"Oh, everybody. An' the Winnipeg paper said yesterday as 'Old
Brass-Bowels'"--he gave the traffic manager his sobriquet--"will enjoin
you an' carry the case through the Dominion courts to the British privy
council. The newspaper sharp allows that would take about two years,
during which the monopoly would either buy out or bust your crowd by
building a competing line."
This time Carter laughed heartily, the confident laugh of one sure of
himself. "So that's what the paper said? Well, well, well! That
scribe person must be something of a psychic. What's that? Oh, a
fellow who tells you a whole lot of things he don't know himself. Now,
listen." (In view of what occurred six months later, his words are
worth remembering.)
"Courts or no courts, privy council to the contrary, we'll run trains
across 'Brass-Bowel's' tracks before next freeze-up."
"Hope you do," Bender grinned. "But the old man ain't so very slow."
They talked more of construction--tools, supplies, engineering
difficulties, the hundred problems inherent in railroad-building.
Midnight still found them by the fire, that twinkled, a lone red star,
under the enormous vault of night.
But, though interesting and important, in that the success of the
enterprise involved the economic freedom of a province, the
conversation--with one exception--is not germane to this story, which
goes on from the moment that, two days later, a Pengelly boy carried the
news of Carter's departure to Helen at school.
The exception was delivered by the mouth of Bender, as he rose,
stretching with a mighty yawn, to go to his tent. "Of course it's none
of my damn business, but do you allow to call at the school as you go
down to-morrow?"
Carter's brows drew into swift lines, but resentment faded before the
big fellow's concern. "I didn't reckon to," he said, gently; yet added
the hint, "--since you're so pressing."