Kitabı oku: «The Road Builders», sayfa 5
“What’s the matter with me, anyway!” he muttered. “This is a pretty spectacle!” And he walked deliberately on.
The trail led him, and the quiet little file of men behind him, over and around a low ridge and a chain of knolls. “This heat keeps a dead rein on you,” he said, again speaking half aloud. “Let’s see, what was I thinking, – oh, the boys at the camp, they needed water too; I was going to load up and hurry back to help them out.”
And then, as he walked on with a solemn precision not unlike that of a drunken man, the scene shifted, and another scene – one which had long ago slipped out of his waking thoughts, – took its place. He was fishing a trout stream in the Adirondacks. He had found a series of pools in a narrow gorge where the brook came leaping merrily down from one low ledge to another. The underbrush on the steep banks was dark and impenetrable. The pine and hemlock and beech and maple and chestnut trees grew thick on either hand, and so matted their branches overhead that only a little checkered light could sift through. The rocks were dark with moss; the stream was choked at certain points with the debris of the last flood. He was tired after the day’s fishing. A storm came up. It grew very black and ugly in that little ravine. And then, for no reason, a thing happened which had not happened in his steady mind before or since. He fell into a curious horror, in which the tangled wilderness and the gloom and the rushing rain and the creaking trees and the noise of the falling water and that of the thunder all played some part. He recalled that he had found a hollow in the bank, where a large tree had been uprooted, and had taken shivering refuge there.
The wilderness had always before seemed man’s playground. It suddenly became a savage living and breathing thing to which a man was nothing.
And now the desert was showing its teeth, and Carhart knew that he was trembling again on the brink of the horrors. He understood the sort of thing very well. He had seen men grow crafty and cowardly or ugly and murderous out there on the frontier. He had been in Death Valley. And as he had seen the symptoms in other men’s faces, so he now felt them coming into his own. He knew how a man’s sense of proportion can go awry, – how a mere railroad, with its very important banker-officials in top hats and its very elaborate and impressive organization, could seem a child’s toy here in the desert where the wonderful spaces and the unearthly atmosphere and the morning and evening colors lie very close to the borders of another realm, and where the eye of God blazes forever down on the just and the unjust.
None of the little devices of a sophisticated world pass current in the desert. Carhart knew all this, as I have said, very well. He knew that a man’s mind is searched to the bottom out here, that the morbid tone and the yellow streak are inevitably dragged to the surface and displayed to the gaze of all men. But he also knew that where the mind is sound, the trouble may arise from physical exhaustion, and this knowledge saved him. He deliberately recalled the fact that for thirty-six hours he had not slept and that the work he had done and the strain he had been under would have sent many men to the nearest hospital, or, in the desert, to the nearest shallow excavation in the ground. And he walked slowly and steadily on, in that same shaky, determined manner.
On the summit of a knoll he stopped short, and looked down at something on the farther side. The men came up, one by one, and joined him; and they, too, stopped short and looked. And then Carhart raised his eyes and watched their faces steadily, eagerly wondering if they saw what he saw, – a water-hole, fringed with green, and a mule lying at the water’s edge and a number of other mules quietly grazing. It was his test of himself. For a full half minute he gazed into those sweaty, drink-bleared faces. And then, at what he saw there, his own tense expression gave way to one of overwhelming relief. The men ran pell-mell down the slope, shouting with delight. And Carhart sat down there on the knoll, and his head fell a little forward over his knees.
“Will you have a little of this, Mr. Carhart?”
A big renegade with the face of a criminal was holding out a flask. The chief took it, and gulped down a few swallows. “Thank you,” he said quietly.
“One of the boys found this here, down among them tin cans, Mr. Carhart.”
It was the crumpled first page of the Pierrepont Enterprise. Carhart stiffened up, spread it out on his knees, and read the date line. The paper was only two days old.
“Where’s Pierrepont?” he asked.
“About a day’s journey down the river, sir.”
Again the chief’s eyes ran over the sheet. Suddenly they lighted up. Here is what he saw: —
Mr. De Reamer and Mr.
Chambers in contempt of Court – Durfee and Carrington directors allied at last against De Reamer – It is said that Durfee already has a majority – Meeting to be held nex will be decid De Rea
The rest of it was torn off, but he read these headings three times. Then he lowered his knees, with the paper still lying across them, and looked over it at the little group of men and mules about the water-hole. “Can that be true, or can’t it?” he asked himself. “And what am I going to do about it? I don’t believe it; it’s another war of injunctions, that’s what it is, and it isn’t likely to be settled short of the Supreme Court. We can start back in an hour or so, and as soon as we reach camp I’ll take the five-spot” – Carhart’s two engines happened to bear the numbers five and six – “the five-spot and the private car and see if Bill Cunningham can’t make a record run toward Sherman. It’s a little puzzling, but I’m inclined to think it’s a mighty good thing that I found this paper.”
He tossed it away, and then, catching sight for the first time of the other side, he took it up again. The second page was nearly covered with crude designs, made with a blue pencil. There were long rows of scallops, and others of those aimless markings a man will make when pencil and paper are before him. And in the middle, surrounded by a sort of decorative border, was printed out “MR. CARHART,” then a blank space and the name “JACK FLAGG.”
Carhart rose to his feet, folded the paper, put it in his hip pocket, and looked cheerfully around. “So, Mr. Flagg, it’s you I’m indebted to for this information. I’m sure I’m greatly obliged.” Then he waved to the men. “Come on, boys,” he shouted. “Bring those animals back to the wagons. We’ll fill the barrels here.”
Slowly and not without difficulty he walked back. But the unsteadiness in his legs no longer disturbed him. The panic was over, – and something else was over too.
CHAPTER VI
THE ROAD TO TOTAL WRECK
“How’s my pony?” said Young Van. “You haven’t told me.”
“I shot him.”
“Not yours too? Didn’t I see you riding Texas this morning? I – I’m a little hazy about what I have and haven’t seen these days.”
“Yes; Texas pulled through. He’s hitched on just behind us.”
The wagon train, with every barrel full, was drawing slowly toward Mr. Carhart’s camp. Young Van and Carhart were riding on the leading wagon, and the former was gazing off dejectedly to the horizon, where he could see a few moving black specks and the gray-yellow line of the grade. “I don’t know what you’ll think of me, Mr. Carhart,” he said, after a time. “I don’t seem to be good for much when it comes to real work.”
“Better forget about it, Gus,” the chief replied. “I’m going to. This isn’t railroad building.”
The long line of wagons wound into camp, and Carhart made it his first business to get his assistant undressed and comfortably settled on his cot. It would be a day or so before the young man would be able to resume his work. Then Carhart stepped out, walked part way down the knoll, and looked about him, and became conscious of an unusual stir about the job. Peering out through dusty spectacles, he saw that a party of strangers were coming up the slope toward him.
At the head walked Old Van, in boiled shirt and city clothes, with a tall man in frock coat and top hat whom Carhart recognized as Vice-president Chambers. After them came a party of ladies and one or two young men to whom Tiffany was explaining the methods of construction. It seemed that Mr. Chambers had thought it worth while to adopt Tiffany’s suggestion that the vast quantities of dry bones in the desert be gathered up and shipped eastward to be ground up into fertilizer.
Carhart was presented to Mrs. Chambers and to the two Misses Chambers and the other young women. He took them in with a glance, then looked down over his own outrageously attired person and restrained a smile. Tiffany was the one he wished to see, and he told him so with a barely perceptible motion of the head.
Tiffany caught the signal, made his excuses, and walked off with this dusty, inconspicuous man on whose shoulders rested the welfare of the whole Sherman and Western system. He had observed that the young women drew instinctively away from the dingy figure, and his smile was not restrained. He was thinking of his first meeting with Paul Carhart, in Chicago, – it was at the farewell dinner to the Dutch engineers, – and of his distinguished appearance as he rose to speak, and of his delightfully humorous enumeration of the qualities required in an American engineer. Thinking of these things he almost spoke aloud: “And they never knew the difference, – not a blessed one of ’em! Even Mrs. Chambers don’t know a gentleman without he’s tagged. Ain’t it funny!” And the chief engineer of the S. & W., being a blunt, and not at all a subtle man, wisely gave up the eternal question.
“Look here, Tiffany,” Carhart began, “something’s going to happen to this man Peet.”
Tiffany plucked a straw from a convenient bale, and began meditatively to chew it. “I haven’t got a word to say, Carhart. You’ve got a clear case against us, and I guess I can’t object if you take it out of me.”
“No; I understand the thing pretty well, Tiffany. You’re doing what you can, but Peet isn’t.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Perfectly.”
“He’s having the devil’s own time himself, Carhart. The mills are going back on us steady with the rails. They just naturally don’t ship ’em. I’m beginning to think they don’t want to ship ’em.”
Carhart stopped short, plunged in thought. “Maybe you’re right,” he said after a moment. “I hadn’t thought of that before.”
“No, you oughtn’t to have to think of it. That’s our business, but it’s been worrying us considerable. Then there’s the connections, too. The rails have to come into Sherman by way of the Queen and Cumberland, – a long way ‘round – ”
“And the Queen and Cumberland has ‘Commodore Durfee’ written all over it.”
“Yes, I guess it has.”
“And knowing that, you fellows have been sitting around waiting for the Commodore to deliver your material. No, Tiffany, don’t tell me that; I hate to think it of you.”
“I know we’re a pack of fools, Carhart, but – ” the sentence died out. “But what can we do, man? We can’t draw a new map of the United States, can we? We’ve got our orders from the old man – !”
“Could you have the stuff sent around by the Coast and Crescent, and transferred over to Sherman by wagon?”
“Wait a minute; who owns the Coast and Crescent? Who’s got it all buttoned up in his pants pocket?”
“Oh,” said Carhart. They stood for a little while, then sat down on a pile of culls which had been brought up by the tie squad for supporting tent floors. “It begins to occur to me,” Carhart went on, “that we are working under the nerviest president that ever – But perhaps he can’t help it. He’s fixed pretty much as Washington was in the New Jersey campaign; he’s surrounded by the enemy and he’s got to fight out.”
“That’s it, exactly,” cried Tiffany. “He’s got to cut his way out. He ain’t a practical railroad man, and he’s just ordered us to do it for him. Don’t you see our fix?”
[Pg 143][Pg 144]
“Yes,” Carhart mused, “I see well enough. Look here, Tiffany; how far can I go in this business, – extra expenses, and that sort of things?”
Tiffany’s face became very expressive. “Well,” he said, “I guess if you can beat the H. D. & W. to Red Hills there won’t be any questions asked. If you can’t beat ’em, we’ll all catch hell. Why, what are you thinking of doing?”
“Not a thing. My mind’s a blank.”
From Tiffany’s expression it was plain that he was uncertain whether to believe this or not.
“It comes to about this,” Carhart went on. “It all rests on me, and if I’m willing to run chances, I might as well run ’em.”
Tiffany’s eyes were searching the lean, spectacled face. “I guess it’s for you to decide,” he replied. “I don’t know what else Mr. Chambers was thinking of when he the same as told me to leave you be.”
“By the way, Tiffany,” – Carhart was going through his pockets, – “how long is it since you people left Sherman?”
“More than a week. Mr. Chambers wanted some shooting on the way out.”
“Do you suppose he knows about this?” And Carhart produced the torn sheet of the Pierrepont Enterprise.
Tiffany read the headlines, and slowly shook his head. “I’m sure he don’t. There was no such story around Sherman when we left. But we found a message waiting here to-day, asking Mr. Chambers to hurry back; very likely it’s about this.”
“If it were true, if Commodore Durfee does own the line, what effect would it have on my work here?”
“Not a bit! Not a d – n bit!” Tiffany’s big hand came down on his knee with a bang. “This line belongs to Daniel De Reamer, and Old Durfee’s thievery and low tricks and kept judges don’t go at Sherman, or here neither. It’s jugglery, the whole business; there ain’t anything honest about it.” Carhart looked away, and again restrained a smile; he was thinking of where the money came from. “And I’ll tell you this,” Tiffany concluded, “if anybody comes into my office and tries to take possession for Old Durfee, I’ll say, ‘Hold on, my friend, who signed that paper you’ve got there?’ And if I find it ain’t signed by five judges —five, mind! – of the Supreme Court of the United States sittin’ in Washington, I’ll say, ‘Get out of here!’ And if they won’t get out, I’ll kick ’em out. And there’s five hundred men in Sherman, a thousand men, who’ll help me to do it. If it’s court business, I guess our judges are as good as theirs. And if it comes to shooting, by God we’ll shoot!”
“I agree with you, on the whole,” said Carhart. “Mr. De Reamer and Mr. Chambers have put me here to beat the H. D. & W. to Red Hills, and I’m going to do it. But – ”
“That’s the talk, man!”
“But let’s get back to Peet. He could help us a little if he felt like it. You told me last month, Tiffany, that Peet had given you a list of the numbers of all my supply cars, with an understanding that they wouldn’t be used for anything else. Have you got that list with you?”
“No; it’s in my desk, at Sherman.”
“All right. I’ll call for it day after to-morrow.”
“At Sherman?”
“Yes. Peet isn’t sending those cars out here, and I’m going to find out where he is sending them.”
“There’s one thing, Carhart,” said Tiffany, as they rose, “I’m sure Peet don’t know how bad off you were for water. He was holding up the trains for material.”
“He ought to understand, Tiffany. I wired him to send the water anyway.”
“I know. But that would be wholesale murder. He didn’t realize – ”
“I’m going to undertake the job of making him realize, Tiffany.”
The whistle of the vice-president’s special engine was tooting as they started back. On the one hand, as far as human beings could be distinguished with the naked eye, the groups and the long lines of laborers were shuffling to and from their work on the grade; the picked men of the iron squad, muscular, deep chested, were working side by side with the Mexicans and the negroes, as also were the spikers and strappers and the men of the tie squad. On the other hand, the ladies of the vice-president’s party were picking their way daintily back toward Mr. Chambers’s private car, where savory odors and a white-clad chef awaited them.
Carhart had time only to wash his face and hands before rejoining the party at the car steps. His clothing was downright disreputable, and he wanted the physique, the height and breadth and muscle display, which alone can give distinction to rough garments. Even his clean-cut face and reserved, studious expression were not positive features, and could hardly triumph over the obvious facts of his dress. Mrs. Chambers and the young women again glanced toward him, and again they had nothing to say to him. To the truth that this ugly, noisy scene was a resolving dissonance in the harmony of things, that this rough person in spectacles was heroically forging a link in the world’s girdle, these women were blind. They had been curious to come; and now that they were here and were conscious of the dirtiness and meanness of the hundreds of men about them, now that the gray hopelessness of the desert was getting on their nerves, they were eager to go back. And so the bell rang, the driving-wheels spun around, slipping under the coughing engine, the car began to rumble forward, the ladies bowed, the vice-president, taking a last look at things from the rear platform, nodded a good-by, and the incident was closed.
There were a number of things for Carhart to attend to after he had eaten supper and dressed, and before he could get away, – some of which will have to find a place in a later chapter, – and it was eleven o’clock at night when he finally put aside his maps and reports. He then wrote a note to Scribner, telling the engineer of the second division that the last report of his pile inspector was not satisfactory, – the third bent in the trestle over Tiffany Hollow on “mile fifty-two” showed insufficient resistance. He left for Young Van’s attention a pile of letters with memoranda for the replies. He sent for Old Van, and went over with him the condition of the work on the first division. And finally he wrote the following letter to John Flint: —
DEAR JOHN: I’m sending forward to-morrow the extra cable and the wheelers you asked for. I have to run back to Sherman to-night, possibly for a week or so, but there’ll be time enough to look over your plans for cutting and filling on the west bank when I get back. I haven’t figured it out yet, but I’m inclined to agree with you that we can make more of a fill there. But I’ll write you again about it.
Thanks to our friend Peet I nearly killed Texas on a ride for water. Got to have another riding horse sent out here. My assistant’s pony had to be shot – that little brown beauty I pointed out to you the morning you started, with the white star.
Yours,P. C.
P. S. By the way, that Wall-street fight was only the opening skirmish. The Commodore is raiding S. & W. for business. I guess you know how he does these things. The Pierrepont Enterprise says he has already got control of the board, so it will probably be our turn next. If you haven’t plenty of weapons, you’d better order what you need at Red Hills right away. And don’t forget that you’re working for Daniel De Reamer.
P. C.
He folded the letter, slipped it into an envelope, addressed it, and then tipped back and ran his long fingers through his hair. He was surprised to find that his forehead was beaded with sweat. “Lovely climate, this,” he said to himself; adding after a moment, “Now what have I forgotten?” For several minutes he balanced there, supporting himself by resting the fingers of one hand against a tall case labelled, “A B C Spool Cotton,” in the flat, glass-fronted drawers of which he kept his maps and papers. Finally he muttered, “Well, if I have forgotten anything, I’ve forgotten it for good,” and the front legs of his chair came down, and he reached across the table for his hat.
But instead of rising, he lingered, fingering the wide hat-brim. The yellow lamplight fell gently on his face, now leaner than ever. “I wonder what they think a man is made of,” thought he. “Nothing very valuable, I guess, from what an engineer gets paid. I’m in the wrong business. It’s my sort of man who does the work, and it’s the speculators and that sort who get the money, – God help ’em!” Again he made as if to rise, and again he paused. “Oh!” he said, “of course, that was it.” He clapped his hat on the back of his head, reached out for a letter which he had that evening written to Mrs. Carhart, opened the envelope, and added these words: —
“Have Thomas Nelson plant the nasturtiums along the back fence. There isn’t enough sunshine out in front for anything but the honeysuckle and the Dutchman’s pipe. And he’d better screen the fence with golden glow, set out pretty thick the whole way, between the nasturtiums and the fence. The crab-apple tree will be in the way, but it’s so near dead that he’d better cut it down. I like your other arrangements first rate.”
This, and a few other east-bound letters, he put in his handbag. Then he looked at his watch. “Hello!” said he, “it’s to-morrow morning.” He pulled his hat forward, took up the lamp, and stepped out through the tent opening, holding the lamp high and looking down, through the night, toward the track.
The silence, in spite of a throbbing locomotive, or perhaps because of it, was almost overwhelming. There was not a cloud in the sky; the stars were twinkling down.
“How horribly patient it is,” he thought. “We’re slap bang up against the Almighty.”
“Toot! Too-oo-oot!” came from the throbbing locomotive.
“All right, sir!” he muttered. “Be with you in a minute.”
He went back into the tent, put down the lamp, picked up his handbag, took a last look around, and then blew out the lamp and set off down the slope to the track.
The engineer was hanging out of his cab. “All ready, Mr. Carhart?”
“All ready, Bill.” The chief caught the hand-rail of his private car, tossed his bag to the platform, and swung himself up after it.
“You was in something of a hurry, Mr. Carhart?”
“In a little of a hurry, yes, Bill.”
They started off, rocking and bumping over the new track, and Carhart began stripping off his clothes. “It isn’t exactly like Mr. Chambers’s,” he said, “but I guess I’ll be able to get in a little sleep; that is, if Bill doesn’t smash me up, or jolt me to death.”
Three days later, at five o’clock in the afternoon, Carhart was writing a letter in the office of the “Eagle House,” at Sherman. Sitting in rows along three sides of the room was perhaps a score of men, and in a corner by herself sat one young woman. The men were a mixed assortment, – locomotive engineers, photographers, travelling salesmen of tobacco, jewellery, shoes, clothing, and small cutlery, not to speak of an itinerant dentist and a team of “champion banjo and vocal artists.” As for the young woman, if you could have taken a peep into the sample case at her feet, you would have learned that she was prepared to disseminate a collection of literature which ranged from standard sets of Dickens and Thackeray to a fat volume devoted to the songs and scenes of Old Ireland, an illustrated life of the Pope, and a work on the character and the splendid career of Porfirio Diaz. Outside, at the window, stood or sat another score of men, each of whom bore the unmistakable dress and manner of the day laborer. And every pair of eyes, within and without the smoky room, was fixed on the back of the man who was writing a letter at the table in the corner.
But Carhart’s mind was wholly occupied with the work before him. He was travel-stained, – it was not yet an hour since he had come in from Crockett, the nearest division town on the H. D. & W., – but there were few signs of weariness on his face, and none at all in his eyes. “How much had I better tell him?” he was asking himself. “I wonder what he is up to, anyway? Possibly he has an interest in the lumber company, or maybe Durfee’s men have bought him up.” For several minutes his pen occupied itself with dotting out a design on the blotter; then suddenly a twinkle came into his eyes, and he wrote rapidly as follows: —
DEAR MR. PEET:
I beg to enclose herewith a list of the cars which were assigned to me at the beginning of the construction work. I am sure you will agree with me that I can spare none of these cars, least of all to supply a rival line. And in consideration of your future hearty cooperation with me in advancing this construction work, I will gladly take pains to see that my present knowledge of the use that has been made of these cars shall not interfere in any way with your continued enjoyment of your position with the Sherman and Western.
Yours very truly,P. CARHART.
He folded the letter, then opened it and read it over. “Yes,” he told himself, “it’s better to write it. Seeing the thing before him in black and white may have a stimulating effect.” He found in his pocket the worn and thumbed list of cars, enclosed it in his letter, addressed an envelope, and looked around. At once he was beset by the agents and the applicants for work, but he shoved through to the piazza, and called a boy.
“Here, son,” he said, “do you know Mr. Peet, of the railroad?”
The boy nodded.
“Take this letter to him. If he isn’t in his office, go to his house, but don’t come back until you have found him.”
“Will there be any answer?”
“No – no answer. Don’t give the letter to anybody but Mr. Peet himself. When you have done that, come to me and get a quarter.”
The boy started off, and Carhart reëntered the building, slipped past the office door, and walked up two flights of stairs to his room.
“And now,” thought he, “I guess a bath will feel about as good as anything.”
The Eagle House did not boast a bathroom, and so he set about the business in the primitive fashion to which he had learned to adapt himself. He dragged in from the hall a tin, high-backed tub, called down the stairway to the proprietor’s wife for hot water, and, undressing, piled his clothes on the one wooden chair in the room, taking care that they touched neither floor nor wall. The hostess knocked, and left a steaming pitcher outside the door. And soon the chief engineer of the Red Hills extension of the Shaky and Windy was splashing merrily.
The water proved so refreshing that he lingered in it, leaning comfortably back and hanging his legs over the edge of the tub. And as was always the case, when he had a respite from details, his mind began roving over the broader problems of the work. “I’ve done a part of it,” he said to himself, “but not enough. It won’t do any good to have the cars if we haven’t the materials to put in ’em.” He had been absently pursuing the soap around the bottom of the tub, had caught it, and was now sloping his hands into the water, and letting the cake slide back into its element.
There was a knock at the door. Carhart looked up with half a start.
“Well, what is it?”
“It’s me, sir,” came from the hall.
“Who’s me?”
“The boy that took your letter.”
“Well, what about it? There was no answer.”
“But there is an answer, Mr. Carhart. Mr. Peet came back with me.”
“What’s that?”
“He’s here – he came back with me. He’s waiting downstairs.”
Carhart hesitated. “Well – tell him that I’m very sorry, but I can’t see him. I’m taking a bath.”
“All right,” said the boy; and Carhart heard him go off down the stairs.
For some little time longer he sat in the tub. His mind slipped again into the accustomed channel. “If it does come to warfare,” he was thinking, “the first thing they’ll do will be to cut me off from my base. They’d know that I shall be near enough to Red Hills to get food through from there by wagon, – that’s what I should have to do, – but there won’t be any rails coming from Red Hills. I’m afraid – very much afraid – that Durfee has got us, cold. That’s the whole trick. If he’s going to seize the S. & W., he’ll cut me off first thing. There’s five to six hundred miles of track between the job and Sherman. It would take an army to guard it. And that much done, he’d be in a position to take his time about completing the H. D. & W. to Red Hills.”
And then suddenly he got out of the tub, snatched up a towel, and, half dry, began hurriedly to draw on his clothes. A moment later a thin, spectacled, collarless man darted out of a room on the third floor of the Eagle House, looked quickly up and down the hall, ran halfway down the stairs, and leaned over the balustrade.
“Boy,” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
“You didn’t get your quarter.” But it was a half dollar that he tossed into the waiting hands. “Run after Mr. Peet and bring him back here. Mind you catch him.”
The boy started to obey, but in a moment he was back and knocking at Carhart’s door. “He’s down in the office now, Mr. Carhart. He didn’t go at all.”
“He didn’t, eh?” The engineer was standing before the cracked mirror, brushing his hair. “All right, I’ll be down in a minute. Hold on there!” He stepped to the door. The first coin his fingers encountered in his pocket was another half dollar. He took it out without glancing at it and handed it to the now bewildered boy. Then he returned to the mirror and brushed his hair again, and put on his collar and tie. “I’ll have to thank Tiffany,” ran his thoughts. “It’s odd how that car-stealing story has stuck in my head. I’m glad he told it.”
Peet’s expression was not what might be termed complacent. He was standing on the piazza when he heard Carhart’s quick step on the stairs. His teeth were closed tightly on a cigar, but he was not smoking.
“How are you, Mr. Peet?” said the engineer. Peet looked nervously about and behind him, and then faced around. “Look here, Mr. Carhart, I want to tell you that you haven’t got that straight – ”
“Where’s Tiffany?” said Carhart.
At this interruption Peet turned, if anything, a shade redder. “He’s gone home.”
“Let’s find him. Would you mind walking over there?”
“Certainly not,” Peet replied; and for a moment they walked in silence. Then the superintendent broke out again. “You didn’t understand about those cars, Mr. Carhart. I know – the boys have told me – that you’ve thought some hard things about me – ” He paused: perhaps he had better keep his mouth shut.
