The Rainy Day Railroad War Part 20

When he had finished, the postmaster said earnestly, "Mr. Parker, however much old Gid Ward owes you, you owe Josh Ward a good deal more.

He ain't a man to dun for his pay. But if he ever does ask you to square the account you won't be the man I take you for if you don't settle. If you feel that you owe me anything for the little service I've done you and your bus'ness, just take and add it to the Josh Ward account. Of all the men on earth I pity that man the most."

There were tears in Dodge's eyes when he stumbled down the tavern stairs.

One cheerful moment for Parker had been when the postmaster informed him of Sunkhaze's equilibrium in the matter of news-monging But a more cheerful moment was when Mank, his foreman, standing with him on the ice above the submerged Swogon told him that a sandbar made out into the lake at that point and that the locomotive was probably lodged on the bar, only a little way below the surface.

When they had sawed the ice and sounded they found this to be true. As soon as a broad square of ice had been removed they saw her, all her outlines clear against the white sand. The sunken sleds were equally in evidence. It was not a diver's job, then, as Parker, in his worryings, had feared. On the thick ice surrounding the whole there was solid foothold for the raising apparatus and Parker's crew set at work with good cheer.

It was a cold, wet and tedious job, the grappling and the raising, but his derricks were strong and his rigging plentiful. Moreover, the water was not deep.

All the material that could not be recovered by the grapples was duplicated by means of quick replies to wired orders, and the work of transportation across the lake was successfully completed.

It was well into a warm May, and his men for the last week had been moving soil and building culverts before the case of Col. Gideon Ward was brought to Parker's attention in a manner requiring action. One evening just after dusk his foreman scratched on the flap of the engineer's tent, in which he was now living at Poquette.

"Come in!" he called.

The canvas was lifted and a man entered. Parker turned the reflector of his lantern on the visitor.

"Joshua Ward!" he exclaimed, as he started up and seized the old man's outstretched hand.

He led him to a camp-stool. They looked at each other for a time in silence. Tears trembled on Joshua's eyelashes, and he pa.s.sed his knotted hand over his face before he spoke.

"Mr. Parker," he said, tremulously, "I've come to bring ye money to pay for every cent's worth o' damage to property 'an loss o' time an'

everything." He laid a package in the young man's hand. "Help yourself,"

he quavered. "I'm goin' to trust to your honesty, for I'm certain I can.

Take what's right. Gid and I don't know anythin' about railroads an'

what such things as you lost are worth. All we can do is to show that we mean to square things the best we can now. Gid's sorry now, Mr. Parker, he's sorry--sorry--sorry--poor Gid!" The old man sobbed outright.

"Did he--" The young man paused, half-fearing to ask the question.

Joshua again ran his rough palm across his eyes. Then, in dumb grief, he set the edge of his right hand against his left wrist, the left hand to the right wrist, and then marked a place on each leg above the ankle.

"All off there, Mr. Parker." The old man bent his head into his hollowed palms. Tears trickled through his fingers. There was a long silence. The young man did not know how to interrupt that pause.

"I'm feedin' an' tendin' him like I used to when he was a baby an' I a six-year-old. He's at my camp, Mr. Parker. He don't ever want to be seen agin in the world, he says--only an old, trimmed, dead tree, he says.

Poor old Gid! No matter what he's been, no matter what he's done, you'd pity him now, Mr. Parker, for the hand o' punishment has fell heavy on my poor brother."

The engineer, truly shocked, stood beside Joshua, and placed his hand on the bowed shoulders.

"Mr. Ward," he said, with a quiver in his voice, "never will I do anything to add one drop to the bitterness in the cup that has come to you and yours."

"I told Gid, I told Gid," cried the old man, "that you'd say somethin'

like that! I had to comfort him, you know, Mr. Parker; but I felt that you, bein' a young man, couldn't make it too hard for us old men. He ain't the same Gid now. See here, sir!"

With tremulous hands he drew a paper from his pocket and handed it to Parker. It was a writing giving sole power of attorney to Joshua Ward.

The old man pointed to a witnessed scrawl--a shapeless hieroglyph at the bottom of the sheet.

"Gid's mark!" he sobbed. "No hands--no hands any more! I feed him, I tend him like I would a baby, an' the only words he says to me now are pleasant an' brotherly words.

"An' more'n that, Mr. Parker, I'm on my way down to town. I've got some errands that are sweet to do--sweet an' bitter, too. There's new fires been lit in the dark corners of my poor brother's heart. I've got here a list of the men that Gideon Ward hain't done right by in this life,--that he's cheated,--an' a list of the widows of the men he hain't done right by, an' by that power of attorney he's given me the means, an' he says to me to make it square with them people if it takes every cent he's worth. It won't cost much for me an' Gid to live at Little Moxie, Mr. Parker--an' poor Cynthy--"

He looked into vacancy a while and was silent. Then he went on:

"We'll have our last days together, me an' Gid. All these years that I've lived alone up there the trees an' the winds an' the skies an' the waves of the lake have been sayin' good things to me. I told Gid about them voices. He has been too busy all his life to listen before now. But sittin' there in these days--sit-tin' there, always a-sittin' there, Mr.

Parker! Nothing to do but bend his ear to catch the whispers that come up out o' the great, deep lungs o' the universe! He has been listenin', an'"--the old man rose and shook the papers above the head of the engineer--"G.o.d an' the woods have been talkin' the truth to my poor brother Gideon."

The old man slept that night in Parker's tent and went on his way at morning light, and tho the engineer pressed back again into his hands, unopened, the packet that was proffered, and a.s.sured him that no harm should befall Gideon Ward through complaint or report for which he was responsible, Parker still felt that somehow there was a balance due old Joshua Ward on their books of tacit partnership in well-doing;--such was the honest faith, and patient self-abnegation of the good old man, who had endured so much for others' sake.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN--THE DAY WHEN POQUETTE BURST WIDE OPEN

Through the spring and the early summer Poquette Carry was an animated theater of action. Woodsmen, went up and woodsmen came down, and mingled with the busy railroad crews. All examined the progress of construction with curiosity, and pa.s.sed on, uttering picturesque comment. Strange old men came paddling down West Branch from unknown wildernesses, and trudged their moccasined way from end to end of the line, as if to convince themselves that Colonel Gideon Ward really had been conquered on his own ground. Newspaper reporters came from the nearest city, and pressed Engineer Parker to make a statement "Gentlemen," he said, with a laugh, "not a word for print from me. I was sent here to build this bit of a railroad quietly and un.o.btrusively. Circ.u.mstances have paraded our affairs before the public in some measure. Now if you quote me, or twist anything I may say into an interview, my employers will have good reason to be disgusted with me, as well as with the situation here.

Furthermore, there are personal reasons why I do not wish to talk."

Whether Parker's eager appeal had effect upon the reporters, or whether the timber barons influenced the editors, the whole affair of the sunken engine was lightly pa.s.sed over as the prank of roistering woodsmen, and Colonel Ward was left wholly undisturbed in his retreat. Even the calamity that had befallen him was not mentioned except by word of mouth among the woodsmen of the region.

With self-restraint that is rare in young men, Parker still refused to talk about the matter even in Sunkhaze. When he first returned, a sense of chagrin at his discomfiture along with reasons that have been mentioned kept him silent, it is true, but now, with complete victory in his hands, he was sincerely affected by the misfortune that had overtaken his enemy.

The "Swamp Swogon," now that it was running on its own rails and was hauling building materials along the crooked railroad, was renicknamed "The Stump Dodger." Parker's chief pride in the road was necessarily based on the fact that it had been constructed without exceeding the appropriation, a fact that excused many curves.

Late in June the last rails were laid and the ballasting, such as it was, was well under way.

The "terminal stations," as the engineer jocosely called them, were neat little structures of logs, and there was a log roundhouse, where the Stump Dodger retired in s.m.u.tty and smoky seclusion when its day's toil was finished.

So the engineer prepared for the day of opening, and requested the state railroad commissioners to make their final inspection of the road. The three officials gravely travelled from end to end of the line in the secondhand P. K. & R. coach, the only pa.s.senger-car of the road, and after some jocular remarks, issued a certificate empowering the Poquette Carry Road to convey pa.s.sengers and collect fares. Then, after a telegraphic conference with his employers, Parker announced the day for the formal opening of the road.

At first he had not intended to make any event of this. His idea had been that, after the commissioners authorized traffic, he would merely arrange a time-table instead of the irregular service of the construction days, and would start his trains, observing the care that had been promised in seasons of drought.

But his foreman of construction--none other than Big Dan Connick, who had chosen railroad work under Parker instead of the usual summer labor on the drive--came to him at the head of a group of men.

"Mr. Parker," he said, "we represent the men who have been building this road. We represent also our old friends of the West Branch drivin' crew of a hundred men, who are twenty miles up-river and are hankerin' for a celebration. We represent all the guides between Sunkhaze and Chamberlain, and every man of 'em is glad that this carry has been opened up. The whole crowd respectfully insists that seein' as how this is our first woods railroad up here, it's proper to have a celebration.

If ye don't have the official opening we shall take it as meanin' we ain't worth noticin'."

There was no denying such earnestness as that nor gainsaying the propriety of the demand. Parker made his princ.i.p.als understand the situation. And the result was that they themselves set the opening date, and promised to be on hand with a party of friends.

The rolling-stock of the Poquette Railroad consisted of the Stump Dodger, four flat cars designed especially for the transportation of canoes and bateaux, three box cars for camp supplies and general freight, and the coach transplanted from the P. K. & R. narrow-gage.

Parker announced that on the opening day no fares would be collected, that the train would make hourly trips, and that all might ride who could get aboard.

Not to be outdone in generosity, the crew through big Dan Connick, declaring that they proposed to make all the preparations for the celebration free of charge--that is, they would accept no wages for their work.

They built benches on the platform cars and fitted up the box cars in similar fashion. They trimmed the Stump Dodger with spruce fronds till the locomotive looked like a moving wood-lot. Every flag in Sunkhaze was borrowed for the decoration of the coach, and then, in a final burst of enthusiasm, the men subscribed a sum sufficient to hire the best bra.s.s band in that part of the state.

"It took us some little time to wake up enough to know how much we needed a railroad acrost here," said Dan, "but now that we're awake we propose to let folks know it. Them whose hearin' is sensitive had better take to the tall timber that day."

Parker met his party at Sunkhaze station on the morning of the great occasion. They came in the P. K. & R. president's private car, that was run upon a siding to remain during the week the railroad men entertained their friends at their new Kennemagon Lake camp.