The Valley of the Giants Part 41

chirped Buck Ogilvy plaintively. "Well! We did our d.a.m.ndest, which angels can't do no more. Let us gather up our tools and go home, my son, for something tells me that if I hang around here I'll bust one of two things--this sleek scoundrel's gray head or one of my bellicose veins! h.e.l.lo! Whom have we here?"

Bryce turned and found himself facing Shirley Sumner. Her tender lip was quivering, and the tears shone in her eyes like stars. He stared at her in silence.

"My friend," she murmured tremulously, "didn't I tell you I would not permit you to build the N.C.O.?"

He bowed his head in rage and shame at his defeat. Buck Ogilvy took him by the arm. "''Tis midnight's holy hour,'" he quoted, "'and silence now is brooding like a gentle spirit o'er a still and pulseless world.' Bryce, old chap, this is one of those occasions where silence is golden. Speak not. I'll do it for you. Miss Sumner,"

he continued, bowing graciously, "and Colonel Pennington," favouring that triumphant rascal with an equally gracious bow, "we leave you in possession of the field--temporarily. However, if anybody should drive up in a hack and lean out and ask you, just tell him Buck Ogilvy has another trump tucked away in his kimono."

Bryce turned to go, but with a sudden impulse Shirley laid her hand on his arm--his left arm. "Bryce!" she murmured.

He lifted her hand gently from his forearm, led her to the front of the locomotive, and held her hand up to the headlight. Her fingers were crimson with blood.

"Your uncle's killer did that, Shirley," he said ironically. "It's only a slight flesh-wound, but that is no fault of your allies. Good- night."

And he left her standing, pale of face and trembling, in the white glare of the headlight.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

Shirley made no effort to detain Bryce Cardigan as he walked to his car and climbed into it. Ogilvy remained merely long enough to give orders to the foreman to gather up the tools, store them in the machine-shop of Cardigan's mill, and dismiss his gang; then he, too, entered the automobile, and at a word from Bryce, the car slid noiselessly away into the darkness. The track-cutting crew departed a few minutes later, and when Shirley found herself alone with her uncle, the tumult in her heart gave way to the tears she could no longer repress. Pennington stood by, watching her curiously, coldly.

Presently Shirley mastered her emotion and glanced toward him.

"Well, my dear?" he queried nervously.

"I--I think I had better go home," she said without spirit.

"I think so, too," he answered. "Get into the Mayor's flivver, my dear, and I'll drive you. And perhaps the least said about this affair the better, Shirley. There are many things that you do not understand and which cannot be elucidated by discussion."

"I can understand an attempt at a.s.sa.s.sination, Uncle Seth."

"That blackguard Minorca! I should have known better than to put him on such a job. I told him to bluff and threaten; Cardigan, I knew, would realize the grudge the Black Minorca has against him, and for that reason I figured the greaser was the only man who could bluff him. While I gave him orders to shoot, I told him distinctly not to hit anybody. Good Lord, Shirley, surely you do not think I would wink at a murder!"

"I do," she answered pa.s.sionately. "With Bryce Cardigan out of the way, you would have a clear field before you--"

"Oh, my dear, my dear! Surely you do not realize what you are saying.

You are beside yourself, Shirley. Please--please do not wound me so-- so horribly. You do not--you cannot realize what a desperate fight I have been putting up for both our sakes. I am surrounded by enemies-- the most implacable enemies. They force me to fight the devil with fire--and here you are, giving them aid and comfort."

"I want you to defeat Bryce Cardigan, if you can do it fairly."

"At another time and in a calmer mood we will discuss that villain,"

he said authoritatively. "If we argue the matter now, we are liable to misunderstandings; we may quarrel, and that is something neither of us can afford. Get into the car, and we will go home. There is nothing more to be done to-night."

"Your sophistry does not alter my opinion," she replied firmly.

"However, as you say, this is neither the time nor the place to discuss it."

They drove home in silence. Shirley went at once to her room. For the Colonel, however, the night's work had scarcely begun. The instant he heard the door to his niece's room shut, he went to the telephone and called up the Laguna Grande roundhouse. s.e.xton, his manager, answered.

"Have you sent the switch-engine to the woods for Rondeau and his men?"

"Just left."

"Good! Now, then, s.e.xton, listen to me: As you know, this raid of Cardigan's has developed so suddenly I am more or less taken by surprise and have had no time to prepare the kind of counter-attack that will be most effective. However, with the crossing blocked, I gain time in which to organize--only there must be no weak point in my organization. In order to insure that, I am proceeding to San Francisco to-night by motor, via the coast road. I will arrive late to-morrow night, and early Sat.u.r.day morning I will appear in the United States District Court with our attorneys and file a complaint and pet.i.tion for an order temporarily restraining the N.C.O. from cutting our tracks.

"I will have to make an affidavit to support the complaint, so I had better be Johnny-on-the-spot to do it, rather than risk the delay of making the affidavit tomorrow morning here and forwarding it by mail to our attorneys. The judge will sign a restraining order, returnable in from ten to thirty days--I'll try for thirty, because that will knock out the N.C.O.'s temporary franchise--and after I have obtained the restraining order, I will have the United States marshal telegraph it to Ogilvy and Cardigan!"

"Bully!" cried s.e.xton heartily. "That will fix their clock."

"In the meantime," Pennington continued, "logs will be glutting our landings. We need that locomotive for its legitimate purposes. Take all that discarded machinery and the old boiler we removed from the mill last fall, dump it on the tracks at the crossing, and get the locomotive back on its run. Understand? The other side, having no means of removing these heavy obstructions, will be blocked until I return; by that time the matter will be in the District Court, Cardigan will be hung up until his temporary franchise expires--and the city council will not renew it. Get me?"

"Yes, sir."

"I'll be back Sunday forenoon. Good-bye."

He hung up, went to his chauffeur's quarters over the garage, and routed the man out of bed. Then he returned quietly to his room, dressed and packed a bag for his journey, left a brief note for Shirley notifying her of his departure, and started on his two- hundred-and-fifty mile trip over the mountains to the south. As his car sped through sleeping Sequoia and gained the open country, the Colonel's heart thrilled pleasurably. He held cards and spades, big and little casino, four aces and the joker; therefore he knew he could sweep the board at his pleasure. And during his absence Shirley would have opportunity to cool off, while he would find time to formulate an argument to lull her suspicions upon his return.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

Quite oblivious of her uncle's departure for San Francisco, Shirley lay awake throughout the remainder of the night, turning over and over in her mind the various aspects of the Cardigan-Fennington imbroglio. Of one thing she was quite certain; peace must be declared at all hazards. She had been obsessed of a desire, rather unusual in her s.e.x, to see a fight worth while; she had planned to permit it to go to a knockout, to use Bryce Cardigan's language, because she believed Bryce Cardigan would be vanquished--and she had desired to see him smashed--but not beyond repair, for her joy in the conflict was to lie in the task of putting the pieces together afterward! She realized now, however, that she had permitted matters to go too far.

A revulsion of feeling toward her uncle, induced by the memory of Bryce Cardigan's blood on her white finger-tips, convinced the girl that, at all hazards to her financial future, henceforth she and her uncle must tread separate paths. She had found him out at last, and because in her nature there was some of his own fixity of purpose, the resolution cost her no particular pang.

It was rather a relief, therefore, when the imperturbable James handed her at breakfast the following note:

Shirley, Dear

After leaving you last night, I decided that in your present frame of mind my absence for a few days might tend to a calmer and clearer perception, on your part, of the necessary tactics which in a moment of desperation, I saw fit, with regret, to pursue last night. And in the hope that you will have attained your old att.i.tude toward me before my return, I am leaving in the motor for San Francisco. Your terrible accusation has grieved me to such an extent that I do not feel equal to the task of confronting you until, in a more judicial frame of mind, you can truly absolve me of the charge of wishing to do away with young Cardigan. Your affectionate Uncle Seth.

Shirley's lip curled. With a rarer, keener intuition than she had hitherto manifested, she sensed the hypocrisy between the lines; she was not deceived.

"He has gone to San Francisco for more ammunition," she soliloquized.

"Very well, Unkie-dunk! While you're away, I shall manufacture a few bombs myself."

After breakfast she left the house and walked to the intersection of B with Water Street. Jules Rondeau and his crew of lumberjacks were there, and with two policemen guarded the crossing.

Rondeau glanced at Shirley, surprised, then lifted his hat. Shirley looked from the woods bully to the locomotive and back to Rondeau.

"Rondeau," she said, "Mr. Cardigan is a bad man to fight. You fought him once. Are you going to do it again?"

He nodded.

"By whose orders?"