The Road Builders Part 25

Tiffany leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees, and gazed moodily out across the valley. He had been riding hard for four days, with not enough food and water and scarcely any sleep. Only one night of the four had found him on a cot--the other nights had been pa.s.sed on the ground. In the resulting physical depression his mind had taken to dwelling on the empty chamber in his revolver--he wished he knew more of what that leaden ball had accomplished. And now here was John Flint shot down by a hidden enemy. It was the ugliest work he had been engaged in for years. When he finally spoke, he could not conceal his discouragement.

"How about this engineer here, Paul?" he said, still looking out there over the valley. "Will the regiment and Commodore Durfee stop you?"

"I hope not," said Carhart.

"You're going to fight, then--until the governor calls out the state troops, and throws us all out, and there's h.e.l.l to pay?"

"I don't think so. I'm going to get ready to fight."

"By putting your men on those two knolls?"

"Yes."

"And then what?"

"Then I'm going to Red Hills."

"To Red Hills!" Tiffany sat up. There was more life in his voice.

"Yes." Carhart laughed a little. "Why not?"

Tiffany half turned and looked earnestly into the face of this unusual man. The spectacles threw back the moonlight and concealed the eyes behind them. The lower part of the face was perhaps a trifle leaner than formerly. The mouth was composed. Tiffany found no answer there to the question in his own eyes. So he put it in words: "What are you going to do there, Paul?"

"See Commodore Durfee."

"See--! Look here, do you know how mad he is? Do you think he came clear down here from New York, and shoved his old railroad harder than anybody but you ever shoved one before and hired the rascals that shot John Flint,--him playing for the biggest stakes on the railroad table to-day,--do you think he'll feel like talking to the man who's put him to all this trouble?"

"Well," Carhart hesitated,--"I hope he will."

"But it's foolhardy, Paul. You won't gain anything. Just the sight of you walking into the Frisco House office may mean gun play. If it was Bourke, it would be different; but these Durfee men are mad. The Commodore was never treated this way in his life before. And you're a little nervous yourself, Paul. Be careful what you do. He'll have lawyers around him--and he's redhot, remember that."

"I can't quite agree with you, Tiffany. I think he'll talk to me. But there's one thing I've got to do first, and you can help me there."

"For G.o.d's sake, then, let me get into the game. I can't stand this looking on--fretting myself to death."

"I want you to take charge here for a day while I go after my firewood. I came pretty near being held up altogether for want of it.

Bourke cut me off before Peet could get it through."

"Where can you get it?"

"There's a lot waiting for me off north of here."

Tiffany grunted. "North of here, eh?"

Carhart nodded.

"And you have to work so delicate getting it that you can't trust anybody else to do it?"

Carhart smiled. "Better not ask me, Tiffany. I can't talk to Commodore Durfee until I've got all the cards in my hand, and this is the last one. As to going myself, it happens to be the sort of thing I won't ask anybody to do for me, that's all."

"That's how you like it," said Tiffany, gruffly, rising. "Want to talk about anything else to-night?"

"No--I shan't be leaving before to-morrow noon. I'll see you in the morning." While he spoke, he was watching Tiffany, and he was amused to see that the veteran had recovered his equilibrium and was angry with himself.

"When will you want to begin your military monkey-s.h.i.+nes?"

Carhart drove back a smile, and got up. "Not until I get back here with the wood," he replied. "Good night."

Tiffany merely grunted, and marched off to the cot which had been a.s.signed him.

At noon of the following day Carhart was ready to lead his expedition northward. It was made up of all Flint's wagons, with two men on the seat and two rifles under the seat of each. And scattered along on both sides of the train were men picked from Flint's bridge-builders and from Old Van's and Scribner's iron and tie squads. These men were mounted on fresh ponies, and they carried big holsters on their saddles and stubby, second-hand army carbines behind them. Dimond was there, too, and the long-nosed instrument man. The two or three besides the chief who knew what was soon to be doing kept their own counsel. The others knew nothing, but there was a sort of tingling electricity in the air which had got into every man of the lot. This much they knew; Mr. Carhart was very quiet and considerate and businesslike, but he had a streak of blue in him. And it is the streak of blue in your quiet, considerate leader which makes him a leader indeed in the eyes and hearts of those who are to follow him. Not that there were any heroics in evidence, rather a certain grim quiet, from one end of the wagon train to the other, which meant business. Carhart took it all in, as he cantered out toward the head of the line, dropping a nod here and there, and waving Byers, who was leaning on his pony's rump and looking impatiently back, to start off. He had picked his men with care--he knew that he could trust them. And so, on reaching the leading wagon and pulling to a walk, he settled himself comfortably in his saddle and began to plan the conversation with Commodore Durfee which was to come next and which was to mean everything or nothing to Paul Carhart.

Once Byers, not observing his abstraction, spoke, "That was hard luck, Mr. Carhart, getting cut off from Sherman this way."

"Think so?" the chief replied, and fell back into his study.

Byers looked puzzled, but he offered nothing further. Carhart was for a moment diverted along the line suggested by him of the long nose.

"Hard luck, eh?" he was thinking. "It's the first time in my life I was ever let alone. I only hope they won't clean Bourke out and repair the wires before I get through."

The white spot on Bourke's long blueprint of the High, Dry, and Wobbly, to which was attached the name of "Durfee," might have seemed, to the unknowing, a town or settlement. It was not. It was a station in the form of an unpainted shed, a few huts, and a water tank.

Besides these, there were heaps of rails and ties and bridge timbers and all the many materials used in building a railroad. "The end of the track," or rather "Mr. Bourke's camp," which marked the beginning of the end, lay some dozen miles farther west. Out there, men swarmed by the hundred, for work had by no means been discontinued on the H.

D. & W. But here at "Durfee" there were only an operator, a train crew or so, a few section men, and a night watchman. And on that late evening when a train of wagons rolled along on well-greased wheels beside the track and stopped at the long piles of firewood which were stored there within easy reach of pa.s.sing locomotives, all these worthy persons were asleep.

What few words pa.s.sed among the invaders were low and guarded.

Everything seemed to be understood. Of the two men on each wagon, one dropped his reins and stood up in the wagon-box, the other leaped to the ground and rapidly pa.s.sed up armfuls of wood. Of the hors.e.m.e.n, three out of every four dismounted and ran off in a wide circle and took shelter in shadowed spots behind lumber piles, or dropped silently to the ground and lay there watching. Out on the track a deep-chested, hard-faced man, who might perhaps have answered to the name of "Dimond," took up a post of observation. On that side of the circle nearest the station and the huts, two men who had the manner of some authority moved cautiously about. Both wore spectacles and one had a long nose. Through the still air came the champing of bits and the pawing and snorting of horses. The man with the spectacles and the less striking nose seemed to dislike these noises. He drew out a watch now and then, and held it up in the moonlight. The work was going on rapidly, yet how slowly! Once somebody dropped an armful of wood, and every man started at the sound.

The watchman upon whom devolved the responsibility of seeing that no prowling strangers walked off by night with the town of "Durfee" was meanwhile dreaming troublous dreams. From pastoral serenity these night enjoyments of his had pa.s.sed through various disquieting stages into positive discord. They finally awoke him, and even a.s.sumed an air of waking reality. The queer, faint sounds which were floating through the night suggested the painful thought that somebody _was_ walking off with the town of "Durfee." He would investigate.

Slowly tiptoeing down an alleyway between two long heaps of material, the watchman settled his fingers around his heavy stick. Then he paused. The sounds were very queer indeed. He decided to drop his stick and draw his revolver. But this action, which he immediately undertook, was interrupted by a pair of strong arms which gripped him from behind. And a pair of hands at the end of two other strong arms abruptly stuffed a handkerchief into his mouth and held it in place by means of another which was tied at the back of his neck.

"Bring him along, boys," said a low voice.

"All right, Mr. Carhart," replied the owner of the first-mentioned arms,--and then could have bitten his tongue out, for the speaking eyes of the incapacitated watchman were fixed on the half-shadowed, spectacled face before him.

Ten minutes more and the wagon train, now heavily laden, was starting off. The hors.e.m.e.n lingered until it was fairly under way, then ran back to their mounts, and hovered in a crowd about the last dozen wagons until all danger of an attack was past. And later on, when they were something more than halfway back to Mr. Flint's camp, they released the night watchman, and started him back on foot for "Durfee," and hurled pleasantries after him for as long as he was within earshot.

It was necessary to drop another day before occupying the knolls, and Carhart spent most of it in sleep. He was not a man of iron, and the exertions of the week had been of an exhausting nature. But Tiffany, who had slept the sleep of the righteous throughout the night of the raiding expedition, took hold of the preparations with skill and energy. And after supper he and Carhart stood together on the high ground at the eastern end of the trestle and talked it over.

"Young Haddon seems to be a pretty good man to command one knoll,"

said Tiffany, "but how about the other?"

"Byers could do it, possibly, but not so well as Dimond. The men like him, and while he's a little rough-handed, he's level-headed and experienced. I'll take Byers to Red Hills with me. We can start out at nine, say. Each party will have to make a wide circuit around the hills and cross the stream a mile or two from here. It will be two or three hours before we get around to the knolls."

"Would you use boats to ferry the boys over?"