JACK FLAGG SEES STARS
It was a month later, on a Tuesday night, and the engineers were
sitting about the table in the office tent. Scribner, the last to
arrive, had ridden in after dusk from mile fourteen.
For two weeks the work had dragged. Peet, back at Sherman, had been
more liberal of excuses than of materials. It was always the mills
back in Pennsylvania, or slow business on connecting lines, or the car
famine. And it was not unnatural that the name of the superintendent
should have come to stand at the front for certain very unpopular
qualities. Carhart had faith in Tiffany, but the railroad’s chief
engineer was one man in a discordant organization. Railroad systems
are not made in a day, and the S. & W. was new, showing square
corners where all should be polished round; developing friction
between departments, and bad blood between overworked men. Thus it had
been finally brought home to Paul Carhart that in order to carry his
work through he must fight, not only time and the elements, but also
the company in whose interest he was working.
Lately the office had received a few unmistakably vigorous messages
from Carhart. Tiffany, too, had taken a hand, and had opened his mind
to the Vice-president. The Vice-president had in turn talked with
Peet, who explained that the materials were always sent forward as
rapidly as possible, and added that certain delays had arisen from the
extremely dangerous condition of Carhart’s road-bed. Meantime, not
only rails and ties, but also food and water, were running short out
there at the end of the track.
“What does he say now, Paul?” asked Old Van, after a long silence,
during which these bronzed, dusty men sat looking at the flickering
lamp or at the heaps of papers, books, and maps which covered the
table.
Carhart drew a crumpled slip of paper from his pocket and tossed it
across the table. Old Van spread it out, and read as follows:--
MR. PAUL CARHART: Small delay due to shortage of equipment.
Supply train started this morning, however. Regret
inconvenience, as by order of Vice-president every effort is
being made to supply you regularly.
L. W. PEET,
_Division Superintendent_.
“Interesting, isn’t it!” said Carhart. “You notice he doesn’t say how
long the train has been on the way. It may not get here for thirty-six
hours yet.”
“Suppose it doesn’t,” put in Scribner, “what are we going to do with
the men?”
“Keep them all grading,” said Carhart.
“But--”
“Well, what is it? This is a council of war--speak out.”
“Just this. Scraping and digging is thirsty work in this sun, and we
haven’t water enough for another half day.”
“Young Van is due with water.”
“Yes, he is due, Mr. Carhart, but you told him not to come back
without it, and he won’t.”
“Listen!” Outside, in the night, voices sounded, and the creaking of
wagons.
“Here he is now,” said Carhart.
Into the dim light before the open tent stepped a gray figure. His
face was thin and drawn; his hair, of the same dust color as his
clothing, straggled down over his forehead below his broad hat. He
nodded at the waiting group, threw off his hat, unslung his army
canteen, and sank down exhausted on the first cot.
Old Van, himself seasoned timber and unable to recognize the
limitations of the human frame, spoke impatiently, “Well, Gus, how
much did you get?”
“Fourteen barrels.”
“Fourteen barrels!” The other men exchanged glances.
“Why--why--” sputtered the elder brother, “that’s not enough for the
engines!”
“It’s all we can get.”
“Why didn’t you look farther?”
“You’d better look at the mules,” Young Van replied simply enough. “I
had to drive them”--he fumbled at his watch--“an even eighteen hours
to get back to-night.” And he added in a whimsical manner that was
strange to him, “I paid two dollars a barrel, too.”
Carhart was watching him closely. “Did you have any trouble with your
men, Gus?” he asked.
Young Van nodded. “A little.”
After a moment, during which his eyes were closed and his muscles
relaxed, he gathered his faculties, lighted a cigarette, and rose.
“Hold on, Gus,” said Carhart. “What are you going to do?”
“Bring the barrels up by our tent here. It isn’t safe to leave them on
the wagons. The men--some of them--aren’t standing it well. Some are
‘most crazy.” He interrupted himself with a short laugh. “Hanged if I
blame them!”
“You’d better go to bed, Gus,” said the chief. “I’ll look after the
water.”
But Young Van broke away from the restraining hand and went out.
Half a hundred laborers were grouped around the water wagons in
oppressive silence. Vandervelt hardly gave them a glance.
“Dimond,” he called, “where are you?”
A man came sullenly out of the shadows.
“Take a hand here--roll these barrels in by Mr. Carhart’s tent.” A
murmur spread through the group. More men were crowding up behind. But
the engineer gave his orders incisively, in a voice that offered no
encouragement to insubordination. “You two, there, go over to
the train and fetch some skids. I want a dozen men to help
Dimond--you--you--” Rapidly he told them off. “The rest of you get
away from here--quick.”
“What you goin’ to do with that water?” The voice rose from the thick
of the crowd. It drew neither explanation nor reproof from Young Van;
but his manner, as he turned his back and, pausing only to light
another cigarette, went rapidly to work, discouraged the laborers, and
in groups of two and three they drifted off to their quarters.
The men worked rapidly, for Mr. Carhart’s assistant had a way of
taking hold himself, lending a hand here or a shoulder there, and
giving low, sharp orders which the stupidest men understood. As they
rolled the barrels along the sides of the tent and stood them on end
between the guy ropes Paul Carhart stood by, a rolled-up map in his
hand, and watched his assistant. He took it all in--the cowed, angry
silence of the men, the unfailing authority of the young engineer. No
one felt the situation more keenly than Carhart, but he had set his
worries aside for the moment to observe the methods of the younger
man. Once he caught himself nodding with approval. And then, when he
was about to turn away and resume his study at the table beneath the
lantern, an odd scene took place. The work was done. Vandervelt stood
wiping his forehead with a handkerchief which had darkened from white
to rich gray. The laborers had gone; but Dimond remained.
“That’s all, Dimond,” said Vandervelt.
But the man lingered.
“Well, what do you want?”
“It’s about this water. The boys want to know if they ain’t to have a
drink.”
“No; no more to-night,” replied Young Van.
“But--but--” Dimond hesitated.
“Wait a minute,” said Van abruptly. He entered the tent, found his
canteen where he had dropped it, brought it out, and handed it to
Dimond.
“This is my canteen. It’s all I have a right to give anybody. Now,
shut up and get out.”
Dimond hesitated, then swung the canteen over his shoulder and
disappeared without a word.
“Gus,” said Paul Carhart, quietly.
“Oh! I didn’t see you there.”
“Wasn’t that something of a gallery play?”
“No, I don’t think it was. It will show them that we are dealing
squarely with them. I had a deuce of a time on the ride, and Dimond
really tried, I think, to keep the men within bounds. They are
children, you know,--children with whiskey throats added,--and they
can’t stand it as we can.”
“Gus,” said the chief, taking the boy’s arm and drawing him toward the
tent, “it’s time you got to sleep. I shall need you to-morrow.”
The other engineers were still sitting about the table, talking in low
tones. Carhart rejoined them. Young Van dropped on a cot in the rear
and fell asleep with his boots on.
“Old Van is telling how the pay-slips came in to-day,” said Scribner.
Carhart nodded. “Go ahead.” He had found the laborers, headed by the
Mexicans, so impossibly deliberate in their work that he had
planned out a system of paying by the piece. When the locomotive
whistle blew at night, each man was handed a slip stating the amount
due him. At the end of the week the slips were to be cashed, and
to-day the first payment had been made. “Go ahead,” he repeated. “How
much did it cost us?”
[Illustration: “‘It’s all I have a right to give anybody.’”]
“About seventy-five dollars more than last week,” replied Old Van. “So
that, on the whole, we got a little more work out of them. But here’s
what happened. When the whistle blew and I got out my satchel, nobody
came. I called to a couple of them to hurry up if they wanted their
pay, but they shook their heads. Finally, just two men came up and
handed in all the slips.”
“Two men!” exclaimed Carhart.
“Yes. One was the cook, Jack Flagg. He had fully two-thirds of the
slips. The other was his assistant, the one they call Charlie. He had
the rest. I called some of the laborers up and asked what it meant,
but they said it was all right that way.”
“So you gave them the whole pay-roll?”
“Every cent.”
Carhart frowned. “That won’t do,” he said. “A man who can clean out
the camp in less than a week will breed more trouble than a water
famine.”
There was little more to be said, and soon the council came to a
close. Scribner went promptly to sleep. Young Van awoke, and with a
mumbled “good night” staggered across after Scribner, to his sleeping
tent. And then, for an hour, Paul Carhart sat alone, his elbows on the
table, a profile of the line spread out before him. Outside, in the
night, something stirred. He extinguished his lamp and listened.
Cautious steps were approaching behind the cluster of tents. A moment
more and he heard a man stumble over a peg and swear aloud.
Carhart stepped out at the rear of the tent and stood waiting. Four or
five shadowy figures slipped into view, caught sight of him, and
paused. While they stood huddled together he made out a pair of broad
shoulders towering above the group. There was only one such pair in
the camp, and they belonged to the cook, Jack Flagg.
The silence lasted only a moment. Then, without speaking, the men
broke and ran back into the darkness.
Carhart waited until the camp was silent, then he too, went in and to
sleep.
But Young Van, dozing lightly and restlessly, was awakened by the
noise behind the tents. For a few moments he lay still, then he got up
and looked out. Down the knoll he could see a dim light, and after a
little he made it out as coming from the mess tent of the laborers.
Now and then a low murmur of voices floated up through the desert
stillness.
Young Van folded up the legs of his cot, carried it out, laid it
across two of the water barrels, and went to sleep there in the open
air.
An hour later the mess tent was still lighted. Within, seated on
blocks of timber around a cracker-box, four men were playing poker;
and pressing about them was a score of laborers--all, in fact, who
could crowd into the tent. The air was foul with cheap tobacco and
with the hundred odors that cling to working clothes. The eyes of the
twenty or more men were fixed feverishly on the greasy cards, and on
the heaps of the day’s pay-slips. By a simple process of elimination
the ownership of these slips had been narrowed down to the present
players--Jack Flagg, his assistant Charlie, Dimond, and a Mexican. The
silence carried a sense of strain. The occasional coarse jokes and
boisterous laughter died down with strange suddenness.
“It’s no use,” said Flagg, finally, tossing the cards on the box;
“they’re against us.”
The Mexican rose at this, and sullenly left the tent. Dimond, with a
conscious laugh, gathered in two-thirds of the slips and pocketed
them. It was an achievement to clean out Jack Flagg. The remaining
third went to Charlie.
Flagg leaned back, clasped his great knotted hands about one knee, and
looked across at Dimond. Six feet and a third tall in his socks, hard
as steel rails, he could have lifted any two of the laborers about him
clear of the ground, one in each hand. The lower part of his face was
half covered with his long, ill-kept mustache and the tuft of hair
beneath his under lip. The blue shirt he wore had unmistakably come
from a military source, but not a man there, not even Charlie--himself
nearly a match for his chief in height and breadth--would have dared
ask when he had been in the army, nor why or how he had come to leave
it.
“Dimond,” said Flagg, “let me have one of those slips a minute.”
The nervous light left Dimond’s eyes. He threw a suspicious glance
across the box; then, after a moment, he complied.
Flagg held the slip near the lantern and examined it.
“Eighty cents,” he muttered, “eighty cents--and for how much work?”
“Half a day,” a laborer replied.
“Half a day’s work, and the poor devil gets eighty cents for it!”
“He gets eighty cents! He gets nothing, you’d better say. Dimond,
there, is the man that gets it.”
“That’s no matter. He lost it in fair play. But look at it--look at
it!” The giant cook contemptuously turned the slip over in his hand.
“That devil hounds you like niggers for five hours in the hot sun--he
drives you near crazy with thirst--and then he hands you out this
pretty piece of paper with ‘eighty cents’ wrote on it.”
“That’s a dollar-sixty a day. We was only getting one-fifty the old
way--on time.”
“You was only getting one-fifty, was you?” There was infinite scorn in
Flagg’s voice; his masterly eye swept the group. “You was getting
one-fifty, and now you’re thankful to get ten cents more. Do you know
what you are? You’re a pack of fools--that’s what you are!”
[Illustration: “‘Eighty cents,’ he muttered, ‘and for how much
work?’”]
“But look here, Jack, what can we do?”
“What can you do?” Flagg paused, glanced at his vis-à-vis. From the
expression of dawning intelligence on Dimond’s face it was plain that
he was waking to the suggestion. The slips that he had won to-night
were worth four hundred dollars to Dimond. Why should not these same
bits of paper fetch five hundred or six hundred?
“What can you do?” Flagg repeated. “Oh, but you boys make me weary. It
ain’t any of my business. I ain’t a laborer, and what I do gets well
paid for. But when I look around at you poor fools, I can’t sit still
here and let you go on like this. You ask me what you can do? Well,
now, suppose we think it over a little. Here you are, four hundred of
you. This man Carhart offers you one-fifty a day to come out here into
the desert and dig your own graves. Why did he set that price on your
lives? Because he knew you for the fools you are. Do you think for a
minute he could get laborers up there in Chicago, where he comes from,
for one-fifty? Not a bit of it! Do you think he could get men in
Pennsylvania, in New York State, for one-fifty? Not a bit of it! If he
was building this line in New York State, he’d be paying you two
dollars, two-fifty, maybe three. And he’d be glad to get you at the
price. And he’d meet your representative like a gentleman, and step
around lively and walk Spanish for you, if you so much as winked.”
Dimond’s eyes were flashing with excitement, though he kept them
lowered to the cards. His face was flushed. Flagg saw that the seed he
had planted was growing, and he swept on, working up the situation
with considerable art.
“Think it over, boys, think it over. This man Carhart finds he can’t
drive you fast enough at one-fifty, so what does he do? He gets up his
pay-slip scheme so’s you will kill yourselves for the chance of making
ten cents more. And you stand around and let him do it--never a peep
from you! Now, what’s the situation? Here’s this man, five hundred
miles from nowhere; he’s got to rush the job. We know that, don’t we?”
“Yes,” muttered Dimond, with a quick breath, “we know that, all
right.”
“Well, now, what about it?” Flagg looked deliberately about the eager
group. “What about it? There’s the situation. Here he is, and here you
are. He’s in a hurry. If he was to find out, all of a sudden, that he
couldn’t drive you poor devils any farther; if he was to find out that
you had just laid down and said you wouldn’t do another stroke of work
on these terms, what about it? What could he do?” Flagg paused again,
to let the suggestion find its mark.
“But he ain’t worrying any. He knows you for the low-spirited lot you
are. So what does he do? He sends out a bunch of you and makes you
ride three days to get water, and then he stacks the barrels around
his tent, where he and his gang can get all they want, and tells you
to go off and suck your thumbs. Much he cares about you.”
Dimond raised his eyes. “Talk plain, Jack,” he said in a low voice.
“What is it? What’s the game?”
Flagg gave him a pitying glance. “You’re still asking what’s the
game,” he replied, and went on half absently, “Let’s see. How much is
he paying the iron squad--how much was that, now?”
“Two dollars,” cried a voice.
“Two dollars--yes, that was it; that was it. He is paying them two
dollars a day, and he has set them to digging and grading along with
you boys that only gets one-sixty. I happened to notice that to-day,
when I was a-walking up that way. Those iron-squad boys was out with
picks and shovels, a-doing the same work as the rest of you, only they
was doing it for forty cents more. They ain’t common laborers, you
see. There’s a difference. You couldn’t expect them to swing a pick
for one-sixty a day. It would be beneath ’em. They’re sort o’ swells,
you see--”
He paused. There was a long silence.
“Boys,”--it was Dimond speaking,--“boys, Jack Flagg is right. If it
costs Carhart two per for the iron squad, it’s got to cost him the
same for us!”
* * * * *
Carhart was turning the delay to some account by shutting himself up
with his maps and plans and reports and figures. At ten o’clock on the
following morning he heard a step without the tent, and, looking up,
saw Young Vandervelt before him.
“There’s trouble up ahead, Mr. Carhart.”
“What is it?”
“The laborers have quit. They demand an increase of ten per cent in
their pay.”
“All right, let them have it.”
“I’ll tell my brother. He said no, we shouldn’t give in an inch.”
“You tell him I say to let them have what they ask.”
Young Van hurried back with the order. Carhart quietly resumed the
problems before him.
Old Van, when he received the chief’s message, swore roundly.
“What’s Paul thinking of!” he growled. “He ought to know that this is
only the tip of the wedge. They’ll come up another ten per cent before
the week’s out.”
But Old Van failed to do justice to the promptness of Jack Flagg. At
three in the afternoon the demand came; and for the second time that
day the scrapers lay idle, and the mules wagged their ears in lazy
comfort.
“Well!” cried Old Van, sharply. “Well! It’s what I told you, isn’t it!
Now, I suppose you still believe in running to Paul with the story.”
“Yes,” replied the younger brother, firmly, “of course. He’s the
boss.”
“All right, sir! All right, sir!” The veteran engineer turned away in
disgust as his brother started rapidly back to the camp. The
laborers, meanwhile, covered with sweat and dust, tantalized by the
infrequent sips of water doled out to them, lay panting in a long,
irregular line on the newly turned earth.
“Well, Gus,” said Carhart, with a wry smile, at sight of the dusty
figure before the tent, “are they at it again?”
“They certainly are.”
“They don’t mean to lose any time, do they? How much is it now?”
“Ten per cent more. What shall we do?”
“Give it to them.”
“All right.”
“Wait a minute, Gus. Who’s their spokesman?
“Dimond.”
“Dimond?” Carhart frowned. “Nobody else?”
“No; but the cook has been hanging around a good deal and talking with
him.”
“Oh--I see. Well, that’s all. Go ahead; give them what they ask.”
Again the mules were driven at the work. Again--and throughout the
day--the sullen men toiled on under the keen eye of Old Vandervelt. If
he had been a driver before, he was a czar now. If he could not
control the rate of pay, he could at least control the rate of work.
To himself, to the younger engineers, to the men, to the mules, he was
merciless. And foot by foot, rod by rod, the embankment that was to
bear the track crept on into the desert. The sun beat down; the wind,
when there was a wind, was scorching hot; but Old Van gave no heed.
Now and again he glanced back to where the material train lay silent
and useless, hoping against hope that far in the distance he might see
the smoke of that other train from Sherman. Peet had said, yesterday,
that it was on the way; and Old Van muttered, over and over, “D--n
Peet!”
Night came finally, but not the train. Aching in body, ugly in spirit,
the laborers crept under their blankets. Morning came, but no train.
Carhart spent an hour on the grade, and saw with some satisfaction
that the time was not wholly lost; then he went back to the operator’s
tent and opened communications with Sherman. Sherman expressed
surprise that the train had not arrived; it had been long on the way,
said the despatcher.
At this message, repeated to him by the operator, word for word,
Carhart stood thoughtful. Then, “Shut off the despatcher. Wait--tell
him Mr. Carhart is much obliged. Shut him off. Now call Paradise. Say
to him--can’t you get him?”
“Yes--all right now.”
“Say--‘When did the supply train pass you on Tuesday?’--got that?”
“Yes--one minute. ‘When--did supply--train pass--you--Tuesday?’”
“Now what does he say?”
“‘Supply--train’--he says--‘passed--here
Wednesday--two--P.M.--west-bound.’ There, you see, it didn’t leave on
Tuesday at all. It’s only a few hours to Paradise from Sherman.”
Carhart had Peet’s message still crumpled in his pocket. He
straightened it out and read it again. “All right,” he said to the
operator, “that will do.” And as he walked slowly and thoughtfully out
into the blazing sunlight he added to himself: “So, Mr. Peet, that’s
the sort you are, is it? I think we begin to understand each other.”
“Paul!” It was the gruff voice of Old Vandervelt, low and charged with
anger.
“Yes--what?”
“What is it you mean to do with these laborers?”
“Build the line.”
“Well, I’ve done what I could. They’ve walked out again.”
“Another ten per cent?”
“Another ten per cent.”
“Let’s see--we’ve raised them twenty per cent since yesterday morning,
haven’t we?”
“You have--yes.”
“And that ought to be about enough, don’t you think?”
“If you want my opinion,--yes.”
“Now look here, Van. You go back and bring them all up here by the
train. Tell them Mr. Carhart wants to talk to them.”
Vandervelt stared at his chief in downright bewilderment. Then he
turned to obey the order; and as he walked away Carhart caught the
muttered words, “Organize a debating society, eh? Well, that’s the one
fool thing left to do!”
But the men did not take it in just this way; in fact, they did not
know how to take it. They hesitated, and looked about for counsel.
Even Dimond was disturbed. The boss had a quiet, highly effective way
of saying and doing precisely what he meant to say and do. Dimond was
not certain of his own ability to stand directly between the men and
Paul Carhart. There was something about the cool way in which they
were ordered before him that was--well, businesslike. He turned and
glanced at Flagg. The cook scowled and motioned him forward, and so
the dirty, thirsty regiment moved uncertainly back toward the train,
and formed a wide semicircle before the boss.
Carhart had taken his position by a pile of odds and ends of lumber
that lay beside the track. He awaited them quietly, the only man among
the hundreds there who appeared unconscious of the excitement in the
air. The elder Vandervelt stood apart, scowling at the performance.
The younger scented danger, and, climbing up on the train, walked back
over the empty flat-cars to a position directly behind his chief.
There he sat down, his legs swinging over the side of the car.
Carhart reached up for his spectacles, deliberately breathed on them,
wiped them, and replaced them. Then he gave the regiment a slow,
inquiring look.
“Have you men authorized somebody to speak for you?” he said in a
voice which, though it was not loud, was heard distinctly by every man
there.
There was a moment’s hesitation; then the laborers, or those who were
not studying the ground, looked at Dimond.
The telegraph operator stepped out of his little tent, and stood
looking at the scene with startled eyes. Up ahead, the iron squad,
uncertain whether to continue their work, had paused, and now they
were gazing back. As the seconds slipped away their exclamations of
astonishment died out. All eyes were fixed on the group in the centre
of the semicircle.
For at this critical moment, there was, it seemed, a hitch. Dimond’s
broad hat was pulled down until it half concealed his eyes. He stood
motionless. At his elbow was Jack Flagg, muttering orders that the
nominal leader did not seem to hear.
“Flagg, step out here!”
It was Carhart speaking, in the same quiet, distinct manner. The sound
of his voice broke the tension. The men all looked up, even the
nerveless Dimond. To Young Van they were oddly like a room full of
schoolboys as they stood silently waiting for Flagg to obey. The
giant cook himself was very like a schoolboy, as he glanced uneasily
around, caught no sign of fight in the obedient eyes about him, sought
counsel in the ground, the sky, the engines standing on the track,
then finally slouched forward.
Young Van caught himself on the verge of laughing out. He saw Flagg
advance a way and pause. Carhart waited. Flagg took a few more steps,
then paused again, with the look of a man who feels that he has been
bullied into a false position, yet cannot hit upon the way out.
“Well,” he said, glowering down on the figure of the engineer in
charge--and very thin and short Carhart looked before him--“well, what
do you want of me?”
For reply Carhart coolly looked him over. Then he snatched up a piece
of scantling, whirled it once around his head, and caught Jack Flagg
squarely on his deep, well-muscled chest. The cook staggered back,
swung his arms wildly to recover his balance, failed, and fell flat,
striking on the back of his head.
But he was up in an instant, and he started forward, swearing
copiously and reaching for his hip pocket.
Young Van saw the motion. He knew that Paul Carhart seldom carried a
weapon, and he felt that the safety of them all lay with himself.
Accordingly he leaped to the ground, ran to the side of his chief,
whipped out a revolver, and levelled it at Jack Flagg.
“Hands up!” he cried. “Hands up!”
“Gus,” cried Carhart, in a disgusted voice, “put that thing up!”
Young Van, crestfallen, hesitated; then dropped his arm.
“Now, Flagg,” said the chief, tossing the scantling to one side, “you
clear out. You’d better do it fast, or the men’ll finish where I left
off.”
The cook glanced behind him, and his eyes flitted about the semicircle
from face to face. He was keen enough to take in the situation, and
in a moment he had ducked under the couplers between two cars and
disappeared.
“Well,” exclaimed Young Van, pocketing his revolver, “it didn’t take
you long to wind that up, Mr. Carhart.”
“To wind it up?” Carhart repeated, turning with a queer expression
toward his young assistant. “To begin it, you’d better say.” Then he
composed his features and faced the laborers. “Get back to your work,”
he said.