THE CONSTRUCTION CAMP
The light was fading when Prescott walked into sight of the construction
camp. It was situated on the edge of a belt of a muskeg sprinkled with
birches and small pines, where the new railroad, leaving the open country
to the south, ran up toward the great coniferous forest that fringes the
northern portion of the prairie. Prescott had sold his horse at a lonely
farm and he was now tired and hungry, but he felt satisfied that he was
on the right track and had succeeded in eluding the police. Curtis and
Private Stanton were men of fixed ideas; believing Jernyngham to be dead,
they had, no doubt, merely made a few perfunctory inquiries at the
nearest railroad camps. Moreover, as they had reason for concluding that
Prescott would seek refuge across the American boundary, they would
concentrate their efforts on looking for him there. Accordingly, he felt
safe from pursuit.
By and by he stopped to look about. To the eastward all was gray, a dim
waste of grass dotted with shadowy trees; but a vivid band of green still
glowed on the western horizon. In front lay a broad shallow basin,
streaked with filmy trails of mist, between which came the wan gleam of
little pools. A causeway stretched out into the morass, sprinkled with
the indistinct figures of toiling men. At its inner end, where it left
the higher ground, a row of cars stood on a side-track, and near-by there
were ranged straggling lines of tents and wooden shacks. Wisps of blue
smoke drifted across the swamp, and a beam of strong white light streamed
out from the electric head-lamp of a locomotive. The still air was filled
with the clink of shovels, the clang of flung-down rails, and the sharp
rattle of falling gravel.
Going on until he reached the camp, Prescott stopped beside a group of
men sitting about a fire, and loosed the heavy pack that galled his
shoulders.
"If you can give me a place to lie down and a bit of supper, boys, I'd be
obliged," he said.
Two or three of them turned and looked at him without much curiosity.
They were strong, brown-faced fellows, dressed in old duck overalls and
slate-colored shirts, with shapeless hats and dilapidated knee-boots.
"Why, certainly," responded one in a clean English intonation. "However,
as we're paying for our board, we'll have to invite you as the guest of
the construction contractor; but there's no reason you should be shy
about accepting his hospitality. Sit down until Shan Li brings the grub
along."
"Here's a place," said another. "Want a job?"
"I don't know yet," Prescott answered. "I'm looking for a friend of mine:
man of middle height, with pale-blue eyes and a curious twinkling smile.
He was wearing a green shirt of finer stuff than they generally sell at
the settlements when I last saw him, and I expect he'd have a fresh scar
on his head."
There was signs of interest and amusement which suggested that Prescott
was on the right track.
"Did he call himself Kermode?" one of the men asked.
Prescott hesitated. It was possible that some of them had heard of the
Jernyngham affair, and he had no wish that they should connect him with
it. While he considered his answer, the man with the English accent broke
in:
"We needn't trouble about the point. One name's as good as another, as
our friend Kermode, who seems to have been a bit of philosopher, remarked
when they put him on the pay-roll."
"When I was back at Nelson a smart policeman rode into the camp," said
another of the group. "Wanted to know if we had seen the man you're
asking for; gave us quite a good description of him. Anyway, I hadn't
seen him then, and when I struck him afterward I didn't send word to the
police. I've no use for those fellows; they're best left alone."
"Then you know him?" Prescott exclaimed eagerly.
The man looked at his comrades and there was a laugh.
"Oh, yes," said one of them; "we know him all right. Glad to meet a man
who's a friend of his; but if you expect a job here, you don't want to
mention it. If another fellow of that kind comes along, the boss will get
after him with a gun."
"Kermode," the Englishman explained, "is a man of happy and original
thoughts. I believe I might say he is unique."
The conversation was interrupted by a steadily increasing rattle, and a
great light that moved swiftly blazed on the camp. It faded as a
ballast-train rolled out upon the bank which traversed the swamp, with a
swarm of indistinct figures clinging to the low cars. When it stopped,
the sides of the cars fell outward, a big plow moved forward from one to
another, and broken rock and gravel, pouring off, went crashing and
rattling down the slope. The noise it made rang harshly through the
stillness of the evening, and when it ceased a whistle screamed and the
clangor of the wheels began again. As the engine backed the train away,
the blaze of the head-lamp fell on an object lying half buried in the
muskeg about sixty feet below the line, and one of the men, pointing to
it, touched Prescott's arm.
"See what that is?" he said.
Prescott saw that it was what the railroad builders call a steel dump: a
metal wagon capable of carrying thirty or forty tons of ballast, with an
automatic arrangement for throwing out its load.
"How did it get there?" he asked.
"Tell you after supper," said the fellow. "They're bringing it along."
A whistle blew and Prescott followed his companions into a shed built of
railroad ties and galvanized iron. It was lighted by kerosene lamps which
diffused an unpleasant odor, and fitted with rude tables and benches; but
the meal laid out in it was bountiful and varied: pork, hard steak, fish
from the lakes, potatoes, desiccated fruits, and tea. The shovel-gang
paid six dollars a week for their board and got good value. As usual,
most of them were satisfied in fifteen minutes, for in the West the rank
and file eat with determined haste, and when they trooped out Prescott
went back with his new friends to the fire. Taking out his pipe, he made
himself as comfortable as possible on a pile of gravel and, tired with a
long day's march, looked lazily about. The strong light still blazed
along the bank where hurrying men passed through the stream of radiance,
vanished into the shadows, and appeared again. There was a continuous
rattling and clinking and roar of falling stones; rails rang as they were
moved, and now and then hoarse orders came out of the darkness.
After Prescott had asked a few leading questions, the men began to talk
of Kermode, who had already left the camp, and the rancher was able to
put together the story of his doings there.
* * * * *
The muskeg was an unusually bad one. It swallowed the rock the men dumped
in; logs, brush, and branches afforded no foundation, and a long time
elapsed before the engineers were satisfied about the base of the
embankment. The weather remained unusually hot until late in the fall,
and the contractor, already behind time and anxious to make progress
before the frost interfered with his work, developed a virulent temper.
His construction foreman drove the men mercilessly, spurring on the
laggards with scathing words and occasionally using a heavy fist when
they showed resentment. The laborers' nerves were worn raw, their
strength was exhausted; but the muskeg must be filled and, while carload
after carload of rock and gravel was hurled down, the line crept on.
Things were in this state when Kermode reached the camp and, on applying
for work, was given a shovel and made to use it in a strenuous fashion.
It appeared that he was not expert with the tool and the foreman's most
pointed remarks were generally addressed to him, but he had a humorous
manner which gained him friends. Once or twice, to his comrades'
admiration, he engaged his persecutor in a wordy contest and badly routed
him, which did not improve matters. Indeed, his last victory proved a
costly one, because afterward when there was anything particularly
unpleasant or dangerous to be done, Kermode was selected. As it happened,
the risks that must be faced were numerous.
Kermode stood it for some weeks, though he grew thin and his hands were
often bleeding. In spite of this, his eyes still twinkled mischievously
and, when occasion demanded, his retort was swift and edged with wit. Now
and then he made reprisals, for when, as happened once or twice, a load
of gravel nearly swept the foreman down the bank, Kermode was engaged in
the vicinity. Another time, the bullying martinet was forced to jump into
the muskeg, where he sank to the waist, in order to avoid a mass of
ballast sent down before its descent was looked for.
There was a difference of opinion about the cause of Kermode's holding
out. Some of his comrades said he must have meant to wait for the arrival
of the pay car, so as to draw his wages before he left; others declared
that this did not count with him, and he stayed because he would not be
driven out. The Englishman took the latter view for, as he told Prescott,
Kermode once said to him, "I want the opposition to remember me when I
quit."
By degrees the foreman's gibes grew less frequent. Kermode was more than
a match for him, and his barbed replies were repeated with laughter about
the camp; but his oppressor now relied on galling commands which could
not be disobeyed. Kermode's companions sympathized with him, and waited
for the inevitable rupture, which they thought would take a dramatic
shape. At length two big steel dump cars were sent up from the east and
run backward and forward between the muskeg and a distant cutting where
they were filled with broken rock. This was deposited in places where the
embankment needed the most reinforcing, but after a while the foreman
decided that the locomotive of the gravel train need not be detained to
move the cars. They could, he said, be pushed by hand, and nobody was
surprised when Kermode was among the men chosen for the task.
Though the nights were getting cold, the days were still very hot, and
those engaged in it found the work of propelling a steel car carrying
about thirty tons of stone over rails laid roughly on a slight upward
grade remarkably arduous. This, however, did not content the foreman. He
took two men away; and when those whom he left had been worked to
exhaustion, he changed them, with the exception of Kermode, who was kept
steadily at the task. As a result, he came to be looked on as leader of
the gang, and his companions took their instructions from him, which the
foreman concurred in, because it enabled him to hold Kermode responsible
for everything that went wrong.
Then the pay car arrived, and when wages were drawn, the men awaited
developments with interest; but nothing unusual occurred until a week had
passed. Kermode had had his hand crushed by a heavy stone and meant to
rest it for a day or two, but his persecutor drove him out to work. He
obeyed with suspicious meekness and toiled in the scorching sun all day;
but a few minutes before the signal to stop in the evening for which they
were eagerly waiting, the gang was ordered to run a loaded dump car to
the end of the line. The men were worn out, short in temper, and dripping
with perspiration. Kermode's hand pained him and in trying to save it he
had strained his shoulder; but he encouraged the others, and they slowly
pushed the load along, moving it a yard or two, and stopping for breath.
The men on the bank were dawdling through the last few minutes, waiting
to lay down their tools, and they offered the gang their sympathy as they
passed. Then there was a change in their attitude as the foreman strode
up the track.
"Shove!" he ordered. "Get a move on! You have to dump that rock before
you quit."
They were ready to turn on him and Kermode's eyes flashed; but he spoke
quietly to his men:
"Push!"
A few more yards were covered, the foreman walking beside the gang until
they stopped for breath.
"Get on!" he cried. "Send her along, you slobs!"
"We're pretty near the top of the grade," Kermode answered him quietly.
"We want to go easy, so as to stop her at the dumping-place."
The line, when finished, would cross the muskeg with a slight ascent; but
the bank sank as they worked at it, and the track now led downhill toward
its end. The foreman failed to remember this in his vicious mood.
"Are you going to call me down?" he roared. "Mean to teach me my job? If
this crowd's a sample of white men, give me Chinamen or niggers! Get on
before you make me sick, you slouching hogs!"
He became more insulting, using terms unbearable even in a construction
camp, but Kermode did not answer him.
"Keep her going, boys," he said.
They made another few yards, gasping, panting, with dripping faces; and
then the work grew easier as they crossed the top of the ascent.
"Push!" said Kermode. "Send her along!"
They looked at him in surprise. It was getting dark, but they could still
see his face, which was quietly resolute; he evidently meant what he
said, and they obeyed him. The big car began to move more freely, and
they waited for an order to slacken the pace; but their leader seemed to
be increasing his exertions and his eyes gleamed.
"He told us to push, boys!" he reminded them. "Rush her ahead!"
Then comprehension dawned on them. The foreman had dropped behind,
satisfied, perhaps, with bullying them, but every man taxed his tired
muscles for a last effort. The wheels turned faster, the men broke into a
run, and none of them was astonished when a warning cry rose behind them.
"Go on!" shouted Kermode. "He'll hold me responsible! You know what to
do!"
Men along the line called to them as they passed, and they answered with
a breathless yell. The car was gathering speed, and they kept it going.
There were further warnings, but they held on, until Kermode raised his
voice harshly:
"A good shove, boys, and let her go!"
They stopped, exhausted, but the dump rolled on with its heavy load of
rock, struck the guard-beams at the end of the track and smashed through
them. Then with a crash and a roar the big steel car plunged down the
slope, plowing up the gravel, hurling out massive stones. A cloud of dust
leaped about it; there was a shrill ringing sound as an axle broke, a
last downward leap, and with a mighty splash the dump came to rest, half
buried, in the muskeg.
Kermode turned with a cheerful smile as the foreman ran up; and the
spectators knew that the time for words had passed. Nobody could remember
who struck the first blow, but Kermode's left hand was injured, and he
clinched as soon as he could. For a few minutes the men reeled about the
track; and then with a tense effort Kermode pushed the foreman off the
bank and went down with him. The gravel was small and slippery, lying at
a steep slope, and they rolled down, still grappling with each other,
until there was a splash below. A few moments later Kermode painfully
climbed the bank alone.
"I guess you had better go down and pull your boss out," he said. "It's
pretty soft in the muskeg; I believe he got his head in, and by the way
he's floundering it looks as if he couldn't see." He paused and waved his
hand in genial farewell. "Good-night, boys! I'm sorry I have to leave
you; but considering everything, I think I'll take the trail."
Then he turned and moved down the track, vanishing into the growing
darkness.
* * * * *
When the tale was finished, Prescott sat a while, smoking thoughtfully.
He imagined that he had struck Jernyngham's trail; all that he had heard
was characteristic of the man.
"Do you know where Kermode went?" he asked.
"No. Guess he might have headed for a camp farther west; I've heard
they're short of men."
Prescott thought this probable and determined to resume his search in the
morning. Presently the gravel train came back and the stream of light
from the head-lamp, blazing along the embankment, rested on the
half-buried dump. Then there was a roar as the plow flung the load off
the cars, and in the silence that followed one of the men got up.
"Morning will come soon enough; I guess it's time for sleep," he said.