The incident of the frustrated safe robbery was an incident closed, so
far as any difference in Dorgan's attitude toward me was concerned, at
the moment when he disappeared through the open window of the
pay-office. For the next two or three weeks I saw him only as he
chanced to drop into the commissary of an evening; and upon such
occasions he ignored me absolutely.
Only once more while the work of branch-line building continued did we
have speech together. It was in the evening of a day when the new
line, then nearly completed, had been honored with visitors; a car-load
of them up from Denver in some railway official's private
hotel-on-wheels. It so happened that my duties had taken me up to the
actual end-of-track--by this time some miles beyond our headquarters
camp at Flume Gulch--and I was there when the special, with its
observation platform crowded with sightseers, came surging and
staggering up over the uneven track of the new line.
I paid little attention to the one-car train as it passed me, save to
note that there were women among the railroad official's guests. The
sightseers were quite outside of my purview--or within it only as
temporary hindrances to a job we were all pushing at top speed. A
short distance beyond me the train came to a stand in the midst of
Dorgan's crew and I saw some of the people getting off the car. Just
then a construction engine came along on the siding, and, my errand to
the front being accomplished, I flagged it and went back to
headquarters.
As I have said, Dorgan dropped into the commissary that evening. His
ostensible errand was to buy some tobacco, but after he had filled his
pipe he lingered until the sleepy commissary clerk began to turn the
loiterers out preparatory to closing the place for the night. It was
then that Dorgan gave me a sign which I rightly interpreted; when I
released the catch of the pay-office door he slipped in and sat down on
the cot where he would be out of sight of those in front. Here he
smoked in sober silence until Crawford, the commissary man, had gone
out and locked the door on the empty storeroom.
"I was wantin' to tip yez off," was the way he began, after we had the
needful privacy. "You'd be after seein' that kid-glove gang up at the
front this mornin'?"