XII
THE PLEASURERS
The freight wreck in the Crosswater Hills, coming a fortnight afterRufford's arrest and deportation to Copah and the county jail, rudelymarked the close of the short armistice in the conflict between law andorder and the demoralization which seemed to thrive the more lustily inproportion to Lidgerwood's efforts to stamp it out.
Thirty-two boxes, gondolas, and flats, racing down the Crosswater gradesin the heart of a flawless, crystalline summer afternoon at the heels ofClay's big ten-wheeler, suddenly left the steel as a unit to heapthemselves in chaotic confusion upon the right-of-way, and to round outthe disaster at the moment of impact by exploding a shipment of giantpowder somewhere in the midst of the debris.
Lidgerwood was on the western division inspecting, with Benson, one ofthe several tentative routes for a future extension of the Red Butteline to a connection with the Transcontinental at Lemphi beyond theHophras, when the news of the wreck reached Angels. Wherefore, it wasnot until the following morning that he was able to leave thehead-quarters station, on the second wrecking-train, bringing the big100-ton crane to reinforce McCloskey, who had been on the ground withthe lighter clearing tackle for the better part of the night.
With a slowly smouldering fire to fight, and no water to be had nearerthan the tank-cars at La Guayra, the trainmaster had wrought miracles.By ten o'clock the main line was cleared, a temporary siding for aworking base had been laid, and McCloskey's men were hard at workpicking up what the fire had spared when Lidgerwood arrived.
"Pretty clean sweep this time, eh, Mac?" was the superintendent'sgreeting, when he had penetrated to the thick of things where McCloskeywas toiling and sweating with his men.
"So clean that we get nothing much but scrap-iron out of what's left,"growled McCloskey, climbing out of the tangle of crushed cars and bentand twisted iron-work to stand beside Lidgerwood on the main-lineembankment. Then to the men who were making the snatch-hitch for thenext pull: "A little farther back, boys; farther yet, so she won'toverbalance on you; that's about it. Now, _wig_ it!"
"You seem to be getting along all right with the outfit you've got," wasLidgerwood's comment. "If you can keep this up we may as well go back toAngels."
"No, don't!" protested the trainmaster. "We can snake out thesescrap-heaps after a fashion, but when it comes to resurrecting the195--did you notice her as you came along? We kept the fire from gettingto her, but she's dug herself into the ground like a dog after awoodchuck!"
Lidgerwood nodded. "I looked her over," he said. "If she'd had a littlemore time and another wheel-turn or two to spare, she might havedisappeared entirely--like that switching-engine you can't find. I'mtaking it for granted that you haven't found it yet--or have you?"
"No, I haven't!" grated McCloskey, and he said it like a man with agrievance. Then he added: "I gave you all the pointers I could find twoweeks ago. Whenever you get ready to put Hallock under the hydraulicpress, you'll squeeze what you want to know out of him."
This was coming to be an old subject and a sore one. The trainmasterstill insisted that Hallock was the man who was planning the robberiesand plotting the downfall of the Lidgerwood management, and he wantedto have the chief clerk systematically shadowed. And it was Lidgerwood'swholly groundless prepossession for Hallock that was still keeping himfrom turning the matter over to the company's legal department--this inspite of the growing accumulation of evidence all pointing to Hallock'streason. Subjected to a rigid cross-examination, Judson had insistedthat a part, at least, of his drunken recollection was real--that partidentifying the voices of the two plotters in Cat Biggs's back room asthose of Rufford and Hallock. Moreover, it was no longer deniable thatthe chief clerk was keeping in close touch with the dischargedemployees, for some purpose best known to himself; and latterly he hadbeen dropping out of his office without notice, disappearing, sometimes,for a day at a time.
Lidgerwood was recalling the last of these disappearances when thesecond wrecking-train, having backed to the nearest siding to admit of areversal of its make-up order and the placing of the crane in the lead,came up to go into action. McCloskey shaded his eyes from the sun'sglare and looked down the line.
"Hello!" he exclaimed. "Got a new wrecking-boss?"
The superintendent nodded. "I have one in the making. Dawson wanted tocome along and try his hand."
"Did Gridley send him?"
"No; Gridley is away somewhere."
"So Fred's your understudy, is he? Well, I've got one, too. I'll showhim to you after a while."
They were walking back over the ties toward the half-buried 195. Theten-wheeler was on its side in the ditch, nuzzling the opposite bank ofa low cutting. Dawson had already divided his men: half of them to placethe huge jack-beams and outriggers of the self-contained steam liftingmachine to insure its stability, and the other half to trench under thefallen engine and to adjust the chain slings for the hitch.
"It's a pretty long reach, Fred," said the superintendent. "Going to tryit from here?"
"Best place," said the reticent one shortly.
Lidgerwood was looking at his watch.
"Williams will be due here before long with a special from Copah. Idon't want to hold him up," he remarked.
"Thirty minutes?" inquired the draftsman, without taking mind or eye offhis problem.
"Oh, yes; forty or fifty, maybe."
"All right, I'll be out of the way," was the quiet rejoinder.
"Yes, you will!" was McCloskey's ironical comment, when the draftsmanhad gone around to the other side of the great crane.
"Let him alone," said Lidgerwood. "It lies in my mind that we aredeveloping a genius, Mac."
"He'll fall down," grumbled the trainmaster. "That crane won't pick upthe '95 clear the way she's lying."
"Won't it?" said Lidgerwood. "That's where you are mistaken. It willpick up anything we have on the two divisions. It's the biggest and bestthere is made. How did you come to get a tool like that on the Red ButteWestern?"
McCloskey grinned.
"You don't know Gridley yet. He's a crank on good machinery. That cranewas a clean steal."
"What?"
"I mean it. It was ordered for one of the South American railroads, andwas on its way to the Coast over the P. S-W. About the time it got asfar as Copah, we happened to have a mix-up in our Copah yards, with aditched engine that Gridley couldn't pick up with the 60-ton crane wehad on the ground. So he borrowed this one out of the P. S-W. yards,used it, liked it, and kept it, sending our 60-ton machine on to theSouth Americans in its place."
"What rank piracy!" Lidgerwood exclaimed. "I don't wonder they call usbuccaneers over here. How could he do it without being found out?"
"That puzzled more than two or three of us; but one of the men told mesome time afterward how it was done. Gridley had a painter go down inthe night and change the lettering--on our old crane and on this newone. It happened that they were both made by the same manufacturingcompany, and were of substantially the same general pattern. I supposethe P. S-W. yard crew didn't notice particularly that the crane they hadlent us out of the through westbound freight had shrunk somewhat in theusing. But I'll bet those South Americans are saying pleasant things tothe manufacturers yet."
"Doubtless," Lidgerwood agreed, and now he was not smiling. The littleside-light on the former Red-Butte-Western methods--and uponGridley--was sobering.
By this time Dawson had got his big lifter in position, with its hugesteel arm overreaching the fallen engine, and was giving his ordersquietly, but with clean-cut precision.
"Man that hand-fall and take slack! Pay off, Darby," to the hoisterengineer. "That's right; more slack!"
The great tackling-hook, as big around as a man's thigh, settledaccurately over the 195.
"There you are!" snapped Dawson. "Now make your hitch, boys, and belively about it. You've got just about one minute to do it in!"
"Heavens to Betsey!" said McCloskey. "He's going to pick it up at onehitch--and without b
locking!"
"Hands off, Mac," said Lidgerwood good-naturedly. "If Fred didn't knowthis trade before, he's learning it pretty rapidly now."
"That's all right, but if he doesn't break something before he getsthrough----"
But Dawson was breaking nothing. Having designed locomotives, he knew tothe fraction of an inch where the balancing hitch should be made forlifting one. Also machinery, and the breaking strains of it, were as hisdaily bread. While McCloskey was still prophesying failure, he wasgiving the word to Darby, the hoister engineer.
"Now then, Billy, try your hitch! Put the strain on a little at a timeand often. Steady!--now you've got her--keep her coming!"
Slowly the big freight-puller rose out of its furrow in the gravel,righting itself to the perpendicular as it came. Anticipating the inwardswing of it, Dawson was showing his men how to place ties and rails fora short temporary track, and when he gave Darby the stop signal, thehoisting cables were singing like piano strings, and the big engine wasswinging bodily in the air in the grip of the crane tackle, poised to anicety above the steel placed to receive it.
Dawson climbed up to the main-line embankment where Darby could see him,and where he could see all the parts of his problem at once. Then hishands went up to beckon the slacking signals. At the lifting of hisfinger there was a growling of gears and a backward racing of machinery,a groan of relaxing strains, and a cry of "All gone!" and the 195 stoodupright, ready to be hauled out when the temporary track should beextended to a connection with the main line.
"Let's go up to the other end and see how your understudy is making it,Mac," said the gratified superintendent. "It is quite evident that wecan't tell this young man anything he doesn't already know about pickingup locomotives."
On the way up the track he asked about Clay and Green, the engineer andfireman who were in the wreck.
"They are not badly hurt," said the trainmaster. "They both jumped--onGreen's side, luckily. Clay was bruised considerably, and Green says heknows he plowed up fifty yards of gravel with his face before hestopped--and he looked it. They both went home on 201."
Lidgerwood was examining the cross-ties, which were cut and scarred bythe flanges of many derailed wheels.
"You have no notion of what did it?" he queried, turning abruptly uponMcCloskey.
"Only a guess, and it couldn't be verified in a thousand years. The '95went off first, and Clay and Green both say it felt as if a rail hadturned over on the outside of the curve."
"What did you find when you got here?"
"Chaos and Old Night: a pile of scrap with a hole torn in the middle ofit as if by an explosion, and a fire going."
"Of course, you couldn't tell anything about the cause, under suchconditions."
"Not much, you'd say; and yet a queer thing happened. The entire trainwent off so thoroughly that it passed the point where the trouble beganbefore it piled up. I was able to verify Clay's guess--a rail had turnedover on the outside of the curve."
"That proves nothing more than poor spike-holds in a few dry-rottedcross-ties," Lidgerwood objected.
"No; there were a number of others farther along also turned over andbroken and bent. But the first one was the only freak."
"How was that?"
"Well, it wasn't either broken or bent; but when it turned over it notonly unscrewed the nuts of the fish-plate bolts and threw them away--itpulled out every spike on both sides of itself and hid them."
Lidgerwood nodded gravely. "I should say your guess has already verifieditself. All it lacks is the name of the man who loosened the fish-platebolts and pulled the spikes."
"That's about all."
The superintendent's eyes narrowed.
"Who was missing out of the Angels crowd of trouble-makers yesterday,Mac?"
"I hate to say," said the trainmaster. "God knows I don't want to put itall over any man unless it belongs to him, but I'm locoed every time itcomes to that kind of a guess. Every bunch of letters I see spells justone name."
"Go on," said Lidgerwood sharply.
"Hallock came somewhere up this way on 202 yesterday."
"I know," was the quick reply. "I sent him out to Navajo to meetCruikshanks, the cattleman with the long claim for stock injured in theGap wreck two weeks ago."
"Did he stop at Navajo?" queried the trainmaster.
"I suppose so; at any rate, he saw Cruikshanks."
"Well, I haven't got any more guesses, only a notion or two. This is apretty stiff up-grade for 202--she passes here at two-fifty--just aboutan hour before Clay found that loosened rail--and it wouldn't beimpossible for a man to drop off as she was climbing this curve."
But now the superintendent was shaking his head.
"It doesn't hold together, Mac; there are too many parts missing. Yourhypothesis presupposes that Hallock took a day train out of Angels, rodetwelve miles past his destination, jumped off here while the train wasin motion, pulled the spikes on this loosened rail, and walked back toNavajo in time to see the cattleman and get in to Angels on the delayedNumber 75 this morning. Could he have done all these things withoutadvertising them to everybody?"
"I know," confessed the trainmaster. "It doesn't look reasonable."
"It isn't reasonable," Lidgerwood went on, arguing Hallock's case as ifit were his own. "Bradford was 202's conductor; he'd know if Hallockfailed to get off at Navajo. Gridley was a passenger on the same train,and he would have known. The agent at Navajo would be a third witness.He was expecting Hallock on that train, and was no doubt holdingCruikshanks. Your guesses prefigure Hallock failing to show up when thetrain stopped at Navajo, and make it necessary for him to explain to thetwo men who were waiting for him why he let Bradford carry him by so farthat it took him several hours to walk back. You see how incredible itall is?"
"Yes, I see," said McCloskey, and when he spoke again they were severalrail-lengths nearer the up-track end of the wreck, and his question wentback to Lidgerwood's mention of the expected special.
"You were saying something to Dawson about Williams and a special train;is that Mr. Brewster coming in?"
"Yes. He wired from Copah last night. He has Mr. Ford's car--the_Nadia_."
The trainmaster's face-contortion was expressive of the deepest chagrin.
"Suffering Moses! but this is a nice thing for the president of theroad to see as he comes along! Wouldn't the luck we're having make a dogsick?"
Lidgerwood shook his head. "That isn't the worst of it, Mac. Mr.Brewster isn't a railroad man, and he will probably think this is all inthe day's work. But he is going to stop at Angels and go over to hiscopper mine, which means that he will camp right down in the midst ofthe mix-up. I'd cheerfully give a year's salary to have him stay away afew weeks longer."
McCloskey was not a swearing man in the Red Desert sense of the term,but now his comment was an explosive exclamation naming the conventionalplace of future punishment. It was the only word he could findadequately to express his feelings.
The superintendent changed the subject.
"Who is your foreman, Mac?" he inquired, as a huge mass of the tangledscrap was seen to rise at the end of the smaller derrick's grapple.
"Judson," said McCloskey shortly. "He asked leave to come along as alaborer, and when I found that he knew more about train-scrapping than Idid, I promoted him." There was something like defiance in thetrainmaster's tone.
"From the way in which you say it, I infer that you don't expect me toapprove," said Lidgerwood judicially.
McCloskey had been without sleep for a good many hours, and hispatience was tenuous. The derby hat was tilted to its most contentiousangle when he said:
"I can't fight for you when you're right, and not fight against you whenI think you are wrong, Mr. Lidgerwood. You can have my head any time youwant it."
"You think I should break my word and take Judson back?"
"I think, and the few men who are still with us think, that you ought togive the man who stood in the breach for you a chance to earn bread
andmeat for his wife and babies," snapped McCloskey, who had gone too farto retreat.
Lidgerwood was frowning when he replied: "You don't see the pointinvolved. I can't reward Judson for what you, yourself, admit was apersonal service. I have said that no drunkard shall pull a train onthis division. Judson is no less a drink-maniac for the fact that hearrested Rufford when everybody else was afraid to."
McCloskey was mollified a little.
"He says he has quit drinking, and I believe him this time. But this jobI've given him isn't pulling trains."
"No; and if you have cooled off enough, you may remember that I haven'tyet disapproved your action. I don't disapprove. Give him anything youlike where a possible relapse on his part won't involve the lives ofother people. Is that what you want me to say?"
"I was hot," said the trainmaster, gruffly apologetic. "We've got nonetoo many friends to stand by us when the pinch comes, and we were losingthem every day you held out against Judson."
"I'm still holding out on the original count. Judson can't run an enginefor me until he has proved conclusively and beyond question that he hasquit the whiskey. Whatever other work you can find for him----"
McCloskey slapped his thigh. "By George! I've got a job right now! Whyon top of earth didn't I think of him before? He's the man to keep tabon Hallock."
But now Lidgerwood was frowning again.
"I don't like that, Mac. It's a dirty business to be shadowing a man whohas a right to suppose that you are trusting him."
"But, good Lord! Mr. Lidgerwood, haven't you got enough to go on?Hallock is the last man seen around the engine that disappears; hespends a lot of his time swapping grievances with the rebels; and he isout of town and within a few miles of here, as you know, when thiswreck happens. If all that isn't enough to earn him a littlesuspicion----"
"I know; I can't argue the case with you, Mac, But I can't do it."
"You mean you won't do it. I respect your scruples, Mr. Lidgerwood. Butit is no longer a personal matter between you and Hallock: the company'sinterests are involved."
Without suspecting it, the trainmaster had found the weak joint in thesuperintendent's armor. For the company's sake the personal point ofview must be ignored.
"It is such a despicable thing," he protested, as one who yieldsreluctantly. "And if, after all, Hallock is innocent----"
"That is just the point," insisted McCloskey. "If he is innocent, noharm will be done, and Judson will become a witness for instead ofagainst him."
"Well," said Lidgerwood; and what more he would have said about theconspiracy was cut off by the shrill whistle of a down-coming train."That's Williams with the special," he announced, when the whistle gavehim leave. "Is your flag out?"
"Sure. It's up around the hill, with a safe man to waggle it."
Lidgerwood cast an anxious glance toward Dawson's huge derrick-car,which was still blocking the main line. The hoist tackle was swingingfree, and the jack-beams and outriggers were taken in.
"Better send somebody down to tell Dawson to pull up here to yourtemporary siding, Mac," he suggested; but Dawson was one of thosepriceless helpers who did not have to be told in detail. He had heardthe warning whistle, and already had his train in motion.
By a bit of quick shifting, the main line was cleared before Williamsswung cautiously around the hill with the private car. In obedience toLidgerwood's uplifted finger the brakes were applied, and the _Nadia_came to a full stop, with its observation platform opposite the end ofthe wrecking-track.
A big man, in a soft hat and loose box dust-coat, with twinkling littleeyes and a curling brown beard that covered fully three-fourths of hisface, stood at the hand-rail.
"Hello, Howard!" he called down to Lidgerwood. "By George! I'd totallyforgotten that you were out here. What are you trying to do? Got so manycars and engines that you have to throw some of them away?"
Lidgerwood climbed up the embankment to the track, and McCloskeycarefully let him do it alone. The "Hello, Howard!" had not been thrownaway upon the trainmaster.
"It looks a little that way, I must admit, Cousin Ned," said the culpritwho had answered so readily to his Christian name. "We tried pretty hardto get it cleaned up before you came along, but we couldn't quite makeit."
"Oho! tried to cover it up, did you? Afraid I'd fire you? You needn'tbe. My job as president merely gets me passes over the road. Ford's yourman; he's the fellow you want to be scared of."
"I am," laughed Lidgerwood. The big man's heartiness was alwaysinfectious. Then: "Coming over to camp with us awhile? If you are, Ihope you carry your commissary along. Angels will starve you,otherwise."
"Don't tell me about that tin-canned tepee village, Howard--I _know_.I've been there before. How are we doing over in the Timanyonifoot-hills? Getting much ore down from the Copperette? Climb up here andtell me all about it. Or, better still, come on across the desert withus. They don't need you here."
The assertion was quite true. With Dawson, the trainmaster, and anunderstudy Judson for bosses, there was no need of a fourth. Yetintuition, or whatever masculine thing it is that stands for intuition,prompted Lidgerwood to say:
"I don't know as I ought to leave. I've just come out from Angels, youknow."
But the president was not to be denied.
"Climb up here and quit trying to find excuses. We'll give you a betterluncheon than you'll get out of the dinner-pails; and if you carryyourself handsomely, you may get a dinner invitation after we get in.That ought to tempt any man who has to live in Angels the year round."
Lidgerwood marked the persistent plural of the personal pronoun, and agreat fear laid hold upon him. None the less, the president's invitationwas a little like the king's--it was, in some sense, a command.Lidgerwood merely asked for a moment's respite, and went down toannounce his intention to McCloskey and Dawson. Curiously enough, thedraftsman seemed to be trying to ignore the private car. His back wasturned upon it, and he was glooming out across the bare hills, with hissquare jaw set as if the ignoring effort were painful.
"I'm going back to Angels with the president," said the superintendent,speaking to both of them. "You can clean up here without me."
The trainmaster nodded, but Dawson seemed not to have heard. At allevents, he made no sign. Lidgerwood turned and ascended the embankment,only to have the sudden reluctance assail him again as he put his footon the truck of the _Nadia_ to mount to the platform. The hesitation wasonly momentary, this time. Other guests Mr. Brewster might have, withoutincluding the one person whom he would circle the globe to avoid.
"Good boy!" said the president, when Lidgerwood swung over the highhand-rail and leaned out to give Williams the starting signal. And whenthe scene of the wreck was withdrawing into the rearward distance, thepresident felt for the door-knob, saying: "Let's go inside, where weshan't be obliged to see so much of this God-forsaken country at onetime."
One half-minute later the superintendent would have given much to besafely back with McCloskey and Dawson at the vanishing curve ofscrap-heaps. In that half-minute Mr. Brewster had opened the car door,and Lidgerwood had followed him across the threshold.
The comfortable lounging-room of the _Nadia_ was not empty; nor was itpeopled by a group of Mr. Brewster's associates in the copper combine,the alternative upon which Lidgerwood had hopefully hung the "we's" andthe "us's."
Seated on a wicker divan drawn out to face one of the wide side-windowswere two young women, with a curly-headed, clean-faced young man betweenthem. A little farther along, a rather austere lady, whose pose was ofcalm superiority to her surroundings, looked up from her magazine tosay, as her husband had said: "Why, Howard! are you here?" Just beyondthe austere lady, and dozing in his chair, was a white-haired man whosestrongly marked features proclaimed him the father of one of the youngwomen on the divan.
And in the farthest corner of the open compartment, facing each othercompanionably in an "S"-shaped double chair, were two other youngpeople--a man and a woman.... Truly, the heavens had fal
len! For theyoung woman filling half of the _tete-a-tete_ chair was that one personwhom Lidgerwood would have circled the globe to avoid meeting.
The Taming of Red Butte Western Page 12