it's no use: I can't tell about it, and the very thought of that thing
that had just a minute before been a man, lying there on the floor
makes me see black and want to keel over. What he had said about sending
for an extra undertaker was right as right. With the top of his head
blown off, the poor devil didn't need anything more in this world except
the burying.
XXI
Billy Morris Explains
Somebody has said, mighty truthfully, that even a death in the family
doesn't stop the common routine; that the things that have to be done
will go grinding on, just the same, whether all of us live, or some of
us die. Disbrow had jumped from the telephone at the crash of Durgin's
shot, and for just a second or so we all stood around the dead
despatcher, nobody making a move.
Then Mr. Norcross came alive with a jerk, telling Disbrow to get back on
his job of calling out the wreck wagons and the relief train, and
directing Bobby Kelso to go to another 'phone and call an undertaker to
come and get Durgin's body. Tarbell turned back to the train desk to
keep things from getting into a worse tangle than they already were in,
and to wait for the dreadful news, and the boss stood by him.
This second wait promised to be the worst of all. The collision was due
to happen miles from the nearest wire station; the news, when we should
get it, would probably be carried back to Bauxite Junction by the pusher
engine which had gone out to try to overtake the "Flyer." But even in
that case it might be an agonizing hour or more before we could hear
anything.
In a little while Disbrow had clicked in his call to Kirgan, and when
the undertaker's wagon came to gather up what was left of the dead
despatcher, the car-record man was hurriedly writing off his list of
doctors, and Mr. Van Britt had gone down to superintend the making up of
the relief train. True to his theory, which, among other things, laid
down the broad principle that the public had a right to be given all the
facts in a railroad disaster, Mr. Norcross was just telling me to call
up the _Mountaineer_ office, when Tarbell, calmly inking time reports
upon the train sheet, flung down his pen and snatched at his key to
"break" the chattering sounder.
Mr. Van Britt had come up-stairs again, and he and the boss were both
standing over Tarbell when the "G-S" break cleared the wire. Instantly
there came a quick call, "G-S" "G-S," followed by the signature, "B-J"
for Bauxite Junction. Tarbell answered, and then we all heard what
Bauxite had to say:
"_Pusher overtook Number Four three miles west of Sand Creek and has
brought her back here. What orders for her?_"
Somebody groaned, "Oh, thank God!" and Mr. Van Britt dropped into a
chair as if he had been hit by a cannon ball. Only the boss kept his
head, calling out sharply to Disbrow to break off on the doctors' list
and to hurry and stop Kirgan from getting away with the wrecking train.
Then, as curtly as if it were all merely a matter of routine, he told
Tarbell what to do; how he was to give the "Flyer" orders to wait at
Bauxite for Number Five, and then to proceed under time-card regulations
to Portal City.
When it was all over, and Tarbell had been given charge of the
despatching while a hurry call was sent out for the night relief man,
Donohue, to come down and take the train desk, there was a little
committee meeting in the general manager's office, with the boss in the
chair, and Mr. Van Britt sitting in for the other member.
"Of course, you've drawn your own conclusions, Upton," the boss began,
when he had asked me to shut the door.
"I guess so," was the grave rejoinder. "I'm afraid it is only too plain
that Durgin was hired to do it. What became of the money?"
"I have it here," said the boss, and he took the blood-money bank-roll
from his pocket and removed the rubber band. "Count it, Jimmie," he
ordered, passing it to me.
I ran through the bunch. It was in twenties and fifties, and there was
an even thousand dollars.
"That is the price of a man's life," said Mr. Van Britt, soberly, and
then Mr. Norcross said, "Who knows anything about Durgin? Was he a
married man?"
Mr. Van Britt shook his head.
"He had been married, but he and his wife didn't live together. He had
no relatives here. I knew him in the southwest two years ago. He'd had
domestic trouble of some kind, and didn't mix or mingle much with the
other men. But he was a good despatcher, and two months ago, when we had
an opening here, I sent for him."
"You think there is no doubt but that he was bribed to put those trains
together to-night?"
"None in the least--only I wish we had a little better proof of it."
"Where did he live?"
"He boarded at Mrs. Chandler's, out on Cross Street. Morris boards
there, too, I believe."
The boss turned to me.
"Jimmie, go and get Morris."
I carried the call and brought Morris back with me. He was a cheerful,
red-headed fellow, and everybody liked him.
"It isn't a 'sweat-box' session, Morris," said the boss, quietly, when
we came in and the relief operator sat down, sort of half scared, on the
edge of a chair. "We want to know something more about Durgin. He
roomed at your place, didn't he?"
Morris admitted it, but said he'd never been very chummy with the
despatcher; that Durgin wasn't chummy with anybody. Then the boss went
straight to the point, as he usually did.
"You were present and saw all that happened in the other room. Can you
tell us anything about that money?" pointing to the pile of bills on my
desk.
Billy Morris wriggled himself into a little better chair-hold. "Nothing
that would be worth telling, if things hadn't turned out just as they
have," he returned. "But now I guess I know. I left Mrs. Chandler's this
evening about seven o'clock to come on duty, and Durgin was just ahead
of me. Some fellow--a man in a snuff-colored overcoat and with a soft
hat pulled down so that I couldn't see his face--stopped Durgin on the
sidewalk, and they talked together."
"Go on," said Mr. Van Britt.
"I didn't hear what was said; I was up on the stoop, trying to make Mrs.
Chandler's broken door latch work to hold the door shut. But I saw the
overcoated man pass something to Durgin, and saw Durgin put whatever it
was into his pocket. Then the other man dodged and went away, and did it
so quick that I didn't see which way he went or what became of him. I
walked on down the steps after I had got the door to stay shut and tried
to overtake Durgin--just to walk on down here with him. But I guess he
must have run after he left the corner, for I didn't see anything more
of him until I got to the office."
"He was there when you came in?" It was Mr. Norcross who wanted to know.
"Yes. He had his coat off and was at work on the train sheet."
"That was a little after seven," said Mr. Van Britt. "What happened
between that and ten o'clock?"
"Nothing. Disbrow was busy at his table, and I had some work to do,
though not very much. I don't think Durgin left his chair, or said
anything to anybody until he jumped up and began to walk the floor,
taking on and saying that he'd put Four and Five together on the single
track. Just then, Tarbell came in and jumped for the train key, and I
ran out to give the alarm."
There was silence for a little time, and then the boss said, "That's
all, Morris; all but one thing. Do you think you would recognize the man
in the snuff-colored overcoat, if you should see him again?"
"Yes, I might; if he had on the same coat and hat."
"That will do, then. Keep this thing to yourself, and if the newspaper
people come after you, send them to Mr. Van Britt or to me."
After Morris had gone, Mr. Van Britt shook his head sort of savagely.
"It's hell, Graham!" he ripped out, bouncing to his feet and beginning
to tramp up and down the room. "To think that these devils would take
the chance of murdering a lot of totally innocent people to gain their
end! What are you going to do about it?"
"I don't know yet, Upton; but I am going to do something. This state of
affairs can't go on. The simplest thing is for me to throw up the job
and let the Short Line drop back into the old rut. I'm not sure that it
wouldn't save a good many lives in the end if I should do it. And yet it
seems such a cowardly thing to do--to resign under fire."
Mr. Van Britt had his hand on the door-knob, and what he said made me
warm to my finger-tips.
"We're all standing by you, Graham; all, you understand--to the last man
and the last ditch. And you're not going to pitch it up; you're going to
stay until you have thrown the harpoon into these high-binders, clear up
to the hitchings. That's my prophecy. The trouble's over for to-night,
and you'd better go up to the hotel and turn in. There is another day
coming, or if there isn't, it won't make any difference to any of us.
Good-night."
XXII
What the Pilot Engine Found
For a time after the suicide of the off-trick-despatcher the wreck
epidemic paused. Acting upon Mr. Norcross's suggestion, Mr. Van Britt
called his trainmen in, a crew at a time, and gave them the straight
tip; and after that the hoodoo died a natural death, and a good many
pairs of eyes all along the Short Line were keeping a sharp lookout for
the trouble-makers.
In the meantime, Tarbell, still digging faithfully, managed to turn up a
few facts that were worth something. In the Petrolite case he found a
lone prospector living in a shack high up on the farther side of the
canyon who told him that late in the evening of the day preceding the
wreck he had seen two men climbing the slope from which the boulder had
been dislodged, and that one of them was carrying a pick. Also, further
investigation seemed to prove that the rail which the blow of the rock
was supposed to have knocked loose had been previously weakened, either
by drawing some of the spikes, or by unscrewing the nuts on the bolts at
the joints.
In another field, and this time under Ripley's instructions, our
ex-cow-punch' had been able to set and bait a trap. By diligent search
he had found the man Murphy, the Clanahan henchman, who, under pressure,
had given away the Timber Mountain plot which had climaxed in the
kidnapping of the boss. This man had been deliberately shot in a
bar-room brawl and left for dead. But he had crawled away and had got
out of town to live and recover at a distant cattle ranch in the
Limberton Hills.
When Tarbell discovered him he had cut out the booze, had grown a beard,
and was thirsting for vengeance. Tarbell brought him back to Portal
City, and presently there began to be developments. Murphy knew all the
ropes. In a little time, Ripley, with Tarbell's help, was loaded for
bear. One chilly October afternoon the lawyer came down to our office to
tell Mr. Norcross that the game was cornered.
"All you have to do now is to give the word," was the way Ripley wound
up. "You refused to do it on a former occasion because we couldn't get
the men higher up. This time we can nail Clanahan, and a good few of the
political gangsters and bosses in the other towns along the line. What
do you say?"
The boss looked up with the little horse-shoe frown wrinkling between
his eyes.
"Can we get Hatch and Henckel?"
"No; not yet."
"Very well; then you may lock those papers up in your safe and we'll
wait. When you can see your way clear to a criminal trial, with Rufus
Hatch and Gustave Henckel in the prisoner's dock, we'll start the legal
machinery: but not before."
By now we were right on the eve of the State election. As far as anybody
could see, the railroad had stayed free and clear of the political
fight. The boss had kept his promise to maintain neutrality and was
still keeping it.
At the appointed time the big day dawned, and the political wind-up held
the center of the stage. So far as we were concerned, it passed off very
quietly. From the wire gossip that dribbled in during the day it
appeared that the railroad vote was heavy, though there were neither
charges nor counter-charges to indicate which way it had been thrown.
Along in the afternoon the newspaper offices began to put out bulletins,
and by evening the result was no longer doubtful. For the first time in
years the power of the political machine had been smashed decisively at
the polls, and on the following morning the _Mountaineer_ announced the
election of Governor Burrell, with a safe working majority in both
houses of the Legislature for the Independents.
Naturally, there was all sorts of a yell from the other side of the
fence. Charges were freely made, now, that the railroad had deliberately
ditched its friends, and all that. Also there were the bluest kind of
predictions for the future, most of them winding up with the assertion
that there could be no such thing as true prosperity for the country
while the Short Line continued under its present management.
It was on the third day after the election, rather late in the
afternoon, that the boss had a call from a mining promoter named Dawes,
representing a bunch of mine owners at Strathcona who were having
trouble with the smelter.
I was busy at the time and didn't pay much attention to what was said,
but I got the drift of it. The smelter, one of the few Hatch monopolies
which hadn't been shaken loose as yet, was located in the gulch six
miles below Strathcona, and it was served exclusively by its own
industrial railroad, which it was using as a lever to pry an excessive
hauling charge out of the mine owners. Wouldn't Mr. Norcross try to do
something about it?
The boss said he'd do anything he could, and asked what the mine owners
wanted. Dawes said they wanted help; that they were going to hold a mass
meeting in Strathcona the following morning at nine o'clock. Would it,
or wouldn't it, be possible for Mr. Norcross to be present at that
meeting?
Of course, the boss said he'd go. It meant the better part of a night's
run, special, in the private car, but that didn't make any difference.
Dawes went away, and before we broke off to go to dinner at the railroad
club, I was given a memorandum order for the special.
At the club I found that Mr. Norcross had an invited guest--Major
Kendrick. For a week or two Mrs. Sheila had been visiting at the State
capital, and the major's wife and Maisie Ann were with her. So the good
old major was sort of unattached, and glad enough, I took it, to be a
guest at anybody's table.
For a while the table talk--in which, of course, Jimmie Dodds hadn't any
part whatever--circled around the late landslide election, and what
Governor Burrell's party would do, now that it had the say-so. But by
and by it got around to the railroad situation.
"You're putting up a mighty good fight, Graham, my son, but it isn't
over yet--not by a jugful, suh"--this isn't just the way the major said
it, but it's as near as I can come to his soft Southern drawl with the
smothered "r's." "I've known Misteh Rufus Hatch for a good many yeahs,
and he has the perseve'ance of the ve'y devil. With all that has been
done, you must neveh forget, for a single hou'uh, that youh admirable
reform structchuh stands, as yet, upon the life of a single man. Don't
lose sight of that, Graham."
The boss looked up kind of curiously.
"You and Sheila seem to think that that point needs emphasizing more
than any other," he commented.
The major's fine old eyes twinkled gravely.
"You are mighty safe in payin' strict attention to whatever the little
gyerl tells you, Graham, my boy," he asserted. "She has a way of gettin'
at the heart of things that puts us meah men to shame--she has, for a
fact, suh."
"She has been very helpful to me," the boss put in, with his eyes in his
plate. "In fact, I may say that she has herself suggested a good many of
the moves in the railroad game. It's marvelous, and I can't understand
how she can do it."
They went on for a while, singing Mrs. Sheila's praises over in a good
many different ways, and I thought, wherever she might happen to be just
then, her pretty little ears ought to be burning good and hard. To hear
them talk you would have thought she was another Portia-person, and then
some.
The dinner wore itself out after a while, and when the waiter brought
the cigars, the boss was looking at his watch.
"I'm sorry I can't stay and smoke with you, major," he said, pushing his
chair back. "But the business grind never lets up. I'm obliged to go to
Strathcona to-night."
I don't know what the major was going to say to this abrupt break-away:
the after-dinner social cigar was a sort of religious ceremony with him.
But whatever he was going to say, he didn't say it, for at that moment a
telegraph boy came in and handed him a message. He put on his other
glasses and read the telegram, with his big goatee looking more than
ever like a dagger and the fierce white mustaches twitching. At the end
of things he folded the message and put it into his pocket, saying, sort
of soberly:
"Graham, there are times when Sheila's intuhferences are mighty neah
uncanny; they are, for a fact, suh. This wire is from her. What do you
suppose it says?"
Of course, the boss said he couldn't suppose anything about it, and the
major went on.
"She tells me, in just seven words, not to let you go to Strathcona
to-night. Now what do you make of that? How on top of God's green earth
did she know, away off yondeh at the capital, that you were meaning to
go to Strathcona to-night?"
Mr. Norcross shook his head. Then he said: "There are wires--both
kinds--though I don't know why anybody should telegraph or telephone the
capital that I expect to attend a mine-owners' meeting to-morrow
morning in the big gold camp. That's why I'm going, you know."
"But this warning," the major insisted. "There's a reason for it,
Graham, as sure as you are bawn!"
Again the boss shook his head.
"Between you two, you and Sheila, I'm due to acquire a case of nerves. I
don't know what she has heard, but I can't afford to dodge a business
appointment. I have wired the Strathcona people that I shall be there
to-morrow morning, and it is too late to make other arrangements. Sheila
has merely overheard an echo of the threats that are constantly being
made by the Hatch sympathizers. It's the aftermath of the election, but
it's all talk. They're down and out, and they haven't the nerve to
strike back, now."
That ended matters at the club, and the boss and I walked down to the
headquarters. The special, with Buck Chandler on the smart little
eight-wheeler that we always had for the private-car trips, was waiting,
and at the last minute I thought I wasn't going to get to go.
"There's no need of your putting in a night on the road, Jimmie," said
the boss, with the kindly thought for other people's comfort that never
failed him. But after I had begged a little, telling him that he'd need
somebody to take notes in the mine meeting, he said, "All right," and we
got aboard and gave the word to Maclise, the conductor, to get his
clearance and go.
A few minutes later we pulled out and the night run was begun. Like
every other car the boss had ever owned, the "05" was fitted up as a
working office, and since he had me along, he opened up a lot of claim
papers upon which the legal department was giving him the final say-so,
and we went to work.
For the next two hours I was so busy that I didn't know when we passed
the various stations. There were no passenger trains to meet, and the
despatcher was apparently giving us "regardless" rights over everything
else, since we made no stops. At half-past nine, Mr. Norcross snapped a
rubber band over the last of the claim files, lighted a pipe, and told
me I might go to bed if I wanted to; said that he was going himself
after he'd had a smoke. Just then, Chandler whistled for a station, and,
looking out of a window, I saw that we were pulling into Bauxite, the
little wind-blown junction from which the Strathcona branch led away
into the northern mountains.
Wanting a bite of fresh air before turning in, I got off when we made
the stop and strolled up to the engine. Maclise was in the office,
getting orders for the branch, and Chandler was squatting in the gangway
of the 815 and waiting. Up ahead of us, and too far away for me to read
the number on her tender, there was a light engine. I thought at first
it was the pusher which was kept at Bauxite to help heavy freights up
the branch grades, and I wondered what it was doing out on the branch
"Y" and in our way.
"What's the pusher out for, Buck?" I asked.
Chandler grinned down at me.
"You ain't so much of a railroad man as you might be, Jimmie," he said.
"That ain't the pusher."
"What is it, then?"
"It's our first section, runnin' light to Strathcona."
Maybe Chandler was right, that I wasn't much of a railroad man, but I
savvied the Short Line operating rules well enough to know that it
wasn't usual to run a light engine, deadheading over the road, as a
section of a special. Also, I knew that Buck knew it.
With that last little talk over the club dinner-table fresh in mind, I
began to wonder, but instead of asking Chandler any more questions about
the engine out ahead, I asked him if I might ride a piece with him up
the branch; and when he said "Sure," I climbed up and humped myself on
the fireman's box.
Maclise got his orders in due time and we pulled out. I noticed that
when he gave Chandler the word, he also made motions with his lantern to
the engine up ahead and it promptly steamed away, speeding up until it
had about a half-mile lead and then holding it. That seemed funny, too.
Though it is a rule that is often broken on all railroads, the different
sections of a train are supposed to keep at least five minutes apart,
and our "first" wasn't much more than a minute away from us at any time.
Another thing that struck me as being funny was the way Chandler was
running. It was only sixty mountain miles up the branch to the big gold
camp, and we ought to have been able to make it by one o'clock, taking
it dead easy. But the way Buck was niggling along it looked as if it
might be going to take us all night.
Just the same, nothing happened. The first ten miles was across a desert
stretch with only a slightly rising grade, and it was pretty much all
tangent--straight line. Beyond the ten-mile station of Nippo we hit the
mountain proper, climbing it through a dry canyon, with curves that
blocked off everything fifty feet ahead of the engine, and grades that
would have made pretty good toboggan slides. The night was fine and
starlit, but there was no moon and the canyon shadows loomed like huge
walls to shut us in.
On the reverse curves I could occasionally get a glimpse of the red tail
lights of the engine which ought, by rights, to have been five full
minutes ahead of us. It was still holding its short lead, jogging along
as leisurely as we were.
With nothing to do and not much to see, I got sleepy after a while, and
about the time when I was thinking that I might as well climb back over
the tender and turn in, I dozed off right there on the fireman's
box--which was safe enough, at the snail's pace we were running. When I
awoke it was with the feeling that I hadn't been asleep more than a
minute or two, but the facts were against me. It was nearly one o'clock
in the morning, and we had worried through the thirty-five miles of
canyon run and were climbing the steep talus of Slide Mountain.
At first I didn't know what it was that woke me. On my side of the
engine the big mountain fell away, miles it seemed, on a slope on which
a man could hardly have kept his footing, and where a train, jumping the
track, would roll forever before it would stop in the gorges at the
bottom. While I was rubbing my eyes, the eight-wheeler gave another
little jerk, and I saw that Chandler was slowing for a stop; saw this
and got a glimpse of somebody on the track ahead, flagging us down with
a lantern.
A minute later the brakes had been set and Buck and I were off. As we
swung down from the engine step, Maclise joined us, and we went to meet
the man with the lantern. He was the fireman of the engine ahead, and
when we got around on the track I saw that our "first section" was
stopped just a little way farther on.
"What is it, Barty?" said Maclise, when we came up to the fireman.
"It's them hell-fired wreckers again," was the gritting reply. "Rail
joint disconnected and sprung out so's to let us off down the mountain."
I thought it was up to me to go back and tell the boss, but there wasn't
any need of it. The stop or the slow running or something had roused
him, and he was up and dressed and coming along beside the engine. When
he came up, Maclise told him why we were stopping. He didn't say
anything about the rail break, but he did ask, sort of sharp and quick,
what engine that was up ahead.