SHOTS--AND A SCOUTING PARTY
It was early evening. Gus Vandervelt, nervous, exultant, leaving a
trail of cigarette stubs behind him, was pacing up and down the track.
When he faced the east, his eyes saw far beyond the cars and wagons
and clustering tents. Off there, in each mile of the many they had
travelled, lay a witness of some battle won. They had fought like
soldiers; and the small successes had come rapidly until the men were
beginning to take victory as a matter of course. The most stupid of
them understood now just what sort of thing the reserved, magnetic
Paul Carhart stood for, and they were finding it a very good sort of
thing indeed.
As Young Van walked, his imagination leaping forward from battles
fought to the battles to come, he heard a step, and saw the stocky
figure of his brother approaching through the dusk. He stiffened up
and paused, but Old Van marched by without the twitch of a muscle. The
young man watched him until he had faded out of sight, then lighted
another cigarette, and continued his beat.
A little later, smiling in a nervous way he had of late, Young Van
turned toward the headquarters tent. He knew that his brother had gone
to make up the material train and would not return for some time.
He found Paul Carhart sitting alone, sewing a button on the yellow
linen trousers.
“Did you see any more drunks?” Carhart asked, pausing, needle in air.
Young Van, now that he thought of it, had observed signs of unusual
good feeling among the laborers.
“We’re a little too near this Palos settlement to suit me,” said the
chief. “Keeping your men in the desert rather spoils one for the
advantages of civilization. I never had an easier time with laborers.
But these men are a bad lot to bring within five miles of a saloon.
They will be fighting before morning.”
“I suppose they will. I hadn’t thought of it. By the way, there’s a
rumor about that you had a letter from Mr. Flint to-day.”
Carhart shook his head. “No,” said he, “that’s the thing I want most
just now.”
For a while they were silent. Young Van’s face grew sober. The track,
this double line of rusty steel, had so absorbed the energy of all of
them that it seemed now, to his inexperience, the complete outward
expression of their lives. He could think of little else. When not
engrossed by the actual work, his thoughts were ranging beyond, far
into the deeper significance of it. Crowding on the heels of the
constructors would come settlers. Already mushroom towns were pushing
up along the line behind them. With settlers would come well-boring,
irrigation, farming, and ranching. Timber, bricks, stone would be
rushed into these new lands, to be converted into hotels, shops,
banks, dwellings. The marvellously intricate interrelations of
civilization would suddenly be found existing and at work. There would
be rude, hard struggles, much drinking and gambling, and some
shooting. The license of the plains would be found strangely mingled
with law and with what we call right. The church and the saloon would
march on, side by side. And, finally, out of the uproar and the
fighting would rise, for better or worse, a new phase of life.
Thinking these things, Young Van could not forget that they five--Paul
Carhart, John Flint, Old Van, Harry Scribner, and himself--were
bringing it about. They were breaking the way, pioneers of the
expansion of a restless, mighty people.
“No,”--Carhart was speaking,--“that letter was from Peet. You might
enjoy reading it.”
Young Van started from his revery, took the letter, and spread it
open. “My dear Mr. Carhart,” it ran, “I am very sorry, indeed, about
the delay of that lot of spikes. I have arranged with Mr. Tiffany to
buy up all we can find here in Sherman and hurry them on to you.
Please keep me informed by wire of any delays and inconveniences. You
will understand, I am sure, that we mean to stop at nothing to keep
you from the slightest annoyance and delay in these matters. Very
faithfully yours, L. W. Peet.”
“But we have spikes enough,” said the assistant, looking up. “What
does he mean?”
Carhart smiled. “Just what he says; that he wouldn’t delay us for
worlds.”
“‘Very faithfully yours,’ too. What is all this, Mr. Carhart? What
have you done to him--hypnotized him?”
Carhart smiled. “Hardly,” he replied; adding, “Reach me that spool of
thread, will you?” But instead of continuing his needlework, Carhart,
when he received the spool, laid it down beside him and sat, deep in
thought, gazing out through the tent-opening into the night.
“Gus,” he asked abruptly, “where did the operator go?”
Young Van glanced up at his chief, then answered quietly: “To bed, I
think. I heard him say he was going to turn in early to-night.”
“Would you mind stirring him out?”
“Certainly not.”
“Wait a minute. We have enough firewood on hand to keep the engines
going six or perhaps eight days. That won’t do.”
Young Van was slightly puzzled.
“Go ahead, Gus. Tell him to meet me at his instrument in ten minutes.”
Young Van left the tent at once. When he returned, after rousing the
sleepy operator, he observed that the chief was still deep in thought.
“All right,” said Young Van; “he’s getting up.”
“Much obliged, Gus.” Carhart started to resume his mending, then
lowered his needle. “And all for the want of a horseshoe nail,” he
hummed softly.
Young Van, more puzzled than before, looked up from a heap of papers
which had drawn his attention. Carhart smiled a little.
“You remember?” he said,--
“For the want of a nail the shoe was lost;
For the want of the shoe the horse was lost;
For the want of the horse the rider was lost;
For the want of the rider the battle was lost;
And all--”
He stopped and looked out. A partly clad figure was hurrying by toward
the shelter that covered the telegraph instruments.
“There he goes now. I’m a little bothered, Gus. It would be a humorous
sort of a joke on me if I should be held up now for a little
firewood.”
“I suppose we couldn’t cut up ties?” suggested Young Van.
“Can’t spare ’em. I’ve ordered wood from Red Hills, but we shan’t be
able to pick up enough there. And if we don’t get some pretty soon,
the engines will have to stop.”
Young Van took down a letter file and glanced through it. In a moment
he had drawn out a recent message from Peet. “Here,” he said, “Mr.
Peet promised to have a big lot of wood on the way by to-day. That
leaves some margin for delays.”
Carhart rose, and nodded. “Yes,” he replied, “but not margin enough.”
“You expect something to happen right off?”
“Couldn’t say to that. But my bones feel queer to-night--have felt
queer all day. Tiffany writes that Bourke, who is in charge of the H.
D. & W. construction, was in Sherman the other day. And Commodore
Durfee was expected at Red Hills a week ago. Well,--” He shrugged his
shoulders and went out and over to join the operator.
“We’ll try to get the man on the next division,” said Carhart. “Ask
him if the line is clear all the way.”
The operator extended his hand to send the message, but checked it in
midair. “Why,” he exclaimed, “he is calling us!” He looked up prepared
to see surprise equal to his own on Carhart’s face. But what he did
see there mystified him. The chief was slowly nodding. He could not
say that he had expected this call,--the thing was a coincidence,--and
yet he was not at all surprised.
“‘Trouble on Barker Hills division--’” The operator was repeating as
the instrument clicked.
“That’s a hundred miles or so back--”
“Hundred and thirty-eight. ‘Operator on middle division,’ he
says, ‘wires fifty men trying to seize station--has notified
Sherman--assistance promised. Big armed force Barker Hills led by
large man with red mustache--’”
“That’s Bourke himself,” muttered Carhart.
The operator’s hand shook a little. His eyes were shining. “Here’s
some more, Mr. Carhart,--‘Have tried to hold my station, but--’”
“Wait,” cried the chief, sharply. “Quick--say this: ‘Has supply train
passed west to-day?’”
“‘Has--supply--train--’” the operator repeated after a
moment--“‘passed--west-to-day?’”
“Now what does he answer?”
“Just a moment--Here he is!--‘Not--not--’ Hold on there, what’s the
matter?”
“Has he stopped?”
“Stopped short. That’s queer.”
“Do you think so?” said Carhart, looking down into the white face of
the operator. The effect of the young man’s excitement was hardly
lessened by the shock of rumpled hair about his forehead and by the
white collar of a nightgown which appeared above his hastily buttoned
coat.
“You mean--?”
“Wait a little longer.” For several minutes they were silent, the
operator leaning his elbows on the table, Carhart bending over him.
Then, “Try him again,” said Carhart.
The operator obeyed. There was no response. Carhart drew up an empty
cracker box and sat down. Twenty minutes passed.
“Click--clickety--click--click,” said the instrument. The operator, in
a husky voice, translated the message as it came in: “‘P. Carhart,
chief west’n ext. S. & W.: On receipt of this you will stop all
construction work until further instructions, by order of Vice-Pres.
Chambers--H. L. Tiffany.’”
“That’s funny!” said the operator.
Carhart did not seem to hear the exclamation. He was frowning
slightly, and his lips were moving. At length he said, “Take this:--
“To C. O’F. BOURKE,
Barker Hills Station:--
“Have another try, old chap. You haven’t quite caught Hen
Tiffany’s style yet.
“P. CARHART.”
The operator laughed softly and nervously as his deft fingers
transmitted this personal communication.
“Got it all through?” asked the chief.
“Yes, sir; all through.”
“All right, then, go back to bed. Good night.”
“Good night, Mr. Carhart.”
* * * * *
For several days now no word had come through from Flint, on “mile
109.” But twenty hours after the trouble at Barker Hills--just before
supper time of the following day--a party of plainsmen came galloping
into camp. One of these, a wizened little man with a kindly smile and
shrewd eyes, dismounted before the headquarters tent and peered in
between the flaps. “Mr. Carhart here?”
“He will be in two minutes,” replied Young Van, rising from the table.
“Come in, sir!”
“Your Mr. Flint asked me to hand him this.” The wizened one produced a
letter, and dropped into the chair which Young Van had brought
forward. “Having quite a time up there, isn’t he?”
“How so?” asked Young Van. It was well to speak guardedly.
“Oh, he’s in it, deep,” was the reply. “Commodore Durfee’s at the
Frisco Hotel in Red Hills. They say he came out over the ‘Wobbly’ on a
construction train and rode through. Pretty spry yet, the Old
Commodore. He’s hired a bad man named Flagg--Jack Flagg--and sent him
out with a hundred or so men to seize your bridge at La Paz. Sorry I
couldn’t stay there to see the excitement, but I’m hurrying east. Mr.
Flint thought maybe I could pick up one of your trains running back to
Sherman. If I can’t do that, I’ll strike off south for Pierrepont, and
get through that way.”
Young Van hesitated, and was about to reply, when he heard the chief
approaching.
Carhart came in from the rear, nodded to the stranger, and picked up
the envelope. “You brought this, sir?” he asked.
“Yes; Mr. Flint asked me to.”
Very deliberately Carhart read the letter, and, without the slightest
change of expression, tossed it on the table. “You must have supper
with us,” he said. “If you stopped with John Flint you perhaps know
how little an engineer’s hospitality amounts to, but such as we have
we shall be very glad to share with you.”
“Thank you,” replied the stranger.
“You are a ranchman, I presume?” Carhart went on.
“Yes--in northwest of Red Hills. I go to Sherman every year.”
Young Van spoke, “He thought of taking one of our trains through.”
Carhart smiled dryly. “I should be greatly obliged to you, sir, if you
could take a train through,” he said. “That’s something we don’t seem
able to do.”
The wizened one glanced up with a keen expression about his eyes.
“Having trouble back along the line?” he asked.
“You might call it trouble. My old friend Bourke, of the H. D. & W.,
has cut in behind us with a small army.” He gave a little shrug. “I
can’t get through. I can’t get either way now that they’ve got in
between Flint and Red Hills.”
“Then I’d better ride down to Pierrepont, hadn’t I?”
“I’m afraid that’s the best that I can suggest, sir.”
“You people certainly seem to be playing in hard luck, Mr. Carhart.”
As the wizened one ventured this observation he crossed his legs and
thrust his hands into his pockets. The action caused his coat to fall
back, and disclosed a small gold pendant hanging from his watch guard.
Young Van observed it, and glanced at Carhart, but he could not tell
whether the chief had taken it in.
“It’s worse than hard luck,” Carhart replied; “it begins to look like
defeat. We have been dependent on the Sherman people for material,
food, water,--everything. Now Bourke has shut us off.”
“But you seem to have plenty of material here, Mr. Carhart.”
“Rails--yes. But it takes more than rails.”
“And you surely have a large enough force.”
“Yes, but moving several hundred men back a hundred and forty miles,
fighting it out with Bourke, clearing the track, and getting trains
through from Sherman, will take time. Long before we can make any
headway, the H. D. & W. will have beaten us into Red Hills.”
“Ah--I see,” nodded the wizened one. “You’re going back after Bourke.”
“What else can I do! I can’t even wire Sherman without sending a man
two hundred miles through the desert. The most important thing to my
employers is to maintain possession of the line.”
“Of course--I see. I don’t know much about these things myself.”
After supper the wizened one announced that he must ride on with his
party.
“You won’t stop with us to-night?” asked Carhart.
“No, thanks. It’ll be light an hour or two yet. I’ve got to move fast.
I’ll lose a good deal, you see, going around by way of Pierrepont.”
“That’s so, of course. Well, good-by, sir.”
“Good-by.”
The riders swung into their saddles and cantered off eastward. Carhart
turned to Young Van and slowly winked. “Come up to headquarters, Gus,”
he said. “I’ve got some work for you.”
“I rather guess you have, if we’re going after Bourke.”
“After Bourke?” Carhart smiled. “You didn’t take that in, Gus?”
“Well--of course, I suspected.”
“You saw his badge?”
“Yes.”
“Bourke always has a lot of men about him from his own college.”
“You really think it, then?”
“It would be hard to say what I think. But I’ve been going on the
assumption that he is one of Bourke’s engineers.”
They were approaching the headquarters tent. Young Van looked up and
saw that “Arizona,” Carhart’s new saddle-horse, was hitched before
it. They entered the tent, and the first thing the chief did was to
get out two long blue-nosed revolvers and slip them into his holsters.
A moment later, and Dimond, fitted out for a long ride, appeared at
the entrance, saying, “All ready, Mr. Carhart!”
“Now, Gus,” said the chief, “I’m off for ‘mile 109.’ I want you to get
about two hundred men together and send them after me to-night or
to-morrow morning. I’ll tell Scribner, as I pass him, to have fifty
more for you. Every man must have a rifle and plenty of ball
cartridges. Send Byers”--this was the instrument man of the long
nose--“and two or three others whom you think capable of commanding
forty or fifty men each.”
“And Bourke?”
“We’ll leave him to Mr. Chambers. Give Charlie instructions to
strengthen his night guard. Some men will be sent back to guard the
second and third wells.”
Young Van involuntarily passed his hand across his eyes.
“I’m afraid I’m not much good,” he said slowly. “I didn’t grasp this
situation very well. It’s rather a new phase of engineering for me. We
seem to be plunging all of a sudden into tactics and strategy.”
“That’s about the size of it, Gus,” the chief responded. He had
exchanged his old straw hat for a sombrero. His spurs jingled as he
moved. There was a sparkle in his eye and a new sort of military
alertness about his figure. He paused at the tent entrance, and looked
back. “That’s about the size of it, Gus,” he repeated with a half
smile. “And I’m afraid I rather like it.”
“Well, good-by. I’ll start the men right along after you.”
Carhart mounted his horse, Dimond followed his example, and the two
rode away in the direction of the La Paz bridge. And ten hours later,
at five in the morning, a line of armed horsemen--a long-nosed young
man with the light of a pirate soul in his eyes riding at the head, an
athletic pile-inspector and a college-bred rodman bringing up the
rear--rode westward after him.
* * * * *
Troubles had been coming other than singly on “mile 109.” Jack Flagg,
with a force which, while smaller than Flint’s, was made up of
well-armed and well-paid desperadoes, had seized the ridge which shut
in the La Paz Valley on the west, had pitched camp, erected rude
intrenchments of loose stone, and stopped for the moment all work on
the mile-long trestle. So much John Flint had set down in the note
which the wizened one had delivered to Carhart. The next adventure
befell on the night after the departure of the wizened one; and it
brought out the ugly strain in the opera bouffe business of these wild
railroading days.
Antonio, the watchman, sat on the edge of the eastern abutment and
dangled his feet. He was so drowsy that he even stopped rolling
cigarettes. He had chosen a comfortable seat, where a pile of timbers
afforded a rest for his back. To be sure, there was the possibility
of rolling off into the water and sand if he should really fall
asleep; but elsewhere he would be exposed to the searching eyes of the
engineer in charge, and those eyes were very searching indeed. He was
thinking, in a dreamy way, of what he would do on the Sunday, with his
week’s pay in his pocket and the village of La Paz but twelve miles
away.
Now and again his complacent eyes roved out across the river, which
slipped by with such a gentle, swishing murmur. He could look over the
tops of the four unfinished piers and the western abutment and see the
trestle where it was continued on the farther side. These Americanos,
what driving devils they were! And when they had built their railroad,
what were they going to do with it? To go fast--Antonio shrugged his
shoulders and resumed the cigarettes--it is very well, but to what
purpose? When they have rushed madly across the continent, what will
they find there? Perhaps they will then rush back again. These
Americanos!
He let his eyes rest upon the row of piers--one, two, three, four of
them. What labor they had caused--how the men had sweat, and muttered,
and toiled--how the foremen had cursed! Four piers of masonry rising
out of the ghostly river. Very strong they must be, for the La Paz was
not always gentle. In the spring and fall it was savage; and then it
had an ugly way of undermining bridges, as those other foolish
Americanos had learned to their cost when they built the wagon bridge
at La Paz. He smiled lazily. But suddenly he sat up straight. A long
thin figure of a man was moving about among the piles of timber. It
was the señor Flint--and such a prowler as he was, day and night,
night and day. He lived this bridge, did the señor; he thought it, he
ate it, he drank it, he talked it, he slept it,--and for why? It could
not be that he believed it living to think and breathe bridge and only
bridge. It could not be that man was made for this--to become a slave
to this trestle structure which was slowly crawling, like some
monster centipede, across the sands of the La Paz. It was very good
for the trestle perhaps, and the bridge, but was it so good for the
señor?
[Illustration: “... this trestle structure which was slowly crawling,
like some monster centipede, across the sands of the La Paz.”]
Antonio smiled again, and settled back; the señor was passing on. He
was getting into a boat. He was poling across the languid, dimpling
river. He was getting out on the farther bank; he was walking up the
long slope, keeping out of the moonlight in the shadow of the
trestle-thing; he was peering up toward the embattled ridge beyond,
where lay the redoubtable Flagg.
... The cigarette dropped from Antonio’s unnerved fingers, and fell
with a sizzling splash into the water below. He drew an involuntary
quick breath, and the smoke in his nostrils went unexpectedly into his
throat and made him cough. Then trembling a little, he got slowly to
his feet and stood staring out there over the serene surface of the
river. He rubbed his eyes and stared again. A shot,--two shots,--which
was right? Two--no, one! And that insignificant little dark heap
yonder in the moonlight--was that the señor? What a trouble!--and he
had been so comfortable there on the abutment!
Antonio was frightened. He thought of running away from these
fate-tempting Americans; but in that case he would lose his pay and
those Sundays at La Paz. He waited a while. Perhaps he was dreaming
and would make himself ridiculous. He walked about, and tried
different points of view. And at last he went to rouse his foreman.
They got Flint in--Haddon, in night-shirt, bare legs, and shoes with
flapping strings to them; the foreman of the pile-driver crew in
night-shirt and hat, and two big-shouldered bridgemen. There was a
ball somewhere in Flint, and there were certain complications along
the line of his chronic ailment, so that his usefulness was, so to
speak, impaired. And Haddon, during what was left of the night and
during all of the following day, had distinctly a bad time of it.
While these things were going on, Paul Carhart was riding westward at
a hot gallop with Dimond close behind. It was shortly after sunset
that he reined up on the crest of the eastern ridge and looked out
over the La Paz. The barren valley was flooded with light. The yellow
slopes were delicately tinted rose and violet, the rock pillars stood
out black and sharply defined, the western hills formed a royal purple
barrier to the streams of color; and through this glowing scene
extended the square-jointed trestle, unmistakably the work of man
where all else was from another hand. Never in the progress of this
undertaking which we have been following across the plains had the
contrast been so marked between the patient beauty of the old land and
the uncompromising ugliness of the structure which Paul Carhart was
carrying into and through it. And yet the chief,--an intelligent,
educated man, not wanting in feeling for the finer side of
life,--though he took in the wonders of the sunset, looked last and
longest at the trestle and the uncompleted bridge. Then he rode down,
glancing, in his quizzical way, at the camp, which had been moved back
behind a knoll, at the piles of stone and timber, at the corral, and
at the groups of idle, gloomy workmen.
Fortunately the chief was prepared for surprises. News that the
trestle had been burned to the ground would have drawn no more than a
glance and a nod from him. His mind had not been idle during the ride.
He knew that the strongest defence partakes of an offensive character,
and he had no notion of sitting back to await developments. Of several
sets of plans which he had been considering, one was so plainly the
simplest and best that he was determined to try it. It involved a
single daring act, a sort of raid, which it would be necessary to
carry through without a vestige of legal authority. But this feature
of it disturbed him very much less than a mere casual acquaintance
with this quiet gentleman might have led one to suppose. Perhaps he
had, like the red-blooded Tiffany, a vein of “Scotch-Irish” down in
the depths of his nature which could on occasion be opened up.
[Illustration: “The cigarette dropped from Antonio’s unnerved
fingers.”]
After looking out for the comfort of John Flint, and after conferring
with Haddon and going thoroughly over the ground, Carhart sent for
Dimond.
“How much more are you good for?” he asked.
Dimond grinned. “For everything that’s going,” he replied.
“Good. Do you know where the H. D. & W. is building down, a dozen or
fifteen miles north of here?”
“I guess I can find it,” said Dimond.
And with a fresh horse and a man or two, and with certain specific
instructions, Dimond rode north shortly after nightfall of that same
day. At eight in the morning he was back, hollow-eyed but happy. And
Paul Carhart, when Dimond had reported, was seen to smile quietly to
himself.