Kitabı oku: «The Road Builders», sayfa 8
Young Van hesitated, and was about to reply, when he heard the chief approaching.
Carhart came in from the rear, nodded to the stranger, and picked up the envelope. “You brought this, sir?” he asked.
“Yes; Mr. Flint asked me to.”
Very deliberately Carhart read the letter, and, without the slightest change of expression, tossed it on the table. “You must have supper with us,” he said. “If you stopped with John Flint you perhaps know how little an engineer’s hospitality amounts to, but such as we have we shall be very glad to share with you.”
“Thank you,” replied the stranger.
“You are a ranchman, I presume?” Carhart went on.
“Yes – in northwest of Red Hills. I go to Sherman every year.”
Young Van spoke, “He thought of taking one of our trains through.”
Carhart smiled dryly. “I should be greatly obliged to you, sir, if you could take a train through,” he said. “That’s something we don’t seem able to do.”
The wizened one glanced up with a keen expression about his eyes. “Having trouble back along the line?” he asked.
“You might call it trouble. My old friend Bourke, of the H. D. & W., has cut in behind us with a small army.” He gave a little shrug. “I can’t get through. I can’t get either way now that they’ve got in between Flint and Red Hills.”
“Then I’d better ride down to Pierrepont, hadn’t I?”
“I’m afraid that’s the best that I can suggest, sir.”
“You people certainly seem to be playing in hard luck, Mr. Carhart.” As the wizened one ventured this observation he crossed his legs and thrust his hands into his pockets. The action caused his coat to fall back, and disclosed a small gold pendant hanging from his watch guard. Young Van observed it, and glanced at Carhart, but he could not tell whether the chief had taken it in.
“It’s worse than hard luck,” Carhart replied; “it begins to look like defeat. We have been dependent on the Sherman people for material, food, water, – everything. Now Bourke has shut us off.”
“But you seem to have plenty of material here, Mr. Carhart.”
“Rails – yes. But it takes more than rails.”
“And you surely have a large enough force.”
“Yes, but moving several hundred men back a hundred and forty miles, fighting it out with Bourke, clearing the track, and getting trains through from Sherman, will take time. Long before we can make any headway, the H. D. & W. will have beaten us into Red Hills.”
“Ah – I see,” nodded the wizened one. “You’re going back after Bourke.”
“What else can I do! I can’t even wire Sherman without sending a man two hundred miles through the desert. The most important thing to my employers is to maintain possession of the line.”
“Of course – I see. I don’t know much about these things myself.”
After supper the wizened one announced that he must ride on with his party.
“You won’t stop with us to-night?” asked Carhart.
“No, thanks. It’ll be light an hour or two yet. I’ve got to move fast. I’ll lose a good deal, you see, going around by way of Pierrepont.”
“That’s so, of course. Well, good-by, sir.”
“Good-by.”
The riders swung into their saddles and cantered off eastward. Carhart turned to Young Van and slowly winked. “Come up to headquarters, Gus,” he said. “I’ve got some work for you.”
“I rather guess you have, if we’re going after Bourke.”
“After Bourke?” Carhart smiled. “You didn’t take that in, Gus?”
“Well – of course, I suspected.”
“You saw his badge?”
“Yes.”
“Bourke always has a lot of men about him from his own college.”
“You really think it, then?”
“It would be hard to say what I think. But I’ve been going on the assumption that he is one of Bourke’s engineers.”
They were approaching the headquarters tent. Young Van looked up and saw that “Arizona,” Carhart’s new saddle-horse, was hitched before it. They entered the tent, and the first thing the chief did was to get out two long blue-nosed revolvers and slip them into his holsters. A moment later, and Dimond, fitted out for a long ride, appeared at the entrance, saying, “All ready, Mr. Carhart!”
“Now, Gus,” said the chief, “I’m off for ‘mile 109.’ I want you to get about two hundred men together and send them after me to-night or to-morrow morning. I’ll tell Scribner, as I pass him, to have fifty more for you. Every man must have a rifle and plenty of ball cartridges. Send Byers” – this was the instrument man of the long nose – “and two or three others whom you think capable of commanding forty or fifty men each.”
“And Bourke?”
“We’ll leave him to Mr. Chambers. Give Charlie instructions to strengthen his night guard. Some men will be sent back to guard the second and third wells.”
Young Van involuntarily passed his hand across his eyes.
“I’m afraid I’m not much good,” he said slowly. “I didn’t grasp this situation very well. It’s rather a new phase of engineering for me. We seem to be plunging all of a sudden into tactics and strategy.”
“That’s about the size of it, Gus,” the chief responded. He had exchanged his old straw hat for a sombrero. His spurs jingled as he moved. There was a sparkle in his eye and a new sort of military alertness about his figure. He paused at the tent entrance, and looked back. “That’s about the size of it, Gus,” he repeated with a half smile. “And I’m afraid I rather like it.”
“Well, good-by. I’ll start the men right along after you.”
Carhart mounted his horse, Dimond followed his example, and the two rode away in the direction of the La Paz bridge. And ten hours later, at five in the morning, a line of armed horsemen – a long-nosed young man with the light of a pirate soul in his eyes riding at the head, an athletic pile-inspector and a college-bred rodman bringing up the rear – rode westward after him.
Troubles had been coming other than singly on “mile 109.” Jack Flagg, with a force which, while smaller than Flint’s, was made up of well-armed and well-paid desperadoes, had seized the ridge which shut in the La Paz Valley on the west, had pitched camp, erected rude intrenchments of loose stone, and stopped for the moment all work on the mile-long trestle. So much John Flint had set down in the note which the wizened one had delivered to Carhart. The next adventure befell on the night after the departure of the wizened one; and it brought out the ugly strain in the opera bouffe business of these wild railroading days.
Antonio, the watchman, sat on the edge of the eastern abutment and dangled his feet. He was so drowsy that he even stopped rolling cigarettes. He had chosen a comfortable seat, where a pile of timbers afforded a rest for his back. To be sure, there was the possibility of rolling off into the water and sand if he should really fall asleep; but elsewhere he would be exposed to the searching eyes of the engineer in charge, and those eyes were very searching indeed. He was thinking, in a dreamy way, of what he would do on the Sunday, with his week’s pay in his pocket and the village of La Paz but twelve miles away.
Now and again his complacent eyes roved out across the river, which slipped by with such a gentle, swishing murmur. He could look over the tops of the four unfinished piers and the western abutment and see the trestle where it was continued on the farther side. These Americanos, what driving devils they were! And when they had built their railroad, what were they going to do with it? To go fast – Antonio shrugged his shoulders and resumed the cigarettes – it is very well, but to what purpose? When they have rushed madly across the continent, what will they find there? Perhaps they will then rush back again. These Americanos!
He let his eyes rest upon the row of piers – one, two, three, four of them. What labor they had caused – how the men had sweat, and muttered, and toiled – how the foremen had cursed! Four piers of masonry rising out of the ghostly river. Very strong they must be, for the La Paz was not always gentle. In the spring and fall it was savage; and then it had an ugly way of undermining bridges, as those other foolish Americanos had learned to their cost when they built the wagon bridge at La Paz. He smiled lazily. But suddenly he sat up straight. A long thin figure of a man was moving about among the piles of timber. It was the señor Flint – and such a prowler as he was, day and night, night and day. He lived this bridge, did the señor; he thought it, he ate it, he drank it, he talked it, he slept it, – and for why? It could not be that he believed it living to think and breathe bridge and only bridge. It could not be that man was made for this – to become a slave to this trestle structure which was slowly crawling, like some monster centipede, across the sands of the La Paz. It was very good for the trestle perhaps, and the bridge, but was it so good for the señor?
Antonio smiled again, and settled back; the señor was passing on. He was getting into a boat. He was poling across the languid, dimpling river. He was getting out on the farther bank; he was walking up the long slope, keeping out of the moonlight in the shadow of the trestle-thing; he was peering up toward the embattled ridge beyond, where lay the redoubtable Flagg.
… The cigarette dropped from Antonio’s unnerved fingers, and fell with a sizzling splash into the water below. He drew an involuntary quick breath, and the smoke in his nostrils went unexpectedly into his throat and made him cough. Then trembling a little, he got slowly to his feet and stood staring out there over the serene surface of the river. He rubbed his eyes and stared again. A shot, – two shots, – which was right? Two – no, one![Pg 241][Pg 242] And that insignificant little dark heap yonder in the moonlight – was that the señor? What a trouble! – and he had been so comfortable there on the abutment!
Antonio was frightened. He thought of running away from these fate-tempting Americans; but in that case he would lose his pay and those Sundays at La Paz. He waited a while. Perhaps he was dreaming and would make himself ridiculous. He walked about, and tried different points of view. And at last he went to rouse his foreman.
They got Flint in – Haddon, in night-shirt, bare legs, and shoes with flapping strings to them; the foreman of the pile-driver crew in night-shirt and hat, and two big-shouldered bridgemen. There was a ball somewhere in Flint, and there were certain complications along the line of his chronic ailment, so that his usefulness was, so to speak, impaired. And Haddon, during what was left of the night and during all of the following day, had distinctly a bad time of it.
While these things were going on, Paul Carhart was riding westward at a hot gallop with Dimond close behind. It was shortly after sunset that he reined up on the crest of the eastern ridge and looked out over the La Paz. The barren valley was flooded with light. The yellow slopes were delicately tinted rose and violet, the rock pillars stood out black and sharply defined, the western hills formed a royal purple barrier to the streams of color; and through this glowing scene extended the square-jointed trestle, unmistakably the work of man where all else was from another hand. Never in the progress of this undertaking which we have been following across the plains had the contrast been so marked between the patient beauty of the old land and the uncompromising ugliness of the structure which Paul Carhart was carrying into and through it. And yet the chief, – an intelligent, educated man, not wanting in feeling for the finer side of life, – though he took in the wonders of the sunset, looked last and longest at the trestle and the uncompleted bridge. Then he rode down, glancing, in his quizzical way, at the camp, which had been moved back behind a knoll, at the piles of stone and timber, at the corral, and at the groups of idle, gloomy workmen.
Fortunately the chief was prepared for surprises. News that the trestle had been burned to the ground would have drawn no more than a glance and a nod from him. His mind had not been idle during the ride. He knew that the strongest defence partakes of an offensive character, and he had no notion of sitting back to await developments. Of several sets of plans which he had been considering, one was so plainly the simplest and best that he was determined to try it. It involved a single daring act, a sort of raid, which it would be necessary to carry through without a vestige of legal authority. But this feature of it disturbed him very much less than a mere casual acquaintance with this quiet gentleman might have led one to suppose. Perhaps he had, like the red-blooded Tiffany, a vein of “Scotch-Irish” down in the depths of his nature which could on occasion be opened up.
After looking out for the comfort of John Flint, and after conferring with Haddon and going thoroughly over the ground, Carhart sent for Dimond.
“How much more are you good for?” he asked.
Dimond grinned. “For everything that’s going,” he replied.
“Good. Do you know where the H. D. & W. is building down, a dozen or fifteen miles north of here?”
“I guess I can find it,” said Dimond.
And with a fresh horse and a man or two, and with certain specific instructions, Dimond rode north shortly after nightfall of that same day. At eight in the morning he was back, hollow-eyed but happy. And Paul Carhart, when Dimond had reported, was seen to smile quietly to himself.
CHAPTER IX
A SHOW-DOWN
All was quiet at the main camp. Excepting that the division engineers were short-handed, and that Paul Carhart was away, things were going on with some regularity. Scribner rode in late on the second afternoon, and toward the end of the evening, when the office work was done, he and Young Van played a few rubbers of cribbage. The camp went to sleep as usual.
At some time between eleven o’clock and midnight the two young engineers tacitly put up the cards and settled back for a smoke.
“Do you know,” said Young Van, after a silence, “I don’t believe this stuff at all.”
Scribner tipped back, put his feet on the table, puffed a moment, and slowly nodded. “Same here, Gus,” he replied. “Fairy tales, all of it.”
“You can’t settle the ownership of a railroad by civil war.”
“No; but if you can get possession by a five-barrelled bluff, you can give the other fellow a devil of a time getting it back.”
“That’s true, of course.” They were silent again.
… “What’s that!” said Scribner. Both dropped their feet and sat up.
“Horse,” said Young Van.
“Devil of a way off.”
“Must be. Lost it now.”
“No – there it is again. Now, what do you suppose?”
“Don’t know. Let’s step out and look around.”
Standing on the sloping ground in front of the tent, they could at first distinguish nothing.
“Gives you a queer feeling,” said Scribner, “horse galloping – this time of night – ”
” – just now,” Young Van completed, “when things are going on.”
“Coming from the east, too, – where Bourke is. Know him?”
“No – never met him. Heard of him, of course.”
“He’s a good one. Wish he was on our side.”
“I guess Mr. Carhart can match him.”
Scribner nodded. “This sort of a fight’s likely to settle down into the plain question of who’s got the cards. There’ll come a time when both sides’ll have to lay down their hands, and the cards’ll make the difference one way or the other. Just a show-down, after all.”
“I think myself Mr. Carhart’s got the cards. He didn’t look like a loser when he went off the other night.”
“If he has,” said Scribner, “you can bet he’ll ‘see’ Durfee and Bourke every time.”
… “Here’s that horse, Harry.”
“Big man – looks like – ”
“It’s Tiffany. – Good evening, Mr. Tiffany.”
“How are you, boys? Paul here?”
“Why, no, Mr. Tiffany. He’s up on ‘mile 109.’”
“‘Mile 109!’” Tiffany whistled. “What the devil! You don’t mean that those – ” he paused.
“Commodore Durfee’s at Red Hills, you know,” said Young Van.
“The – he is!”
“And he’s sent a force to hold the west bank of the La Paz.”
By this time the chief engineer of the S. & W. had got his big frame to the ground. He bore unmistakable evidences of long and hard riding. Even in that dim light they could see that his face was seamed with the marks of exhaustion.
“Haven’t got a wee bit drappie, have you?” he asked.
“I certainly have,” Young Van replied. “Come right in.”
Tiffany tossed his hat on the table, reached out for the flask and tumbler, and tossed down a drink which would have done credit to the hardiest Highlander of them all. “Now show me the stable,” he said. “Want to fix my horse for the night. I’ve half killed him.”
A quarter of an hour later the three men were back in the headquarters tent.
“How did you get through, Mr. Tiffany?” asked Young Van.
“Came out on the first train to Barker Hills. Bourke’s holding the station there. He had a couple of our engines, and was working east, but we stopped that. Peet’s there now with Sheriff McGraw and a bundle of warrants and a hundred and fifty men – more, I guess, by this time. Just another thimbleful o’ that – Thanks! We’ve got Bourke blocked at Barker Hills, all right. Before the week’s out we’ll have the track opened proper for you. Mr. De Reamer’s taken hold himself, you know. He’s at Sherman, with some big lawyers – and maybe he ain’t mad all through!”
“Then Commodore Durfee hasn’t got the board of directors?”
“Not by a good deal! I doubt if even General Carrington’s votes would swing it for him now. But then, I don’t know such a heap about that part of it. I was telling you – I’ll take a nip o’ that. Thanks! – I was telling you. We come along the Middle Division, running slow, – we were afraid of obstructions on the track, – ”
“Did you find any?”
“Did we find any? – Well I guess.” He held out a pair of big hands, palms up. “I got those splinters handling cross-ties in the dark. And about the middle of the Barker Hills division – at the foot of Crump’s Hill, – we found some rails missing.
“Well, sir, I left ’em there to fix it up – we had a repair car in the train – and got my horse off and rode around south of the station. Had some sandwiches in my pocket, but didn’t get a drop of water till I struck your first well, last night. You ain’t using that now?”
“No, we’ve moved up to two and three – this way.”
“There was a blamed fool tried to stop me, a mile south of Barker Hills Station – yelled at me; and fired when I didn’t answer.” – Tiffany paused with this, and looked grimly from one to the other of the young men. Then he drew a big revolver from his belt, opened it, and exhibited the cylinder. One chamber was empty. They were silent for a time.
“You’ll find Mr. Carhart’s cot all ready for you, Mr. Tiffany,” said Young Van, at length.
“All right. Can I get a breakfast at five? I’m going on to find Paul. That’s where the fun’ll be – where you find Paul Carhart. I wonder if you boys know what it means to have the opportunity to work with that man – eh? He had us all guessing about the old Paradise. And he was right – oh, he was right. There hasn’t a rail come through since.”
Scribner and Young Van were looking at each other. “Then those rails didn’t come from Pennsylvania?” said the former.
“He didn’t tell you, eh?” Tiffany grinned. “Well, I guess it ain’t a secret now. Mr. Chambers never even grunted when I told him, but he looked queer. And Mr. De Reamer ain’t said anything yet. Why, Paul, he see first off that we weren’t ever going to get the rest o’ those rails. He see, too, that Bourke was going to cut him off if he could. And what does he do? Why he comes down and walks off with the old Paradise Southern – rails, ties, everything. He never even tells Peet and me. It’s up to him, he thinks, and if he makes good, nobody can kick.” Tiffany was grinning again. “Yes, sir,” he continued, “Paul Carhart just naturally confiscated the Paradise Southern, and it was the prettiest job anybody ever see. And it’s funny – he says to me, while we were out there at Total Wreck pulling up the freight yard by the roots, ‘Tiffany,’ he says, ‘if you hadn’t told about how you stole those Almighty and Great Windy cars from the sheriff of Erie County, I’d never ‘a’ thought of it.’ Well, I’ll turn in, boys; good night.”
“Good night,” said Young Van.
“Good night,” said Scribner; “I’ll ride on with you as far as my division to-morrow, Mr. Tiffany. I can give you a fresh horse there.”
The chief engineer of the S. & W. disappeared between the flaps of Carhart’s tent. They could hear him throwing off his clothes and getting into bed. Another moment and they heard him snoring. They stood gazing off down the grade.
“Well, what do you think of that?” said Scribner. Young Van looked at his companion. “I think this,” he replied: “I wouldn’t miss this work and this fight under Paul Carhart for five years’ pay.”
Scribner nodded. “The loss of an engineer’s pay, Gus, wouldn’t make much difference one way or the other,” he replied, and his face lighted up with enthusiasm. “But it’s a great game!”
And so it was that something like two days after Carhart’s arrival on “mile 109,” Tiffany, a little the worse for wear, but still able to ride and eat and sleep and swear, came slowly down the slope into the camp, where Flint was hovering midway between the present and the hereafter. He found the chief of construction deep in a somewhat complicated problem, and after a bite to eat he climbed up the ridge behind the camp to the tent which Carhart was occupying.
“Well, Paul, how goes it?” said he.
“First-rate. How much do you know?”
“Precious little.”
Carhart mused a moment, then pulled out from a heap of papers one on which he had sketched a map. “Here we are,” said he. “The trestle is fifty to a hundred and fifty feet high, from ridge to ridge. Flagg has strung out his men along the west ridge, about a mile from here, and across the end of the trestle.”
“Yes, yes,” broke in Tiffany, “I see. I’ve been all over this ground.”
“Well, now, you see these two knolls on the west ridge, a little back of Flagg’s position? The one to the north is a hundred and twenty feet higher than Flagg’s men; the one to the south is eighty feet higher and only a quarter of a mile away from him. His line of retreat lies through the hollow between the two knolls, where the track is to run. Now if I put fifty or a hundred men on each knoll, I can command his position, and even shut off his retreat. His choice then would lie between moving north or south along the crest of the ridge, which is also commanded by the two knolls, or coming down the slope toward us.”
“Flagg hasn’t occupied the knolls, eh?”
“I believe he hasn’t. I’ve been watching them with the glasses.”
“I wonder why the Commodore put such a man in charge.”
“Oh, Flagg has some reputation as a bad man. He’s the sort General Carrington employed in the Colorado fights.”
They talked on for a time, then Carhart put up his map and they walked out. It was evening. Across the valley, at the point where the trestle met the rising ground, they could see lights, some of them moving about. Tiffany walked with his hands deep in his trousers pockets. Finally he said thoughtfully: —
“The more I think of it, Paul, the more I’m impressed by what Commodore Durfee has done. He has got possession of our grade over there – we can’t deny that. We’ve either got to give up, or else take the offensive and fight. And that would look rotten, now, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes,” Carhart replied, “it would. He has made a pretty play. And as a play – as a bluff – it comes pretty near being effective.”
“D – n near!” Tiffany muttered.
“But now suppose we take those knolls – quietly, in the night – and close in across Flagg’s rear, hold a line from knoll to knoll, what then? Wouldn’t he have to shoot first?”
“Well, perhaps. But it would put both sides in a mean light. Oh, why didn’t John stand him off in the first place! Then he could have shot from our property, and been right in shooting.”
They had been pacing slowly up and down. Now Carhart stopped, and sat down on a convenient stick of timber. Tiffany followed his example. The moon was rising behind them, and the valley and the trestle and the rude intrenchments of timber and rock on the opposite ridge and the knolls outlined against the sky grew more distinct.
“Yes,” Carhart said slowly, “it’s a very good bluff. Commodore Durfee knows well enough that this sort of business can never settle the real question. But the question of who gets to Red Hills first is another thing altogether. The spectacle of Jack Flagg and a well-armed regiment of desperadoes in front of them, and the knowledge that the Commodore himself had organized the regiment and sent it out, would stop some engineers.”
Tiffany leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees, and gazed moodily out across the valley. He had been riding hard for four days, with not enough food and water and scarcely any sleep. Only one night of the four had found him on a cot – the other nights had been passed on the ground. In the resulting physical depression his mind had taken to dwelling on the empty chamber in his revolver – he wished he knew more of what that leaden ball had accomplished. And now here was John Flint shot down by a hidden enemy. It was the ugliest work he had been engaged in for years. When he finally spoke, he could not conceal his discouragement.
“How about this engineer here, Paul?” he said, still looking out there over the valley. “Will the regiment and Commodore Durfee stop you?”
“I hope not,” said Carhart.
“You’re going to fight, then – until the governor calls out the state troops, and throws us all out, and there’s hell to pay?”
“I don’t think so. I’m going to get ready to fight.”
“By putting your men on those two knolls?”
“Yes.”
“And then what?”
“Then I’m going to Red Hills.”
“To Red Hills!” Tiffany sat up. There was more life in his voice.
“Yes.” Carhart laughed a little. “Why not?”
Tiffany half turned and looked earnestly into the face of this unusual man. The spectacles threw back the moonlight and concealed the eyes behind them. The lower part of the face was perhaps a trifle leaner than formerly. The mouth was composed. Tiffany found no answer there to the question in his own eyes. So he put it in words: “What are you going to do there, Paul?”
“See Commodore Durfee.”
“See – ! Look here, do you know how mad he is? Do you think he came clear down here from New York, and shoved his old railroad harder than anybody but you ever shoved one before and hired the rascals that shot John Flint, – him playing for the biggest stakes on the railroad table to-day, – do you think he’ll feel like talking to the man who’s put him to all this trouble?”
“Well,” Carhart hesitated, – “I hope he will.”
“But it’s foolhardy, Paul. You won’t gain anything. Just the sight of you walking into the Frisco House office may mean gun play. If it was Bourke, it would be different; but these Durfee men are mad. The Commodore was never treated this way in his life before. And you’re a little nervous yourself, Paul. Be careful what you do. He’ll have lawyers around him – and he’s redhot, remember that.”
“I can’t quite agree with you, Tiffany. I think he’ll talk to me. But there’s one thing I’ve got to do first, and you can help me there.”
“For God’s sake, then, let me get into the game. I can’t stand this looking on – fretting myself to death.”
“I want you to take charge here for a day while I go after my firewood. I came pretty near being held up altogether for want of it. Bourke cut me off before Peet could get it through.”
“Where can you get it?”
“There’s a lot waiting for me off north of here.”
Tiffany grunted. “North of here, eh?”
Carhart nodded.
“And you have to work so delicate getting it that you can’t trust anybody else to do it?”
Carhart smiled. “Better not ask me, Tiffany. I can’t talk to Commodore Durfee until I’ve got all the cards in my hand, and this is the last one. As to going myself, it happens to be the sort of thing I won’t ask anybody to do for me, that’s all.”
“That’s how you like it,” said Tiffany, gruffly, rising. “Want to talk about anything else to-night?”
“No – I shan’t be leaving before to-morrow noon. I’ll see you in the morning.” While he spoke, he was watching Tiffany, and he was amused to see that the veteran had recovered his equilibrium and was angry with himself.
“When will you want to begin your military monkey-shines?”
Carhart drove back a smile, and got up. “Not until I get back here with the wood,” he replied. “Good night.”
Tiffany merely grunted, and marched off to the cot which had been assigned him.
At noon of the following day Carhart was ready to lead his expedition northward. It was made up of all Flint’s wagons, with two men on the seat and two rifles under the seat of each. And scattered along on both sides of the train were men picked from Flint’s bridge-builders and from Old Van’s and Scribner’s iron and tie squads. These men were mounted on fresh ponies, and they carried big holsters on their saddles and stubby, second-hand army carbines behind them. Dimond was there, too, and the long-nosed instrument man. The two or three besides the chief who knew what was soon to be doing kept their own counsel. The others knew nothing, but there was a sort of tingling electricity in the air which had got into every man of the lot. This much they knew; Mr. Carhart was very quiet and considerate and businesslike, but he had a streak of blue in him. And it is the streak of blue in your quiet, considerate leader which makes him a leader indeed in the eyes and hearts of those who are to follow him. Not that there were any heroics in evidence, rather a certain grim quiet, from one end of the wagon train to the other, which meant business. Carhart took it all in, as he cantered out toward the head of the line, dropping a nod here and there, and waving Byers, who was leaning on his pony’s rump and looking impatiently back, to start off. He had picked his men with care – he knew that he could trust them. And so, on reaching the leading wagon and pulling to a walk, he settled himself comfortably in his saddle and began to plan the conversation with Commodore Durfee which was to come next and which was to mean everything or nothing to Paul Carhart.
