Allison scowled after her.
"Not so blind as some--the unprincipled jade!" he retorted. "But that"s another thing I"ve heard about you, Mr. O"Mara, if you will pardon a garrulous old gossip"s personalities. They tell me that you aren"t particularly--susceptible?"
And then the bantering tone was dropped entirely. In the rest of Allison"s greeting was all that Caleb found most lovable in the man"s whole make-up--his p.r.o.neness to accept men as men, for what they had done or might do, in a man"s world.
"I"ve heard much of you, Mr. O"Mara; I"ve looked forward to this meeting," he said, as he shook hands. "Now I want to tell you that I am proud to know you. And so you didn"t get my message, after all?"
The handclasp left Allison staring ruefully at his reddened fingers.
Steve shook his head.
"I had to come down river, yesterday," he explained. "Your telegram found me here, and I waited over until this morning, as you suggested."
"Surely . . . surely! I see . . . I see!" Allison emphasized his comprehension. "Not that it was anything of vital importance. I just wanted a short conference with you, yourself, that was all. Elliott"s own reports on the work are so tinged with his eternal optimism, so colored by what you aptly termed his romantic zest for the game, that I wanted your own opinion concerning the possibility of the East Coast Company finishing that railroad in time to fulfil their contracts. No hurry about it; but that"s my house over yonder. You were just one place too far north to find me."
He turned to face Caleb. There was a flood of questions upon the latter"s lips. Caleb wanted to seize the boy by the shoulder, and spin him around toward the light and stare and stare into his face; but he waited because he found much that was hugely diverting in Dexter"s bland ignorance, which had even accepted Steve"s presence there as a case of misdirection.
"I suppose you know what this early morning call presages, Cal?"
Allison challenged.
Before Caleb could reply Steve knew what the answer was to be. The request found him already at the door, grinning broadly.
"Would you--would you mind finding Miss Sarah, Steve?" Caleb asked.
"Will you tell her, please, that we are to be subjected to another--neighborly imposition!"
Steve"s going left Allison frowning a little.
"We"ve played this farce through a hundred times, Cal," he murmured, "and it wasn"t according to formula--that last remark of yours. But, do you know, just for a minute it sort of reminded me of something--something that seems to have happened before, and I can"t recall just what."
He shook his head and led the way to a chair.
"It wasn"t our nonsense that affected me, either," he finished. "I believe it was O"Mara himself who . . . but I didn"t know that you were acquainted with him, Cal. Have you known him long?"
"Um-m-m--yes!" Caleb weighed his reply. "Quite some time, I think I might say."
He shook with scarcely suppressed laughter, but Allison ignored his senseless mirth.
"I"d like to claim that boy as my own discovery," he avowed, "but I can"t--not without fear of successful contradiction on Elliott"s part.
And in point of service it isn"t fair to call him a boy, either, though I suppose both of us are old enough to be his father. He"s Elliott"s find. Elliott suggested him as the one man for this job, when I consolidated with the Ainnesley crowd and they took up the contract to move the Reserve timber from Thirty-Mile and the valleys above.
Elliott knew of him, but I"ve been looking up his record pretty closely, since he took hold in earnest.
"He"s in his twenties, as near as I can make out, but he"s come through on one of two jobs that might well make an old campaigner envious. He took a fortune in hard woods out of San Domingo for a Berlin concern; he was the only man on the St. Sebastian River job who said the construction was too light. He said it wouldn"t stand when the ice began to move in the spring--and it didn"t! Oh, he knows his business!
But it wasn"t his successes which caught Elliott"s eye. It"s the way he has failed a couple of times, fighting right back to the last ditch--and fighting and fighting!--when all the rest had quit, that made me anxious to get a look at him. Perhaps there are older men who can outfigure him on loads and stresses, but as a field general he stands alone. He can handle men. And, when it comes to meeting conditions just as they arise, Elliott says he"s a wonder--he can outguess dear old Mother Nature herself!"
There was grave appreciation in Allison"s voice--honest appreciation of a man who had himself achieved, for another man"s achievement. And yet Caleb, in spite of the proud pumping of his heart, in spite of his desire to murmur, "But I told you so, Dexter, years ago," still found room to wonder at a thin strain of speculation which seemed to underrun the speaker"s words. In his reiteration of O"Mara"s qualities Allison seemed almost to be a.s.suring himself that infallibility was not a human attribute. And his next remark only served to heighten that suggestion.
"That"s why the East Coast Co. brought him up here to build their bit of road," he went on slowly. "They"ve got to move that Reserve Company timber. They have a contract that"ll break "em--break us--if we fall down. And do you know, Cal, I--I can"t help but believe that the thing is beyond the pale of possibility. I believed it six months ago, when Elliott and Ainnesley and the rest of them were so keen for it, and I believe it still, even though I have seen Elliott"s engineer and know what he has already accomplished. That track"ll never go through on schedule--and that"s why I"m up here for the winter. It"s going to be a hot little race against time, with some millions for a purse. It"ll break the East Coast Co. if he fails, and"--his voice became oddly intense--"and I tell you again that it--can"t--be--done!"
Then Allison became aware of Caleb"s mild astonishment at his vehemence.
"An amateur"s opinion, of course, Cal," he laughed, "which is strictly _entre nous_. But, win or lose, this man O"Mara will be a valuable man to have around after the thing is decided."
"You said that he reminded you of something," Caleb began rather heavily. "It recalled something to me, too. I wonder if you remember a little fishing trip that we took, some ten or twelve years ago, Dexter, up into the hills? It was to the headwaters of the cast branch, somewhere in the neighborhood of the Reserve Company"s holdings, I should say."
"Why, yes," the other answered, off-handedly. "Why, yes, now that you mention it, I do remember. May I ask your reason for speaking of it?"
"No reason in particular," Caleb hesitated. "Only this O"Mara reminded me of something, too--something that you said, that night at the camp-fire."
"Well?"
Allison"s monosyllable was coolly noncommittal.
"Can you remember what it was?" Caleb asked, positively uncomfortable now.
"I think I remarked that there was a fortune for some man in that valley, if he was far-sighted enough. Was that it?"
Then Caleb understood the challenge in his friend"s voice. He thought he understood. The names of the stockholders of the Reserve Company were all strange to Caleb save one. The Honorable Archibald Wickersham, who was said to represent huge foreign interests, he had known as a boy. And Caleb had seen Dexter indescribably sore, before this, from having overlooked, as he termed it himself, "a sure thing bet." He laughed, more like his placid self again.
"Bless you, no!" he exclaimed. "What have I ever done to make you believe that a mere commercial estimate would remain with me this long?
It--it was something that you said concerning the making of a gentleman. I just wondered if you were of your early way of thinking.
I wondered if you would consider that--that----"
Allison lay back in his chair and breathed deeply, slowly--and Miss Sarah appeared that moment in the doorway, pinker of cheek and more tremulous of lip than her brother had ever seen her before. She dropped Allison an old-fashioned curtsy, which was an exceedingly frivolous performance for Sarah.
"Breakfast is served, Cal," she fairly chortled, "and there are two very hungry children inside."
CHAPTER VII
HARRIGAN, THAT"S ME!
Never before had the air of that long, paneled room been so surcharged with half-suppressed hilarity. At first her father merely scowled at Barbara"s intermittent little gurgles, which refused to stay entirely pent-up; he frowned at her seemingly inane interruptions of the technical discussion into which he had immediately plunged with the East Coast Company"s engineer, until he could no longer ignore the smile which pulled at the lips of the latter, too, at every fresh attempt of the girl to swing the conversation into an utterly irrelevant channel. He looked around the table then and caught the gleam in Caleb"s eyes; he took note of Miss Sarah"s illuminated face, and gave way to a burst of querulousness not all simulation.
"_What_ is the joke?" he demanded in a voice that set them all to rocking in their chairs. "Let me in on it--let me laugh, too--if there is anything worth laughing at. Cal, you"re growing old--old and feeble-witted!"
He turned sternly to his daughter, but the darkly glowing eyes which she lifted to his absolutely silenced him for an instant. Twin devils of mischief fairly danced in their shimmering, liquid depths. The girl"s face, even to him who had long before grown overfamiliar with its beauty, was a wonderfully lovely thing. Allison sat and stared at her for a moment, blankly, and when he went on his voice had become less testy.
"And you," he growled, "you have interrupted me a dozen times already, always with some nonsense of which I can make neither rime nor reason.
Now, if you don"t mind, I"d like to get Mr. O"Mara"s reason for establishing his headquarters at Thirty-Mile, instead of directing the work from Morrison, which would seem to be far more convenient."
Barbara bobbed her head, meekly. Her giggle, however, was shameless.
"But Mr. O"Mara has been trying to tell you," she defended in a suffocated small voice, "that it"s because the work at this end is not so difficult. There are several miles of swamp work, I think he said, and a bridge or something, which promises trouble. I--I am sorry if I interrupted. I only wanted to ask Mr. O"Mara a question myself--a--a very unimportant question, I"m afraid!"
Allison had had experience with his daughter"s seeming meekness.
Moreover, the working of Caleb"s and Sarah"s faces baffled him. He waited, fuming.
"Just before you and Uncle Cal came in we--we were talking about the weather," the girl struggled on. "Mr. O"Mara predicted it would rain soon and I just wanted to ask him what made him think so."