Читать книгу The Road Builders - Samuel Merwin - Страница 5

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“It takes an Irishman, a nigger, and a mule to build a railroad,” said Tiffany.

With Young Van, he was standing in front of the headquarters tent, which, together with the office tent for the first division, where Old Van would hold forth, and the living and mess tents for the engineers, was pitched on a knoll at a little distance from the track.

“The mule,” he continued, “will do the work, the nigger will drive the mule, and the Irishman’ll boss ’em both.”

Young Van, keyed up by this sudden plunge into frontier work, was only half listening to the flow of good-natured comment and reminiscence from the chief engineer at his elbow. He was looking at the steam-shrouded locomotive, and at the long line of cars stringing off in perspective behind it. Wagons were backed in against this and the few other trains which had come in during the day; other wagons were crawling about the track almost as far as he could see through the steam and the dust. Men on horseback—picturesque figures in wide-brimmed hats and blue shirts and snug-fitting boots laced to the knee—were riding in and out among the teams. The old track ended in the immediate foreground, and here old Van was at work with his young surveyors, looking up the old stakes and driving new ones to a line set by a solemn youngster with skinny hands and a long nose. Everywhere was noise—a babel of it—and toil and a hearty sort of chaos. One line of wagons—laden with scrapers, “slips” and “wheelers,” tents and camp equipage, the timbers and machinery of a pile-driver, and a thousand and one other things—was little by little extricating itself from the tangle, winding slowly past head-quarters, and on toward the low-lying, blood-red sun. This was the outfit of the second division, and Harry Scribner, riding a wiry black pony, was leading it into corral on “mile two,” preparatory to a start in the early morning.

From the headquarters cook tent, behind the “office,” came savory odors. Farther down the knoll, near the big “boarding house” tents, the giant Flagg and the equally sturdy Charlie could be seen moving about a row of iron kettles which were swinging over an open fire. The chaos about the trains was straightening out, and the men were corralling the wagons, and unharnessing the mules and horses. The sun slipped down behind the low western hills, leaving a luminous memory in the far sky. In groups, and singly, the laborers—Mexicans, Italians, Louisiana French, broken plainsmen from everywhere, and negroes—came straggling by, their faces streaked with dust and sweat, the negroes laughing and singing as they lounged and shuffled along.

Carhart, who had been dividing his attention between the unloading of the trains and the preparations of his division engineers, came riding up the knoll on “Texas,” his compact little roan, a horse he had ridden and boasted about in a quiet way for nearly four years. John Flint, thin and stooping of body, with a scrawny red mustache and high-pitched voice, soon rode in over the grade from the farther side of the right of way, where he was packing up his outfit for the long haul to the La Paz River. The instrument men and their assistants followed, one by one, and fell in line at the tin wash-basin, all exuberant with banter and laughter and high-spirited play. And at last the headquarters cook, a stout negro, came out in front of the mess tent and beat his gong with mighty strokes; and Harry Scribner, who was jogging back to camp from his corral, heard it, dug in his spurs, and came up the long knoll on the gallop.

There was no escaping the joviality of this first evening meal in camp. In the morning the party would break up. Scribner would ride ahead a dozen miles to make a division camp of his own; John Flint would be pushing out there into the sunset for the better part of a week, across the desert, through the gray hills, and down to the yellow La Paz. The youngsters were shy at first; but after Tiffany had winked and said, “It’ll never do to start this dry, boys,” and had produced a bottle from some mysterious corner, they felt easier. Even Carhart, for the time, laid aside the burden which, like Christian, he must carry for many days. A good many stories were told, most of them by Tiffany, who had run the gamut of railroading, north, south, east, and west.

“That was a great time we had up at Pittsburgh,” said he, “when I stole the gondola cars,”—he placed the accent on the do,—“best thing I ever did. That was when I was on the Almighty and Great Windy that used to run from Pittsburg up to the New York State line. I was acting as a sort of traffic superintendent, among other things,—we had to do all sorts of work then; no picking and choosing and no watching the clock for us.” He turned on the long-nosed instrument man. “That was when you were just about a promising candidate for long pants, my friend.”

“We had a new general manager—named MacBayne. He didn’t know anything about railroading,—had been a telegraph operator and Durfee’s nephew,—yes, the same old Commodore, it was,—and, getting boosted up quick, that way, he got into that frame of mind where he wouldn’t ever have contradicted you if you’d said he was the Almighty and Great Windy. First thing he did was to put in a system of bells to call us to his office,—but I didn’t care such a heap. He enjoyed it so. He’d lean back and pull a little handle, and then be too busy to talk when one of us came running in—loved to make us stand around a spell. Hadn’t but one eye, MacBayne hadn’t, and you never could tell for downright certain who he was swearing at.

“The company had bought a little railroad, the P. G.—Pittsburg and Gulf,—for four hundred and fifty thousand. Just about such a line as our Paradise spur, only instead of the directors buying it personal, they’d bought it for the company.

“One day my little bell tinkled, and I got up and went into the old man’s office. He was smoking a cigar and trying to look through a two-foot wall into Herb Williams’s pickle factory. Pretty soon he swung his one good eye around on me and looked at me sharp. ‘Hen,’ he said, ‘we’re in a fix. We haven’t paid but two hundred thousand on the P.G.—and what’s more, that’s all we can pay.’

“‘Well, sir,’ said I, ‘what’s the trouble?’ It’s funny—he’s always called me Hen, and I’ve always called him sir and Mister MacBayne. He ain’t anybody to-day, but if I went back to Pittsburg to-morrow and met him in Morrison’s place, he’d say, ‘Well, Hen, how’re you making it?’ and I’d say, ‘Pretty well, Mister MacBayne.’—Ain’t it funny? Can’t break away from it.

“I’ve just had a wire from Black,’ said he,—Black was our attorney up at Buffalo,—‘saying that the sheriff of Erie County,’ over the line in New York State, ‘has attached all our gondola cars up there, and won’t release ’em until we pay up. What’ll we do?’

“‘Hum!’ said I. ‘We’ve got just a hundred and twenty gondolas in Buffalo to-day.’ A hundred and twenty cars was a lot to us, you understand—just like it would be to the S. & W. Imagine what would happen to you fellows out here if Peet had that many cars taken away from him. So I thought a minute, and then I said, ‘Has the sheriff chained ’em to the track, Mister MacBayne?’

“‘I don’t know about that,’ said he.

“‘Well,’ said I, ‘don’t you think it would be a good plan to find that out first thing?’

“He looked at me sharp, then he sort o’ grinned. ‘What’re you thinking about, Hen?’ he asked.

“I didn’t answer direct. ‘You find that out,’ I told him, ‘and let me know what he says.’

“About an hour later the bell tinkle-winkled again. ‘No,’ he said, when I went in his office, ‘they ain’t chained down—not yet, anyway. Now, what’ll we do?’

“‘Why don’t you go up there?’ said I. ‘Hook your car on to No. 5’—that was our night express for Buffalo, a long string of oil and coal cars with a baggage car, coach, and sleeper on the end of it. It ran over our line and into Buffalo over the Southeastern.

“‘All right, Hen,’ said he. ‘Will you go along?’

“‘Sure,’ I told him.

“On our way out we picked up Charlie Greenman too. He was superintendent of the State Line Division—tall, thin man, very nervous, Charlie was.

“Next morning, when we were sitting over our breakfast in the Swift House, the old man turned his good eye on me and said, ‘Well, Hen, what next?’ I’d brought him up there, you see, and now he was looking for results.

“‘Well,’ said I, speaking slow and sort of thinking it over, ‘look here, Mister MacBayne, why don’t you get a horse and buggy and look around the city? They say it’s a pretty place. Or you could pick up a boat, you and Charlie, and go sailing on Lake Erie. Or you might run over and see the falls—Ever been there?’

“The old man was looking on both sides of me with those two eyes of his. ‘What are you up to, Hen?’ he said.

“‘Nothing,’ I answered, ‘not a thing. But say, Mister MacBayne, I forgot to bring any money. Let me have a little, will you,—about a hundred and fifty?’

“When I said that, the old man gulped, and looked almost scared. I saw then, just what I’d suspected, that he wouldn’t be the least use to me. I’d ‘a’ done better to have left him behind. ‘Why, yes, Hen,’ said he, ‘I can let you have that!’ He went out, and pretty soon he came back with the money in a big roll of small bills.

“‘Well, good morning, gentlemen,’ said I. ‘I’ll see you at five o’clock this afternoon.’

“I went right out to the Erie yards, where they were unloading twenty-two of our coal cars. Jim Harvey was standing near by, and he gave me a queer look, and asked me what I was doing in Buffalo.

“‘Doing?’ said I, ‘I’m looking after my cars. What did you suppose? And see here, Jim, while you were about it, don’t you think you might have put ’em together. Here you’ve got twenty-two of ’em, and there’s forty over at the Lake Shore, and a lot more in Chaplin’s yards? There ain’t but one of me—however do you suppose I’m going to watch ’em all, even see that the boys keep oil in the boxes?’ ‘I don’t know anything about that,’ said he.

“‘Well now, look here, Jim,’ said I, ‘how many more of these cars have you got to unload?’ ‘Twelve,’ said he. ‘How soon can you get it done—that’s my question?’ ‘Oh, I’ll finish it up to-morrow morning.’ ‘Well, now, Jim,’ said I, ‘I want you to put on a couple of extra wagons and get these cars emptied by five o’clock this afternoon. Then I want you to get all our cars together over there in Chaplin’s yards, where I can keep an eye on ’em!’ ‘Oh, see here,’ said he, ‘I can’t do that, Hen. The sheriff—’

“‘Damn the sheriff,’ said I. ‘I ain’t going to hurt the sheriff. What I want is to get my cars together where I can know what’s being done to ’em.’

“Well, he didn’t want to do it, but some of the long green passed and then he thought maybe he could fix me up. There was a lot of other things I had to do that day—and a lot of other men to see. The despatcher for the Buffalo and Southwestern was one of ’em. Then at five o’clock, or a little before, I floated into the Swift House office and there were MacBayne and Charlie Greenman sitting around waiting for me. The old man had his watch in his hand. Charlie was walking up and down, very nervous. I came up sort of offhand and said:—

“‘Charlie, I want two of your biggest and strongest engines, and I want ’em up in Chaplin’s yard as soon as you can get ’em there.’

“‘What,’ said he, ‘on a foreign road?’ ‘Yes,’ said I, offhand like. Then I turned to the old man. ‘Now, Mister MacBayne,’ said I, ‘I want you to tell Charlie here that when those engines pass out of his division, they come absolutely under my control.’

“‘Oh, that’s all right, Hen,’ said Charlie, speaking up breathless.

“‘Yes, I know it is,’ said I, ‘but I want you to hear Mister MacBayne say it. Remember, when those engines leave your division, they belong to me until I see fit to bring ’em back.’

“The old man was looking queerer than ever. ‘See here, Hen,’ said he, ‘what devilment are you up to, anyway?’

“‘Nothing at all,’ said I. ‘I just want two engines. You can’t run a railroad without engines, Mister MacBayne.’

“‘Well,’ said he, then, ‘how about me—what do you want of me?’

“‘Why, I’ll tell you,’ said I. ‘Why don’t you hook your car on to No. 6 and go back to Pittsburg to-night?’ You should have seen his good eye light up at that. Getting out of the state suited him about as well as anything just then, and he didn’t lose any time about it. When he had gone, Charlie said:—

“‘Now, Hen, for heaven’s sake, tell me what you’re up to?’

“‘Not a bit of it,’ said I. ‘I don’t see what business it is of yours. You belong back on your division.’

“‘Well, I ain’t going,’ said he. ‘I’m going wherever you go to-night.’

“‘All right,’ said I; ‘I’m going to Shelby’s vaudeville.’

“That surprised him. But he didn’t say anything more. You remember old Shelby’s show there. I always used to go when I was in Buffalo of an evening.

“But about 11:30, when the show was over, Charlie began to get nervous again. ‘Well, Hen,’ he said, ‘where next?’

“‘I don’t know about you,’ said I, ‘but I’m going to stroll out to Chaplin’s yard before I turn in, and take a look at our cars. You’d better go to bed.’

“‘Not a bit of it,’ he broke out. ‘I’m going with you.’

“‘All right,’ said I, ‘come along. It’s a fine night.’

“Well, gentlemen, when we got out to the yards, there were our cars in two long lines on parallel tracks, seventy on one track and fifty on another—one thing bothered me, they were broken in four places at street crossings—and on the two next tracks beside them were Charlie’s two engines, steam up and headlights lighted. And, say, you never saw anything quite like it! The boys they’d sent with the engines weren’t anybody’s fools, and they had on about three hundred pounds of steam apiece—blowing off there with a noise you could hear for a mile, but the boys themselves weren’t saying a word; they were sitting around smoking their pipes, quiet as seven Sabbaths.

“When Charlie saw this laid out right before his eyes, he took frightened all of a sudden—his knees were going like that. He grabbed my arm and pulled me back into the shadow.

“‘Hen, for heaven’s sake, let’s get out of here quick. This means the penitentiary.’

“‘You can go,’ said I. ‘I didn’t invite you to the party.’

“Right beside the tracks there was a watch-box, shut up as if there wasn’t anybody in it, but I could see the light coming out at the top. It was going to be ticklish business, I knew that. We had to haul out over a drawbridge, for one thing, to get out of the yards, and then whistle for the switch over to the southwestern tracks. Had to use the signals of the other roads, too. But I was in for it.

“‘Well, Hen,’ said Charlie, ‘if you’re going to do it, what in —— are you standing around for now?’

“‘Got to wait for the Lake Shore Express to go through,’ said I.

“Charlie sort of groaned at this and for an hour we sat there and waited. I tried to talk about the oil explosion down by Titusville, but Charlie, somehow, wasn’t interested. All the while those engines were blowing off tremendous, and the crews were sitting around just smoking steady.

“Finally, at one o’clock, I went over to the engineer of the first engine. ‘How many men have you got?’ said I.

“‘Four brakemen,’ he said, ‘each of us.’

“‘All right,’ said I. ‘I guess I don’t need to tell you what to do.’

“They all heard me, and say, you ought to have seen them jump up. The engineer was up and on his engine before I got through talking; and he just went a-flying down the yard, whistling for the switch. The four brakemen ran back along the fifty-car string. You see they had to couple up at those four crossings and that was the part I didn’t like a bit. But I couldn’t help it. The engineer came a-backing down very rapid, and bumped that front car as if he wanted to telescope it.

“Well, sir, they did it—coupled up, link and pin. The engineer was leaning ‘way out the window, and he didn’t wait very long after getting the signal, before he was a-hiking it down the yard, tooting his whistle for the draw. Heaven only knows what might have happened, but nothing did. He got over the draw all right with his fifty cars going clickety—clickety—clickety behind him, and then I could see his rear lights and hear him whistling for the switch over to the southwestern tracks. Then I gave the signal for the other engine. Charlie, all this time, was getting worse and worse. He was leaning up against me now, just naturally hanging on to me, looking like a somnambulist. You could hear his knees batting each other. And the engineer of that second engine turned out to be in the same fix. He was so excited he never waited for the signal that the cars were all coupled up, and he started up with a terrific toot of his whistle and a yank on the couplings, leaving thirty cars and one brakeman behind. But I knew it would never do to call him back.

“Well, now, here is where it happened. That whistle was enough to wake the sleeping saints. And just as the train got fairly going for the draw, tooting all the way, the door of that watch-box burst open and three policemen men came running out, hard as they could run. Of course there was only one thing to do, and that’s just the thing that Charlie Greenman didn’t do. He turned and ran in the general direction of the Swift House as fast as those long legs of his could carry him. Two of the officers ran after him and the other came for me. I yelled to Charlie to stop, but he’d got to a point where he couldn’t hear anything. The other officer came running with his night-stick in the air, but my Scotch-Irish was rising, and I threw up my guard.

“‘Don’t you touch me,’ I yelled; ‘don’t you touch me!’

“‘Well, come along, then,’ said he.

“‘Not a bit of it,’ said I. ‘I’ve nothing to do with you.’

“‘Well, you ran,’ he yelled; ‘you ran!’

“I just looked at him. ‘Do you call this running?’ said I.

“‘Well,’ said he, ‘the other fellow ran.’

“‘All right,’ said I, ‘we’ll run after him.’ So we did. Pretty soon they caught Charlie. And I was a bit nervous, for I didn’t know what he might say. But he was too scared to say anything. So I turned to the officer.

“‘Now,’ said I, ‘suppose you tell us what it is you want?’

“‘We want you,’ said one of them.