the chief engineer of the Red Hills extension of the Shaky and Windy was splashing merrily.
The water proved so refreshing that he lingered in it, leaning comfortably back and hanging his legs over the edge of the tub. And as was always the case, when he had a respite from details, his mind began roving over the broader problems of the work. “I’ve done a part of it,” he said to himself, “but not enough. It won’t do any good to have the cars if we haven’t the materials to put in ’em.” He had been absently pursuing the soap around the bottom of the tub, had caught it, and was now sloping his hands into the water, and letting the cake slide back into its element.
There was a knock at the door. Carhart looked up with half a start.
“Well, what is it?”
“It’s me, sir,” came from the hall.
“Who’s me?”
“The boy that took your letter.”
“Well, what about it? There was no answer.”
“But thereisan answer, Mr. Carhart. Mr. Peet came back with me.”
“What’s that?”
“He’s here—he came back with me. He’s waiting downstairs.”
Carhart hesitated. “Well—tell him that I’m very sorry, but I can’t see him. I’m taking a bath.”
“All right,” said the boy; and Carhart heard him go off down the stairs.
For some little time longer he sat in the tub. His mind slipped again into the accustomed channel. “If it does come to warfare,” he was thinking, “the first thing they’ll do will be to cut me off from my base. They’d know that I shall be near enough to Red Hills to get food through from there by wagon,—that’s what I should have to do,—but there won’t be any rails coming from Red Hills. I’m afraid—very much afraid—that Durfee has got us, cold. That’s the whole trick. If he’s going to seize the S. & W., he’ll cut me off first thing. There’s five to six hundred miles of track between the job and Sherman. It would take an army to guard it. Andthat much done, he’d be in a position to take his time about completing the H. D. & W. to Red Hills.”
And then suddenly he got out of the tub, snatched up a towel, and, half dry, began hurriedly to draw on his clothes. A moment later a thin, spectacled, collarless man darted out of a room on the third floor of the Eagle House, looked quickly up and down the hall, ran halfway down the stairs, and leaned over the balustrade.
“Boy,” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
“You didn’t get your quarter.” But it was a half dollar that he tossed into the waiting hands. “Run after Mr. Peet and bring him back here. Mind you catch him.”
The boy started to obey, but in a moment he was back and knocking at Carhart’s door. “He’s down in the office now, Mr. Carhart. He didn’t go at all.”
“He didn’t, eh?” The engineer was standing before the cracked mirror, brushinghis hair. “All right, I’ll be down in a minute. Hold on there!” He stepped to the door. The first coin his fingers encountered in his pocket was another half dollar. He took it out without glancing at it and handed it to the now bewildered boy. Then he returned to the mirror and brushed his hair again, and put on his collar and tie. “I’ll have to thank Tiffany,” ran his thoughts. “It’s odd how that car-stealing story has stuck in my head. I’m glad he told it.”
Peet’s expression was not what might be termed complacent. He was standing on the piazza when he heard Carhart’s quick step on the stairs. His teeth were closed tightly on a cigar, but he was not smoking.
“How are you, Mr. Peet?” said the engineer. Peet looked nervously about and behind him, and then faced around. “Look here, Mr. Carhart, I want to tell you that you haven’t got that straight—”
“Where’s Tiffany?” said Carhart.
At this interruption Peet turned, if anything, a shade redder. “He’s gone home.”
“Let’s find him. Would you mind walking over there?”
“Certainly not,” Peet replied; and for a moment they walked in silence. Then the superintendent broke out again. “You didn’t understand about those cars, Mr. Carhart. I know—the boys have told me—that you’ve thought some hard things about me—” He paused: perhaps he had better keep his mouth shut.
As for Carhart, he was striding easily along, the hint of a smile playing about the corners of his mouth. “I think I understand the situation pretty well, Peet,” he said. “I was a little stirred up when my men began to go thirsty, but that’s all past, and I’m going to drop it. I guess we both understand that this construction is the most important thing Mr. De Reamer has on hand these days. And if we’re going to carry him through, we’ll have to pull together.”
They found Tiffany, coat thrown aside, hat tipped back, weeding his garden.
“Come in—glad to see you,” he said, only half concealing his curiosity over the spectacle of Carhart and Peet walking together in amity. “Didn’t succeed in getting back, eh, Carhart?”
“Not yet, Tiffany. I had to run up to Crockett.” He said this in an offhand manner, and he did not look at Peet; but he knew from the expression on Tiffany’s face that the superintendent was turning red again.
“You ain’t had supper, have you?” said Tiffany. “You’re just in time to eat with us.”
“Supper!” Carhart repeated the word in some surprise, then looked at his watch.
“You hadn’t forgotten it, had you?” Tiffany grinned.
“To tell the truth, I had. May we really eat with you? It will save us some time.”
“Can you? Well, I wonder! Come in.” And taking up his coat, Tiffany led the way into the house.
More than once during that meal did Tiffany’s eyes flit from Peet’s half-bewildered countenance to that of the quiet, good-natured Carhart. He asked no questions, but he wondered. Once he thought that Peet threw him an inquiring glance, but he could not be certain. After supper, as he reached for the toothpicks and pushed back his chair, he was tempted to come out with the question which was on his mind, “What in the devil are you up to, Carhart?” But what he really said was, “Help yourselves to the cigars, boys. They’re in that jar, there.”
And then, for a moment, both Peet and Tiffany sat back and watched Carhart while he lighted his cigar, turned it over thoughtfully, shook the match, and dropped it with a little sputter into his coffee cup. Then the man who was building the Red Hills extension got, with some deliberation, to his feet, and turned toward Tiffany. “Would it spoil your smoke to take it while we walk?” he asked.
“Not at all,” replied the host. “Where are we going?”
“To the yards.”
Peet, for no reason whatever, went red again; and Tiffany, tipped back in his chair and slowly puffing at his cigar, looked at him. Then he too got up, and the three men left the house together. And during all the walk out to the freight depot, Carhart talked about the new saddle-horse he had bought at Crockett.
The freight yard at Sherman extended nearly a mile, beginning with the siding by the depot and expanding farther on to the width of a dozen tracks. Carhart came to a halt at the point where the tangle of switches began, and looked about him. Everywhere he saw cars, some laden, some empty. A fussy little engine was coughing down the track, whistling angrily at a sow and her litter of spotted, muddy-yellow pigs which had been sleeping in a row between the rails. From the roundhouse, off to the left, arose the smoke of five or sixresting locomotives. Nearer at hand, seated in a row on the handle of the turn-table, were as many black negroes, laughing and showing their teeth and eyeballs, and discussing with much gesticulation and some amiable heat the question of the day. Carhart’s sweeping glance took in the scene, then his interest centred on the cars.
Peet fidgeted. “There ain’t any of your cars here, Mr. Carhart,” he said uneasily.
Already Carhart knew better, but he was not here to squabble with Peet. “How many have you here all together?” he asked; and after a moment of rapid counting he answered his own question: “Something more than a hundred, eh?”
“Yes, but—”
“Well, what?”
“Look here, Carhart, I don’t know what you’ve got in mind, but I can’t let you have any of these cars.”
“You can’t?”
“Not possibly. Half of ’em are foreign asit is. I’m so short now I don’t know what I’m going to do. Honest, I don’t.”
Carhart turned this answer over in his mind. After a moment he looked up, first at Peet, then at Tiffany, as if he had something to say; but whatever it may have been, he turned away without saying it.
“What is it, old man?” cried Tiffany, at last. “What can we do for you, anyway?”
Still Carhart did not speak. His eyes again sought the long lines of cars. Finally, resting one foot on a projecting cross-tie, he turned to the superintendent. “Suppose you do this, Peet,” he said, speaking slowly; “suppose you tell your yard-master that I am to be absolute boss here until midnight. Then you go home and leave me here. Tiffany could stay and help me out—this isn’t his department.”
This brought Peet close to the outer limit of bewilderment. “What in—” he began; but Carhart, observing the effect of his request, interrupted.
“I don’t believe Mr. Peet understands the situation very well, Tiffany. Tell him where we stand—where Mr. De Reamer stands.” And with this he walked off a little way.
Tiffany came to the point. To Peet’s question, “What is he talking about, Tiffany?” the veteran replied: “He knows and I know, Lou, that the only thing that will save the old man is a track to Red Hills. I haven’t the slightest idea what Carhart’s up to, but I’ll tell you this, I’ve seen him in one or two tight places, and I never saw him look like this before. He’s got something he wants to do, and he’s decided that it’s necessary, and it ain’t for you and me to stand in his way. When you come to know Paul Carhart, you’ll learn that he don’t do things careless. What do you suppose the Old Man meant when he told you to back him up to the limit with cars and engines, and told me to keep out of his way?”
Peet did not reply for a moment. He took off his hat and brushed back the hair from aforehead that was moist with sweat. He looked from one man to the other, and from both to the roundhouse, and the depot, and the waiting cars. Finally he walked over toward Carhart. “Go ahead,” he said queerly, “I’ll stay with you.”
“Good enough.” And with these two words Carhart wheeled around and surveyed the nearest line of cars—box, flat, and gondola. “Most of those are empty, aren’t they?” he asked.
“About half of them. But here’s Dougherty, the yard-master. Dougherty, this is Mr. Carhart. You can take your orders from him to-night.”
Carhart extended his hand. “Glad to meet you, Mr. Dougherty. I’m afraid we’ll all have to make a night of it. I want you to keep steam up in three engines. And pick up all the men you can find and start them unloading every car in the yard. Keep ’em jumping. I want to have three empty trains at Paradise by midnight.”
“By mid—” Dougherty’s mouth opened a very little, and his eyes, after taking in Paul Carhart’s face and figure, settled on the superintendent.
But Peet, with an expressive movement of his hands, turned away; and Tiffany, after a glance about the little group, went after him.
“Brace up, Lou,” said Tiffany, in a low voice; “brace up.”
Peet’s hands were deep in his pockets. His eyes were fixed on the rails before him. “Dump all that freight on the ground!” he moaned. “Look here, Tiffany, I suppose he knows what he’s doing, but—but what’ll the traffic men say!”
“Never you mind the traffic men.”
“But—dump all that freight out hereon the ground!”
Tiffany passed an unsteady hand across his eyes. If Peet had looked at him, he would not have felt reassured; but he did not look up.
Dougherty, with a gulp, obeyed Carhart.And half an hour later the chance observers and the yard loafers were rubbing their eyes. Laborers were busy from one end of the yard to the other, throwing out boxes and bales and crates, and piling them haphazard between the tracks. The tired, wheezy switch engine, enveloped in a cloud of its own steam, was laboriously making up the first train. And moving quietly about, issuing orders and giving a hand here and there, followed by the disturbed eyes of the general superintendent and the chief engineer of the Shaky and Windy, Paul Carhart was bossing the work. Once he stepped over to the two men of the disturbed eyes, a thoughtful expression on his own face. “Say, Tiffany,” he asked, “how much business does the Paradise Southern do?”
Tiffany started, and looked keenly at Carhart. There was a faint glimmer in his eyes, but this was followed immediately by uncertainty. “None,” he replied; “that is, none to speak of. They run a combination careach way every day—two cars when business is brisk. The Old Man would have abandoned it years ago if it hadn’t been for the stock scheme I told you about.”
“Yes,” mused Carhart, “that’s what I understood. But if it’s such a mistake, why was it built in the first place?”
“Oh, they were going to run it through to Bonavita on the Emerald River, but the B. & G. got all there was of that business first, and so the P. S. never got beyond Total Wreck. Mr. De Reamer never built it. The old Shipleigh crowd did that before Mr. De Reamer bought up this property.” The faint glimmer had returned to Tiffany’s eyes; he was searching Carhart’s face. “You want these trains sent on through to your camp, don’t you?” he asked abruptly.
“No, they are to go down over the P. S.”
Tiffany’s expression was growing almost painful. Carhart went on. “There are sidings at Total Wreck, aren’t there, Peet?” he asked.
“Oh, yes, quite a yard there; but it’s badly run down.”
“What other sidings are there along the line?”
“Long ones at Yellow House and Dusty Bend.”
“How long?”
“Nearly two miles each.”
“How long is the line?”
“Forty-five miles.”
“Good Lord!” The exclamation was Tiffany’s. He was staring at Carhart with an expression of such mingled astonishment, incredulity, and expansive delight, that Peet’s curiosity broke its bounds. “For God’s sake, Tiffany,” he cried, “what is it? What’s he going to do?”
But Tiffany did not hear. He was gazing at Paul Carhart, saying incoherent things to him, and bringing down a heavy hand on his shoulder. He was somewhat frightened—never before, even in his own emphatic life, had his routine notions received such a wrench—but his eyes were shining. “Lord! Lord!”he was saying, “but there’ll be swearing in Sherman to-morrow.”
“The time has come when I ought to know what”—this from the purple Peet.
“Don’t ask him, Lou,” cried Tiffany, “don’t ask him. If we smash, it won’t be your fault. Ain’t that right, Paul?”
“Yes,” replied Carhart, “it is just right. Don’t ask any questions, Peet, and don’t give me away. I don’t want any swearing in Sherman to-morrow. I don’t want a whisper of this to get out for a week—not for a month if we can keep it under.”
Tiffany quieted down; grew thoughtful. “It will take a lot of men, Paul. How can you prevent a leak?”
“I’m going to take them all West with me afterward.”
“I see. That’s right—that’s right! And the station agents and train crews and switchmen—yes, I see. You’ll take ’em all.”
“Every man,” replied Carhart, quietly.
“If necessary, you’ll take ’em under guard.”
Carhart smiled a very little. “If necessary,” he replied.
“You’ll want some good men,” mused Tiffany. “I’ll tell you,—suppose you leave that part of it to me. It’s now,—let’s see,—seven-forty. It won’t be any use starting your first train until you’ve got the men to do the work. I’ll need a little time, but if you’ll give me an hour and half to two hours, say until nine-thirty, I’ll have your outfit ready. I’ll send some of my assistants along with you, and a bunch of our brakemen and switchmen. There’ll be the commissariat to look out for too,—you see to all that, Lou, will you?”
Peet inclined his head. “For how many men?” he asked.
“Oh, five hundred, anyway, before we get through with it.” Nothing could surprise the superintendent now. He merely nodded.
“And rifles,” Tiffany added. “You’ll want a case of ’em.”
“No,” said Carhart, “I shan’t need anyrifles for the P. S., but I want five hundred more at the end of the track, and, say ten thousand rounds of ball cartridges. Will you see to that, Peet?”
The superintendent grunted out, “Who’s paying for all this?” and then as neither of the others took the trouble to reply, he subsided.
“All right, then,” said Tiffany. “I’ll have your crew here—enough for the first train, anyhow. You can trust to picking up fifty or a hundred laborers in the neighborhood of Paradise. See you later.” And with this, the chief engineer took his big person away at a rapid walk.
Carhart turned to Peet and extended his hand. Dusk was falling. The headlights of the locomotives threw their yellow beams up the yard. Switch lights were shining red and white, and lanterns, in the hands of shadowy figures, were bobbing here and there. There was a great racket about them of bumping cars and squeaking brakes, and of shouting andthe blowing off of locomotives. “I don’t blame you for thinking that everything’s going to the devil, Peet,” said Carhart. “But I don’t believe they’ve let you in on the situation. If I’m running risks, it’s because we’ve got to run risks.”
Peet hesitated, then accepted the proffered hand. “I suppose it’s all right,” he replied. “Tiffany seems to agree with you, and he generally knows what he’s about. But—” he paused. They were standing by a heap of merchandise. The heap was capped by a dozen crates of chickens which, awakened from their sleep, were fluttering about within their narrow coop and clucking angrily. He waved his hand. “Think of what this means to our business,” he said.
Carhart listened for a moment, then looked back to Peet. “If I were sure it would come to nothing worse than a slight disarrangement of your business, I’d sleep easy to-night.”
“It’s as bad as that, is it?”
“Yes,” Carhart replied, “it’s as bad as that.If I lose, no matter how the fight in the board turns out, you know what it will mean—no more De Reamer and Chambers men on the S. & W. Every De Reamer fireman and brakeman will go. It’ll be a long vacation for the bunch of you.”
Peet was silent. And then, standing there where he had so often and so heedlessly stood before, his sordid, moderately capable mind was torn unexpectedly loose from its well-worn grooves and thrown out to drift on a tossing sea of emotion and of romantic adventure. The breathlessness of the scene was borne in on his consciousness on a wave that almost took away his breath. Carhart was the sort of man whom he could not understand at all. He knew this now, or something near enough to it, clear down to the bottom of his subconscious self. And when he turned and looked at the thin man of the masterful hand, it was with a change of manner. “All right,” he said, “go ahead. Just say what you want me to do.”
At five minutes to ten that night a locomotive lay, the steam roaring in clouds through her safety valve, on the siding by the freight depot; and stretching off behind her was a long string of empties. Carhart, Tiffany, and Peet, walking up alongside the train, could distinguish, through the dark, men sitting on brake wheels, or swinging their legs out of box-car doors or standing in groups in the gondola cars. Once, during a brief lull in the noise of the yard, they heard a gentle snore which was issuing from the dark recesses of one of the box-cars. The three men halted beside the locomotive.