Samuel Merwin - The Road Builders

Old Van, himself seasoned timber and unable to recognize the limitations of the human frame, spoke impatiently, “Well, Gus, how much did you get?”

“Fourteen barrels.”

“Fourteen barrels!” The other men exchanged glances.

“Why – why – ” sputtered the elder brother, “that’s not enough for the engines!”

“It’s all we can get.”

“Why didn’t you look farther?”

“You’d better look at the mules,” Young Van replied simply enough. “I had to drive them” – he fumbled at his watch – “an even eighteen hours to get back to-night.” And he added in a whimsical manner that was strange to him, “I paid two dollars a barrel, too.”

Carhart was watching him closely. “Did you have any trouble with your men, Gus?” he asked.

Young Van nodded. “A little.”

After a moment, during which his eyes were closed and his muscles relaxed, he gathered his faculties, lighted a cigarette, and rose.

“Hold on, Gus,” said Carhart. “What are you going to do?”

“Bring the barrels up by our tent here. It isn’t safe to leave them on the wagons. The men – some of them – aren’t standing it well. Some are ‘most crazy.” He interrupted himself with a short laugh. “Hanged if I blame them!”

“You’d better go to bed, Gus,” said the chief. “I’ll look after the water.”

But Young Van broke away from the restraining hand and went out.

Half a hundred laborers were grouped around the water wagons in oppressive silence. Vandervelt hardly gave them a glance.

“Dimond,” he called, “where are you?”

A man came sullenly out of the shadows.

“Take a hand here – roll these barrels in by Mr. Carhart’s tent.” A murmur spread through the group. More men were crowding up behind. But the engineer gave his orders incisively, in a voice that offered no encouragement to insubordination. “You two, there, go over to the train and fetch some skids. I want a dozen men to help Dimond – you – you – ” Rapidly he told them off. “The rest of you get away from here – quick.”

“What you goin’ to do with that water?” The voice rose from the thick of the crowd. It drew neither explanation nor reproof from Young Van; but his manner, as he turned his back and, pausing only to light another cigarette, went rapidly to work, discouraged the laborers, and in groups of two and three they drifted off to their quarters.

The men worked rapidly, for Mr. Carhart’s assistant had a way of taking hold himself, lending a hand here or a shoulder there, and giving low, sharp orders which the stupidest men understood. As they rolled the barrels along the sides of the tent and stood them on end between the guy ropes Paul Carhart stood by, a rolled-up map in his hand, and watched his assistant. He took it all in – the cowed, angry silence of the men, the unfailing authority of the young engineer. No one felt the situation more keenly than Carhart, but he had set his worries aside for the moment to observe the methods of the younger man. Once he caught himself nodding with approval. And then, when he was about to turn away and resume his study at the table beneath the lantern, an odd scene took place. The work was done. Vandervelt stood wiping his forehead with a handkerchief which had darkened from white to rich gray. The laborers had gone; but Dimond remained.

“That’s all, Dimond,” said Vandervelt.

But the man lingered.

“Well, what do you want?”

“It’s about this water. The boys want to know if they ain’t to have a drink.”

“No; no more to-night,” replied Young Van.

“But – but – ” Dimond hesitated.

“Wait a minute,” said Van abruptly. He entered the tent, found his canteen where he had dropped it, brought it out, and handed it to Dimond.

“This is my canteen. It’s all I have a right to give anybody. Now, shut up and get out.”

Dimond hesitated, then swung the canteen over his shoulder and disappeared without a word.

“Gus,” said Paul Carhart, quietly.

“Oh! I didn’t see you there.”

“Wasn’t that something of a gallery play?”

“No, I don’t think it was. It will show them that we are dealing squarely with them. I had a deuce of a time on the ride, and Dimond really tried, I think, to keep the men within bounds. They are children, you know, – children with whiskey throats added, – and they can’t stand it as we can.”

“Gus,” said the chief, taking the boy’s arm and drawing him toward the tent, “it’s time you got to sleep. I shall need you to-morrow.”

The other engineers were still sitting about the table, talking in low tones. Carhart rejoined them. Young Van dropped on a cot in the rear and fell asleep with his boots on.

“Old Van is telling how the pay-slips came in to-day,” said Scribner.

Carhart nodded. “Go ahead.” He had found the laborers, headed by the Mexicans, so impossibly deliberate in their work that he had planned out a system of paying by the piece. When the locomotive whistle blew at night, each man was handed a slip stating the amount due him. At the end of the week the slips were to be cashed, and to-day the first payment had been made. “Go ahead,” he repeated. “How much did it cost us?”

“About seventy-five dollars more than last week,” replied Old Van. “So that, on the whole, we got a little more work out of them. But here’s what happened. When the whistle blew and I got out my satchel, nobody came. I called to a couple of them to hurry up if they wanted their pay, but they shook their heads. Finally, just two men came up and handed in all the slips.”

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