"They"re gone."
"Not yet, Garry. Try Fort Rucker for the Special."
"There"s no night man at Fort Rucker."
"But Burling, the day man, sleeps upstairs----"
"He goes up to Bear Dance to lodge."
"This isn"t lodge night," said Blood.
"For G.o.d"s sake, how can you get him upstairs, anyway?" trembled O"Neill.
"On cold nights he sleeps downstairs by the ticket-office stove. I spent a night with him once and slept on his cot. If he is in the ticket-office you may be able to wake him--he may be awake. The Special can"t pa.s.s there for ten minutes yet. Don"t stare at me. Call Rucker, hard."
O"Neill seized the key and tried to sound the Rucker call. Again and again he attempted it and sent wild. The man that could hold a hundred trains in his head without a slip for eight hours at a stretch sat distracted.
"Let me help you, Garry," suggested Blood, in an undertone. The despatcher turned shaking from his chair and his superintendent slipped behind him into it. His crippled right hand glided instantly over the key, and the Rucker call, even, sharp, and compelling, followed by the quick, clear nineteen--the call that gags and binds the whole division--the despatchers" call--clicked from his fingers.
Persistently, and with unfailing patience, the men hovering at his back, Blood drummed at the key for the slender chance that remained of stopping the pa.s.senger train. The trial became one of endurance. Like an incantation, the call rang through the silence of the room until it wracked the listeners, but the man at the key, quietly wiping his face and head, and with the towel in his left hand mopping out his collar, never faltered, never broke, minute after minute, until after a score of fruitless waits an answer broke his sending with the "I, I, Ru!"
As the reply flew from his fingers Morris Blood"s eyes darted to the clock; it was 3.17. "Stop Special 833, east, quick."
"You"ve got them?" asked Glover, from the counter.
"If they"re not by," muttered Blood.
"Red light out," reported Rucker; then three dreadful minutes and it came, "Special 833 taking water; O"Brien wants orders."
And the order went, "Siding, quick, and meet Extra 81, west, at Rucker," and the superintendent rose from the chair.
"It"s all over, boys," said he, turning to the operators. "Remember, no man ever got to a railroad presidency by talking; but many men have by keeping their mouths shut. Lay c.a.w.kins on the lounge in my room.
Duffy said that boy would never do."
"What was Burling doing, Morris," asked Glover, sitting down by the stove.
"Ask him, Garry," suggested Blood. They waited for the answer.
"Were you asleep on your cot?" asked the despatcher, getting Rucker again.
"If that fellow woke on my call, I"ll make a despatcher of him,"
declared Morris Blood, with a thrill of fine pride.
"No," answered Rucker, "I slept upstairs tonight."
The two men at the stove stared at one another. "How did you hear your call?" asked the despatcher. Again their ears were on edge.
And Rucker answered, "I always come down once in the night to put coal on the fire."
"Another illusion destroyed," smiled Morris Blood. "Hang him, I"ll promote him, anyway, for attending to his fire."
"But you couldn"t do that again in a thousand years, Mr. Blood,"
ventured a young and enthusiastic operator who had helped to lay out poor Bud c.a.w.kins.
The mountain man looked at him coldly. "I sha"n"t want to do that again in a thousand years. In the railroad life it always comes different, every time. Go to your key."
"I"m glad we got that particular train out of trouble," he added, turning to Glover when they were alone.
"What train?"
"That Special 833 is the Brock special. You didn"t know it? We"ve been looking for them from the coast for two days."
CHAPTER XIII
BACK TO THE MOUNTAINS
The sudden appearance of Mr. Brock at any time and at any point where he had interests would surprise only those that did not know him. On the coast the party had broken up, Louise Donner going into Colorado with friends, and Harrison returning to Pittsburg.
Planning originally to recross the mountains by a southern route, and to give himself as much of a pleasure trip as he ever took, Mr. Brock changed all his plans at the last moment--a move at which he was masterly--and wired Bucks to meet him at Bear Dance for the return trip. Doctor Lanning, moreover, had advised that Marie spend some further time in the mountains, where her gain in health had been decided.
Among the features the general manager particularly wished Mr. Brock to see before leaving the mountain country was the Crab Valley dam and irrigation ca.n.a.l, and the second day after the president"s special entered the division it was side-tracked at a way station near Sleepy Cat for an inspection of the undertaking. The trip to the ca.n.a.l was by stage with four horses, and the ladies had been asked to go.
The morning was so exhilarating and the ride so fast that when the head horses dipped over the easy divide flanking the line of the ca.n.a.l on the south, and the brake closed on the lumbering wheels, the visitors were surprised to discover almost at their feet a swarming army of men and horses sc.r.a.ping in the dusty bed of a long cut. There the heavy work was to be seen, and to give his party an idea of its magnitude, Bucks had ordered the stage driven directly through the cut itself.
With Mr. Brock he sat up near the driver. Back of them were Doctor Lanning and Gertrude Brock; within rode Mrs. Whitney and Marie.
As the stage, getting down the high bank, lurched carefully along the sc.r.a.per ways of the yellow bed, shovellers, drivers, and water-boys looked curiously at the unusual sight, and patient mules nosed meekly the alert, nervous horses that dragged the stage along the uneven way.
At the lower end of the cut a more formidable barrier interposed. A pocket of gravel on the eastern bank had slipped, engulfing a steam shovel, and a gang of men were busy about it. On a level overlooking the scene, in corduroy jackets and broad hats, stood two engineers. At times one of them gave directions to a foreman whose gang was digging the shovel out. His companion, perceiving the approach of the stage, signalled the driver sharply, and the leaders were swung to the right of the shovellers so that the stage was brought out on a level some distance away.
Bucks first recognized the taller of the two men. "There"s Glover," he exclaimed. "h.e.l.lo!" he called across the ca.n.a.l bed. "I didn"t look for you here." Glover lifted his hat and walked over to the stage.
"I came up last night to see Ed Smith about running his flume under Horse Creek bridge. They cross us, you know, in the canon there," said he, in his slow, steady way. "Just as we got on the ponies to ride down, this slide occurred----"
"Glad you couldn"t get away. We want to see Ed Smith," returned Bucks, getting down. The women were already greeting Glover, and avoiding Gertrude"s eye while he included her in his salutation to all, he tried to answer several questions at once. Smith, the engineer in charge of the ca.n.a.l, was talking with Bucks and Mr. Brock. On top of the stage Doctor Lanning was trying to persuade Gertrude not to get down; but she insisted.
"Mr. Glover will help me, I am sure," she said, looking directly at the evading Glover, who was absorbed in his talk with her sister. "I should advise you not to alight, Miss Brock," said he, unable to ignore her request. "You will sink into this dusty clay----"
"I don"t mind that, but unless you will give me your hand," she interrupted, putting her boot on the foot rest to descend, "I shall certainly break my neck." When he promptly advanced she took both of his offered hands with a laugh at her recklessness and dropped lightly beside him. "May I go over where you stood?" she asked at once.
"I shouldn"t," he ventured.
"But I can"t see what they are doing." She walked capriciously ahead, and Glover reluctantly followed. "Why shouldn"t you?" she questioned, waiting for him to come to her side.
"It isn"t safe."
"Why did you stand there?"