The Road Builders Part 29

"Certainly I do."

"Well, it's more than I can say. If a man came along and offered me a good position, I should feel that I ought to decline it."

"Why?" Carhart was genuinely interested.

"Why?" Young Van rose and stood looking gloomily down at his chief.

"That's a funny question for you to ask. You've been watching my work for these months, and you've seen me developing new limitations in every possible direction. All together, I've discovered about the choicest crop any man ever opened up. When I started out, I thought I might some day become an engineer. But if this job has taught me anything, it has taught me that I'm the emptiest a.s.s that ever tried to lay two rails, end to end, in a reasonably straight line." The tremulous quality of his voice told Carhart how deeply the boy had taken his duties to heart.

"I've been thinking to-day that the best thing I can do will be to rent a few acres somewhere out on Long Island and set up to raise chickens for the New York market: broilers, and maybe squabs--they say there is money in squabs. I'd probably find I couldn't even do that, but it would be exciting for a while."

"Let's get out and tramp around a little, Gus," was Carhart's reply.

"That will do you as much good as a drunk."

Young Van flushed at this, but followed the chief out to the long street along which straggled the buildings that made up the settlement. These buildings were mostly saloons, each with its harvest of plainsmen, cowboys, laborers, and outcasts standing, sitting, or sprawling before the door. The day was hot with the dry heat of September, from which even the memory of moisture had long ago been sucked out. The dust rose at every step and settled on skin and clothing. Now and then a lounging figure rose and moved languidly in through a saloon door. Almost the only other movement to be seen was the heat vibration in the atmosphere. The only sound, beyond a drawled remark now and then, and the clink of gla.s.ses, was the tinkle of a crazy piano down the street. But the bronzed, sinewy engineers, who had for months known no other atmosphere, stepped off in a swinging stride, and soon were past the end of the street and out in the open. Carhart himself was not above a sense of elation, and he fell into reminiscence.

"There is only one thing I have regretted, Gus," he said. "If I could have got hold of a big Italian I know of, with about a hundred of his men, this dinner would have taken place some days ago."

"I didn't suppose that the work could have gone much faster," replied the younger man, moodily.

"Yes, we might have saved that much time easily in the cuts."

"Working by hand?"

"Yes. My experience with this chap was up in New Jersey. The firm I was working for at the time was developing a big ice business up in the lakes in the northern part of the state. It was necessary to lay a few short lines of track to connect the different ice-houses with the main line, and I was given charge of it. I got my laborers--several hundred of them--from an Italian padrone in New York City. Neither myself nor my a.s.sistants spoke their language, of course, and, as it turned out, we didn't think in their language either, for after two or three days they all walked out--to a man. I could do nothing with them. So I rang up the padrone and told him he would have to furnish a better lot than that. 'But,' said he, 'I can't let you have any more men.' I asked him why not. 'Because you don't know how to handle them.' That was a surprising sort of an answer, but I needed the laborers and I kept at him. Finally he said, 'I'll tell you what I will do. I will send you the men, but you must let me send a foreman with them, and you must agree to give all your instructions through that foreman.' 'All right,' I replied, 'send them along. If they do the work, I won't bother them.'

"The next day, when I was at the office in Newark, one of my a.s.sistants called me up and told me it would be worth my while to come right out on the work. When I reached there, he met me and took me down the track to a deep cut where the force was at work. The laborers were placed just as I have placed our men lately, packed close together on terraces; and after I had watched for a moment it dawned on me that I had never seen Italians work so fast as those were working. 'How did you do it?' I asked. The a.s.sistant grinned, and advised me to watch the man at the top, and then I saw that a giant of an Italian was standing on the hill above the top terrace, where he could look down at the rows of laborers. He wore a long ulster, and kept his hands in his pockets.

"Pretty soon a laborer down on the lowest terrace rested his pick against his knees and stood up to stretch. 'Watch now!' whispered my a.s.sistant. I looked up at the big man just in time to see him draw a stone out of his pocket--no pebble, mind you, but a jagged piece of road ballast--and throw it right at that laborer's head. The fellow simply dodged it, seized his pick, and went to work harder than ever; and not another man stopped, even long enough to draw a good breath during the twenty minutes I stood there. Then the whistle blew, and as I was curious to see what would happen I waited."

"What did happen?" asked Young Van.

"Nothing whatever, except that the laborers crowded around this foreman and seemed proud to get a word from him."

"But I don't understand. What gave him such a hold over them?"

"I don't understand it myself. But I know that if I strained things to the breaking point, I could never get the work out of any laborers that he got out of those Italians. With him, and them, we might have saved a good many days in this work."

"We might have tried the plan ourselves," said the young man, with a chuckle. "Only I fancy a little something would have happened if we had tried it."

Young Van's dangerous mood had pa.s.sed. Carhart abruptly changed the subject. "How would you like to go up into Canada with me, Gus?" he said.

"With you? There isn't much doubt what to answer to that."

"There will be some interesting things about the work--and time enough to do them well, the way it looks now. I can't promise you any remarkable inducements, but you will get a little more than you have been paid here--I won't say more than you have earned here, for you have not been paid what you are worth."

A moment pa.s.sed before these words could get into the consciousness of the young man. Then--they were just entering the village on their return--he stopped short and looked into Paul Carhart's face. "Do you mean that you really want me?" he asked.

Carhart tried not to smile as he said: "The choice of a.s.sistants is in my hands, Gus, and I should find it difficult to justify myself for taking an a.s.sistant whom I did not want--and especially for an undertaking that is likely to last several years."

Young Van was standing stock-still. "'Several years,'" he repeated.

Then, "This seems to amount pretty nearly to a permanent offer?"

"Pretty nearly," said Carhart, smiling now.

At this they resumed their pace and entered the town. Both were absorbed--Young Van in his astonishment that he had found favor in the eyes of his chief, Carhart in his amus.e.m.e.nt over the utter navete of the boy; and neither had an eye for the groups of desperate characters that lined the street, least of all for the particular group before the "Acme Hotel, J. Peters, Prop."

It could not be supposed that the coming of fifteen hundred men to Red Hills, their pockets lined with the earnings of those last irresistible weeks, should pa.s.s without a great effort on the part of the local population to empty these pockets promptly and thoroughly.

If the two engineers had looked about more sharply in the course of their walk, they would have seen more than one familiar face. It was, indeed, a day to be remembered in Red Hills; there had been no such wholesale contribution to local needs since the first ramshackle frame building rose from the dust. Bartenders were busy; and deft-fingered, impa.s.sive gentlemen from Chicago, and New Orleans, and Denver, and San Francisco were hard at work behind green tables. All was quiet so far.

The laborers were so skilfully distributed that no green table was without its professional gambler; and sweltering in the heat, gulping down the ever ready fluids, they went gayly, gloomily, angrily, defiantly on, thumbing the dirty cards and relinquis.h.i.+ng their earnings. All was still quiet, for the business of the day was carried on in back rooms and on upper floors. The uproar would not begin for a few hours yet, and would hardly reach its full strength before dark.

Among those to whom music and feminine charms, such as they were, outweighed the delights of the green table was Charlie the cook. He sat at an open window, upstairs, where he could look down at the sleepy street and at the front of the Acme Hotel, opposite. At first he had been content to make out what he could of the scene through the cheesecloth sash curtains, but, under the mellowing influence of a rapid succession of bottles, he had drawn the curtains, and now sat with his knees against the sill, smiling down in a ruddy, benevolent fas.h.i.+on on everybody and everything below. The parlor at his back was filled with workmen and their companions. He had seen the engineers walk down the street, and had smiled in genial fas.h.i.+on, though aware that they had not observed him. Now he saw them returning, and he was ready, undaunted, to greet them again.

Then something happened. The door leading to the bar of the Acme Hotel suddenly opened, and a hulking figure of a man appeared on the broad step. He was half drunk, and he carried a revolver in his hand.

Behind him, crowding out to see the fun, came a dozen men. Charlie saw this, and, without in the slightest relaxing his genial smile, he drew out one of his own revolvers and held it carelessly before him with the muzzle resting on the window sill. Never for an instant did he take his good-natured, bloodshot eyes from the man across the street.

The engineers were drawing rapidly nearer. Young Van was the first to take in the situation, and he spoke in a low, quick voice, hardly moving his lips:--

"Don't look up or start, Mr. Carhart--but Jack Flagg is standing in front of that hotel on the left, and he looks as if he meant to shoot.

What do you think we had better do? I am not armed."

"Neither am I," Carhart replied. "Don't pay any attention to him."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Charlie had not raised his revolver,--the muzzle still rested easily on the sill,--but it was pointing straight at Jack Flagg's heart."]

That was all that was said. The two engineers swung along without a sign of faltering. Jack Flagg slowly raised his weapon and took deliberate aim at Paul Carhart. Still the two came on, not wholly able to conceal their sense of the situation, but, rather, regardless of it. On Carhart's face there was an expression of stern contempt; Young Van was pale and his eyes were fixed straight before him.

At this point it seemed as if the strain must break one way or the other. The men were not ten yards apart--in another moment it would be less than two. A little gasp of admiration came from the watching groups. Flagg heard this, and his hand wavered, but he recovered and took a short step forward.

Suddenly the silence was broken by a low whistle. Flagg started, and looked around.

Again came the low whistle. This time Flagg looked up, and caught his first sight of Charlie in the window, and hesitated. Charlie had not raised his revolver,--the muzzle still rested easily on the sill,--but it was pointing straight at Jack Flagg's heart. Flagg lowered his weapon a little way, then looked as if he wished to raise it again, but on second thoughts this seemed hardly wise, for Charlie was shaking his head in gentle disapproval. Then this incident, which had shaved close to tragedy, suddenly ran off into farce. Flagg pocketed his revolver, muttered something that n.o.body understood, and disappeared through the bar-room door; and after a long breath of mingled relief and disappointment, somebody laughed aloud.

As for Charlie, he turned, still playing with his revolver, and looked about the room. "Why!" he exclaimed. "Why! Where's the ladies?"

The engineers walked steadily up the street and turned into the hotel.

Then Young Van weakened, staggered to a chair, and sat limp and white.

"I told you," he said breathlessly, "I told you I was--no good."

Carhart, before replying, looked at his watch, and his hand shook as he did so. "Brace up, Gus," he said. "Brace up. I start East in an hour or so, and you are coming with me, you know."