"He doesn"t mean to let me build my railroad if he can help it."
The ex-cowboy found his sack of chip tobacco and dexterously rolled a cigarette in a bit of brown wrapping-paper.
"If that"s the game, Mr. Sheeny Mike, or his backers, will be most likely to play it to a finish, don"t you guess?"
"How?"
"By havin" a po-liceman layin" for you at the train."
"I hadn"t thought of that."
"Well, I can think you out of it, I reckon. The branch train is a "commodation, and it"ll stop most anywhere if you throw up your hand at it. We can take out through the woods and across the hills, and mog up the track a piece. How"ll that do?"
"It will do for me, but there is no need of your tramping when you can just as well ride."
But now that side of Mr. Peter Biggin which endears him and his kind to every man who has ever shared his lonely round-ups, or broken bread with him in his comfortless shack, came uppermost.
"What do you take me fer?" was the way it vocalized itself; but there was more than a formal oath of loyal allegiance in the curt question.
"For a man and a brother," said Winton heartily; and they set out together to waylay the outgoing train at some point beyond the danger limit.
It was accomplished without further mishap, and the short winter day was darkening to twilight when the train came in sight and the engineer slowed to their signal. They climbed aboard, and when they had found a seat in the smoker the chief of construction spoke to the ex-cowboy as to a friend.
"I hope Adams has knocked out a good day"s work for us," he said.
"Your pardner with the store hat and the stinkin" cigaroots?--he"s all right," said Biggin; and it so chanced that at the precise moment of the saying the subject of it was standing with the foreman of track-layers at a gap in the new line just beyond and above the Rosemary"s siding at Argentine, his day"s work ended, and his men loaded on the flats for the run down to camp over the lately-laid rails of the lateral loop.
"Not such a bad day, considering the newness of us and the bridge at the head of the gulch," he said, half to himself. And then more pointedly to the foreman: "Bridge-builders to the front at the first crack of dawn, Mike. Why wasn"t this break filled in the grading?"
"Sure, sorr, "tis a dhrain it is," said the Irishman; "from the placer up beyant," he added, pointing to a washed-out excoriation on the steep upper slope of the mountain. "Major Evarts did be tellin" us we"d have the lawyers afther us hot-fut again if we didn"t be lavin"
ut open the full width."
"Mmph!" said Adams, looking the ground over with a critical eye. "It"s a bad bit. It wouldn"t take much to bring that whole slide down on us if it wasn"t frozen solid. Who owns the placer?"
"Two fellies over in Carbonate. The company did be thryin" to buy the claim, but the sharps wouldn"t sell--bein" put up to hold ut by thim C. G. R. divils. It"s more throuble we"ll be havin" here, I"m thinking."
While they lingered a shrill whistle, echoing like an eldrich laugh among the cliffs of the upper gorge, announced the coming of a train from the direction of Carbonate. Adams looked at his watch.
"I"d like to know what that is," he mused. "It"s an hour too soon for the accommodation. By Jove!"
The exclamation directed itself at a one-car train which came thundering down the canyon to pull in on the siding beyond the Rosemary. The car was a pa.s.senger coach, well-lighted, and from his post on the embankment Adams could see armed men filling the windows.
Michael Branagan saw them, too, and the fighting Celt in him rose to the occasion.
""Tis Donnybrook Fair we"ve come to this time, Misther Adams. Shall I call up the b"ys wid their guns?"
"Not yet. Let"s wait and see what happens."
What happened was a peaceful sortie. Two men, each with a kit of some kind borne in a sack, dropped from the car, crossed the creek, and struggled up the hill through the unbridged gap. Adams waited until they were fairly on the right of way, then he called down to them.
"Halt, there! you two. This is corporation property."
"Not much it ain"t!" retorted one of the trespa.s.sers gruffly. "It"s the drain-way from our placer up yonder."
"What are you going to do up there at this time of night?"
"None o" your blame business!" was the explosive counter-shot.
"Perhaps it isn"t," said Adams mildly. "Just the same, I"m thirsting to know. Call it vulgar curiosity if you like."
"All right, you can know, and be cussed to you. We"re goin" to work our claim. Got anything to say against it?"
"Oh! no," rejoined Adams; and when the twain had disappeared in the upper darkness he went down the grade with Branagan and took his place on the man-loaded flats for the run to the construction camp, thinking more of the lately-arrived car with its complement of armed men than of the two miners who had calmly announced their intention of working a placer claim on a high mountain, without water, and in the dead of winter! By which it will be seen that Mr. Morton P. Adams, C. E. M. I. T. Boston, had something yet to learn in the matter of practical field work.
By the time Ah Foo had served him his solitary supper in the d.i.n.key he had quite forgotten the incident of the mysterious placer miners.
Worse than this, it had never occurred to him to connect their movements with the Rajah"s plan of campaign. On the other hand, he was thinking altogether of the carload of armed men, and trying to devise some means of finding out how they were to be employed in furthering the Rajah"s designs.
The means suggested themselves after supper, and he went alone over to Argentine to spend a half-hour in the bar of the dance-hall listening to the gossip of the place. When he had learned what he wanted to know, he forthfared to meet Winton at the incoming train.
"We are in for it now," he said, when they had crossed the creek to the d.i.n.key and the Chinaman was bringing Winton"s belated supper. "The Rajah has imported a carload of armed mercenaries, and he is going to clean us all out to-morrow: arrest everybody from the gang foremen up."
Winton"s eyebrows lifted. "So? that is a pretty large contract. Has he men enough to do it?"
"Not so many men. But they are sworn-in deputies, with the sheriff of Ute County in command--a posse, in fact. So he has the law on his side."
"Which is more than he had when he set a thug on me this afternoon at Carbonate," said Winton sourly; and he told Adams about the misunderstanding in the lobby of the Buckingham. His friend whistled under his breath. "By Jove! that"s pretty rough. Do you suppose the Rajah dictated any such Lucretia Borgia thing as that?"
Winton took time to think about it and admitted a doubt, as he had not before. Believing Mr. Somerville Darrah fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils in his official capacity of vice-president of a fighting corporation, he was none the less disposed to find excuses for Miss Virginia Carteret"s uncle.
"I did think so at first, but I guess it was only the misguided zeal of some understrapper. Of course, word has gone out all along the C. G. R. line that we are to be delayed by every possible expedient."
But Adams shook his head.
"Mr. Darrah dictated that move in his own proper person."
"How do you know that?"
"You had a message from me this afternoon?"
"I did."
"What did you think of it?"
"I thought you might have left out the first part of it; also that you might have made the latter half a good bit more explicit."
A slow smile spread itself over Adams" impa.s.sive face.
"Every man has his limitations," he said. "I did the best I could. But the Rajah knew very well what he was about--otherwise there would have been no telegram."