Samuel Merwin - The Road Builders

“‘Well, Hen,’ said he, very quiet, ‘what are you going to do next?’

“‘You can do what you like, Charlie,’ I said, ‘but I’m going to take the morning three o’clock on the Michigan Central for Toronto.’ And Charlie, he thought maybe he’d go with me.”

Tiffany leaned back in a glow of reminiscence, and chuckled softly. Of the others, some had pushed back their chairs, some were leaning forward on the table. All had been, for half an hour, in the remote state of New York with this genial railroading pirate of the old school. Now, outside, a horse whinnied. Through the desert stillness came the clanking and coughing of a distant train. They were back in the gray Southwest, perhaps facing adventures of their own.

Carhart rose, for he had work to do at the headquarters tent. Young Van took the hint, and followed his example. But the long-nosed instrument man, the fire of a pirate soul shining out through his countenance, leaned eagerly forward. “What happened then?” he asked.

“Oh, nothing much,” Tiffany responded. “What could happen? Charlie and I came back from Toronto a few days later by way of Detroit.” Then his eye lighted up again. “But I like to think,” he added, “that next morning when that captain read about the theft of ninety gon do la cars right out from under the sheriff’s nose by H. L. Tiffany, of Pittsburg, Pa., he was smoking one of said H. L. Tiffany’s cigars.”

The sun was up, hot and bright. The laborers and the men of the tie squad and the iron squad were straggling back to work. The wagons were backing in alongside the cars. And halfway down the knoll stood Carhart and Flint, both in easy western costume, Flint booted and spurred, stroking the neck of his well-kept pony.

“Well, so long, Paul,” said the bridge-builder.

“Good-by,” said Carhart.

It rested with these two lean men whether an S. & W. train should enter Red Hills before October. They both felt it, standing there at the track-end, their backs to civilization, their faces to the desert.

“All right, sir.” Flint got into his saddle. “ All right, sir.” He turned toward the waiting wagon train. “Start along, boys!” he shouted in his thin voice.

Haddon galloped ahead with the order. The drivers took up their reins, and settled themselves for the long journey. Like Carhart’s men, they were a mixed lot – Mexicans, half-breeds, native Americans of a curiously military stamp, and nondescripts – but good-natured enough; and Flint, believing with Carhart in the value of good cooks, meant to keep them good-natured. One by one the whips cracked; a confusion of English, Spanish, and French cries went up; the mules plunged; the heavy wagons, laden with derricks, timber, tools, camp supplies, and the inevitable pile-driver, groaned forward; and the La Paz Bridge outfit was off.

There was about the scene a sense of enterprise, of buoyant freedom, of deeds to be done. Flint felt it, as he rode at the head of his motley cavalcade; for he was an imaginative man. Young Van, standing by the headquarters tent, felt it, for he was young. Tiffany, still at breakfast, felt it so strongly that he swore most unreasoningly at the cook. Down on the job, the humblest stake man stood motionless until Old Van, who showed no signs of feeling anything, asked him if he hadn’t had about enough of a sy-esta. As for Carhart, he was stirred, but his fancy did not roam far afield. From now on those things which would have it in their power to give him the deepest pleasure were the sight of gang after gang lifting cross-ties, carrying them to the grade, and dropping them into place; the sight of that growing line of stubby yellow timbers, and the sound of the rails clanking down upon them and of the rapid-fire sledges driving home the spikes.

Young Van poked his head in through the flaps.

“Well?” said the chief, looking up.

“Won’t you come down, Mr. Carhart? The boys want you to drive the first spike.”

Carhart smiled, then pushed back his chair, and strode out and down the slope to the grade.

“Stand back there, boys!” cried somebody.

Carhart caught up a sledge, swung it easily over his shoulder, and brought it down with a swing.

“There,” he cried, entering into the spirit of the thing, “there, boys! That means Red Hills or bust.”

The cheer that followed was led by the instrument man. Then Carhart, still smiling, walked back to his office. Now the work was begun.

But Old Van, the division engineer, was scowling. He wished the chief would quit stirring up these skylarking notions – on his division, anyway. It took just that much longer to take it out of the men – break them so you could drive them better.

It was a month later, on a Tuesday night, and the engineers were sitting about the table in the office tent. Scribner, the last to arrive, had ridden in after dusk from mile fourteen.

For two weeks the work had dragged. Peet, back at Sherman, had been more liberal of excuses than of materials. It was always the mills back in Pennsylvania, or slow business on connecting lines, or the car famine. And it was not unnatural that the name of the superintendent should have come to stand at the front for certain very unpopular qualities. Carhart had faith in Tiffany, but the railroad’s chief engineer was one man in a discordant organization. Railroad systems are not made in a day, and the S. & W. was new, showing square corners where all should be polished round; developing friction between departments, and bad blood between overworked men. Thus it had been finally brought home to Paul Carhart that in order to carry his work through he must fight, not only time and the elements, but also the company in whose interest he was working.

Lately the office had received a few unmistakably vigorous messages from Carhart. Tiffany, too, had taken a hand, and had opened his mind to the Vice-president. The Vice-president had in turn talked with Peet, who explained that the materials were always sent forward as rapidly as possible, and added that certain delays had arisen from the extremely dangerous condition of Carhart’s road-bed. Meantime, not only rails and ties, but also food and water, were running short out there at the end of the track.

“What does he say now, Paul?” asked Old Van, after a long silence, during which these bronzed, dusty men sat looking at the flickering lamp or at the heaps of papers, books, and maps which covered the table.

Carhart drew a crumpled slip of paper from his pocket and tossed it across the table. Old Van spread it out, and read as follows: —

MR. PAUL CARHART: Small delay due to shortage of equipment. Supply train started this morning, however. Regret inconvenience, as by order of Vice-president every effort is being made to supply you regularly.

“Interesting, isn’t it!” said Carhart. “You notice he doesn’t say how long the train has been on the way. It may not get here for thirty-six hours yet.”

“Suppose it doesn’t,” put in Scribner, “what are we going to do with the men?”

“Keep them all grading,” said Carhart.

“But – ”

“Well, what is it? This is a council of war – speak out.”

“Just this. Scraping and digging is thirsty work in this sun, and we haven’t water enough for another half day.”

“Young Van is due with water.”

“Yes, he is due, Mr. Carhart, but you told him not to come back without it, and he won’t.”

“Listen!” Outside, in the night, voices sounded, and the creaking of wagons.

“Here he is now,” said Carhart.

Into the dim light before the open tent stepped a gray figure. His face was thin and drawn; his hair, of the same dust color as his clothing, straggled down over his forehead below his broad hat. He nodded at the waiting group, threw off his hat, unslung his army canteen, and sank down exhausted on the first cot.