The Road Builders Part 14

"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. "h.e.l.lo!" 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 of _his_ private 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 b.u.mping 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 office of 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 a.s.sortment,--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 d.i.c.kens and Thackeray to a fat volume devoted to the songs and scenes of Old Ireland, an ill.u.s.trated 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 the man 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 a.s.signed 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 reentered 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 there _is_ an 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. And that 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, s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 bal.u.s.trade.

"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, brushing his 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."