The Road Builders

“What can you do?” Flagg repeated. “Oh, but you boys make me weary. It ain’t any of my business. I ain’t a laborer, and what I do gets well paid for. But when I look around at you poor fools, I can’t sit still here and let you go on like this. You ask me what you can do? Well, now, suppose we think it over a little. Here you are, four hundred of you. This man Carhart offers you one-fifty a day to come out here into the desert and dig your own graves. Why did he set that price on your lives? Because he knew you for the fools you are. Do[Pg 81][Pg 82] you think for a minute he could get laborers up there in Chicago, where he comes from, for one-fifty? Not a bit of it! Do you think he could get men in Pennsylvania, in New York State, for one-fifty? Not a bit of it! If he was building this line in New York State, he’d be paying you two dollars, two-fifty, maybe three. And he’d be glad to get you at the price. And he’d meet your representative like a gentleman, and step around lively and walk Spanish for you, if you so much as winked.”

Dimond’s eyes were flashing with excitement, though he kept them lowered to the cards. His face was flushed. Flagg saw that the seed he had planted was growing, and he swept on, working up the situation with considerable art.

“Think it over, boys, think it over. This man Carhart finds he can’t drive you fast enough at one-fifty, so what does he do? He gets up his pay-slip scheme so’s you will kill yourselves for the chance of making ten cents more. And you stand around and let him do it – never a peep from you! Now, what’s the situation? Here’s this man, five hundred miles from nowhere; he’s got to rush the job. We know that, don’t we?”

“Yes,” muttered Dimond, with a quick breath, “we know that, all right.”

“Well, now, what about it?” Flagg looked deliberately about the eager group. “What about it? There’s the situation. Here he is, and here you are. He’s in a hurry. If he was to find out, all of a sudden, that he couldn’t drive you poor devils any farther; if he was to find out that you had just laid down and said you wouldn’t do another stroke of work on these terms, what about it? What could he do?” Flagg paused again, to let the suggestion find its mark.

“But he ain’t worrying any. He knows you for the low-spirited lot you are. So what does he do? He sends out a bunch of you and makes you ride three days to get water, and then he stacks the barrels around his tent, where he and his gang can get all they want, and tells you to go off and suck your thumbs. Much he cares about you.”

Dimond raised his eyes. “Talk plain, Jack,” he said in a low voice. “What is it? What’s the game?”

Flagg gave him a pitying glance. “You’re still asking what’s the game,” he replied, and went on half absently, “Let’s see. How much is he paying the iron squad – how much was that, now?”

“Two dollars,” cried a voice.

“Two dollars – yes, that was it; that was it. He is paying them two dollars a day, and he has set them to digging and grading along with you boys that only gets one-sixty. I happened to notice that to-day, when I was a-walking up that way. Those iron-squad boys was out with picks and shovels, a-doing the same work as the rest of you, only they was doing it for forty cents more. They ain’t common laborers, you see. There’s a difference. You couldn’t expect them to swing a pick for one-sixty a day. It would be beneath ’em. They’re sort o’ swells, you see – ”

He paused. There was a long silence.

“Boys,” – it was Dimond speaking, – “boys, Jack Flagg is right. If it costs Carhart two per for the iron squad, it’s got to cost him the same for us!”

Carhart was turning the delay to some account by shutting himself up with his maps and plans and reports and figures. At ten o’clock on the following morning he heard a step without the tent, and, looking up, saw Young Vandervelt before him.

“There’s trouble up ahead, Mr. Carhart.”

“What is it?”

“The laborers have quit. They demand an increase of ten per cent in their pay.”

“All right, let them have it.”

“I’ll tell my brother. He said no, we shouldn’t give in an inch.”

“You tell him I say to let them have what they ask.”

Young Van hurried back with the order. Carhart quietly resumed the problems before him.

Old Van, when he received the chief’s message, swore roundly.

“What’s Paul thinking of!” he growled. “He ought to know that this is only the tip of the wedge. They’ll come up another ten per cent before the week’s out.”

But Old Van failed to do justice to the promptness of Jack Flagg. At three in the afternoon the demand came; and for the second time that day the scrapers lay idle, and the mules wagged their ears in lazy comfort.

“Well!” cried Old Van, sharply. “Well! It’s what I told you, isn’t it! Now, I suppose you still believe in running to Paul with the story.”

“Yes,” replied the younger brother, firmly, “of course. He’s the boss.”

“All right, sir! All right, sir!” The veteran engineer turned away in disgust as his brother started rapidly back to the camp. The laborers, meanwhile, covered with sweat and dust, tantalized by the infrequent sips of water doled out to them, lay panting in a long, irregular line on the newly turned earth.

“Well, Gus,” said Carhart, with a wry smile, at sight of the dusty figure before the tent, “are they at it again?”

“They certainly are.”

“They don’t mean to lose any time, do they? How much is it now?”

“Ten per cent more. What shall we do?”

“Give it to them.”

“All right.”

“Wait a minute, Gus. Who’s their spokesman?

“Dimond.”

“Dimond?” Carhart frowned. “Nobody else?”

“No; but the cook has been hanging around a good deal and talking with him.”

“Oh – I see. Well, that’s all. Go ahead; give them what they ask.”

Again the mules were driven at the work. Again – and throughout the day – the sullen men toiled on under the keen eye of Old Vandervelt. If he had been a driver before, he was a czar now. If he could not control the rate of pay, he could at least control the rate of work. To himself, to the younger engineers, to the men, to the mules, he was merciless. And foot by foot, rod by rod, the embankment that was to bear the track crept on into the desert. The sun beat down; the wind, when there was a wind, was scorching hot; but Old Van gave no heed. Now and again he glanced back to where the material train lay silent and useless, hoping against hope that far in the distance he might see the smoke of that other train from Sherman. Peet had said, yesterday, that it was on the way; and Old Van muttered, over and over, “D – n Peet!”

Night came finally, but not the train. Aching in body, ugly in spirit, the laborers crept under their blankets. Morning came, but no train. Carhart spent an hour on the grade, and saw with some satisfaction that the time was not wholly lost; then he went back to the operator’s tent and opened communications with Sherman. Sherman expressed surprise that the train had not arrived; it had been long on the way, said the despatcher.

At this message, repeated to him by the operator, word for word, Carhart stood thoughtful. Then, “Shut off the despatcher. Wait – tell him Mr. Carhart is much obliged. Shut him off. Now call Paradise. Say to him – can’t you get him?”

“Yes – all right now.”

“Say – ‘When did the supply train pass you on Tuesday?’ – got that?”

“Yes – one minute. ‘When – did supply – train pass – you – Tuesday?’”

“Now what does he say?”

“‘Supply – train’ – he says – ‘passed – here Wednesday – two – P.M. – west-bound.’ There, you see, it didn’t leave on Tuesday at all. It’s only a few hours to Paradise from Sherman.”

Carhart had Peet’s message still crumpled in his pocket. He straightened it out and read it again. “All right,” he said to the operator, “that will do.” And as he walked slowly and thoughtfully out into the blazing sunlight he added to himself: “So, Mr. Peet, that’s the sort you are, is it? I think we begin to understand each other.”

“Paul!” It was the gruff voice of Old Vandervelt, low and charged with anger.

“Yes – what?”

“What is it you mean to do with these laborers?”

“Build the line.”

“Well, I’ve done what I could. They’ve walked out again.”

“Another ten per cent?”

“Another ten per cent.”

“Let’s see – we’ve raised them twenty per cent since yesterday morning, haven’t we?”

“You have – yes.”

“And that ought to be about enough, don’t you think?”

“If you want my opinion, – yes.”

“Now look here, Van. You go back and bring them all up here by the train. Tell them Mr. Carhart wants to talk to them.”

Vandervelt stared at his chief in downright bewilderment. Then he turned to obey the order; and as he walked away Carhart caught the muttered words, “Organize a debating society, eh? Well, that’s the one fool thing left to do!”

But the men did not take it in just this way; in fact, they did not know how to take it. They hesitated, and looked about for counsel. Even Dimond was disturbed. The boss had a quiet, highly effective way of saying and doing precisely what he meant to say and do. Dimond was not certain of his own ability to stand directly between the men and Paul Carhart. There was something about the cool way in which they were ordered before him that was – well, businesslike. He turned and glanced at Flagg. The cook scowled and motioned him forward, and so the dirty, thirsty regiment moved uncertainly back toward the train, and formed a wide semicircle before the boss.

Carhart had taken his position by a pile of odds and ends of lumber that lay beside the track. He awaited them quietly, the only man among the hundreds there who appeared unconscious of the excitement in the air. The elder Vandervelt stood apart, scowling at the performance. The younger scented danger, and, climbing up on the train, walked back over the empty flat-cars to a position directly behind his chief. There he sat down, his legs swinging over the side of the car.

Carhart reached up for his spectacles, deliberately breathed on them, wiped them, and replaced them. Then he gave the regiment a slow, inquiring look.

“Have you men authorized somebody to speak for you?” he said in a voice which, though it was not loud, was heard distinctly by every man there.

There was a moment’s hesitation; then the laborers, or those who were not studying the ground, looked at Dimond.

The telegraph operator stepped out of his little tent, and stood looking at the scene with startled eyes. Up ahead, the iron squad, uncertain whether to continue their work, had paused, and now they were gazing back. As the seconds slipped away their exclamations of astonishment died out. All eyes were fixed on the group in the centre of the semicircle.

For at this critical moment, there was, it seemed, a hitch. Dimond’s broad hat was pulled down until it half concealed his eyes. He stood motionless. At his elbow was Jack Flagg, muttering orders that the nominal leader did not seem to hear.

“Flagg, step out here!”

It was Carhart speaking, in the same quiet, distinct manner. The sound of his voice broke the tension. The men all looked up, even the nerveless Dimond. To Young Van they were oddly like a room full of schoolboys as they stood silently waiting for Flagg to obey. The giant cook himself was very like a schoolboy, as he glanced uneasily around, caught no sign of fight in the obedient eyes about him, sought counsel in the ground, the sky, the engines standing on the track, then finally slouched forward.

Young Van caught himself on the verge of laughing out. He saw Flagg advance a way and pause. Carhart waited. Flagg took a few more steps, then paused again, with the look of a man who feels that he has been bullied into a false position, yet cannot hit upon the way out.

“Well,” he said, glowering down on the figure of the engineer in charge – and very thin and short Carhart looked before him – “well, what do you want of me?”

For reply Carhart coolly looked him over. Then he snatched up a piece of scantling, whirled it once around his head, and caught Jack Flagg squarely on his deep, well-muscled chest. The cook staggered back, swung his arms wildly to recover his balance, failed, and fell flat, striking on the back of his head.

But he was up in an instant, and he started forward, swearing copiously and reaching for his hip pocket.

Young Van saw the motion. He knew that Paul Carhart seldom carried a weapon, and he felt that the safety of them all lay with himself. Accordingly he leaped to the ground, ran to the side of his chief, whipped out a revolver, and levelled it at Jack Flagg.

“Hands up!” he cried. “Hands up!”

“Gus,” cried Carhart, in a disgusted voice, “put that thing up!”

Young Van, crestfallen, hesitated; then dropped his arm.

“Now, Flagg,” said the chief, tossing the scantling to one side, “you clear out. You’d better do it fast, or the men’ll finish where I left off.”

The cook glanced behind him, and his eyes flitted about the semicircle from face to face. He was keen enough to take in the situation, and in a moment he had ducked under the couplers between two cars and disappeared.

“Well,” exclaimed Young Van, pocketing his revolver, “it didn’t take you long to wind that up, Mr. Carhart.”

“To wind it up?” Carhart repeated, turning with a queer expression toward his young assistant. “To begin it, you’d better say.” Then he composed his features and faced the laborers. “Get back to your work,” he said.

CHAPTER V

WHAT THEY FOUND AT THE WATER-HOLE

Half an hour later Scribner, who was frequently back on the first division during these dragging days, was informed that Mr. Carhart wished to see him at once. Walking back to the engineers’ tent he found the chief at his table.

“You wanted me, Mr. Carhart?”

“Oh,” – the chief looked up – “Yes, Harry, we’ve got to get away from this absolute dependence on that man Peet. I want you to ride up ahead and bore for water. You can probably start inside of an hour. I’m putting it in your hands. Take what men, tools, and wagons you need – but find water.”

With a brief “All right, Mr. Carhart,” Scribner left the tent and set about the necessary arrangements. Carhart, this matter disposed of, called a passing laborer, and asked him to tell Charlie that he was wanted at headquarters.

The assistant cook – huge, raw-boned, with a good-natured and not unintelligent face – lounged before the tent for some moments before he was observed. Then, in the crisp way he had with the men, Carhart told him to step in.

“Well,” began the boss, looking him over, “what kind of a cook are you?”

A slow blush spread over the broad features.

“Speak up. What were you doing when I sent for you?”

“I – I – you see, sir, Jack Flagg was gone, and there wasn’t anything being done about dinner, and I – ”

“And you took charge of things, eh?”

“Well – sort of, sir. You see – ”

“That’s the way to do business. Go back and stick at it. Wait a minute, though. Has Flagg been hanging around any?”

“I guess he has. All his things was took off, and some of mine.”

“Take any money?”

“All I had.”

“I’m not surprised. Money was what he was here for. He would have cleaned you out, anyway, before long.”

“I’m not so sure of that, sir. We cleaned him out last time.”

“And you weren’t smart enough to see into that?”

“Well – no, I – ”

“Take my advice and quit gambling. It isn’t what you were built for. What did you say your name was?”

“Charlie.”

“Well, Charlie, you go back and get up your dinner. See that it is a good one.”

Charlie backed out of the tent and returned to his kettles and pans and his boy assistants. He was won, completely.

Late on Thursday evening that mythical train really rolled in, and half the night was spent[Pg 99][Pg 100] in preparations for the next day. Friday morning tracklaying began again. In the afternoon a second train arrived, and the air of movement and accomplishment became as keen as on the first day of the work. Paul Carhart, in a flannel shirt, which, whatever color it may once have been, was now as near green as anything, a wide straw hat, airy yellow linen trousers, and laced boots, appeared and reappeared on both divisions – alert, good-natured, radiating health and energy. The sun blazed endlessly down, but what laborer could complain with the example of the boss before him! The mules toiled and plunged, and balked and sulked, and toiled again, as mules will. The drivers – boys, for the most part – carried pails of water on their wagons, and from time to time wet the sponges which many of the men wore in their hats. And over the grunts and heaves of the tie squad, over the rattling and groaning of the wagon, over the exhausts of the locomotives, sounded the ringing clang of steel, as the rails were shifted from flat-car to truck, from truck to ties. It was music to Carhart, – deep, significant, nineteenth-century music. The line was creeping on again – on, on through the desert.

“What do you think of this!” had been Young Van’s exclamation when the second train appeared.

“It’s too good to be true,” was the reply of his grizzled brother.

Old Vandervelt was right: it was too good to be true. Soon the days were getting away from them again; provisions and water were running short, and Peet was sending on the most skilful lot of excuses he had yet offered. For the second time the tracklaying had to stop; and Carhart, slipping a revolver into his holster, rode forward alone to find Scribner.

He found him in a patch of sage-brush not far from a hill. The heat was blistering, the ground baked to a powder. There had been no rain for five months. Scribner, stripped to undershirt and trousers, was standing over his men.

“Glad to see you, Mr. Carhart!” he cried. “You are just in time. I think I’ve struck it.”

“That’s good news,” the chief replied, dismounting.

They stepped aside while Scribner gave an account of himself. “I first drove a small bore down about three hundred feet, and got this.” He produced a tin pail from his tent, which contained a dark, odorous liquid. Carhart sniffed, and said: —

“Sulphur water, eh!”

“Yes, and very bad. It wouldn’t do at all. But before moving on, I thought I’d better look around a little. That hill over there is sandstone, and a superficial examination led me to think that the sandstone dips under this spot.”

“That might mean a very fair quality of water.”

“That’s what I think. So I inserted a larger casing, to shut out this sulphur water, and went on down.”

“How far?”

“A thousand feet. I’m expecting to strike it any moment now.”

“Your men seem to think they have struck something. They’re calling you.”

The engineers returned to the well in time to see the water gushing to the surface.

“There’s enough of it,” muttered Scribner.

The chief bent over it and shook his head. “Smell it, Harry,” he said.

Scribner threw himself on the ground and drank up a mouthful from the stream. But he promptly spit it out.

“It’s worse than the other!” he cried.

They were silent a moment. Then Carhart said, “Well – keep at it, Harry. I may look you up again after a little.”

He walked over to his horse, mounted, nodded a good-by, and cantered back toward the camp. Scribner watched him ride off, then soberly turned and prepared to pack up and move on westward. He was thinking, as he gave the necessary orders, how much this little visit meant. The chief would have come only with matters at a bad pass.

Over a range of low waste hills, through a village of prairie-dogs, – and he fired humorously at them with his revolver as they sat on their mounds, and chuckled when they popped down out of sight, – across a plain studded from horizon to horizon with the bleached bones and skulls of thousands of buffaloes, past the camp and the grade where the men of the first division were at work, Paul Carhart rode, until, finally, the main camp and the trains and wagons came into view.

It was supper-time. The red, spent sun hung low in the west; the parched earth was awaiting the night breeze. Cantering easily on, Carhart soon reached the grade, and turned in toward the tents. The endless quiet of the desert gave place to an odd, tense quiet in the camp. The groups of laborers, standing or lying motionless, ceasing their low, excited talk as he passed; the lowered eyes, the circle of Mexicans standing about the mules, the want of the relaxation and animal good-nature that should follow the night whistle: these signs were plain as print to his eyes and his senses.

He dismounted, walked rapidly to the headquarters tent, and found the two Vandervelts in anxious conversation. He had never observed so sharply the contrast between the brothers. The younger was smooth shaven, slender, with brown hair, and frank blue eyes that were dreamy at times; he would have looked the poet were it not for a square forehead, a straight, incisive mouth, and a chin as uncompromising as the forehead. There was in his face the promise of great capacity for work, dominated by a sympathetic imagination. The face of his brother was another story; some of the stronger qualities were there, but they were not tempered with the gentler. His stocky frame, his strong neck, the deep lines about his mouth, even the set of his cropped gray mustache, spoke of dogged, unimaginative persistence.

Evidently they were not in agreement. Both started at the sight of their chief – the younger brother with a frank expression of relief.

Carhart threw off his hat and gauntlet gloves, took his seat at the table, and looked from one to the other.

The elder brother nodded curtly. “Go ahead, Gus,” he said. “Give Paul your view of it.”

Thus granted the floor, Young Van briefly laid out the situation. “We put your orders into effect this morning, Mr. Carhart, and shortened the allowance of drinking water. In an hour the men began to get surly – just as they did the other time. But we kept them under until an hour or so ago. Then the sheriff of Clark County – a man named Lane, Bow-legged Bill Lane,” – Young Van smiled slightly as he pronounced the name, – “rode in with a large posse. It seems he is on the trail of a gang of thieves, greasers, army deserters, and renegades generally. He had one brush with them some miles below here, – I think I had better tell you about this before I go on, – but they broke up into small parties and got away from him. He had some reason to think that they would work up this way, and try to stampede our horses and mules some night. He advises arming our men, and keeping up more of a guard at night. Another thing; he says that a good many Apaches are hanging around us, – he has seen signs of them over there in the hills, – and while they would never bother such a large party as this of ours, Bow-legged Bill” – he smiled again – “thinks it would be best to arm any small parties we may send out. If the Indians thought Harry Scribner, for instance, had anything worth stealing they might give him some trouble.”

“Send half-a-dozen wagons forward to him to-morrow, under Dimond,” said Carhart, briefly. “See that they carry rifles and cartridges enough for Scribner’s whole party. And wire Tiffany to send on three hundred more rifles.”

“All right; I will attend to it. I told the sheriff we came down here as peaceful railroad builders, not as border fighters; but he said what we came for hasn’t much to do with it, – I couldn’t repeat his language if I tried, – it’s how we’re going back that counts; whether it’s to be on a ‘red plush seat, or up in the baggage car on ice.’ But so much for that. It seems that his men, mixing in with ours, found out that we are short of water. They promptly said that there is a first-rate pool, with all the water we could use, only about thirty-five miles southwest of here.” He was coming now, having purposely brought up the minor matters first, to the real business. Carhart heard him out. “It didn’t take long to see that something was the matter with the men. Before the posse rode off the sheriff spoke to me about it, and offered to let us have a man to guide us to the pool if we wanted him. I am in favor of accepting. The men are trembling on the edge of an outbreak. If there was a Jack Flagg here to organize them, they would have taken the mules and started before you got back; and if they once got started, I’m not sure that even shooting would stop them. They are beyond all reason. It’s nothing but luck that has kept them quiet up to now, – nobody has happened to say the word that would set them off. I think we ought to reassure them, – tell the sheriff we’ll take the guide, and let the men know that a wagon train will start the first thing in the morning.”