At ten forty-eight on the Saturday morning Kent was standing with the
general manager on the Union Station track platform beside the engine
which was to make the flying run to Gaston.
Nine hours of sharp work lay between the hurried conference in Loring's
bedroom and the drive to the station at a quarter before eleven. Boston
had been wired; divers and sundry friends of the railway company had been
interviewed; some few affidavits had been secured; and now they were
waiting to give Boston its last chance, with a clerk hanging over the
operator in the station telegraph office to catch the first word of
encouragement.
"If the Advisory Board doesn't send us something pretty solid, I'm going
into this thing lame," said Kent, dubiously. "Of course, what Boston can
send us will be only corroborative; unfortunately we can't wire
affidavits. But it will help. What we have secured here lacks directness."
"Necessarily," said Loring. "But I'm banking on the Board. If we don't get
the ammunition before you have to start, I can wire it to you at Gaston.
That gives us three hours more to go and come on."
"Yes; and if it comes to the worst--if the decision be unfavorable--it can
only embarrass us temporarily. This is merely the preliminary hearing, and
nothing permanent can be established until we have had a hearing on the
merits, and we can go armed to that, at all events."
The general manager was looking at his watch, and he shut the case with a
snap.
"Don't you let it come to that, as long as you have a leg to stand on,
David," he said impressively. "An interregnum of ten days might make it
exceedingly difficult for us to prove anything." Then, as the telegraph
office watcher came to the door and shook his head as a sign that Boston
was still silent: "Your time is up. Off with you, and don't let Oleson
scare you when he gets 219 in motion. He is a good runner, and you have a
clear track."
Kent clambered to the footplate of the smart eight-wheeler.
"Can you make it by two o'clock?" he asked, when the engineer, a
big-boned, blue-eyed Norwegian, dropped the reversing lever into the
corner for the start.
"Ay tank maybe so, ain'd it? Yust you climb opp dat odder box, Mester
Kent, and hol' you' hair on. Ve bane gone to maig dat time, als' ve preak
somedings, _ja_!" and he sent the light engine spinning down the yards to
a quickstep of forty miles an hour.
Kent's after-memory of that distance-devouring rush was a blurred picture
of a plunging, rocking, clamoring engine bounding over mile after mile of
the brown plain; of the endless dizzying procession of oncoming telegraph
poles hurtling like great side-flung projectiles past the cab windows; of
now and then a lonely prairie station with waving semaphore arms, sighted,
passed and left behind in a whirling sand-cloud in one and the same
heart-beat. And for the central figure in the picture, the one constant
quantity when all else was mutable and shifting and indistinct, the big,
calm-eyed Norwegian on the opposite box, hurling his huge machine doggedly
through space.
At 12:45 they stopped for water at a solitary tank in the midst of the
brown desert. Kent got down stiffly from his cramped seat on the fireman's
box and wetted his parched lips at the nozzle of the tender hose.
"Do we make it, Jarl?" he asked.
The engineer wagged his head.
"Ay tank so. Ve maig it all right iff dey haf bane got dose track clear."
"There are other trains to meet?"
"_Ja_; two bane comin' dis vay; ant Nummer Samteen ve pass opp by."
Oleson dropped off to pour a little oil into the speed-woundings while the
tank was filling; and presently the dizzying race began again. For a time
all things were propitious. The two trains to be met were found snugly
withdrawn on the sidings at Mavero and Agriculta, and the station
semaphores beckoned the flying special past at full speed. Kent checked
off the dodging mile-posts: the pace was bettering the fastest run ever
made on the Prairie Division--which was saying a good deal.
But at Juniberg, twenty-seven miles out of Gaston, there was a delay.
Train Number 17, the east-bound time freight, had left Juniberg at one
o'clock, having ample time to make Lesterville, the next station east,
before the light engine could possibly overtake it. But Lesterville had
not yet reported its arrival; for which cause the agent at Juniberg was
constrained to put out his stop signal, and Kent's special came to a stand
at the platform.
Under the circumstances, there appeared to be nothing for it but to wait
until the delayed Number 17 was heard from; and Kent's first care was to
report to Loring, and to ask if there were anything from Boston.
The reply was encouraging. A complete denial of everything, signed by the
proper officials, had been received and repeated to Kent at Gaston--was
there now awaiting him. Kent saw in anticipation the nicely calculated
scheme of the junto crumbling into small dust in the precise moment of
fruition, and had a sharp attack of ante-triumph which he had to walk off
in turns up and down the long platform. But as the waiting grew longer,
and the dragging minutes totaled the quarter-hour and then the half, he
began to perspire again.
Half-past two came and went, and still there was no hopeful word from
Lesterville. Kent had speech with Oleson, watch in hand. Would the
engineer take the risk of a rear-end collision on a general manager's
order? Oleson would obey orders if the heavens fell; and Kent flew to the
wire again. Hunnicott, at Gaston, was besought to gain time in the hearing
by any and all means; and Loring was asked to authorize the risk of a
rear-end smash-up. He did it promptly. The light engine was to go on until
it should "pick up" the delayed train between stations.
The Juniberg man gave Oleson his release and the order to proceed with due
care while the sounder was still clicking a further communication from
headquarters. Loring was providing for the last contingency by sending
Kent the authority to requisition Number 17's engine for the completion of
the run in case the track should be blocked, with the freight engine free
beyond the obstruction.
Having his shackles stricken off, the Norwegian proceeded "with due care,"
which is to say that he sent the eight-wheeler darting down the line
toward Lesterville at the rate of a mile a minute. The mystery of the
delay was solved at a point half-way between the two stations. A broken
flange had derailed three cars of the freight, and the block was
impassable.
Armed with the general manager's mandatory wire, Kent ran forward to the
engine of the freight train and was shortly on his way again. But in the
twenty-mile run to Gaston more time was lost by the lumbering freight
locomotive, and it was twenty minutes past three o'clock when the county
seat came in sight and Kent began to oscillate between two sharp-pointed
horns of a cruel dilemma.
By dropping off at the street-crossing nearest the Court House, he might
still be in time to get a hearing with such documentary backing as he had
been able to secure at the capital. By going on to the station he could
pick up the Boston wire which, while it was not strictly evidence, might
create a strong presumption in his favor; but in this case he would
probably be too late to use it. So he counted the rail-lengths, watch in
hand, with a curse to the count for his witlessness in failing to have
Loring repeat the Boston message to him during the long wait at Juniberg;
and when the time for the decision arrived he signaled the engineer to
slow down, jumped from the step at the nearest crossing and hastened up
the street toward the Court House.
In the mean time, to go back a little, during this day of hurryings to and
fro Blashfield Hunnicott had been having the exciting experiences of a
decade crowded into a corresponding number of hours. Early in the morning
he had begun besieging the headquarters wire office for news and
instructions, and, owing to Kent's good intentions to be on the ground in
person, had got little enough of either.
At length, to his unspeakable relief, he had news of the coming special;
and with the conviction that help was at hand he waited at the station
with what coolness there was in him to meet his chief. But as the time for
the hearing drew near he grew nervous again; and all the keen pains of
utter helplessness returned with renewed acuteness when the operator, who
had overheard the Juniberg-Lesterville wire talk, told him that the
special was hung up at the former station.
"O my good Lord!" he groaned. "I'm in for it with empty hands!" None the
less, he ran to the baggage-room end of the building and, capturing an
express wagon, had himself trundled out to the Court House.
The judge was at his desk when Hunnicott entered, and Hawk was on hand,
calmly reading the morning paper. The hands of the clock on the wall
opposite the judge's desk pointed to five minutes of the hour, and for
five minutes Hunnicott sat listening, hoping against hope that he should
hear the rush and roar of the incoming special.
Promptly on the stroke of three the judge tapped upon his desk with his
pencil.
"Now, gentlemen, proceed with your case; and I must ask you to be as brief
as possible. I have an appointment at four which can not be postponed," he
said quietly; and Hawk threw down his paper and began at once.
Hunnicott heard his opponent's argument mechanically, having his ear
attuned for whistle signals and wheel drummings. Hawk spoke rapidly and
straight to his point, as befitted a man speaking to the facts and with no
jury present to be swayed by oratorical effort. When he came to the
summarizing of the allegations in the amended petition, he did it wholly
without heat, piling up the accusations one upon another with the careful
method of a bricklayer building a wall. The wall-building simile thrust
itself upon Hunnicott with irresistible force as he listened. If the
special engine should not dash up in time to batter down the wall----
Hawk closed as dispassionately as he had begun, and the judge bowed
gravely in Hunnicott's direction. The local attorney got upon his feet,
and as he began to speak a telegram was handed in. It was Kent's wire from
Juniberg, beseeching him to gain time at all hazards, and he settled
himself to the task. For thirty dragging minutes he rang the changes on
the various steps in the suit, knowing well that the fatal moment was
approaching when--Kent still failing him--he would be compelled to submit
his case without a scrap of an affidavit to support it.
The moment came, and still there was no encouraging whistle shriek from
the dun plain beyond the open windows. Hawk was visibly disgusted, and
Judge MacFarlane was growing justly impatient. Hunnicott began again, and
the judge reproved him mildly.
"Much of what you are saying is entirely irrelevant, Mr. Hunnicott. This
hearing is on the plaintiff's amended petition."
No one knew better than the local attorney that he was wholly at the
court's mercy; that he had been so from the moment the judge began to
consider his purely formal defense, entirely unsupported by affidavits or
evidence of any kind. None the less, he strung his denials out by every
amplification he could devise, and, having fired his last shot, sat down
in despairing breathlessness to hear the judge's summing-up and decision.
Judge MacFarlane was mercifully brief. On the part of the plaintiff there
was an amended petition fully fortified by uncontroverted affidavits. On
the part of the defendant company there was nothing but a formal denial of
the allegations. The duty of the court in the premises was clear. The
prayer of the plaintiff was granted, the temporary relief asked for was
given, and the order of the court would issue accordingly.
The judge was rising when the still, hot air of the room began to vibrate
with the tremulous thunder of the sound for which Hunnicott had been so
long straining his ears. He was the first of the three to hear it, and he
hurried out ahead of the others. At the foot of the stair he ran blindly
against Kent, dusty, travel-worn and haggard.
"You're too late!" he blurted out. "We're done up. Hawk's petition has
been granted and the road is in the hands of a receiver."
Kent dashed his fist upon the stair-rail.
"Who is the man?" he demanded.
"Major Jim Guilford," said Hunnicott. Then, as footfalls coming stairward
were heard in the upper corridor, he locked arms with Kent, faced him
about and thrust him out over the door-stone. "Let's get out of this. You
look as if you might kill somebody."