Out of the Primitive Part 61

At sight of the great heaps of structural steel and flooring material and of the ponderous main traveller so far out toward the end of the overhang, the glow in the sunken eyes of the brake-rider died out, and his grimy brows gathered in a troubled frown.

The airbrakes hissed, the cars b.u.mped and clanked, and the train came to a laborious stop with the outermost cars beneath the lofty latticed framework of the main traveller. At once the electro-magnetic cranes began to descend, ready to swing off whole carloads of steel in their magic monstrous clutch.

The brake-rider had slipped down and was walking rapidly outward along the narrow plank footway. As he advanced he looked about him with an anxious gaze, but it was at the unfloored substructure of the bridge, not at the awesome spectacle of the swift-flowing, ice-covered stream a hundred and fifty feet beneath. Once he paused and stooped over to look closer at a rivet head.

He hurried on to where, under the smaller traveller, the uncompleted south part of the central, or suspension, span poised dizzily in s.p.a.ce, over-arching the abyss. Many yards of gap still yawned between its tip and the tip of the sections that strained out to meet it from the end of the north cantilever.

The sections built on to the southern part of the central span had brought the overhang still more dizzily out over the broad strait. The wonder was that men could be found who were willing to work day after day in a position of such real peril. Yet since Ashton's change of att.i.tude, McGraw had experienced no difficulty in securing and holding enough and to spare of expert bridge-workers, who toiled and sweat at their task with seemingly never a thought of the abyss that yawned beneath them.

When the brake-rider left the train, the men of the evening shift, just come on, were swarming about the end of the overhang like ants upon the tip of a broken twig,--alert-eyed, quick-handed, cool-brained "Sons of Martha," who, balanced unconcernedly in mid-air on narrow stringers, clenched fast the rivets in Death's steel harness. During the lulls between the furiously rattling volley-blows of the electric riveting-machines they grumbled about the deterioration of smoking tobacco or speculated on next season's baseball scores.

With his beefy shoulders braced against the last top-chord post, McGraw stood chewing the end of a fat black cigar while he watched the placing of a bottom-chord of a new sub-panel. From the ox-like unconcern of his stolid face and deepset eyes, his interest in the proceedings seemed to be of the most casual nature. But at the slightest gesture of his pudgy hand, cranes swung up and down, men hauled upon guy ropes, riveters moved alertly forward with their machines.

One of the men caught McGraw's eye, and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. The general foreman looked about and saw the grimy stranger standing on the plank walk a few yards back. McGraw stared, ruminated, signed to a sub-foreman, and walked stolidly back along a string of single planks to where the stranger stood waiting for him.

The soft hat of the brake-rider was now pulled down over his eyes, and his chin was hidden in the upturned collar of his tattered coat. As McGraw approached him, he drew back out of the deafening clatter of the riveting-machines. McGraw followed, his heavy face of a sudden grown truculent. He came up close to the stranger.

"You dirty b.u.m!" he threatened. "What you doin' here? Get t' h.e.l.l outer here, or I'll trow you over!"

The stranger pushed back his hat, and met the other's menacing stare with a grin. His pale blue eyes were twinkling. McGraw's heavy jowl fell slack.

"Well, McGraw--thought you wouldn't forget me this soon. What's the latest from Mr. Griffith?"

"Jacksonville--Holy saints! you've sure been lushin' some, Mr. Blake."

"Looks like it; but as it happens I haven't. Tried to turn loose, but got switched. Instead of a spree, I've been on a b.u.m--tour of the Sunny South."

"b.u.m?" repeated McGraw.

"Yes. Needed a change. Too much indoors work; so I got out."

"_Uh?_" mumbled McGraw in slow astonishment. "No booze?"

"No. That's the funny part of it. Didn't touch a drop of anything. I used to be afraid of it when I wasn't on a tear, but now I don't even think of it. Seems as if I couldn't get up a thirst if I tried. Can't make it out."

"Sick," commented McGraw.

"No. I'm eating like a horse, and getting my strength back, hand over fist."

"In your head," qualified McGraw, touching his forehead.

"Guess that's it. Must be. Never before opened the throttle and cut loose, to come to a dead stop this way. It's as if you got up a full head of steam, and then drew the fire. Mighty queer, though,--my head is as clear as crystal."

"Huh," grunted McGraw ambiguously. "Come to take your job--a.s.sistant?"

Blake's face darkened. "No, just dropped by on my way to Canada.

Thought I'd have a look at my--" he paused, and altered his statement--"that I'd see how your old sc.r.a.p-heap is getting along."

"Huh."

"But, long as I'm here, guess I'll take hold for a turn or two, just to keep my hand in."

"Good! Need an engineer."

"I might as well earn enough for railroad fare. This brake-beaming and riding the rods isn't as soft a snap as it used to seem when I was a kid."

"Soft? Y'look like a second-hand garbage-can!"

"Thanks. Where's your resident swell?"

"Quarters. Hit up the pace--work--been goin' some." McGraw swept his fat arm around in an explanatory gesture. "Laid down a'ready."

"All right. I'm on the job. But I've got to get some sleep soon. And say, just pick out a spry kid to steer me up against the wash-house, will you?"

McGraw signed to the nearest man. "Pete--Mr. Blake, our 'Sistant Engineer--t' my room." He turned to Blake. "Help y'self. Safety razor 'n' tub handy. Clothes in locker. You c'n wear 'em over to commissary.

Guess you c'n git into 'em."

He nodded, unaware that he had said anything humorous, and pivoted around to return to his work. Blake limped briskly away after the puzzled but silent Pete. At the bunkhouse Pete showed his charge into McGraw's room, and went to order hot water for a bath.

When he returned, Blake, with half the stubble already shorn from his lathered face, handed over a telegraph message addressed to Griffith.

Eager to be of service to the Consulting Engineer, the man hurried the message to the telegraph operator. The latter, no less friendly to Griffith, corrected the address to the sick engineer's hotel in Tampa, and wired the despatch "rush."

The message could hardly have been more laconic:

On the job. Tom.

When Pete returned for further orders, he met the a.s.sistant Engineer at the door of the commissary, baggily draped in a suit of McGraw's clothes, which fitted nowhere except across the shoulders.

Blake dismissed him, and went in to outfit himself with a costume in keeping with his position. Almost asleep, he then went back to the bunkhouse, stumbling and yawning, and stretched out in McGraw's bed, utterly f.a.gged.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

LAFFIE PLAYS--BLAKE TRUMPS

After an evening at poker with one of the new bridge-workers, Ashton had retired at midnight. He had not heard of Blake's coming, for McGraw had presumed that the a.s.sistant Engineer had reported to the office before turning in to sleep.

When he awoke, the sun was half way up the eastern sky. He yawned, glanced at the sun, and rang for his breakfast. It was presently brought in to him by his English valet, who, like the chef, was not unused to the city social hours of his employer. Ashton did not trouble to go into his elegant little dining-room, but ordered the meal served at his bedside.

Sometime later, Blake, over in the bunkhouse, opened his eyes, yawned, and sprang out into the middle of McGraw's unaesthetic room. He had slept eighteen hours without a break. He awoke still stiff and sore, but br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with energy, and hungry as a shark. He gave himself a cold rubdown, jumped into his new clothes, and ran to the cookhouse for a hearty meal.

When he came out again, he headed straight across the tracks for the office of the Resident Engineer. He smiled ironically as he noted the green and white paint and the tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs of the verandahs with which Ashton had endeavored to give a bungalow effect to the shack-like structure. But as he swung up the steps into the front verandah, the grimness of his look increased and the humor vanished. His heavy tread through the weather vestibule announced his entrance into the office.

He took no pains to walk softly.