fast through service is either practicable or profitable over the
extension; and when it comes to that, we shall still have the short line
from Denver to Green Butte by forty-two miles. But I explained all this
at the time, Mr. Colbrith, and I understood that I had the executive
committee's approval of the changed route."
"Qualifiedly, Mr. Ford; only qualifiedly. Yet you have gone ahead in
your usual impetuous way, abandoning the short line through the canyon
and building the detour. Your motive for haste must have been a very
strong one--very strong."
"It was. I am not here to kill time."
"So it appears. But I am here, Mr. Ford, to consider carefully, and to
investigate. We shall go first over this route you have abandoned. I
wish to see for myself the difficulties you have so painstakingly
described."
Ford shrugged.
"I'm quite at your service, of course. But you will find it a hard trip.
Indeed, if we drive, we shall have to cross the river and take the other
side. The canyon on this side is impassable in places for a man on
foot."
"I provided for that," said the president, letting his ferrety eyes rest
for a moment upon the reluctant one. "You will find two buckboards with
their drivers at the MacMorrogh headquarters. Be good enough to order
them around, and we'll start at once. No; no protests, Mr. Ford. My
responsibilities are not to be shirked. Penfield will drive with me, and
you may take Mr. Frisbie with you, if you see fit. I understand he is
implicated with you in this matter."
Ford bridled angrily at the word.
"There is no implication about it, Mr. Colbrith. You continually refer
to it as if it were a crime."
"Ah! the word is yours, Mr. Ford. We shall see--we shall see. That is
all, for the present."
Ford was raging when he found Frisbie and gave the order for the
vehicles.
"He turned me out of his office state-room as if I had been a messenger
boy or tramp! Get those teams out, Dick, and give me a chance to cool
down. If my job is to last through this day--"
Frisbie laughed. "Go and dip your head in the Pannikin while you wait.
Or, better still, chew on this. It's a cipher message that Durgin has
just been sending for Penfield to Vice-President North. Wouldn't that
make you weep and howl?"
Ford was still puzzling over the meaningless code words when he took his
seat in the second of the two buckboards with Frisbie. The first
assistant waited until the horses had splashed through the shallows of
the river crossing; waited further until the president's vehicle had
gained a little start. Then he said: "Is it possible that you had
Penfield for a spy on you as long as you did without working out his
cipher code? Good Lord! I got that down before I did anything else--last
spring when you left me to run the Plug Mountain. Here's what he says to
North"--taking the code message and translating: "Ford suspects
something. Don't know how much. He and Miss Adair are putting their
heads together. She has authority of some kind from her brother.
President goes with Ford to examine abandoned route, as arranged. Will
wire result later.'"
"'As arranged,'" was Ford's wrathful comment.
"Apparently, everything is arranged for us. Some day, Dick, I'll lose my
temper, tie Penfield in a hard knot and throw him into the river! It's
like a chapter out of Lucretia Borgia!"
XIX
THE RELUCTANT WHEELS
It was possibly an hour after Penfield's cipher message reached the
Southwestern Pacific headquarters in the Colorado capital, when a
fair-haired young man in London-cut clothes, and with a tourist's quota
of hand-luggage, crossed the Denver Union Station platform from the
Pullman of a belated Chicago train.
Ascertaining from a gateman that the Plug Mountain day train had long
since gone on its way up the canyon, the young man left his many
belongings at the check-stand and had himself driven up-town to the
Guaranty Building. It was Eckstein who took his card in Mr. North's
outer office. The private secretary was dictating to a stenographer, and
was impatient of the interruption. But the name on the card wrought a
miracle.
"Mr. North? Why, surely, Mr. Adair. He is always at liberty for you.
Right through this way"--holding the gate in the counter railing at its
widest--"we're mighty glad to see you in Denver, always."
Adair had acquired the monocle habit on his latest run across the
Atlantic, and to keep in practice he gave the secretary the coldest of
stares through the disconcerting glass. "Really! I'm quite delighted.
Who is the other member of the 'we,' Mr.--er--er--"
"Eckstein," prompted the secretary; but he said no more, being prudently
anxious to be quit of the transfixing stare before a worse thing should
befall.
In the inner room the vice-president was less effusive, but no less
cordial. It was a rare thing to see one of the company's directors in
the Denver business offices. Mr. North was of the opinion that it would
be a good investment of time and effort for all concerned if the members
of the board used their privilege oftener. So on through half a dozen
polite time-killers to the reluctant query: What could the general
manager do for Mr. Adair?
Given leave to speak, Adair stated his needs succinctly. He wanted a
special train to Saint's Rest; he wanted it suddenly, and he asked that
it be given the right of the road.
"My dear sir!" protested the vice-president, "you mustn't ask
impossibilities! You shall have the train at once, of course: you shall
have my private car. But when it comes to the right of way, you'll have
to appeal to Mr. Ford. Why, he doesn't scruple to lay out the United
States mails for his material trains!"
"Um," said Adair. "Where can I reach Ford?"
Mr. North did not equivocate; he never lied when the truth would answer
the purpose equally well.
"He is out on the extension; or more correctly speaking, somewhere
beyond the present end of the construction telegraph line. I'm afraid
you couldn't reach him by wire."
"And the president?" queried the visitor.
"Mr. Colbrith's car is at the end-of-track. You wished to join the party
in the Nadia?"
"That is what I had in mind," said Adair, not too anxiously.
Mr. North shook his head.
"I don't think you'd enjoy the run over the construction track. Mr.
Colbrith went over it last night because--well, because he believes it
to be a presidential duty to inspect everything. If you leave to-day,
you will probably meet the Nadia coming out--possibly at Saint's Rest."
Adair suddenly became wary.
"Perhaps that would be the easy thing to do," he said. "I suppose the
engineers at Saint's Rest could put me up if I have to stay over night?"
"You needn't ask them. You will have my car--with the best cook this
side of Louisiana. Keep it, live in it, till Mr. Colbrith picks you up
on his return."
"All right. But you'll give me the special. And let it make as good
time as it can, Mr. North; I'm fierce when I have to ride a slow train."
The vice-president's promise was freely given; and to expedite matters,
the division superintendent's chief clerk went down to the station with
Adair to see the special train properly equipped and started on the
mountain-climbing run. Adair left the details to this orderly from the
general offices; not knowing how to compass them himself, he had to. If
he could have seen the broad grins on the faces of his train crew when
Dobson, the clerk, gave them the despatcher's order--but at that moment
he was lounging in Mr. North's easiest chair in the central compartment
of the "01," reading for the twentieth time a crease-worn telegram.
The telegram was from Alicia, and it was dated at Denver, three days
gone. It was not very explicit; on the contrary, it was rather
incoherent.
"You would better come on as fast as you can if you want to save
your friend's life. He has been tried and found guilty--of just
what, I don't know--and will be hanged pretty soon--within a few
days, I think."
"Now that's a nice way to stir a fellow up, isn't it?" soliloquized the
pleasure-lover. "Just as I was getting ready to go up to Mount Ptarmigan
for the shooting. She knew that, too. I'll bet a picayune it's just a
girl's scare. Ford's plenty good and able to take care of himself."
That was Mr. Charles Edward Adair's care-free phrasing of it; but three
hours later, when the cook of the "01" served him the most appetizing of
luncheons in the big open compartment, and the steeply pitched walls of
the lower Blue Canyon were still stinting the outlook from the car
windows, he began to grow impatient.
"Whereabouts are we now, Johnson?" he asked of the cook's second man.
"Between Cutcliff and No-Horse; yes, sah. 'Bout forty mile from Denver."
"Great Scott! Fifteen miles an hour? Say, Johnson, what do you do when
you want 'em to run faster--pull this string?"
"Yes, sah; dat's it," grinned the negro.
Adair pulled the air-cord, and it brought results--of a kind. Only the
train came to a sudden stop, instead of going ahead faster; and
Conductor Barclay, who had been riding on the engine, came back to see
what had happened.
"Did you stop us, Mr. Adair?" he asked pleasantly.
"Not meaning to, you may be sure," said Adair. "But now you're here,
I'll ask if there is any objection to my getting off and walking. I
could stop and rest and let you overtake me now and then, you know."
The conductor tweaked the air-cord and the train moved on again.
"I've been expecting you'd shout at us," he said good-naturedly. "But
we're doing the best we can. There's a freight wreck on ahead, and we've
been dallying along, hoping they'd get it picked up by the time we reach
it. I thought you'd rather keep moving than to be hung up for three or
four hours at the wreck."
Adair saw his helplessness and made the best of it. He was in Mr.
North's hands, and if Mr. North was playing for delay, the delay would
be forthcoming. None the less, he contrived to make Barclay
uncomfortable.
"I'm only a director in the Pacific Southwestern, and I suppose
directors don't count," he said nonchalantly. "Yet, I presume, if I
should ask it as a personal favor, I might get a conductor's or an
engineer's head to take home with me for a souvenir. How would that be?
Do you think I could make it win?"
"You could do it, hands down, Mr. Adair. But I hope you won't feel as if
you'd got to go into the head-hunting business. It's like the boy
throwing stones into the pond; it's fun for the kid, but sort o' hard on
the toad-frogs."
Adair laughed. He was not one of those who find it easy to bear malice.
"You don't talk half as bad as you act," he said genially. "Down at
bottom I dare say you're a pretty good kind of a fellow. Had anything to
eat?"
Barclay shook his head. "No; we was laying off to get coffee and sinkers
at Clapp's Mine, if we ever get there."
"'Coffee and sinkers'," said Adair. "That doesn't sound very uplifting.
Sit down here and help me out with my contract."
Barclay did it, rather unwillingly. He was not accustomed to eating at
the vice-president's table, but there was no resisting the curly-headed
young man when he chose to make himself companionable. Barclay sat on
the edge of his chair, ate with his knife or fork indifferently, and had
small use for the extra spoons and cutlery. But he made a meal to be
remembered. Afterward, the young man found a cigar-case, and his own box
of Turkish cigarettes; and still the special was going at the same slow
cow-gallop up the canyon.
"How many are there of you up ahead?" asked Adair, when Barclay's cigar
was going like a factory chimney.
"Only Williams and his fireman."
"Dinner-buckets?"
"No; neither one of 'em, as it happens. Hurry call to go out with you,
and both of 'em live too far to go home after the grub-cans."
"Johnson," said the dispenser of hospitality, calling the second man.
"Think you could climb over the coal with some dinner for the enginemen?
No? Let me make it possible"--flipping a dollar into the ready palm.
"Tell the cook it's an order, and if he stints it there'll be
consequences."
Barclay grinned his appreciation. The curly-headed young man was far
enough removed from any species of railway official hitherto known to
the conductor. But Adair was only paving the way.
"Do you know," he said, after a little interval of tobacco-charmed
silence, "one of the things I am most anxious to see is a real railroad
wreck. Suppose you quicken up a little and let us have our dead time at
the scene of this disaster you speak of."
Barclay was tilting uneasily in his chair.
"I reckon they've about got it picked up and cleaned out o' the way by
this time, Mr. Adair. I shouldn't be surprised if we could hardly find
the place when we get there."
"Nor I," said Adair; and he sat back and chuckled. "It's considerably
difficult to sit up and pull your imagination on a man who has been
decently good to you, isn't it, Barclay? Let me ask you: are you Mr.
North's man?"
"Mr. North is the big boss."
"But this Plug Mountain division is a part of Mr. Ford's line, isn't
it?"
"It used to be all his. There's a white man for you, Mr. Adair."
Adair saw his opportunity and used it.
"Now see here, Barclay; I'm only a director, and I don't cut much ice
out this way. But back in New York I'm one of three or four people who
can tell Mr. North what he can do, and what he can't. You wouldn't want
to see Mr. Ford getting it in the neck, would you?"
"By Jacks! There ain't a man in the service that wouldn't fight for him.
I tell you, he's _white_."
"Well, Mr. Ford is in trouble: I don't know but he is likely to lose his
job, if I don't see the president before the big ax comes down. That is
between us two."
The conductor sprang out of his chair.
"By gravy! Why didn't you say that at first? Say, Mr. Adair, you stand
between us and Mr. North--tell him you gave the orders yourself--and
you'll have the ride of your life from here to Saint's Rest!"
"Go it," said Adair; and two minutes after Barclay had let himself out
of the forward door of the "01," the train took a sudden start and
darted ahead at full speed.
This bit of diplomacy on the part of Adair saved two full hours in the
run to Saint's Rest. Nevertheless, it was after dark when the "01"
pulled into the crowded material yard in the high mountain basin and
Leckhard came aboard to find out what had brought this second
private-car visitation. He was relieved not to meet North--to be
confronted only by a pleasant-faced young man who seemed to have the car
all to himself.
"My name is Leckhard," announced the man-of-all-work, "and I represent
the engineering department. I saw it was Mr. North's car, and--"
"And you came to see what you could do for the vice-president and
general manager," Adair finished for him. "Mighty sorry to disappoint
you, Mr. Leckhard, but my name isn't North; it's Adair, and I'm only a
director. How much authority is a director allowed--at this altitude and
distance from New York?"
Leckhard laughed.
"I reckon you might call yourself the ranking officer in the field, Mr.
Adair. What you say, goes."
"Then I say 'go'; which means that I'd like to go--on to the end of the
extension."
But now the engineer was shaking his head.
"Ask me anything but that, Mr. Adair. None of our enginemen is at this
end of the line, and your man Williams, who brought you up from Denver,
doesn't know the way. More than that, if we had a man and an engine, I'd
be afraid to send you out for a night run. Mr. Ford made it last night
with Mr. Colbrith's car, and they used up ten hours in covering less
than a hundred and twenty miles, and came within six feet of killing
everybody."
Adair had lighted a cigarette, and he did not reply until the match
flare had gone out. Then he said, in a way that made Leckhard his friend
for life:
"I'm entirely in your hands, Mr. Leckhard; can't turn a wheel unless you
say so. And I believe you're telling me the truth, as man to man. Can
you reach Ford or Mr. Colbrith by wire?"
"I'm sorry to say I can't. We have only the one wire, and it's on
temporary poles most of the way. It broke down on us this morning, and I
can't raise the end-of-track."
"Block number two," said Adair cheerfully. "We seem to be out of luck
this evening." Then, with searching abruptness: "Do you call yourself
Ford's friend, Mr. Leckhard?"
"Rather," said the Saint's Rest Pooh Bah. "He hired me; and when he
goes, I go."
"Ah! now we are warming ourselves at the same fire. Let me invite your
confidence in one word, Mr. Leckhard. I dislike Mr. North."
The burly engineer laughed again.
"You have a geniusful way of putting your finger on the sore spot
without fumbling. We all dislike Mr. North at this end of things--with
reason."
"And that reason is?"
"That he'd fire the entire engineering department if he could find half
an excuse. I'm afraid he's going to do it, too, in the most effectual
way--by forcing Mr. Ford out. If Ford goes, every man in the department
will quit with him. I'm afraid it's coming to that."
Johnson, the porter, had lighted the Pintsch globes and was laying the
covers for dinner.
"Make it two, Johnson," said Adair; and, then to Leckhard: "You dine
with me--don't say no; I couldn't stand it alone." And when that point
was settled: "Now, sit down till we thresh, this out a bit finer. How
far has this forcing business gone? You're talking to the man who has
backed Ford from the first."
"It has gone pretty far. North has obstructed, quietly but persistently,
ever since the first blow was struck on the extension. He has delayed
material, when he could do it unofficially, he scants us for rolling
stock and motive power, he stands in with the MacMorroghs and backs them
against Ford every time there is a dispute. Ford is a patient man, Mr.
Adair, but I think he has about reached the limit."
"H'm. Do you attach any particular importance to the president's trip
over the extension?"
Leckhard shook his head. "I'm only a passenger--I see what goes by the
car-windows. Mr. Colbrith was dead set on pushing over to the
end-of-track--wouldn't even wait for daylight. You probably know him
better than I do--"
"He is my uncle," Adair cut in.
"Oh; then I can't tell you anything about him. He was hot at Ford last
night; what for I don't know, unless it was because Ford opposed a night
run over a raw construction track with the Nadia. He was right about
that, though. If I had been in his place I would have thrown up my job
before I would have taken the risk."
Adair appeared to be considering something, and when he had thought it
out, the porter had announced dinner and they had taken their places at
the table.
"I have told you I am Ford's friend, Mr. Leckhard; I have ridden a
couple of thousand miles out of my way to give him a lift. Tell me
frankly; have you any reason to believe it will come to blows between
him and the president while they are together at the front?--Try this
celery; it's as good as you'd get at Sherry's."
Leckhard helped himself to the relish, and waited until the negro,
Johnson, had gone back to the cook's galley.
"The little I know comes in a roundabout way," he replied slowly.
"Penfield, who is known all over the Southwestern as Mr. North's private
detective and spy, is with Mr. Colbrith acting as the president's
secretary. Yesterday, while the Nadia was side-tracked here, Penfield
had a lot of telegraphing to do for Mr. Colbrith. He did it
himself--he's a lightning operator, among other things--and I happened
into the office just as he was finishing. His final message was a
cipher, to Mr. North, and he signed it with his own name."
"Well?" said Adair.
Again the engineer waited until the negro was out of hearing.
"A little later, just as the Nadia was about to pull out, there came a
rush call from Denver for Penfield. I answered and said the car was on
the point of leaving, but that I'd take the message and try to catch
Penfield if I could. It came, on the run, and it was signed by Eckstein,
North's chief clerk. It wasn't ciphered--lack of time, I reckon--and
Eckstein took the chance that I wouldn't catch on."
"You kept a copy?" suggested Adair.
"I did. I wasn't able to deliver the original until the Nadia came back
from the foot of the pass in the evening to fill the engine tank. But I
couldn't make anything out of it. It was an order to Penfield not to let
anything interfere with the president's buckboard trip--whatever that
might be--with authority to incur any expense that might be necessary,
using the telegram as his credential with the MacMorrogh Brothers if
more money were needed."
"To pay for the buckboards?" asked Adair.
"You may search me," said Leckhard. "Only it could hardly be that--we
have an open account at the Bank of Copah for legitimate expenses. No;
there's a nigger in the woodpile, somewhere. Penfield is only a clerk;
but for some purpose he is given _carte blanche_ to spend money."
Adair was absently stirring his black coffee.
"All of which points to one conclusion, Mr. Leckhard. They are plotting
against Ford--without the president's connivance. But the president is
going to be made to swing the club. I know rather more than you do about
it--which isn't saying very much. My--a relative of mine who is with
the party in the Nadia wired me three days ago from Denver that Ford had
been tried and condemned, and was only waiting to be hanged. That's why
I am here to-night. You've got to get me to the end-of-track before it
comes to blows between Mr. Colbrith and Stuart Ford. I know both men,
Mr. Leckhard. If the iron comes to a certain heat, the past master of
all the peacemakers won't be able to patch things together."
"Ford will resign," said the engineer.
"That is what I'm afraid of; and we can't let him resign. That would
mean Mr. North for everything in sight, and the ultimate ruin of the
Pacific Southwestern. On the other hand, I can't have Ford fighting the
family--or my uncle--which is just what he will do if he gets his blood
up--and doesn't quit in a huff. It's up to you to trundle this car over
to the seat of war, Mr. Leckhard."
The division engineer was thinking hard.
"I can't see how it's to be done, right now, Mr. Adair. But I'll tell
you what I will do. Our empty material trains come back from the front
in the night, as a rule. When they get in, and I can be sure that the
track's clear, I'll double one of the construction engines out with you.
It will be along toward morning, I'm afraid; but, with nothing in the
way, you ought to make the run in four or five hours--say by late
breakfast time."
That was the way it was left when Leckhard went back to his telegraph
den at ten o'clock; and some six hours later, Adair, sleepily conscious
of disturbances, wakened sufficiently to hear the wheels once more
trundling monotonously under the "01."
XX
THE CONSPIRATORS
"How far do we go, and what do we do when we get there?" asked Frisbie
of his chief, when the two buckboards, heaving and lurching over the
rock-strewn talus at the foot of the canyon cliff, had passed beyond
sight and sound of the headquarters camp at the mouth of Horse Creek.
"I'm not guessing any more," said Ford crustily. He was finding that his
temper deteriorated as the square of his distance from Alicia Adair
increased. "The president said he wanted to drive over this short-cut,
and he's doing it."
"Humph!" growled Frisbie. "If he wanted to rub salt into your bruises,
why didn't he take you in the cart with him? And where do _I_ come in?"
"You are 'implicated' with me; that was his word."
Another mile passed in discomforting plungings. The trail had become all
but impassable for the staggering horses; yet the leading buckboard held
on doggedly. There were places where both drivers had to get out and
lead; bad bits where all save the president descended to walk. But
through the worst as well as the best, Mr. Colbrith clung to his seat
like a man determined to ride. It was well past noon when the two
vehicles reached the western portal of the canyon, and the dottings of
the Copah mine workings came in sight on the hillsides to the southward.
Ford's driver had fallen a little behind in the final half-mile, and
when the gap was closed up, the president was waiting.
"Well, Mr. Ford," he began, somewhat breathless but triumphant, "are you
fully satisfied?"
"I have learned nothing that I did not know before we began to build the
extension," was the non-committal rejoinder.