THE COAL AND THE COMMODORE
"Ready for breakfast, Miss Hallowell?" Mrs. Gates's pleasant voice
summoned her.
"Just a minute." Marian loitered at the window, looking out at the
transformed woods and fields. She could hardly believe her eyes. Two
weeks ago only stark, leafless branches and muddy gray earth had
stretched before her. But in these fourteen days, the magic of early
April had wrought wonders. The trees stood clothed in shining new
leaves, thick and luxuriant as a New England June. The fields were
sheets of living green.
"It doesn't seem real," she sighed happily. "It isn't the same country
that it was when I first came."
"No more are you the same girl." Mrs. Gates nodded approvingly behind
the tall steaming coffee-pot. "My, you were that peaky and piney! But
nowadays you're getting some real red in your cheeks, and you eat more
like a human being and less like a canary-bird."
Marian twinkled.
"Your brother is gettin' to be the peaky one, nowadays," went on Mrs.
Gates, with her placid frankness. "Seems to me I never saw a boy look
as beat out as he does, ever since that big cave-in on the canal last
week. I'm thankful for this good weather for him. Maybe he can make up
for the time they lost digging out the cave-in if it stays clear and
the creeks don't rise any higher. He's a real worker, isn't he? Seems
like he'd slave the flesh off his bones before he'd let his job fall
behind. But I don't like to see him look so gaunt and tired. It isn't
natural in a boy like him."
Marian looked puzzled.
"Why, Rod is always strong and well."
"He's strong, yes. But even strong folks can tire out. Flesh and blood
aren't steel and wire. You'd better watch him pretty sharp, now that
hot weather is coming. He needs it."
Marian pushed back her plate with a frown. Her dainty breakfast had
suddenly lost its savor.
"Watch over Rod! I should think it was Rod's place to watch over me,
instead. And when I have been so ill, too!" she said to herself.
Yet a queer little thorn of anxiety pricked her. She called Mr.
Finnegan and raced with him down through the wet green woods to the
canal. Roderick stood on the dredge platform, talking to the head
dredge-runner. He hailed Marian with a shout.
"You're just in time to see me off, Sis. I'm going to Saint Louis to
hurry up our coal shipment."
"The coal shipment? I thought a barge-load of coal was due here
yesterday."
"Due, yes. But it hasn't turned up, and we're on our last car-load
this minute. That's serious. We'll have to shut down if I can't hurry
a supply to camp within thirty-six hours."
Marian followed him aboard the engineers' house-boat and watched him
pack his suit-case.
"Why are you taking all those time-books, Rod? Surely you will not
have time to make up your week's reports during that three-hour trip
on the train?"
"These aren't my weekly reports. These are tabulated operating
expenses. President Sturdevant, the head of our company, has just
announced that he wants us to furnish data for every working day. He's
a bit of a martinet, you know. He wants everything figured up into
shape for immediate reference. He says he proposes to follow the cost
of this job, excavation, fill, everything, within thirty-six hours of
the time when the actual work is done. He doesn't realize that that
means hours of expert book-keeping, and that we haven't a book-keeper
in the camp. So Burford and I have had to tackle it, in addition to
our regular work. And it's no trifle." Roderick rolled up a formidable
mass of notes. There was a worried tone in his steady voice.
"Why doesn't the company send you a book-keeper?"
"Burford and I are planning to ask for one when the president and
Breckenridge come to camp on their tour of inspection."
"Could I do some of the work for you, Rod?"
"Thank you, Sis, but I'm afraid you'd find it a Chinese puzzle. I get
tangled up in it myself half the time. We must set down every solitary
item of cost, no matter how trifling; not only wages and supplies, but
breakdowns, time losses, even those of a few minutes; then calculate
our average, day by day; then plot a curve for each week's work,
showing the cost of the contract for that week, and set it against our
yardage record for that week. Then verify it, item by item, and send
it in."
"All tied up in beautiful red-tape bow-knots, I suppose," added
Marian, with a sniff. She poked gingerly into the mass of papers. "The
idea of adding book-keeping to your twelve-hour shift as
superintendent! And in this stuffy, noisy little box!" She looked
impatiently around the close narrow state-room. The ceiling was not
two feet above her head; the hot morning sunlight beat on the flat tin
roof of the house-boat and dazzled through the windows. "How can you
work here?--or sleep, either?"
Rod rubbed his hand uncertainly across his eyes.
"I don't sleep much, for a fact. Too hot. Sometimes I drop off early,
but the men always wake me at midnight when the last shift goes off
duty."
"But the laborers are all across on their own quarter-boat. They don't
come aboard your house-boat?"
"No, but the quarter-boat is only fifty feet away. The cook has their
hot supper ready at twelve, and they lark over it, and laugh and shout
and cut up high-jinks, like a pack of school-boys. I wouldn't mind,
only I can't get to sleep again. I lie there and mull over the
contract, you see. I can't help it."
"Why don't you come up to the Gates farm-house and sleep there?"
"I couldn't think of that. It's too far away. I must stay right here
and keep my eye on the work, every minute. You have no idea what a
dangerously narrow margin of time we have left; 'specially for those
north laterals, you know, Sis." His voice grew sharp and anxious.
Marian looked at him keenly. For the first time she saw the dull
circles under his eyes, the drawn, tired lines around his steady
mouth.
Then she glanced up the ditch. High on its green stilts, Sally Lou's
perky little martin-box caught her eye.
"I have it, Rod! Tell some of your laborers to build a cabin for you,
like the Burfords'! Then I'll come down and keep house for you."
Roderick shrugged his shoulders.
"I can't spare a solitary laborer from the contract, Marian; not for a
day. We're short-handed as it is. No, I'll stay where I am. I'm doing
well enough. Steam up, Mulcahy? Good-by, Sis. Back to-morrow!"
Marian watched the launch till it disappeared in the green mist of the
willows. Then she sat down to her brother's desk and began to sort the
clutter of papers. But sorting them was not an easy matter. To her
eyes they were only a bewildering tangle. Marian knew that she
possessed an inborn knack at figures, and it piqued her to find that
she could not master Roderick's accounts at the first glance. She
worked on and on doggedly. The little state-room grew hot and close;
the dull throb of the dredge machinery and the noisy voices from
without disturbed her more and more.
At last she sprang up and swept the whole mass into her hand-bag. Then
she ran up the hill to the martin-box.
Sally Lou, very fresh and cool in pink dimity, sat in her screened
nest, with the babies playing on the scrubbed floor. She nodded in
amused sympathy at Marian's portentous armful.
"Aren't those records a dismal task! Yes, I've found a way to sift
them, though it took me a long time to learn. Start by adding up the
time-book accounts; verify each laborer's hours, and see whether his
pay checks correspond to his actual working time. Roderick has fifty
men on his shift, so that is no small task. Then add up his memoranda
of time made by the big dredge; and also the daily record of the two
little dredges up at the laterals. Then run over the steward's
accounts and see whether they check with his bills----"
Marian stared at Sally Lou, astonished.
"Well, but Sally Lou! Think how much time that will mean! Why, I would
have to spend all afternoon on the time-books alone."
Sally Lou raised her yellow head and looked at Marian very steadily.
A tiny spark glinted in her brown eyes.
"Well, what if it does take all afternoon? Have you anything better to
do?"
There was a minute of silence. Then Marian's cheeks turned rather
pink.
"I suppose not. But it is horridly tedious work, Sally Lou. On such a
warm day, too."
"It certainly is." Sally Lou's voice was quite dry. She caught up
Thomas Tucker, who was trying laboriously to feed Mr. Finnegan with a
large ball of darning cotton. "You'd find it even more tedious if you
were obliged to work at it evenings, as your brother does. Can't you
stay to lunch, Marian? We'll love to have you; won't we, babies?"
"Thank you, no. Mrs. Gates will expect me at home."
Marian walked back through the woods, her head held high. The glint in
Sally Lou's eyes had been a bit of a challenge. Again she felt her
cheeks flush hot, with a queer puzzled vexation.
"I'll show her that I can straighten Rod's papers, no matter how
muddled they are!" she said to herself, tartly. And all that warm
spring afternoon she toiled with might and main.
* * * * *
Roderick, meanwhile, was spending a hard, discouraging day. Arriving
at Saint Louis, he found the secretary of the coal-mining company at
his office. Eager and insistent, he poured out his urgent need of the
promised barge-load of coal. The consignment was now a week overdue.
The dredges had only a few hundred bushels at hand; in less than
forty-eight hours the engines must shut down, unless he could get the
fuel to camp.
"You can't be any more disturbed by this crisis than I am, Mr.
Hallowell," the secretary assured him. "Owing to a strike at the mines
we have been forced to cancel all deliveries. I can't let you have a
single ton."
Roderick gasped.
"But our dredges! We don't dare shut down. Our contract has a
chilled-steel time-lock, sir, with a heavy forfeit. We must not run
over our date limits. We've got to have that coal!"
"You may be able to pick up a few tons from small dealers," said the
secretary, turning back to his desk. "You'll be buying black diamonds
in good earnest, for the retail price has gone up thirty per cent
since the news came of the mines strike. Wish you good luck, Mr.
Hallowell. Sorry that is all that I can do for you."
Roderick lost no time. He bought a business directory and hailed a
taxicab. For six hours he drove from one coal-dealer's office to
another. At eight o'clock that night he reached his hotel, tired in
every bone, but in royal high spirits. Driblet by driblet, and paying
a price that fairly staggered him, he had managed to buy over four
hundred tons.
"That will keep us going till the strike is settled," he told Burford
over the long-distance.
"Bully for you!" returned Burford, jubilant. "But how will you bring
it up to camp?"
"Oh, the railroad people have promised empties on to-morrow morning's
early freight to Grafton. Then we can carry it to camp on our own
barges. I shall come up on that freight myself. I shall not risk
losing sight of that coal. Mind that."
At five the next morning Roderick went down to the freight yards. His
coal wagons were already arriving. But not one of the promised
"empties" could he find.
"There is a mistake somewhere," said the yard-master. "Can't promise
you a solitary car for three days, anyway. Traffic is all behindhand.
You'd better make a try at head-quarters."
"I have no time to waste at head-quarters," retorted Rod. He was white
with anger and chagrin. This ill luck was a bolt from a clear sky.
"I'll go down to the river front and hire a barge and a tow-boat. I'll
get that coal up to camp to-morrow if I have to carry it in my
suit-case."
His hunt for a barge proved a stern chase, but finally he secured a
large flat-boat at a reasonable rental. But after searching the river
front for miles, he found only one tow-boat that could be chartered.
The tow's captain, noting Roderick's anxiety, and learning that he
represented the great Breckenridge Company, promptly declared that he
would not think of doing the two-days' towing for less than five
hundred dollars.
"Five hundred dollars for two days' towing! And I have already paid
three times the mine price for my coal!" Roderick groaned inwardly.
Suddenly his eye caught two trim red stacks and a broad familiar bow
not fifty yards away. It was the little packet, the _Lucy Lee_. She
was just lowering her gang-plank, making ready to take on freight for
her trip up-stream.
"I'll hail the _Lucy_. Maybe the captain can tell me where to find
another tow-boat. Ahoy, the _Lucy_! Is your captain aboard? Ask him to
come on deck and talk to Hallowell, of the Breckenridge Company, will
you?"
"The captain has not come down yet, sir. But our pilot, Commodore
McCloskey, is here. Will you talk with him?"
"Will I talk to the commodore? I should hope so!" Rod's strained face
broke into a joyful grin. He could have shouted with satisfaction when
Commodore McCloskey, trim as a gimlet in starchy white duck, strolled
down the gang-plank and gave him a friendly hand.
"Sure, I don't wonder ye're red-hot mad," he said, with twinkling
sympathy. "Five hundred dollars for two days' tow! 'Tis no better than
a pirate that tow-boat captain is, sure. But come with me. I have a
friend at court that can give ye a hand, maybe. Hi, boy! Is Captain
Lathrop, of the _Queen_, round about?"
"The _Queen_? Why, her captain is the very man who demanded the five
hundred dollars!" blurted Rod.
At that moment the captain's head popped from the cabin door. He
stared at Roderick. He stared at Commodore McCloskey. Then he had the
grace to duck wildly back, with a face sheepish beyond words to
describe.
"Well, Captain Lathrop!" Commodore McCloskey's voice rang merciless
and clear. "Tell me the truth. Is it yourself that's turned highway
robber? Five hundred dollars for twenty hours' tow! Sure, ye must be
one of thim high fin-an-ciers we read about in the papers. Why not
make it five hundred dollars per ton? Then ye could sell the _Queen_
and buy yourself a Cunarder for a tow-boat instead."
Captain Lathrop squirmed.
"How should I know he was a friend of yours, commodore? I'll take his
coal all the way to camp, and gladly, for three hundred, seein' as
it's a favor to you."
"For three hundred, is it?" The commodore began a further flow of
eloquence. But Rod caught his arm.
"Three hundred will be all right. And I'm more obliged to you,
commodore, than I can say. Now I'm off. If ever I can do you a good
turn, mind you give me the chance!"
It was late the next night when Roderick reached the camp landing with
his precious black diamonds. He was desperately tired, muddy, and
begrimed with smoke and coal-dust, hungry as a wolf, and hilarious
with relief at his hard-earned success. Marian, Sally Lou, and Burford
were all waiting for him at the little pier. Sally Lou dragged him up
to the martin-box for a late supper. Afterward Marian, who was to
spend the night with Sally Lou, walked back with him to his
house-boat.
[Illustration: "WELL, CAPTAIN LATHROP!" COMMODORE McCLOSKEY'S VOICE
RANG MERCILESS AND CLEAR.]
"Yes, yes, I'm all right, Sis. Don't fidget over me so." Roderick
stepped into his state-room and dropped down into his desk chair.
"Whew! I'm thankful to get back. I could go to sleep standing up, if
it wasn't for making up the records for President Sturdevant. Run away
now, that's a good girl, and let me straighten my accounts. Then I
can go to bed."
Even as he spoke Rod's glance swept his desk. Instead of the heaped
disorder of the day before, he saw now rows of neatly docketed papers.
He gave a whistle of surprise.
"Who has been overhauling my desk? Burford? Why--why, did _you_ do
this for me, sister? Well, on my word, you are just the very best
ever." His big fingers gripped Marian's arm and gave her a grateful
little shake. "You've squared up every single account, haven't you!
And your figuring is always accurate. This means two hours' extra
sleep for me. Maybe you think I won't enjoy 'em!"
"I might have been keeping your accounts for you all these weeks,"
returned Marian. She was a little mortified by Roderick's astonished
gratitude. "It is not hard work for me. I really enjoyed doing it."
"Maybe you think I don't enjoy having you do it!" Rod chuckled
contentedly. "I've dreaded those accounts all day. Now I shall sleep
the sleep of the loafer who has let his sister do his work for him.
Good-night, old lady!"
Marian tucked herself comfortably into her corner of the martin-box,
but not to sleep. Try her best, she could not banish Rod's tired face
from her mind. Neither could she forget the look of his little
state-room. True, she had made it daintily fresh and neat. But the
tiny box was hot and stuffy at best. What could she do to make Rod's
quarters more comfortable?
At last she sat up with a whispered exclamation.
"Good! I'll try that plan. Perhaps it won't do after all. But it
cannot hurt to try. And if my scheme can make Rod the least bit more
comfortable, then the trying will be well worth while!"