It was early evening. Gus Vandervelt, nervous, exultant, leaving a trail of cigarette stubs behind him, was pacing up and down the track. When he faced the east, his eyes saw far beyond the cars and wagons and clustering tents. Off there, in each mile of the many they had travelled, lay a witness of some battle won. They had fought like soldiers; and the small successes had come rapidly until the men were beginning to take victory as a matter of course. The most stupid of them understood now just what sort of thing the reserved, magnetic Paul Carhart stood for, and they were finding it a very good sort of thing indeed.

As Young Van walked, his imagination leaping forward from battles fought to the battles to come, he heard a step, and saw the stocky figure of his brother approaching through the dusk. He stiffened up and paused, but Old Van marched by without the twitch of a muscle. The young man watched him until he had faded out of sight, then lighted another cigarette, and continued his beat.

A little later, smiling in a nervous way he had of late, Young Van turned toward the headquarters tent. He knew that his brother had gone to make up the material train and would not return for some time.

He found Paul Carhart sitting alone, sewing a button on the yellow linen trousers.

“Did you see any more drunks?” Carhart asked, pausing, needle in air.

Young Van, now that he thought of it, had observed signs of unusual good feeling among the laborers.

“We’re a little too near this Palos settlement to suit me,” said the chief. “Keeping your men in the desert rather spoils one for the advantages of civilization. I never had an easier time with laborers. But these men are a bad lot to bring within five miles of a saloon. They will be fighting before morning.”

“I suppose they will. I hadn’t thought of it. By the way, there’s a rumor about that you had a letter from Mr. Flint to-day.”

Carhart shook his head. “No,” said he, “that’s the thing I want most just now.”

For a while they were silent. Young Van’s face grew sober. The track, this double line of rusty steel, had so absorbed the energy of all of them that it seemed now, to his inexperience, the complete outward expression of their lives. He could think of little else. When not engrossed by the actual work, his thoughts were ranging beyond, far into the deeper significance of it. Crowding on the heels of the constructors would come settlers. Already mushroom towns were pushing up along the line behind them. With settlers would come well-boring, irrigation, farming, and ranching. Timber, bricks, stone would be rushed into these new lands, to be converted into hotels, shops, banks, dwellings. The marvellously intricate interrelations of civilization would suddenly be found existing and at work. There would be rude, hard struggles, much drinking and gambling, and some shooting. The license of the plains would be found strangely mingled with law and with what we call right. The church and the saloon would march on, side by side. And, finally, out of the uproar and the fighting would rise, for better or worse, a new phase of life. Thinking these things, Young Van could not forget that they five—Paul Carhart, John Flint, Old Van, Harry Scribner, and himself—were bringing it about. They were breaking the way, pioneers of the expansion of a restless, mighty people.

“No,”—Carhart was speaking,—“that letter was from Peet. You might enjoy reading it.”

Young Van started from his revery, took the letter, and spread it open. “My dear Mr. Carhart,” it ran, “I am very sorry, indeed, about the delay of that lot of spikes. I have arranged with Mr. Tiffany to buy up all we can find here in Sherman and hurry them on to you. Please keep me informed by wire of any delays and inconveniences. You will understand, I am sure, that we mean to stop at nothing to keep you from the slightest annoyance and delay in these matters. Very faithfully yours, L. W. Peet.”

“But we have spikes enough,” said the assistant, looking up. “What does he mean?”

Carhart smiled. “Just what he says; that he wouldn’t delay us for worlds.”

“‘Very faithfully yours,’ too. What is all this, Mr. Carhart? What have you done to him—hypnotized him?”

Carhart smiled. “Hardly,” he replied; adding, “Reach me that spool of thread, will you?” But instead of continuing his needlework, Carhart, when he received the spool, laid it down beside him and sat, deep in thought, gazing out through the tent-opening into the night.

“Gus,” he asked abruptly, “where did the operator go?”

Young Van glanced up at his chief, then answered quietly: “To bed, I think. I heard him say he was going to turn in early to-night.”

“Would you mind stirring him out?”

“Certainly not.”

“Wait a minute. We have enough firewood on hand to keep the engines going six or perhaps eight days. That won’t do.”

Young Van was slightly puzzled.

“Go ahead, Gus. Tell him to meet me at his instrument in ten minutes.”

Young Van left the tent at once. When he returned, after rousing the sleepy operator, he observed that the chief was still deep in thought. “All right,” said Young Van; “he’s getting up.”

“Much obliged, Gus.” Carhart started to resume his mending, then lowered his needle. “And all for the want of a horseshoe nail,” he hummed softly.

Young Van, more puzzled than before, looked up from a heap of papers which had drawn his attention. Carhart smiled a little.

“You remember?” he said,—

He stopped and looked out. A partly clad figure was hurrying by toward the shelter that covered the telegraph instruments.

“There he goes now. I’m a little bothered, Gus. It would be a humorous sort of a joke on me if I should be held up now for a little firewood.”

“I suppose we couldn’t cut up ties?” suggested Young Van.

“Can’t spare ’em. I’ve ordered wood from Red Hills, but we shan’t be able to pick up enough there. And if we don’t get some pretty soon, the engines will have to stop.”

Young Van took down a letter file and glanced through it. In a moment he had drawn out a recent message from Peet. “Here,” he said, “Mr. Peet promised to have a big lot of wood on the way by to-day. That leaves some margin for delays.”

Carhart rose, and nodded. “Yes,” he replied, “but not margin enough.”

“You expect something to happen right off?”

“Couldn’t say to that. But my bones feel queer to-night—have felt queer all day. Tiffany writes that Bourke, who is in charge of the H. D. & W. construction, was in Sherman the other day. And Commodore Durfee was expected at Red Hills a week ago. Well,—” He shrugged his shoulders and went out and over to join the operator.

“We’ll try to get the man on the next division,” said Carhart. “Ask him if the line is clear all the way.”

The operator extended his hand to send the message, but checked it in midair. “Why,” he exclaimed, “he is calling us!” He looked up prepared to see surprise equal to his own on Carhart’s face. But what he did see there mystified him. The chief was slowly nodding. He could not say that he had expected this call,—the thing was a coincidence,—and yet he was not at all surprised.

“‘Trouble on Barker Hills division—’” The operator was repeating as the instrument clicked.

“That’s a hundred miles or so back—”

“Hundred and thirty-eight. ‘Operator on middle division,’ he says, ‘wires fifty men trying to seize station—has notified Sherman—assistance promised. Big armed force Barker Hills led by large man with red mustache—’”

“That’s Bourke himself,” muttered Carhart.

The operator’s hand shook a little. His eyes were shining. “Here’s some more, Mr. Carhart,—‘Have tried to hold my station, but—’”

“Wait,” cried the chief, sharply. “Quick—say this: ‘Has supply train passed west to-day?’”

“‘Has—supply—train—’” the operator repeated after a moment—“‘passed—west-to-day?’”

“Now what does he answer?”

“Just a moment—Here he is!—‘Not—not—’ Hold on there, what’s the matter?”

“Has he stopped?”

“Stopped short. That’s queer.”

“Do you think so?” said Carhart, looking down into the white face of the operator. The effect of the young man’s excitement was hardly lessened by the shock of rumpled hair about his forehead and by the white collar of a nightgown which appeared above his hastily buttoned coat.

“You mean—?”

“Wait a little longer.” For several minutes they were silent, the operator leaning his elbows on the table, Carhart bending over him. Then, “Try him again,” said Carhart.

The operator obeyed. There was no response. Carhart drew up an empty cracker box and sat down. Twenty minutes passed.

“Click—clickety—click—click,” said the instrument. The operator, in a husky voice, translated the message as it came in: “‘P. Carhart, chief west’n ext. S. & W.: On receipt of this you will stop all construction work until further instructions, by order of Vice-Pres. Chambers—H. L. Tiffany.’”

“That’s funny!” said the operator.

Carhart did not seem to hear the exclamation. He was frowning slightly, and his lips were moving. At length he said, “Take this:—

“To C. O’F. Bourke,

Barker Hills Station:—

“Have another try, old chap. You haven’t quite caught Hen Tiffany’s style yet.

“P. Carhart.”

The operator laughed softly and nervously as his deft fingers transmitted this personal communication.

“Got it all through?” asked the chief.

“Yes, sir; all through.”

“All right, then, go back to bed. Good night.”

“Good night, Mr. Carhart.”

For several days now no word had come through from Flint, on “mile 109.” But twenty hours after the trouble at Barker Hills—just before supper time of the following day—a party of plainsmen came galloping into camp. One of these, a wizened little man with a kindly smile and shrewd eyes, dismounted before the headquarters tent and peered in between the flaps. “Mr. Carhart here?”

“He will be in two minutes,” replied Young Van, rising from the table. “Come in, sir!”

“Your Mr. Flint asked me to hand him this.” The wizened one produced a letter, and dropped into the chair which Young Van had brought forward. “Having quite a time up there, isn’t he?”

“How so?” asked Young Van. It was well to speak guardedly.

“Oh, he’s in it, deep,” was the reply. “Commodore Durfee’s at the Frisco Hotel in Red Hills. They say he came out over the ‘Wobbly’ on a construction train and rode through. Pretty spry yet, the Old Commodore. He’s hired a bad man named Flagg—Jack Flagg—and sent him out with a hundred or so men to seize your bridge at La Paz. Sorry I couldn’t stay there to see the excitement, but I’m hurrying east. Mr. Flint thought maybe I could pick up one of your trains running back to Sherman. If I can’t do that, I’ll strike off south for Pierrepont, and get through that way.”

Young Van hesitated, and was about to reply, when he heard the chief approaching.

Carhart came in from the rear, nodded to the stranger, and picked up the envelope. “You brought this, sir?” he asked.

“Yes; Mr. Flint asked me to.”

Very deliberately Carhart read the letter, and, without the slightest change of expression, tossed it on the table. “You must have supper with us,” he said. “If you stopped with John Flint you perhaps know how little an engineer’s hospitality amounts to, but such as we have we shall be very glad to share with you.”

“Thank you,” replied the stranger.

“You are a ranchman, I presume?” Carhart went on.

“Yes—in northwest of Red Hills. I go to Sherman every year.”

Young Van spoke, “He thought of taking one of our trains through.”

Carhart smiled dryly. “I should be greatly obliged to you, sir, if you could take a train through,” he said. “That’s something we don’t seem able to do.”

The wizened one glanced up with a keen expression about his eyes. “Having trouble back along the line?” he asked.

“You might call it trouble. My old friend Bourke, of the H. D. & W., has cut in behind us with a small army.” He gave a little shrug. “I can’t get through. I can’t get either way now that they’ve got in between Flint and Red Hills.”

“Then I’d better ride down to Pierrepont, hadn’t I?”

“I’m afraid that’s the best that I can suggest, sir.”

“You people certainly seem to be playing in hard luck, Mr. Carhart.” As the wizened one ventured this observation he crossed his legs and thrust his hands into his pockets. The action caused his coat to fall back, and disclosed a small gold pendant hanging from his watch guard. Young Van observed it, and glanced at Carhart, but he could not tell whether the chief had taken it in.

“It’s worse than hard luck,” Carhart replied; “it begins to look like defeat. We have been dependent on the Sherman people for material, food, water,—everything. Now Bourke has shut us off.”

“But you seem to have plenty of material here, Mr. Carhart.”

“Rails—yes. But it takes more than rails.”

“And you surely have a large enough force.”

“Yes, but moving several hundred men back a hundred and forty miles, fighting it out with Bourke, clearing the track, and getting trains through from Sherman, will take time. Long before we can make any headway, the H. D. & W. will have beaten us into Red Hills.”

“Ah—I see,” nodded the wizened one. “You’re going back after Bourke.”

“What else can I do! I can’t even wire Sherman without sending a man two hundred miles through the desert. The most important thing to my employers is to maintain possession of the line.”

“Of course—I see. I don’t know much about these things myself.”

After supper the wizened one announced that he must ride on with his party.

“You won’t stop with us to-night?” asked Carhart.

“No, thanks. It’ll be light an hour or two yet. I’ve got to move fast. I’ll lose a good deal, you see, going around by way of Pierrepont.”

“That’s so, of course. Well, good-by, sir.”

“Good-by.”

The riders swung into their saddles and cantered off eastward. Carhart turned to Young Van and slowly winked. “Come up to headquarters, Gus,” he said. “I’ve got some work for you.”

“I rather guess you have, if we’re going after Bourke.”

“After Bourke?” Carhart smiled. “You didn’t take that in, Gus?”

“Well—of course, I suspected.”

“You saw his badge?”

“Yes.”

“Bourke always has a lot of men about him from his own college.”

“You really think it, then?”

“It would be hard to say what I think. But I’ve been going on the assumption that he is one of Bourke’s engineers.”

They were approaching the headquarters tent. Young Van looked up and saw that “Arizona,” Carhart’s new saddle-horse, was hitched before it. They entered the tent, and the first thing the chief did was to get out two long blue-nosed revolvers and slip them into his holsters. A moment later, and Dimond, fitted out for a long ride, appeared at the entrance, saying, “All ready, Mr. Carhart!”

“Now, Gus,” said the chief, “I’m off for ‘mile 109.’ I want you to get about two hundred men together and send them after me to-night or to-morrow morning. I’ll tell Scribner, as I pass him, to have fifty more for you. Every man must have a rifle and plenty of ball cartridges. Send Byers”—this was the instrument man of the long nose—“and two or three others whom you think capable of commanding forty or fifty men each.”

“And Bourke?”

“We’ll leave him to Mr. Chambers. Give Charlie instructions to strengthen his night guard. Some men will be sent back to guard the second and third wells.”

Young Van involuntarily passed his hand across his eyes.

“I’m afraid I’m not much good,” he said slowly. “I didn’t grasp this situation very well. It’s rather a new phase of engineering for me. We seem to be plunging all of a sudden into tactics and strategy.”

“That’s about the size of it, Gus,” the chief responded. He had exchanged his old straw hat for a sombrero. His spurs jingled as he moved. There was a sparkle in his eye and a new sort of military alertness about his figure. He paused at the tent entrance, and looked back. “That’s about the size of it, Gus,” he repeated with a half smile. “And I’m afraid I rather like it.”

“Well, good-by. I’ll start the men right along after you.”

Carhart mounted his horse, Dimond followed his example, and the two rode away in the direction of the La Paz bridge. And ten hours later, at five in the morning, a line of armed horsemen—a long-nosed young man with the light of a pirate soul in his eyes riding at the head, an athletic pile-inspector and a college-bred rodman bringing up the rear—rode westward after him.

Troubles had been coming other than singly on “mile 109.” Jack Flagg, with a force which, while smaller than Flint’s, was made up of well-armed and well-paid desperadoes, had seized the ridge which shut in the La Paz Valley on the west, had pitched camp, erected rude intrenchments of loose stone, and stopped for the moment all work on the mile-long trestle. So much John Flint had set down in the note which the wizened one had delivered to Carhart. The next adventure befell on the night after the departure of the wizened one; and it brought out the ugly strain in the opera bouffe business of these wild railroading days.

Antonio, the watchman, sat on the edge of the eastern abutment and dangled his feet. He was so drowsy that he even stopped rolling cigarettes. He had chosen a comfortable seat, where a pile of timbers afforded a rest for his back. To be sure, there was the possibility of rolling off into the water and sand if he should really fall asleep; but elsewhere he would be exposed to the searching eyes of the engineer in charge, and those eyes were very searching indeed. He was thinking, in a dreamy way, of what he would do on the Sunday, with his week’s pay in his pocket and the village of La Paz but twelve miles away.

Now and again his complacent eyes roved out across the river, which slipped by with such a gentle, swishing murmur. He could look over the tops of the four unfinished piers and the western abutment and see the trestle where it was continued on the farther side. These Americanos, what driving devils they were! And when they had built their railroad, what were they going to do with it? To go fast—Antonio shrugged his shoulders and resumed the cigarettes—it is very well, but to what purpose? When they have rushed madly across the continent, what will they find there? Perhaps they will then rush back again. These Americanos!

He let his eyes rest upon the row of piers—one, two, three, four of them. What labor they had caused—how the men had sweat, and muttered, and toiled—how the foremen had cursed! Four piers of masonry rising out of the ghostly river. Very strong they must be, for the La Paz was not always gentle. In the spring and fall it was savage; and then it had an ugly way of undermining bridges, as those other foolish Americanos had learned to their cost when they built the wagon bridge at La Paz. He smiled lazily. But suddenly he sat up straight. A long thin figure of a man was moving about among the piles of timber. It was the seÑor Flint—and such a prowler as he was, day and night, night and day. He lived this bridge, did the seÑor; he thought it, he ate it, he drank it, he talked it, he slept it,—and for why? It could not be that he believed it living to think and breathe bridge and only bridge. It could not be that man was made for this—to become a slave to this trestle structure which was slowly crawling, like some monster centipede, across the sands of the La Paz. It was very good for the trestle perhaps, and the bridge, but was it so good for the seÑor?

Antonio smiled again, and settled back; the seÑor was passing on. He was getting into a boat. He was poling across the languid, dimpling river. He was getting out on the farther bank; he was walking up the long slope, keeping out of the moonlight in the shadow of the trestle-thing; he was peering up toward the embattled ridge beyond, where lay the redoubtable Flagg.

... The cigarette dropped from Antonio’s unnerved fingers, and fell with a sizzling splash into the water below. He drew an involuntary quick breath, and the smoke in his nostrils went unexpectedly into his throat and made him cough. Then trembling a little, he got slowly to his feet and stood staring out there over the serene surface of the river. He rubbed his eyes and stared again. A shot,—two shots,—which was right? Two—no, one![Pg 241]
[Pg 242] And that insignificant little dark heap yonder in the moonlight—was that the seÑor? What a trouble!—and he had been so comfortable there on the abutment!

Antonio was frightened. He thought of running away from these fate-tempting Americans; but in that case he would lose his pay and those Sundays at La Paz. He waited a while. Perhaps he was dreaming and would make himself ridiculous. He walked about, and tried different points of view. And at last he went to rouse his foreman.

They got Flint in—Haddon, in night-shirt, bare legs, and shoes with flapping strings to them; the foreman of the pile-driver crew in night-shirt and hat, and two big-shouldered bridgemen. There was a ball somewhere in Flint, and there were certain complications along the line of his chronic ailment, so that his usefulness was, so to speak, impaired. And Haddon, during what was left of the night and during all of the following day, had distinctly a bad time of it.

While these things were going on, Paul Carhart was riding westward at a hot gallop with Dimond close behind. It was shortly after sunset that he reined up on the crest of the eastern ridge and looked out over the La Paz. The barren valley was flooded with light. The yellow slopes were delicately tinted rose and violet, the rock pillars stood out black and sharply defined, the western hills formed a royal purple barrier to the streams of color; and through this glowing scene extended the square-jointed trestle, unmistakably the work of man where all else was from another hand. Never in the progress of this undertaking which we have been following across the plains had the contrast been so marked between the patient beauty of the old land and the uncompromising ugliness of the structure which Paul Carhart was carrying into and through it. And yet the chief,—an intelligent, educated man, not wanting in feeling for the finer side of life,—though he took in the wonders of the sunset, looked last and longest at the trestle and the uncompleted bridge. Then he rode down, glancing, in his quizzical way, at the camp, which had been moved back behind a knoll, at the piles of stone and timber, at the corral, and at the groups of idle, gloomy workmen.

Fortunately the chief was prepared for surprises. News that the trestle had been burned to the ground would have drawn no more than a glance and a nod from him. His mind had not been idle during the ride. He knew that the strongest defence partakes of an offensive character, and he had no notion of sitting back to await developments. Of several sets of plans which he had been considering, one was so plainly the simplest and best that he was determined to try it. It involved a single daring act, a sort of raid, which it would be necessary to carry through without a vestige of legal authority. But this feature of it disturbed him very much less than a mere casual acquaintance with this quiet gentleman might have led one to suppose. Perhaps he had, like the red-blooded Tiffany, a vein of “Scotch-Irish” down in the depths of his nature which could on occasion be opened up.

After looking out for the comfort of John Flint, and after conferring with Haddon and going thoroughly over the ground, Carhart sent for Dimond.

“How much more are you good for?” he asked.

Dimond grinned. “For everything that’s going,” he replied.

“Good. Do you know where the H. D. & W. is building down, a dozen or fifteen miles north of here?”

“I guess I can find it,” said Dimond.

And with a fresh horse and a man or two, and with certain specific instructions, Dimond rode north shortly after nightfall of that same day. At eight in the morning he was back, hollow-eyed but happy. And Paul Carhart, when Dimond had reported, was seen to smile quietly to himself.

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