The Road Builders Part 9

The cook glanced behind him, and his eyes flitted about the semicircle from face to face. He was keen enough to take in the situation, and in a moment he had ducked under the couplers between two cars and disappeared.

"Well," exclaimed Young Van, pocketing his revolver, "it didn't take you long to wind that up, Mr. Carhart."

"To wind it up?" Carhart repeated, turning with a queer expression toward his young a.s.sistant. "To begin it, you'd better say." Then he composed his features and faced the laborers. "Get back to your work,"

he said.

CHAPTER V

WHAT THEY FOUND AT THE WATER-HOLE

Half an hour later Scribner, who was frequently back on the first division during these dragging days, was informed that Mr. Carhart wished to see him at once. Walking back to the engineers' tent he found the chief at his table.

"You wanted me, Mr. Carhart?"

"Oh,"--the chief looked up--"Yes, Harry, we've got to get away from this absolute dependence on that man Peet. I want you to ride up ahead and bore for water. You can probably start inside of an hour. I'm putting it in your hands. Take what men, tools, and wagons you need--but find water."

With a brief "All right, Mr. Carhart," Scribner left the tent and set about the necessary arrangements. Carhart, this matter disposed of, called a pa.s.sing laborer, and asked him to tell Charlie that he was wanted at headquarters.

The a.s.sistant cook--huge, raw-boned, with a good-natured and not unintelligent face--lounged before the tent for some moments before he was observed. Then, in the crisp way he had with the men, Carhart told him to step in.

"Well," began the boss, looking him over, "what kind of a cook are you?"

A slow blush spread over the broad features.

"Speak up. What were you doing when I sent for you?"

"I--I--you see, sir, Jack Flagg was gone, and there wasn't anything being done about dinner, and I--"

"And you took charge of things, eh?"

"Well--sort of, sir. You see--"

"That's the way to do business. Go back and stick at it. Wait a minute, though. Has Flagg been hanging around any?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'Well,' began the boss, looking him over, 'what kind of a cook are you?'"]

"I guess he has. All his things was took off, and some of mine."

"Take any money?"

"All I had."

"I'm not surprised. Money was what he was here for. He would have cleaned you out, anyway, before long."

"I'm not so sure of that, sir. We cleaned him out last time."

"And you weren't smart enough to see into that?"

"Well--no, I--"

"Take my advice and quit gambling. It isn't what you were built for.

What did you say your name was?"

"Charlie."

"Well, Charlie, you go back and get up your dinner. See that it is a good one."

Charlie backed out of the tent and returned to his kettles and pans and his boy a.s.sistants. He was won, completely.

Late on Thursday evening that mythical train really rolled in, and half the night was spent in preparations for the next day. Friday morning tracklaying began again. In the afternoon a second train arrived, and the air of movement and accomplishment became as keen as on the first day of the work. Paul Carhart, in a flannel shirt, which, whatever color it may once have been, was now as near green as anything, a wide straw hat, airy yellow linen trousers, and laced boots, appeared and reappeared on both divisions--alert, good-natured, radiating health and energy. The sun blazed endlessly down, but what laborer could complain with the example of the boss before him! The mules toiled and plunged, and balked and sulked, and toiled again, as mules will. The drivers--boys, for the most part--carried pails of water on their wagons, and from time to time wet the sponges which many of the men wore in their hats. And over the grunts and heaves of the tie squad, over the rattling and groaning of the wagon, over the exhausts of the locomotives, sounded the ringing clang of steel, as the rails were shifted from flat-car to truck, from truck to ties. It was music to Carhart,--deep, significant, nineteenth-century music.

The line was creeping on again--on, on through the desert.

"What do you think of this!" had been Young Van's exclamation when the second train appeared.

"It's too good to be true," was the reply of his grizzled brother.

Old Vandervelt was right: it was too good to be true. Soon the days were getting away from them again; provisions and water were running short, and Peet was sending on the most skilful lot of excuses he had yet offered. For the second time the tracklaying had to stop; and Carhart, slipping a revolver into his holster, rode forward alone to find Scribner.

He found him in a patch of sage-brush not far from a hill. The heat was blistering, the ground baked to a powder. There had been no rain for five months. Scribner, stripped to undershirt and trousers, was standing over his men.

"Glad to see you, Mr. Carhart!" he cried. "You are just in time. I think I've struck it."

"That's good news," the chief replied, dismounting.

They stepped aside while Scribner gave an account of himself. "I first drove a small bore down about three hundred feet, and got this." He produced a tin pail from his tent, which contained a dark, odorous liquid. Carhart sniffed, and said:--

"Sulphur water, eh!"

"Yes, and very bad. It wouldn't do at all. But before moving on, I thought I'd better look around a little. That hill over there is sandstone, and a superficial examination led me to think that the sandstone dips under this spot."

"That might mean a very fair quality of water."

"That's what I think. So I inserted a larger casing, to shut out this sulphur water, and went on down."

"How far?"

"A thousand feet. I'm expecting to strike it any moment now."

"Your men seem to think they have struck something. They're calling you."

The engineers returned to the well in time to see the water gushing to the surface.

"There's enough of it," muttered Scribner.

The chief bent over it and shook his head. "Smell it, Harry," he said.