The Road Builders Part 15

Peet's expression was not what might be termed complacent. He was standing on the piazza when he heard Carhart's quick step on the stairs. His teeth were closed tightly on a cigar, but he was not smoking.

"How are you, Mr. Peet?" said the engineer. Peet looked nervously about and behind him, and then faced around. "Look here, Mr. Carhart, I want to tell you that you haven't got that straight--"

"Where's Tiffany?" said Carhart.

At this interruption Peet turned, if anything, a shade redder. "He's gone home."

"Let's find him. Would you mind walking over there?"

"Certainly not," Peet replied; and for a moment they walked in silence. Then the superintendent broke out again. "You didn't understand about those cars, Mr. Carhart. I know--the boys have told me--that you've thought some hard things about me--" He paused: perhaps he had better keep his mouth shut.

As for Carhart, he was striding easily along, the hint of a smile playing about the corners of his mouth. "I think I understand the situation pretty well, Peet," he said. "I was a little stirred up when my men began to go thirsty, but that's all past, and I'm going to drop it. I guess we both understand that this construction is the most important thing Mr. De Reamer has on hand these days. And if we're going to carry him through, we'll have to pull together."

They found Tiffany, coat thrown aside, hat tipped back, weeding his garden.

"Come in--glad to see you," he said, only half concealing his curiosity over the spectacle of Carhart and Peet walking together in amity. "Didn't succeed in getting back, eh, Carhart?"

"Not yet, Tiffany. I had to run up to Crockett." He said this in an offhand manner, and he did not look at Peet; but he knew from the expression on Tiffany's face that the superintendent was turning red again.

"You ain't had supper, have you?" said Tiffany. "You're just in time to eat with us."

"Supper!" Carhart repeated the word in some surprise, then looked at his watch.

"You hadn't forgotten it, had you?" Tiffany grinned.

"To tell the truth, I had. May we really eat with you? It will save us some time."

"Can you? Well, I wonder! Come in." And taking up his coat, Tiffany led the way into the house.

More than once during that meal did Tiffany's eyes flit from Peet's half-bewildered countenance to that of the quiet, good-natured Carhart. He asked no questions, but he wondered. Once he thought that Peet threw him an inquiring glance, but he could not be certain. After supper, as he reached for the toothpicks and pushed back his chair, he was tempted to come out with the question which was on his mind, "What in the devil are you up to, Carhart?" But what he really said was, "Help yourselves to the cigars, boys. They're in that jar, there."

And then, for a moment, both Peet and Tiffany sat back and watched Carhart while he lighted his cigar, turned it over thoughtfully, shook the match, and dropped it with a little sputter into his coffee cup.

Then the man who was building the Red Hills extension got, with some deliberation, to his feet, and turned toward Tiffany. "Would it spoil your smoke to take it while we walk?" he asked.

"Not at all," replied the host. "Where are we going?"

"To the yards."

Peet, for no reason whatever, went red again; and Tiffany, tipped back in his chair and slowly puffing at his cigar, looked at him. Then he too got up, and the three men left the house together. And during all the walk out to the freight depot, Carhart talked about the new saddle-horse he had bought at Crockett.

The freight yard at Sherman extended nearly a mile, beginning with the siding by the depot and expanding farther on to the width of a dozen tracks. Carhart came to a halt at the point where the tangle of switches began, and looked about him. Everywhere he saw cars, some laden, some empty. A fussy little engine was coughing down the track, whistling angrily at a sow and her litter of spotted, muddy-yellow pigs which had been sleeping in a row between the rails. From the roundhouse, off to the left, arose the smoke of five or six resting locomotives. Nearer at hand, seated in a row on the handle of the turn-table, were as many black negroes, laughing and showing their teeth and eyeb.a.l.l.s, and discussing with much gesticulation and some amiable heat the question of the day. Carhart's sweeping glance took in the scene, then his interest centred on the cars.

Peet fidgeted. "There ain't any of your cars here, Mr. Carhart," he said uneasily.

Already Carhart knew better, but he was not here to squabble with Peet. "How many have you here all together?" he asked; and after a moment of rapid counting he answered his own question: "Something more than a hundred, eh?"

"Yes, but--"

"Well, what?"

"Look here, Carhart, I don't know what you've got in mind, but I can't let you have any of these cars."

"You can't?"

"Not possibly. Half of 'em are foreign as it is. I'm so short now I don't know what I'm going to do. Honest, I don't."

Carhart turned this answer over in his mind. After a moment he looked up, first at Peet, then at Tiffany, as if he had something to say; but whatever it may have been, he turned away without saying it.

"What is it, old man?" cried Tiffany, at last. "What can we do for you, anyway?"

Still Carhart did not speak. His eyes again sought the long lines of cars. Finally, resting one foot on a projecting cross-tie, he turned to the superintendent. "Suppose you do this, Peet," he said, speaking slowly; "suppose you tell your yard-master that I am to be absolute boss here until midnight. Then you go home and leave me here. Tiffany could stay and help me out--this isn't his department."

This brought Peet close to the outer limit of bewilderment. "What in--" he began; but Carhart, observing the effect of his request, interrupted.

"I don't believe Mr. Peet understands the situation very well, Tiffany. Tell him where we stand--where Mr. De Reamer stands." And with this he walked off a little way.

Tiffany came to the point. To Peet's question, "What is he talking about, Tiffany?" the veteran replied: "He knows and I know, Lou, that the only thing that will save the old man is a track to Red Hills. I haven't the slightest idea what Carhart's up to, but I'll tell you this, I've seen him in one or two tight places, and I never saw him look like this before. He's got something he wants to do, and he's decided that it's necessary, and it ain't for you and me to stand in his way. When you come to know Paul Carhart, you'll learn that he don't do things careless. What do you suppose the Old Man meant when he told you to back him up to the limit with cars and engines, and told me to keep out of his way?"

Peet did not reply for a moment. He took off his hat and brushed back the hair from a forehead that was moist with sweat. He looked from one man to the other, and from both to the roundhouse, and the depot, and the waiting cars. Finally he walked over toward Carhart. "Go ahead," he said queerly, "I'll stay with you."

"Good enough." And with these two words Carhart wheeled around and surveyed the nearest line of cars--box, flat, and gondola. "Most of those are empty, aren't they?" he asked.

"About half of them. But here's Dougherty, the yard-master. Dougherty, this is Mr. Carhart. You can take your orders from him to-night."

Carhart extended his hand. "Glad to meet you, Mr. Dougherty. I'm afraid we'll all have to make a night of it. I want you to keep steam up in three engines. And pick up all the men you can find and start them unloading every car in the yard. Keep 'em jumping. I want to have three empty trains at Paradise by midnight."

"By mid--" Dougherty's mouth opened a very little, and his eyes, after taking in Paul Carhart's face and figure, settled on the superintendent.

But Peet, with an expressive movement of his hands, turned away; and Tiffany, after a glance about the little group, went after him.

"Brace up, Lou," said Tiffany, in a low voice; "brace up."

Peet's hands were deep in his pockets. His eyes were fixed on the rails before him. "Dump all that freight on the ground!" he moaned.

"Look here, Tiffany, I suppose he knows what he's doing, but--but what'll the traffic men say!"

"Never you mind the traffic men."

"But--dump all that freight out here _on the ground_!"

Tiffany pa.s.sed an unsteady hand across his eyes. If Peet had looked at him, he would not have felt rea.s.sured; but he did not look up.

Dougherty, with a gulp, obeyed Carhart. And half an hour later the chance observers and the yard loafers were rubbing their eyes.

Laborers were busy from one end of the yard to the other, throwing out boxes and bales and crates, and piling them haphazard between the tracks. The tired, wheezy switch engine, enveloped in a cloud of its own steam, was laboriously making up the first train. And moving quietly about, issuing orders and giving a hand here and there, followed by the disturbed eyes of the general superintendent and the chief engineer of the Shaky and Windy, Paul Carhart was bossing the work. Once he stepped over to the two men of the disturbed eyes, a thoughtful expression on his own face. "Say, Tiffany," he asked, "how much business does the Paradise Southern do?"

Tiffany started, and looked keenly at Carhart. There was a faint glimmer in his eyes, but this was followed immediately by uncertainty.

"None," he replied; "that is, none to speak of. They run a combination car each way every day--two cars when business is brisk. The Old Man would have abandoned it years ago if it hadn't been for the stock scheme I told you about."

"Yes," mused Carhart, "that's what I understood. But if it's such a mistake, why was it built in the first place?"