Empire Builders Part 32

"We can discuss these matters later, if you wish," he said placably. "I think you will find our ground well taken. Do you want to drive back as we came? Or will you let me find you an easier road to the mouth of Horse Creek?"

But Mr. Colbrith was not to be balked or turned aside.

"Mr. Ford, I wish to be fair and impartial. I desired to satisfy myself, personally, that this route we have driven over is practicable, and it was also my desire that the investigation should be conducted in your presence. You will admit now that you made a mistake--a very costly mistake for the company--in abandoning this short cut."

"I admit nothing of the kind. The difficulties remain as they were, quite unchanged by our pleasure trip from the end-of-track, Mr.

Colbrith. a.s.suming that the re-survey will report that the north bank of the river is practicable, while the south bank is not, I have only to say that the cost of the two bridges would offset the easier grading conditions, while the danger to future traffic would remain the same.

But that is neither here nor there. You must either give us credit for knowing our business, or you must discredit us entirely."

Frisbie was grinding his heel into the hard soil of the mesa. The argument was growing rather acrid; and Penfield and the two drivers were interested listeners. It was high time for a diversion to be made, and the a.s.sistant made it.

"We have used five hours getting down here, and we'll need as many going back," he put in. "Unless there is something more to be done on the spot, I think we'd better take the road over the hills. It's with you, Mr. Colbrith."

The president signified his a.s.sent by climbing into his buckboard, and the return journey was begun with the two engineers in the lead for pathfinding purposes. Once safely out of earshot, Frisbie voiced his disgust.

"A wild goose-chase, pure and simple! Stuart, that old man is in his second childhood."

"Not at all," said Ford. "He is merely following out North's suggestions. d.i.c.k, my name is Dennis."

"Nonsense! Things are no worse than they have been all along."

"My time with the Pacific Southwestern is shorter by just the number of hours it has taken us to drive down here. Mr. Colbrith has convinced himself that I was wrong in abandoning the canyon. To-morrow he will convince himself that I was doubly wrong in approving the detour. I shall hand in my resignation to-night."

"So be it," said Frisbie shortly. "That means good-by to the extension.

I'm predicting that it will never get to Green b.u.t.te--never get beyond Copah. And your name will go out to the railroad world as that of a man who bit off a number of large things that he couldn't chew."

"Confound you!" said Ford; and after that, Frisbie could get no more than single-syllabled replies to his monologue of Job's comfortings.

The returning route was a detour, winding, through the greater part of it, among and over the swelling heights north of the Pannikin. On each hilltop the vast sweep of the inter-mountain wilderness came into view, and from the highest point in the trail, reached when the sun was dipping toward the western horizon, the eye-sweep took in the broken country lying between the Pannikin and the path of the Transcontinental narrow gauge forty miles away.

Jack's Canyon, the Transcontinental station nearest Copah, was the beginning of a combined pack trail and stage road connecting the Copah district with what had been, before the advent of the Southwestern Extension, its nearest railroad outlet. Along this trail, visible to the buckboarders as a black speck t.i.ttuping against the reddening background of the west, galloped a solitary horseman, urging his mount in a way to make Frisbie, getting his glimpse from the hilltop of extended views, call Ford's attention.

"Look at that brute, pus.h.i.+ng his horse like that at the end of the day!

He ought to be--"

But the hastening rider was getting his deserts, whatever they should be, as he went along. For three hours, with three relays of fresh horses picked up at the stage stations in pa.s.sing, he had been galloping southward, and to whatever other urging he might confess was added the new one of fear, the fear that in the approaching day's-end he would lose his way.

Seen from the nearer point of view, the t.i.ttuping horseman seemed curiously out of harmony with his environment. Instead of the cow-boy "shaps," or overalls, he wore the trousers of civilization, which the rapid night had hitched half-way to his knees. In place of the open-breasted s.h.i.+rt with the rolled-up sleeves there were tailor-made upper clothes, with the collar and cravat also of civilization, and the hat--it was perhaps fortunate for the rider that he had not met any true denizens of the unfettered highlands on the lonely trail from Jack's Canyon. His hat was a Derby of the newest shape; and the cow-men beyond the range are impatient of such head-gear.

Recognition, after one has ridden hard for three hours over a dusty road, is not easy; but there are faces one never forgets, and the features, dust-grimed and sweat-streaked though they were, had still the South-of-Europe outline, the slightly aquiline nose, and the piercing black eyes of Mr. Julius Eckstein, whom we saw, on the morning of this same road-wearying day, welcoming Adair over the counter railing in the Denver office. How does it come that a few short hours later we find him galloping tantivy over the dusty hills, no less than two hundred miles, as the birds fly, from the counter railing of welcomings?

That is the story of another, and a more successful special train than Adair's. No sooner was the care-free young director safely on his way to meet the delays so painstakingly prearranged for him than the wires began to buzz with a cipher message of warning to Penfield. A precious half-hour was lost in ascertaining that the wire connection to the end-of-track was temporarily out of commission; but during that half-hour Mr. North had held his chin in his hand to some good purpose.

With the fresh complications promised by Adair's projection into the field, a stronger man than Penfield should be in command on the firing line. The vice-president decided swiftly that Eckstein was the man; but how to get him to the MacMorrogh headquarters before Adair should arrive?

It proved to be simpler in the outcarrying than in the planning. A special light engine over the Transcontinental to Jack's Canyon--an exchange of courtesies which even fighting railroads make in war as well as in peace--a wire request on the stage company for relays of saddle horses, and the thing was done. And Eckstein, pus.h.i.+ng his jaded beast down the final hill in the dusk of the evening, and welcoming, as only the saddle-tormented can welcome, the lights of the headquarters camp, confessed in cursings quite barbaric in their phrasings that he, too, was done.

The conference held that night behind locked doors in the MacMorroghs'

commissary office was a council of five, with Eckstein, as the mouthpiece of the vice-president, in the chair. Penfield was present, with no vote, and the three MacMorroghs voted as one; but as to that, there were no divisions. A crisis was imminent, and it must be met.

"As I have said, I am here with power to act," said Eckstein, gripping the chair with wincings after the day of torment. "The plan outlined at first by Mr. North must go through as it was outlined. Part of it has already been carried out, you say: Ford and the president have been over the short-cut together. To-morrow the entire private-car party goes to Copah over the detour. Are the buckboards here for that?"

"They're here wid the drivers. I saw to that part of it myself." It was the youngest of the three MacMorroghs who gave the a.s.surance.

"So far so good," commented the chairman. "The other thing we have to provide for, or rather, to prevent, is the possibility of Mr. Adair's reaching here in time to join the party. The last definite information we had of Mr. Adair he was crawling up Blue Canyon, with a train crew which was under orders to give him ample time to study the scenery. He has probably reached Saint's Rest before this, however, and once there, Leckhard will give him anything in sight. The question is, will he attempt to run the extension to-night?"

The middle MacMorrogh thought not, and his younger brother agreed with him. But the senior partner voted aye, and stuck to it. Thereupon ensued a conflict of opinion. Dan MacMorrogh pointed out that the construction motive power was all at the west end, or in transit eastward; it would be daylight of another day before an engineer familiar with the hazards could be obtained for Adair's special over the construction line. But Brian MacMorrogh argued with equal emphasis that this was a mere begging of chances. Without a telegraph wire to verify the guess, no man could say at what hour one of the trains of empties would pull through to Saint's Rest; and whatever the hour, Leckhard would doubtless turn the engine and crew to double back with Adair's car.

Eckstein was gripping the arms of his chair and setting his teeth deep into his cigar while the probabilities were getting themselves threshed out. At the end of the dispute he said quietly: "It's a h.e.l.l of a pity we can't have the use of the wire for this one night. But, gentlemen, we can't stop for trifles. There are five of us here in this room who know how much is at stake. One of two things is due to happen. If we can keep Adair out of it for another twelve hours, Ford will be disgraced and asked to resign. If he gets to that point, we're safe. I know Ford's temper. If Mr. Colbrith puts it as he is likely to put it, Ford will say and do things that will make it impossible for Adair or any one else to get him back into the service."

"Thrue for you, Misther Eckstein; ye have 'im down to the crossin' of a 't'," agreed the eldest of the brothers MacMorrogh.

"That is one of the due things," Eckstein went on smoothly. "The other isn't pretty to look at. If Adair gets here in time, it will be another story. He can handle Ford; and he has proved once or twice that he can handle Mr. Colbrith. If he hadn't been out of the way when you went to New York with Mr. North, you'd never have seen the thin edge of this contract, Brian. Well, then what happens? With Adair on the ground to back him, Ford wins out. Do you know what that means? Investigations, muck-rakings, and worse. There are two or three of us here, and some more on the other side of the range, who won't get off with less than ten years apiece. I'm willing to take the chance of a few more years for another play on the red. How is it with the rest of you?"

The elder MacMorrogh spread his hands.

"It's all in the same boat we are. You've a notion in the back par-rt of your head, Misther Eckstein; lave us have it."

"As I've said, we can't stick at trifles. If Adair's train is on the extension, it mustn't get here. Somebody goes up the line on a hand-car to-night and stops it."

"Is it to ditch it, ye mane?" asked the youngest of the brothers in a hoa.r.s.e whisper.

Eckstein laughed cynically. "What a lot of crude cutthroats you are!" he jeered. "Now if it were Ford, instead of Adair--but pshaw! a rail or two taken up and flung into the river well beyond walking distance from this camp does the business. Only the man who does it wants to make sure he has gone far enough back to cover all the possible chances."

"That's me," said Dan MacMorrogh; and he rose and let himself out, with the younger brother to lock the door behind him.

The door-keeping attended to, the younger brother drew closer into the circle.

"There's wan thing," he said, looking furtively at Eckstein. "I was in Copah this day: I got the buckboards for Misther Colbrith. Goin' past the bank, who would I see but our old bookkeeper, Merriam, chinnin' wid the bank president. I thought he was out o' the way entirely."

Stiff and saddle-sore as he was, Eckstein leaped out of his chair with an oath.

"Merriam? What the devil is he back here for? It's a put-up job!"

It was the chief of the MacMorroghs who flung in the calming word.

"'Tis only a happen-so, Misther Eckstein. Merriam owns a mine or two in the Copah, and ye know the fever: a man can't keep away from thim."

"That may be; but it's a cursed unlucky combination, just the same. I tell you, Brian, he knows too much--this fellow Merriam. He knew what was up when he was steering Frisbie. You told him too much. And afterward, when we gave him the Oregon job, he knew why he was being bribed to go away. You let us in for this: you've got to muzzle him, some way."

The MacMorrogh looked at his remaining brother meaningly. "'Tis up to you, this time, Mickey, b'y. Find your way over to the minin' camp this night, and make a clane job av it.'"

Penfield was moving uneasily in his chair. The plotting waters were deepening swiftly, much too swiftly for him. Loyalty to his superior officer, the unquestioning loyalty that disregards motives entirely and does not look too closely at methods, was his fetish. But these men were not merely loyal to Mr. North. They were criminals--he stuck at the word, but there was no other--fighting for their own hand.

"I guess--I guess I'd better go back to the Nadia," he stammered, trying to keep his voice steady. "Mr. Colbrith may need me."

Eckstein turned on him like a snarling animal.

"No you don't, Arthur, my boy. I know you like a book. You stay here till you're in as deep as the rest of us. Like Merriam, you know too d.a.m.ned much."