The Hallowell Partnership Part 21

"The worst break-down yet, Hallowell. The dipper-bail on the big dredge has snapped clear through."

The three stared at each other in helpless despair. Marian broke the silence.

"The dipper-bail broken _again_? Why, it's not two weeks since you put on the new handle!"

"True for you, miss. Not two weeks since it broke," said Mulcahy wrathfully. "And its smash means a tie-up all along the line. Not one stroke of ditch-work can be done till it's replaced. Who ever saw a dipper break her bail twice on the same job? 'Tis lightnin' strikin'

twice in the same place. But 'tis no use cryin' over spilt milk. One of you gentlemen will have to go to Saint Louis and have a new bail welded at the steam forge. It will cost twenty-four hours' time, but it is the only way. I'll keep the boys hot at work on the levee construction meanwhile."

"Go to Saint Louis to-night! And neither of you two have had a night's sleep this week!" Marian looked at Burford. His sodden clothes hung on him. His round face was pinched and sunken with fatigue. She looked at her brother. He had slumped back in his chair, limp and haggard. He was so utterly tired that even the shock of ill news could not rouse him to meet its challenge.

Then she looked out at the weltering muddy ca.n.a.l, the dark stormy sky.

"Never mind, Rod. We'll manage. You and Ned make out the exact figures and dimensions for the new bail. Then Mulcahy can take me to Grafton in the launch. There I'll catch the Saint Louis train. I'll go straight to the steam forge and urge them to make your bail at once.

Then I'll bring it back on the train to-morrow night."

Promptly both boys burst into loud, astonished exclamations.

"Go to Saint Louis alone! I guess I see myself letting you do such a preposterous thing. I'll start, at once."

"Stop that, Hallowell. You can't possibly go. You're so sleepy that you haven't half sense. I'll go myself."

"Oh, you will. Then what about your watch to-night? Shall I take it and my own, too?"

Burford stopped, quenched. He reddened with perplexity.

"We can't either of us be spared, that's the fact of it. But Miss Marian must not think of going."

"Certainly not. I would never allow it."

"Yes, Rod, you will allow it." Marian spoke quietly, but with determination. "The trip to Saint Louis is perfectly safe. Once in the city, I'll take a carriage to the College Club and stay there every minute, except the time that I must spend in giving orders for the bail. No, you two need not look so forbidding. I'm going. And I'm going this identical minute."

Later Marian laughed to remember how swiftly she had overruled every protest. The boys were too tired and dazed to stand against her. It was hardly an hour before she found herself flying down the river, in charge of the faithful Mulcahy, on her way to catch the south-bound train.

"The steam-forge people will do everything in their power to serve you," Roderick had said, as he scrawled the last memoranda for her use. "They know our firm, and they will rush the bail through and have it loaded on the eight-o'clock train. I'll see to it that Mulcahy and two men are at the Grafton dock to meet your train. But if anything should go wrong, Sis, just you hunt up Commodore McCloskey and ask him to help you; for the commodore is our guardian angel, I am convinced of that."

The trip to the city was uneventful. She awoke early, after a good rest, and hurried down to the forge works, a huge smoky foundry near the river. The shop foreman met her with the utmost courtesy and promised that the bail should be made and delivered aboard the afternoon train. Feeling very capable and a.s.sured, Marian went back to the club and had spent two pleasant hours in its reading-room when she was called to the telephone.

"Miss Hallowell?" It was the voice of the forge works foreman.

"I--er--most unluckily we have mislaid the slip of paper which gave the dimensions of the bail. We cannot go on until we have those dimensions. Do you remember the figures?"

Poor Marian racked her brain. Not one measurement could she call to mind.

"I'll ask my brother over the long-distance," she told the foreman.

But even as she spoke, she knew that there was no hope of reaching Roderick. All the long-distance wires were down.

"And not one human being in all Saint Louis who can tell me the size of that bail!" she groaned. "Oh, why didn't I measure it with my own tape-measure--and then learn the figures by heart! Yet--I do wonder!

Would Commodore McCloskey know? He has been at the camp so often, and he knows everything about our machinery. Let's see."

Presently Commodore McCloskey's friendly voice rang over the wire.

"Well, sure 'tis good luck that ye caught me at the dock, Miss Marian.

The _Lucy_ is just startin' up-river. Two minutes more and I'd have gone aboard. So ye've lost the bail dimensions? Well, well, don't talk so panicky-like. I'll be with ye in two minutes, an' we'll go to the forge together. 'Tis no grand memory I have, but I can give them a workin' idea."

"Oh, if you only will, commodore! But the _Lucy_! How can you be spared?"

"Hoot, toot. The _Lucy_ can wait while I go shoppin' with you. Yes, she has a time schedule, I know well. But, in high wather, whoever expects a Mississippi packet to be on time? Or in low wather, either, for that matter. I'll come to ye at once."

The commodore was as good as his word. Soon he and Marian reached the forge works. There his shrewd observation and his wise old memory suggested dimensions which proved later to be correct in every detail.

Moreover, he insisted upon staying with Marian till the bail should be welded. Then, under his sharp eyes, it was loaded safely on the Grafton train. As he escorted Marian elegantly into the pa.s.senger coach, she ventured, between her exclamations of grat.i.tude, to reprove him very gently.

"You have been too good to me, commodore. But when I think of the poor deserted _Lucy_! And the captain--what will he say?"

"He'll say a-plenty." The little commodore smiled serenely. "'Tis an unchivalrous set the steam-boat owners are, nowadays. If he were half as obligin' as the old captains used to be in the good days before the war, he'd be happy to wait over twenty-four hours, if need be, to serve a lady. But nowadays 'tis only time, time that counts. Sure, he's grieved to the heart if we make a triflin' loss, like six hours, say, in our schedule."

"And I'm not thanking you for myself alone," Marian went on, flushing.

"It is for Rod, too. You don't know how much it means to me to be able to help him, even in this one small way."

Then the little commodore bent close to her. His shrewd little eyes gleamed.

"Don't I know, sure? An' by that token I'm proud of this day, and twice proud of the chance that's led me to share it. For, sure, I've always said it--the time would certain come when you--_when you'd wake up_. Mind my word, Miss Marian. Don't ye forget! Don't ye let go--and go to sleep again."

The train jarred into motion. His knotted little hand gripped hers.

Then he was off and away.

"The dear little, queer little commodore!" Marian looked after him, her eyes a bit shadowy. "Though what could he mean! 'Now you've waked up.' I do wonder!"

Yet her wonder was half pretended. A hot flush burned in her cheek as she sat thinking of his words.

"Well, I'm glad, too, that I've 'waked up,' although I wish that something had happened to stir me earlier."

The train crept on through the flooded country. It was past eight o'clock when they reached Grafton. Marian hurried from the coach and watched anxiously while two baggagemen hoisted the heavy bail from the car.

"Well, my share is done," she said to herself. "That precious bail is here, safe and sound. But where is Mulcahy? And the launch? Rod said that he would not fail to be here by train time."

The train pulled out. From the dim-lit station the ticket agent called to her.

"You're expecting your launch, Miss Hallowell? There has been no boat down to-day."

"But my brother promised to send the launch," stammered Marian.

"Surely they knew I was coming to-night!"

Then, in a flash of recollection, she heard Roderick's voice:

"And Mulcahy will meet you on the eight-o'clock train."

"Rod meant the train that leaves Saint Louis at eight in the morning!

Not this afternoon train. How could I make such a blunder! He does not look for me to reach Grafton till to-morrow."