The Road Builders

CHAPTER I

YOUNG VAN ENGAGES A COOK

The S. & W. was hoping some day to build a large station with a steel and glass trainshed at Sherman. Indeed, a side elevation of the structure, drawn to scale and framed in black walnut, had hung for a number of years in the private office, away down east, of President Daniel De Reamer. But that was to come in the day when Sherman should be a metropolis; at present the steel of which it was to be constructed still lay deep in the earth, unblasted, unsmelted, and unconverted; and the long, very dirty train which, at the time this narrative opens, was waiting to begin its westward journey, lay exposed to the rays of what promised to be, by noon, the hottest sun the spring had so far known. The cars were of an old, ill-ventilated[Pg 1][Pg 2] sort, and the laborers, who were packed within them like cattle in a box-car, had shed coats and even shirts, and now sat back, and gasped and grumbled and fanned themselves with their caps, and steadily lost interest in life.

Apparently there was some uncertainty back in the office of the superintendent. A red-faced man, with a handkerchief around his neck, ran out with an order; whereupon an engine backed in, coupled up to the first car, and whistled impatiently. But they did not go. Half an hour passed, and the red-faced man ran out again, and the engine uncoupled, snorted, rang its bell, and disappeared whence it had come.

At length two men – Peet, the superintendent, and Tiffany, chief engineer of the railroad – walked down the platform together, and addressed a stocky man with a close-cut gray mustache and a fixed frown, who stood beside the rear car.

“Peet says he can’t wait any longer, Mr. Vandervelt,” said Tiffany.

“Can’t help that,” replied Vandervelt.

“But you’ve got to help it!” cried Peet. “What are you waiting for, anyway?”

“If you think we’re starting without Paul Carhart, you’re mistaken.”

“Carhart! Who is Carhart?”

“That’s all right,” Tiffany put in. “He’s in charge of the construction.”

“I don’t care what he is! This train – ”

He was interrupted by a sudden uproar in the car just ahead. A number of Italians had chosen to enliven the occasion by attacking the Mexicans, some of whom had unavoidably been assigned to this car.

Vandervelt left the railroad men without a word, bounded up the car steps, and plunged through the door. The confusion continued for a moment, then died down. Another moment, and Vandervelt reappeared on the platform.

Meanwhile Tiffany was talking to the superintendent.

“You’ve simply got to wait, Peet,” said he. “The old man says that Carhart must have a free hand. If he’s late, there’s a reason for it.”

“The old man didn’t say that to me,” growled Peet; but he waited.

It would perhaps be difficult to find, in the history of American enterprise, an undertaking which demanded greater promptness in execution than the present one; yet, absurdly enough, the cause of the delay was a person so insignificant that, even for the purposes of this narrative, his name hardly matters. The name happened to be, however, Purple Finn, and he had been engaged for chief cook to the first division.

There was but one real hotel in the “city,” which is to be known here as Sherman, the half-dozen other places that bore the title of hotel being rather in the nature of a side line to the saloon and gambling industry. At this one, which was indicated by a projecting sign and the words “Eagle, House,” Carhart and his engineers were stopping. “The Comma House,” as the instrument men and stake men had promptly dubbed it, was not very large and not very clean, and the “razor back” hogs and their progeny had a way of sleeping in rows on and about the low piazza. But it was, nevertheless, the best hotel in that particular part of the Southwest.

Finn, on the other hand, made his headquarters at one of the half dozen, that one which was known to the submerged seven-eighths as “Murphy’s.” That Finn should be an enthusiastic patron of the poor man’s club was not surprising, considering that he was an Irish plainsman of a culinary turn, and considering, too, that he was now winding up one of those periods between jobs, which begin in spacious hilarity and conclude with a taste of ashes in the mouth.

It was late afternoon. The chief was sitting in his room, before a table which was piled high with maps, blue-prints, invoices, and letters. All day long he had been sitting at this table, going over the details of the work in hand. Old Vandervelt had reported that the rails and bolts and ties and other necessaries were on the cars; Flint and Scribner had reported for their divisions; the statements of the various railroad officials had been examined, to make sure that no details were overlooked, for these would, sooner or later, bob up in the form of misunderstandings; the thousand and one things which must be considered before the expedition should take the plunge into the desert had apparently been disposed of. And finally, when the large clock down in the office was announcing, with a preliminary rattle and click, that it intended very shortly to strike the half-hour between five and six, the chief pushed back his chair and looked up at his engineers, who were seated about him – Old Van before him on a trunk; Scribner and Young Van beside him on the bed; John Flint, a thin, sallow man, astride the other chair, and Haddon on the floor with his back against the wall.

“All accounted for, Paul, I guess,” said Flint.

Carhart replied with a question, “How about those iron rods, John?”

“All checked off and packed on the train.”

“Did you accept Doble and Dean’s estimate for your oats?”

“Not much. Cut it down a third. It was altogether too much to carry. You see, I shall be only thirty-odd miles from Red Hills, once I get out there, and I don’t look for any trouble keeping in touch.”

“It’s just as well,” said Carhart. “The less you carry, the more room for us.”

“Did those pots and kettles come, Gus?” Carhart asked, turning to the younger Vandervelt, who was to act as his secretary and general assistant.

“Yes; just before noon. They had been carried on to Paradise by mistake. I got them right aboard.”

“And you were going to keep an eye on that cook. Where is he?”

Young Van hesitated, and an expression of chagrin came into his face.

“I’ll look him up. He promised me last night that he wouldn’t touch another drop.”

“Well – get your hands on him, and don’t let go again.”

Young Van left the room, and as he drew the door to after him he could hear the chief saying: “Haddon, I wish you would find Tiffany and remind him that I’m counting on his getting around early to-night. I’m not altogether satisfied with their scheme for supplying us.” And hearing this, he was more than ever conscious of his own small part in this undertaking, and more than ever chagrined that he should prove unequal to the very small matter of keeping an eye on the cook. At least, it seemed a small matter, in view of the hundreds of problems concerning men and things which Paul Carhart was solving on this day.

The barkeeper at Murphy’s, who served also in the capacity of night clerk, proved secretive on the subject of Purple Finn – hadn’t seen him all day – didn’t know when he would be in. The young engineer thought he had better sit down to digest the situation. This suggested supper, and he ordered the best of Murphy’s fare, and ate slowly and pondered. Seven o’clock came, but brought no hint of the cook’s whereabouts. Young Van gathered from the barroom talk that a big outfit had come into town from Paradise within the past hour or so, and incidentally that one of the outfit, Jack Flagg, was on the warpath – whoever Jack Flagg might be. As he sat in a rear corner, watching, with an assumption of carelessness, the loafers and plainsmen and gamblers who were passing in and out, or were, like himself, sitting at the round tables, it occurred to him to go up to Finn’s room. He knew, from former calls, where it was. But he learned nothing more than that the cook’s door was ajar, and that a half-packed valise lay open on the bed.

At half-past ten, after a tour of the most likely haunts, Young Van returned to Murphy’s and resumed his seat in the rear corner. He had no notion of returning to the Eagle House without the cook. It was now close on the hour when Sherman was used to rouse itself for the revelry of the night, and that Finn would take some part in this revelry, and that he would, sooner or later, reappear at his favorite hostelry, seemed probable.

The lamps in this room were suspended from the ceiling at such a height that their light entered the eye at the hypnotic angle; and so it was not long before Young Van, weary from the strain of the week, began to nod. The bar with its line of booted figures, and the quartets of card-players, and the one waiter moving about in his spotted white apron, were beginning to blur and run together. The clink of glasses and the laughter came to his ears as if from a great distance. Once he nearly recovered his faculties. A group of new arrivals were looking toward his corner. “Waiting for Purple Finn, eh?” said one. “Well, I guess he’s got a nice long wait in front of him, poor fool!” Then they all laughed. And Young Van himself, with half-open eyes, had to smile over the poor fool in the corner who was waiting for Purple Finn.

“I hear Jack Flagg’s in town,” said the barkeeper. “I wonder if he is!” replied the first speaker. “I wonder if Jack Flagg is in town!” Again they laughed. And again Young Van smiled. How odd that Jack Flagg should be in town!

He was awakened by a sound of hammering. There was little change in the room: the card games were going steadily on; the bar still had its line of thirsty plainsmen; two men were wrangling in a corner. Then he made out a group of newcomers who were tacking a placard to the wall, and chuckling as they did so.

And now, for the first time, Young Van became conscious that he was no longer alone at his table. Opposite him, smiling genially, and returning his gaze with benevolent watery eyes, sat a big Texan. This individual wore his cowboy hat on the back of his head, and made no effort to conceal the two revolvers and the knife at his belt.

“D’ye know,” said the Texan, “I like you. What’s your name?”

“Vandervelt. What is yours?”

“Charlie – that’s my name.” Then his smile faded, and he shook his head. “But you won’t find Purple Finn here.”

“Why not?”

“Ain’t that funny! You don’t know ’bout Purple Finn. It’s b’cause Jack Flagg’s in town. They ain’t friendly – I know Jack Flagg. I’ve been workin’ with ’im – down Paradise way.”

Young Van was nearly awake. “You don’t happen to be a cook, do you?” said he.

“Yes,” Charlie replied dreamily. “I’m a cook. But I’m nothin’ to Jack Flagg. He’s won’erful – won’erful!”

The engineer got up to stretch his legs, and incidentally took occasion to read the placard. It ran as follows: —

Purple Finn: I heard you was looking for me. Well, I’ll be around to Murphy’s to-morrow because I want to tell you you’re talking too much.

He returned to his table, and amused himself listening to Charlie’s talk. Then he looked at his watch and found that it was nearly two hours after midnight. Within six or seven hours the train would be starting. He wondered what his friends would say if they could see him. He was afraid that if he should drop off again, he might sleep too late, and so he determined to keep awake. He communicated this plan to Charlie, who nodded approval. But he was not equal to it. Within a very short time his chin was reposing on his breast, and Charlie was looking at him and chuckling. “Awful good joke,” murmured Charlie.

Young Van fell to dreaming. He thought that the doors suddenly swung in, and that Purple Finn himself entered the room. The noise seemed, at the instant, to die down; the barkeeper paused and gazed; the card-players turned and sat motionless in their chairs. Finn, thought Young Van, nodded in a general way, and laughed, and his laugh had no humor in it. He walked toward the bar, but halfway his roving eye rested on the placard, and he stood motionless. The blue tobacco haze curled around him and dimmed the outlines of his figure. In the dream he seemed to grow a little smaller while he stood there. Then he walked across and read the placard, taking a long time about it, as if he found it difficult to grasp the meaning. When he finally turned and faced the crowd, his expression was weak and uncertain. He seemed about to say something but whatever it was he wished to say, the words did not come. Instead, he walked to the bar, ordered a drink, put it down with a shaking hand, and left the room as he had entered it, silently. The door swung shut, and somebody laughed; then all returned to their cards.

When Young Van awoke, the room was flooded with sunlight from the side windows. He straightened up in his chair and looked around. Charlie was still at the table. Here and there along the side bench men were sleeping. The card-players, with seamed faces and cold eyes, were still at their business. A new set of players had come in, one of them a giant of a man, dressed like a cowboy, with a hard eye, a heavy mustache, and a tuft of hair below his under lip.

The engineer was almost afraid to look at his watch. It was half-past eight. He turned to the still smiling Charlie. “See here,” he said, “did Finn come in here last night?”

Charlie nodded. “You didn’t wake up.”

Young Van almost groaned aloud. “Where is he? Where did he go?”

“Listen to ’im!” Charlie was indicating a lank stranger who was leaning on the bar, and talking to a dozen men who had gathered about him.

“… And when I got off the train,” the lank man was saying, “there was Purple Finn a-standin’ on the platform. I thought he looked sort o’ caved in. ‘Hello, Purple,’ says I, ‘what you doin’ up so early in the mornin’?’ But he never answers a word; just climbs on the train and sits down in the smoker and looks out the window as if he thought somebody was after ’im.”

A laugh went up at this, and all the group turned and looked at the big man with the mustache. But this individual went on fingering his cards without the twitch of an eyelid.

“So Finn has left town,” said Young Van, addressing his vis-a-vis.

“Yes,” Charlie replied humorously. “He had to see a man down to Paradise.”

“Who is that big man over there?”

“Him?” Charlie’s voice dropped. “Why, that’s him – Jack Flagg.”

“Did you tell me last night that he was a cook?”

Charlie nodded. “He’s won’erful – won’erful! I know ’im. I’ve been workin’ – ”

Young Van pushed back his chair and got up. For a moment he stood looking at the forbidding face and mighty frame of the man who was now the central figure in the room; then he crossed over and touched him on the shoulder. “How are you?” said he, painfully conscious, as every waking eye in the room was turned on him, that he did not know how to talk to these men.

Flagg looked up.

“They tell me you can cook,” said the engineer.

“What’s that to you?” said Flagg.

“Do you want a job?”

“This is Mr. Van’ervelt,” put in Charlie, who had followed; “Mr. Van’ervelt, of the railroad.”

“What’ll you pay?” asked Flagg.

Young Van named the amount.

“When do you want to start?”

“Now.”

“Charlie,” – Flagg was sweeping in a heap of chips, – “go down to Jim’s and get my things and fetch ’em here.” And with this he turned back to the game.

Young Van looked uncertainly at Charlie, whose condition was hardly such that he could be trusted to make the trip without a series of stops in the numerous havens of refuge along the way. The thing to do was perhaps to go with him; at any rate, that is what Young Van did.

“Won’erful man!” murmured Charlie, when they reached the sidewalk. Then, “Say, Mr. Van’ervelt, come over here a minute – jus’ over to Bill White’s. Wanna see a man, – jus’ minute.”

But Young Van was not in a tolerant mood. “Stiffen up, Charlie,” he said sharply. “No more of this sort of thing – not if you’re going with us.”

Charlie was meekly obedient, and even tried to hurry; but at the best it took considerable time to get together the clothing of the cook and his assistant, pay their bill, and return to Murphy’s. This much accomplished, it became necessary to use some tact with Flagg, who was bent on winning a little more before stopping. And as Flagg could easily have tossed the engineer out of the window, and had, besides, the strategical advantage, Young Van was unable to see much choice for himself in the matter. And standing there, waiting on the pleasure of his cook, he passed the time in wondering where he had made his mistake. Paul Carhart, or John Flint, he thought, would never have found it necessary to take the undignified measures to which he had been reduced. But what was the difference? What would they have done? In trying to answer these questions he hit on every reason but the right one. He forgot that he was a young man.

Carhart and Flint, after waiting a long time at the “Eagle, House,” went down to the station, arriving there some time after the outburst of Peet, which was noted at the beginning of the chapter. Tiffany saw them coming, and communicated the news to the superintendent. The engine reappeared, and again coupled up to the forward car.

“Everything all right?” called Tiffany.

“No,” replied Carhart; “don’t start yet.”

The three walked on and joined Old Van by the steps of the rear car.

“Well,” growled the veteran, “how much longer are we going to wait, Paul?”

“Until Gus comes.”

“Gus? I thought he was aboard here.”

“No,” said John Flint, with a wink; “he went out last night to see the wheels go round. Here he comes now. But what in – ”

They all gazed without a word. Three men were walking abreast down the platform, Gus Vandervelt, with a white face and ringed eyes, in the middle. The youngest engineer of the outfit was not a small man, but between the two cooks he looked like a child.

“Would you look at that!” said Flint, at length. “Neither of those two Jesse Jameses will ever see six-foot-three again. Makes Gus look like a nick in a wall.”

Young Van met Carhart’s questioning gaze almost defiantly. “The cook,” he said, indicating Flagg.

“All right. Get aboard.”

“Rear car,” cried Old Van, who had charge of the arrangements on the train.

This time the bell did not ring in vain. The train moved slowly out toward the unpeopled West, and the engineers threw off coats and collars, and made themselves as nearly comfortable as they could under the circumstances.

A few minutes after the start Paul Carhart, who was writing a letter in pencil, looked up and saw Young Van beside him, and tried not to smile at his sorry appearance.

“I think I owe you an explanation, Mr. Carhart,” began the young man, in embarrassment which took the form of stiffness.

But the chief shook his head. “I’m not asking any questions, Gus,” he replied. Then the smile escaped him, and he turned it off by adding, “I’m writing to Mrs. Carhart.” He held up the letter and glanced over the first few lines with a twinkle in his eyes. “I was just telling her,” he went on, “that the cook problem in Chicago is in its infancy.”

CHAPTER II

WHERE THE MONEY CAME FROM

Doubtless there were official persons to be found at the time of this narrative – which is a matter of some thirty years back – who would have insisted that the letters “S. & W.” meant “Sherman and Western.” But every one who lived within two days’ ride of the track knew that the real name of the road was the “Shaky and Windy.”

Shaky the “S. & W.” certainly was – physically, and, if newspaper gossip and apparent facts were to be trusted, financially. The rails weighed thirty-five pounds to the yard, and had been laid in scallops, with high centres and low joints, – “sight along the rails and it looks like a washboard,” said John Flint, describing it. For ballast the clay and sand of the region were used. And, as for the financial part, everybody knew that old De Reamer had been forced to abandon the construction work on the Red Hills extension, after building fully five-sixths of the distance. The hard times had, of course, something to do with that, – roads were going under all through the West; receiverships were quite the common thing, – but De Reamer and the S. & W. did not seem to revive so quickly as certain other lines. This was the more singular in that the S. & W., extending as it did from the Sabine country to the Staked Plains, really justified the popular remark that “the Shaky and Windy began in a swamp and ended in a desert.” On the face of things, without the Red Hills connection with the bigger C. & S. C., and without an eastern connection with one of the New Orleans or St. Louis lines, the road was an absurdity.

Then, only a few months before the time of our narrative, the railroad world began to wake up. Commodore Durfee, one of “the big fellows,” surprised the Southwest by buying in the H. D. & W. (which meant, and will always mean, the High, Dry, and Wobbly). The surprise was greater when the Commodore began building southwestward, in the general direction of Red Hills. As usual when the big men are playing for position, the public and the wise-acres, even Wall Street, were mystified. For the S. & W. was so obviously the best and shortest eastern connection for the C. & S. C., – the H. D. & W. would so plainly be a differential line, – that it was hard to see what the Commodore was about. He had nothing to say to the reporters. Old General Carrington, of the C. & S. C., the biggest and shrewdest of them all, was also silent. And Daniel De Reamer couldn’t be seen at all.

And finally, by way of a wind-up to the first skirmish of the picturesque war in which our engineers were soon to find themselves taking part, there was a western breeze and a flurry of dust in Wall Street. Somebody was fighting. S. & W. shares ran up in a day from twenty-two to forty-six, and, which was more astonishing, sold at that figure for another day before dropping. Other mysterious things were going on. Suddenly De Reamer reappeared in the Southwest, and that most welcome sign of vitality, money, – red gold corpuscles, – began to flow through the arteries of the S. & W. “system.” The construction work started up, on rush orders. Paul Carhart was specially engaged to take out a force and complete the track – any sort of a track – to Red Hills. And as he preferred not to take this rush work through very difficult country on any other terms, De Reamer gave him something near a free hand, – ordered Chief Engineer Tiffany to let him alone, beyond giving every assistance in getting material to the front, and accepting the track for the company as fast as it was laid.

And as Tiffany was not at all a bad fellow, and had admired Carhart’s part in the Rio Grande fight (though he would have managed some things differently, not to say better, himself), the two engineers seemed likely to get on very well.

Carhart’s three trains would hardly get over the five hundred miles which lay between Sherman and the end of the track in less than twenty-seven or twenty-eight hours. “The private car,” as the boys called it, was of an old type even for those days, and was very uncomfortable. Everybody, from the chief down, had shed coat and waistcoat before the ragged skyline of Sherman slipped out of view behind the yellow pine trees. The car swayed and lurched so violently that it was impossible to stand in the aisle without support. As the hours dragged by, several of the party curled up on the hard seats and tried to sleep. The instrument and rod and stake men and the pile inspectors, mostly young fellows recently out of college or technical institute, got together at one end of the car and sang college songs.

Carhart was sitting back, his feet up on the opposite seat, watching for the pines to thin out, and thinking of the endless gray chaparral and sage-brush which they would find about them in the morning, – if the train didn’t break down, – when he saw Tiffany’s big person balancing down the aisle toward him. Tiffany had been quiet a long time; now he had a story in his eye.