A Captain in the Ranks Part 36

Duncan, especially, was rendering service. As an old soldier, who had had varied experience in the hurried construction of earthworks under difficulties, he was able in many ways to hasten the present work. One thing he hit upon which went far to make success possible. That end of the crib which reached and crossed the county line offered a cavernous s.p.a.ce to be filled in. It was thickly surrounded by trees, and Duncan ordered all these felled, directing the chopping so that the trunks and branches should fall into the crib. Then setting men to chop off such of the branches as protruded above the proposed embankment level, and let them fall into the unoccupied s.p.a.ces, he presently had that part of the crib loosely filled in with a tangled ma.s.s of timber and tree tops.

Gangs of men were meanwhile pushing cars along the temporary track, and dumping their loads of earth among the felled trees. Duncan, with a small gang, was extending these temporary tracks along the crib as fast as the earth dumped in provided a sufficient bed.

This work of filling was very slow, of course, and when Duncan's watch showed ten o'clock, he was well-nigh ready to despair. Under the strain of his anxiety he had forgotten to take any breakfast, and the prolonged exposure to water and rain had so far depressed his vitality that he now found a chill creeping over him. He hurried to Barbara's fire for some coffee and a few mouthfuls of greatly needed food. There for the first time he saw what Barbara's promised dinner was to be. The two separated halves of a dressed hog hung before and partly over the fire, roasting.

"Where on earth did you get that?" he asked in astonishment.

"Bob got it last night," she answered, "and dressed it himself."

"But where, and how?"

"I don't know yet. He laughs when I ask questions. I'm sorely afraid Bob stole the hog from some farmer. I sent him out with some money to buy whatever meat he could find, for I saw that the men must have substantial food. He came back about daylight, and told me he had a dressed hog 'out dar in de bushes.' He gave me back all the money I had given him, and, as I say, he simply laughs when I ask questions. I'll make him tell me all about it this afternoon. If he stole the hog, we can pay for it. And meanwhile the men shall have their dinner. How is the work getting on?"

"Rapidly--but not rapidly enough, I fear. I must hurry back now."

"I'll go with you," said the girl. "Bob can watch the roasting," for Bob had reappeared at the fire.

"But you can't go with me," replied Duncan. "The water's knee deep, and more, between here and the crib."

"It can't make me any wetter than I am now," replied the resolute girl, as she set off in Duncan's company.

At the crib she studied the situation critically. She knew nothing of engineering, of course, but she had an abundance of practical common sense, and in most of the affairs of this life, common sense goes a long way as a subst.i.tute for skill.

"What time is it now?" she asked, after she had watched the slow progress of the work long enough to estimate the prospect.

"Half past ten."

"Then we've only an hour and a half more. It isn't enough. You can never fill that hole in time."

"I'm afraid we can't. I'm afraid we've lost in the struggle."

"Oh, no, you mustn't feel that way. We simply must win this battle. If we can't do it in one way, we must find another."

Duncan made no answer. There seemed to him no answer to be made. The girl continued to look about her. After a while she asked:

"Is the end of the crib at the county line?"

"Yes--or rather the line lies a little way this side of the end of the crib."

Again she remained silent for a time, before saying:

"There are two big tree trunks lying longways there in the crib. They extend across the county line. Why can't you jack them up into place, and lay your rails along them, without filling the s.p.a.ce, and without using any ties?"

For half a minute the young man did not answer. At last he exclaimed:

"That's an inspiration!"

Without pausing to say another word Duncan started at a run through the water till he reached the mud embankment. Then he ran along that to the point where Temple was superintending the earth-diggers.

"Quit this quick!" he cried, "and hurry the whole force to the crib. I see a way out. Order all the jack-screws brought, d.i.c.k, and come yourself in a hurry!"

The two great tree trunks were quickly cleared of their remaining branches by the axmen. Then Temple placed the jack-screws under them, and set to work to raise them into the desired position, so that they should lie parallel with each other, at the track level, with a s.p.a.ce of about four and a half feet between their centers.

As the jack-screws slowly brought them into position, Will Hallam and Duncan, one at either end of the logs--directed men in the work of placing log supports under them.

At half past eleven Temple announced that the great tree trunks were in place. Instantly twenty axmen were set at work hewing a flat place for rails along the top of each log, while other men, as fast as the hewing advanced, laid and spiked down the iron rails.

At five minutes before noon, a gang of men, with shouts of enthusiastic triumph, seized upon the dumping car, which stood waiting, and pushed it across the line! As this last act in the drama began, Guilford Duncan seized Barbara by the elbows, kissed her in the presence of all, lifted her off her feet, and placed her in the moving car.

"You have saved the railroad!" he said with emotion in his voice, "and you shall be its first pa.s.senger."

It was ten days later when Barbara reached home again, after a wearisome journey through the flooded district, under the escort of Duncan and Captain Will Hallam, and with the a.s.sistance of Temple, at the head of a gang of his ready-witted miners.

That evening Duncan stood face to face with her in the little parlor.

Without preface, he asked:

"Will you now say 'yes,' Barbara, to the question I asked you so long ago?"

"I suppose I must," she answered, "after--after what you did when you set me in the car that last day of the struggle."

THE END