"Shucks!" the other laughed. "Ain't we two the only Yanks in these
parts? But say! won't she find this a bit rough?"
Morrill glanced discontentedly at the log walls, the soap-boxes which
served for seats, the home-made table, and the peg ladder that led to
the loft above. Three years' hard work had rubbed the romance from his
rough surroundings, but he remembered that it had once been there. "Oh,
I don't know," he answered. "She'll like it. Has all the romantic
notions about keeping home in a log-house, you see."
"Never had 'em," the other mused, "though mebbe that was on account of
being born in one. What's bringing her out?"
"Well, now that father's dead I'm all the kin she's got. He didn't
leave anything worth mentioning, so Helen has to choose between a place
in a store and keeping house for me. But say! your team's moving! Don't
tell her I'm sick," he called, as Carter rushed for the door. "She'd
worry, and think I was worse than I am."
"Couldn't very well," Carter muttered, as he ran after his team. "No,
she really couldn't," he repeated, as he caught up and climbed upon his
load. "Poor chap!--An' poor little girl!"
*II*
*A DEPUTATION*
Fifty miles in a day is big travel in the East, yet a team of northern
ponies will, if the load be light, run it on three legs. The fourth,
unless cinched with a kicking-strap, is likely to be in the buck-board
half the time; but if the driver is good at dodging he need not use a
strap.
Starting next morning at sunrise, Carter ran through the settlements,
fed at the mission in the valley of the Assiniboin at noon, then,
climbing out, he rattled south through the arid plains which cumber the
earth from the river to Beaver Creek. There Vickery, the keeper of the
stopping-house, yelled to him to put in and feed. He had not seen a man
for two weeks, and his wells of speech were full to overflowing. But
Carter shook denial. Far off a dark smudge rose from under the edge of
the world--the smoke of the express, he thought. One would have
believed it within a dozen miles, yet when, an hour later, he rattled
into Lone Tree, it seemed no nearer than when first it impinged on the
quivering horizon. This appearance, however, was deceptive as the
first, for he had scarcely unhitched at the livery before an engine and
two toy cars stole out from under the smudge.
"General manager's private car," the station agent answered Carter's
inquiry. "The old man lays over here to talk with a deputation. It's
over at the hotel now, feeding and liquoring up."
"The old grievance?" Carter asked.
The agent nodded. "That and others. They say we're coming their flesh
and blood. You should hear old man Cummings orate on that. And they
accuse us of exacting forty bushels of wheat out of every hundred we
tote out to the seaboard."
"Wheat at forty-five, freight to Montreal at twenty-seven?" Carter
mused. "Don't that pretty near size it, Hooper?"
"Is that our fault?" the agent ruffled, like an irate gobbler. "Did we
freeze their wheat? Sound grain is worth sixty-eight, and if they will
farm at the north pole they must expect to get frozen."
"And if you will railroad at the north pole," Carter suggested, "you
ought to--"
"Get all that's coming to us," the agent finished. "But we don't. Our
line runs through fifteen hundred miles of country that don't pay for
axle-grease. We must make running expenses, and ought to pay a
reasonable interest to our stockholders, though we haven't yet. The
settled lands have to bear hauling charges on the unsettled. But these
fellows don't see our side of it. Where would they be without the line,
anyway? Now answer me that, Carter."
"Back East, landless, homeless, choring for sixteen a month an' board,"
Carter slowly answered. "I'm not bucking your railroad, Hooper. But
here's the point--your people and the government sent out all sorts of
lying literature an' filled these fellows with the idea that they were
going to get rich quick; whereas this is a poor man's country an' will
be for a generation to come. Five generations of farmers couldn't have
built this line which one generation must pay for. There's the point.
They've clapped a mortgage an' a fifteen-hundred-mile handicap on their
future, an' the interest is going to bear their noses hard down on the
grindstone. They'll make a living, but they ain't going to have much of
a time. Their children's children will reap the profit off their
sweat."
"No," the agent profanely agreed, "they ain't going to have a hell of a
time." Having spent his mature years in one continuous wrangle over
freights and rates, it was positively disconcerting to find a farmer who
could appreciate the necessities of railroad economics, and after a
thoughtful pause the agent said, "You ain't so slow--for a farmer."
"Thank you," Carter gravely answered. "Some day, if I'm good, I may
rise to the heights of railroading."
The agent grinned appreciatively. "Coming back to the deputation, these
fellows might as well tackle a grizzly as the old man. There's not
enough of you to supply grease for a freight-train's wheels."
"Oh, I don't know," Carter gently murmured.
Ten minutes ago the agent would have hotly proved his point; now he
replied, quite mildly: "If you think different, tag on to the
deputation. Here it comes, all het-up with wrongs and whiskey."
"There's Bill Cummings!" Carter indicated an elderly man, very white of
beard, very red of face, and transparently innocent in expression.
"He's bell-wether," the agent said, grinning. Then, as the approaching
locomotive blew two sharp blasts, he added, "Blamed if the old man won't
make mutton of the entire flock if they don't clear out of the way!"
A quick scattering averted the catastrophe while increasing the heat of
the deputation. Very much disrumpled, it filed into the car, with
Carter tagging on behind.
The general manager, who was smoking by an open window, tossed out his
cigar as he rose. Not a tall man, power yet expressed itself in every
movement of his thick-set body; it lurked in his keen gray glance; was
given off like electrical energy in his few crisp words of welcome.
From the eyes, placed well apart in the massive head, to the strong jaw
his every feature expressed his graduation in the mastership of men;
told eloquently of his wonderful record, his triumphs over man and
nature. Beginning a section hand, he had filled almost every position
in the gift of his road, driving spikes in early days with the same
expertness he now evidenced in directing its enormous affairs--the road
which had sprung from his own fertile imagination; the road which, from
nothing, he had called into being. Where others had only discerned
mountains, gulfs, canons, trackless forest, he had seen a great trunk
line with a hundred feeders--mills, mines, factories, farms, and
steamships plying to the Orient for trade. And because his was the faith
that moves mountains, the magnificent dream had taken form in wood and
iron.
Purblind to all but their own interests, the settlers saw only the
proximate result of that mighty travail--the palace-car with its
luxurious fittings.
"We pay for this," Carter's neighbor growled.
"My, but I'd like his job!" another whispered. "Nothing to do but sit
there and dictate a few letters."
A third gave the figures of the manager's salary, while a fourth added
that it was screwed out of the farmers. So they muttered their private
envy while Cummings voiced their public grievance. When surveys were
run for the trunk line, settlers had swarmed in, pre-empting land on
either side of the right of way, and when, to avoid certain engineering
problems, the surveys were shifted south, they found themselves from
fifty to sixty miles from a market. A branch had been promised--
"When settlement and traffic justify it." The manager cut the oration
short.
He had listened quietly while Cummings talked of rights, lawsuits, and
government intervention; now he launched his ultimatum on the following
silence: "Gentlemen, our road is not run for fun, but profit, and though
we should very much like to accommodate you, it is impossible under the
circumstances. I am pleased to have met you, and"--the corners of the
firm mouth twitched ever so slightly--"and I shall be pleased to meet
you again when you can advance something more to our advantage than
costs and suits. I bid you good-day."
Business-like, terse, devoid of feeling, the laconic answer acted upon
the deputation like a blow in the face. Cummings actually recoiled, and
his expression of sheep-like surprise, baffled wonder, innocent anger
set Carter chuckling. He was still smiling as he shouldered forward.
"A minute, please."