The Road Builders Part 18

Charlie took in this comment quietly, but with less than the usual good nature in his blue eyes.

"I don't care how decent the boss is," continued the laborer, "if I have to have a mean old he-devil cussin' at me from six to six, and half the night besides, sometimes."

Dimond grew reflective. "I know about Mr. Vandervelt," he said meditatively. "You see, boys, it was sort o' lonely up ahead there boring for water, and Mr. Scribner and me we got pretty well acquainted." Dimond was endeavoring to conceal the slight superiority over these men of which he could not but be conscious. "It's a queer case," he went on, "Mr. Vandervelt's case. I know about it. It's his temper, you see. That's what's kep' 'im back,--that's why he's only a division engineer to-day."

"Keep quiet, boys," broke in the laborer, with a sneer. "Dimond knows about it. He's tellin' us the news. Mr. Vandervelt's got a temper, he says."

Dimond was above a retort. "I can tell you," he said. "Mr. Scribner give me the facts." (In justice to Harry Scribner it should be mentioned that he had told Dimond nothing whatever concerning the personal attributes of his colleague.) "When Mr. Vandervelt gets mad, he shoots. He don't have to be drunk, neither, or in a fight, or frolicking careless with the boys. He shot a waiter in the Harper restaurant at Flemington, shot 'im right down. And then he went out into the mountains and worked for a year without ever coming near a town. And they say"--Dimond's voice lowered--"they say he shot a camp boss on the Northern, a man he used to knock around with, friendly.

They say he shot him." Dimond paused, in order that his words might sink into the consciousness of each listener. "He never goes North any more. He'll never even stay at a place like Sherman for more than a day or two, and not that when he can help it."

The men were silent for a little while. Then Charlie got slowly to his feet and shook out his big frame preparatory to making his rounds. "I guess that's why Mr. Carhart told me to take my orders from his brother," he said slowly. "I was wondering." Then he stepped off in the direction of the corral.

It was three o'clock in the morning when Charlie finally stretched out for three winks. The laborers had long before rolled themselves up in their blankets. The men on guard, weary of peering into the darkness and the silence, had made themselves as nearly comfortable as they could. And it was half-past three, or near it, when a rope was cut by a stealthy hand and half a dozen sleepy, obedient mules were led out and away. Where so many animals were stirring; and where, too, lids were perhaps drooping over hitherto watchful eyes, the slight disturbance pa.s.sed un.o.bserved. At four the guards were changed, and the new day began to make itself known. At five the camp was astir; and a boy, searching in vain for his team, came upon the cut, trailing ends of rope at the outer edge of the corral.

They told Charlie, whom they found bending, red-eyed, over a steaming kettle. And the cook, with a straightforward sort of moral courage, went at once to announce his failure at guarding the camp. As luck would have it, he found the brothers Vandervelt together, at the wash basin behind their tent.

"May I speak to you, sir?" addressing the younger.

"Certainly, Charlie--What luck?" was the reply. And then, for a moment, they waited,--Young Van half glancing at his brother, Charlie summoning every ounce of this wonderful new sense of responsibility for the ordeal which he saw was to come, Old Van meaning unmistakably to take a hand in the discussion.

"We lost six mules last night, Mr. Vandervelt," said Charlie, at length, plainly addressing Young Van.

"We lost six mules, did we?" mimicked the veteran, breaking in before his brother could reply. "What do you mean by coming here with such a story, you--?" The tirade was on. Old Van applied to the cook such epithets as men did not employ at that time to any great extent on the plains. All the depression of the day before, which he had not succeeded in sleeping off, came out in a series of red-hot phrases, which, to Young Van's, and to his own still greater surprise, Charlie took. Young Van, looking every second for a blow or even for a shot, could not see that he so much as twitched a muscle. Finally Old Van paused, not because he was in any danger of running out of epithets, but because something in the att.i.tude of both Charlie and his brother tended to clarify the situation in his mind. Gus was standing almost as squarely as Charlie, and there were signs of tension about his mouth. It was no time for the engineers to develop a conflict of authority.

When his brother had stopped talking, Young Van said shortly, "How did you come to let them get away, Charlie?"

"I fell asleep, Mr. Vandervelt,--it must have been after three this morning, and I didn't wake up until four."

"But what was the matter with your men?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out, sir. They must have been asleep, too."

"Who was on guard at that point?"

"A man named Foulk--one of the iron squad."

"Yes, I know him. He is trustworthy, I think."

"Oh, yes, sir, you can trust him, as far as having anything to do with those thieves is concerned."

"But that won't help us much if he can't keep awake a few hours. Where is he now?"

Charlie hesitated. "I--I tied him up."

"Bring him here."

Charlie went off to obey. And Old Van returned to his ablutions. A moment more and the unfortunate sentinel was being marched across to headquarters, under the guidance and the momentum of a huge red hand.

"Here he is, Mr. Vandervelt."

Young Van looked at the two. Foulk appeared honestly crestfallen.

Then, "Let him go, Charlie," he said. And turning to Foulk, he merely added, "You'll get your night's sleep after this, my friend. We want no men on guard who can't be relied on--and it's evident that you can't. Now go and eat your breakfast, and get to work. See that this doesn't happen again, Charlie."

Foulk hurried off in one direction, Charlie walked away in another; Old Van disappeared within the tent in order to complete his very simple toilet; Young Van stood alone, looking after one and another of the retreating figures with an expression of something like dismay.

He had spoken with more vigor and authority than he could suppose; but even such as it was, his momentary grip on the situation relaxed while he stood there. The work was not going to stop, he knew that, yet this complicated mechanism, the job, seemed to be running on without any mainspring. Speaking for himself, there was no one of the many tasks Carhart had left in his hands which he was not competent to perform, yet, viewing them in ma.s.s, they bewildered him. There would be bickerings, sliding on from bad to worse. The work would be undertaken each day in a dogged spirit, and it would have an ugly side which had not before shown itself. Earlier in the course of the undertaking there had been moments when he had thought, looking out from his own mountain range of details, that Carhart's work was not so trying as it seemed; that he had time to ride up and down the line, chatting with engineers and foremen; that he could relax almost as he chose,--run down to Sherman now and then, or even slip off for a day's shooting.

Now he saw it differently. And his forebodings were realized.

Everybody in authority felt the unfortunate drift of the work, and everybody felt helpless to check this drift. Attempts made now and then by individuals were worse--because they merely succeeded in drawing attention to it--than the general failure. That evening, when Scribner came back and they all tried to be jolly, was the gloomiest time in a gloomy week. Men took to deserting their work. On one occasion thirty-odd of them left in a body to join an outfit which halted overnight near the main camp--that was when they were living on "mile forty-five." Fights grew more frequent. Accidents seemed to be almost a part of the week's routine.

One day, Young Van, chancing to pa.s.s near the track-laying work, heard his brother swearing at the rider of the snap-mule that drew the rail-truck back and forth between the material train and the work. The rider was a boy of twelve. Young Van recalled, as he listened, a scene of a fortnight earlier (it seemed a year), when the boy, then new to it, had been found by Carhart, quietly sobbing on his horse. "What's the trouble, son?" the chief had inquired good-humoredly. "I'm afraid," was the lad's reply. Whereupon the chief had lifted him down, swung himself into the saddle, and, with a twinkle in his eye, had ridden a few trips in order to show the boy how to manage it safely.

At length a man was killed, one of pile-driver crew No. 1, on Old Van's division. Other men had been killed earlier in the work, but this death struck the workmen as bearing greater significance. In the other cases Carhart himself had done all that man could do; the last time he had driven the body twenty miles to a priest and decent burial. But Old Van sent out a few nerve-shaken laborers to dig a grave, and told them to waste no time about it, beyond seeing that it was well filled after--afterward.

For several nights after the trouble with Foulk Charlie did not sleep at all. But even a frontiersman is subject to Nature's laws, and the time came when he was overcome, shortly after midnight, while sitting on a box before his tent, and he rolled over and slept like a child.

They woke him at daybreak, and, without a word, handed him this rough placard:--

Tell Mr. Carhart he'd better be carrying a gun after this.

He'll need it.

JACK FLAGG.

"It was stuck up on the telegraph pole," explained a sleepy-eyed sentinel.

"Where?"

"Here in camp."

A few moments later the cook, pale under his tan, stood before his half-dressed acting-chief. Again the two brothers were together.

"So this is how you watch things, is it?" said Old Van. "What did you lose for us last night?"

"The drivers are counting up now, sir. I only know of a mule and a horse so far."

"That's all you know of, is it? I'll tell you what to do. You go back to your quarters and see that you do no more meddling in this business. No, not a word. Go back and get your breakfast. That's all I expect from you after this."

Charlie looked inquiringly at Young Van, who merely said: "I want to know more about this, Charlie. Run it down, and then come to me."

When the cook had gone, Young Van picked up the placard and read it over. He was struck by the bravado of the thing. And he wondered how much of a substratum of determination Jack Flagg's bravado might have.

This primitive animal sort of man was still new to him. He had neither Paul Carhart's unerring instinct, nor his experience in handling men.

To him the incident seemed grave. There would be chances in plenty before they reached Red Hills for even a coward to get in a shot, and a coward's shot would be enough to bring the career of their chief to an abrupt end. He folded the dirty paper and put it into his pocket.

Later, with the best of intentions, he said to his brother: "You are altogether too hard on Charlie. I happen to know that he has been doing everything any man could do without a troop of regulars behind him."

To his surprise, Old Van replied with an angry outburst: "You keep out of this, Gus! When I need your advice in running this division, I'll ask you for it."

Twenty minutes later, when they were rising from breakfast, Charlie appeared, leading with an iron grip a dissolute-looking plainsman, and carrying a revolver in his other hand.