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diff --git a/old/66754-0.txt b/old/66754-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index eda5998..0000000 --- a/old/66754-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,10089 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of David Vallory, by Francis Lynde - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: David Vallory - -Author: Francis Lynde - -Illustrator: Arthur E. Becher - -Release Date: January 28, 2022 [eBook #66754] - -Language: English - -Produced by: D A Alexander, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was - produced from images generously made available by The - Internet Archive) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DAVID VALLORY *** - - - - - -_BY FRANCIS LYNDE_ - - - DAVID VALLORY - BRANDED - STRANDED IN ARCADY - AFTER THE MANNER OF MEN - THE REAL MAN - THE CITY OF NUMBERED DAYS - THE HONORABLE SENATOR SAGE-BRUSH - SCIENTIFIC SPRAGUE - THE PRICE - THE TAMING OF RED BUTTE WESTERN - A ROMANCE IN TRANSIT - -_CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS_ - - - - -DAVID VALLORY - - - - -[Illustration: It had given him a glow of superecstasy to find that she -was familiar with many of the details. (Page 232)] - - - - - DAVID VALLORY - - BY - FRANCIS LYNDE - - WITH FRONTISPIECE BY - ARTHUR E. BECHER - - CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS - NEW YORK :::::::::: 1919 - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY - CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS - - Published August, 1919 - - [Illustration] - - - - - TO - THE RIGHT REVEREND - THOMAS FRANK GAILOR - BISHOP OF TENNESSEE - - MY BISHOP, ADVISER, AND FRIEND, THIS - BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY - INSCRIBED - - - - -CONTENTS - - - CHAPTER PAGE - - I. IN THE GREEN TREE 1 - - II. THE DELUGE 8 - - III. EBEN GRILLAGE 26 - - IV. AN HONORABLE DISCHARGE 40 - - V. GLORIANA 55 - - VI. THE HENCHMAN 68 - - VII. A REWARD OF MERIT 89 - - VIII. OUT OF THE PAST 103 - - IX. SILAS PLEGG 113 - - X. THE MIRY CLAY 127 - - XI. BRIDGE NUMBER TWO 143 - - XII. UNDER THE HIGH STARS 160 - - XIII. ALTMAN’S NERVES 173 - - XIV. THE MUCKER 186 - - XV. PLEGG’S BACK-FIRE 198 - - XVI. MASTER AND MAN 207 - - XVII. THE TAR-BARREL 220 - - XVIII. IN LOCO PARENTIS 237 - - XIX. THE ULTIMATUM 251 - - XX. IN THE ORE SHED 264 - - XXI. THE OTHER DAVID 277 - - XXII. AT BRIDGE THREE 293 - - XXIII. THE KILLER 312 - - XXIV. NO THOROUGHFARE 323 - - XXV. CATACLYSMIC 339 - - XXVI. THE HEART OF QOJOGO 357 - - XXVII. THE TERROR 370 - - XXVIII. REGENERATION 381 - - XXIX. AS IT SHOULD BE 390 - - - - -DAVID VALLORY - - - - -DAVID VALLORY - - - - -I - -In the Green Tree - - -David Vallory’s train, to make which he had precipitately thrown -down pencil and mapping-pen in the drafting room of the Government -harbor-deepening project on the Florida coast two days earlier, was an -hour late arriving at Middleboro; and in this first home-coming from -the distant assignment, the aspect of things once so familiar seemed -jarred a trifle out of focus. It was not that the June fields were less -green, or the factory suburb through which the long train was slowing -more littered and unsightly. But there was a change, and it was in a -manner depressive. - -“Your home town?” inquired the traveler in the opposite half of the -Pullman section, as Vallory began to assemble his various belongings. - -“Yes,” said David, adding, as if in some sort of justification: “I was -born here in Middleboro.” - -The man who had occupied the upper berth looked aside reflectively, -taking in and appraising the country-town tritenesses as the open car -windows passed them in review. - -“A man may be born anywhere,” he remarked; then, with the appraisive -glance directed at the fair-haired, frank-faced young man kneeling to -strap an over-filled suit case; “It’s a safe bet that you’ll not die in -Middleboro--unless you should chance to be killed in an accident.” - -Vallory, soberly preoccupied, looked up from the strapping. - -“Why do you say that?” - -The older man smiled with a rather grim widening of the thin lips half -hidden by a cropped beard and mustaches. - -“You are young, and youth is always impatient of the little horizons. -Let me make another guess. You have been away for some time, and this -is your first return. You are finding it a bit disappointing. Am I -right?” - -“Not exactly disappointing,” Vallory denied. - -“Well, then, different, let us say. You may not realize it yet, but -you have outgrown the home town. I know, because, years ago, I had -precisely the same experience myself. Do your people live here?” - -The train had been halted in the yard by a dropped semaphore arm, -and for the moment Vallory was at the mercy of his chance traveling -companion. Yet he told himself that there was no good reason why he -should be churlish. - -“Yes,” he conceded; “my father and sister live here. And I have lived -here all my life except for the four years in college, and the past two -years in Florida.” - -“College--to be sure,” the inquisitor agreed half absently. “What -course, if I may ask?” - -“Engineering.” - -At this the bearded man exhibited a tiny fob charm made in the shape -of a simple trestle bent and extended a hand individualized by the -spatulate thumb and square-ended fingers of the artist-artisan. - -“Shake!” he exclaimed, with something more than Middle-Western -informality. “I happen to be one of the same breed. Now I am quite -certain you won’t die here in--Middletown?--is that the name?--always -making an exception in favor of the untoward accident, of course.” - -“Middleboro,” David corrected. Then to the repetition of the prophecy: -“You are probably right. I found that I had to leave home to get my -first job. I have been on Government work in Florida--rivers and -harbors.” - -“Government work? A deep grave and a safe one. Would you mind telling -me just why you chose to bury yourself in it?” - -Vallory’s smile was still good-natured. For so young a man he was -singularly free from the false dignity which so often is made to pass -for the real. - -“I don’t mind in the least. I did what most college men do; took the -first reasonably decent thing that offered. It wasn’t at all what I -wanted, but my own particular line was rather dull two years ago. I -majored in railroad building.” - -“Railroad building, eh? That’s my trade, too,” said the other. Then, -with an overlooking glance that was too frankly a renewal of the -appraisive summing-up to be mistaken for anything else: “You’ll go far, -my young friend--if you’re not too good.” - -David Vallory’s smile broadened into a laugh. - -“Thanks,” he said. “But what do you mean by ‘too good’?” - -“Precisely what I say; no more and no less. You can take it from a -total stranger, can’t you? You have a good jaw, and I shouldn’t care to -get in your way if you had any reason to wish to beat me up. But your -eyes tell another story.” - -Vallory had a telegram in his pocket, the brief summons which, two -days earlier, had caused him to drop pen and pencil in the Florida -office and hasten to catch the first northbound train. There was -nothing in the wording of the message to breed alarm; but the mere -fact that his father had telegraphed him to come home had awakened -disturbing qualms of anxiety. Wondering if he were still youthful -enough to advertise the disquietude so plainly that a stranger might -read the signs of it, he said: - -“Well, go on; what do my eyes tell you?” - -“This: that in spite of your twenty-five, six, or seven years, whatever -they may be, you are still sufficiently youthful and unspoiled to take -things at their face value. You believe good of a man or a woman until -the evil is proved, and even then you change reluctantly. You hold your -word as binding as your oath. In short, you are still generous enough -to believe that the world is much better than the muckrakers would make -it out to be. Isn’t this all true?” - -“I should be sorry if I had to contradict you,” said Vallory soberly. -“At that, you are only accusing me of the common civilized humanities. -The world has been very decent to me, thus far. Doesn’t it occur to -you that a man usually finds what he looks for in life?--that, as a -general proposition, he gets just about what he is willing to give?” - -The bearded man shook his head, as one too well seasoned to argue with -unvictimized youth. - -“Four years in college, and two in a Government service which taught -you absolutely nothing about life as it is lived in a world of men and -women and sharply competitive business,” he scoffed gently. “Ah, well; -we’ll let it go with a word of advice--advice from a man whose name you -don’t know, and whom you will most likely never meet again. When you -come to take the plunge; the real plunge into the sure-enough puddle -of life as it is lived by most men and not a few women; don’t tie up -too hard with any man or set of men, or yet to those old-fashioned -principles which you have been taught to regard as law and Gospel. -If you do, you won’t succeed--in the only sense in which the world -measures success.” - -The train was moving on again, and Vallory was not sorry. Being -healthily suspicious of cynicism in any of its forms, he was glad -that his critical section mate had not chosen to begin on him at the -dining-car breakfast, where they had first met. None the less, at the -station stop he shook hands with the volunteer prophet of evil. - -“Good-by,” he said. “I’d like to hear your estimate of the next man -with whom you happen to share a Pullman section. But part of your -prediction will doubtless come true. I have definitely broken away -from the Government job, and I shall probably not stay very long in -Middleboro.” - -As he left the train he glanced at his watch. It was past nine; -therefore his father would be at the bank. With only a hand-bag -for encumbrance he walked rapidly up the main street with the -well-remembered home town surroundings still making their curiously -depressive appeal. - - - - -II - -The Deluge - - -The Middleboro Security Bank, housed in a modest two-storied brick -three squares up from the railroad station, seemed on that morning of -mornings to be a center of subdued excitement. Early in the forenoon -as it was, a number of farm teams were halted at the curb, and little -knots of country folk and townspeople obstructed the sidewalk. David -Vallory nodded good-morning to one and another in the groups as he -swung past, and was immediately conscious of a sort of hushed restraint -on the part of those who returned his greetings. - -In the bank an orderly throng was inching and shuffling its way in -sober silence to the paying teller’s window. There were no signs of -panic, and any excitement that might underlie the unusual crush of -business seemed to be carefully suppressed. But Vallory saw that old -Abner Winkle, and the clerk he had called into the cage to help him, -wore anxious faces; and Winkle’s hands, the hands of a man who had -grown gray in the service of the country-town bank, were tremulous and -uncertain as he counted out the money to the waiting cheque-holders. - -David made his way to the rear of the narrow lobby, to a door with a -ground-glass panel bearing the word “President” in black lettering. -He entered without knocking, but was careful to snap the catch of the -lock to prevent a possible intrusion. A tall, thinly bearded man, -prematurely white-haired, with a face that was almost effeminate in its -skin texture and the fineness of its lines, and with the near-sighted -eyes and round-shouldered stoop of a student and book lover, got rather -uncertainly out of his chair at the old-fashioned desk. - -“David!” he exclaimed. “I knew you’d come, and I’m glad you are here. -Was the train late?” - -“An hour or thereabouts. Didn’t you get my answer to your wire?” - -The older man put his hand to his head. “Did I?” he asked half -absently. “I suppose I must have, if you sent one. I--I think I haven’t -been quite responsible since I telegraphed you. You saw what is going -on out in the bank; it has been that way since day before yesterday. I -waited as long as I dared. I knew it would be a shock to you, and I--I -didn’t want to shock you, son.” - -David Vallory placed a chair for himself at the desk end and felt -mechanically for his pipe and tobacco. Disaster was plainly in the air -and he prepared himself to meet it. - -“When you’re ready, Dad,” he said. - -Adam Vallory sank into his chair. There was a bit of string on the desk -and he picked it up and began aimlessly to untie the knots in it. - -“I wasn’t sure you’d come; I didn’t know whether you could come. It -isn’t fair to take you away from your work; but----” - -“Of course, I’d come!” David broke in warmly. “I’m here to take hold -with you, and you must remember that there are two of us now. What has -gone wrong?” - -Adam Vallory shook his head sadly. - -“The thing that went wrong dates back to a time before you were born, -David; to the time when I allowed your grandfather, and some others, to -persuade me that I ought to make a business man of myself. That was a -mistake; a very sorry mistake. I haven’t been a good banker.” - -David shook his head in honest filial deprecation. “You have been the -best and kindest of fathers to Lucille and me, and that counts for -much more than being a successful money-grabber. And you’ve earned the -love and respect of everybody worth while in Middleboro. What is the -present trouble? Are you having a run on the bank?” - -“I suppose you wouldn’t call it a run, as yet. There is no special -excitement and the people are very quiet and orderly. But there have -been a great many withdrawals, and there will doubtless be more. If it -should come to a real run----” - -“Let me have it all,” the son encouraged, when the pause grew -over-long. “Do you mean that the bank isn’t solvent?” - -“It is not,” was the low-toned rejoinder, given without qualification. -“I have made a number of bad loans. So long as I had to deal only with -neighbors and friends, men whom I have known and trusted all my life, I -got along fairly well, though the bank has never earned much more than -the family living, as you know. But when the town began to grow and the -factories came in the conditions were changed--for me. Then Mugridge -started the Middleboro National, and that was the beginning of the end. -He took his pick of the new customers and let me have the fag ends. -The Stove Works went into bankruptcy a week ago, and that was the last -straw.” - -“You were carrying Carnaby, of the Stove Works?” David asked. - -“Yes; and for much more than his capitalization, or our resources, -would warrant. He has been very smooth and plausible, and I have -believed in him, as I have in others. The story of my involvement -with Carnaby leaked out, as such stories always do. As I have said, -there has been no panic; just the steady stream of withdrawals -and account-closings. It’s telling on us fast now, and the end is -practically in sight. This is no world for the idealist in business, -David.” - -David Vallory was silent for a time, leaning forward with his elbows -on his knees and his chin propped in his palms. His pipe had gone out, -but he still held it clamped between his teeth. In Middleboro tradition -it was said that he favored his mother’s people, and the square-set, -firm-lipped mouth bore out the assertion. But the good gray eyes were, -not the eyes of a dreamer, perhaps, but the eyes of the son of a -dreamer; more--they were the eyes of a man who had not yet outgrown the -illusions. Adam Vallory had matured slowly; he was in his thirties when -he married. And the slow maturing process seemed to have been handed -on to the son. A stronger man than his father, this David, one would -have said; though perhaps only as athletic youth is stronger than age. -And a close observer, like the crop-bearded stranger of the Pullman -car, might have added that the strength was idealistic rather than -practical; a certain potency of endurance rather than of militancy. - -“Just how bad is it--in actual figures?” the son asked, at the end of -the chin-nursing pause. - -Adam Vallory closed his eyes as one wearied and stunned in the clash -and clamor of a battle too great for him. - -“We can go on paying out to-day, and perhaps to-morrow. Beyond that, -there is failure for the bank; and--and beyond the failure, David, -there is a prison for me!” - -The younger man straightened up quickly and there was unfeigned horror -in the good gray eyes. - -“Good heavens, Dad!--you don’t mean anything like that!” he exclaimed -in a shocked voice. - -“I wish I didn’t, son, but it is true. I have been weak; criminally -weak, some will say. All along I have been clinging desperately to -the hope that I could pull through; that the bad paper the bank is -holding would somehow miraculously turn into good paper. A better -business man would have faced the worst weeks ago. I didn’t. We have -gone on receiving deposits when I knew that we were, to all intents and -purposes, insolvent. That, as you know, is a penitentiary offense.” - -David Vallory got upon his feet and began to pace up and down the -length of the small room, three strides and a turn. It was his maiden -projection into the jostling arena of business, and for the moment -he could only struggle hardily for standing room in it. He had -always known, in a general way, that his book-loving father was no -money-getter in any modern sense of the term, but there had always -been enough and something to spare for him and for the blind sister -whose birth had cost the mother’s life. With the healthy ambition of -the average boy and youth, he had looked forward to a time when he -should go to work for himself in some chosen field and manfully build -up the slender fortunes of the family. But now the world of youthful -anticipation had gone suddenly and hopelessly awry. - -“We can’t think of giving up, Dad!” he broke out, after he had tramped -his way through to some measure of decision. “There must be something -that we can turn into money and save the bank and your good name. Can’t -you find somebody who will carry you until we can make the turn?” - -Adam Vallory shook his head in patient despair. - -“That ground has all been plowed long ago, son. It is now six months -or more since I began borrowing on my private resources, such as they -are. There is nothing left; not even the house we live in. I suppose I -should have told you sooner, but that was another weakness. I wished -you to have a chance to finish your college course and get your start -in the world without distractions, and that much, at least, has been -accomplished.” - -Once more the younger man sought to stem the torrent of the incredible -reversals, and this time he was partly successful. - -“We can still hope that it isn’t altogether as bad as you think it -is, Dad,” he said, with greater optimism than his inner conviction -warranted. “In a few minutes I’m going to pull off my coat and have a -look at things from the inside. We’re not going down without a fight; -that’s settled. Aside from this prison scare--and it’s only a scare, -you know--no Middleboro jury would ever believe for a single moment -that you meant to do a criminal act--aside from that, there are two -mighty good reasons why we mustn’t go to the dogs.” - -“Lucille?” queried the father. - -“Yes; she is one of the reasons, and a pretty stout one. Life is always -going to be hard enough for the little sister, without adding poverty -and a sorrow that she can neither help nor hinder.” - -“Quite true; and the other reason?” - -David Vallory had sat down again, and a boyish flush came to darken the -healthy brown which was the gift of a more or less athletic youth. - -“I didn’t intend to tell you--not just yet,” he demurred; “at least, -not until I had shown you that I could make good on my own, and prove -that you haven’t been throwing your money away on me. I--I’ve found the -girl, Dad.” - -The older man leaned back in his chair and the tired eyes were closed. - -“That is natural, and was to be expected,” he acquiesced. “You have -been very moderate, David. Many another young fellow would have found, -not one girl, but a round dozen, before reaching your age.” - -David Vallory’s laugh matched the absurdity of the “round dozen.” - -“Nothing like that; I’m not built that way, I guess,” he returned. -“There is only one girl, and though I hadn’t realized it until lately, -I think I discovered her to be that one while I was still wearing -knickerbockers.” - -Adam Vallory nodded as one who understood. - -“I have often wondered if it might not turn out that way,” he said; -“wondered and been just a trifle--no, I won’t say it. Judith is a good -girl, and she will doubtless make you a warm-hearted, loyal wife.” - -“Judith?” said David, and now his flush was darker. - -“Yes. You thought you were mighty secret about it, but I knew it, -all along; knew that you were corresponding with her while you were -at college, and missed you every time you spent an evening at the -Fallons’. It’s all right, son. I haven’t a word to say.” - -“But--but--you’re tremendously mistaken, Dad!” the younger man -protested earnestly. “There has never been anything serious between -Judith and me. We were just good chums together in school, and----” - -“Hold on a minute, son,” said Adam Vallory gently. “We have no money, -but we still have a few traditions. One of them is that no man of the -Vallory name has ever put the burden of proof on a woman, so far as -the records show. You admit that you wrote to Judith while you were in -college, and all Middleboro knows that you were always going about with -her in your vacations. Haven’t you been writing back and forth while -you were in Florida?” - -“Oh, yes; now and then, of course. But----” - -“You are trying to tell me that I have guessed wrong. Before you go -any farther, let me say this: your relations with Judith may have meant -nothing to you; but how about Judith herself? She is warm-blooded, -ardent, and much more mature than you are, in spite of the difference -in your ages. Be very sure that you don’t owe her something, David--the -biggest debt that a woman can ever hold against a man. Now go on and -tell me as much as you care to about the other girl--the real one.” - -David was still showing the marks of disturbance, but he went on -manfully. - -“There isn’t so very much to tell. I’ve--well, I’ve just found her, -that’s all. I met her last winter at Palm Beach. She was down there -with a bunch of New York people who go there every year. Raglan, my -chief on the Government job, knew her and some of her New York friends. -He began to introduce me, but she laughed and said, ‘Mr. Vallory and I -were rocked in the same cradle--in Old Middleboro,’ and that settled -it.” - -The beaten man in the desk chair roused himself to say: “Then you did -know her as a child? She belongs here?” - -“Not now. She is a citizen of a very much larger world.” - -“Do I know her, or her people?--but of course I must.” - -“You do. You have held her on your knee and told her fairy tales many a -time, while I stood by and listened. Doesn’t that place her for you?” - -Adam Vallory shook his head with a smile that was reminiscent of -pleasanter things than the navigating of stormy seas in a sinking -business craft. - -“I have held many little girls on my knee to tell them fairy stories, -David. That is another reason why I should never have been a banker; I -love children--and fairy tales--far too well.” - -“You would never guess,” said David, with all the fatuousness of the -new-born lover. “Yet you and her father were schoolboys together.” - -Adam Vallory roused himself again. “Not Eben Grillage?” he said. - -“Yes; she is Mr. Grillage’s daughter; the brown-eyed little Vinnie we -used to know; though they all call her ‘Miss Virginia’ now.” - -Again the upcast of reminiscence came to make the unsuccessful banker -forget for the moment the rotten business craft that was sinking -beneath him. - -“Eben Grillage,” he mused. “He was, and is, everything that I am not. -He was a born leader, even as a boy. Success, or what most people value -as success, has been his for the taking. You have seen him, David? Is -he growing old, as I am?” - -“You are old only in hard work; work that doesn’t appeal to you,” the -son said loyally. Then: “I have met Mr. Grillage only once, and--well, -I guess he didn’t have much time to throw away on an apprentice -engineer who was just then trying his prettiest to get a chance to talk -over old times with his daughter. I remember he asked about you.” - -“That was in Florida?” - -“Yes. I chased over to Palm Beach as often as I could during the -short season, but it didn’t do me much good. There were too many -other fellows ahead of me. It was on one of these trips that I met -Mr. Grillage. He had run down from some place in Georgia, where his -company was building a dam, to spend a week-end with his daughter. The -most that he said to me was in the nature of a good-humored ‘josh’ for -burying myself in a Government job.” - -Adam Vallory nodded. - -“You don’t remember Vinnie’s mother, of course; she died while you were -still only a little lad. She was what we, in my younger days, used to -call a belle; a most attractive woman, and as true and good as she was -beautiful. Eben Grillage had none of the qualities that such women are -supposed to care for--save one; he was big enough and strong enough to -reach out and take what he wanted. He idolized his wife; and the love -which was hers while she lived has been carried along to his daughter.” - -“Any one can see that,” said David, laughing. “Virginia is the apple -of his eye. Have you kept in touch with him at all since he left -Middleboro?” - -“Only at long intervals.” - -“They say he is rich, and rapidly growing richer. He has made the -Grillage Engineering Company; built it from the ground up; and there -isn’t any undertaking too big for him to tackle and carry through. If -he wasn’t Virginia’s father, I’d strike him for a job--after we get -things straightened out here for you.” - -“He would do well by you, for old times’ sake, I don’t doubt. To me, -Eben Grillage has never been the hard man that others seem to find -him; he is still the loyal friend of the boyhood days--our boyhood. -Different as we were, or perhaps just because of that difference, we -were like brothers. Why should the fact that he is Vinnie’s father make -you hold back?” - -“I don’t know that I could explain it, even to you, Dad. But, somehow, -I should feel handcapped. Virginia has a mighty keen, sharp-edged -little mind of her own. I have a notion that she wouldn’t think much of -a fellow that her father was nursing along by hand.” - -“Perhaps you are right. But tell me more about her.” - -“I wish there were more to tell. I have met her a few times, and she -has been mighty sweet to me--for the sake of the kiddie days here in -Middleboro, as she occasionally took care to remind me. I’m not in her -set, you know; not even in the outer edges of it. Besides, as I have -said, she has a string of fellows as long as your arm. It’s only a -pipe-dream for me, as yet, and I’m going to forget all about it now, -until after we’ve staved off this trouble of yours. Will you turn me -loose among the money papers and securities? I’d like to make a few -figures for myself.” - -With this for a beginning, David Vallory’s first day in the home town -resolved itself into a grind of hard work. Through what was left of the -forenoon, and straight on to three o’clock--welcome hour when the bank -doors were shut upon the public, and the tired old paying teller and -his assistant had an opportunity to balance their cash--the young man -probed steadily, sometimes with his father at his elbow, but oftener -alone. - -What he discovered sobered him at first, and later evoked symptoms -of a panicky nature. The Middleboro Security, a one-man bank in all -that the term implies, was--unless some of the bad paper could be -redeemed--plainly insolvent; and, what was much worse, the insolvent -condition was of long standing. The failure of the Carnaby Stove Works -had been merely the tiring spark to set off the explosion. Without -immediate help; help that must run into the tens of thousands; the bank -must close its doors. - -Though the June afternoon was not oppressively warm, David Vallory -found himself sweating profusely when the final column of figures had -been added. In the quiet of the semi-darkened bank, where Winkle and -the three clerks were still striving silently for their balances after -the strenuous business day, a menacing shadow fell. It was not only -ruin; it was ruin with disgrace. David was far from holding his father -responsible in any moral sense, this though it was apparent that the -present state of affairs had been long threatened. That it had not -reached a climax sooner was due chiefly to the fact that for many years -the country-town bank had done business only with honest customers. -David was not blind to his father’s one amiable weakness. It was known -far and wide that Adam Vallory could never say “No” to a sufficiently -importunate borrower; also, that he judged all men by his own upright -standards. - -David Vallory got up from the table-desk at which he had been working -and slowly struggled into his coat. Grown man as he was, this was his -first rude collision with life in its commercial aspect, and he rose -from the preliminary grapple with a belittling feeling of inadequacy; -as if, as a boy, he had been rudely buffeted into the gutter by a -man. But the feeling did not becloud the clearly defined conclusion -at which he had arrived. He did not--could not--minify the impending -consequences. The bank examiner would come, and at his coming the -pitiless mill of publicity would begin to grind. There would be -exposure and a criminal prosecution. Those who knew Adam Vallory, the -man, would refuse to believe that he had consciously committed a crime; -but to the wider world he would figure merely as another addition to -the ranks of those who gamble with other people’s money; a banker who -had taken the desperate chance involved in going on and receiving -deposits when there was no reasonable hope of repaying the depositors. - -The old-fashioned clock on the wall was striking four as the volunteer -checker of accounts gathered up the slips of scratch paper which he -had covered with figures and passed out to the small room at the rear -of the working space. The gray-faced man bending dejectedly over his -desk and waiting had no illusions. “Well, son?” he said, as David came -in. - -The young man dropped heavily into a chair and sat for some moments -staring at the slips of scratch paper. - -“This morning when you told me where we stood you didn’t make it any -worse than it really is,” he announced soberly. “Winkle gave me his -figures just now--the withdrawals for to-day. If they come after us -to-morrow as they have to-day, we shan’t be able to last until three -o’clock. I’ve gone over everything in the vault with a fine-tooth comb; -we need something like a hundred thousand dollars more than we have in -sight.” - -Adam Vallory’s gaze was fixed upon the dust-covered steamship -lithograph hanging above his desk, but he saw the picture only with the -outward eye. - -“A hundred thousand,” he repeated slowly. “David, it might as well be -a million. There is no use. I shall telegraph to the bank examiner -to-night, and we won’t open the bank doors in the morning.” - - - - -III - -Eben Grillage - - -At his father’s definite acknowledgment of defeat David Vallory rose -and thrust the penciled sheets into his pocket, crumpling them absently -into a wad. - -“I can’t tell you what to do,” he admitted. “I’m too young and too -raw; how raw I never realized until to-day. Just the same, everything -in me rises up to yell for an endurance fight. Call it stubbornness or -anything you like, but I’d rather be knocked out than squeezed out. -Some of the bad paper can be made good if we retain an up-to-date -lawyer and put the pressure on as if we meant it. In the savings -department we can gain time by insisting upon the sixty days’ notice of -withdrawal that the law allows. It’s tough to have to go down without -mixing it up a little with the enemy, Dad!” - -“I know,” was the colorless reply. “But the fight has all been taken -out of me, David. You mustn’t think that I’ve been sitting here in my -chair and letting things take their course without making a struggle. -It hasn’t been anything like that. I’ve turned and twisted every way; -have borrowed to my limit and then tried to borrow more. I’ve even gone -practically on my knees to Mugridge, of the new Middleboro National. He -was as cold as a fish; told me that I ought to push my collections.” - -“Have you consulted a lawyer?” - -“Not specifically. Young Oswald has known about how things were going, -and he has advised me--as a friend. He would make a legal fight for us -if I’d let him.” - -“Bert Oswald is going to make himself the rarest combination on -earth--or at least he was heading that way when he came out of the law -school.” - -“A combination?” - -“Yes, a man who will be stubbornly honorable and upright in spite of -his profession.” David Vallory was prone to magnify his own profession -to the detriment of some others, and in the engineering school he had -imbibed the technical man’s suspicion of those who draw up contracts -and specifications only to leave loopholes of escape. “I don’t believe -he would ever take a rascal’s retainer,” he went on, adding: “Why -don’t you employ him?” - -It was Adam Vallory’s turn to show embarrassment. - -“Bert has been coming to the house rather oftener than his boyhood -friendship with you would seem to warrant,” he returned half -reluctantly. “This morning you gave me your reason for not wishing to -take service under Eben Grillage. Can’t you imagine that I may have a -somewhat similar reason for not wishing to involve young Oswald in this -sorry business of ours?” - -This was a new surprise for David. “Lucille?” he queried. - -Adam Vallory nodded. “It can come to nothing, of course. Lucille, -herself, would be the first to insist that one with her affliction has -no right to become a wife and mother. Yet it has been a great comfort -to her to have Oswald dropping in at odd moments, or for an evening. -He understands her thoroughly, shares her keen love for music, and all -that. He has even taught her to play chess and to do a number of things -that we have never thought she was able to attempt. For her sake we -mustn’t drag him into this mess of ours, David.” - -This hesitantly given explanation opened a new field of dismay for -David Vallory. As it seemed, there was a separate and distinct disaster -reaching out for each member of the little family of three persons; -the grim threat hanging over his father, the indefinite postponement -of his own embryo love affair, and now this portentous problem of -Lucille’s happiness. His love for the blind sister was deep and tender, -as it should have been, and at the moment his own affair shrank to -inconsequence, as it was constrained to when he realized how heavily -the blow would fall upon one who had been sheltered and protected in -every way. - -“You have fully made up your mind to wire for the examiner to-night?” -he asked, after another interval filled with blind gropings for a -helpful suggestion. - -Adam Vallory looked away toward the window and through it to the empty -country-town street beyond. - -“There is no use in prolonging the agony, David. The day of reckoning -has come, and a few hours one way or another can make no possible -difference. I shall have to face the music in the end; we shall all -three have to face it, more is the pity. If there were the slenderest -chance of escape----” - -The interruption, voices in the adjoining banking room, gruff tones -raised emphatically, and Winkle’s more moderate ones parroting excuses -and explanations came over the half-height partition of the rear -office. It culminated now in an abrupt opening of the door of privacy. -The intruder, whom Winkle had apparently been trying to bar out, was -a big man with a clean-shaven face in which each feature seemed to -have been massively exaggerated to make it harmonize with the gigantic -figure; a great Roman beak of a nose; a hard-bitted mouth buttressed by -a jaw over which the heavy cheeks hung like the dewlaps of a bulldog; -strong teeth clamping the blackest of cigars; shrewd eyes that glared -from beneath penthouse brows; in short, a man who, in the Stone Age, -would have acquired the most commodious of the caves and swung the -heaviest of the clubs. - -“Adam--you old snipe!” was the giant’s explosive greeting, and his -hand-grip fairly lifted the slighter man out of his chair. “Nice kind -of a welcome your watch-dog cashier out there was trying to hand -me: said you were busy and couldn’t be interrupted! How are you, -David, boy”--and now it came David’s turn to wince under the vigorous -hand-grasp; at least, until he could summon his athletic training and -do a little bone crushing on his own account. - -Adam Vallory, sunk fathoms deep in the pool of despair but a moment -before, made a generous effort to rise to the hospitable requirements. - -“You took us completely unawares, Eben; I didn’t dream you were -anywhere within a day’s journey of old Middleboro. And Winkle’s -eyesight must be getting bad if he didn’t recognize you. Sit down, if -you can find a chair big enough to hold you. It’s a pleasure to see -your face again; you don’t give me the chance any too often. Now tell -us what good wind has blown you back to Middleboro.” - -The big man seated himself, and the chair, though it was the stoutest -one in the room, whined its protest. - -“Business, Adam; always business. We have an order in with your -two-by-four equipment factory here for a lot of scrapes and dump-cars, -and at the last minute Judson wired that he couldn’t deliver on time. I -didn’t happen to have anybody to send, so I came down here to read the -riot act to Tom Judson. He’ll ship now; I’ve just been out to see him.” -Then to David: “Young man, how soon can I get a train back to Chicago?” - -David looked up the required information. The next through train would -leave at four minutes past nine o’clock. The visitor glanced at a -watch big enough and thick enough to have been used as a missile. - -“That gives us about four hours, Adam,” he rumbled, “and we ought to be -able to pull up a good lot of the arrears in that length of time. Shut -up your desk and call it a day. We’ll trot over to the hotel and be -boys together for a little while. David will stay here and wind up the -odds and ends of the day’s business for you.” - -Adam Vallory was opening his mouth to protest hospitably against the -hotel, but his son broke in ahead of him. - -“That’s right, Mr. Grillage; I’m mighty glad you can have a little -time with Dad,” he interposed quickly. “We were speaking of you this -morning, and I was telling Dad that I had met you for a few minutes one -day last winder in Florida. Take him away with you, and I’ll stay and -close the bank.” - -“Good boy!” was the gruff rejoinder. “By and by, when you get around -to it, you may make a sleeper reservation for me on that nine o’clock -train. Wire for it, and bring the answer over to the hotel. No, -Adam”--to the host who was trying to make himself the entertainer -instead of the entertained--“no, you’re not going to take me home with -you, this time. I want you all to myself. We’ll go to the St. Nicholas -and make old Vignaux give us one of his Frenchy dinners in a private -room. Get your hat and come along.” - -Left to himself, David Vallory checked over the day’s transactions -with Winkle, telegraphed for the big man’s berth in the Chicago -sleeping-car, and then walked out to the tree-shaded suburb on the hill -to eat his dinner with the sister whom he had not yet seen. To his -great satisfaction he found young Herbert Oswald at the house, and the -presence of the young lawyer, who was easily persuaded to make a third -at the family dinner-table, pushed the disaster explanations, or such -of them as might have to be made to the blind girl, a little farther -into the future. - -Though David forced himself to talk at the table-for-three, -his cheerful attempts to keep the conversation in some safe -middle-of-the-road channel did not obscure for him the sentimental -situation developing under his eyes. Lucille, whose delicate, rose-leaf -beauty was a direct inheritance from her father, was more animated than -David had ever seen her, and it was doubly hard to realize that the -softly lighted eyes, lifted shyly now and again in Oswald’s direction, -were sightless. And as for the clean-cut, eager-faced young attorney, -there was small effort at concealment on his part. - -David Vallory left the house after dinner with a heavy heart. He had -known Oswald all his life, and liked him. He was well assured that -the young lawyer would stand by and be a very tower of strength to -the family in the storm which was about to burst. But the outcome of -it all would be a swift conflagration in the sentimental field, and -a heart-breaking awakening for the blind sister, who was obviously -in love with Oswald without at all realizing it. On the half-mile -walk to the St. Nicholas David Vallory told himself in many and -sternly emphatic repetitions that something must be done to avert the -triple-headed calamity; though what the “something” should be was -entirely beyond his powers of imagination. - -It was past eight o’clock when he reached the town’s one hotel and -found a quiet corner in the small office-lobby where he could smoke and -wait for the two who were bringing up the boyhood arrears in a private -room above-stairs. When the waiting interval ended, it was only the -burly guest-host who appeared, coming down from the private-dining-room -suite alone. Catching sight of David, he crossed the lobby, cast his -big body heavily into a chair, and lighted a cigar, the end of which -was already chewed into shapelessness. - -“You have sent Dad home?” inquired the son, after he had delivered the -telegram assuring one Eben Grillage of a reserved space in the Chicago -sleeping-car. - -“No!”--disgustedly. “Some crazy farmer broke in on us a few minutes ago -and insisted on taking your father over to the bank. Said he had an -option on a piece of land, and was obliged to get his money to-night to -make good on it.” - -David winced. He knew perfectly well that the excuse given had been -only an excuse; that the intruding farmer was merely one of the badly -frightened depositors in the Middleboro Security who was afraid to wait -for another day. He was wondering how much or how little his father had -told Grillage of the threatened disaster when the big man went on. - -“There is something the matter with your father, David. All evening -he’s been acting like a man with a clot on his brain. Hasn’t been sick, -has he?” - -This was one question that the son could answer without reservations: -“No; he hasn’t been side.” - -“Humph! Then it’s business. How long have you been home, and how much -do you know about his banking affairs?” - -“I’ve been here only one day, but I know all there is to know, I -guess,” said David, looking down at the worn pattern of the linoleum on -the lobby floor. - -The head of the Grillage Engineering Company twisted himself in his -chair and bored into the young man at his side with the masterful eyes. - -“Huh! Been here only one day, and yet you know it all. That means that -he’s up against it. I knew it; it was bound to come sooner or later. -Anywhere else but in Middleboro he would have gone on the rocks years -ago; I’ve always told him that. Shake it loose, young man, and give me -the facts.” - -David hesitated in some manly fashion. If his father had not seen fit -to confide in the tried friend of his youth, it was not for the son to -take matters into his own hands. - -“I don’t know that I have a right to do that, Mr. Grillage,” he began. -“I----” - -“See here!” was the explosive interruption; “if you knew me a little -better, you wouldn’t make a break like that. When I ask a man to loosen -up, he loosens, and that’s all there is to it. Dump it out--all of it.” - -David, untried enough to feel that any sharing of the dreadful thing -would be a relief, hesitated no longer. The secret would be published -broadcast in a day or two at most, so nothing mattered much. In a few -words he told the story of the threatening catastrophe, exaggerating -nothing, minimizing nothing. Eben Grillage heard him through without -interrupting, shifting the chewed cigar from one corner of his mouth to -the other as he listened. But at the end of the story he was scowling -ferociously. - -“Your father is still the same kind of a tender-hearted fool that he -has always been!” he rapped out. “Sat through an hour-and-a-half dinner -with me--dammit!--and never once opened his head about this bog hole -he’s mired in!” Then he dragged out the biscuit-like watch. “We’ve -got barely fifteen minutes, young man. You go and get Judson, the -scrapers-and-dump-car man, on the ’phone, while I do a bit of figuring. -Jump for it!” - -David Vallory obeyed blindly, with his brain in a whirl. It took -several of the hastening minutes to locate Judson at his home in the -northern suburb, and when the telephone connection was finally made, -the hotel porter was calling the Chicago train and Eben Grillage -was at the desk, paying his bill and growling out orders about his -hand-baggage. A moment later David had handed the telephone receiver to -the big-bodied man and was listening mechanically to the audible half -of the conversation which began with shot-like directness. - -“Yes, this is Grillage.... No, I don’t want to talk about the shipment; -I want to know where you do your banking.... With the Middleboro -National, you say? Well, this time you’ll do it through my bank--the -Middleboro Security. Get that? Attach your draft to bill of lading and -give it to Adam Vallory. Otherwise you don’t get your money. That’s -all. Good-night.” - -“Train time, Mr. Grillage,” interrupted the hotel clerk, in his most -deferential tone. - -“That’s all right; you hold that ’bus until I get ready!” snapped -the departing guest. Then, thrusting a slip of paper into David’s -hand: “Take that to your father, with my love. And a word to you, my -boy”--this in a rumbling aside: “After this ’phone talk of mine gets -handed about, your father will have all the credit he needs; but just -the same, if you’ve got the level head that you seem to have, you’ll -stand by and wind this bank business up, once for all. Your father’s -too damned good to be a banker in any such wicked world as the one -we’re living in. Dig up a good lawyer, push the crooked borrowers to -a settlement, and see if you can’t screw enough out of it to square up -and leave your father and sister a little something to live on. When -it’s done, you let me know by wire, and I’ll give you a job where you -can make good if you’ve got it in you. That’s all I’ve got to say. Tell -your father good-by for me; I shan’t have time to stop at the bank.” - -It was not until after the crazy omnibus had rattled away, bearing the -St. Nicholas’s departing guest in galloping haste for the train, that -David Vallory ventured to glance at the slip of paper which had been -shoved into his hand. For an instant the figures on it dazzled him and -he had a rush of blood to the brain that made the electric lights in -the hotel lobby coruscate and take on many-colored halos. - -The slip of paper was Eben Grillage’s personal cheque on a Chicago bank -for the round sum of one hundred thousand dollars. - - - - -IV - -An Honorable Discharge - - -David Vallory lost little time in crossing the square from the St. -Nicholas to the bank corner; in point of fact, he was boyish enough to -run. In the bank he found his father relocking the vault after having -given the frightened farmer his money. - -“Is your heart-action still pretty good, Dad?” he asked. “No high blood -pressure, or anything like that, is there?” - -“No, David. If I were as sound in mind as I am in body----” - -But David would not let him finish. “Take a look at this and tell the -blues to go hang,” he laughed, fishing the cheque of salvation out of -an inner pocket. - -Adam Vallory held the strip of paper up to the electric vault light, -saw the figures and the signature, and dropped back into a chair, -shaken and tremulous. - -“David!” he gasped reproachfully. “Did you tell him?” - -“I did. Because it was evident that you hadn’t told him, I tried my -best to dodge; but it was no manner of use. When Mr. Eben Grillage goes -after a thing, he is not to be denied. He nearly bit my head off when -he saw that I was trying to keep something from him. He said I was to -give you that piece of paper with his love; that was after he’d ordered -me to call Tom Judson on the ’phone for him and had told Judson that -the Middleboro Security was his bank, and that he must draw through you -for the money to pay for the shipment of scrapers and dump-cars. He -said it so that the people standing around in the hotel lobby couldn’t -help hearing and knowing that he is backing you. Isn’t that just about -the finest thing you ever heard of?” - -Adam Vallory was shaking his head dubiously. - -“It is too fine, David; the obligation, even from an old friend like -Eben.... It’s crushing. But we must consider it as a loan, no matter -how he regards it. Yet I don’t see how we shall ever be able to pay it -back.” - -The young man had perched himself upon the bookkeeper’s high stool, and -he had his answer ready. - -“You’ve been doing all the scrapping, thus far, Dad, but now you must -let me take my whirl at it. We’ll let the old ship go decently and -honorably ashore, and then climb out and save the pieces. We’ll pay Mr. -Grillage back all we can rake and scrape out of the wreck; and beyond -that----” - -“Well?--beyond that, what, son?” - -“It sounds rather stagy, but I’m going to say it. Beyond what money -payment we may be able to make, we shall owe Mr. Grillage a debt of -gratitude that will be canceled only when we are both under the sod. -That is about the way it strikes me. I don’t care what people say -about his business methods and the way he rides rough-shod over his -competitors; that doesn’t cut any figure in his relations with you. He -has done this thing for you, individually, and I don’t come even into -the outer edges of it; just the same, he has laid an obligation upon me -that I shall never live long enough to forget.” - -For a long minute Adam Vallory sat staring into vacancy. When he looked -up it was to say: “You are bone of my bone, David, and I thank God for -a son who can see eye to eye with me at a time like this. And yet ... -you are young, David; in many ways you are younger than your years. You -are maturing slowly, just as I did. Sometimes I’ve been afraid--afraid -you might throw yourself into something as a boy throws himself, -without reserve, you know; blind to everything but the one thing, -whatever it might be. If you can only have time to ripen----” - -David’s laugh was entirely care free. “That was the way you talked when -I went to college, Dad, and again, when I left for Florida. I haven’t -noticed that I’m particularly raw, compared with other men.” - -“It isn’t that,” the father hastened to say, “it’s just that, up -to to-day, you’ve never had to shoulder a man’s load. Perhaps I am -foolishly apprehensive, but the way in which you spoke just now of our -obligation--your obligation--to Eben Grillage.... I don’t know how to -express it, but it made me feel as I have sometimes felt before; that -if anything which you might conceive to be a duty were pushing you, -you’d shut your eyes and go to any length.” - -David laughed and shook his head. “Some day, Dad, you’ll wake up and -find that I’m a man grown; or I hope you will. Just the same, we do -owe Mr. Grillage a lot more than we can ever pay, and if it ever comes -in my way to chop the debt down a bit, you may be sure I’ll sharpen my -axe. Now, if you are not too wretchedly tired and worn out, suppose we -turn in and make our plans before we sleep. I told Lucille that we’d -most likely be late coming home and she won’t be sitting up for us. -To-morrow morning you’re going to turn the winding up of this thing -over to me and let me save what I can. That is what Mr. Grillage said I -must do, and it is what I mean to do.” - -Deep into the night father and son sat together in the private room in -the rear, poring over the books and bank paper and setting things in -order for the speedy beaching of the outworn business ship. But it was -not until after they had left the bank and were walking home that David -won his final point. - -“You shall do as you think best, David,” the father conceded, closing -an argument which had begun at the very outset of the planning. “If it -were left to me, I should probably be too easy with the bank’s debtors, -as I’ve always been. You may retain Oswald, if you think best; only -don’t let him be too hard on the borrowers who are in difficulties.” - -The following day saw the beginning of the end for the oldest banking -institution in the county. At nine o’clock in the morning the cue -leading to Winkle’s wicket was formed again; but in an hour or two the -tide showed signs of turning. At Oswald’s suggestion the Vallorys -had posted a notice in the bank window to the effect that Middleboro -Security was going out of business, and inviting all who had claims -upon the bank to present them and get their money. Coincidently with -the posting of this notice, a rumor, starting from nobody knew just -where, began to pass from lip to lip among the anxious depositors. -It was to the effect that Eben Grillage, well known in the town and -currently spoken of by his former townsmen as a multimillionaire, was -backing Adam Vallory. The result was almost magical. First one and then -another dropped out of the line in front of Winkle’s window; and by -noon many of those who had already withdrawn their savings were coming -back to furnish an object-lesson in the mutability of human nature -by begging Adam Vallory to stay in business and reinstate them as -depositors. - -Early in the afternoon David persuaded his father to go home, and -himself took the chair at the president’s desk, with Herbert Oswald at -his elbow. By evening a good beginning had been made and the tangle was -simplifying itself. - -“Time is the thing we need to save,” said David, as he and the young -lawyer went together to the St. Nicholas for their belated dinner. -“Dad is needing a rest, and I’ve got to strike out and do something -for myself; something better than making maps in a Government surveying -office. Naturally, I can’t go until after things are wound up properly -here, and Dad and Lucille are provided for in some fashion. How long do -you think it is going to take?” - -Oswald reserved his answer until after they had found their places in -the café and had given their dinner order. - -“As to the time, it will probably ask for more than you will care to -give to it,” he predicted; “that is, if you mean to stay and see it -through. But that isn’t at all necessary. We can shake you loose in a -few days, after we have closed the bank doors and have brought matters -down to a routine settlement with debtors and creditors. I can handle -that part of it myself, as the bank’s counsel.” - -In accordance with this outline of Oswald’s, David Vallory stood by -for the few days, taking his father’s place in the bank and doing what -he could to hasten the beaching of the Security ship. The end of that -phase of it came when the last depositor had chequed out his account, -and Winkle had closed his wicket for the final time. Only the deferred -collections remained, and these were turned over to Oswald. - -In the evening of this climaxing day, David and the young attorney were -once more dining together in Vignaux’s café. The strain was off, and -for the first time since his home-coming, David was free to begin the -consideration of his own future. It was Oswald who gave the table talk -its start in the proper direction. - -“You are footloose at last, David, and I can imagine that you are -mighty glad of it,” was the way the start was given. “It has been a new -experience for you, and you have certainly buckled down to it like a -man.” - -David’s smile was boyishly complacent. “Sure I have; there was no -reason why I shouldn’t. Isn’t that what a man’s son is for, in the last -analysis?” - -“Yes, but----” - -“But what?” - -“Oh, I don’t know. A good many sons don’t seem to see it in that light; -and in your case--well, I’ve known you a long time, David, and I didn’t -think you had it in you.” - -“‘Faithful are the wounds of a friend,’” David quoted, with a return of -the good-natured smile. “What have I done to make you think small of -me? Or is it something that I haven’t done?” - -“Neither,” was the thoughtful reply. “It’s just--oh, well; I guess it -is because we were boys together, and I couldn’t seem to realize that -you have grown up.” - -“You and Dad are the limit. Do you realize it now?” - -“Y-yes; to some extent. I’ve been watching you through this business -whirl. You’ve done well; splendidly well. But it was the fighting of -the untrained soldier.” - -“Of course it was. What I didn’t know of the actual details of the -business would have filled a library.” - -“That isn’t what I meant; I guess I can’t express myself clearly enough -to make you understand just what it is that I do mean. It sizes itself -up something like this: you’re so wholesome and straightforward and -decent, David----” - -“Break it off,” laughed David; “you make me blush!” - -“That’s it,” said the keen-eyed young fellow across the table; “you do -blush. Which is the proof of the pudding. But I mustn’t devil you when -you’re tired; tired and more or less discouraged.” - -“Discouraged? Not a bit of it. Why should I be discouraged?” - -“Most fellows would be, in your shoes. You’ve had every reason to -believe that you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth--or at -least, a triple-plated one.” - -“I? Not in a thousand years!” grinned the son whose light was of a -proper filial brightness. “I’ve known all along that the Middleboro -Security would have to be wound up some time. Dad is all the fine -things you can say of him, Bert, but he wasn’t cut out for a successful -banker. He knows it as well as anybody.” - -Oswald looked up questioningly. “You haven’t any twinges of your own, -Dave? It used to be the town’s idea that you’d some day come back and -marry Judith Fallon and settle down to be Vallory Number Two in the -banking business.” - -“Marry Judith? What put that idea into the town’s head--or yours?” - -“You did,” said Oswald gravely. - -“Great Scott! Can’t a man be just ordinarily chummy with a girl he’s -known all his life without having the gossips of a country-town tie a -tin can to him?” - -“With a number of them, yes; but with one, no.” - -“Bosh!” said David. - -“No, it isn’t ‘bosh.’ You’ve specialized on Judith; I’ve seen it -myself. Candidly, David, I’ve tried to shut my eyes to it, partly -because I hoped it might die out. Judith’s a good girl, and in her own -class she is the prettiest thing that was ever turned loose in a world -of more or less squashy young men. But I can’t seem to see her calling -herself Mrs. Vallory.” - -“You needn’t try.” - -Oswald’s eyebrows went up. “She has turned you down?” - -“Bert, if this place wasn’t so public I should blow up! Good Lord, -man! there has never been anything sentimental between Judith and -me!--nothing on top of earth more than a bit of jolly good-comradeship!” - -Being already up, Oswald’s eyebrows stayed in that position. - -“On your part, perhaps; but how about Judith? Listen, David: within the -past month I’ve heard half a dozen times that you and Judith were to be -married as soon as you got yourself relocated in some more habitable -place than a Florida swamp. You may howl all you want to about -country-town gossip, but----” - -This time David Vallory interrupted with a twist of the square jaw that -took Oswald swiftly back to a day long remembered in Middleboro school -annals when David had plunged, head down, into battle with the leader -of the “factory gang” and had for all time vindicated the superiority -of “town-side” brain over mere brawn. - -“Drop it, Herbert,” he said quietly; and then: “Let’s get back on the -main track again. You were saying that the town expected me to come -back and follow in Dad’s footsteps. There’s nothing doing. In another -way, I’m as incompetent as he is. Money-handling doesn’t appeal to me; -it never has appealed to me. I’d rather go out as a transit-man on some -building job worth while than to be the president of the biggest bank -in the State. It’s all in the way a man happens to be built.” - -“You are beginning at the bottom in your profession, though, aren’t -you?” - -“Of course; any man worth his salt begins that way. And that brings us -down to the finances again. Have you carried the figuring far enough -along to be able to guess at what will be left after all the bills are -paid?” - -Oswald shook his head. “Your father hasn’t taken either of us fully -into his confidence,” he averred. “He insists that we must try to -realize on the assets so as to have a hundred thousand dollars left to -pay a personal debt which doesn’t appear on the bank’s books. If we -subtract even half of that amount from the most favorable outcome at -present in sight, there will be nothing of any account left for him and -your sister.” - -“It will be enough; with what I may be able to add to it,” said David, -neither affirming nor denying the lawyer’s hint that he was not -entirely in his father’s confidence. - -“You are going away to look for a job?” Oswald asked. - -“As it happens, I don’t have to look for one. I leave for Chicago on -the eleven-fifteen to-night, and my job is waiting for me.” - -“Fine!” was the friendly approval. “Is it a secret?” - -“Not at all. I’m going to work for the Grillage Engineering Company; -an assistant engineer’s billet on a bridge construction job up in -Wisconsin. There is a reason why I shouldn’t take the job, and a still -stronger reason why I can’t refuse.” - -“That’s capital!” said Oswald, ignoring the qualifying part of the -announcement. “You are lucky--or I guess you are. They say Mr. Eben -Grillage can dig his profit out of the shrewdest contract that was ever -drawn and never turn a hair. But as an engineer in the field, you won’t -have anything to do with that part of it.” - -David glanced up quickly with a little frown coming and going between -the honest eyes. - -“Again I’ll have to ask you to break it off, Bert. Mr. Grillage is my -father’s friend.” - -“Of course he is; I forgot for the moment,” was the placative reply. “I -shouldn’t have repeated the gossip--which is only gossip, after all. I -suppose you remember his daughter Vinnie, as a little girl, don’t you?” - -“Very well, indeed,” said David, with his eyes on his plate. - -“She has grown up to be a raving, tearing, heart-smashing beauty,” -the lawyer went on, entirely unmindful of the sudden change in his -table-mate. “I met her in Indianapolis last summer when I was there on -a business trip. She was stopping with friends, and she gave me exactly -five minutes by the watch--which was all the time she could spare; all -the time a dozen other fellows would let her spare. Somebody told me -she was, or is, going to marry an English title.” - -“That is gossip, too,” said David, still looking down. - -“I suppose so. You can hear all sorts of things if you’ll only hold -your ears open. Finished your dinner? If you have, let’s go and smoke.” - -At this, David Vallory came to life again. - -“No; I can’t take the time, Bert. I must go out home and pack my trunk. -And I’m going to ask a favor of you. Will you be at the train to see me -off.” - -“Surest thing in the world,” said the young lawyer; and after David -had gone he sauntered out to the office-lobby and bought a cigar with -thoughtful deliberation, recalling, now that he had time to do so, -David’s cryptic remark about the reasons--still unexplained--for and -against his new employment. - - - - -V - -Gloriana - - -David Vallory had not been strictly truthful in pleading the journey -preparations as an excuse for leaving Oswald at the dinner-table. It -still wanted three hours of train time; and, as a matter of fact, his -trunk, packed in Florida for the hurried flight northward, had not -since been unpacked. But on no account would he have given Oswald the -real reason for his early defection. - -That reason began to define itself when, at the corner beyond the St. -Nicholas, he turned to the left and walked rapidly in a direction -precisely opposite to that in which the home suburb lay. Down to the -railroad yards and across the tracks he fared, turning presently from -the main street into another which led to a region called “Judsontown,” -taking its name from the Judson Foundries and housing the major portion -of Judson’s workmen. - -At the gate of a cottage a trifle larger and more commodious than its -neighbors on either hand, David turned in and walked up the slag-paved -path to the porch. There was a light turned low in one room of the -cottage, but no other signs of life. But at his approach there was a -rustle of modish skirts on the porch and a vision appeared; the vision -taking the form of a strikingly handsome young woman, round limbed, -scarlet-lipped, with midnight eyes and hair. The light from the near-by -street lamp framed her in the porch opening for David as he swung up -the path, and it was a picture to stir the blood in the veins of an -anchorite. - -“Gloriana!” he said, taking both of her hands, and giving her the name -she had given herself as soon as she was old enough to hate the one her -parents had given her. - -“Davie! you’ve come at last, have you?” she breathed. “’Tis long ago -I’d given you up. A week you’ve been back, and but for the papers I’d -never have known it!” - -“Don’t scold me, Glo,” he begged. “If you could only know how busy I’ve -been. This is the first spare minute I’ve had in the week, honestly. -Where are your father and mother?” - -“They’ve gone up-town to the movie. You’ll be coming in?” - -“Just for a little while.” - -She led the way into the cottage, into the room of the dimmed light. -It was exactly as David remembered it from a time when he had often -been made at home in it; the big-figured red carpet, the marble-topped -center table with the family Bible, the family photograph album, and a -crocheted mat in the middle for the foot of an ornate parlor lamp with -a crimson shade. Also, there were the same stiff-backed chairs and the -same sofa upholstered in green rep. In one corner was the young woman’s -piano. John Fallon was a foreman in the Judson Foundries and could well -afford to buy his daughter a piano, if he chose. David sat down on one -of the uncomfortable chairs. - -“Turn up the light and let me see you, Glo,” he said, and when she did -it: “Jove! but you picked the right name for yourself years ago when we -were kiddies! The movie stars have nothing on you--not one of them.” - -“Flatterer!” she laughed, and if there were a faint suggestion of the -“h” after the “t’s” he did not mind. Her Irish accent had always seemed -to harmonize perfectly with her rich, “black-Irish” beauty. Then: -“The two years have been making you into a man, Davie. ’Twas in your -letters when I’d be reading them. Don’t be propping yourself on that -chair; come over here and be yourself.” - -He went to sit beside her on the green sofa and was straightway -conscious that he had stepped within a strange aura. Pointedly and of -set purpose he began to talk of commonplace things; Middleboro things -that had happened during his absence. But the subtle distraction -persisted, coming like a veil between the thought and the words until -he scarcely knew at times what he was saying. It was a new experience. -What he had told Oswald was the simple truth; in the old days he and -Judith Fallon had been more like two boys together than a boy and girl, -and the frank comradeship had carried over from childhood to manhood -and womanhood; or it had up to now. But now he could see and feel -nothing but her superb physical beauty. Once, as a college Freshman, -he had permitted himself to be ridiculed into gulping down a drink of -whiskey. “It was like this,” he found himself saying aloud, and the -girl beside him laughed. - -“What’s come over you, Davie?” she said. “Half the time you’re talking -nonsense--just nonsense. But for knowing how you hate it, I might think -you’d been drinking!” - -“I have,” he returned soberly, suddenly realizing. Then: “Glo, you -ought to pick out some decent young fellow and get married.” - -She laughed at this, but the black eyes were hard. - -“Why would I want to be getting married?” she demanded. - -“Don’t you?” - -“I thought I did--two years ago.” - -“You were too young then,” he decided gravely. “But now it is time. -You--you’re a living threat, as you are. Don’t you know it?” - -“And what would I be threatening, then?” - -“The peace of mind of every man who comes near you. You may not know -it, Glo, but you are the kind of woman for whom men, ever since the -world began, have been throwing everything worth while into the -discard; truth, honor, loyalty--anything they had to fling away.” - -“Would you just be finding that out, Davie?” - -“You--you’re different in some way, Glo; or else I am. What have you -been doing to yourself in these two years?” - -“What should I be doing? Is a girl to be waiting always for something -that’s never going to happen?” - -A cold horror seized him, but he tried to shake it off; tried to -recall the Gloriana he had grown up with; a frank, outspoken daughter -of the people, strong to attract, but also strong to resist. The -“town-side” boys had jeered him for companying with John Fallon’s -daughter, a “factory-side” girl, but then, as now, he was wont to go -his own way when he was convinced that the way was straight and honest. -The way had been straight, he told himself, because the girl was -straight. But now---- - -“Glo, I meant what I said a few minutes ago; you ought to get married. -Some wise person has said that all men and women can be divided into -two classes: those who need not marry unless they choose to, and those -who must. You are one of those who must. It’s your harbor of safety.” - -Her low laugh was like an invitation to a sensuous dance. - -“Since when have you turned preacher, Davie?” she mocked. “What’s got -into you to-night? Put your head down here and let me comb it, the way -I used to when you wore knee stockings.” - -“No,” he refused. - -She leaned toward him and slipped a round arm across his shoulders. He -reached up and disengaged it gently. - -“No,” he said again. “You shouldn’t do things like that, Glo. You used -to do them once, and it didn’t matter. But now you are not the same.” - -This time her laugh had an edge to it. - -“The fishes have nothing on you for the cold blood, Davie. But you’re -like all the men. After you’ve made what you like out of a girl, you -slap her in the face.” - -Vaguely he understood that she was accusing him of something. - -“I’m wishing for nothing but your happiness, Glo; can’t you understand -that? I’ve never wished for anything else.” - -She was silent for a moment. Then she said: - -“’Tis to a convent I should have gone, Davie, instead of to the -public--to run with boys, and with you. ’Twas you taught me things a -girl shouldn’t know.” - -“I?” said David, still more horror-stricken. - -“’Tis so. I was a woman grown whilst you were yet but a boy. You didn’t -know. If your lady mother had lived she might have told you more about -girls and women. I was loving you, Davie, long before ever you put a -razor to your face.” - -For the first time in his life David the man found it easeful and -fitting to curse David the boy. “Warm-hearted,” he had called Judith -in those other days, and thought no more of it. But now ... he had been -as one who tosses a careless match aside and passes on, only to turn -and find a forest ablaze. - -“Tell me what you care to, Glo,” he said gravely. - -“’Tis an old story, I’m thinking. Whilst I could be writing to you and -knowing you’d be coming back from the college the bad heart of me kept -still. But when you went to that place in Florida the bad heart was -empty--empty for a man. The man came, Davie; I’m thinking he always -comes.” - -David had to moisten his lips before he could say: “Who was it, Glo?” - -“’Twas young Tommy Judson.” - -“God!” said David. The exclamation was half prayer and half execration. -He knew Judson; all Middleboro knew him as the country town’s most -faithful imitation of gilded youth and its degeneracy. After a time he -said: “Somebody ought to kill him, Glo; I ought to kill him.” - -“’Tis little good that would do now. He’s gone away, and my father -would be getting a raise in his pay, little knowing why he got it.” - -Though the windows were open to the summer night breeze David felt -as if he were suffocating. Springing to his feet he began to pace the -narrow limits of the little sitting-room. - -“Glo,” he said chokingly, “this is the most awful thing I’ve ever had -to face. I came here to-night just as I used to come years ago. I meant -to tell you that I had found the girl that I hoped some day to marry. -And now you tell me that I led you up to the edge and left you where -the next man who came along could push you over.” - -“No, Davie, dear; I’m not blaming you,” came from the green-covered -sofa. - -“But I am blaming myself.” He stopped abruptly before her. “Let me see -your face, Glory: have you been trying to tell me that I ought to marry -you?” - -She would not look up. “And you with another girl in your heart? I’m -not that wicked, Davie.” - -“Then at least you must let me talk to you as we used to talk in the -other days; straight from the shoulder. I was wiser than I knew, a -little while ago, Glory, when I said that your safety was in marriage. -Can’t you forget and start afresh? There are plenty of young fellows -here in your part of town who would never ask you to turn back a single -leaf of your life book for them; can’t you marry one of them and make -him a good wife, Glory?” - -She shook her head. “I can not,” she said shortly. - -He drew out his watch and held its dial to the lamp light. It was time -to be gone. - -“I must go; I am leaving town to-night, and the kindest thing I can -hope for you is that you’ll never see my face again. It doesn’t help -matters any, but if you have suffered, I shall suffer, too. You have -put a mark on me that I shall carry to my grave.” - -She got up without a word and walked with him to the door and down the -slag-paved path to the gate. But at the moment of parting, when he was -again seeking vainly for some word of heartening, she flung her arms -around his neck and kissed him twice, thrice. - -“_That’s_ why I can’t marry another man!” she panted; and before he -could reply she had darted up the path and into the cottage and had -slammed the door. - -It was an older and soberer David who tramped slowly back through the -factory district and across the railroad tracks to the better lighted -main street of the town. Conscience is definable only in terms, not of -the common, but of the individual human factor. For the David Vallorys -there are no compromises. He either was, or was not, Judith Fallon’s -keeper. Had he been responsible for her development up to a certain -point, the danger point, and had then been blind enough or thoughtless -enough to cast her adrift? One responsibility he could not shirk: from -a time reaching deeply into their childish years his influence over her -had been stronger than that of any one else, her parents not excepted. -How was he to know that her yielding to him had been chiefly sexual, -and that unconsciously he had walked in her path instead of leading her -to walk in his? But even so, was he wholly blameless? - -These soul-searching questions kept even step with him on the way to -the hill suburb, and they made the home leave-taking, a little later, -thoughtfully abstracted. It was his promise to his sister to come home -for Christmas, if he could leave his work, that reminded him of another -responsibility; and all the way down to the railroad station he was -hoping that Herbert Oswald would not forget his agreement to be at the -train. - -Oswald had not forgotten. He was waiting at the station entrance, and -together they walked out upon the platform. The Chicago express was -bulletined fifteen minutes late, and David was thankful for the brief -extension of time. There was a thing to be said to Oswald, and, finding -no way in which to lead up to it, he plunged bluntly. - -“Bert, there is something that I want to say--that I’ve got to -say--before I leave. You’ve been a mighty good friend to us in this -shake-up, and we shall always owe you a lot more than we can pay. But -I’m obliged to be a sort of dog in the manger, right here at the last. -I have a sister, and she is blind.” - -“Well?” said Oswald, and his voice was a bit thick. - -“You know what I ought to say; what I want to say, and can’t. Lucille -isn’t like other girls; she can’t be. And yet she is just as human as -other girls. You mustn’t go to the house so often, Bert. If you do, -there’ll be an explosion some day, and you’ll never get over being -sorry.” - -“I don’t know exactly what you mean,” was the low-spoken reply. - -“Then I shall have to tell you in so many words, brutal as it may -sound. With her affliction, Lucille can’t marry, and she--oh, dammit -all--you know what I mean!” - -“Do I?” queried the young lawyer, in the same thick voice. “Perhaps I -do, and perhaps I don’t. You might make it a little plainer, if you -care to.” - -The belated train had evidently made up some of its lost time; it was -whistling for Middleboro and the roar of its coming was already filling -the air of the calm summer night with thunderous murmurings. - -“I will make it plainer. The little sister has taken you on as a -friend. But at the same time you are the only man outside of the family -who has ever taken the trouble to make her life more bearable. Let it -stop at that, Bert; for God’s sake, let it stop at that if you don’t -want to break her heart!” - -The train was in; the conductor was calling “All aboard!” and the -Pullman porter had opened his vestibule. Oswald crossed the platform -with David Vallory in sober silence, but at the hand-gripping instant -he found his tongue. - -“You may go to your job and rest easy, David. I’m the last man on God’s -green earth who will ever do anything to break your sister’s heart. -Good-by--and let me hear from you.” - - - - -VI - -The Henchman - - -The great concrete railroad bridge at Coulee du Sac was nearing -completion, and for David Vallory, who had spent a summer, an autumn, -and the better part of a winter on the work, the closing scenes of his -brief summer stop-over in Middleboro had withdrawn into a past already -taking on the characteristics of remoteness. - -In their general aspect the bridge-building weeks and months had been -uneventful, or, at least, unexciting; long working days made short by -a keen interest in his chosen profession; the good will, early won, of -his associates on the engineering staff; clipped words of approval now -and then--progress markers, these--from his chief, Grimsby, a saturnine -man-driver who cracked the whip oftener than he praised, and who seemed -to enjoy to the fullest extent the confidence of the boss of bosses, -Eben Grillage. - -Only once in the nine months had David taken time off; a scant -three days in December, two of them travel-spoiled, and the one in -between--Christmas Day, it was--spent with his father and sister in the -Middleboro home. Partly he went to keep his conditional promise to the -blind one; but underlying the fraternal motive there was another. Twice -during the previous summer he had written to Judith Fallon, conceiving -it to be no less than a binding duty. There had been no reply, but -the second letter had been returned to him with the postal legend, -“No such person at the address given,” stamped upon the envelope. His -twenty-four-hour Christmas stay in Middleboro gave him little chance -to make inquiries; but few inquiries were needed. The Fallons had -sold their cottage in Judsontown and moved away, leaving no word by -which they could be traced. Also, there was a story, not vouched for -by David’s informant, that there had been trouble of some sort in the -Foundries offices, with a big Irish foreman smashing his way into Mr. -Thomas Judson’s private room and assaulting its occupant. - -With this new barb to rankle, David went back to his work at Coulee du -Sac saddened and depressed, and grievously weighted with the sense -of responsibility. He found no difficulty in believing the story of -the explosion in the Judson offices, and was well able to supply the -missing details. Fallon’s quarrel was the deadliest a father could -have, and the only wonder was that he had not committed a murder. - -During his nine months’ isolation at Coulee du Sac, David had met the -Vallory benefactor only a few times; and the benefactor’s daughter not -at all. For the lack of the social opportunity he was grateful rather -than sorry. In the light of the Judith Fallon tragedy he was beginning -to question his right to make love to Virginia Grillage, even if the -magic circle could be broken into; or if not to question the right, to -realize the immense and humiliating barrier which must always exist -between a man with a tragedy in his past and a woman to whom that past -should be as a pane of glass. And the height of the barrier was not -lessened by the thought that, in the last analysis, he was culpable -only to the extent of having been bat-blind to the temperamental -abysses yawning for the Judith Fallons. A great love might condone the -blindness, but no pure-minded woman could ever be made to believe that -it was total. - -As to Virginia’s whereabouts during the three-quarters of a year, -David had learned something from Eben Grillage, himself. She had -spent the summer with a party of friends in the Rockies--the farther -Rockies--touring and resting at a small resort hotel known only to the -elect; she had spent the shooting season with other friends in the -Adirondacks; and she had gone to Florida late in the season to escape -the Northern winter. - -So much for the slightly wider horizons. In the working-day field, -David had been given the most convincing proof that he had not been -merely placed and forgotten. There had been offerings of ample -opportunity to show what was in him, with pay-roll advances to fit; -and on a March day when Grimsby, the saturnine chief of construction, -called him into the bridge office for a conference, he was given fresh -assurances that he had been accepted as a post-graduate member of the -staff. - -“You are a rising young man in the profession, Vallory, and if you keep -on as you’ve begun, you’ll come out at the top of the heap,” was the -complimentary phrase with which the conference began. “You are not like -most of the young fellows I’ve had to hammer into shape; you don’t go -around firing off the proposition that you know it all.” - -“I should hope not,” said David. “That sort of thing is the best -possible evidence that a man needs to go to school again.” - -“Meaning that we’re all learning all the time?--that’s the idea, -exactly,” said the chief brusquely. “Take it in the use--the modern -use--of reinforced concrete, for example: we are all children going to -school in that field. What we don’t know about it would fill a library.” - -“You are right,” David admitted. “I’m learning something new about it -every day.” - -“And just because we are still in the apprentice stage, I imagine we go -pretty wide on the side of safety,” Grimsby went on. “That’s natural; -we’re afraid to take our own figures after we’ve made them. Now this -‘mix’ we’re using on this bridge; I’ll venture the cement content could -be cut down twenty per cent and still leave an ample margin of safety. -What?” Then, with an abrupt break: “Sit down and have a cigar.” - -David found a three-legged stool and nodded acquiescence to the general -postulate that the use of concrete as a substitute for masonry was as -yet but a babe in arms. - -“The quality of the cement is another disputed point,” Grimsby argued. -“There isn’t the least doubt in my mind that we are altogether too -finical about that. We’ve set up a code of theoretical standards; -such and such a degree of fineness, such and such a chemical analysis, -and all that; and yet, after the job’s done, you can’t tell where the -tested stuff ends and the untested begins. Isn’t that so?” - -“I couldn’t prove that it isn’t,” said David. - -“All right; neither can I. But on this very point we’re continually -having trouble with the railroad people, as you know. We may admit -cheerfully that we don’t know quite all there is to be known about -concrete; but neither do the railroad company’s engineers. Their -inspectors on this bridge are a bunch of cranks; that is the sort of -fault-finders that the ‘party of the first part’ always hires to put on -the job to watch the contractors. If we lived up to the specifications -as they’d like to make us, the Grillage Engineering Company would come -out about a mile deep in the hole.” - -Again David Vallory acquiesced. From time to time he had had troubles -of his own with the watch-dog inspectors representing the railroad -company for which the bridge was being constructed. - -“You younger fellows are fresh from the laboratories, and you have the -latest word in the testing experiments,” said Grimsby. “That’s why -I’ve called you in for a conference. You’ve been following the cement -tests made in our field laboratory, haven’t you?” - -“Most of them; yes.” - -“Well, you haven’t seen anything wrong with the stuff, so far, have -you?” - -“Never.” - -The bearded chief nodded. “That’s the talk,” he said; then he made his -frontal attack without further preface. “You are loyal to your salt, -aren’t you, Vallory? If what they tell me about you and Mr. Grillage is -true, you ought to be.” - -“I hope I am,” returned the loyalist, a little at a loss to prefigure -what was coming next. Then he added: “My family owes Mr. Grillage a -greater debt than we can ever hope to pay, if that is what you mean.” - -“So I’ve understood. Now we can get down to the nub of the thing. -You’ve heard that the railroad company has hired a new chief engineer, -haven’t you?” - -“Mr. Esher? Yes; I met him day before yesterday when he was going over -the work.” - -“Esher is his name, and he’s the prize crank of the lot. He has just -thrown out that last shipment of cement on us; says it doesn’t test up -to standard in the railroad lab. It’s all poppy-cock, of course. Some -little-boy chemist on the railroad pay-roll has made a blunder--that’s -all there is to it. Now then; have you been keeping in touch with your -college?” - -“Fairly well; yes.” - -“Stand in with the professors in the college cement lab.?” - -“Yes; I know them all.” - -“Good men, are they?--men whose word you’d take in settling a dispute?” - -“In proof tests, you mean? Certainly; I’d accept them without question.” - -“Good. Here’s what we’re up against. This shipment of cement that -I’m talking about is the material Shubrick was to have used in the -under-water work on Pier Four. We can’t afford to throw it away, and to -save it we’ll have to do a little juggling; but I want you to satisfy -yourself fully beforehand. Take samples of the cement, just as it -stands, and send them to your college for analysis. We’ll keep Shubrick -supplied out of the reserve stock until you get your answer. Better get -the samples off to-day.” - -Now all this was purely routine, and David, who had thus been honored -by the confidence of his chief, went about it as a part of the day’s -work. The samples were duly taken and forwarded to the university, -with a personal letter explaining the reason for the requested -analysis. An unbiased opinion was desired, and the letter-writer -ventured to hope that it might be given promptly. - -In a few days the answer came, and it was entirely satisfactory. -The samples which had been submitted tested fully up to standard, -and the college authorities were at a loss to understand why any -question should have been raised as to the quality of the material. -David Vallory showed the letter to Grimsby, and was rewarded by the -hard-featured chief’s nearest approach to a smile. - -“Now for the needful bit of juggling,” was Grimsby’s comment. “The -railroad people have us by the neck because we have to ship everything -in over their line. But we’ll fool ’em, Vallory. Luckily, the cement -mill isn’t on their line. We’ll send the condemned shipment out -to-night, as if we were returning it to the mill. To-morrow morning you -can slip out on the passenger train and overtake the freight, say at -Little River, on the F. S. & A., where we are building the power dam -for the paper mill.” - -David Vallory was staring out of the office window with a small -frown wrinkling between his honest gray eyes. He could forecast what -was coming, and while the cause seemed to be righteous enough, -the expedient to which he was to resort bore all the earmarks of -crookedness. - -“And then?” he queried. - -“Then you can take a few laborers off the dam--I’ll give you an order -to Bullock authorizing it--shift the cement into other cars, and fire -it back here. When it comes in, it’ll figure as a new shipment, and -you’ll have to doctor the railroad way-bills a bit to make them fit.” - -It was the first time in his working experience that David had been -asked to carry out a piece of deliberate trickery, though there had -been other occasions when he had helped to throw dust into the eyes of -the too-critical railroad inspectors. Quite naturally, his point of -view in these smaller deceptions had been that of the men who figured -with him as Eben Grillage’s paid henchmen; but this cement “juggling,” -as Grimsby had baldly named it, had all the characteristics of a crime. - -“It’s a rotten shame that we have to get down to such methods!” he -protested. “Let me go to Mr. Esher with the result of these university -tests and Professor Luthe’s letter. Taking them together they ought to -convince him that we’re not trying to put a spoiled batch of cement -across on him.” - -Grimsby’s smile was too well guarded to betray his real meaning. - -“Esher would turn you down cold. It’s his business to stand by his own -laboratory, of course, and he’ll do it. I didn’t ask you to get this -college analysis with any hope of convincing Esher with it; I merely -wanted you to be satisfied in your own mind. You see what we’re up -against. If we have to throw away that shipment of Portland, it will -mean a good chunk of loss for the Grillage Engineering Company. You -said you owed the big boss something; now’s the time to prove that you -weren’t talking through your hat.” - -Thus appealed to, David stifled his qualms; and the next day he carried -out his instructions faithfully and to the letter. The condemned -material was overhauled at Little River and was shunted into the -Engineering Company’s own construction yard at the dam. Here it was -shifted to other cars by Bullock’s laborers, and the juggling process -was brought into play. To the F. S. & A. agent at Little River, David -merely stated a fact. He was shipping three car-loads of cement from -the company’s yard at the dam to the bridge at Coulee du Sac. Would the -agent way-bill them accordingly? - -“Ship cement in one day and out the next, do you?” grinned the -railroad man. “Didn’t I see the yard crew shoving these three cars over -to the dam yesterday?” - -“These are not the same cars,” said David, and he produced the yard -boss’s memorandum to prove it. - -The half-truth, which was wholly an untruth so far as the inner fact -was concerned, succeeded. The cars were billed, and in due course they -reached Coulee du Sac as a new shipment. Just what was to be gained by -the juggling, when the railroad inspectors would be certain to sample -the cement and test it, with probably the same results as those they -had reached before, was not very clear to David Vallory. But one night, -a little farther along, he was given a shock of enlightenment. - -The shock was administered by his bunk-shack mate, the engineer in -charge of the under-water work in the caissons; Shubrick by name, and -by training a man who had grown accustomed to many shifts and tricks -in that branch of engineering which is fullest of fatalities. To -Shubrick David Vallory was freeing his mind on the general subject of -over-critical inspection. - -“These railroad watchers are getting on my nerves more and more, all -the time!” he complained. “They act as if they think we are a bunch -of crooks, needing only half a chance to scamp this job so that it -will fall into the river with the first train that passes over it. Do -they worry you on the under-water work as much as they do us on the -concreting?” - -Shubrick grinned ferociously. - -“I’d shut off the air and drown a few of them if they did. Just the -same, David, they’re onto their job all right. You needn’t make any -mistake about that.” - -“You say that as if you thought we needed watching. Do you think so?” - -This time Shubrick’s grin took a sardonic twist. - -“When you are a few years older, you’ll know a heap more, David. Why, -good Lord, man! are you nourishing the idea that this contracting -company is doing business on a philanthropic basis?” - -David Vallory shook his head. “You’ll have to diagram it for me, I -guess. We may not be any too honest; I’ve seen some things done that -I’ve wished we didn’t have to do. But that isn’t an admission that -we’re a gang of thieves, to be watched and harried from one day’s end -to another.” - -“It’s a fight,” said the older man cynically. “The other fellows tie -us up with a lot of specifications that they know perfectly well would -ruin us if we should live up to them; and, on our side, we live up to -just as few of them as the law will allow. The honor system may work in -college, but it doesn’t get by to any marked extent in business. As far -as that goes, you, yourself, are not as innocent as you look, David. -You worked that little cement juggle the other day to the queen’s -taste.” - -“You heard about that?” said David, and it was a mark of the short -distance he had traveled on the road to equivocation that he flushed -when he said it. - -“Everybody knows about it--everybody but the railroad people. You -played it mighty fine. What’s puzzling me is the railroad way-bill part -of it. How on top of earth did you contrive to get those way-bills -doctored on the F. S. & A. at Little River? Did you buy the agent?” - -The flush deepened under David Vallory’s eyes. The misleading -explanation he had made to induce the railroad agent to bill the -condemned cement as a mill shipment to be transferred from the work on -the dam to that on the Coulee du Sac bridge was the least defensible -part of the transaction, or so it seemed to him. - -“The less said about that part of it will be the soonest mended,” he -returned gruffly. - -“Well, it was a neat little trick all the way round,” the under-water -boss commented. “If Congdon hadn’t fallen down in the first place, we -wouldn’t have had to work it.” - -This was new ground to David Vallory and he said as much. “What did -Congdon have to do with it?” he asked. - -Shubrick relighted his pipe, and after a puff or two: “Do you mean to -tell me that you don’t know?” - -“If I knew, I wouldn’t ask.” - -Again the under-water engineer sucked slowly at his pipe. “There is one -of two things, David,” he remarked, after the pause: “you are either -a good bit deeper than I’ve been giving you credit for being--or else -you’re too innocent to be running loose without a guardian. Didn’t -Grimsby tell you how it all got balled up in the beginning?” - -“He told me that some railroad chemist had blundered in making the -tests.” - -Shubrick’s laugh was soundless. “It was our man Congdon who did the -blundering. After he had made the tests in our own lab., he was ass -enough not to see to it that the railroad chemist didn’t get a whack at -the stuff.” - -“Are you trying to tell me that the cement wasn’t up to standard?” -demanded Grimsby’s accessory. - -“If you need to be told. It’s a ‘second,’ all right enough; it sets -unevenly, and is otherwise off color; but nobody will ever know the -difference after it’s in place in the bottom of the river.” - -For a moment the air of the small bunk shack became stifling and David -Vallory got up and went to stand in the doorway. When he turned back -to Shubrick it was to say: “Then the whole thing was a frame-up, was -it?--to enable us to work off a cheaper grade of Portland in a place -where it couldn’t show up?” - -“Of course it was. We have to play even when we can.” - -“But I had that shipment analyzed myself. I sent samples of it to the -university.” - -“Then you took your samples from the wrong sacks, that’s all. I’m using -the stuff in the caisson, and I guess I know what I’m talking about. -It’s punk.” - -“If that is so, why haven’t the railroad people found it out in a -second test?” - -“That’s easy. This time Congdon was right on the job and saw to it that -they got the proper kind of samples. You needn’t look so horrified; -the bridge isn’t going to tumble down.” - -But more important things than bridges were tumbling down in David -Vallory’s heart and mind at that moment. When a young man has grown up -in an ethical atmosphere the first broad step toward the unethical is -apt to be subversive of a good many preconceived ideas and standards. -After a time he said: - -“Shubrick, the frame-up wasn’t altogether on the railroad people. Part -of it was on me.” - -“That’s easy, too,” said the older man. “Grimsby was merely trying -to provide you with a good, stout _alibi_; to leave you a nice, -respectable hole to crawl out of in case there should be any future to -the thing. But if you’re really stirred up about it, you are foolish. -Things like that are done every day. We are fighting for our own hand. -The Golden Rule is pretty to look at, but it doesn’t hold water in -business.” - -“You’re taking the ground that we are dealing with a condition and not -with principles of right and wrong?” - -“Precisely. A man has got to be loyal to something, Vallory: I’m -loyal to my bread and butter; so, too, in the long run, are you, and -ninety-nine other men out of a hundred. Possibly it digs a little -deeper with you. Haven’t I heard you say that you’d willingly go -a mile or so out of your way where Mr. Grillage’s interests are -concerned?--that it was up to you to take long shifts or hard ones, or -anything else that came up?” - -“You have.” - -“There it is, then. No man living has ever been able to draw the -line absolute between ethical right and wrong and lay it down as a -mathematical axiom. I’ll put it up to you. If you are a fanatical -crank your duty is plain. You know the inside of this cement deal, and -you can show it up if you feel like it and make it cost the Grillage -Engineering Company a pot of money. But you are not going to do any -such asinine and ungrateful thing--you know you’re not. What you’ll do -will be to tell yourself that the particular grade of Portland used is -strictly a matter of opinion between our staff and the railroad’s, and -let it go at that.” - -It is altogether improbable that Warner Shubrick regarded himself as in -any sense an _advocatus diaboli_; and it might be even farther afield -to suppose that Grimsby had given him a hint to safeguard the cement -fraud by trying to justify it for his shack-mate. None the less, the -seed was sown and a new point of view was opened for David Vallory. -Given time to wear itself out, the natural indignation arising upon -the discovery that he had been used as a tool in Grimsby’s small plot -became gradually transmuted into something quite different. Shubrick, -in declaring that a man must be loyal to something, labeled a solvent -which has dissolved much fine gold in the human laboratory. The -transition from loyalty to an ideal to loyalty to a cause is not so -violent as it may seem. Hence, it need not be written down as a miracle -that, in proportion as the ideals withdrew, there grew up in David -Vallory a blind determination to be loyal, first, to his salt. - -It was in a letter to his father, written at the end of this same month -of March, that the newer viewpoint got itself set forth in words. - -“I didn’t know what a cramped little circle I’d been trotting around -in all my life until I came up here,” he wrote. “You have to go up -against the real thing in the world fight before you can get your ideas -straightened out, and give things their proper relative values. The -university did nothing for me in that respect, and the Government job -in Florida was a mere anæsthetic. But here I’m doing a man’s work, and -carrying a man’s responsibility. I know you won’t take it as a brag if -I say to you, Dad, that I’ve grown more in the nine months that I’ve -been at Coulee du Sac than I did in the nine years before that. For -the first time in my experience I’m beginning to be able to peep out -over the edge of things, and to grab hold while the grabbing is good. -Incidentally, I’m learning what it means to be loyal to a man who has -been loyal to me and mine, and I know it will please you when I say -that I’ve been able, now and then, to work off a little of the big debt -of gratitude we owe to Mr. Grillage. - -“Ordinarily, I should suppose, Mr. Grillage doesn’t trouble himself to -keep tab on the many apprentice engineers that he has scattered around -on his numerous contracts, but I’ve had more than a hint that he looks -my way, now and then. Only yesterday Grimsby was telling me in his -sort of bitter way that he guessed the big boss was grooming me for -something better than I have now. While I’m well enough satisfied with -my present billet, I’m not married to it so that Mr. Grillage couldn’t -divorce me. Anyway, here’s hoping.” - -It was only a short fortnight after the writing of this home letter -that David was summoned to Chicago by a telegram from the king of the -contractors, and he went with a light heart, half forecasting another -promotion. Also, he was soberly jubilant over the thought that, by some -happy conjunction of the lucky planets, he might again be permitted to -divide time, at least for one evening, with Virginia Grillage’s retinue -of court-payers. - - - - -VII - -A Reward of Merit - - -It was after city office hours when David Vallory reached Chicago, -arriving in obedience to the telegram from headquarters, and he was -preparing to go to a hotel for the night when a brisk young fellow -in livery singled him out to ask his name and to tell him that Mr. -Grillage’s car had been sent for him. In the waiting automobile, to his -unbounded surprise and delight, he found Miss Virginia. The lapse of -something over a year had only made her more ravishingly beautiful in -David’s eyes, and his welcome was all that he could ask--and more. - -“You ought to feel highly honored,” she said, making room for him in -the limousine. “I ran away from a houseful of people to come in town -for you.” And then, lest he should be too unreasonably happy: “It is -_so_ good to be reminded of dear, old, study Middleboro again!” - -“I wish to goodness I might remind you of something besides -Middleboro,” David complained, laughing; “of myself, for example, or -Palm Beach, or--well, in fact, almost anything. Do you realize that it -is over a year since we last met?” - -“I do, indeed. Also, I realize that you have never, by any chance, -written a line or happened to come to Chicago at any time when I’ve -been at home. Or perhaps you’ve been here and didn’t think it worth -while to let me know.” - -“Nothing like it,” said David, matching her mood. “I haven’t been in -the city since your father sent me to Coulee du Sac, unless you count -the car-changing times when I went home at Christmas. You don’t realize -that I have become a workingman since I left the Government service. I -have, and I’ve had a laudable ambition to stick to the job and earn my -wages honestly.” Then, as the car began threading its way through the -traffic to the northward: “Where are you taking me?” - -“Home, of course; to The Maples.” - -“To the houseful of people? I shall disgrace you.” - -“No clothes?” she suggested, with a smile that made him tingle to his -finger-tips. - -“Absolutely nothing to wear!” - -“How shocking! But never mind; I shall tell them all that they are -lucky not to have you in overalls and mining-boots--or don’t you wear -mining-boots on bridges? However, you needn’t worry; you won’t have any -chance to be social, unless it’s at dinner. Father will monopolize you.” - -“What is he going to do to me; fire me?” - -The limousine had reached the northward lake drive, and the king’s -daughter pressed the bell-push for more speed. “Dinner will be -waiting,” she explained. Then she answered his question. “It’s a -perfectly profound secret, of course, but I really believe you _are_ -going to be ‘fired.’” - -“That is a nice, comforting thing to be told--just before dinner!” he -laughed. “But my obsequies are of no special consequence; tell me about -yourself. Is the English lord still hovering upon the horizon?” - -“Cumberleigh? What do you know about him?” - -“Oh, nothing much; I merely heard last summer that you were going to -marry him.” - -“When I do, you shall have a handsomely engraved invitation to the -wedding--for the sake of the past-and-gone kiddie times in old -Middleboro. Won’t that console you?” - -“I am consoled speechless. Weddings and funerals always affect me that -way, and the Cumberleigh occasion will be both, from my point of view.” - -There were some miles of this light-hearted foolishness; brief miles, -to be sure, since the big limousine was both powerful and speedy. -At the end of the miles the car turned in past the gate lodge of a -lakeside estate, an establishment princely in extent, landscaping and -architecture; and the gap which a disparity of worldly possessions digs -between hope and fruition suddenly yawned wide for David Vallory. - -“Why the sphynxian silence?” inquired the princess of the -magnificences, gibing amiably at David’s lapse into speechlessness. - -“Too much money,” he returned half playfully, waving an arm to include -the display of the Grillage fortune. “I was just wondering what it -means to you, individually.” - -“I have often wondered, myself,” was the half musing rejoinder. -“Sometimes I think it means a lot. It grips one that way, now and -again. But there are other times when I’m simply obliged to run away -from it, just to convince myself that I’m not one of the lay figures in -the stage-setting. Can you understand that?” - -Her answer gave David another of the ecstatic little thrills. It was -not the first time that she had let him see that the quick-witted, -clear-sighted girl-child of his boyish adulation had been only -overlaid, and not spoiled, by the lavishnesses. - -“I think I understand it perfectly,” he assured her. “Money, in and of -itself, is nothing. It is only a means to an end.” - -The limousine was stopping under the carriage entrance of the great -house and they had but a moment more of the comradely isolation. It was -the young woman who seized and made use of it. - -“I hope you will always remember that, David--and let it be clean -money,” she said soberly; and then, with a quick return to the playful -mood: “Here we are, just in time for dinner. I shall introduce you to -the houseful as my cradle-brother--may I?--and after dinner you may go -your way with father and get yourself properly ‘fired.’” - -Drawing pretty heavily upon the simplicities, David won through -the social preliminaries without calling any marked attention to -himself. Miss Virginia’s “houseful” made an even dozen at the rather -resplendent dinner-table, and the naïvely inquisitive young wife of an -elderly stock-broker, who was David’s elbow companion, and who kept -him busy answering childish questions about his profession, saved him -from particularizing too curiously as to the others, though he was -observant enough to note that none of the many competitors he had had -at Palm Beach was among them. At the table dispersal he found himself -at once in the clutches of the master of the house. - -“Come on into my den and we’ll break away from all this hullaballoo,” -growled the king of the man-drivers; and when the coveted privacy -was secured: “Pull up a chair and smoke. You’ll find cigars in that -sponge-box, or pipes and tobacco on the mantel. How did you leave the -bridge?” - -“We are working on the closing span, and two months more ought to see -the rails down and the trains running over them,” David reported, -settling himself in a deep chair with one of the long-stemmed pipes. -“Now that the cold weather is over, there is nothing to hold us back.” - -“Lose much concrete in the freezing?” - -“No; very little. We used your idea of tarpaulin coverings and a -perforated steam-pipe and saved practically every yard we put in place. -There was some little kicking on the part of the inspectors, but we got -by with nearly all of it.” - -“Huh!” grunted the big man. “A bunch of inspectors wouldn’t be happy if -they couldn’t find something to kick about! That’ll do for the bridge. -We’ll call it a back-number for you and pass it up. I’ve been letting -you alone at Coulee du Sac; wanted to see what you were going to make -of yourself--what you were made of.” - -“I hope I haven’t disappointed you too badly,” David ventured. - -“You haven’t; if you had, you wouldn’t be here to-night. Now then; are -you ready to tackle something a good deal bigger than an assistant’s -job on a concrete bridge?” - -“I’ll tackle anything you give me; though I’m not asking you to push me -any faster or farther than the good of the service will warrant.” - -“Don’t you lose any sleep over that,” was the gruff retort. “You’ll -never get any plums from me merely because you happen to be Adam -Vallory’s son. For that matter, the shoe’s on the other foot. I’m -thinking about giving you a hard job--a damned hard job. What do you -know about the Nevada Short Line new-alignment project out in the -Timanyoni country?” - -David shook his head in token that he knew little. - -“Practically nothing more than the technical articles in the -engineering journals have told me.” - -“Well, it’s a right sizable job, and we have the contract. We had a -fellow named Lushing out there as chief, but I had to let him go.” - -“Incompetent?” said David. - -“No; competent as the very devil. But he welshed; let himself be bought -up by the railroad company.” - -“How was that?” - -“Just plain crooked; gave us the double-cross; chummed in with the -railroad staff; took favors, and all that. Any time he wanted a special -to run down to Brewster for a night off, he got it--and we paid for it.” - -Having his recent experience in mind, David Vallory understood -perfectly. With a man of the Lushing type in charge as chief -constructing engineer there would naturally be no cutting of corners on -the hard-and-fast specifications; no saving of money for the Grillage -treasury. - -“It seems to me that plain business loyalty is one of the things you -buy, or ought to buy, with the salaries you pay,” was his disposal of -the Lushing case. - -“Lushing is a fise-dog, and he has proved it by going over to the -railroad engineering staff as chief inspector,” rasped the man-driver. -“What do you think about that?--going over to the other side and -carrying with him all the information that his job with us had given -him?” - -David was by this time sufficiently partisan to lose sight of the fact -that a discharged man might be excused for taking the first place that -might offer. - -“It was unprofessional, to say the least,” was his comment. - -“There was more to it than that, but we needn’t go into the -contemptible whys and wherefores,” Grillage went on, with a portentous -frown. “I let him out, and for a month or more we’ve been rocking along -without a chief--and with a man against us who knows all the tricks of -the trade. I’ve called you in to ask if you think you are big enough to -swing the job and hold up our end of the pole. Grimsby says you are.” - -David Vallory gasped. It was a tremendous promotion for a young man -less than four years out of college, and he was wise enough to discount -his lack of experience. - -“I am only an apprentice, as you might say, Mr. Grillage, and many a -man with my equipment, or more, is still carrying a transit,” he said, -after a momentary pause for the breath-catching. “But I’m going to -leave it with you. If you think I am equal to it, I can only say that -I’ll do my level best not to disappoint you.” - -The big man’s laugh was like the creaking of a rusty door-hinge. - -“You’re modest, David, and that isn’t the worst thing that can happen -to a young fellow in his beginnings. But I’ve been keeping cases on -you, and I go a good deal on what Grimsby says. He gives you a good -send-off; says you know the engineering game, and can keep your head -and handle men. The Timanyoni job won’t ask for much more, unless -it’s a little of this loyalty you talk about. If you need an older -head, you’ll have Plegg, who’s been first assistant on the job since -it began. Plegg has the age and the experience, and you can lean on -him for everything but initiative--which is the one thing he hasn’t -got. Now we’ll get down to the lay-out,” and he took a huge roll -of blue-prints from its case and began a brittle outlining of the -realignment project in the Hophra Mountains. - -David Vallory, still a trifle dazed by the suddenness and magnitude -of the promotion, bent over the drawings and became a sponge to soak -up the details. In the construction of the Nevada Short Line over the -Hophras in the day of the great gold discoveries, haste had been the -watch-word of the builders. With the golden lure ahead to put a premium -upon speed, the engineers had eliminated cuts, fills and tunnels, so -far as possible, and had made the line climb by a series of reversed -curves and heavy grades to the surmounting of the obstacle mountain -range at Hophra Pass. - -Now, since the Short Line had become an integral part of the -far-reaching P. S-W. system, a campaign of distance-shortening and -grade-reducing had been inaugurated. There were bridges to be built, -hills to be cut through, tunnels to be driven. Powder Can, a mining -town nestling in the shadow of the mountains, was the center of the -activities, but the work extended for some miles in either direction -from the town, with the heaviest of the hill-cutting and tunnel-driving -climaxing in the big bore which was to form the needle’s eye for the -threading of the mountain range. - -Again modestly discounting his lack of experience, David Vallory was -doubtful of his ability to plan and carry out such a vast undertaking -from its inception. But the trail was already broken for him, and he -had only to walk in the technical footsteps of his predecessors. And -with a good assistant who had been familiar with the work from the -first, this should be comparatively easy. - -“I’m your man, Mr. Grillage,” he said, after the maps and plans had -been duly considered. “I’ll lean on Plegg, as you suggest, and give you -the best there is in me. I’ll say frankly that I don’t believe I’m big -enough yet to swing a thing like this as a new proposition. But with -the lay-out all made and the work in progress, I ought to be able to -pick it up and carry it to the finish.” - -“That’s up to you,” said the big man shortly. “You may take this set -of blue-prints with you and check yourself into the job on your way -to Colorado. Grimsby says you’re good for the engineering end of it, -and I’m taking his word for that. But there is another angle that you -mustn’t lose sight of. It is a big job, and there were half a dozen -bidders. We had to cut mighty close to get in, and any bad breaks on -our part are going to shove the profits over to the other side of the -books and write ’em down in red ink.” - -“There mustn’t be any bad breaks; that’s all there is to that part of -it,” said David, with youthful dogmatism. - -“That’s the talk. And more than that, we must shave all the foolish -frills out of the specifications. You know how that goes, or, if you -don’t, Matt Grimsby hasn’t done his duty by you. On a job like this the -railroad engineers would have us gold-plate every spike we drive, if -they could. You’ve been in the contracting business long enough now to -know what I mean.” - -David made the sign of assent without prejudice to any of the standards -of uprightness and fair play, the undermining of which he was still -far from suspecting in his own case. - -“I shall be working for the Grillage Engineering Company, first, last -and all the time,” he asserted. “The company’s business is my business, -and I haven’t any other.” - -At this, the contractor-king’s gruffness fell away from him as if it -were a displaced mask. - -“There spoke your father, David, and a better man never lived. I was -only trying you out a while back when I said that you needn’t look for -the plums just because you happen to be Adam Vallory’s son. After you -get a little farther up the ladder and find that you have to depend on -the man or men lower down, you’ll be willing to pay high for a little -personal loyalty of the sort that looks an inch or two beyond the next -pay-day. I’m putting you right where I’d put a son of my own, if I had -one, out yonder in the Timanyoni country, boy--and for the same reason. -I want to have somebody on the job that I can bank on and swear by.” - -It was the one touch needed to put the fragrant flower of personal -relationship upon the juggler-grown tree of promotion. David Vallory -was still young enough to take the oath of allegiance without -reservations to any master strong enough and generous enough to -command his loyalty, and Eben Grillage could have found no surer way to -light the fires of blind, unreckoning fealty. - -“A little less than a year ago, Mr. Grillage, you loaded me with the -heaviest obligation a man can carry. You are adding to it now by giving -me a boost big enough to make a much older man light-headed. I’d be a -mighty poor sort of a son to Dad if I didn’t----” - -“Never mind the obligations,” the master broke in, with a return to the -brittle abruptness. “There is an old saying that the quickest way to -make an enemy of a man is to do him a favor. If it isn’t working out -that way in your case, why, so much the better. Now you may go back -to the dinner people, if you want to. I’ve got to dictate a bunch of -letters.” And the king of the contractors jabbed his square-ended thumb -on a push-button to summon his secretary. - - - - -VIII - -Out of the Past - - -Dismissed from the presence of the hard-bitted maker of destinies, -David Vallory--not being a devotee of bridge--spent little enough of -what was left of the evening in the manner in which he most wished -to spend it. But at the end of things, when hope deferred was about -to fold its wings and go to bed, Miss Virginia gave her place at the -second whist table to the elderly broker’s juvenile wife, and David had -the reward which comes to those who only stand and wait. - -“Well, have you been dishonorably discharged?” she asked, after they -had passed out of earshot of the card players. - -“I imagine you know a lot more than I can tell you about it,” he -bubbled happily. “I’m to take an early train to-morrow morning and -vanish, disappear, fade into the western horizon.” - -“Are you sorry--or glad?” - -“Both. I’ve had a promotion so whaling big that it makes my head swim. -But the place of it is a mighty long jump from Chicago.” - -“You didn’t make any use of the nearness of Chicago while you had it -at Coulee du Sac,” she cavilled. Then: “Are you starting west without -going to see your father and sister?” - -“I was with them Christmas, as I told you. And I have a plan which -has been simmering while I was waiting for you to get tired of the -whist-game. If the living accommodations in the Timanyoni country are -at all possible, I shall send for Dad and Lucille a little later in the -season.” - -“The accommodations are very good. There is a small summer-resort hotel -with cottages on the ridge opposite Powder Can.” - -“You have been there?” David asked. - -“Once; for a few weeks last summer, or rather early in the autumn, when -the work was just starting. But won’t that be a rather violent change -for your father and sister?--from sleepy old Middleboro to the heart of -the Rockies?” - -“Possibly. But there are reasons for believing that it will be -beneficial all around. Dad isn’t entirely well. His heart was never -in the banking business to any great extent, but just the same, the -breaking up of all the old routine is hard for him. A complete change -will do him no end of good.” - -“You said ‘reasons’, and that is only one.” - -“There is another. How much do you remember about my sister, Lucille?” - -“Only that she is blind, and perfectly angelic, and the most delicately -beautiful child that ever breathed.” - -“She is all those things yet--only more so. Do you remember Bert -Oswald?” - -“Oh, yes; quite well. He is a lawyer now, isn’t he?” - -“Even so. Worse than that, he is in love with Lucille, and--er--I’m -very much afraid she is with him--entirely without realizing it, you -know. It’s a pitiful misfortune for both of them. Of course, Lucille -can never marry.” - -“Why do you say ‘of course’?” - -“With her affliction? She doesn’t dream of such a thing! Herbert has -been very decent about it. I put him on his guard last summer before I -left Middleboro, and he hasn’t spoken--yet. But a day may come when he -will speak, and then, as I have told him, there will be trouble and a -lot of needless wretchedness. That’s why I want to get Dad and sister -away from Middleboro. If they are not where Bert can drop in every few -minutes, it will be different.” - -For a time the daughter of profitable contracts did not comment on -the plan, but when she did there was a touch of her father’s shrewd -directness in her manner. - -“You are the most frightfully cold-blooded person I’ve ever met,” she -told him. “If you had ever been in love yourself you wouldn’t talk so -calmly about separating these two. What if Lucille is blind? There -have been blind wives, and blind husbands, for that matter, since the -beginning of time. You’re hard-hearted.” - -“No,” said David; “I am only trying to be the right kind of a -brother--as I have tried to be ever since that black day years ago when -old Doctor Brown told us that the little sister would never see again. -And your argument falls down at the other end, too. You say, if I had -ever been in love myself.... That has already happened to me, Virginia.” - -Her laugh was deliciously care free. “And you have never told me!” she -mocked. “Does she live in Middleboro?--or maybe it’s Florida. Or have -you broken all the traditions by keeping faith with a college widow?” - -“No, she doesn’t live in Middleboro or in Florida, and I am very -certain she has never been a college widow. It’s only a pipe-dream for -me as yet, but some day----” - -“Some day she will grow tired of waiting and marry somebody else,” was -the brisk retort. “Is she pretty?” - -“No; that isn’t the word at all.” - -“Beautiful, then?” - -“So beautiful that I can’t be with her without going fairly dotty.” - -Again she laughed derisively. - -“You seem to have all the symptoms, and really I didn’t believe it of -you, David. You have always seemed so solid and sensible.” - -“I am both,” he boasted gravely. Then in a quick shift to safer ground: -“You told me once that you enjoyed going out on the work with your -father--is there any chance that you may come to the Timanyoni this -summer?” - -“Maybe. I liked it when I was out there last year--for some things.” - -“And for some other things you didn’t? What were they?” - -“I’d rather not talk about them. But there was one thing.... Do you -know anything about Powder Can?” - -“Less than nothing beyond what your father has just told me. He says -it’s a mining-camp.” - -“It is worse than the usual mining-camp, or it was when I saw it. It is -the only place where the workmen can go to spend their pay, and you -know what that would mean.” - -“I can visualize it pretty well; whiskey, dance-halls and gambling -dens, and all that.” - -“Yes. We saw little of it at the hotel; the Inn is quite a distance -from the town and on the other side of the river. But once I went there -with--with a man. I didn’t know where he was taking me--or us; there -was a party of us from the hotel, you know; slummers, you’d call us.” - -“I don’t know the man, but he ought to have been murdered,” said David. - -“Something like that, yes,” she said. “But that wasn’t what I meant -to speak about particularly. One of the places where he tried to take -us--only we wouldn’t go in--was a dance-hall. There was a girl at the -piano; I could see her from where I was standing on the sidewalk. She -was beautiful, David, and it made my heart ache to see her in such a -place.” - -“You should never have seen her,” said David hotly. “I’ve been trying -to imagine the kind of man who would take you to such a place as that!” - -“He isn’t worth imagining,” she asserted quietly. “But I was speaking -of the girl. She was playing for the dancers, you know, and just in the -little minute that we were standing there, a big quarryman broke out -of the circle and--and put his arm around her neck. It was horrible. -She fought like a tiger, but the man was too strong for her. He struck -her ... with his fist.” - -David shook his head. “Why are you making yourself remember all this? -It’s just painful, and it can’t do any good. It was a shame that you -had to see it.” - -“That is foolish,” she reproved gravely. “We are not living in the -Victorian age, David, and the shame wasn’t in my seeing it. The dancing -stopped, of course, and the men in our party, or some of them, rushed -in and interfered. The girl was carried out; the brute’s blow had -knocked her senseless. She was taken home and we did what we could for -her. The next day I went to see her.” - -“That was like you, Virginia, only----” - -“Only what?” - -“I won’t say that you ought not to have done it; you know best about -that; but----” - -“I had to go, David. There was a--a sort of obligation, you know. She -was one of our Middleboro girls. I didn’t know her, but I remembered -seeing her as a little thing. Perhaps you knew her; her name is Judith -Fallon.” - -If a bomb had been suddenly exploded under David Vallory he could -scarcely have been more completely unnerved and shaken. They were -sitting in a window alcove a little apart from the bridge players, and -the looped-back curtains dimmed the lights in some measure--for which -he was thankful. But Virginia Grillage seemed not to have noticed his -gasping start at the mention of Judith’s name, and she went on soberly. - -“As I say, I had to go, and I found that things were not quite as bad -as they seemed--though they were bad enough. The girl had lately lost -her mother, and she was keeping house in a little three-room shack -for her father, a mechanic in the Murtrie Mine. I didn’t see him, -of course, but from what Judith said I gathered that he had taken -to drinking after the mother’s death. You’d say he must have gotten -pretty low, to let his daughter earn money by playing the piano in a -dance-hall.” - -David recalled the John Fallon he had known; a rough-cast, unlettered -man, but a skilled mechanic and thrifty. - -“I knew him well,” he said; adding: “There was some trouble--family -trouble, I think--before the Fallons moved away from Middleboro. I -heard something about it when I was home for Christmas.” - -“It’s the conditions in Powder Can,” she averred; “and for those the -new work on the railroad is responsible--an army of workmen with money -to throw away. Judith, and probably her father, are neither better nor -worse than other people with their point of view. It isn’t fair to such -people to permit the conditions.” - -“I quite agree with you,” he rejoined hastily. “I don’t know how much I -shall be able to do, as chief of construction, but from what you have -been telling me it is evident that this plague spot right at our doors -ought to be cleaned up with a strong hand.” - -“Does that mean that you are going to reform things out there, David?” - -“Whatever needs reforming, yes; if I can.” - -“I wish you might say that and mean it, knowing all that it implies,” -she returned, half musingly. - -“What does it imply?” - -The card players were rising, and there was a sputtering rapid-fire of -motors in the driveway. - -“That,” she said slowly, “is something you must find out for yourself, -if you can--and will. Now I must go. People will want to be telling -me what an exquisite time they’ve had. You say you are leaving early -in the morning? Then I will say good-night and good-by. The hall man -will show you your room. Give my love to your father and sister when -you write, and don’t, for pity’s sake, drag them away out yonder to the -ragged edge of nowhere!” - - - - -IX - -Silas Plegg - - -Powder Gap, a hill-studded basin where the Powder River, leaping down -from the high watershed of the upper range, gathers itself for the -swift rush to its emptying into the Timanyoni forty miles away, lies -like a half-closed hand in a gorge of the Hophras, with the upturned -fingers and thumb postulating the surrounding majesties of mountain -peaks, and the forested hills and ridges figuring as the callouses in -the palm. - -At the foot of one of the callouses lies the mining hamlet of Powder -Can; once, in the day of the early mineral discoveries, a plangent, -strident nucleus of excitement, but--in the phrase of its oldest -inhabitant--a “has-been” at the time of David Vallory’s advent, with -a few deep shafts and winding drifts out of which day-laborers, -unenthusiastic successors of the early discoverers and plungers, -winched or wheeled a few monthly car-loads of low-grade ore. - -In some measure the Nevada Short Line’s track-changing activities had -brought a return of the plangencies. Scattered construction camps with -their armies of workmen dotted the basin above and below the mining -town, and once more saloons and dance-halls and gambling places sprang -up and did a thriving business on real pay-roll money. Eben Grillage’s -attitude toward these absorbents of the money he paid out for labor had -ever been that of the closed eye. To all appeals for the betterment of -conditions in the humanitarian field he had a stereotyped reply: “The -Grillage Engineering Company is strictly an industrial proposition. It -does not undertake to say how its employees shall spend their time or -their money when they are off duty.” - -On the summit of a ridge diagonally opposite Powder Can the prospective -millionaires of the mining-camp had, in the day of magnificent -expectations, laid out a suburb for the future city, and in token of -their faith in the future had built a log-house hotel with appropriate -cottages. For some years after the collapse of the mining boom the -hotel had remained closed; but with the nearer approach of the railroad -it was reopened, with a few families from Brewster as the groundwork of -the guest structure, and some small sprinkling of tourists to come and -go during the season. - -For a month or more after his arrival in the Hophra basin, David -Vallory saw little of Powder Can the town, and still less of the -log-built inn on the top of the adjacent ridge. New to every phase -of the track-changing project, he had scant time even for eating and -sleeping. At a dozen different points on the new location the work was -driving at top speed; here and there bridges in process of construction -over the swift mountain stream; numerous hill cuttings where great -steam-shovels clashed their gears and chains from shift to shift -throughout the twenty-four-hour days; prodigious fills growing foot by -foot with the dumped spoil from the cuttings; and, last but by no means -least, the projected tunnel under Powder Pass which was inching its way -from both sides of the mountain in gigantic worm-gnawings through the -granite. - -During this strenuous preliminary period in which he was striving to -gather the multiplicity of working threads into his hands, David lived -in the bunk trains and mess tents, getting in touch with the various -units of the laboring armies, and absorbing the details as a thirsty -dog laps water. To his great satisfaction he found his staff largely -composed of young men eager to make a record; eager, also, to pledge -fealty to a chief who was himself young enough to be still in the -process of winning his spurs. Plegg, the first assistant, was the -single exception to the youth of the staff. He was a man of middle -age, and at their first meeting David was struck with a vague sense -of familiarity; an elusive impression that he had somewhere in the -memory files a picture of the senior assistant’s weathered face, with -its clipped beard, shrewd eyes and thin-lipped mouth about which a -half-cynical smile played so often and so easily as to become almost an -added feature. - -“Have we ever met before, Mr. Plegg?” he had asked, at that first -meeting; and the mildly sardonic smile had immediately fallen into -broader lines. - -“Once, Mr. Vallory; on a fine June morning nearly a year ago. It was -in a Pullman sleeper, back in God’s country; and, if I recall it -correctly, I told you you would go far if you were not too good. You -are fulfilling my little prophecy very handsomely; and incidentally -we are both proving the truth of that old bromide about the extreme -narrowness of the world we live in. I’m glad to have you for my chief.” - -It was Silas Plegg who did the most toward helping the new chief in -the absorbing of the details, and David Vallory early acquired a great -and growing respect for the technical gifts of his first assistant. -The organization of the engineering staff, and of the rank and file, -was fairly geniusful, the hand of a master being evident in every -disposition of the huge working army. David weighed and measured, -studied and observed; and at the end of the preliminary month was ready -to give credit where credit was due. - -“Plegg, you are too good an engineer to be anybody’s assistant,” he -said, one evening after they had finished a round of the night-shift -activities and had returned to the cramped quarters of the small bunk -car which they shared together. “Why didn’t Mr. Grillage give you this -job after Lushing quit?” - -Plegg’s smile was grim. - -“If I were really as cynical as you think I am, I might hint that -possibly Mr. Grillage had a young man in his eye whom he wished to give -a shove up the ladder. But I’ll stand it upon another leg. Mr. Eben -Grillage is an excellent judge of men; and he knows me of old.” - -David shook his head. - -“That ought to be your very best recommendation. What have you ever -done to make him pass you up in the promotion scheme?” - -“It was something that my ancestors did--if you believe in heredity. -They gave me the qualities of a good follower and neglected to include -the saving moiety of leadership--that’s all. But speaking of Mr. -Grillage; did you know he is on his way out here?” - -David had not known it and he said so. “How did you hear?” he asked. - -“Such news always travels ahead of a man of Mr. Grillage’s importance -in the scheme of things. I heard it from one of the clerks at the Alta -Vista Inn. The big boss has wired ahead for a double suite.” - -The double suite could mean only one thing, and David’s pulses -quickened after the most approved fashion of pulses in such case made -and provided. - -“He is bringing Miss Virginia with him?” he queried. - -“Most likely. She chums with her father a good bit--when she isn’t too -busy otherwise. Ever meet her?” - -David Vallory admitted the fact affirmative but did not dilate upon it. - -“She is a pretty good little engineer, herself,” Plegg went on. “She -was out here last fall, and it was whispered around at the Inn that -Lushing had the colossal nerve to make love to her.” - -“But that wasn’t the reason why he was dropped?” said David, willing to -learn something more of the rise and fall of his predecessor. - -“Nobody knows; but it may have had some bearing. Mr. Grillage never -had much use for Lushing as a man, but he was--and is--a cracking good -organizer; a man who could squeeze a profit out of a job on a bid that -had driven every other contractor out of the field. It was a fairly -open secret around here last fall that Miss Virginia turned him down -hard; and after that he began to sell us out to the railroad company. -Basing the notion upon the Inn gossip about him and Miss Virginia, our -fellows were not slow to charge his treason to pure vindictiveness.” - -David Vallory was wiser now than he had been when he began as a working -assistant on the Coulee du Sac bridge. - -“What did he have to sell, Plegg?” he asked. - -Plegg closed one eye and his habitual smile showed his strong, even -teeth. - -“Little tricks of the trade,” he answered obliquely. “You are the chief -on the job now, and if you don’t know what they are, you can say that -you don’t, and swear to it.” - -“You mean that we are not giving the railroad company a square deal?” - -Again Plegg’s reply took the diagonal instead of the direct line. - -“We are giving them all they are paying us for. Of course, they are -not satisfied; no party of the first part in a contracting deal ever -is. And now that Lushing has gone over to their side of the fence, -we’ve had trouble on top of trouble. If you’ll take a word of advice -from an older man and a subordinate, you’ll stay out of it. In fact, I -think that is what Mr. Grillage expects you to do.” - -At the moment, David did not attach any special importance to this -remark of Plegg’s about Mr. Grillage’s attitude. But if he could have -turned the leaves of the book of days backward to the night of his stay -at the lakeside mansion of the lavishnesses, the explanation would have -synchronized itself quite accurately with his retreat to his room in -The Maples and the departure of the last of the bridge-playing dinner -guests. - -At the door-closing upon the final couple, Miss Virginia had sought -her father in his den. By this time the private secretary had been -dismissed and the king of the contractors was alone. - -“Hello, Vinnie, girl!” he rumbled. “Come to tell the old daddy -good-night?” - -“Partly,” was the crisp rejoinder. “But mostly it’s about David. You -have decided to send him to the Timanyoni, in spite of my little -protest?” - -Eben Grillage’s laugh resembled nothing so much as the rasping of -circular saws, but he meant it to be good-natured. He could hold no -other attitude toward the daughter whom David, in his talk with his -father, had characterized as the apple of his eye. - -“You women are too much for me, Vinnie. You like David, and you want -to see him get ahead. But when I hunt out a good place for him, you -suddenly take a notion that you don’t want him to have it. What’s the -particular reason?” - -It was at this point that the young woman had taken a chair at the -opposite side of the broad working table where she sat facing her -father. - -“If I thought I could make you understand,” she said, half musingly. -And then: “I do like David and I respect him. It seems such a needless -pity to spoil him, don’t you think?” - -“What do you mean by spoiling him?” - -“You know perfectly well what I mean. He has his own ideas of -uprightness and common honesty--or he did have them before he went to -work for the company--and they are the right ideas. How long is he -going to be able to keep them if you put him in charge of the work in -Powder Gap and make him responsible for all the crooked things that are -being done?” - -“That’s a pretty hard word to fling at your old daddy, Vinnie. Has it -reached the point where you can call your father’s business crooked? If -I had known that the colleges were going to put that kind of a fad into -your head, they wouldn’t have got any of my money--not in a thousand -years.” - -She shook the head in question despairingly. - -“How often must I say that it wasn’t the colleges. It is in the air. -A new era is dawning, if we only had eyes to see and ears to hear. As -a people we had forgotten that there was such a thing as an American -conscience. Some of us are remembering now.” - -“Some few impractical college professors and fanatics are making -mountains out of molehills!” was the grumbling retort. “You mustn’t -be foolish, Vinnie, girl. Competition is the life of trade, and -competition means a fight. If we don’t do the other fellow--within -reasonable business limits, of course--he’ll do us, and we’ll all go to -the poor-farm.” - -“We have been over all that before, many times,” said the young woman, -with a touch of weariness in her tone. “I don’t ever hope to make you -see it as I do--as I can’t help seeing it--but I shouldn’t be your -daughter and a Grillage if I refused to make a fight for David.” - -For some little time the grizzled giant in the wide-armed chair made -no reply. He had picked up a paper-knife and was absently passing it -through his thick, square-ended fingers in the manner of one testing -the keenness of an edged tool. Finally he said: “Is David the man, -Vinnie?” - -She did not affect to misunderstand him. - -“There isn’t any ‘the man’ yet. I like the grown-up David, partly -because he has kept the promise of the little-boy David, and partly -because he is so different from the others. He needs an alert, -wide-awake sister to look after him much more than he does a wife. -Besides, he’s already in love with--some girl.” - -The father’s chuckle was good-naturedly derisive. - -“That’s sheer girl-talk--the sisterly business, and the other--and it -isn’t like you to try to throw dust, Vinnie. We’ll clear the air in -that quarter, once for all. I haven’t any objections. David’s a good -boy; a good son of a mighty good father. If he inherits some of Adam’s -finicky notions, I suppose that can’t be helped. He’s as poor as Job’s -turkey, but I can make him a rich man for you if you don’t insist on -chucking too many stones in front of the wheels. You can’t marry a -poor man, you know; you haven’t been brought up right.” - -It was just here that the daughter of profitable contracts showed her -first touch of warmth. - -“You have some other reason for sending David to the work in Powder -Gap,” she said accusingly. “You know you have always made it your boast -that you never mix business and sentiment.” - -“Maybe this was one time when business and sentiment happened to trot -in double harness”--with a grim smile. “If you’re figuring on being a -contracting engineer’s wife some time, you’ll have to throw away some -of your highbrow college notions and get down to the practical things. -One way and another, we’ve been getting in Dutch with the railroad -people out yonder on the Short Line. You know that, don’t you?” - -“I know there has been quarreling almost from the beginning.” - -“Well, Ford, the president of the P. S-W. system, contends that we have -a set of crooks in charge out there--this in spite of the fact that -some understrapper of his on the ground has hired Lushing, the biggest -of the crooks. Ford knows David’s family, and the straight-backed -honest old stock there is in the Vallorys. I’m killing two birds with -one cartridge. With Adam Vallory’s boy in charge for us at Powder Gap, -Ford may rest easier, and maybe he’ll make it a little easier for us. -And, by giving David his boost, I’m fixing it so you won’t have to -marry a poor man.” - -“I’m not talking about marrying; I’m talking about the soul of a man,” -was the quick retort. “It is in your hands to keep David Vallory true -to his ideals, or to make him like other men who have one conscience -for their personal relations and another for business. David is more -loyal to you than your own son would be, if you had one; after what -you did for his father last summer he would go through fire and water -for you. It isn’t right or just for you to use so fine a thing as his -gratitude and make it the means of his undoing!” - -Again the big man in the opposite chair fell silent. When he spoke -again it was to say: - -“You’re all wrong, Vinnie, girl; wrong and a little bit wrought up. You -are carried away by your own impossible notions of the golden-rule in -business, and all that--things that you know about only by hearsay. You -won’t take it amiss if the old daddy has his notions, too, will you? -Just the same, we’re chums, little girl, and we won’t fight about a -little thing like that. I’ll see to it that David doesn’t have to stick -his fingers into the tar-barrel, if that’s what you want. Now run -along to bed.” - -The upshot of this heart-to-heart talk between the father and daughter -had been a letter to Silas Plegg, which followed David Vallory so -promptly in his westward flight as to be in the first assistant’s hands -when he made his introductory round over the big job with the new -chief. It was a letter to be read, remembered, and burned; but if David -Vallory could have seen it, it would have explained Plegg’s attitude, -and many other things which grew more and more puzzling as time went -on. - - - - -X - -The Miry Clay - - -Having himself so recently made the journey from Chicago to the -Timanyoni, David Vallory knew that he could count upon at least two -clear days in which to gather up the loose ends and otherwise to -prepare his huge working machine for a critical inspection by the -president of the company. To that end he called a conference of the -members of his staff and applied the spur. The big boss was coming, and -it was up to them to show him the machine in perfect working order. If -there were any loose ends, now was the time to tie them in. - -“There’s only one thing that I’d like to see changed,” said Crawford, -the grading expert who had charge of the line building on the lower -end of the cut-off; “that is this crazy practice of paying off every -two weeks instead of once a month. I count on at least a ten per -cent reduction in my gangs for two or three days after every second -Saturday--which is about the length of time it takes the high-rollers -to get rid of their money in the Powder Can dives.” - -“Leaks of that kind are precisely what we are trying to find and stop,” -the new chief broke in. “Any suggestions?” - -There were several made by different members of the staff, but they -were all variations upon the same theme, namely, some method by which -the too-frequent pay-days might be abolished. - -“I’m afraid the twice-a-month basis will have to stand,” was David -Vallory’s decision. “I talked that matter out with Mr. Grillage before -I left Chicago. He is opposed to the fortnightly pay-day, but he has -been forced to establish it on all of his contracts because other -companies have adopted it, and if we don’t keep step we lose our men.” - -“Zat Powder Can--she is one blot on zee face of zee eart’!” spat out -Regnier, the fiery little French-Canadian engineer who was handling the -gangs in the rock cuttings. - -David Vallory nodded. “I’m new to this country,” he admitted. “Are -there no laws by which these man-trappers can be put out of business?” - -It was Plegg who made answer to this. - -“The sheriff’s writs don’t run this far from the nearest court-house. -What is everybody’s business is nobody’s business. Besides, the -man-traps and the construction camps have gone hand-in-hand ever since -the beginning of time.” - -“There is no reason why they should continue to do so to the end of -time,” David cut in. “If the Powder Can lawlessness is holding us back, -we must clean it up.” - -Plegg shook his head. “That’s easier said than done. The town is on its -own, and it gets its revenue chiefly from our pay-rolls. The mines, -with the single exception of the Murtrie, don’t amount to anything.” - -“Maybe the railroad people would help us out,” suggested Altman, the -smooth-faced, young-looking mining engineer who was directing the -granite boring in the east-end tunnel heading. “Somebody told me once -that nearly all of the town is built on land leased from the railroad -company.” - -“I’ll look into this Powder Can business, myself,” said David, as the -conference broke up. “The thing that’s biting us just now is the need -to show Mr. Grillage a clean slate when he comes. He knows good work -when he sees it, and I don’t want to have to begin making excuses the -minute he lights down in Powder Gap. Go to it and key things up to -concert pitch.” - -With the great machine grinding merrily under this new impetus, David -Vallory did look cursorily into the Powder Can situation, stealing -time from the strenuous activities to make inquiries as to what might -be done. Up to this time, when the doing of something began to urge -itself baldly as an industrial necessity, he had been postponing action -in this particular field, excusing himself upon what seemed to be the -perfectly justifiable plea that the mining-camp man-traps and their -curbing or abolition were matters outside of the line of his duties; -a view which he knew to be in strict accordance with that of the -president of his company. It was not that he meant to adopt the policy -of the blind eye in principle. His promise to Virginia Grillage forbade -that. But the excuses had opened the door to postponement. - -Such were the surface indications of the vein of reluctance; but -deeper down there was another reason for the postponement. Not at -any time since his arrival had David forgotten that Judith Fallon -was most probably still living in Powder Can. If he should chance to -meet her--which was not at all unlikely--the entire question of his -responsibilities--a question which the lapse of time, and the growing -hope that he might one day win the love of Virginia Grillage, had -pushed into the background--would be reopened. - -As a result of his inquiries he soon found that there would be little -use in making an appeal to the law. As Plegg had pointed out, the -Powder Gap region was far enough distant from civilization to be a law -unto itself. But there was the hope that he might be able to make such -representations to the railroad people, who were the lessors of the -land upon which the town was built, as might induce them to intervene -on the side of law and order. Being thus brought face to face with the -thorny duty, he enlisted Plegg; and after the mess-tent supper they -crossed the basin together to make such a survey of the conditions as -would enable them to present the demoralizing facts in their reality to -the railroad company. - -With one of the fortnightly pay-days less than thirty-six hours in -the past there was ample evidence of the malignance of the social and -industrial ulcer. The wide-open resorts were packed with throngs of the -Grillage workmen, and the harvesting of the hard-earned dollars was in -full swing. - -“We’ll see it all while we’re about it,” said David; and with Plegg at -his elbow he pushed his way through one of the crowded bar-rooms to -a den at the rear where a faro-game was running, with the circle of -sitters backed by eager gamblers who reached over the shoulders of the -chair circle to place their bets. Outside in the bar there was noise -enough, but here the strained silence was broken only by the clicking -of the counters, the heavy breathing of the men, and the silken whisper -of the cards as the dealer ran them from his box. David let his gaze -sweep the table circle and come to rest upon the forbidding features of -the man who was running the cards; a swarthy, heavy-faced giant with -Indian-like hair, drooping mustaches that only half veiled a mouth of -utter ruthlessness, and eyes that were at the moment as dead as the -pallor showing beneath the Mexican-darkness of his skin. - -“‘Black Jack’ Dargin,” Plegg whispered in Vallory’s ear. “He owns and -runs this place, and does his own dealing, but he has another sort of -dive a little farther up the street.” - -David Vallory’s jaw was set when they had worked their way out to the -open air. - -“It isn’t even a square game!” he gritted. “What I don’t know about -faro would fill a book, but any sober man with eyes in his head could -see that that scoundrel was running a stacked deck! Who is this Dargin?” - -“You’ve seen,” said Plegg shortly. “In a way, he’s the boss of this -camp; has a reputation as a ‘killer’ and he has traded on it until he -has everybody ‘buffaloed.’ He is the only faro dealer I’ve ever seen -who would consent to run a game without a ‘lookout.’ He makes a brag of -it; says all he needs is a boy to sell the chips. The woman is the only -human being in this camp who has ever made him take a stand-off.” - -“The woman?” said David. - -“Yes; I keep forgetting that you’re new. She is another example of -Dargin’s cave-man methods. When the work began here in the Gap last -September, Dargin was about the first man on the ground for the shekel -harvest. He opened this place and a dance-hall, killed a man or two -to get himself properly dreaded, and began to rake in the easy money. -About that time the woman dropped in.” - -“God pity her, whoever she is,” was David’s comment. - -“It was a curious case,” Plegg went on, as they walked together up -a street blatant with the roistering crowds. “Shortly after the -dissipations had caught their stride a young plunger from somewhere -back east turned up here and took rooms in the Hophra House. As nearly -as I could learn at the time, the young ass was rich--or at least a -rich man’s son--and he had been stung on a Powder Can mining scheme. -He came here to see what he’d been let in for, and he didn’t have any -better sense than to bring his wife along--to such a wolf-den as this!” - -“Go on,” said David, with some dim premonition warning him that, -instead, he should have told Plegg to stop. - -“I don’t know all the ins and outs of it; or just how much or how -little the woman was to blame. But the upshot of the matter was that -one day, right in the face and eyes of the whole camp, as you might -say, Black Jack backed this young fool up against a wall, stuck a gun -into his face, and gave him a quick choice between passing out there -and then, or buying his life and a chance to vanish by giving up all -claims to his wife.” - -“Good heavens!” the listener ejaculated. “Cave-man is right!” - -“One of the laws of the jungle that Kipling didn’t mention,” was the -first assistant’s terse summing-up. “Dargin saw something that he -wanted, and that was his way of reaching out and taking it. But now -comes the queer part of it. The young plunger disappeared between two -days, and everybody looked to see the woman take up with Dargin. But -that isn’t what happened. She stayed on at the Hophra House for a few -days and then sent for her father, a poor devil of a machinist who -seemed to be trying to drink himself to death. Either she or Dargin got -him a job at the Murtrie mine, and the two of them set up housekeeping -in one of the mine shacks.” - -“Dargin and the woman, you mean?” - -“No! the woman and her father. And that’s the way it has been ever -since. Making all due allowances for the time and place, Dargin’s -relations with the woman are the only half-way decent ones he has. The -old man was drunk half the time, so Dargin gave the girl a job playing -the piano in his dance-hall--by way of giving her a chance to earn -an honest living, you’d say. That seems to be as far as it has gone, -except that one day last fall a tipsy ‘hard-rock’ man tried to take -liberties with the girl at the piano, and when she fought him, struck -her. He skipped out, across the range, but Black Jack caught up with -him and shot him.” - -David Vallory’s premonition of coming tragedy had been fulfilled long -before Plegg reached this point in his story, but if there had been -any doubt as to the woman’s identity the incident of the “hard-rock” -man would have dispelled it. Oddly enough, the filling-out of Judith -Fallon’s story did not seem to lessen his own feeling of moral -obligation; on the contrary, it increased it. More than ever, as it -appeared, it was needful that Judith should be taken quickly out of the -false position into which her relations, innocent or otherwise, with -the man-killer had placed her. - -By this time their progress up the single street of the town had -brought them to another of the resorts; a dance-hall, this, also with -its bar-room annex. There was little room on the dancing-floor for -spectators, and they did not try to enter. But enough could be seen -from the bar to determine the character of the place. - -“This is Dargin’s other place,” said Plegg. “It’s the least tough of -any of the Powder Can joints, and the money is made over the bar. If -a man gets too well ‘lit up’ he is thrown out. Most of the women you -see in there are the miners’ wives and daughters. It hurts us chiefly -because it attracts men who would neither gamble nor drink if they -didn’t start in here on a sort of social plane.” - -David nodded and was turning away when a hand was laid on his arm and -he wheeled quickly. - -“Judith!” he gasped. Then, as Plegg stood aside and pretended not to -see or hear; “My God!” - -“Yes,” she said, “’tis ‘Judith’ now, and never ‘Glory’ any more. What -brings you here, Davie?” - -“You--partly,” he blurted out. “Put something on and come outside. I -want to talk to you.” - -“No,” she refused bluntly; and then, to temper the bluntness: “’Tis no -good it can do now, Davie, and ’twould do you harm. There be tongues to -wag, even in Powder Can, and you’re the chief on the big job.” - -“But I must see you and talk with you!” he insisted. - -“’Twill do no good,” she repeated. “I’ve made my bed, Davie, and I’ve -got to lie on it.” - -The bar-room throng was jostling them as they stood, and David saw the -bartender marking them through half-closed eyes. He fancied there was -crafty suspicion in the look, but at the moment he was thinking chiefly -of the obligation that he must not shirk. - -“I shall come again, in daytime,” he said. “You are living on the -Murtrie claim?” - -“You must not!” she forbade quickly. “’Twould be--it might be as much -as your life’s worth! Nor must you stay here talking to me. Go now, -or the Plegg man will be asking questions that you can’t answer!” And -with that she slipped aside and lost herself in the throng on the -dancing-floor. - -David Vallory was gravely silent on the remainder of the round of -investigation; and Plegg, knowing that something sobering had happened -at Dargin’s dance-hall, respected his chief’s mood. But on the way back -to the construction camp the silence was broken by David himself. - -“You saw the woman I was talking to in that place across from the -Murtrie ore yard?” - -“Yes, I saw her.” - -“Do you know who she is?” - -Plegg nodded. “She is the one I was talking about.” - -“I know it. And the hound who brought her here? I believe you didn’t -mention his name.” - -“It was Hudson--no, that isn’t quite it--Judson; Thomas Judson.” - -To the astonishment of the reticent, self-contained first assistant, -David Vallory lifted his clenched hands to the stars and swore -savagely. But as Plegg had respected his chief’s former silence, so -now he respected the wrathful outburst. Farther along, when they -were crossing the tracks in the material yard, David offered niggard -explanation. - -“I knew the woman, back home, Plegg; I grew up with her. If ever a man -needed killing, Tom Judson is that man.” - -“They were not married?” said Plegg. - -“I have no reason to believe that they were. But that doesn’t excuse -Judson.” - -“Of course not; it makes it worse--if he was the original sinner.” - -“He was,” said David; “but he was not the only one.” And with that he -shut his mouth like a trap and did not open it again until they reached -the steps of their bunk car. Then he said shortly: “I am going up to -Brady’s Cut. You needn’t leave the lamp burning for me when you turn -in; I don’t know when I’ll get back.” - -In naming the place to which he was going, David gave the first -assistant only the outward husk of the kernel of truth. As he tramped -his stumbling course over the unevenly spaced cross-ties of the -construction track in the general direction of Brady’s, he was thinking -little enough of the work at the cutting or of anything connected with -the affairs of the Grillage Engineering Company. Taking their revenge -for a long period of banishment into a limbo of things conveniently -pushed aside, the thoughts that had once harassed him into something -like a congestive chill of moral remorse assailed him afresh. - -The woman he had unconsciously led up to the brink of the chasm had -not only gone over; she had sunk to a depth perilously near the -bottom. There could be no doubt of what the end would be. For some -inscrutable reason of his own, Dargin, “the killer,” was according her -such a measure of respect as his cave-man attributes were capable of -entertaining for anything in the shape of a woman. But that was the -most that could be said. Poor Gloriana! What a bitter price she was -paying! And with what portion of that price must he, David Vallory, in -justice charge himself? - -Reaching the approach to Brady’s Cut, a huge gash torn through the -side of one of the rounded basin hills, David turned to his left and -climbed steadily until he attained the sparse growth of trees crowning -the hill at the edge of the great cutting. Below him the ordered -pandemonium of industry was in full stride. Under the light of masthead -arcs, two mammoth steam-shovels rattled and clanked, the sharp staccato -of their exhaust pipes echoing from the surrounding heights like the -cachinnations of some invisible and mocking giant of the immensities. -Between the shovels rooting like prehistoric monsters into the banks on -either hand, a grunting locomotive pushed its train of dump-cars for -the spoil, moving them so accurately that the circling shovel buckets -to right and left never failed of an empty hopper into which to drop -the three-ton torrent of mingled clay and broken stone. - -David Vallory cast himself down at the edge of the cutting with -his back to one of the little trees. The chattering clamor of the -industries floated up to him on a thin nimbus of coal smoke; but when -the senses are turned inward the near and the actual lose their appeal. -Once more the fair structure of David’s imaginings was preparing to -topple--a structure that he had thought Judith’s disappearance from -Middleboro, leaving no trace, gave him leave to rear. But now their -paths had crossed again; she was here, almost within rifle-shot of -the tree against which he was leaning. And in a day or two Virginia -Grillage would come. Was it mere chance, or an avenging fate, that was -about to place him at the converging point of a great happiness and an -equally great reckoning with a past that could never be recalled? - -It was far past midnight when he got up and shook himself as one -awaking from a troubled dream. Down on the construction track he saw a -train of flat-cars bringing the two-o’clock shifts to relieve the gangs -which had gone on in the early evening. Above the mechanical clamor -in the cutting at his feet he could hear the upcoming men singing -raucously. - -“Bellow it out--it’s little enough you have to trouble you!” he grated, -apostrophizing the singing workmen. Then he turned his steps toward -the distant material yard, avoiding the approaching train, and closing -sullen ears to the noisy human atoms who had no troubles. - - - - -XI - -Bridge Number Two - - -Since he was now able to argue from a personal knowledge of the Powder -Can facts, David Vallory was ready to go to the railroad officials -with a plea for intervention and relief. But with his own president’s -visit impending he was unwilling to absent himself for the needful trip -to the railroad headquarters in Brewster. In this small dilemma a bit -of gossip trickling in over the construction line wire from Agorda, -the point at which the new grade diverged from the old, offered an -alternative. There was a right-of-way claim to be adjusted at Agorda, -and the gossiping wire said that the Short Line’s legal representative -had come up from Brewster on the morning train to settle with the -claimants. - -Seizing the opportunity, David Vallory boarded an empty material train -backing out of the Powder Gap yards and in due time was set down at the -desolate little junction station at the foot of Mount Latigo. There was -a private car standing on one of the side-tracks, and inquiry at the -telegraph office developed the fact that the right-of-way claimants had -already had their day in court, and Mr. Jolly was in his car, waiting -for the afternoon train to come along and tow him back to Brewster. - -Walking down the tracks to the occupied siding, David presented himself -at the door of the private car and was welcomed effusively by a -round-bodied little gentleman with a face like a full moon. - -“Vallory, hah!--do I get the name right?--always want to get a man’s -name right--demned awkward to find that you’ve been calling Smith -Jones, when his name is Smith,” bubbled the welcomer. “Sit down--sit -down, Mr. Vallory, and be at home. Of the Grillage Engineering Company, -you say? Big job you’ve got on your hands here--tre-mendous job! How’s -it coming along?” - -David Vallory braced himself as one stepping out of shelter into a -blustering March wind. Gusty talkers had always been his pet aversion, -and he seemed to have encountered the original of the type. By taking -persevering advantage of the lulls between the gusts he contrived to -explain his errand. The Powder Can situation was thus and so. The -Grillage company had no jurisdiction, and he understood that the Short -Line company, in its capacity as owner of the town site, might possibly -be able to intervene on the side of law and order. How about it? - -“Why, hah! my dear Mr. Vallory! what do you take us for?” cackled the -gusty one. “We’re not an eleemosynary institution, any more than you -are! Why, hah! bless your heart, if we should go into the moral-issue -business in these mountains we’d last as a railroad corporation just -about as long as it would take an indignant State legislature to repeal -our charter!” - -“I must have stated the case clumsily, Mr. Jolly; I’m not asking you to -do more than any respectable landlord ought to be willing to do,” David -persisted firmly. “Your property in Powder Can is being put to uses -which were never contemplated when the leases were signed. A public -nuisance harmful to your neighbors has developed, and you ought to be -willing to help abate it.” - -“Nothing to be done, I assure you, my dear young man. Those Powder Can -leases are mere matters of form, to enable us to hold what land we may -need for railroad purposes after the new line is opened. I’m not sure, -but I think the consideration was the usual one dollar, or something -of that sort. We can’t police Powder Can for you.” - -“All right; we’ll drop the moral argument and take up another,” said -David, stubbornly. “The railroad company has set a time limit on the -completion of this new line. The Powder Can nuisance is delaying the -work.” - -“That, hah! is up to your people, Mr. Vallory. The contract provides -for forfeitures if you don’t come within the time limit, and a bonus if -you better it. You can’t stand it on that leg.” - -It was just here that David lost his temper. - -“I’m not making any charges, Mr. Jolly, but an unprejudiced outsider -might take the view that the railroad company, or some of its -officials, are profiting by the continued existence of a wide-open town -where our men are robbed.” - -Instantly the moon-like face of the railroad attorney became a blank. - -“No; I shouldn’t make any such charge as that, if I were you,” he -barked. And then, abruptly: “Have you taken this matter up with your -own president? Or are you going it alone?” - -“There is no reason why I should take it up with Mr. Grillage. He holds -me responsible for the work, and for the conditions under which we are -working.” - -“That’s all very well,” snapped the lawyer. “But if you are ever -tempted to make that charge you speak of, Mr. Vallory, you’d better -think twice. The natural counter-charge would be that your own -officials have a much better chance for a Powder Can rake-off than ours -have. Like yourself, I’m making no accusations; but I’ll say this: -when you see Mr. Eben Grillage next, you ask him plainly what he wants -you to do about this Powder Can business. If he tells you to clean it -up, maybe our people can be induced to help.” Then, as if some secret -spring had been touched, the full-moon face lightened up and the gusty -joviality slipped into place again: “But, hah! that’s enough of these -disagreeable topics. You’re my guest, Mr. Vallory: you’ll stop and take -a noon bite with me, won’t you? I’ve, hah! got a fairly good cook on -the car.” - -Wishing nothing less than to be entertained by a verbal March wind, -David Vallory pleaded a press of work, escaped, and was fortunate -enough to catch the loaded material train as it was starting up the new -line. He was soberly depressed, not so much by the lawyer’s attitude, -which he had partially discounted before the interview, as by the seed -which had been planted by Jolly’s retort to his own small outburst -of temper. The thought that his employer and the Vallory benefactor -could be profiting, however indirectly, by sharing with the Powder -Can pirates was grossly incredible--a thought to be cast down and -indignantly trodden upon. Yet it is the fashion of planted seeds to -germinate quite irrespective of the wishes of the soil into which they -have been thrust. David Vallory could not help recalling the brief -reference made to Powder Can as the contractor-king was threshing -out the details with him on the eve of his outsetting: “A tough -mining-camp, running wide-open; but that’s no affair of yours,” was the -curt phrase in which Eben Grillage had dismissed it. - -It was on Crawford’s section of the new work that David roused himself -out of the depressive reverie. The material train was rounding a long -curve on the approach to Bridge Number Two, and the engineer checked -its speed to slow for the crossing of the little river on the temporary -trestle just beyond the bridge-building activities. Dropping from the -moving train a few hundred yards from the bridge location, David was -immediately pounced upon by the square-shouldered young athlete who was -driving the work on Bridge Number Two. - -“By George! Mr. Vallory--you’re like an angel sent from heaven!” was -the athlete’s enthusiastic welcome. “Bittner has just ’phoned from down -the line that Strayer, of the railroad inspecting force, is on his way -up here in a gas-car. Will you flag him when he comes along and hold -him for a few minutes until I can get back to the bridge?” - -David, thinking pointedly of his late encounter with the railroad -attorney, nodded abstractedly. “Yes, I’ll stop Strayer, if you want me -to. But what’s the object--what are you trying to cover up?” - -“N-nothing,” Crawford explained hurriedly. “I just want to make sure -that those concrete fellows are carrying out instructions. Strayer’s -got an eye like a hawk, and if so much as a single piece of reinforcing -steel happens to be an inch out of line, he’ll see it and report that -we’re not living up to the specifications.” - -“I see,” said David; “go to it,” and he sat down on a projecting -cross-tie end to wait for the railroad inspector’s gas-velocipede to -come in sight. - -From the cross-tie waiting-place on the inner side of the long curve -the bridge under construction was in plain view. It was a single -short arch spanning the stream; the false-work and wooden forming -were in place, and from the aërial spout of the distributing tower a -continuous trickle of concrete was pouring into the box-like forms. -David Vallory’s half-absent gaze followed Crawford’s retreating figure. -When it reached the bridge the distance-softened grind of the concrete -mixer and hoist stopped abruptly, and the absent-minded onlooker a few -hundred yards down the line saw Crawford climb to the bridge-head and -wave his arms. - -The precise object of what followed was not clearly apparent to a man -thinking soberly of something else. Other figures, silhouetted against -the sky-line, appeared, crawling out upon the forms. When they erected -themselves they seemed to be tamping the concrete into place. The young -chiefs conclusion was the most obvious one that offered. “Humph!” he -muttered, “he’s been letting his ‘mix’ go too dry, and he’s ramming it -so the water will come up. Strayer would jump him for that, of course.” - -It was a measure of the distance that one Matthew Grimsby had led David -along the road to “salt” loyalty that he made no mental note to “jump” -Crawford himself for the forbidden practice of ramming dry concrete -into bridge forms; and when the motor-driven inspection car appeared -at the farther end of the curve he got up to flag it. As it chanced, -the big, bearded engineer who was driving the car was no less ready to -stop than David was to have him stop. With the brakes locked he sprang -out and fired his battery. - -“I was hoping I’d find you somewhere this side of the Gap,” he rasped. -“There’s no use talking, Vallory, you fellows have got to hew closer to -the line or you’ll hear something drop. If you think, because Lushing -happens to be away, you can put something across on us every day or -two, you’ve got another guess coming.” - -“I’ve met you before, Strayer,” said David, with his slow smile. “I -worked with a round half-dozen of you all last summer and fall in -Wisconsin. What’s gone wrong now?” - -“That fill at Havercamp’s. The specifications call for solid work -on the fills. Your man is burying unbroken chunks of clay in that -embankment as big as he can pick up with his steam-hog. The first heavy -snow that melts back of that fill will make it look like a toboggan -slide!” - -“We’ll look into the Havercamp fill,” said David mildly. “Anything -else?” - -“Yes; the cutting just below Havercamp’s, where they’re getting the -spoil for the fill. I asked the foreman just now if he considered that -the lower side of the cutting was worked back to the required angle. -He said that he did, and it was; but when I put my instrument on it, I -found that there is still a good six-foot slice to come off. It won’t -do, Vallory; you’ve got to quit this business of cost-shaving at every -twist and turn that offers.” - -“We are not in the contracting business for our health,” was David -Vallory’s good-natured retort; “I admit it. When you find anything -wrong, we correct it, don’t we? And you’re here to find the wrong -things, aren’t you? If we should toe the mark all the time, you’d be -out of a job. I’ll look after the cutting. What next?” - -“Next I’ll have a squint at this bridge of Crawford’s. When you fellows -take to pouring concrete, you need to have a man standing over you day -and night. If you’re headed my way, get on the car and I’ll give you a -ride.” - -David Vallory accepted the invitation, climbing into the second seat of -the three-wheeled car. At the approach to the temporary wooden trestle -over which the construction track ran, the car was halted and they -crossed to the new structure. - -The machinery was grinding again by this time and David Vallory -stood aside while the railroad engineer went carefully over the job. -The big, bearded inspector took nothing for granted. The “mix” was -examined, samples of the cement were taken, a handful of the sand -was put into a bottle with water, shaken, and allowed to settle to -determine its purity. On the work itself nothing escaped him; he even -counted the steel reinforcing bars whose ends stuck up out of the -rising tide of soft concrete, checking the number against the figures -in his field-notes. - -“Something radically wrong here,” he grinned, when the final item had -been checked. “It’s the first time I haven’t found Jimmy Crawford -trying to put something over on me. What’s the matter, Jimmy--got -religion?” - -“Sure!” said Crawford, with a sly wink for his chief. “Didn’t you know -Mr. Vallory holds revival meetings in his bunk car every little while? -You ought to come up some night and we’ll convert you.” - -“I’m going up, right now,” Strayer announced; and it was thus that -David got a motor-car ride all the way to the Gap, the railroad -watch-dog enlivening the journey with additional criticisms as they -went along. - -It was after they had reached the headquarters camp, and David had -invited the railroad man into his office bunk car for an intermission -smoke, that the bluff inspector dipped abruptly into the personalities. - -“I like you, Vallory,” he said, “and I’ve been wondering for a solid -month how you ever came to tie up with this Grillage outfit. Would you -mind telling me?” - -“Not in the least. Mr. Grillage and my father are old friends; they -were schoolmates.” - -“That stops me dead,” was Strayer’s rejoinder. “I shan’t say any of the -things I was going to say.” - -“It needn’t stop you,” was David’s surrejoinder. - -“But it does. Under such conditions you have personal relations with -Father Eben; you can’t help having them. And that reminds me, he is in -Brewster now, on his way up here. Did you know he was coming?” - -“Yes; I heard of it through the hotel people.” - -“He’s got his daughter with him. Did you know that?” - -“Not positively, no.” - -“Leaving her father entirely out of it, she’s a mighty fine young -woman,” said Strayer. “I met her when she was here last September. She -didn’t seem to think that a railroad inspecting engineer was merely a -new kind of dog to be kicked off the door-step.” - -“Neither do I,” David asserted. “You think we are a bunch of crooks on -our side, and we know you want to get something for nothing on yours. -There needn’t be anything personal about it.” - -The big man’s grin bared a marvelously fine set of teeth. - -“You _are_ crooks, Vallory; so crooked that it would break a snake’s -back to try to keep up with you. If Eben Grillage wasn’t your father’s -friend, I’d say that he ought to have a middle name beginning with the -letter ‘S’ for----” - -“But he is my father’s friend--and mine,” interrupted David, with a -little of the emphasis belligerent on the verb. - -“Sure! I’ll quit. And to make up for the implied slam, I’ll give you -a little pointer, Vallory. This business of systematically dodging -specifications has about run its course, and it’s going to get you -in bad. Our people have been taking it rather easy and contenting -themselves with checking you up in spots and making you make good. Do -you get me?” - -“I’m listening.” - -“All right. That was the way it ran along at first. But now it’s -beginning to be whispered around in our headquarters that the Grillage -company is out for blood on this contract; that no amount of -inspection can keep you from skinning us alive--which the same you are -doing. That isn’t a healthy state of affairs, and it ought to be cured -before the whisper spreads, let us say, to the Executive Board in New -York. Are you on?” - -“No,” David challenged stubbornly. Then he fell back upon the seller’s -time-worn argument: “You are getting all you pay for, and more.” - -“Enough said,” laughed Strayer, getting up to go. “No offense meant, -and none taken, I hope. But you say Mr. Grillage is your friend, -and--well, it’s just a word to the wise, that’s all. So long, till I -see you again.” - -Somewhat later in the day, returning from a trip to Brady’s Cut, David -paused on the sheltered side of the office bunk car to light his pipe. -A window was open, and he heard voices within; the voices, namely, of -young Jimmy Crawford and Silas Plegg. Crawford had come to camp for a -missing detail drawing of some part of Bridge Number Two, and Plegg was -getting it for him out of the blueprint locker. - -“A close squeak,” Crawford was saying. “If Bittner hadn’t been -thoughtful enough to ’phone, I’d have been caught red-handed. I lost my -head for a minute and ran down the track to flag Strayer, meaning to -choke the big stiff if I couldn’t think of any other way of keeping him -off. Just then the material train came along and the boss dropped off -right at my feet. He was a Godsend, and I used him, got him to stay and -flag Strayer while I ran back and got busy.” - -Then Plegg’s voice: “Did you tell Mr. Vallory what you were going to -do?” - -“Not hardly!” was Crawford’s laughing denial; “not after the song and -dance you gave us fellows a while back, just after the boss came on the -job. I just told him that Strayer was coming, and that I’d like to have -him hindered until I could make sure everything was ship-shape for an -inspection. He seemed to be thinking pretty hard about something else, -but he was good-natured enough to sit down on a tie-end and wait for -Strayer.” - -David’s pipe was alight and he moved away. What he had overheard merely -confirmed his former assumption that Crawford had been tamping dry -concrete to make it appear wet, and he thought no more of it. But if -his match had gone out and he had been obliged to light another on the -windless side of the bunk car.... - -Plegg seemed to be having trouble in the search for the missing -drawing, and Crawford rattled on. - -“When I got back to the bridge I turned the whole gang loose on the -stage-setting. It was some swift job, believe me, and I didn’t know -what minute Strayer’s car’d come chugging around the curve. I’ve got -so I keep a bunch of short steels handy, and we stuck ’em up in the -concrete to look as if they grew there. Strayer counted ’em when he -came, as he always does, and they checked out right, of course. But -say, Plegg, if he’d touched one of the dummies it would have tumbled -over! The concrete had been running a bit thin, and it was all we could -do to make the short pieces stand up long enough to be counted. As it -was, two or three of ’em fell down just as Strayer and the boss were -climbing to their places in the inspection car. That’s why I say it was -a close squeak.” - -This, then, was what David missed by not having to light a second -match. Instead of a practically harmless ramming of dry concrete, -Crawford had been covering up another item of the cost-cutting. One of -the commonest economies in concrete construction is the scanting of -the steel which binds the mass together and adds its strength to that -of the cement. The contract specifications called for a stated number -of these bars in Bridge Number Two. Following the Grillage practice, -certain of these bars had been left out--to save their cost. Crawford -had made his dummy bars figure as permanences for Strayer, and the -trick was turned. - -But of all this David Vallory knew nothing; and since his pipe was -now drawing freely, he mounted to the cab of one of the construction -locomotives to have himself conveyed to the tunnel mouth on the eastern -slope of the great mountain. - - - - -XII - -Under the High Stars - - -It was in the evening of the day in which David Vallory had been -twice told that his president was on the way to Powder Gap that the -stub train forming the connecting link between the main line and the -construction headquarters came in with a private Pullman for a trailer. -David was four miles away, in the eastern heading of the big tunnel, -at the moment, but the service telephone line quickly transmitted the -news of the big boss’s arrival. An hour farther along, after a hurried -supper in the mess-tent at Brady’s cut, David took a short path across -the basin and climbed the forested ridge to the Alta Vista Inn. - -He had his reward for the haste, the primitive meal, and the rapid -climb when he came in sight of the Inn and its rustic porches. The -radiant daughter of profit-gaining contracts was there in visible -presence; David singled her out instantly among the people lounging on -the westward-facing porch. She stood at the railing, leaning against -one of the rough tree-trunk porch pillars and gazing out upon the -sunset which was painting itself in colorings known only to the high -altitudes. David drew near, treading softly. It was a lover’s fancy -that the glories of the sunset were reflected in the starry eyes, in -the ripe lips parted a little as if in the rapture of the vision, and -in the warm tintings of neck and cheek. - -When he finally stood beside her she gave him her hand without loosing -her eye-hold upon the crimson-shot glories. - -“Isn’t it perfectly exquisite!” she breathed, accepting the fact of his -presence quite as if their parting in the lakeside mansion had been but -the day before. - -“The sunset? Naturally; they are built that way out here. But you -mustn’t expect me to rhapsodize over the scenery when I can look at -you.” - -“Please don’t be frivolous,” she chided. “There are plenty of others -to say the silly things; and besides, it isn’t your--it isn’t in -character. Stand here and enjoy this with me while it lasts, and then -we’ll go somewhere and talk.” - -David acquiesced willingly enough, and after the sunset had faded, -and they had found chairs in the corner farthest removed from the -chattering groups of summer people, he told her of his few weeks of -strenuous work, enlarging in boyish enthusiasm upon the magnitude of -the job and the possibilities of man-sized growth it offered to those -who were driving it. - -“And you haven’t had any trouble?” she interrogated, after the story -was told. - -“Not what you would call trouble; no. Of course, the railroad -inspectors make life miserable for us when they can, but that is all in -the day’s work. It amuses them and keeps them out of mischief, and it -doesn’t hurt us.” - -“Why should they make life miserable for you?” - -“You ask me that?--and you the only daughter of the king of the -contractors?” he laughed. “That is what they are hired for; to find -fault, and to get us to give them something for nothing if they can.” - -At this point it pleased Miss Virginia to play the part of the innocent -and the uninformed. - -“How should I know anything about it?” she queried. “Could you explain -it so that a woman could understand?” - -“I can explain it so that this one woman I’m talking to can understand. -Have you ever happened to read a contract and specifications?” - -“What a question!” - -“I didn’t suppose you had. They are like the Congressional -Record--nobody reads them unless it’s a necessity. But they are -fearfully and wonderfully constructed. One of the clauses in the -regulation form reads something like this: ‘The engineer of the -party of the first part’--that’s the railroad company in the present -instance--‘reserves the right to pass upon all work and material, and -to reject either if found, in his judgment, to be unsatisfactory.’ Mark -the wording and you’ll notice that it leaves an open door wide enough -to drive a locomotive through. And up here we have a man against us who -would like to hitch a whole train of cars to the locomotive.” - -“Mr. Lushing, you mean?” - -“The same.” - -“Have you met him yet?” - -“Not yet; he hasn’t been on the job in person since I came. I -understand he has gone East. But he has left some pretty able -fault-finders to represent him, I can assure you. If there is anything -in the category of crime that they don’t accuse us of committing, it is -something they have temporarily forgotten. But you mustn’t make me talk -shop all the time. I’m sure it bores you, only you are too good-natured -to say so.” - -“A man’s work, if it is at all worth while, ought not to bore anybody. -It is your life, isn’t it?” - -“It was, up to just a little while ago.” - -“What happened a little while ago?” - -“You came.” - -“That is another of the sayings that doesn’t fit,” she warned him. - -“All right; we’ll talk about something else. How long can you stay?” - -“I don’t know. Father is calling it his vacation, and threatens to go -trout-fishing in the mountains.” - -“That will be fine. If I didn’t have to watch Lushing’s outfit so -closely, I’d like to go with him.” - -She looked up quickly. “Have you ever had a real vacation, David?” - -“I suppose not; not in your sense of the word. I was out on field work -during the four college summers. I’m saving up for my honeymoon.” - -“I thought you said that was only a dream; a ‘pipe-dream,’ you called -it, didn’t you?” - -“I did; and it is. I was only joking. The only thing I can talk -seriously about is the big job. And you are not interested especially -in that--or are you? Plegg said one day when we were speaking of you -that you were a pretty good little engineer. I’m quoting him literally. -He meant it as a compliment.” - -“Mr. Plegg,” she said, with a touch of abstraction which the mention of -the first assistant’s name seemed to evoke. “Do you like him?” - -“Immensely; though he always gives me the feeling that there are nooks -and corners in him that he never allows anybody to explore. I met -him first a year ago. It was in the Pullman, when I was going home -from Florida. He had the upper berth in my section, and we scraped an -acquaintance of a sort just as the train was pulling into Middleboro, -though neither of us learned the other’s name. I remembered him chiefly -on account of his sardonic smile, and a queer thing he said to me.” - -“Will the queer thing bear repeating?” - -“To you, yes. He made a running commentary on my face--like one of -those street-corner physiognomists, you know; eyes, nose, jaw, and so -on, and said I’d probably go far in my profession if I wasn’t too good.” - -“What an exceedingly odd thing for a stranger to say to you!” - -“Wasn’t it? But he was so genial about it that I couldn’t take -offense.” - -“What did he mean by not being ‘too good’?” she questioned gravely. - -“I didn’t know at the time, but I’ve found out since. I grew up with -a good many old-fashioned notions, I guess, and I’m not sure that I -haven’t got some of them yet. One of them that I’ve been trying to -modify was the belief that a man might set up his own standards and -live by them.” - -“I have that same belief now,” asserted the daughter of the luxuries. -“Why are you trying to modify it? Isn’t it reasonable?” - -“It is reasonable enough, and it is right and proper that you -should have it. It is your woman’s privilege to believe the best of -everything. But the man has to take the world as he finds it.” Thus -far he was merely skirting judiciously upon the safer edges of the -generalizations. But the next moment he found himself yielding to the -temptation which so easily besets the average man--to confide in a -woman. “I’ll tell you, Virginia; I’ve done things in the past year that -I would never have dreamed of doing in my callow days; things that -would make my father gasp if he knew about them.” - -“Wicked things?” she suggested. - -“There was a time when I should have called them wicked, without a -shadow of doubt. But that was before I had come to realize that -business--all kinds of business--is a sort of war; a fight in which, if -you don’t ‘get’ the other fellow, he’ll get you.” - -“You are all wrong--hideously wrong!” she broke out in a sudden passion -of vehemence. “I don’t mean in the statement of fact--that is only too -true. But in your own attitude. It is the first of the downward steps: -if you take that step deliberately, there is no reason why you should -stop at anything!” - -There was only soft starlight on the sheltered porch, and David could -smile in safety. The little outburst of generous indignation carried -him swiftly back to the childhood days, reviving his memory picture of -a hot-hearted little girl whose anger had always flamed fiercely at any -spectacle of wrong or oppression, and whose defending of stray kittens -and homeless dogs had more than once made him fight in blind boyish -rage--not for the dogs and kittens, but for her. - -“You haven’t changed much, inside, since we were babies together, and -I’m glad of it,” he said, after the momentary pause ushered in by the -indignant protest. “It is good of you not to make me always think of -you as the grown-up Miss Virginia--the little sister of the luxuries.” - -“There are times, David, when I hate the luxuries--knowing so well the -source of so many of them,” she declared; and then: “Are you trying to -tell me that you have thrown all of the ideals overboard?” - -The appeal in her tone sobered him suddenly. - -“No, I hope not, Virginia. What I’ve been saying applies only to -business; the business conscience, if you want to call it that. I have -plenty of the other kind left. And it’s giving me a lot of trouble.” - -“Is the trouble like the professional things you were talking about a -few minutes ago?--explainable to this woman?” - -“No; at least, not yet. It is a question of duty, and how much duty. -It is as if you had incurred a debt and didn’t know the amount of it. -You’d be willing to pay, perhaps, if you only knew how much to pay.” - -“That sounds entrancingly interesting,” she said. And then: “To whom do -you owe the debt, David?” - -“I’m not sure that I owe it to any one; or if there really is a debt. I -shall have to think it out, and when I know, I’ll tell you.” - -From this their talk slipped back to the big job and its askings and -drawbacks, and so led up to the moral cancer whose lights they could -see twinkling in the distance at the foot of Gold Hill. David spoke -of the demoralizing effects of the cancer upon his working force, and -told of his futile effort to enlist the railroad people on the side of -reform. - -“Mr. Ford would do something, if he knew,” the young woman suggested, -naming the president of the P. S-W. system. - -“I believe he would; but it is like climbing a ladder a mile high -to get to him. From what Jolly said, I gathered that the Brewster -officials are absolutely indifferent, and to get at Mr. Ford I’d have -to go over their heads.” - -“You have been in the mining-camp?” she asked. - -“Once, only, after dark. Some day you are going to tell me the name of -the man who took your slumming party there last fall and I’ll go and -beat him up.” - -“Never mind the man. Did you see Judith Fallon?” - -“Yes; but only for a moment. I tried to get a chance to talk to her, -but she wouldn’t have it.” - -“She is still living with her father?” - -“Yes.” - -“You needn’t be afraid to tell me all of it, David.” - -At that he repeated Plegg’s short account of the manner in which Judith -Fallon had come to Powder Can, and its near-tragic outcome. - -“How terrible!” she said. “I remember Tom Judson, just vaguely, as a -handsome little kiddie with light curly hair and the bluest of blue -eyes. And he’s grown up into _that_!” - -“Yes; and he didn’t take long about it, either,” said David. “Long -before he was expelled from college he was Middleboro’s most shining -example of depravity.” - -“But this other man; Dargin, did you call him? Isn’t Judith worse off -than if she had no protector at all?” - -“God knows,” said David, solemnly. “Except for the single fact that he -seems to have some respect for her, he is the crudest of crude brutes, -according to Plegg’s story. It’s going to be mighty hard to run him out -of Powder Can.” - -“Are you going to try to run him out?” - -“It’s up to me, I guess. The railroad people won’t do anything, and -the place has got to be cleaned up. This job of ours demands it. But -see here; can’t we keep this talk from stumbling into the sink-holes? -Tell me how long you are going to be content to stay away from the -luxuries?” - -“I told you there were times when I hated the luxuries. You must be -awfully good to me if you don’t want me to run away to the lavishnesses -that I use and despise in the same breath. I shall put on a khaki skirt -and leggings, and you’ll have to show me everything that is going on. -Have you seen father?” - -“No, not yet.” - -“Mercy me! I was to tell you to report to him at the car down in the -railroad yard if I saw you first. I’m afraid I haven’t been a very -obedient call-boy.” - -David got out of his chair reluctantly. - -“I’m trying to realize that you are sending me away--and that just as -we were beginning to get down to the real heart of things. May I come -back after your father is through with me? It is so soul-satisfying not -to have to divide time with half a dozen other men.” - -“The ‘other men,’ as you call them, will probably be here after a -while; or some of them, at least,” she laughed. “And that reminds me; -what have you done about sending for your father and sister? Nothing, I -hope.” - -“Oh, but I have; I have done precisely what you said I ought not to -do. They are coming, and they will be here next week. I have taken one -of the hotel cottages for them.” - -“That was downright cruel, and you need to be punished,” she retorted -brightly. “And you will be, too; you see if I’m not a true prophet.” -Then: “I think you needn’t come back this evening. I shall probably be -in bed and asleep long before father lets you escape. Now don’t you -wish you hadn’t sent for your father and Lucille?” - - - - -XIII - -Altman’s Nerves - - -If David Vallory were reluctant to leave the hotel and make his way -down the wooded ridge to the gridironing of tracks in the railroad -yard, it was only because his duty was shortening the evening with -Virginia. Without being unduly puffed up with a sense of his own -efficiency, he felt sure that his work would show for itself and that -there was no reason why he should hesitate to spread the results before -the president. - -Not knowing where Mr. Grillage’s car had been placed, it took him some -few minutes to find it in the crowded material yard, which was not too -well lighted by the widely spaced masthead electrics. When he did find -it, on the single unobstructed spur-track, the nearest electric showed -him the figure of a man dropping from the car step to become quickly -lost in the shadows of the surrounding material trains. In the brief -glimpse David recognized the alert poise and swinging stride of his -first assistant; but since neither jealousy nor suspicion had any part -in the Vallory make-up, the recognition evoked no wondering query as to -why Plegg had anticipated him in calling upon Eben Grillage. - -A moment later the porter had admitted him and was standing aside to -let him pass through the vestibule to the open compartment in the -rear of the luxurious car. At the heavy, glass-topped desk he found -the contractor magnate sitting alone, with the inevitable black and -shapeless cigar clamped between his teeth. - -“Hello, David--come in!” was the brusque greeting; and then with a -grim chuckle: “By George! I was beginning to think you were lost out -completely.” - -“I was up at the tunnel when your train got in,” David explained, -judiciously slurring over the interval which had elapsed since the -early-evening hour of the arrival. - -“And when you crawled out of the tunnel you found your way to the hotel -and promptly forgot all about the old duffer who has to dig down into -his jeans for the pay-roll money,” laughed the man-driver in jovial -humor. “It’s all right, my boy; I was young once, myself. How goes the -job?” - -“I think you will find it moving along all right,” David ventured. -Then he said a good word for the first assistant. “Plegg had things in -fine shape when I took hold; good organization, good distribution, and -no friction. All that was needed was a little pace-setting.” - -“And you’ve been setting the pace, eh? How about the railroad -inspectors?--are they giving you much trouble?” - -“All we need, though as a general thing they don’t say much to me -personally; they go to Plegg. One of them--Strayer--took me into -his confidence a bit to-day. He professes to believe that we are -deliberately burking the railroad company and threw out a hint to the -effect that the railroad Executive Board might take some action.” - -“Did you get back at him?” - -“I did; there hasn’t been a single instance where we’ve failed to make -good when they have called us down, and I told him so. Strayer is -acting chief of the inspection staff in Lushing’s absence. I haven’t -seen Lushing yet. They tell me he has gone East.” - -“I can add something to that,” said Lushing’s former employer, with a -sour smile. “He went to New York to appear before the Executive Board -of his railroad--at his own request. We’ll hear from him a little -later.” - -“I suppose he’s trying to make more trouble for us,” said David. - -“He is. He is trying to force legal proceedings to get our contract -canceled. He threatened to do that when we dropped him. He’s a -vindictive cuss, if ever there was one.” - -David Vallory shook his head in sympathetic deprecation. He was too -loyal himself to be able to understand how a man, even if he were -enraged, could turn upon the hand that had fed him. - -“He can’t do anything like that,” he asserted confidently. “I’ve -specialized a good bit in the law of contracts--took it as a part of -my college course. As I see it, the railroad company has absolutely -no grounds whatever for cancellation. As I’ve said, when Lushing’s -inspectors bring up a specific charge, we make good, and that’s the end -of it.” - -Since being in love with a man’s daughter is the poorest possible -preliminary to any accurate reading of face signs when the subject -chances to be the father of the daughter, the slow drooping of an -eyelid on the part of the big man in the desk chair opposite was quite -thrown away upon David Vallory. - -“Of course,” agreed the contractor-king, with a suppressed chuckle -which he turned into a forced clearing of his throat; “we’re up to all -the little methods of pacifying the enemy, eh, David?” And then: “I’ve -just had Plegg here, making him tell tales out of school. Naturally, he -didn’t want to say much about his chief, but you’ve got his vote, all -right. He tells me you’ve made good with the force, and that you’re a -home-grown miracle in the pace-setting. That is what I wanted to hear; -but it is also what I expected to hear.” - -“More kindness,” said the beneficiary of the kindness, with a -comforting glow warming him. “Before I went to Coulee du Sac I used to -hear that you were a hard man to work for. I shall feel like scrapping -with the next man who says anything like that to me.” - -“You go right on believing that I’m a hard man,” said Eben Grillage, -with a ferocious twinkle of the shrewd eyes; “it’s safer. Now there’s -another little thing, while I think of it: Plegg was telling me -something about these dives and speak-easys over in Powder Can; said -you’d got stirred up about ’em and wanted to give ’em the high kick. -You take a word of advice from me, David, and let ’em alone. After -you’ve handled grade laborers and hard-rock men as long as I have, -you’ll realize that they’re bound to have their fling after pay-day. If -you were an angel from heaven you couldn’t stop it. And you’ll only -get your hands muddy if you try.” - -“But it’s such a tremendous drawback to the work!” David protested, -feeling, in his inmost recesses, that this argument, rather than the -moral, would be more likely to appeal to Eben Grillage. - -“That’s one of the things you have to figure on,” was the man-driver’s -reply. “Pad your gangs with a few extras to make up for the pay-day -absentees. Labor’s fairly plentiful just now, and in the contracting -business you’ll find that man-muscle is about the cheapest material you -handle. But that’s enough about business. What do you hear from your -father?” - -“Mighty good news, just now. He hasn’t been very well this spring, so I -have persuaded him to come out here for a while. I shall be looking for -him and my sister next week.” - -“That’s the talk!” exclaimed the Vallory benefactor. “I’ll make him go -trout-fishing with me. And that drags us back to the business matter -again. I’m not out here to stand over you and tell you what to do on -the job, David; I’ve told Vinnie it’s my vacation--something that I -haven’t had for so long that I’ve forgotten what it looks like. I’ll -make a little round of the work with you to-morrow, just to let the -outfit see that you’ve got the boss on your side, and after that you -can count me out. Vinnie probably won’t let you off so easily, but you -can settle that with her.” - -With this program for a sort of stirrup-cup, David Vallory left the -president’s car with the warm glow at his heart bursting into a -generous flame. In an age in which filial piety has come to be more -or less regarded as a hold-over from an emotional elder generation, -he found himself inclining toward the savior of the good name of the -Vallorys with an affection akin to that which he felt for the father -who had begotten him. That the industrial world held Eben Grillage as a -hard master, and the world of business looked a trifle askance at his -huge fortune and the manner of its acquiring, were matters subsidiary -to the main question. Under the gruff exterior, the grasping exterior, -if his detractors would have it so, David told himself there dwelt a -giant of generosity and loving-kindness; a man whose very crudities and -bluntnesses were lovable; a man for whom his grateful beneficiaries -could never go too far, so long as the saving spark of gratitude -remained alive in the human breast. - -It was with these exalted emotions stirring him that he swung up to the -step of his bunk car. Since the car was lighted, he expected to find -Silas Plegg at work on his customary evening task of checking the books -of field-notes. But the only occupant of the car proved to be young -Altman, who was driving the rock-blasting in the eastern heading of -the great tunnel; a sober-minded young mining engineer only a year out -of college, but yet with the lines of responsibility already graving -themselves visibly in his boyish face. - -“I’m disobeying orders, Mr. Vallory,” he began. “Plegg tells us we -mustn’t bother you with our complaints, but in justice to my men I’ve -got to break over this one time. You know that weak spot in the tunnel -roof?--the one I showed you the first time you were in?” - -David nodded. The “weak spot” was a section of the big bore which had -been driven through a prehistoric gash in the granite; a huge vertical -crack which had been filled with softer rock in some later earth -upheaval. “What about it?” he asked. - -“It’s getting my goat. It is growing worse every day, and I’m afraid it -will come down on us. Since we’re working three shifts, with a gang in -the heading all the time, you know what a cave-in would mean; the shift -that happened to be caught behind it would die to the last man before -it could be dug out. There’s enough of that slippery marl hanging up -in the ‘fault’ to bury an army, and, sooner or later, it’s going to -come down. But I can’t make Plegg see it that way at all. He says I’ve -got too many nerves.” - -“You think the weak spot ought to be timbered?” - -“I know it ought; and the men think so, too. There has been a good bit -of grumbling and some little strike talk among them, and I can’t blame -them. They say the company has no right to ask them to take their lives -in their hands for the sake of saving a few dollars’ worth of timbers. -It was my shift off this afternoon, but if I had known you were going -to be up there, I should have stayed and asked you to take another look -at the roof for yourself.” - -“I’ll go up to-morrow,” was David’s prompt offer. “We mustn’t take -chances on the lives of your men. At the same time, it doesn’t pay to -let a thing of that kind get on your nerves, Fred. The responsibility -is up to Plegg and me, and we’ll take care of it. Now you’d better hike -back to the bunk shack and catch up on your sleep.” - -It was less than a quarter of an hour after Altman had gone when Silas -Plegg came in and found David Vallory preparing to go to bed. - -“About that weak place in the tunnel roof in heading Number One,” said -David, pausing with one lace-boot off. “Have you examined it lately?” - -“I’ve been keeping an eye on it ever since we drove through it,” was -the first assistant’s answer. Then: “Has Altman been worrying you about -it?” - -“He was here a few minutes ago. He seems to think it’s dangerous, and -says his men are protesting.” - -“Altman is a fine young fellow, and an expert in the rock-blasting, -but he is a little inclined to be nervous,” Plegg threw in. “That sort -of thing is always contagious, and Altman’s personal scare has been -spreading itself. That roof stood up while we were driving through the -fault, and I guess it will continue to stand.” - -“If there is any doubt about it, it ought to be timbered,” was David’s -decision. “I’m looking to you, Plegg, for the carrying out of these -routine details.” - -“We can’t afford to timber it,” said Plegg, shortly. - -“Why not? The cost would be nothing compared with what we’d lose in a -strike of the hard-rock men.” - -“I’ll guarantee the men won’t strike. And as for the cost of the -timbering; have you considered what it would mean to us if we should -call the attention of the railroad inspectors to that bad spot by -propping it up?” - -“Do you mean to say that the railroad engineers, and Lushing among -them, don’t know about that ‘fault’?” - -“We’re hoping they don’t,” said Plegg, with the sardonic smile -wrinkling slowly at the corners of his eyes. “It would give Mr. James -B. Lushing the one big chance he is looking for. The day in which we -haul the first car-load of props into the tunnel will be the day when -he’ll fall on us like a thousand of brick. We’ll get a peremptory -order from the railroad headquarters to shoot that bad roof down and -plug the hole with concrete. That will mean a delay, maybe of weeks, a -forfeiture of our time-limit bond for the completion of the job, and -a bill of costs for the additional work that will turn the Grillage -company’s profit into a loss heavy enough to make the big boss sweat -blood.” - -David said nothing while he was slowly removing the remaining -lace-boot. When he spoke it was to ask a curt question. - -“Does Mr. Grillage know about this bad spot in the tunnel.” - -“Sure he does. I sent him photographs when we were driving through -it. He’s an old hand at the rock-blasting, and he isn’t losing any -sleep over the cracked roof--which is cracked chiefly in Altman’s -imagination.” - -In some vague sense David Vallory felt that he was confronting a crisis -and another test of the ideals. Before he realized it the battle was -joined between a just regard for human life on one hand, and strict -loyalty to Eben Grillage on the other. Should he heed Altman’s warning -and order the timbering, regardless of the possible consequences to the -Grillage Engineering Company? Or should he take Plegg’s assurances at -their face value and discount the fears of an overanxious subordinate? - -The daughter of the luxuries had possibly spoken better than she knew -in saying that the first downward step in the ethical ladder makes all -the others easy. As David Vallory rolled himself into the bunk blankets -and turned his face away from the light of the hanging lamp under which -Plegg was squaring himself for the nightly task of field-note checking, -the decision came. - -“Perhaps you are right about Altman’s nerves, Plegg. Suppose you shift -him to the quarry work in Dixon’s Cut and put Regnier in the tunnel -heading. If I’m any judge of men, Regnier won’t let the spalling roof -trouble him. He’ll be too busy trying to break Altman’s record of so -many feet advance a day, and that will be some job.” - -“That’s better,” said Plegg, bending lower over the checking. But when -David’s regular breathing began, as it did almost at the instant of -eye-closing, the first assistant straightened up, shaking his head -regretfully. - -“It’s a damned shame!” he muttered under his breath. And then: “If I -were half as loyal to him as he is to Grillage, I’d blow the whole -gaff--tell him exactly what he is up against on this crooked job, and -at least give him a chance to fight with his eyes open. Maybe I shall, -some day--after it’s everlastingly too late.” - - - - -XIV - -The Mucker - - -For some little time after his chief had gone to sleep, Silas Plegg -bent thoughtfully over his task at the trestle-table. It was said of -him that he could live and work with less sleep than any other man on -the staff, and his nightly vigils proved it. Now and again the midnight -workers on some remote section of the job would look up to find the -first assistant staring down at them from some coign of vantage, and -the shirkers never knew at what moment the cool, crisp voice of the -under-boss would come crackling out of the shadows with a snap like -that of a whip lash. - -With the slipping of the rubber band over the last of the field-books, -Plegg rose noiselessly and left the car as if to begin another of his -nocturnal rounds. In the shadow of the cement sheds he overtook the -yard watchman. - -“Anything stirring, Mac?” he asked. - -“Nothin’ but that tunnel mucker they call ‘Simmy’. Early in the evenin’ -I caught him prowlin’ ’round the big boss’s private car. I asked him -what he was doin’ and he said he couldn’t sleep. I wouldn’t ’a’ thought -nothin’ of it if you hadn’t told me to keep an eye out for him.” - -“Anything else?” - -“Nothin’ much, ’cept that the next time I come around I catch him -snoopin’ under the windows of yours and Mr. Vallory’s sleep-wagon. This -time I takes him by the ear and runs him over to his bunk shack and -tells him to stay there till his shift’s called.” - -“How long ago was that?” Plegg inquired. - -“’Bout a half-hour, I reckon. He--Well, I’ll be dog-goned! Look yonder!” - -Plegg had already seen. The sputtering light of a distant masthead -showed a lop-shouldered figure making off across the yard, dodging as -it went to keep within the shadows cast by the scattered material cars. - -“I’ll go after him,” said the watchman; but Plegg stopped him. - -“No, Mac; stay on your job. I think this may be what I’ve been waiting -for.” And as craftily as if he had been trained in Indian warfare, the -first assistant set out to trail the dodging figure. - -After the first few hundred yards down the tracks it was not difficult -to guess the tunnel mucker’s destination. He was heading across the -basin to the mining-camp at the foot of Gold Hill. Plegg did not try to -keep him in sight after his direction was assured, contenting himself -with closing the gap when the man ahead was entering the single street -of the town. Even then the pursuer made no haste and paid no special -attention to the lop-shouldered one. It was as if he had known in -advance where his quarry would alight, and when the dodging figure was -lost finally among the late roisterers still obstructing the planked -sidewalks, Plegg pushed on steadily until he reached the corner -occupied by Black Jack Dargin’s gambling resort. - -At the corner, the first assistant changed his tactics suddenly. -Flattening himself against the side of the building he edged his way -cautiously down the short side street. Being the headquarters of a -leading industry, Dargin’s “place” enjoyed the distinction of standing -as the only two-storied building in the camp. With its ground floor -devoted strictly to the business of relieving restless or thirsty souls -of the hard-earned dollars, the second floor was the living apartment -of the master gambler. It was approached by an outside stair, and up -this stair Plegg crept on his toes and finger-ends. - -The door at the stair-head was closed, but the first assistant seemed -to know his ground. Noiselessly a skeleton key was slipped into the -lock, there was a faint click, and the door swung inward, opening into -a dark hall running crosswise of the building. Again Plegg showed -his familiarity with his surroundings. Closing the door, and thus -shutting himself into the Egyptian darkness of the narrow upper hall, -he felt his way carefully to the opposite end of the passage, found and -unlocked another door, and stepped out upon a railed gallery running -the full length of the building at the second-story level. A few steps -to the right two windows and a door gave upon the gallery, and the -windows were lighted. - -Once more resorting to the Indian tactics, Plegg crouched in the shadow -and worked his way silently on hands and knees to the nearest window. -The shade was partly drawn down, but since the night was unusually warm -for the season and the altitude the window was open a few inches at the -bottom. - -The view from the gallery was unobstructed. Plegg saw an interior -gaudily furnished, a costly carpet, ill-kept and soiled by muddied -boots, yellowed lace hangings at the windows, heavy mahogany chairs, -scarred and with their leather upholstering chafed and abused, a -marble-topped table littered with cigar stubs, an ash tray, a -scattered deck of cards and an open box of cigars; the whole lighted by -a hanging lamp with a cheap tin reflector. - -There were two men in the room and they sat on opposite sides of the -table. One was the master gambler; he had selected the one wooden chair -in the room, and he sat back with his hands in his pockets, rocking the -chair gently on two legs. He was in his shirt-sleeves, and the black, -Indian-like hair fell forward in a lock that shaded the coldly staring -eyes. - -The other man was the “mucker” of the yard watchman’s report, the -man Plegg had been following. On the Grillage pay-roll he appeared -as Simeon Backus, serving on the day shift as a muck shoveler in the -eastern heading of the great tunnel. He sat in one of the upholstered -chairs with a deep seat, and his deformities--the lopped shoulder and -arms much too long for his body--were accentuated. His face, with its -lines half obliterated by a ragged beard, lacked none of the villainous -characteristics of the ingrained criminal; beady eyes that would look -at nothing steadily, a retreating chin, a thin-lipped, acrid mouth. - -When Silas Plegg reached his spying place on the gallery, Dargin was -speaking. - -“Cut it out, Simmy; cut it all out and get down to brass tacks!” he was -growling. “Your hard job in the tunnel isn’t any skin off of me; and -you get paid twice for it, at that.” - -“What little rake-off you give me for steerin’ the money-burners down -here don’t cut no ice with me!” snapped the smaller man. “I’ve got -bigger game to-night.” - -“Shoot,” said Dargin. - -“I’ve got a line on the new boss. Did you know he was down here lookin’ -you over the other night?” - -“I saw him,” was the brief reply. - -“Well, he’s goin’ to run you out--clean up the shop--wipe off the -slate.” - -“Who says he is?” - -“He says so, by cripes! I’ve got it straight. This here hell-hole’s got -to be took off the map. It’s bu’stin’ up his gangs and robbin’ his men, -and he ain’t goin’ to stand for no such. And say, Jack--_he’s got the -old geezer behind him_!” - -“Grillage? Not in a thousand years, Simmy.” - -“I’m tellin’ you I got it straight. There’s a skirt in it this time.” - -“Cough it up.” - -“It’s this-away; that young cock-o’-the-walk’s goin’ to marry -Grillage’s daughter--see?” - -“How do you know he is?” - -“There ain’t much that a bunch as big as ours don’t know about its -bosses--or that it can’t find out if it tries. Vallory hadn’t hardly -lit down on the job before ever’body knew that he got his boost from -the inside--that it was all in the family. Why, hell; he’s nothin’ but -an overgrowed kid!” - -“You talk too many, Simmy,” was the gruff interruption. “Get down to -the face-cards and aces.” - -“All right, I will. Did you know Grillage is here?” - -“I knew he was coming.” - -“Well, he’s come--and he’s fetched the girl with him. You know what -she tried to get him to do last fall, after Lushing was fool enough to -bring that look-see crowd down here from the hotel?” - -“I know,” said Dargin. “She tried to get the old man to put the kibosh -on us. He wouldn’t do it then; and he isn’t going to back Vallory now.” - -“Don’t you believe it! The girl will make him back Vallory, if she -feels like it. I’m tellin’ you again--I got it straight. The minute -Vallory hears she’s here, he makes a straight shoot for the hotel, and -sits most o’ the evenin’ on the porch with her. I kep’ cases on ’em.” - -“That doesn’t prove anything.” - -“It proves what I’m sayin’. You’re goin’ to get the hook, Dargin, and -I’m the one man that can keep it out o’ your liver.” - -Silas Plegg, from his cramped spying place on the gallery, saw a bleak -smile flicker for a moment in the cold eyes of the master gambler. - -“You get your pay, don’t you, Simmy?” - -“For leggin’ for your skin game down-stairs, yes. But this time I’ve -got somethin’ to sell--somethin’ that Grillage’ll pay for, if you don’t -want it.” - -“Suppose you tell me what it is, Simmy.” - -“I’ll tell you this much: s’pose you could go to Grillage and say, -‘Look-ee here, old sport; I’m wise to somethin’ that’ll knock all the -money out o’ this railroad job o’ yours, and then some; you keep this -here Vallory hook out o’ me, and I’ll keep mine out o’ you.’ How does -that hit you?” - -Again Plegg saw the vanishing smile. - -“Where did you get all this flim-flam dope, Simmy?” - -“Some of it I’ve had a good little spell. The rest of it I got to-night -listenin’ under the windows of Vallory’s bunk car.” - -“Who was doing the talking?” - -“Three of ’em, first and last: young Altman and Vallory, and then -Vallory and that gun-totin’ under-boss o’ his’n, Plegg.” - -“Supposing I say that I’m not in the market; then what?” - -The lop-shouldered man struggled up in his chair and spat his reply out -viciously. “Then, by cripes, I’ll go to Grillage himself! _He’ll_ buy!” - -“I see,” said Dargin softly. “You’ll sell this thing to me or to -Grillage, whichever one of us bids the highest. Is that it?” - -“You’re shoutin’ now. I’m tired o’ hidin’ out and dodgin’ Hank Bullock -in these dam’ mountains. Some o’ these days he’s goin’ to hike up -this-away and get the drop on me; and then”--the misshapen man made a -gesture pantomiming the clicking of handcuffs upon wrists. “I want to -skip down yonder to Honduras, ’r some o’ them places where they never -heard o’ me ’r the croakin’ business in Gunnison. And you lissen to me, -Jack; I’m goin’ to have a wad big enough to stake me when I get there, -and don’t you forget it!” - -The swarthy giant on the opposite side of the table was still tilting -his chair and still had his hands deeply buried in his pockets. - -“Let’s see if I’m getting it straight, Simmy,” he said gently. “You’ve -thought it all out, and you’re going to sell this thing you’ve got hold -of--and which you haven’t named for me yet--either to me or to the big -boss. If I get it, I can make the hook miss; and if Grillage beats me -to it--what happens then?” - -“Why, then Grillage plays safe on his profit by gettin’ me out o’ the -country; see? And then, if Vallory wants to stick his fork into you----” - -The man in the deep chair stopped short. The other made no move. His -dark face with its leaden eyes and the heavy drooping mustaches was as -impassive as the face of the Buddha. The lop-shouldered “mucker” seemed -to be trying to read the Buddha face, and when he failed he gave a -gulping swallow. - -“I--I reckon I’m talkin’ through my hat, Jack,” he wavered. “Grillage -ain’t in the deal; I’m goin’ to sell my stock to you.” - -Plegg, looking on at a distance of not more than half the width of the -room would have sworn that no man of Dargin’s build could have moved so -swiftly. At one instant he was swaying gently in the tilted chair. At -the next he was leaning across the table and thrusting the muzzle of a -pistol against the shrinking body of the talebearer. When he spoke his -voice was like the whistling of the north wind. “No, Simmy, you’re not -going to sell it to me; you’re going to _give_ it to me, _now_!” - -For possibly five minutes, as if the pressing pistol muzzle were a -magnet to electrify and hold him rigid, Simeon Backus, ex-cattle -rustler, ex-yeggman, and now a manslayer hiding from justice, sat erect -and motionless, pouring forth a stammering story. There was little in -the story that was new to the listening ear at the window. Chiefly it -was made up of the facts concerning the weak roof in the tunnel--facts -still unknown to the railroad people; wherein lay their value to one -who could trade upon them. Plegg heard Altman’s talk with Vallory -repeated; then, almost word for word, his own talk with Vallory, -with the emphasis laid upon the consequences which he, himself, had -predicted would follow any leakage of the facts in Lushing’s direction. - -Plegg waited until he was measurably certain that he had heard all that -Backus had to spill, and when there were signs that the talebearer was -about to be released, he hastened to make his retreat, retracing his -steps through the dark cross hall and locking the doors behind him -with his skeleton key. Safely down the outside stair and afoot in the -street he hesitated. The facts about the dangerous tunnel roof were -no longer a secret to be carefully guarded by the Grillage staff. They -were weapons in the hands of a man who would use them instantly in his -own behalf. There were two ways in which they might be used. Dargin -might go to Grillage and buy the immunity which the contractor-king -would doubtless assure by laying positive orders upon Vallory to let -the Powder Can man-traps alone. Or, if by some unheard-of chance, -Virginia Grillage could succeed in swinging her father over to her -side and Vallory’s, Dargin could use his information to make capital -with Lushing, and at one stroke entrench himself with the railroad -management and--through the loss which would be saddled upon the -Grillage company--square his account with Vallory. - -All this the first assistant saw, and saw clearly, in the momentary -halt made upon the street corner. Holding his watch in the light -streaming from the windows of the Dargin bar-room he found that it -stiff lacked a few minutes of eleven. There was a chance and he took -it, walking rapidly up the street toward the place where, a few nights -before, he had drawn aside to become charitably blind and deaf while -David Vallory was talking to Judith Fallon. - - - - -XV - -Plegg’s Back-Fire - - -For good and sufficient reasons Silas Plegg did not wish to show -himself in the dance-hall opposite the Murtrie Mine ore sheds. On all -accounts he would have been glad to be assured that he had thus far -gone unrecognized through the ill-lighted Powder Can street. Standing -before the wide-open doors of this other outreaching of Dargin’s, he -could pass the shuffling dancers in review. The woman he was looking -for was not among them, and neither was she at the piano. - -Turning away with a sigh of relief he crossed the street, circled the -ore sheds, and came upon the row of shack cottages belonging to the -Murtrie company. Only one of the cottages showed a lighted window, and -here, again, Plegg made careful reconnaissance before he knocked on the -door. It was Judith Fallon who opened to him. - -“Oh, ’tis you, is it?” she said, when the light fell upon him. “If it’s -my father you’re wanting, he’ll be over at the mine. ’Tis his week to -be on the night shift.” - -“No, I don’t want to see your father, Judith,” he said quietly. “I came -to see you. May I come in?” - -The black eyes snapped and their light was unfriendly. “’Tis an honor -to the likes of me. The door is open.” - -Plegg accepted the scant welcome and went in. The interior of the -cottage was plain almost to poverty. Since the young woman would not -sit down he was forced to plunge bluntly into his errand. - -“I’ve come to you, Judith, because I am David Vallory’s friend,” he -began. “Have I made a mistake?” - -Her attitude was still antagonistic. “You needn’t be worrying,” she -snapped. “I know my place. ’Tis not I that will be running after Davie -Vallory.” - -“You misunderstood me completely,” he hastened to say. And then: “Won’t -you please sit down?” - -She moved toward the lighted window. “’Tis better that I don’t--and -that you don’t,” she flung out; and Plegg was quick to take the hint. -She was expecting some one else, and the some one would doubtless be -Dargin, the man who had constituted himself her protector. - -“I’ll take a chance, Judith--for Vallory’s sake,” he thrust in boldly. -“Won’t you do the same?” - -“’Tis himself would kill you if he found you here. But what is it -you’ll want to be saying about Davie?” - -There was neither time nor opportunity for a guarded approach to his -object, and Plegg plunged again. - -“Listen, Judith: Black Jack has just been told something that gives -him a strangle hold on Vallory; if he uses it, it will cost Vallory -his place on this job, to say the least. I’m not saying that Dargin -wouldn’t be justified, from his own point of view. Vallory would clean -up these Powder Can joints if he had the authority--which he hasn’t, -and won’t have. But he has said he would, and Dargin knows it.” - -“How would Jack be using this thing that you haven’t tied a name to?” -she asked. - -“By passing it on to Lushing.” - -“That black-hearted devil!” she burst out. “’Tis little but the back of -my hand that I’m owing him!” - -Plegg saw his opening and drove the wedge promptly. - -“We all know Lushing,” he said; “you probably have good reasons for -hating him.” - -“Reasons, it is? Do you know what he’d be doing to me? For shame I -can’t tell you. But if Jack Dargin had listened to him, it’s not here -that I’d be, keeping house for my father!” - -“Dargin wants to marry you?” said Plegg quickly. - -The woman’s hard black eyes grew suddenly tender. “’Tis not all bad he -is, Mr. Plegg. Show me the man like him that would do what he’s done.” - -Plegg had never faced a problem requiring swifter or more skilful -handling. In the very nature of it he had to take much for granted; -to assume the values of the unknown quantities where he could not -demonstrate them. - -“You knew Vallory before you came here, didn’t you?” he asked. - -Her eyes fell. “I grew up with him--in Middleboro.” - -Plegg smiled. It was easier now. - -“I’m not going to ask you why you refused to talk with him the other -night; we’ll let that go. I’m going to leave this thing with you, -Judith. David Vallory stands to get a knife in the back. Jim Lushing -will do the stabbing, but it will be Dargin who will hand him the -knife. Your woman’s heart will tell you what to do, and how to do it.” - -She covered her face with her hands. “I can’t--_I can’t!_” she -shuddered. “Himself would kill me, and I’d not be blaming him--after -what he’s done for me in this place. Think of what you’d be asking -me to do--to put the double-cross on the one man who would be caring -anything for me!” - -Plegg caught his breath and took his last long leap in the dark. - -“Dargin is Dargin,” he said, speaking slowly, “but--you love David -Vallory, Judith. That’s all I had to say; good-night.” And he opened -the door and vanished. - -Having thus done his best to avert a possible tragedy--at the possible -cost of another tragedy--the first assistant owned but one pressing -anxiety, namely, to get out of the mining-camp speedily, and without -stumbling upon some one of the late-hour stragglers who might recognize -him. - -Leaving the Fallon cottage, he was at first minded to climb the steep -slope of Gold Hill, thus making his exit without passing again through -the town street. But the night was dark, and there was no path over the -hill shoulder that he could recall. Dismissing the alternative, he -faced about to return as he had come; but before he had taken a dozen -steps toward the street the lights of the dance-hall opposite showed -him a man turning the corner at the ore sheds and coming toward him. - -Though the distance was too great and the light too uncertain to enable -him to identify the man, there could be little doubt that it was -Dargin. Judith Fallon had shown plainly that she was expecting him. -Instantly Plegg realized that there were likely to be consequences -if Dargin should meet him. The Fallon house was the only one in the -shack-cottage group that showed any signs of life, and Dargin would be -swift to draw conclusions. But there was even a greater danger than -this to be feared. Plegg had left Judith Fallon in tears, wrestling -with the sharpest problem that can confront any woman, gentle or -simple. If Dargin should find her thus, and before she was given time -to compose herself.... - -Plegg’s hand flew to his hip pocket and his resolve was taken. Of the -two evils he would choose that which seemed to be the lesser. Half-way -down the little hill he met the master gambler and blocked his path. -Dargin stopped and thrust his head forward for a better sight of the -obstructionist. Then: “Oh, it’s you, is it? What the hell----” - -“I was looking for you, Dargin,” Plegg said promptly, turning fugitive -expectation into aggressive fact. Then he added the whole-cloth lie. -“Somebody said I’d find you at John Fallon’s.” - -“Well, now that you’ve found me, what of it?” - -It may be imagined that never, in a life-time that had not been in any -manner devoid of exciting moments, had Silas Plegg been more sorely -put to it to fill a suddenly yawning gap. But at any cost time must be -gained. - -“It’s a personal matter, Dargin,” he explained coolly. “Word has been -passed in camp that you’re out gunning for Vallory. I’d like to believe -that it’s nothing but camp gossip; some of the hard-boiled eggs talking -just to make a noise. How about it?” - -“What business is it of yours?” - -“I’m making it my business, Jack. Vallory’s my boss and my friend. -He isn’t a gun-toter, and you know it. He’d stand just about as much -show with you as these pick-and-shovel men do betting against your -faro-game.” - -“I haven’t said I was after him, have I?” - -“Not to me, you haven’t. And I don’t ask you either to say it or deny -it. All I want to say is this: if you go gunning for Vallory, you’ve -got to include me. You understand?” - -The giant grunted. “Perhaps you’d like to try it out right now?” he -suggested. - -“As you please,” said Plegg calmly. “I’m heeled, and I know you are. If -you think you can get to it quicker than I can, the bars are down.” - -This time the “killer’s” grunt lapsed into a chuckle. - -“I don’t need a man for breakfast to-morrow morning,” he said. “When I -do, I’ll let you know. S’pose you get out o’ the way and let me pass.” - -“With pleasure,” snapped Plegg. “Only what I say, goes. If you hit -Vallory, you hit me. And it will be safer if you hit me first, and you -always know where to find me.” - -Judith’s saving interval having thus been bought and paid for, Plegg -stood aside and let Dargin have the path. But after he had left the -town behind and was plodding across the basin on his way back to -the headquarters camp and his long-deferred rest, he was weighing -judicially the value of the expedient to which he had resorted. To -which extreme of the arc would the pendulum of a woman’s emotions be -carried? Would Judith Fallon be true to whatever feeling she still -cherished for David Vallory? Or would she refuse to betray the man -who, so far as his limitations had permitted, had stood between her and -utter degradation? - -“I guess it’s on the knees of the gods,” was the first assistant’s -final summing-up of the matter; the conclusion reached as he was -crossing the yard tracks to the isolated bunk car. “There may be some -man living who can tell what a woman will do under given conditions, -but the good Lord knows I’m not that man.” - -And so leaving it he swung up the steps of the car and crept to his -bunk, quietly, so as not to disturb his sleeping chief. - - - - -XVI - -Master and Man - - -On the day following the arrival of Mr. Grillage’s private car at -Powder Gap, word was passed from camp to camp that the big boss was -about to make an inspection round with the new chief of construction, -and the activities automatically speeded themselves up to grace the -occasion. - -At the bridge sites the clank and grind of the concrete mixers, the -upshoot and dumping tip of the hoist buckets, and the clattering -descent of the concrete into the forms played the industrial -quick-step. In the hill cuttings the intermittent clamor of -steam-shovels and the strident exhausts of locomotives dragging the -spoil to the fills made deafening discords. In the short tunnel -under Dead Man’s Ridge the hard-rock men timed their forenoon blasts -accurately to make a thunderous crash of dynamite salute the upcoming -of the light engine and way-car bearing President Grillage and his -chief engineer. - -So far as any routine-changing result was concerned, the inspection -trip was conspicuously barren. It was rather a triumphal progress -for the new chief. At each stopping-place the big boss climbed down -dutifully from the way-car to look on and listen while David explained -some new method of cost-cutting, and there was always the word of gruff -approval, coupled with the suggestion that they move along. - -“I’m taking all your little economies and short-cuttings for granted, -David,” said the tamed tyrant, as the way-car special shot around the -curves of approach to the main tunnel. “I got it pretty straight from -Coulee du Sac that you were up in all the late kinks in money-saving -and systematizing. You are doing good work, and I’m right proud of you.” - -Again David’s heart warmed to the big man who had been so grossly -misrepresented as a hard boss. Thus far, there had been no single word -of criticism; nothing but hearty appreciation and praise. David knew -well enough that his work couldn’t be beyond criticism; that to a -master workman as experienced as Eben Grillage the shortcomings must -surely be apparent. Yet there had been nothing said that would lead him -to believe that the contractor-king was making anything but the most -perfunctory duty trip over the job. - -At the tunnel portal they found Plegg, who was apparently waiting for -them. There was a halt of a few minutes while the first assistant, in -obedience to a signal which David was not permitted to see, held his -chief to ask some routine question about a proposed re-sloping of the -approach cutting. Eben Grillage walked on into the tunnel alone. The -great black bore was lighted only by a string of inadequate electric -bulbs hung at hundred-foot intervals, and the massive figure of the -president was soon lost to view in the depths. David Vallory answered -Plegg’s queries impatiently, the more so because they seemed to be -peculiarly trivial and ill-timed. It was something less than respectful -to allow the president to go stumbling into the tunnel unattended. - -When they finally overtook him the big boss had penetrated to the -working heading, and was looking on quietly while the drillers and -their helpers removed the drill-columns and prepared for a blast. Again -there were words commendatory of the discipline and the industrial -systematizing. - -“Fine!” was Eben Grillage’s comment, when David came up with Plegg at -his elbow. “I’ll be losing you two fellows to the efficiency squad -one of these fine days; that’s a fact.” Then to the black-eyed, -black-mustached little French-Canadian who had taken Altman’s place: -“Hello, Regnier! So they’ve got you on the mole job, now, have they?” - -Regnier came across to join the onlooking group. - -“Eet is moz’ in’ospitable, but in five minute ze men will fire -ze blast,” he announced. “Me, I am _désolé_ to ’ave to h’ask you -zhentlemen to go h’out, _mais_----” - -“But we’d better go out if we don’t want to get our necks stretched, -eh?” laughed the visiting overlord. “That’s all right, Regnier; we’ve -seen all we need to, I guess.” And the retreat was made so hurriedly -that David had no chance to inspect the dangerous spot in the roof, or -to call the president’s attention to it, as he had fully intended doing. - -These were the commonplace incidents of the day of inspections, and -there were no other kind. But when the day was ended, and David Vallory -was once more finding a reward for duty done in an ecstatic hour with -Virginia on the Inn porch, it is conceivable that the joy-nerve might -have lost some of its thrills if he could have been endowed with the -gift of double personality, enabling him to see and hear what was -transpiring coincidently in the Grillage private Pullman at the foot -of the ridge. In the open central compartment of the car Plegg was -once more under fire, and the special target of the bombardment was his -estimate of the bad roof in tunnel heading Number One. - -“You are losing your sand, Plegg, the same as young Altman did,” -Grillage was asserting bluntly. “I took the chance you made for me this -morning and had a good look at that ‘fault’ while you were holding -Vallory at the portal. In spite of your test-borings, and all that -you’ve had to say about it, I say the roof will stay up while we’re -driving. If the railroad company wants to concrete it after we’re -through, that’s a horse of another color. We’re not hunting for a -chance to throw good money away.” - -“I know,” said Plegg, almost humbly. - -“How did you manage to get Altman out and Regnier in?” - -“The change was made to-day and Vallory authorized it. Altman went over -my head last night and took his complaint to Vallory, though I had -warned him not to. A little later Vallory fell upon me and wanted to -know why I hadn’t ordered the weak spot timbered. I smoothed it over as -well as I could; gave him a hint of the use Lushing might make of it if -we should advertise the weak spot by timbering it. He saw the point -after a while and told me to shift Altman and put Regnier in. But I had -to lie to him to bring it about.” - -“Bosh! That roof isn’t coming down. You’ve been letting Altman’s nerves -put one across on yours!” - -It was just here that the first assistant took his courage in both -hands. - -“I know what I know; and you know it, as well, Mr. Grillage,” he said. -“The test drillings showed up the conditions plainly enough, as I wrote -you at the time. That entire crevice is filled with loose material that -is certain to come down, sooner or later. Why not go to the railroad -people frankly, show them what we’re up against, and try to persuade -them to let us concrete that break on force account, with the cost of -doing it added to our estimate?” - -Eben Grillage’s answer to this was brutally direct. - -“I’m running the business end of this company’s affairs, Plegg, and -when I want your help I’ll call on you. But since you’ve gone this far, -I’ll tell you a thing or two. Lushing hasn’t been idle since he climbed -over the fence into the railroad pasture. He’s been building prejudice -against us to beat the band. If we’d make the break you suggest, I -wouldn’t put it beyond him to claim that we’d shaken that roof up -purposely with dynamite to get an excuse to run a force account job in -on them. Such things have been done, on other jobs, and I shouldn’t -wonder if Lushing had helped do some of ’em. No; our safe play is to -let sleeping dogs lie.” - -“But if somebody should take the trouble to wake this particular dog?” -Plegg put in quietly. - -“Put Lushing on?” queried the big man at the desk. - -“Yes.” - -“Who would do it?” - -“The bad roof is an open secret. The men in the tunnel shifts all know -about it.” - -“But none of our men will go to Lushing. They hate him too well.” - -“There is one other man who knows about it, too.” - -“Who is that?” - -“Black Jack Dargin.” - -“Huh! How did he find out?” - -“That door is pretty wide open, isn’t it? A good many of the hard-rock -men blow their money in Dargin’s dives.” - -“Are you sure he knows?” - -“Yes, quite sure.” - -“He’d sell the tip to Lushing?” - -Plegg shook his head. “No, I don’t believe he’d sell it. But he might -give it.” - -“Spit it all out--don’t beat around the bush, Plegg! What’s the inside -of the deal? You know more than you’re willing to tell, and that isn’t -a safe play for you to make at me!” - -Plegg ignored the implication and the threat and answered only the -direct question. - -“I don’t know the inside of the deal. But one man’s guess is as good as -another’s. Lushing goes all the gaits in Powder Can; he did it while -he was with us, and he does it now, when he’s here. I’ve thought, more -than once, that he might have some sort of a stand-in with Dargin. As -the matter stands now, Dargin can give us away any time he feels like -it.” - -As was his habit when he was putting his back to the wall in any fight, -Eben Grillage caught up the paper-knife from his desk and began to test -the edge of it with a spatulate thumb. - -“I’m beginning to get at the inwards of this thing,” he said slowly. -“David was saying something last night about wanting to clean out the -Powder Can messes. Dargin is going to hold this tunnel business as a -club. Vallory mustn’t meddle with the nuisances; you must see to it -that he doesn’t.” - -“Vallory doesn’t take ‘seeing to’ very submissively.” - -“That’s all right; you keep him from meddling with Dargin’s affairs.” - -“You won’t consider my suggestion about making a clean breast of the -tunnel situation to Mr. Ford? As I’ve said, I am firmly convinced that -the stuff in the crevice will come down, sooner or later. If it slides -while we are still driving the heading, no man who happens to be behind -it will get out alive.” - -“I don’t want your suggestion--or your convictions either, for that -matter.” - -“Very well. It is your risk and you see fit to take it. I have nothing -more to say.” - -“Never mind the risk. Have you stopped the calamity talk among the men?” - -“For the time being, yes. I raised the pay of the shift bosses, and -told them what it was for. That is all in the game, and I’m crooked -enough by this time not to mind an additional bit of bribery. But there -is one thing that I’ve said before, and I’ll say it again: it’s a -damned shame to hoodwink a fine young fellow like Vallory the way I’ve -been doing ever since he came on the job. He has no idea that we are -not playing square with the railroad people; none whatever. And it’s -just as I told you last night; if a smash should come, it will hit him -harder than it will anybody else.” - -“We’ll take care of all the smashes,” growled the tyrant, who was no -longer tame. “All you have to do is to keep your mouth shut and go on -sawing wood. You know very well why I want Vallory kept in the dark; or -at least, you know the business reason, anyway. He is valuable on this -job only so long as he _is_ kept in the dark. You are the man to do it, -Plegg, and you’ve got it to do.” - -Plegg’s thin lips curled in a dog-like grimace. - -“If I don’t do it, you’ll revive that old criminal charge against me on -the Falling Water dam and get me jugged--the charge that made me the -scapegoat for the use of rotten cement when you and your man Homer were -the responsible people,” he said bitterly. “I know perfectly well where -I stand with you--and with the courts--Mr. Grillage. But there are -limits. One of these days I may decide to tell you to go to hell--and -take whatever may be coming to me. Vallory trusts me and I am abusing -his confidence every day and resorting to all kinds of shifts to keep -him from finding out the thousand-and-one crooked things we’re doing -to beat the specifications on this job. You say I know the business -reason why he was sent out here, but I don’t. Why you wanted to put a -clean young fellow like David Vallory in charge of this job is beyond -me.” - -“You’re duller than usual to-night, Plegg, and that’s needless,” was -the tyrant’s unfeeling retort. “The chief reason is that David has put -some capital into this thing. President Ford knows Adam Vallory, and -the Vallory connections generally. We’re capitalizing that knowledge. -But that’s a side issue. Coming back to this tunnel business: we’re -into it and we’ve got to go through with it. The secret of that ‘rotten -spot,’ as you insist upon calling it, must be kept quiet so far as the -railroad people are concerned. Jack Dargin must keep it, too, if you -have to go and buy him outright. Lushing will be out here in a few -days, loaded for bear. He has given it out cold that he is going to do -us up, and he wouldn’t ask for any better chance than this tunnel roof -tempest in a teapot would give him. You may go now; that will be all -for to-night.” - -It was at this precise moment, when Plegg was leaving the private -Pullman in the construction yard, that David Vallory was asking the -daughter of profitable contracts a pointed question. - -“Is there ever such a thing as a middle course between absolute right -and absolute wrong, Vinnie?” - -“What a question!” she laughed. “Is that what you’ve been thinking -about all this time that you’ve been letting me do the talking?” - -“But I’d like to know,” he persisted. - -“I imagine you have as much common sense, and rather more conscience, -than most men, David. Why do you ask me?” - -“Because I know you are honest, and altogether fearless.” - -“So are you,” she returned quickly. - -“No. I was once, I think; but, somehow, things are changing for me. -The old anchorages are slipping away, and I can’t seem to find any -new ones. For example: I did a thing last night which seems perfectly -justifiable on one side, and almost criminal on the other. I’ve been -trying all day to make up my mind as to whether I ought to pat myself -on the back, or go to jail.” - -“If you should tell me what you did, perhaps I might be able to help -your common sense, or your conscience, or whatever it is that is -involved,” she suggested. - -David glanced at his watch. The hour was late, and there were but few -of the Inn guests remaining on the porches. - -“I’m keeping you up,” he said shortly. “Some day, perhaps, I’ll take -the lid off and let you see the tangle inside of me; but it’s too late -to begin on as big a job as that to-night. Are you going to let me show -you over the plant to-morrow?” - -“What else is there for me to do in this wilderness of a place?” she -asked in mock despair. “I shall most probably tag you around like a -meddlesome little boy until you’ll be glad to put me on the train and -send me home.” - -David was still holding the hand of leave-taking. “If you don’t go -home until I send you, you’ll stay here a long time,” he said happily. -And then he went his way, forgetting, in this newest prospect of joy, -the troublesome underthought which had been growing, like an ominous -threat, around the incident of the talk with Altman, and its outcome. - - - - -XVII - -The Tar-Barrel - - -In any descent to Avernus it is not often given to the wayfarer to -recognize the point at which he first begins to go down-hill. In the -removal of the careful Altman from the eastern tunnel boring and the -substituting of the reckless, devil-may-care Regnier, David Vallory had -succeeded in persuading himself that he had merely checked off an item -in the day’s work, and was far enough from suspecting that the item -figured as another milestone in the downward inclining path. - -But certain results followed in due course, and a growth, not in grace. -For one of the results, David, being a shrewd-eyed master of his trade, -soon began to discover many of the things that Plegg was trying to -hide from him--the dishonesties large and small by which unscrupulous -Business seeks to increase the margin or profit; to discover them and -pass by on the other side with closed eyes. Another result was his -changed and changing attitude toward the Powder Can nuisance. From -regarding the wide-open mining-camp chiefly as a moral menace, he -was beginning to look upon it more as an obstacle to progress--his -own industrial progress on the job. It was sapping the strength of -his working force, and therefore--in spite of the contractor-king’s -injunction, which he took to be another of the little kindnesses -designed to make things easier for him--it was to be abolished. - -In the field of the discovered dishonesties and the closed eye, -effect succeeded to cause with due celerity. The conditions on a -well-systematized undertaking like the line-shortening project are -fairly telepathic. Almost immediately it began to be whispered about -among the gang bosses and the men that the new chief was bent upon -making a record; the first assistant said so, and the first assistant -ought to know. This being the fact, the bridle might be taken -off--always with due regard for the railroad watch-dogs, and for a -decent concealment from a chief who, for the look of the thing, must be -in a position to say that he knew nothing whatever of cast-off bridles -and the substitution of loose halters therefor. - -When David Vallory began to realize that his lowering of the standards -was taken as an ell for an inch by his subordinates and the rank and -file, it may be supposed that he was frankly appalled. But momentum -counts for something. And back of the push on the downward slide there -was always the debt of obligation owed to Eben Grillage. The king of -the contractors might be all that men said he was; a hard bargain -driver and a cold-blooded buccaneer of business. But at the same time -he was Virginia’s father and the savior of the Vallory good name. - -If these were the inner wrestlings, David had as yet shared them with -no one. Outwardly, at least on the social side, he was measuring up -to a rather exacting standard set by Miss Virginia. Days in which he -took her on the construction locomotives and put her in touch with the -throbbings of the feverish heart of the activities were intermingled -with summer evenings on the Alta Vista porches. For some cause as yet -unexplained, the coming of his father and sister was delayed; and for -some other cause, into which his infatuation forbade him to inquire, -no one of Virginia Grillage’s retinue of suitors had thus far intruded -upon the scene. - -“And still you are not entirely happy,” she laughed, one evening, when -he spoke of the comforting dearth of the suitors. - -“What makes you think I’m not happy?” he shot back. - -“I can tell. You have something on your mind.” - -He made an attempt to turn her aside from the topic of the mind-burdens. - -“Haven’t I had you to myself for days and days? I don’t know what more -a man could ask.” - -“Oh, that!” she mocked. “But, just the same, you’re not happy.” Then -she added, apparently as an after-thought: “And neither am I.” - -“Don’t tell me it is because you are missing the others,” he pleaded, -still intent upon warding off the more personal personalities. - -“I am missing them dreadfully; especially Lord Cumberleigh and little -Freddy Wishart. But mostly it’s your ingratitude.” - -“My ingratitude?” - -“That is what I said. In the kiddie days you used to tell me -everything. But now you are shutting me out. You lead me along just so -far, but beyond that I find myself talking to another David, one that I -know less and less every day.” - -For a time he was silent. Then he said: “You are altogether right--as -you always are, Vinnie. There _is_ another David; a man that I am -trying mighty hard to get acquainted with, myself. I don’t know him -well enough yet to introduce him to you.” - -“That sounds almost uncanny. Is it meant to be?” - -“It is uncanny. I can’t account for it--or him--or wholly approve him. -This other David isn’t always a pleasant person to meet. Part of the -time I seem to recognize him in a vague sort of way, and then again he -becomes a total stranger; a man of moods and impulses and perfectly -barbarous leanings.” - -“I know,” she said quietly. “I’ve seen him now and then. I saw him -to-day when we were down at the Cross Gulch bridge. The foreman had -apparently been doing something that you had told him not to do. You -didn’t rave at him, but for a second or two the other David looked out -through your eyes.” - -“How do you account for it--or him?” - -“How should I be able to account for it--or him--if you can’t? Of -course, there are always general principles. If a watch has been -keeping good time and begins to go wrong, it is a sign that some one -has been tinkering with the works, isn’t it?” - -“And you would suggest that some one has been tinkering with my works?” - -“I know that you are different--and that I am sorry.” - -“Have I been different this evening?” - -“Yes, part of the time.” - -“There is some little cause for the added grouch just now. I’ve been -neglecting a plain duty. Did you notice the thinness of the gangs -working on the lower section when we were down there to-day?” - -“Not particularly.” - -“They were thin. Yesterday was pay-day, and a lot of those -hand-to-mouth ‘wops’ are blowing themselves in Powder Can. When I first -came here I saw that that mining-camp would have to be cleaned up, but -I’ve been putting it off. Out of the goodness of his heart, your father -tells me to let it alone; he’d rather take his losses than to have me -shoulder another load, I suppose. But the thing has reached the limit. -I’m going after it with a sharp stick.” - -On this particular evening they were sitting on the western porch, a -bit withdrawn, as usual, from the groups of idling summer people. At -the end of the porch a low-branching fir grew so close to the building -that its nearer twigs, swayed by the gentle breeze sliding down from -the heights of Qojogo, made little tapping sounds to break the silence -of the mountain night. Under the low-hanging branches of the fir the -big St. Bernard belonging to the hotel proprietor was curled up; at -least David Vallory thought it was the dog--had reason to think so -since it was the St. Bernard’s nightly sleeping-place. - -“Something ought to be done,” was the young woman’s agreement with the -sharp-stick suggestion. “How will you go about it?” - -It was at this conjuncture that the sleeping dog stirred uneasily, but -David Vallory did not look aside. - -“A man named Dargin is the head and front of things over there. If -he were run out, the smaller fellows could be handled without much -trouble. I’ve been hesitating between two methods of getting at Dargin. -I suppose the simplest plan would be to walk over there some day and -tell him that he can have twenty-four hours in which to settle up his -affairs and vanish.” - -Miss Virginia’s exclamation was a little shriek. “The idea!” she said. -“Do you suppose he would go away for anything like that?” - -“He would if it were properly backed up; if I should tell him, for -example, that if I had the job to do over, I’d do it with a gun.” - -“Mercy me! This is the ‘other David’ with a vengeance! Do you really -mean it?” - -“Why shouldn’t I mean it? If the argument of force is the only one -that would appeal to him----” - -“But you’d be killed! I’ve heard the most awful stories of this man. He -wouldn’t give you the slightest chance. Promise me that you won’t do -any such recklessly foolish thing!” - -“I shan’t, if you don’t want me to; though it’s much the simpler way to -go about it. The other way is to write a personal letter to President -Ford of the railroad company. I don’t know him, but my father does, and -he is a good man--a clean man. I am practically certain that if he knew -the conditions he’d use the railroad company’s power to clean up the -camp--the power given it by the land leases. But that is enough about -the job and me and my little insanities. I must hike back down the hill -to my blankets. I know you’d be yawning if you were not too polite.” - -She got up to walk with him to the porch steps, and at the good-night -moment he said: “Where are you going to let me take you to-morrow?” - -“Before I pick the place I’m going to ask you once more why you have -been so persistently refusing to take me to the big tunnel. Don’t you -know that I simply adore tunnels?” - -Now David had his own good reasons for not having taken Eben -Grillage’s quick-witted daughter into the big bore where Regnier was -driving his hard-rock crews. Day by day the dangerous ‘fault’ was -scattering its warnings in chips and spallings of fresh rock thrown -down from the disintegrating roof--evidences which Regnier was careful -to remove before they should attract the attention of the railroad -inspectors. - -“A tunnel in process of construction isn’t a good place in which to -entertain inquisitive little girls,” David evaded. “And this particular -tunnel is wet and mucky.” - -“That isn’t the reason why you haven’t taken me there,” she asserted -calmly. - -“How do you know it isn’t?” - -“Because I was in the tunnel this afternoon. You had been making so -many foolish excuses that my curiosity was aroused. I took advantage of -your absence at the other end of things and made Mr. Plegg take me. He -didn’t want to; he was just as gruff and impossible as he dared to be -to the big boss’s daughter. But I made him do it.” - -It is easily conceivable that David felt cold chills racing up and down -his spine at the bare thought of what might have happened during this -unauthorized visit--this, be it remarked, though he fancied he had -settled it definitely with himself that nothing was going to happen. - -“That was altogether wrong!” he said, in his best workmanlike manner. -“Don’t you know you shouldn’t break discipline that way?” - -“Poof!” she retorted. “That is what Cumberleigh would call ‘putting -on side’. It’s a pity if I have to ask permission when I wish to go -somewhere--and of you!” - -He shook his head in despair. - -“You are not a bit less wilful than you used to be in the old -Middleboro days. But, really, Vinnie, you mustn’t go into the tunnel -again. It’s--it’s no place for visitors, or at least for women -visitors.” - -“You have a reason for saying that, and it isn’t any of those you’ve -been giving me,” she flashed back. - -“Do you think so?” He had not yet reached the point at which he could -lie to her deliberately. - -“I know it. You haven’t any scruples about letting me get mucky and -grimy on any other part of the work; you have rather enjoyed telling me -that my face needed washing.” - -“Never, unless it did,” he laughed, hoping to find some way of -diverting the talk from the unwelcome tunnel channel. But Miss -Virginia, with an end in view, was not of those who may be easily -turned aside. - -“Then there was Mr. Silas Plegg,” she went on. “I have had a good many -escorts, first and last--and some of them unwilling, no doubt--but -Mr. Plegg capped the climax. He was as nervous as a cat after we got -inside, and if I didn’t know him so well, I should say he acted as if -he were afraid of something.” - -“He was,” Plegg’s chief confirmed grimly. “I have given positive orders -that no one, other than those connected with the working shifts, be -admitted to the tunnel headings. Plegg knew he would be in for a -bawling-out when I should find out what he’d done.” - -The young woman’s smile was a mocking little grimace. - -“It wasn’t at all that kind of ‘afraid’; it seemed to me more like just -plain scare. While we were watching the drills, Mr. Regnier pulled him -aside and spoke to him. They probably thought the drills were making -such a clatter that I couldn’t hear what they said; but I _did_ hear.” - -“Cuss-words?” David suggested. He was still trying to maintain the -good-naturedly playful attitude. - -She nodded vigorously. “Perfectly hair-raising!” she assured -him. “Mr. Regnier said, ‘Why in the’--a long string of sizzling -things--‘do you bring her here? Have you not of the senses -the--blinkety-blank-blank--smallest portion?’ - -“I couldn’t hear what excuse Mr. Plegg made, but it was evidently not -a very good one, for Mr. Regnier broke loose again: ‘_Sacre bleu!_ -you are prip-pare to get yourself deeslike. _Hein!_ you shall chase -her out of here so queek as _le bon Dieu_ will let you!’ You spoke -of discipline a minute ago. I shouldn’t think you’d allow one of the -under-assistants to talk that way to your second in command. It’s -disgraceful.” - -Answering the disciplinary gibe, David sought once more to stave off -the tunnel climax--if so be the breaker of discipline were working -toward a climax. But again Miss Virginia proved herself a true -inheritor of the Grillage obstinacies and persistences. - -“There is something the matter with that tunnel, David, and I want to -know what it is,” she urged gravely. - -He told a half-truth merely because no plausible or practicable -falsehood suggested itself at the moment. - -“It is a bit dangerous--in one place.” - -“But if it is dangerous for me it is dangerous for the workmen. Why -don’t you timber the bad place?” - -He laughed. “What do you know about timbering tunnels?” - -“You forget that I’ve been eating the bread of the construction camps -all my life.” - -“That’s so; I had forgotten.” In their excursions together over the -job it had given him a glow of superecstasy to find that she was -familiar with many of the details of her father’s trade--and his -own; details which would have been purest Greek to most women. Silas -Plegg’s commendation was amply borne out by the fact; she was, indeed, -“a pretty good little engineer, herself.” None the less his lips were -sealed in the matter of tunnel-timbering--or the lack of it. He could -not tell her that, for the sake of her father’s profit account, the -weak roof must not be timbered. Hence, he temporized. - -“Perhaps I shouldn’t have called it dangerous; it isn’t so bad as you -may be imagining. Timbering is an obstruction to the work, and we -always get along without it if we can.” Then, resolute to shelve the -subject so high that it couldn’t be reached again: “What has become of -your father? I haven’t seen him for two or three days.” - -“He is down at the car to-night. But he hasn’t been well.” - -“Not well? I can’t think of him as not being well. He always looks to -me as if he’d never known what it was to be sick.” - -“He hasn’t known very often, and for that reason he never takes any -care of himself. But something over a year ago he scared me silly; he -had a touch of apoplexy. The doctors told me, but they wouldn’t tell -him. He got well in almost no time, but since, I’ve been trying to make -him take things easy. That was one reason why I insisted on coming out -here with him this summer.” - -“He needs a complete rest,” said David. - -“Yes; and maybe he’ll get one when your father comes. By the way--when -are they coming--your father and Lucille?” - -“See how association with you makes me forget things!” he jested. “I -knew I had something to tell you. They will be here to-morrow. I had a -letter this morning.” - -“Are you ready for them?” she asked. - -“They are to have that cottage over there under the pines, and they can -take their meals here in the hotel.” - -It was a perfect summer night, with the stars burning like -beacon-lights in the inverted bowl of the heavens, a crescent moon -hanging low over the saw-tooth outline of Qojogo, and the elevated -backgrounds sweeping in the blackest of shadow to the high horizons. - -“The sublime majesty of it!” said the young woman softly, commenting on -the grandeurs. “And to think that Lucille won’t be able to see it when -she comes! It’s heart-breaking, David!” - -“I think--I hope--the little sister doesn’t miss what she hasn’t had -since she was four years old,” he returned, matching her low tone. - -“I know; though it seems as if she must. But you are making her miss -some of the things she needn’t miss, David.” - -“I have been a poor plotter,” he confessed. “I’ll admit that in getting -them out here I was confidently counting upon breaking it off for -Oswald. But it seems that I have only made matters worse. The letter -that I spoke of was from Herbert. He has taken a partner in his law -business and is giving himself a vacation. He says Dad’s health is -still poor and it is hardly right for him to travel with the care of -Lucille; so he, Bert, is coming along. I suppose I shall be obliged to -read the riot act to him again.” - -Miss Virginia was standing on the lowest porch step and she drew -herself up in combative protest. - -“You will do nothing of the sort,” she declared, with a touch of her -father’s peremptory manner. “If you do, I shall let Lord Cumberleigh -and Freddy Wishart know what a perfectly gorgeous place this is in -which to spend a summer vacation. Good-night; it’s late and I’m going -in.” - -When David had descended the hill to his bunk car headquarters he found -that Plegg had not yet come in. But Jean Marie François Regnier was -there, dark-faced, and with the Gallic temper coruscating. - -“Thees devil of hard-rock men!” he sputtered. “They ’ave not so moch -as the courage of a mice! They say to me, ‘You s’all timber thees bad -place or shoot it down, or bygod we s’all strike.’ _Sacr-r-re!_” - -As once before, in a similar crisis, David Vallory sat on the edge of -his bunk to take off his lace-boots. - -“I’ll think about it, Regnier” he said slowly. “You tell your men that -you’ve put it up to me. I’ll see you to-morrow.” - -After Regnier had gone, David went on mechanically with his bed-time -preparations. Then, as if at the bidding of a sudden impulse, he -hurriedly put the boots and his coat on again and went out to the rear -platform of the small car. - -When he saw that the lights were still on in Mr. Grillage’s Pullman he -dropped from the step and went across the tracks to present himself at -the porter-guarded door of the _Athenia_. - - - - -XVIII - -In Loco Parentis - - -Admitted to the office compartment of the private car, David Vallory -found its occupant preparing to go up to the hotel; but at the swing -of the corridor door Eben Grillage sat down again in the capacious -swing-chair at his desk and relighted the stub of his cigar. - -“Come in, David,” he growled not unkindly; and before Vallory could -speak: “Vinnie ’phoned down a few minutes ago to tell me that you’re -looking for your father to-morrow. That sounds mighty good to me. We’ll -have another chance to renew our youth. You don’t appreciate how much -that means; you’re too young. But some day you will.” - -David drew up one of the wicker chairs and sat down. The abrupt -dip into the purely friendly relations side-tracked his errand, -temporarily; but it also gave him time to gather himself for the plunge -into the weightier matter. - -“Yes,” he assented; “I had a letter this morning. There will be three -of them; Dad and my sister and Bert Oswald.” - -“You don’t mean John Oswald’s boy?” - -“Yes, that is the one. Bert is a lawyer now, in business for himself in -Middleboro.” - -Eben Grillage wagged his head as one incredulous, and the massive -features were relaxed in a reminiscent smile. - -“Well, well; the idea of that little red-headed, blue-eyed chap of -Oswald’s growing up to be a man and a lawyer! How time does skip -along!” Then: “What’s he coming out here for? We don’t need any lawyers -on this job--not yet, I hope.” - -“Bert says the trip is a vacation excursion for him,” David replied, -suppressing Oswald’s true motive. Then he began on his own errand. “I -came over here to bother you for a bit of advice on something that I’ve -changed my mind about half a dozen times or more. It’s that weak place -in the roof of heading Number One that Plegg wrote you about before I -came on the job.” - -“Well, what about it?” - -“At first I was willing to discount all the nervous stories. I spent -one entire summer in hard-rock work, and I know how prone the drill -crews are to cry ‘wolf’ when they drive through something a little -different. But latterly I’ve been a little anxious myself.” - -“I shouldn’t worry, if I were you,” said the big man, with the lenient -indulgence of a master for a neophyte. “There’s a good old saying, -David, that you ought always to remember: Never trouble trouble till -trouble troubles you. I’ve had a look at that tunnel roof, myself. You -needn’t lose any sleep over it.” - -“It looks a bit bad to me,” David made bold to say. “And now Regnier -tells me that the men have gone from complaining to making threats.” - -“Threats?--what kind of threats?” - -“They say if we don’t timber, or shoot the bad roof down, they’ll -strike on us; which will be giving open notice to the railroad people -that there is something wrong.” - -David Vallory did not know that, under conditions similar to those -he was presenting, the king of the contractors was wont to explode -in volcanic wrath, consigning everybody remotely implicated to the -scrap-heap of the nerveless and the yellow-streaked. Nor did he know -that he was especially favored when his chief consented to argue the -matter with him. - -“It has always been that way with the hard-rock crews,” the master -maintained; “they’re not happy if they don’t have something to kick -about. As to the threat; Lushing and his inspectors know--or ought to -know--all that anybody can tell them about that ‘fault’. It’s their -business to find out.” - -David felt that he was losing ground, but he tried once more. - -“It has always seemed better to me to be safe than sorry,” he ventured; -and he was going on to make the same suggestion that Plegg had made, -about taking the matter up with the railroad company for a new -contract, when the exponent of modern business success broke in. - -“‘Safety first’ is a good idea, but it has been run into the ground, -like a lot of other good things, David. You were telling me that your -college vacations were spent working for the railroads, and there you -would naturally get the safety idea rubbed into you good and hard. I’ve -seen railroad engineers spend thousands of dollars--of other people’s -money--on precautions that will never be tested while the world stands. -When you are working for your own pocketbook it’s different.” - -“Yet I suppose we ought not to take too many chances,” David -constrained himself to say. - -“That is where you are wrong,” was the prompt contradiction. “All -business is a taking of chances. The merchant who buys a stock of -goods in spring that he hopes to sell in the fall is taking a chance. -The lawyer who expects to charge a fat fee if he wins his cause is -taking a chance. The farmer who plows and plants is taking a mighty -long chance on what the season and the weather will do to him. Don’t -you see how it runs through everything a man can do?” - -“Yes, but----” - -“Take our own job here and look at the hamperings. I’m talking to you -now as Adam Vallory’s boy and not as a hired man. We were ground to the -limit on the bidding; and at every turn the railroad people are trying -to get more than they bargained for--something for nothing. It’s all -right; that’s their part of it, you’ll say. But in addition to all this -we’ve got Jim Lushing against us; a man who will stoop to any kind of -low, disreputable trickery to do us up. You may say it’s dog eat dog, -and so it is. But it’s business.” - -David took a leaf from his father’s book and proffered it, not too -confidently. - -“Dad was always so strong on the ethics of a thing,” he began; but Eben -Grillage interrupted with a good-natured laugh. - -“Your father is a white-haired old angel; and he is just about as -completely out of touch with the modern business world as the other -angels are. There are no theoretical ethics in business, David. If you -don’t fight for your own hand, you go to the wall, every time. That is -one reason why I offered you a job. I didn’t want to see Adam Vallory’s -boy settle down in the old Middleboro Security and become a fossilized -back-number before he could grow a beard.” - -Here it was, deep in the personalities again, and David Vallory would -have been either more or less than human if he could have disentangled -himself from the purely friendly relation. - -“You have been mighty good to me--good to all of us,” he broke out -gratefully. “If I’ve said too much about that tunnel roof----” - -“Just you forget the tunnel roof and let it go. It has stood up all -right since we drove through it, and you know what it would cost to -shoot it down and plug the hole. I want to see you succeed, David, and -you can’t do it if you are always worrying about the other fellow’s -side of things. I only wish I had a boy like you of my own.” - -“You have something vastly better,” said the model son, with a smile. - -“Vinnie, you mean? Sometimes I think so; and then, again, I’m sort of -worried. When it comes right down to the jumping-off place, I’m afraid -she isn’t going to pick out a sure-enough man. Look at the crowd she -runs with! Half of ’em are after my money, and the other half haven’t -got brains enough to fry, or sand enough in ’em to keep the wheels from -slipping.” - -David was far enough beyond the tunnel and all other troubles now to -be able to laugh happily. It was reasonably evident that any obstacles -which might lie in his way in the sentimental race were not such as -might be raised by a purse-proud father, and once again his heart -warmed toward the benefactor and foster-father who was so generously -overlooking the master-and-man hamperings. - -“Virginia is your own daughter, Mr. Grillage; you needn’t be alarmed -about her,” he put in loyally. - -“I know; but she’s got a raft of high-flown notions about ethical -culture--whatever that is--and the brotherhood of man, and ‘tainted -money’, and all that--you probably know the whole rigmarole. And -when Vinnie sets her head on anything you couldn’t switch her with a -hundred-and-fifty-ton crane and a five-yard steam-shovel put together. -I tell her what she needs is to marry a man who is in the thick of -the business fight for himself--and for her. Then she’d learn a few -practical, every-day facts.” - -David Vallory felt that it would be almost a breach of confidence--the -confidence that had been growing up day by day between Virginia -and himself--if he should let the talk dig any deeper into the -personalities in Virginia’s direction. So he spoke again of his -father’s coming, and of his hope that the change of scene and climate -might prove beneficial. - -“We’ll make it beneficial,” declared the big man, with a return to the -genially masterful mood; and after a few minutes more of the friendly -talk, David took his leave, warming himself once again at the fires of -henchman loyalty. Who was he to set up the standards of his own narrow -convincements against the wisdom and experience of a man whose success -was equalled only by his generosity and princely liberality? And beyond -this, had not Eben Grillage as good as said that his consent was -already gained if his daughter’s choice should fall upon a man who was -_not_ of the great army of idlers? - -Other phases of the talk emphasized themselves for the young chief -of construction after he had seen the big boss striding sturdily up -the steep path toward the ridge-top hotel. In no uncertain sense his -father’s benefactor had shown himself willing to be a second father -to the son, supplying, from his wider experience of men and things, -the lacks of a too-narrow upbringing. In an upflash of the newer -partisanship, David could smile at his own compunctions. In a world -of shrewd battlings one might easily theorize too much. But deep -down under this generalization the new loyalty, born first of worthy -gratitude, was digging a channel for itself; the channel leading now to -blind fealty. The problem was no longer a question of right and wrong -in the abstract. It was resolving itself into a grim determination to -hew doggedly to the line--the line being the success, in a financial -sense, of the Grillage Engineering Company. - -With this determination in the saddle, David Vallory did not return to -his bunk car. A locomotive was about to make the run up to the tunnel -with a supply of freshly blacksmithed drill-bits, and he boarded it. -The night breeze, slipping down from the peaks of the higher range, -was like a draft of invigorating wine. The moon had gone down, but the -carbide flares and electric arcs illuminating the scene in the huge -cuttings made the men and machines stand out in harsh relief. Above the -clatter of the locomotive the rapid, intermittent volley-fire of the -steam-shovels rose like the snortings of strange monsters; and against -the inky background of the western mountain a single electric star -marked the mouth of the tunnel. - -At the portal David dropped from the step of the engine and made his -way, unaccompanied, into the heart of the mountain. The thread of -incandescent bulbs starred the blackness, each illuminating its little -circle of the underworld. The distant clamor of the drills ceased -shortly after David reached the spot where the threatening roof was -sprinkling its daily warnings. Posturing solely as the cool-headed -engineer and technician, he would have decided at once that the danger -signals were growing more portentous--did so decide in the inner depths -of him. The overhead rock had an appearance not unlike that of a -slaking lime bed, checked and crisscrossed in every direction with fine -seams and cracks. - -While he was still examining the roof and telling himself that this was -only one of the many chances that had to be taken in the battle for -success, a man came out of the half-lighted darkness of the farther -depths and spoke to him. It was Silas Plegg. - -“Getting your goat so that you can’t sleep nights, is it?” said the -first assistant, with his teeth-baring smile. - -David ignored the reference to his responsibilities and asked a -question. - -“Any more strike talk among the men?” - -“A little; yes.” - -“What do you think about this roof by this time? I know what you -thought a few days ago.” - -Plegg shook his head. - -“It’s not up to me to do the thinking. What do you think?” - -“Frankly, Plegg, I don’t know what to say. Just before you came up I -was thinking that if I were called in here as an outsider and asked -to give an opinion I’d say it was a risk--a damned bad risk. But -as a Grillage man, I’ve come around to your point of view on the -necessities. We’ve got to trust to luck and bully it through.” - -“Yes; if the devil doesn’t take too good care of his own.” - -“What do you mean by that?” - -“I mean that it doesn’t lie with us any more to keep this thing quiet.” - -“What? Have the inspectors caught on?” - -“Since we haven’t had a bunch of them jumping onto us, I infer not. -But there is at least one warm enemy of yours who knows about it.” - -“Who is it?” - -“Black Jack Dargin.” - -David flew into a rage for the second time that day. - -“Can’t I get a positive order obeyed any more on this job?” he rasped. -“How many times have I got to say that nobody from the outside is to be -allowed in this tunnel?” - -“Dargin hasn’t been here,” said Plegg evenly. “But he has had one of -his steerers working here as a mucker.” A pause, and then, in the same -even tone: “I guess you’ll have to give up your idea of running Black -Jack off the lot. It isn’t worth while, anyway.” - -David Vallory was still angry. “I’ll be shot if I’ll give it up!” he -snapped. “I’ve got a string to pull that will clean those Powder Can -dives off the map, and I’ll pull it to-night before I sleep!” - -“And take the risk of Dargin’s giving this thing away?” - -“I’m not considering risks just now! If that tin-horn gambler thinks he -can put something over on us, let him try it.” - -Plegg turned aside and stooped as if to examine a joint in the -pressure pipe which led the air from the compressor-plant at the portal -to the drills in the heading. When he straightened up it was to say, -“Have you seen Lushing?” - -“No.” - -“He is here at the front again; so Altman told me this afternoon.” - -“Which means that from now on we’re to have him around under foot!” -gritted the angry one. - -Plegg glanced back into the depths where the _chug-chug_ of the drills -had ceased. - -“We’d better be moving out; they’re getting ready to fire a round of -shots,” he offered; and after they were in the open air and the muffled -reverberations of the dynamite had come rolling out to jar upon the -midnight silence: “Lushing will do more than get under foot. He is -spiteful, and when he gets ready to hit out, we’ll all know about it. -I’m only hoping that he and Dargin won’t get together and compare -notes.” - -They had started to walk down to the approach track where the waiting -locomotive was standing before David made his comment on the Lushing -vindictiveness. - -“Plegg,” he said grittingly, “you know, and I know, the particular -reason why Lushing wants to stick a knife into us. It’s running in my -mind that somebody ought to put him out of the game. And if he strikes -me just right, I’m the man to do it!” - - - - -XIX - -The Ultimatum - - -On the day succeeding David Vallory’s midnight visit to the tunnel the -guest list of the Alta Vista Inn had a number of additions. Upon the -arrival of the stub train from Agorda, David met the three for whose -coming Oswald’s letter had prepared him, and even in the moment of -welcomings saw his difficulties take on added thorninesses. Oswald, his -face set in lines of frowning determination, was evidently anticipating -reproaches, or something sharper; but when David saw his sister, and -marked her quick little groping for Oswald’s hands in the descent from -the car-steps, his heart smote him and he said neither more, nor less, -than was meet. - -A mountain motor hack was at the service of the Alta Vista group for -the drive to the top of the ridge, and with the transfer in process, -David had time to observe the other arrivals. One was a well-groomed -young man with sleepy eyes and a bored expression, and on one of -the numerous traveling-bags obstructing the foot space in the car -David read the initials “F. W.” Another of the newcomers was a rather -solemn-faced person in clothes of English cut; he, also, looked bored, -and the monocle which he occasionally fitted to an eye with grimaces -provocative of subdued mirth in the other passengers, gave him the -appearance of a weary owl contemplating sad and depressive surroundings -with a single eye. David, sitting with his father and pointing out the -various phases of the big job as the car climbed the ridge, needed no -additional tags to enable him to identify the pair on the opposite -seat. Of Miss Virginia’s retinue at least two, Mr. Frederic Wishart and -the Englishman, Cumberleigh, had discovered her retreat. - -In the hotel dining-room, where he secured a table for his own party, -David ate his heart out under an outward mask of the welcomer’s -cheerfulness when he saw Virginia making merry with the owlish -Englishman and the son of the multimillionaire breakfast-food king at -a table four removes distant. Gone for him were the joyous excursions -over the work in the company of a khaki-clad maiden whose interest in -the technical activities had been scarcely second to his own. Gone, -likewise, were the ecstatic evenings in the secluded porch nook, -shadowed by the wall-tapping fir-tree, with no one to interfere and -none to distract. - -“Yes, we are getting along fairly well,” David was saying, continuing -the talk with his father and Oswald and wrenching himself forcibly -aside from the heart-consuming spectacle four tables away. “If nothing -unforeseen happens, the through trains ought to be running over the new -line before snow flies.” - -“Accidents, you mean?” queried the sweet-voiced one who sat in darkness. - -“Accidents or other hamperings. Of course, on a job as big as this -there is always a chance for the unexpected.” And he went on to -enumerate some of the hamperings which might cause delay, carefully -avoiding, however, any mention of tunnels and caving roofs therein. - -Later, the table talk was led to other topics. David wished to know -how they had fared on the long journey from Middleboro; he spoke -of the satisfaction it gave him to have the family united again; -melting a little in the glow of his own galvanized warmth, he was even -hypocritical enough to descant upon the good luck which had enabled -Oswald to join the vacation party. - -After dinner business intruded. Plegg came up to secure his chief’s -decision upon certain foundations which were being sunk for one of the -bridges, and David had to go with him to the bunk-car office to consult -the blue-prints. When he was free to return to the Inn he found his -family scattered. Eben Grillage had swooped down upon the friend of -his youth and had spirited him away; and it was only after some little -search on the porches that David discovered his sister and Oswald. - -Coming up behind them unnoticed, he went away again without intruding -upon them. The after-glow of another of the gorgeous sunsets was -spreading itself in the western heavens, and Oswald was describing -it for the blind girl. It was the low-spoken admission of the blind -one that made David forbear to break in. “You think I am missing it, -Herbert, but that is not so. Sometimes it seems as if I could see -things through your eyes better than if I had my own.” - -On another of the porches David had a glimpse of Virginia and the two -newcomers, and a dull fire of resentment was kindled. The daughter of -the luxuries was evidently in her gayest mood, and if there were any -lingering regret for the change from the technicalities and the duet -evenings in the shadow of the fir-tree her manner did not betray it. -David turned away when he saw her holding a match to light Wishart’s -cigarette. The most infatuated of lovers may be permitted a pang of -disappointment at the discovery that he has apparently been useful only -as a convenient fill-in. - -Having the social--and sentimental--nerve centers thus painfully -cauterized, David was fain to fall back upon the job and its -requirements. There need be no lack of occupation. He knew that Plegg -would be hard at work checking the estimate for the month; and there -was always the overseeing round of the night shifts, which one or the -other of them usually made before turning in. But there was another -urge which fitted in better with the mood of the moment. Plegg’s news, -that Lushing was back at the head of the inspection staff, and that -Dargin was the possessor of the tunnel secret, had not yet been acted -upon. In some less morose frame of mind, David Vallory might have -thought twice before yielding to a sudden impulse to carry the war into -the enemy’s country. As it was, he turned his back upon the hotel and a -short half-hour later was entering the single street of the mining-camp. - -The impulse which had sent him across the basin was not very definite -in its promptings. In accordance with the minatory promise made to -Plegg, he had written to the president of the railroad company, asking -that some drastic action be taken in the matter of the nuisances. -Something might come of this, in time, but meanwhile Dargin must -be prevented from using his weapon. How to go about the preventing -presented a rather difficult problem. Things which seem measurably easy -of accomplishment at a distance are apt to take on new and difficult -aspects in the face-to-face encounter, and as David made his way toward -the Dargin lair where he had once looked on with Plegg, he was still -undecided as to the manner in which the gambler should be approached. - -As he soon found out, an approach of any sort at the moment was plainly -impossible. The bi-monthly Grillage pay-day was still a fresh memory -and the town and its resorts were filled with the money-scattering -workmen. The Dargin place was packed to the doors, and David had some -trouble in wedging himself into the gambling room at the rear of the -bar. Here the impossibility of getting speech with Dargin became -apparent. The master gambler was dealing at the faro table, and his -isolation for the time being was safely assured and secure. - -As David was shouldering his way back to the street entrance for a -breath of clean air a man in the bar-room throng touched him upon -the shoulder, calling him by name. It was a prompting of the morose -demon in possession that made him turn and stare at the questioner -half-angrily before he made answer. The man was well-dressed, something -below the middle height, and rather heavy set, dark, and with a closely -cropped brown beard. The mouth outlined beneath the tightly curled -mustaches was full-lipped and gross, and the bulging eyes, with a hint -of a hard drinker in them, evenly matched the sensuous lips. - -“Vallory is my name, yes,” David admitted, and the bare admission was a -challenge. - -“Mine is Lushing,” was the curt announcement. “I suppose you have heard -of me before this?” - -David did not say whether he had or had not. An antagonism of a sort -that he had never before experienced was laying hold upon him so -fiercely that he scarcely dared trust himself to speak. This was the -man who had been audacious enough to make love to Virginia, and who was -now boasting that he would break the Grillage Engineering Company. - -“You were looking for me?” David said. - -Lushing bit the end of a cigar and struck a match. - -“Yes; I’ve been wanting to get hold of you,” he rapped out, between -puffs. “I want to have a talk with you. It’s too noisy here; let’s go -back to one of Jack’s private rooms.” - -If David Vallory hesitated it was only because the feeling of -antagonism was growing by leaps and bounds, and he was afraid to be -alone with the man--afraid for Lushing, not for himself. - -“Is it business?” he inquired curtly. Then he added: “I’m waiting to -see Dargin.” - -“Yes, it’s business. And if you’re waiting for Jack, you’ll wait a long -time. When he sits in at the game, he stays to see it out. Let’s get -out of this mess.” - -David reluctantly followed his guide to one of a series of small -card-rooms back of the bar. Lushing snapped the electric light switch -as one who knew his surroundings intimately, and sat down at the -card-table. - -“What’ll you drink?” he demanded brusquely. - -“Nothing at all; I’m not thirsty.” - -Lushing pressed the bell-push for himself, and when the bar-man came, -ordered a whiskey-sour. “Won’t you change your mind?” he suggested, -after the drink had been served; and when David shook his head: “All -right; every man to his own taste. Here goes,” and he drained his -glass. - -More and more David was wishing himself well out of it. There could be -nothing but enmity between him and this loose-lipped man across the -card-table, and the savage prompting to precipitate an open conflict -was becoming ungovernable. - -“If you’ll say what you wish to say,” he grated. “My time is pretty -strictly limited.” - -“Not if you’re waiting for Jack Dargin,” said Lushing. “But perhaps -you want to get back to the hotel.” Then he added in a tone which -seemed to be intentionally insulting: “They tell me you are one of Eben -Grillage’s pets.” - -David’s anger flamed alive like a flash of dry powder, but he was -telling himself in many repetitions that his time had not yet come. - -“We shall get along faster, and perhaps farther, if you will cut out -the personalities,” he said sourly. - -“I was only repeating what I have heard. You are young to be at the -head of a job of this size, and people have a way of explaining such -things to suit themselves.” - -“I might go into the repeating business myself, if I cared to,” David -was beginning; but Lushing cut him off with a short laugh. - -“I know; some of them have told you that I have a personal quarrel -with Grillage, and perhaps some others have hinted that I wanted to -marry into the company and got kicked out for my impudence. We’ll let -that go. What was, is ancient history, and we’re dealing with the here -and now. Your company is as crooked as a dog’s hind leg, and if you -don’t know it, you ought to. Its days on this job are numbered.” - -“Threats are the cheapest things in the world,” said David. - -“You will find that this is more than a threat. You are a new man in -the field, and I’ve nothing against you--as yet. What I wanted to see -you for was to say to you that you’d better go while the sledding is -good.” - -“You are advising me to discharge myself?” - -“That’s it--quit--throw up the job--climb out while you can get out -with a whole skin.” - -“But why?” - -“Because if you don’t, you’ll be shown up with the other pirates and -sneak thieves.” - -David glanced again at the flushed face and bibulous eyes. It was -evident that the drink tossed off while the bar-man waited was only the -latest of a series which had been begun much earlier in the day. - -“You are in no condition to talk business with me or with any one,” -he said bluntly. “Some other time, perhaps, when you are entirely -sober----” - -Lushing brought his fist down upon the card-table with an oath. - -“No, young fellow; you’ll hear what I’ve got to say now, and then you -may take it straight to the fish-eyed old buccaneer you’re working for. -Grillage hasn’t a dollar in this world that he has made honestly, and -you may tell him I say so. Also, you may tell him that I’m going to -make it my business to hound him to his finish. When all the crooked -deals he has worked off on this job are shown up, he’ll be lucky if -he can stay out of the pen. On top of all that, you may tell him that -his daughter will see the day when she’ll beg me on her knees to let -up--and I won’t do it!” - -David was upon his feet and his eyes were blazing. - -“You’ve said enough, and more than enough!” he broke out in hot wrath. -“If you were not too drunk to be held accountable, I’d cram your words -down your neck for that insult to Miss Grillage! Past that, I’ll say, -once for all, that Mr. Grillage is more than my employer; he is my -friend and my father’s friend. Go to it when you’re ready, and I shall -know how to get back at you.” - -At this, Lushing whipped an automatic pistol from his pocket and laid -it upon the table, covering it with his hand. - -“You make any bad breaks and I’ll drill you,” he said viciously. “Take -that for a back-sight any time you feel tempted to beat me up. When a -man of your size comes at me, I shoot first and shoot quick. I’m out -to get your crooked company and the man who owns it. You say you’ll -fight for him, and that puts you on the black list. I’m fair enough to -give you a tip, and I’ve given it to you. If you don’t get off this job -quick and fade away, you’ll wake up some fine morning to find yourself -dead.” - -What little calm judgment David Vallory still retained was telling -him to go away; that there was nothing to be gained by staying and -listening to Lushing’s threats. But by this time he was well out of -reach of any of the calm voices. - -“You’re taking it for granted that I’m unarmed, and you are right,” he -flashed back. “I don’t care for your gun. You’ve laid the law down for -me, and now I’ll lay a little of it down for you. Your inspectors will -be welcome on the job anywhere and at any time, but as for yourself, -you’ll stay away from it. If you show up in any camp of mine, you want -to bring that gun along with you, for I shall take care to have one of -my own, and I’ll use it!” - -Lushing picked up the weapon and let it lie in his palm. - -“Did the little Grillage tell you to kill me off out of the way?” he -leered. - -That was the final straw. David Vallory flung himself across the -card-table in a mad-bull charge, carrying the table with him in his -eagerness to close with his antagonist. For a few breathless seconds -the battle was obstructed. David’s rush had borne Lushing backward, -tilting the chair in which he was sitting until it brought up against -the wall and was crushed under his weight and David’s and that of the -overturned table. Too furious to fight coolly, David tried to snatch -the wreck of the broken chair out of the way so that he could get at -the man entangled in it and held down by the tipped table. One good -punch he got in, or thought he did, and then there was a stunning -crash, a fleeting whiff of powder smoke, and the light went out. - - - - -XX - -In the Ore Shed - - -When David came to his senses he found himself lying on bare ground in -the dark. There seemed to be a weight like that of an elephant’s knee -pressing upon his chest, and it was with the greatest difficulty that -he could get his breath. Somewhere near at hand he could hear sounds as -of a woman sobbing. Next he realized vaguely that his boots had been -taken off. Groping aimlessly in the dark, his hand found the woman. She -was kneeling beside him, and at his touch the sobs became a choking cry. - -“Davie, dear; is it yourself that’s alive?” The voice seemed to come -from an immense distance, but he heard it and recognized it. - -“You, Judith?”--then, jerkily: “What’s--happened--to me?” - -“’Tis killed dead you are!” she whimpered. - -“Nothing like it.” The words were coming a bit easier now and he did -not have to stop and gasp between each pair of them. Also, he was -beginning to remember some of the events precedent. “Did--did the house -fall down on me?” he asked. - -“Jim Lushing--the black curse be upon him!--he shot you; didn’t you -know that?” - -“I don’t remember. Whereabouts am I hit?” - -“I wouldn’t be knowing that at all, Davie; I’m just this minute here. -The shed watchman came and told me that Lushing had killed you in -Jack’s place down the street. ’Twas scared they were to have you found -dead in that place, so they carried you here.” - -“Scared?” said David. - -“For what your men might do; there’s a many of them in town, and they’d -have wrecked the place. Where is it hurting you, Davie, dear?” - -“I feel as if somebody had given me the heart punch--I believe that’s -what the ring-fighters call it. But it’s letting up a bit now. Where am -I?” - -“In the Murtrie ore shed. They’d be putting it up to Mike Drogheen, the -watchman, to say he’d shot you--taking you for an ore thief.” - -“And paying him well for it, I suppose.” He was groping carefully for -the wound and found only a rip in the left breast of the brown duck -shooting-coat. There was no blood; only a tremendous soreness. He -raised himself and sat up. “If we only had a light of some sort,” he -muttered. - -“Wait,” she said, and ran away to come back within the minute with the -watchman’s lantern. “Poor old Mike’s hiding beyond in the blacksmith -shop, scared trembling at the lie he’s thinking he’s got to tell. Don’t -sit up, Davie; you might be bleeding to death.” - -David was groping again, and this time, out of the ripped pocket of -the brown coat he fished an engineer’s field-note book. Then he knew -why there was no blood, and why the body area behind the pocket was as -painful as if it had been beaten with a hammer. Lushing’s shot had been -a glancing one, and the thick note-book had turned it aside. There was -little left of the book save the perforated leather cover and a mass of -torn leaves. - -“The fellows who carried me off must have been pretty badly rattled, -not to have found out that I wasn’t even scratched,” he commented. - -“’Tis no wonder. When Mike brought me here, the doctor himself would -have said you were dead. There was no breath in you at all, and your -heart had stopped entirely.” - -“What became of Lushing?” - -“’Tis little I know, or care--the black dog! Mike says they told him -you’d half killed him.” - -“I think I meant to,” said David soberly. “And after this, I suppose -I’ll have to kill him--or let him kill me. But that’s a future. He -knows what he’s got to do if he wants to keep on living. Where are my -boots?” - -She found the boots with the help of the lantern and gave them to him. -He put them on, though the effort, and the lacing of them, made him -grit his teeth and swear. - -“What did they want to take my boots off for?” he growled. - -“Don’t you know?” she asked. “’Tis that way in the camps. They wouldn’t -be letting anybody die with his boots on, if they could help it.” - -“Rotten superstition!” he complained, and swore again. - -The woman heard wonderingly. - -“’Tis you that have changed, Davie, till I’d hardly be knowing you,” -she said. - -“Yes; I’ve changed. And so have you, Judith. Are you living with -Dargin?” - -“I am not!” - -“But from what they tell me, you might as well be. You’ve taken help -from him.” - -“And if I have; ’tis nothing I’ve taken that an honest woman might not -take.” - -“You’re telling me the truth?” - -“I am. When did I ever lie to you, Davie?” - -“Never,” he conceded. But the main question was yet untouched. “I know -how you came here to Powder Can--Plegg told me,” he went on bluntly. -“It’s no place for you, here in Powder Can. You know that, don’t you?” - -“Where would I be going, then?” - -David held his head in his hands and tried to think. With the return -of his faculties the spirit of morose disheartenment and impatient -resentment which had brought him to the mining-camp, and had been the -chief factor in precipitating the quarrel with Lushing, was reasserting -itself. Since the bitter moods grow by what they feed upon, he could -see nothing in just perspective. What a fool’s Paradise he had been -living in since the Grillage private car had come to anchor in the -construction yard! He had been crying for the moon, and the moon had -been kind enough to shine for him--when there was no one else to shine -upon. But now there were others.... - -“I don’t know,” he said abstractedly, in answer to her question as to -where she should go. “It’s a pretty tough old world, Judith.” Then, -suddenly: “Are you still blaming me?” - -“For what would I be blaming you?” - -“For chasing around with you in the old days and giving you the idea -that I was going to marry you some time?” - -“That’s all past and gone, Davie, dear.” - -“Past and gone, maybe, but that doesn’t let me out. I know you’ve got -your father, but I can’t help feeling more or less responsible for you. -It has worried me a lot.” - -“You shouldn’t be worrying.” - -“I can’t help it. Last year, after I went to Wisconsin, I had a sort of -plan worked out, and I wrote you twice before I found out that you’d -left Middleboro. What you need--what you’ve always needed, Judith--is -something that you could put your whole heart into, like--well, like -music. My notion was that you could go to some good conservatory -and study, and I was ready to help you. Is it too late to consider -something of that kind now?” - -She shook her head. “’Tis much too late, Davie.” - -“You mean that you’re tied up with this man Dargin?” - -“We’ll leave Jack Dargin be. There’s the old father; he’s not what he -used to be, Davie; what with mother dying, and me----” - -“I know,” he interposed hastily. “Plegg told me about that, too. But -here’s more trouble, Judith. This man Dargin is your friend, or at -least I’m trying to believe that he has befriended you, and I’ve got to -chase him and his bunch out of Powder Can. I came over here to-night to -tell him so. That muddles things still worse.” - -“You’d better be letting Powder Can alone.” - -“No, I can’t do that; it’s cutting too much out of the efficiency -record on the job. I can’t fight Lushing and his outfit, and a booze -joint as well. And right there, you break in. From what you’ve -admitted, a lick at Jack Dargin is going to hurt you worse than it will -him. And I don’t want to hurt you, Judith.” - -“You shouldn’t be thinking so much about me.” - -“Yes, I should; you need somebody to think about you. I wish you’d -consider that notion of mine. You could take your father with you. -He is too good a workman to be throwing himself away in a mine -repair shop. He can get a better job anywhere he goes. I could get -Mr. Grillage to help a bit in that direction. He knows everybody, -everywhere.” - -“He’d be wanting to know why,” she objected. - -“What if he does? I’ll tell him why.” - -“Tell him that you’re trying to help a poor girl back to her feet?--and -you wanting to marry his daughter?” - -“Who told you I wanted to marry his daughter?” - -“There’s little goes on in the camps that we don’t hear in Powder Can. -There’s never a man of yours to come over here without having his say -about you and the daughter of the man you’d be working for. ’Tis well -I know it was Vinnie Grillage you were telling me about that night at -home when you were leaving. I’d not be messing up your life and hers, -Davie.” - -He forced a sour smile. “My part of it is already messed up. Vinnie has -been good to me--chiefly because we were kiddies together, long before -I knew you, Judith. But that’s all there is to it. There are two other -entries now, and I’m out of the race. Does that make it any easier for -you to think of my plan?” - -“It does not!” she flashed out, almost vindictively, he thought. - -Since there seemed to be nothing more to be said, he got upon his feet, -scarcely realizing that the girl stooped and put her arms around him -and half lifted him. For a few seconds the dimly lighted interior of -the ore shed spun around in dizzying circles, and the bullet bruise -throbbed like a whirlwind of hammer blows. But he found he could -breathe better standing. - -“I must get back to camp,” he said. “Have you any idea what time it is?” - -“’Tis early yet.” Then, anxiously: “You couldn’t be walking all that -way, Davie!” - -“Yes, I can; I’ll be all right in a few minutes more. Can you show me -the way out of this place? I don’t want to go through the town unless I -have to.” - -She did not show him; she led him, with a strong arm under his to -steady him. At the wagon gate at the rear of the ore yard he would -have sent her home, but she would not go. “’Tis not fit you are to be -going alone,” she said; and in spite of his urgings she went on with -him, choosing a path that skirted the shoulder of the hill and left the -town to the right. In sober silence they walked on until half of the -distance between Powder Can and the construction camp lay behind them. -Then David Vallory made his urgings mandatory. - -“You must go back,” he insisted. “I’m quite all right, now. If Dargin -should hear of this----” - -“What is it Jack Dargin can do to you?” she interrupted shortly. - -“It is something about the work; something that he knows. If he should -tell Lushing----” - -She interrupted again. “What has Jack got against you that would make -him be giving you away to Jim Lushing?” - -“I told you a little while ago. I’m trying to wipe him and his -man-traps off the map, and he doubtless knows it.” - -“Jack Dargin would only be respecting you the more for that. Sure, it’s -himself that knows how bad Powder Camp would be needing a cleaning up.” - -“But, good heavens, girl! Dargin is the head and front of the -lawlessness himself!” - -“’Tis so; but that makes no difference. You can’t tell what’s in the -heart of a man, Davie--and I know Jack Dargin; that side of him that -not you, nor any one else knows. He’d fight you; maybe he’d kill you. -But he’d respect you the more.” - -There was a grim humor in the paradox, but David Vallory was not in the -mood to appreciate it. - -“He’ll be gunning for me; and so will Lushing. But I don’t care; I’ll -fight the whole outfit, if I have to. I was fool enough to go into -that dive to-night unarmed, but that won’t happen again. Lushing had -pulled a gun on me; that was one reason why I jumped him. The next -time----” - -“’Tis little you’d know about the shooting, Davie.” - -“What I don’t know I can learn. Now you are going straight back home -from here ... no, not another step with me. Good-night--Glory--and--God -bless you!” - -Once again, if David Vallory could have had a small modicum of the -gift of omniscience; could have detached his astral body, let us say, -to send it back over the road he had just traversed; there would have -been revelations, puzzling, perhaps, but still not without interest -to one fighting against the powers of darkness. At the side of the -road the detached messenger would have found a woman, crumpled in a -forlorn heap on the cold ground, and sobbing as if her heart would -break. Still farther back, in the mining-camp itself, the astral David -might have looked into a shabbily luxurious upper room where a curious -confirmation of Judith Fallon’s prediction touching the contradictory -motives which may lie side by side in the human heart was staging -itself. - -After the fight in the card-room and its supposed tragical outcome, -the down-stairs game-room had been hastily closed. As on the night of -Plegg’s eavesdropping, the upper room held two occupants, and they were -the same two whose voices had reached the first assistant through the -partly opened gallery window. And, as before, the lop-shouldered man -was the bearer of news. - -“By cripes! I guess I know what I’m talking about?” he snarled. “I’ve -just come from there. He’s gone, I tell you; lit out--skipped. The -watchman swears he don’t know nothin’ about it--didn’t go near the shed -after they took him there.” - -The master gambler, again with his hands in his pockets, and again -tilting gently in the wooden-seated chair, nodded his approval. “I’m -glad of it,” he said. - -“The hell you are! And him tryin’ to butt in on your game and run you -out?” - -“That’s what I said”--curtly. - -“And you ain’t goin’ to use that dope that you pulled out o’ me at the -end of a gun?” - -“Not in a thousand years, Simmy. Haven’t you been with me long enough -to know that I’m no damn’ worm to crawl up a man’s leg and bite him to -death? You say the young duck’s alive and has made his get-away. That’s -all right. If he comes at me like a two-fisted man, maybe I’ll send -him word that he’d better come heeled. But that’s all.” - -“You won’t take the dope and do him up the way I was tellin’ you?” - -“Nothing doing.” - -“Well, then, by cripes! I know somebody that will take it--and pay good -money for it!” shrilled the disappointed one. - -“Grillage, you mean?” - -“No; I tried him, and what do I get? He tells that big, black nigger -porter of his to put me out of the car. I’ll show him--him and Vallory -at the same clatter!” - -The master gambler got up, as if to signify that he had heard enough. - -“Better look out that you don’t get stepped on--like other -worms--Simmy,” he warned; and then, reaching for the hanging lamp over -the table to turn it out: “Get a crawl on you; I’m going to shut up -shop.” - - - - -XXI - -The Other David - - -When David Vallory, plodding doggedly, reached the construction camp -upon his return from Powder Can, he found Herbert Oswald waiting for -him at the steps of the office bunk car. - -“Everybody had gone to bed in the hotel, and I thought I’d straggle -down to see if I could find your headquarters,” was the way in which -the young lawyer accounted for himself. “If you are tired and want to -turn in, you are at liberty to shoo me away.” - -“No,” said David crisply. “Come on in.” - -Oswald groped his way into the dark interior of the car at the heels -of his crusty welcomer and found a seat on Plegg’s unoccupied bunk -while David was lighting a lamp. At the blowing-out of the match, the -lamp-lighter stood staring gloomily down upon his late-in-the-evening -visitor. - -“I know pretty well what you’ve come to say,” he thrust in gruffly. -“Suppose you say it and have it over with.” - -Oswald looked up in mild surprise. - -“I didn’t come here to scrap with you, David. And, so far as I know, -I haven’t done anything to make you run at me with a chip on your -shoulder. Of course, I know you are thinking I ought not to have come -out here, but----” - -“What I may think doesn’t seem to cut any figure,” said David, with the -air of a man who would rather precipitate a quarrel than avoid one. -“I told you exactly and precisely what I thought a year ago as I was -leaving Middleboro, and I haven’t had any reason to change my mind.” - -Oswald, ready enough in any legal matching of man against man, seemed -helplessly nonplussed. - -“You have changed rather ferociously,” he remarked. “I don’t quite know -how to take you. If you are giving me a fair shot at your present self, -you are not the David Vallory I used to know.” - -“No, I am not the same. A little while ago I was trying my best to kill -a man; I shall do it yet, one of these days, if he doesn’t keep out of -my sight. But go on and say what you’ve got to say.” - -“It amounts to this: for a whole year I’ve kept faith with you--honest -faith--and every day of that year has been a day of heartburnings and -regrets. Your attitude toward your sister is entirely unreasonable. -There have been blind wives before this, and they have been happy -wives--and mothers, for that matter; at least, their blindness hasn’t -necessarily been a bar to happiness. A year ago, if I had spoken, I -should have spoken only for myself: now I am speaking for Lucille as -well as for myself.” - -“All of which is entirely beside the question,” was the irritable -rejoinder. “I know Lucille, and however far she has allowed herself to -go in the matter of learning to care for you or for any man, it’s a -sure thing she has never thought of marriage, even as a possibility. If -you propose it, two things will happen; she will wake up to the fact -that she has been mistaking love for friendship; and she will realize -that she has to refuse the love. After that, her life will be nothing -but a miserable, repining blank.” - -“I can’t agree with you at all,” objected the lover, argumentatively -ready to defend his own point of view. “If you were the David Vallory -I once knew, you would listen to reason; at least, to the extent of -giving your sister a voice in ordering her own future. I have come to -the fork of the road, David, and I am here to say it to you, face to -face. I need Lucille, and she needs me. When the time is fully ripe -I shall ask her to be my wife. You put me under bonds of a certain -sort a year ago, but now I shall refuse longer to be bound by them; I -repudiate them absolutely.” - -David Vallory sat down, and for a time the silence of the small car -interior was broken only by the clash and jangle of a shifting-engine -in the upper yard. Finally the decision came. - -“Oswald, Lucille is my sister, and I am going to stand between her and -the life of heartbroken wretchedness you are planning for her. You -give me your word that you will not break over while you are both here -together, and upon that condition you may stay in Powder Gap as long as -you see fit.” - -Oswald stood up and his lips were pale. - -“And if I refuse to submit to any such unreasonable and humiliating -condition--what then?” - -David Vallory frowned up at his one-time schoolmate. - -“You say that you have been bound by your promise of a year ago, but -that you now repudiate it; as a man of honor, you are bound by it until -I release you.” - -“You are not answering my question.” - -“I’ll answer it. The stub train going east leaves here every morning -at seven-thirty; I’ll give you a day or two in which to think it -over--with the promise still holding good.” - -“And if, at the end of the day or two, I still refuse to recognize your -right to interfere?” - -“This is not Middleboro; and, as you have remarked, I am not the David -Vallory you used to know. If you still decline to listen to reason, -you’ll take that train and get out of here--if I have to hog-tie you -and throw you into the baggage-car!” - -“_David!_” - -“You needn’t beg; I mean it. I am neither drunk nor insane. You have -said your say and I have said mine, and that settles it.” - -The young lawyer took a step toward the door. But with his hand on the -knob he stopped and faced about. - -“So this is what Eben Grillage has done for you, is it?” he grated. -“Like master, like man; with the doctrine of brute force for your code. -I wouldn’t have believed it possible for the son of your father, David.” - -“I have had the brute force all along, only I haven’t had sense enough -to apply it,” was the surly rejoinder. “But it’s never too late to -mend. Good-night--if you’re going.” - -“I am going, but not before I have finished saying my say. For the -present, and purely because I don’t consider the time fully ripe, I -shall postpone asking your sister to marry me. But I refuse utterly and -definitely to be bound by your tyrannical conditions.” - -Shortly after Oswald had gone, David Vallory rummaged in Plegg’s -kit-locker until he found a blued service revolver in its holster. He -hung it under his coat by the shoulder-strap, and then dug further for -a supply of cartridges. Thus armed, he took to the open again. The -shock of the bullet bruise was still unsteadying him, and the bruise -itself was hurting savagely, but he would not give up to it. At Brady’s -Cut he found Plegg. - -“The war is on,” he announced briefly, when he had taken the first -assistant aside. - -“You have seen Lushing?” Plegg asked. - -“Yes; and he gave himself away: says he means to break us. We had it -back and forth for a few minutes, and then he pulled a gun on me.” - -“Good Lord!” said Plegg. “Where were you?” - -“In one of Dargin’s card-rooms. We mixed it. I couldn’t stand for the -gun-pulling--and some other things. He tried to plug me, but I’m hoping -he got as good as he sent. Anyhow, I’ve cleared the air a bit. I’ve -taken the liberty of borrowing your extra forty-five, and I’m going -loaded for him after this. I’ve told him what he may expect if he shows -his face on this job again while I’m here.” - -“For heaven’s sake! I--well, it isn’t my put in, but you’ve rather got -me going, you know. Can you--er--do you know how to use the forty-five?” - -“Not very well; I did a little pistol-practice in Florida. But -to-morrow you’ll take me back in the hills and show me a bit. Just now -we’ve got other fish to fry. We’re going to fight Lushing on his own -ground. He says we’re a gang of thieves, and if we have the name, we -may as well have the game.” - -“But even if you’ve bluffed him into staying off the job, he still has -the ear of the railroad people.” - -“That’s all right; I’ll fight him to a knockout, all the way up to Mr. -Ford--if he wants to carry it that far. In the meantime we’ll show -him, and the men who are paying his salary, that we know how to hit -back when they call us thieves. Pass the word to our staff, and let -the fellows pass it on to the foremen and subcontractors. They’ll know -how to cut the corners, and how to keep the railroad inspectors from -finding out--no coarse-hand work, you know, Plegg, but every dollar -that can be squeezed out of this job from now on. That’s what we want.” - -Plegg was shaking his head like a man in a maze; and the new chief--new -now in his attitude as well as in the shortness of his service--went on. - -“About that weak spot in the tunnel; have you found out who gave it -away to Dargin?” - -“Yes; a fellow named Backus, who worked in one of the muck shifts. The -men say he was a steerer for Dargin’s faro-game.” - -“What has become of him?” - -“He’s fired: I suppose he’s in Powder Can.” - -“He is the man we want. I’m going to put it up to you, Plegg, to find -him and grab him before he gets next to Lushing. When he is found, buy -him, and shoot him out of the country--anywhere where he’ll be out of -Lushing’s reach until we get this job done.” - -“And if he can’t be bought?” - -“Lock him up somewhere and keep him from talking. Now about the bad -roof itself: that is where Lushing can hit us the hardest. Give Regnier -his tip, and do it to-night. Tell him to have the tunnel re-wired for -lights so there won’t be a bulb anywhere near that soft spot. Tell -him to keep his men quiet if he has to raise the pay of every man in -the three shifts. Then make him understand that the rule against the -admission of outsiders must be rigidly enforced, if he has to maintain -an armed guard at the portal.” - -“That won’t keep Lushing’s inspectors out,” Plegg suggested mildly. - -“I’m coming to that. Regnier must see to it that some man of ours who -can be trusted is within reach every time an inspector goes in. We -don’t care to hurt anybody needlessly, but if one of our hard-rock -bullies should happen to get into a scrap with the man who chances to -discover that ‘fault’--well, you know what I mean. Mr. Grillage says -that place is perfectly safe, and we’re going to take his word for it.” - -The first assistant nodded, and the slow smile bared his teeth and -wrinkled at the corners of his eyes. - -“I certainly owe you an apology,” he said, with the faintest suggestion -of irony in his tone; “several of them, in fact. There was a time when -I fancied you were going to be too good--to revert to that morning in -the Pullman a year ago; and I imagine Mr. Grillage harbored the same -inadequate notion. You’ll want to be getting back to headquarters, -I suppose: there is an engine due down from the tunnel--there it -comes--I’ll flag it for you.” - -David caught the eastbound engine, but he did not stop off at the -headquarters camp. That was because Crawford, the concrete bridge -builder, was at the yard platform to climb to the cab with a bit of -news. Under new orders, inspectors had been placed at the three bridges -in Crawford’s section, and they were in relays so that there was hardly -an hour in the three shifts when one of them was not on duty. Crawford -was looking for Plegg, but when he found that the first assistant was -unattainable, he unburdened himself to the chief, setting forth the -hard conditions. - -“Well?” said David, while the engine halted. - -“It’s--er--making it sort of difficult for me,” said Crawford, -unwilling to go much deeper into the matter in the face of Plegg’s -inhibition forbidding detail talk with the boss. - -“Difficult? How?” - -“Why--er--there can’t very well be two bosses on a job, and when I give -an order and Strayer countermands it----” - -“Do you mean to say that Strayer is trying to boss your job?” - -“It amounts to that.” - -David turned to the engine-driver. - -“Run us down to bridge Number Two, Pete,” he ordered, and the heavy -construction locomotive lumbered down through the yard and out over the -switches. - -The run was a short one, and at the bridge approach David and his -assistant got off to walk over to the new structure. The bridge plant -was well lighted by carbide gas flares, and prominent on the form -stagings was the big figure of Strayer, the railroad inspector. David -Vallory called up to him. - -“Come down here a minute, Strayer; I want to talk to you,” he said. - -When the railroad engineer joined him he led the way to the cement -platform, where the noise of the mixer was less insistent. - -“What’s the idea, Strayer?” he demanded. - -The big man did not affect to misunderstand. - -“You know perfectly well, Vallory; or if you don’t, you ought to. -Crawford’s scamping these bridges shamelessly. He is scanting the -‘mix’, and also the reinforcing steel. I’ve caught him at it.” - -“Why didn’t you complain to me?” - -“What the devil good would it do? I’ve yelled at you people for -everything, and you patch one hole only to leave another.” - -“I suppose you have your orders to come here and take the direction of -the work out of the hands of my man?” - -“I have orders to see that you don’t pull any more bones on us, if I -have to eat and sleep on the job to prevent it. And I’m like little old -Casabianca, Vallory; I obey orders.” - -“Who gave you the orders?” - -“Lushing: he’s back now.” - -“Don’t you know that he’s a damned crook, himself, Strayer?” - -The square-jawed, bearded inspector laughed grimly. - -“Set a thief to catch a thief, eh?” he grinned. “Between us two, -Vallory, I haven’t much use for Lushing; none at all, personally. But -he’s the boss.” - -“Do you know where he is now?” - -“Yes; he’s over at Powder Can: makes his headquarters in the Hophra -House.” - -“I take it you’re not particularly struck on standing over Crawford -this way, day and night, are you?” - -“Well, if you put it that way, I’m not. Crawford’s a good boy, and he -means well. See here, Vallory, if you’ll give me your word that you’ll -make the boy live up to the specifications on these bridges, I’ll do -what I can to keep Lushing off of you. Is it a go?” - -David was thoughtful for a moment, and then he said: “I’ll do better -than that, Strayer. I’m needing another engineer to handle the tunnel -approach work on the other side of the mountain. I know what the -railroad company is paying you, and I’ll better the salary. This is -straight goods. What do you say?” - -The big man shook his head slowly. - -“You oughtn’t to make a break like that at me, Vallory, and you know -it. It’s too bald, and--well, dog-gone it all, I thought better of -you!” The inspector turned and walked away with his head down and his -hands in his pockets. David Vallory waited until he had passed the -corner of the cement house, and then, at a signal from Crawford, he -sprang upon the bridge stagings. - -“We’re up against it,” said the bridge builder hastily; “that’s why I -went after Plegg. We’ve reached the point where we’ve got to place the -top span reinforcement, _and I haven’t got the steel_!” - -“How is that?” - -“It’s this way,” Crawford explained, still more hurriedly. “When we -begun on this job, Plegg and I figured the plans over and he--that is, -we concluded that it was simply wasting steel to put it in as thickly -as the plans called for--why, the factor of safety was the whole -cheese! So we agreed to cut the steel down. If you can’t get Strayer -away from here for an hour or so, I’ll have to stop the run and take -the risk of the concrete’s setting in the forms while we’re getting -some more steel down here.” - -A month earlier David Vallory would have known what to say, and would -have said it, without garnishings. But now he merely nodded and walked -down the runway and across to the cement house where Strayer was still -pacing back and forth. - -“This situation needs threshing out from the bottom up, Strayer,” he -began crisply. “Suppose you get on the engine and go up to headquarters -with me where we can fight it out to some sort of a conclusion. I’m -tired of this business of scrapping with you fellows all the time.” - -“I’m sorry, Vallory, but Lushing is the man you’ll have to talk to.” - -“You’re his second, aren’t you?” - -“Yes, but you know the rules; I don’t have anything to say when he is -on the job.” - -“Well, he isn’t on the job. He had a racket with a man over in Powder -Can a couple of hours ago, and they tell me he’s knocked out for the -present. That puts it up to you, again, doesn’t it?” - -“Why, yes; I guess so--if he’s--how badly is he hurt?” - -“I don’t know; pulled a gun on a man, and the man jumped him.” - -Strayer shook his head. - -“That’s bad; neither Mr. Ford nor Mr. Maxwell will stand for anything -like that. Just between us two, Vallory, Lushing has always spent a lot -of time in Powder Can--did it while he was with your people.” - -“I know. But now that he’s out of it, temporarily, at least, why can’t -we get together and straighten up some of the kinks? You know how -exasperating it is for these fellows of mine to have somebody standing -over them with a club all the time. Come on up to camp with me and -we’ll hammer it out.” - -Crawford had stopped his concrete mixer because he had to; no more -concrete could be poured until the steel bars were placed. The crisis -had come, and while Strayer hesitated, David Vallory, the new David, -took the deep-water plunge into the stagnant pool of open trickery. -Crawford’s men were bringing the scanted supply of steel bars, getting -in each other’s way to kill time. David stepped over to the steel pile -and counted the pieces. - -“Say, Crawford!” he called out; “you haven’t got enough steel here! -Heavens and earth, man! don’t you know any better than to run right up -against a shortage like this?” - -Crawford gasped twice, and then he understood. “Ding bust it, Mr. -Vallory, I ought to be fired! Mr. Strayer, here, has been keeping me so -busy that I haven’t looked at that steel pile. What are we going to do?” - -“Do? You’ll just have to place what you’ve got, and hold your mixer -until we can get some more down to you. I’ll go back to the yard and -see that it’s hustled out. Come on, Strayer; let’s take a ride.” - -The crisis was past and the big inspector climbed on the engine with -the Grillage chief. - -“I’ll take an hour off with you, Vallory, after I’ve seen that steel -put on the car,” he laughed; and at a sign from David, the throttle was -opened and the locomotive clattered away up the grade. - - - - -XXII - -At Bridge Three - - -After the dash in the card-room at Black Jack Dargin’s place, and its -immediate and transforming consequences, Silas Plegg, shrewd observer -and most efficient of assistants, looked confidently for trouble, and -went about prepared to stand by his chief when the trouble should -materialize. It was during Lushing’s administration as the Grillage -chief of construction that the Powder Can kennels had begun to -flourish, and it had been broadly hinted that he had been a sharer in -the profits. Rumor had it that he was still hand-in-glove with the -kennel-keepers; and with such a lawless contingent at his command, the -ex-chief became--at least in Plegg’s estimation--a man whose enmity was -to be feared. - -Besides keeping a brotherly watch over his chief, Plegg contrived to -keep in touch with the Powder Can end of things. Lushing, he learned, -had been laid up for a matter of two or three days as the result of the -brief card-room battle, and he was still making his headquarters in -the Powder Can tavern. Thus far he had not been visible on the work, -though from the increased activities of his inspectors it was apparent -that he was directing a searching campaign of investigation. - -Vallory’s men were required to dig try-holes beside foundation walls of -abutments and retaining masonry to prove that the foundations went deep -enough. Test-borings were made in the fills to ascertain their density. -The slopes of the hill cuttings were surveyed and re-surveyed to make -sure that the angles agreed with the map notes. In one of the bridges, -Strayer--this time with apologies to David Vallory--had holes drilled -to verify the placing of the reinforcing steel. In uncounted ways the -investigation was pushed; to the discomfort of all concerned--and also -to the sharpening of the wits of those who had something to conceal. - -Throughout this interval David Vallory gave an excellent imitation of -a man hard at work, riding the line incessantly, encouraging, driving; -plotting with his subordinates to outwit the inspectors, and keeping -a vengeful eye out for Lushing. In due time it began to be whispered -about that “the little big boss,” as he was affectionately called by -the rank and file, not only “had it in” for Lushing, but that he had -fairly bluffed the chief inspector off the job. It was known that he -went armed; and on at least one occasion when he disappeared for an -hour or so in Little Creek gorge, there was some one to report that he -had spent the time practicing at a target with a “forty-five.” - -Naturally, with so many working crises thickly bestudding the days, -David had little time to climb the hill to the Inn; or, if he had the -time, he seldom took it. Duty visits he paid, indeed, to his father and -sister in the tree-sheltered cottage; but these were brief--crabbedly -brief when Oswald chanced to be one of the cottage’s inmates. On all of -these excursions he avoided the hotel, with morose offishness in the -saddle. None the less, he now and then got a glimpse of Virginia--and -chanced to see her always in company with one or both of the men upon -whom the desirable moon--unattainable by those who cry for it--seemed -now to be shining its brightest. - -It was after one of these brief evening visits to the cottage under the -pines that David found Plegg waiting for him at the foot of the ridge. - -“Just to make sure you shouldn’t be taken off your guard,” said the -first assistant; and without further preface: “Lushing is on his way -up here with a bunch of men sworn in as deputies. Crawford has just -’phoned in from bridge Number One.” - -“What’s the object?” - -“Nobody seems to know, but I have a guess coming. Burford, the new -transit-man working with Strayer, gave me a hint. He’s a soak, and -yesterday, after he’d been hitting his pocket-bottle pretty freely, he -let out a word or two about something sensational which was to follow -this epidemic of inspection we’ve been having.” - -“Didn’t describe it, did he?” - -“No; he was so plainly ‘lit up’ that I didn’t pay much attention to -him. But since, I’ve been piecing the odd bits together. This dead -set that the railroad force has been making at us can have only one -object--to get evidence of some sort against us that will hold in -court.” - -“Well?” - -“I shouldn’t wonder if they have the evidence.” - -“The tunnel?” - -“No; that is safe, as yet, I believe. It is in the bridges. There is -a certain specified penalty for jerry-building bridges that are to be -used for human traffic, you know.” - -“Bosh!” said David. “These little two-by-four spans we are throwing -over the Powder River would carry anything you could pile upon them; -you know they would, Plegg. And they’d do it if they didn’t have a -single bar of steel in them.” - -“Sure!” said Plegg, with a dry smile. “But we’d better be getting over -to the car and the ’phone. If those temporary sheriffs are coming up -here, we ought to know it.” - -“Lushing won’t come,” David averred, as they walked together toward the -bunk car office. - -“Think not?” - -“He’d better not.” - -The service telephone was buzzing when they entered the car. Plegg -picked up the receiver and held it to his ear. After a time, he said, -“It’s Crawford again. He is at Number Three bridge now. The Lushing -crowd had a break-down with their gasoline push-car, and Tommy skipped -across the hill in the hair-pin curve and got to Number Three ahead of -them. He says he talked to one of the men who came back to Number One -to borrow a monkey-wrench. The man was foolish enough to let the cat -out of the bag and brag about it. The bunch is coming up here to arrest -you and Mr. Grillage. Crawford wants to know what he shall do with the -few minutes he has at his disposal.” - -David Vallory took three seconds for reflection. - -“Tell him he has a brain of his own, and now is a good time to use it,” -he said shortly. “And you may add that we’d like to buy a little delay -if there is any in the market.” - -Plegg repeated the message, rounding it out with a demand for a quick -report as to results. The waiting interval was remarkably short. When -the ’phone buzzed again, Plegg answered with a single word. “Shoot!” he -said, and David, sitting in the opposite bunk, could hear the minified -repetition of the reporting voice without being able to distinguish the -words. Crawford was brief, as befitted a man of action; and when Plegg -returned the receiver to its hook he was smiling grimly. - -“You’ll have to hand it to Tommy for being able to make a hurry use of -what little brain he may have,” he commented. “He slipped a stick of -dynamite into the stone bin at Number Three, and now he says there are -about forty tons of crushed rock spilled on the track for the gasoline -car to climb over. And the car is not yet in sight.” - -“That is better,” said David coolly. “They’ll get around the -obstruction, no doubt, but it will hold them for a little while. Now -for our part of it. You once remarked that the law doesn’t reach this -far from the nearest court-house. We don’t know, officially, that these -men are coming as officers, and we’ll act upon that ignorance. You go -over to the bunk shacks and turn out a handful of Brady’s day-shift -men. Tell them to bring pick-handles. Then go to the light plant and -tell the night engineer to listen for a pistol shot. If he hears one, -he is to pull the switch on the yard circuit and leave us in the dark.” - -“So that the Lushing crowd won’t be able to identify any of us?” - -“So that we shan’t be able to identify them--as officers.” - -“Once more I’m apologizing to you,” said Plegg, in mild irony. -“Anything else?” - -“Nothing, except that you are to pick your men, and let it be -understood that the raiders are after Mr. Grillage and me. If you pick -the right men, they’ll fight for that. I’ll run over to the _Athenia_ -and get Mr. Grillage out of the way. I don’t want to have him mixed up -in this, even by implication.” - -As Plegg went one way, David went the other, hurrying across to -the private Pullman, which he knew was occupied because it was -lighted. When he pushed through the vestibule swing-door he found the -contractor-king poring over an estimate sheet. Taken for an instant -off his guard, the big man looked haggard and care-worn. It was this -that made David begin with a sober protest. - -“You put in too many hours down here, Mr. Grillage,” he said, much as -he might have said it to his own father. “How about that fishing trip -you were going to take with Dad?” - -“We’re going, pretty soon, now,” was the gruff reply. And then: “David, -you’re right; I’ve got too darned many irons in the fire, and some of -’em get too hot, and some of ’em freeze. Hurry up and get through with -this Short Line crucifixion, so you can take hold and blow some of the -other bellowses for me.” - -“‘Crucifixion’ is right!” said David, with a workmanlike scowl. “I -haven’t worried you much about the job lately, but the railroad -people--with Lushing egging them on, of course--have been mighty active -for the past few days--perniciously active, I’d say. I didn’t know what -was up until just now; though I’ve been ready for anything. It seems -they’ve been trying to find a peg upon which to hang a legal fight, and -they think they’ve found it--just what sort of a peg, I don’t know.” - -“Legal, you say; do you mean criminal?” - -“Plegg thinks it may be; based on alleged jerry-work on the bridges, -or something of that sort. Anyhow, Lushing is on his way up here with a -gang of subsidized deputies, and Crawford telephones that the object of -the raid is to arrest you and me.” - -“Huh!” grunted the giant, straightening himself in his chair. “Going to -try that, is he?” - -“So Crawford says. I came to ask you to go up to the hotel and let me -handle it.” - -“What are you going to do?” - -“Some few days ago I met Lushing and we had a--er--well, a little -disagreement, you might call it. He----” - -“I heard about it,” interrupted the boss of bosses, with a satisfied -grin. “You beat him up and warned him to stay off the job if he wanted -to keep his hide whole. I owe you something for that, David; it did me -a whole lot of good. But go on.” - -“Plegg’s getting a few of Brady’s Irishmen together, and we’ll take -care of these raiders. We don’t know, in any legal way, that they are -deputies, and we shall act accordingly. What I need is to get you out -of it; so far out that you won’t know anything about it, if any one -should ask you after the fact.” - -Eben Grillage gripped the edge of his desk with both hands and pulled -himself out of his chair. David marked the forced muscle-strain that -went into the effort, and immediately saw a curious change come over -the massive face with its staring eyes and hanging, dewlap jaws. - -“Run away from a fight, David? I guess--it would be the--first----” - -David leaped, and was in time to ease the big body back into the -swing-chair before it could crumple and fall. For a few seconds Eben -Grillage sat motionless, purple-faced and gasping. Then he reached into -a desk drawer, found some tablets in a druggist’s box, and swallowed -one. The effect was almost instantaneous. - -“It’s all right, now, David,” he mumbled, a bit thickly; “just a little -spell. But it’s telling me that my fighting days are over, I guess. -Lucky I’ve got you, my boy. Stick me up on the hill path, and I’ll keep -out of your way and give you a free hand.” - -David did more than was required. Precious as time might be, he went -all the way to the Inn with his charge, and at the leave-taking laid -filial commands upon the man whose right to command him he had never -questioned. - -“This settles it, Mr. Grillage,” he protested warmly. “To-morrow you’ll -take Dad and your fishing tackle and get out of here--go away and stay -away until we get this railroad snarl straightened out. Go on in, now, -and go to bed. Plegg and I will do the needful.” - -With this parting injunction he fled down the ridge path and took -command of the little group of huskies that Plegg had assembled beside -the bunk car. - -“Any more news?” he demanded; and Plegg answered. - -“Another ’phone from Crawford. He is blockaded in the Number Three -bridge office shack, but he got a bit of talk through before they cut -his ’phone wire. Lushing has taken our night shift off the bridge and -set it at work shoveling the crushed stone off the track. Tommy says -they will be able to get through with their gas-car within the next few -minutes.” - -“Good. We won’t wait for them,” said David quickly. “Get that engine up -there at the coal chute, and couple an empty flat-car ahead of it, and -another behind it. Hurry!” - -The order was carried out briskly, and when the oddly made up train -slowed to a stand beside the bunk car, the pick-handle squad climbed -upon the rearward car, and the chief and his first assistant sprang -into the engine cab. “Down the line!” was David’s order to the -engine-driver, and the train moved off, gathering such momentum as the -roughly surfaced construction track permitted. - -In the make-up of the train the engine was backing, with an empty -flat-car for its pilot. Being a construction machine, the locomotive -had a headlight at either end. With the yard switches left behind, -David reached up, uncoiled the short signal-bell cord, and shouted into -the ear of the big Irishman at the throttle. “Listen, Callahan: I’m -going up on the coal to keep a lookout and flag for you. If I give you -one bell, clamp your brakes and make an emergency stop; if I give you -two bells, let her have all she will take. Understand?” - -The Irishman nodded; and David, with Plegg at his heels, climbed over -the coal to a lookout position on the rear end of the tender. By -this time the scenery, or so much of it as the starlight revealed, -was unreeling itself rapidly on either hand, and in the beam of the -tender-carried headlight the straight-away stretches of the track -rushed up in quick succession to be shot to the rear under the roaring -wheels. “Lord!” yelped Plegg; “if we should meet ’em on a curve!----” -but David Vallory made no reply. He was gripping the bell-cord and -staring steadily down the track ahead, following the double line of -rails to the farthest reach of the spreading cone of light. - -As it chanced, the meeting point with the gasoline-driven push-car was -not on a curve. On the mile-long tangent which marked the approach to -bridge Number Three the converging lines of the rails in the distance -met in a dark blot; a moving blot that shot quickly into the glare of -the headlight. Plegg saw a series of black dots tumbling grotesquely -from the blot to right and left, heard a sharp double clang of the -signal in the cab behind him, and felt the sudden lurch of the tender -as the engine’s throttle was opened. “_Duck!_” was the command shouted -in his ear, and the next instant there was a crash and the air was -filled with flying wreckage. - -Luckily, no wheel of the attacking train was derailed, and a minute -or so later, Callahan, in obedience to a signal from his chief, was -braking the heavy “mogul” to a stop beside Crawford’s dynamited rock -pile. The place was light with flares, the concrete-pouring on the -bridge had been resumed, and Crawford came down the staging runway with -a broad grin on his boyish face. - -“I saw a little of it from the far end of the staging,” he chuckled. -“How many of ’em did you get?” - -“Not any of them, I hope,” said David Vallory soberly, as he swung -down from the engine step. “It was meant for an object-lesson--not a -murder. Now talk fast, Crawford: how many of them are there, and who -are they?--besides Lushing?” - -“Seven in all, besides the boss-devil; and they looked to me like -Brewster toughs, or hold-up men, or something of that sort.” - -“Armed?” - -“Sure!--one of ’em ran me off the staging with a gun.” - -“Brewster toughs, you say?--are you sure they are not Powder Can -toughs? Lushing would have to take them to Brewster to have them sworn -in as deputies--which would account for their coming from down the -line.” - -“By George--that’s so! I did see a bunch of plug-uglies going down on -the stub train yesterday, come to think of it.” - -David Vallory turned upon Plegg. “There you are,” he said. And then to -Crawford: “We are going back to headquarters now, and maybe they’ll -give us a scrap as we go by, and maybe they won’t. If they don’t show -up for us, they may come down here and make trouble for you. How about -that?” - -“I’ll take my chances,” returned the bridge expert cheerfully. “I have -my old pump-gun now; it was in the office shack, and I didn’t have -sense enough to go and get it before they came up and fell on me. I’ll -stand ’em off, all right, if they try to stop the job again.” - -“You said one of them came to you at Number One to borrow a -monkey-wrench: what did he say?” - -“He was just joshing me a few lines while I was looking for the wrench; -said I wouldn’t have any bosses to-morrow, because they’d both be in -jail. I asked him who he meant by ‘both’, and he said, ‘the big one and -the little one.’ I took that to mean you and Mr. Grillage.” - -“You probably guessed right; but the man was a liar. We are not going -to jail--any of us. And before I forget it: you’ve done a good job -to-night, Crawford, and I shall see to it that you get credit where it -will do you the most good.” - -“I don’t need any credit; it’s all in the day’s work,” laughed the -cheerful bridge builder; then, as his chief was turning to climb into -Callahan’s cab: “Oh, say--I meant to ask you: have you seen Lushing -since you--er--since he went into retirement a few days ago? He’s a -plumb sight! You broke his nose; turned it around so it points east -when he’s going north. Gee! but he looks fierce!” - -“It ought to have been his neck,” was the brittle rejoinder, and then -the double-ended train pulled out for the return. - -There was no demonstration at the point where the abandoned gasoline -car had been demolished, though David had the train stopped and got off -with his pick-handle squad to beat the covers. The straight piece of -track was on the river bank, with a wooded hill on the left from which -a few determined snipers might have wrought havoc with the beaters, but -no man was found and no shot was fired. - -Plegg spoke of the probabilities as the train proceeded up the valley. - -“We are through with them for to-night,” was his prediction. “It is -eight miles to Powder Can or the Gap, and only four to Agorda. They’ll -go east instead of west.” - -“Yes,” David agreed; “now that they know they can’t bluff us. That is -what I meant to do; turn the bluff the other way around. I guess we did -it.” - -The first assistant, isolated in his seat on the fireman’s box, -held his peace until the train came to the end of its run in the -headquarters yard. But on the way over to the bunk car with his chief, -he had a word to add, and added it. - -“Now that Crawford has dumped the wheel-barrow and spilled all the -garden truck, I can speak of a thing we’ve all known since the story of -your manhandling of Lushing drifted into camp. Lushing is peacock-vain; -no stage-door johnnie was ever more so. Even when he was here on the -work he kept his mustaches curled, his beard trimmed to a hair, and -his clothes looking as if he had just stepped out of a tailor’s shop. -You’ve spoiled his beauty for all time, and he’d draw and quarter you -for it if he could.” - -“As a matter of fact, I hit him only once; it was all the chance I had -before his gun went off. But I don’t care what I’ve done to his face, -Plegg. As I remarked to Crawford, I’m only sorry I didn’t break his -neck.” - -“Perhaps it would have been safer if you had,” was the quiet -suggestion. “As it is, he’ll never forgive you, and he won’t be -satisfied with any light revenge. Which brings on more talk. I have -a notion that this ‘arrest’ business to-night was pure bunk. I don’t -doubt that Lushing had gone through all the forms and had sworn out -the warrants. Doubtless, he was going to make a bluff at serving them. -But, Vallory, I’ll bet a little round gold dollar with a hole in it -that the real play was to make you put up a fight so that you might -righteously be killed in resisting an officer of the law.” - -Again David said, “I don’t care,” and Plegg went on calmly. “If that -is the play, we’ll have to take measures accordingly. You mustn’t run -around on the job unless I’m with you. If you will pardon me for saying -it, you are not quite quick enough on the draw, as yet; and you haven’t -learned to hold the other fellow’s eye while you’re doing it. That is -about all the difference there is between living and dying when it -comes to a show-down, you know.” - -They had boarded the bunk car and were preparing to turn in. David -looked up from the boot-unlacing and his eyes were bloodshot. - -“Damn your grannying!” he flared out savagely. “When I need a wet nurse -I’ll advertise for one!” - -A few seconds later he looked up again, to find Plegg chuckling softly. - -“What the devil are you laughing at?” he snapped. - -The chuckle expanded into the first assistant’s slow, half-cynical -smile. “And once, not so many months ago, I was idiotic enough to -cherish the notion that you might be too good!” he exclaimed, in mock -self-derision. And with that, he rolled himself in his blankets and -turned his face from the light. - - - - -XXIII - -The Killer - - -On the morning following the raid which had failed to connect, -Eben Grillage carried out his promise to side-track business and -go a-fishing. David made the necessary arrangements, stocking the -_Athenia’s_ larder with provisions from the camp commissary, borrowing -a tent and camping outfit from one of the grade subcontractors, and -otherwise bestirring himself to expedite the departure of the anglers. - -With the _Athenia_ out of its berth and safely on its way to some -unannounced destination in the upper Timanyoni, a handicap of a sort -was removed; a handicap and a restriction. As David phrased it for -Plegg, he had gotten two non-combatants out of the range of the guns -and the field was now clear for whatever battle of reprisals might be -threatening. - -Of the restriction removed he said nothing to Plegg or to any one. -There be certain secret curtains of the heart which are not to be -drawn aside for alien eyes to view what may lie behind them; and -as yet, not even to himself would David admit that he was no longer -able to see eye to eye with his father. None the less, it was with a -distinct sense of relief that he waved good-by to the pair standing on -the rear platform of the private Pullman as Callahan’s “mogul” snaked -it out through the yard to make a flying-switch coupling with the -outgoing stub train. - -It was on this same morning that Plegg reported for the third time his -inability to find the man Backus, and the report was made while he and -Vallory were climbing the mountain on their way to make an inspecting -tour of the western slope activities, including the tunnel drift which -was slowly gnawing its way to meet Regnier’s bore from the eastward. - -“I’ve had a dozen ‘trusties’ looking for him and they have combed -Powder Can and every other mining-camp in a ten-mile radius,” was -Plegg’s summing-up of the search. “He has disappeared as completely as -if the earth had swallowed him.” - -“If we could only be sure that the earth _has_ swallowed him,” growled -the one for whom the restrictions had been removed. “But there is -another fork to that road, Plegg. Maybe Lushing has him hidden out -somewhere. Had you thought of that?” - -“Yes; that seemed to be the most reasonable explanation of his -disappearance. But in a very short time I discovered that Lushing was -also looking for him.” - -“You are sure of that?” - -“Quite sure. I have it from a number of different sources. He has even -gone so far as to offer a reward--not publicly, of course, but the word -has been passed among our workmen.” - -“Which means that Lushing knows Backus has something to sell. We -mustn’t let Lushing beat us to it, Plegg. You haven’t stopped your -investigating machine, have you?” - -“Not at all. I have even gone Lushing one better and raised his bet on -the reward--though you didn’t authorize me to spend any real money.” - -“You did right; and I’ll see to it that the money is forthcoming when -it is needed.” - -Here the matter rested for the time, and the two men spent the entire -day on the western slope, tramping over the work on the desert cut-off, -visiting the sub-headquarters in Lost Creek basin, and taking the lost -motion out of the job wherever it was found. Cartwright, the sub-chief -in general charge of the over-mountain work, was making good progress, -though he, too, complained bitterly of the obstructing activities of -the railroad inspection staff. Lushing, as it appeared, had not yet -been over the range since his return from the East, and Cartwright, -a nervous little man with a harsh voice and a choleric eye, was -explosively profane when he was told the story of the raid that failed. - -“Some of us will have to ‘get’ that beggar yet, Vallory!” he rasped. -“It’s gone a long way past any business vigilance on his part; he is -simply a vindictive scoundrel, and he is making a personal fight upon -the entire Grillage outfit. If he shows up on this side of the range, -he’d better bring a bodyguard with him; that’s all I’ve got to say!” - -On the return from the desert inspection, David and his first assistant -had supper at Cartwright’s headquarters on Lost Creek, and afterward -crossed the mountain by starlight. Plegg dropped out of the procession -of two on the descent to the eastern tunnel entrance, ostensibly to see -how Regnier was getting along, but really because the dangerous roof -drew him with a mysterious fascination that was always making him go -out of his way to take another look at it. - -David Vallory kept on down the mountain alone, and in due time, with a -number of brief pauses at the various working points, tramped into the -Powder Gap yard at an hour not far from midnight. Learning from the -yard boss that there had been no new developments during the day, he -went across to the bunk car and let himself in. There was a fragrance -of good tobacco smoke in the darkened interior, and as he struck a -light he was wondering what member of the staff had been making free -with Plegg’s carefully hoarded store of “perfectos.” - -It was not until after he had snapped the lamp chimney into place, -and was turning the wick to its proper height, that he had a shock -that sent his hand quickly to the grip of the weapon slung by its -shoulder-strap under his coat. Sitting quietly on Plegg’s bunk, and -still smoking the cigar which had perfumed the stuffy interior of the -little car, was the swarthy, cold-eyed master gambler of Powder Can. - -Dargin was the first to break the surcharged silence. - -“Been waiting for you,” he said shortly; and then: “You needn’t be -feelin’ for that gun. If I’d wanted to croak you, you’d ’ve been dead a -whole half-minute ago.” - -David Vallory sat down on his own bed, the shock spasm subsiding a -little. - -“I hope I haven’t kept you waiting very long,” he ventured, not too -inhospitably. - -“About a half-hour. But I had some smokes in my poke, and the waiting -didn’t cut any ice.” - -Hastily David passed in review the various reasons why Dargin should -come thus to lie in wait for him. There were two and possibly three; -all of them warlike if Dargin chose to hold them so: the attempt to -abate the man-traps, the attempt to persuade Judith Fallon to leave -Powder Can, and for the third, the assumption that Dargin was in a -partnership of some sort with Lushing. In the new recklessness which -had come to him with the other transformations, he attacked the reasons -boldly in their order. - -“You’ve got a kick coming, Dargin, if you want to make it,” he began -brusquely. “I’m out to wipe your Powder Can speak-easys off the map if -I can swing the big stick hard enough.” - -“I was onto that a month ago,” was the growling answer. Then, after -a deep pull at the fragrant cigar: “I reckon they ought to be wiped -out--though that ain’t sayin’ that I wouldn’t take a crack at the man -that did it when it came to a show-down.” - -“If you think the place ought to be cleaned up, why don’t you do it -yourself?” David shot back. - -“Huh! Maybe I will, some day--if you don’t beat me to it.” - -“But if I should beat you to it, I suppose you’ll come after me with a -gun. Is that the way of it?” - -The shadow that flitted across the swarthy face of the man on the -opposite bunk was scarcely a smile, though possibly it was intended for -one. - -“I might; but it’d be a heap like takin’ candy from a baby. You ain’t -been carryin’ a gun long enough to get the hang of it. You’re a whole -lot too slow to make it interestin’.” - -“All right,” said David; “we’ll pass that up. The next thing may get -a bit nearer to you. Judith Fallon has doubtless told you that she -knew me back East, and that we went to school together and were good -friends?” - -“Uh-huh.” - -“But perhaps she hasn’t told you that I have tried to persuade her to -break off with you and leave Powder Can?” - -“No; she ain’t told me anything like that.” - -“Well, it’s so; I did it.” - -“What for?” - -“For common decency’s sake. If you admit that the mining-camp dives -ought to be wiped out, you’ll also have to admit the facts concerning -that girl. I know you’ve been befriending her honestly--the only -mistake you made was in not putting a bullet through Tom Judson before -you turned him loose--but you must know that a man of your stripe can’t -befriend any woman without making her pay the penalty.” - -“A man of my stripe, eh?--well, I reckon that’s so, too.” - -“Then you are not here to pick a quarrel with me over Judith?” - -“Hell, no; not in a thousand years!” - -“Then what did you come for? Did Lushing send you?” - -“Jim Lushing? He can’t send me nowhere. He ain’t got the insides.” - -David Vallory had reached the end of his resources. There was -apparently nothing for it but to wait patiently until Dargin was ready -to disclose the object of the midnight visit; and he seemed to be in no -manner of haste. - -David unbuckled his uncomfortable weapon and tossed it aside. “I can’t -think of any other grouch that you might have,” he said, with the -nearest approach to his former good-natured smile that he had been able -to achieve since the moon of Virginia Grillage’s favor had gone into -eclipse for him. Then he dug into Plegg’s locker and brought out the -first assistant’s cherished box of “perfectos.” “Your smoke is about -used up; have another,” he offered. - -Dargin helped himself, and took the lighted match that David held out -to him. Then the flitting shadow that passed for a smile began at the -corners of the hard-bitted mouth and crept slowly up to the murderous -eyes. - -“I’m stuck on your nerve, Dave Vallory--damned if I ain’t!” he grated. -“If you could only draw a fraction quicker and shoot as plumb straight -as you can talk, you’d be some man. Now I’ll spill what I mogged over -here to spill: ever hear of a duck named Backus?--Simmy Backus?” - -“Yes,” said David. - -“Well, he used to pipe off the easy marks for me--same time he was -working for you-all.” - -“I know.” - -“You lose him, and you’ve been lookin’ for him, ain’t you?” - -“Right, again.” - -“Uh-huh; I thought so. Know why you couldn’t find him?” - -“No.” - -“Well, I can tell you, I reckon. I had him hid out.” - -“Hid out? locked up, you mean? Why did you do that?” - -“Because he’s a worm. He was aimin’ to give you the double-cross: tried -to sell me a chance on it. I didn’t hate you-all bad enough to let him -run loose; see?” - -“Is that straight, Dargin?” - -“Straight as a string.” - -“But they tell me that you and Lushing have a stand-in together; and -Lushing hates us heartily enough.” - -“Maybe so; and maybe we have got a stand-in. But that ain’t no skin -off’m this other thing. Backus is a worm.” - -“I’m glad you don’t like worms. I have a feeling that way, myself.” - -The master gambler got up and pushed his soft hat back to allow the -forelock of Indian-black hair to fall over his brow. As he was moving -to the door, he said, “Reckon that’s about all I had to spill--all but -one little thing: that damn’ worm’s done dug him a hole and crawled -out. Thought maybe you’d like to know. So long,” and he was gone. - -For a long time after he was left alone, David Vallory sat on the -edge of his bed, buried in thought. With the spy, Backus, at large, it -was only a question of time when Lushing would have another weapon in -his hands. In odd moments David had made an estimate on the cost of -shooting down the menace in the eastern tunnel drifting and concreting -the gash which would be left by the blasting out of the fissure -material. The figures were appalling. Not only would the profits on the -entire contract be likely to disappear in the chasm; there was a chance -that there would be a huge loss, as well, since nobody could tell how -much of the fissure contents would come down in the blasting. As Eben -Grillage had frankly confessed, the line-shortening job had been taken -on a narrow margin, and there had been no provision made for untoward -happenings. - -There was but one conclusion to be reached, and by this time David -Vallory had passed all the mile-stones of hesitancy. Backus, the worm, -must be found and silenced, and there must be no fumbling delay in -either half of the undertaking. - - - - -XXIV - -No Thoroughfare - - -At the departure of the two fishermen, Virginia Grillage had taken -Lucille Vallory under her wing, closing the cottage under the pines -and taking the blind girl to the hotel. This left Oswald more or less -unattached. Since there was no welcome for him at the foot of the -ridge, and David had not even taken the trouble to introduce him to -the members of the engineering staff, he spent the greater part of his -time at the Inn, devoting himself, so far as Miss Grillage would permit -it, to the care and comfort of the helpless one, and taking his meals -in due submission at a table with Miss Virginia and her charge, the -Englishman, and the heir of profitable breakfast-foods. - -Beneath these routine time-killings, days in which nothing transpired -to break the monotonous round of eating and sleeping and lounging -upon the shaded porches of the Inn, Oswald fancied he could feel the -tension of an approaching crisis. To a keen-eyed young lawyer whose -profession led logically to a study of the human problem in all its -phases, the premonitory signs emphasized themselves. Miss Virginia, -apparently engrossed in her favorite pastime of playing off one man -against another, struck a false note now and then; young Wishart was -occasionally jogged out of his customary rut of good-natured indolence; -and even the imperturbable Englishman was losing the fine edge of a -carefully cultivated Old-World indifference to his surroundings. - -Notwithstanding these indications, it was Lucille Vallory who first put -the impending threat into words, confiding in Oswald one evening when -Virginia Grillage had gone for a stroll along the ridge accompanied by -her two shadows. - -“What is it, Herbert?” the blind girl asked; “what is happening to us -all?” - -“What should be happening?” he evaded. “Aren’t you enjoying yourself?” - -“You know what I mean,” she insisted. “Nothing is the same any more; -I can feel it. You are troubled about something, and so is Virginia. -No, it isn’t anything that either of you say; it’s just how you feel -inside. And Davie; he is different, too--so cruelly different. Is it -because he is worried about his work?” - -Oswald said what there was to be said, doing violence to his own -convictions in an effort to shield the loved one. There was nothing -for anybody to be troubled about, he told her; and David--she must -remember that David was now at the head of an immense undertaking and -was carrying a heavy load of responsibility. She was silenced, but he -could see that his well-meant effort had been thrown away. - -This happened on an evening when the two fishermen had been three days -in the wilds of the upper Timanyoni. On the next morning the monotonies -were broken. Little gossip of the big job penetrated to the Alta Vista, -the summerers, as a rule, being content to hold the great engineering -feat as a part of the scenic stage-effect for which they paid in their -hotel bills. But on the morning in question, when Cumberleigh had -joined a sunrise peak-climbing party, and Wishart was not yet out of -bed, there was news of a small catastrophe. Oswald had the story from -one of the Alta Vista clerks as he was getting his morning mail. Some -time during the night an accident had happened in the big tunnel. In -one of the blasts a man had been blown up and desperately hurt. A -Brewster doctor had been telegraphed for and was coming up on a special -train. - -Oswald was interested only casually, and he saw no special significance -in the added word particularizing the injured man as one of the -railroad company’s inspectors. As he was crossing the lobby he met Miss -Virginia. Though she was apparently just down from her rooms and on her -way to breakfast, her first word was of the tragedy, or near-tragedy, -in the tunnel. - -“You have heard of the accident to Mr. Strayer?” she asked hurriedly. -And then: “Have you seen David this morning?” - -Oswald answered both queries in a single sentence. - -“Yes, I’ve heard of the accident--the clerk was just this minute -telling me about it: and I haven’t seen David.” - -Miss Virginia was plainly anxious and disturbed She hesitated for a -moment, a little frown coming and going between the straight-browed -eyes, and Oswald noted that she was nervously twisting a bit of paper -between her fingers. “I must see David--at once,” she said, half as if -she were thinking aloud. “May I ask you to go and tell him so, Herbert?” - -Since Virginia had shown herself more than friendly in his own trying -involvement, Oswald consented willingly. - -“I’ll find him for you,” he promised; and a minute later he was on his -way down to the construction yard. - -It so happened that he had to go no farther than to the office bunk -car. The door was open and he went in. David Vallory was sitting behind -the small mapping-table, checking dimensions on a set of blue-prints. -At the sound of Oswald’s footsteps he looked up with a scowl of -impatience, and his greeting was a challenge. - -“Oh, it’s you, is it? I’ve been thinking it was about time you were -showing up. When do you start back to Middleboro?” - -Oswald ignored the ungracious demand and said what he had been sent to -say. - -“Miss Virginia is at the hotel, and she wishes to see you.” - -“What for?” - -“I didn’t inquire. She asked me to find you and deliver her message. I -have done both.” - -“I can’t go just now; I’m, busy.” - -“Then I’ll wait for you,” said Oswald coolly, and he sat down on -Plegg’s bunk, found a cigarette in his pocket case and lighted it. - -In sheer perversity, as it seemed to the young lawyer, David went on -shuffling the blue-prints and making figures on a pad under his hand. -Oswald waited in silence and in due time had his reward. - -“Be half-way decent about it, Bert, and tell me what I’m wanted for,” -said the figure-maker, looking up suddenly from his work. “She has -Cumberleigh and Wishart; aren’t they enough?” - -Oswald’s smile was a palpable easing of strains. If David’s malady were -nothing worse than a fit of jealousy, it was not necessarily incurable. - -“I was wondering, before I came out here, what Vinnie might be doing to -you,” he said. “You wrote us that she and her father were here, if you -remember.” - -“What she did to me was done more than a year ago, if you care to know. -But you haven’t answered my question. What does she want of me this -morning?” - -“Honestly, I don’t know, David.” - -“Where did you see her?” - -“In the hotel lobby; she was on her way to the breakfast-room, I think.” - -“And the other two?” - -“Cumberleigh has gone to climb Qojogo with a sunrise party, and Wishart -hasn’t turned out yet. Half of the time he is never visible before -noon.” - -“What did she say?” - -“She asked first if I had heard of the accident in the tunnel last -night.” - -Once more David Vallory bent over the table and busied himself with the -figure-making. - -“You’ve heard of it, I suppose?” he offered, without looking up. - -“Only in passing. The hotel clerk told me that a man was hurt; in one -of the blasts, I think he said.” - -David pushed his work aside as one who faces the guns only because -he must. “Let’s go,” he consented shortly; and together they walked -through the yard and climbed the ridge. - -Miss Virginia was waiting on one of the porches when the pair crossed -the painfully cared-for bit of greensward in front of the Inn. Oswald, -telling himself that he had done his part, went on through to the -breakfast-room, leaving David to fight his battle--if there were to be -a battle--alone. The young woman’s first question was as direct as it -was unexpected. - -“Why have you been avoiding me so persistently?” she asked, making room -for the summoned one to sit beside her on the settee. - -“Perhaps it was because I had just sense enough to see that I had -served my turn and wasn’t needed any more,” he answered in a tone that -might have been copied faithfully from the king of the contractors in -his most brittle mood. - -“Silly!” she chided, with a strained little laugh. “I could forgive -you for saying such a thing as that if you were only sincere. It isn’t -Cumberleigh and Freddy Wishart, David; it’s yourself.” - -“You wrote and told them where you were,” he accused. - -“As it happens, I did not. But you needn’t try to hide behind a -shadow--or two shadows. You have had other reasons for avoiding me. For -one thing, you have met Mr. Lushing, and you have quarreled with him.” - -“Everybody seems to know that,” he complained. “Go on.” - -“For another thing, you have determined, in spite of all that we have -talked about, to fight Mr. Lushing with his own weapons.” - -This seemed to be too accurate to be classed with the shrewd guesses, -and he accused her again. - -“You’ve been prying into Plegg.” - -“I haven’t seen Mr. Plegg in weeks; I haven’t been prying into any one, -and I haven’t needed to. You have been showing very plainly that you -have broken with the ideals--all of them. Why couldn’t you stay up on -the pedestal, David? It was such a nice pedestal!” - -He laughed mirthlessly. “You are such a queer mixture of good, hard -sense and back-number romanticism,” he commented. “Can’t you realize -that I’ve got to be a man among men?” - -“That is what you ought to be--in the other and better meaning of the -phrase. You won’t make a very successful villain, David.” - -“Perhaps not; but I shall try mighty hard not to let the other man make -a wooden Indian of me,” he returned grimly. - -“And you haven’t stopped, even at--murder.” She shuddered over the -final word, but she would not qualify it. - -He was regarding her through half-closed eyes. “Having said that much, -you ought to say more, don’t you think?” he suggested. - -“I am going to say more; lots more. That man in the tunnel last night: -he wasn’t blown up by a blast.” - -“How do you know he wasn’t?” - -“One of your men carried or dragged him half-way to the mouth of the -tunnel before the blast was fired.” - -“Well?” he prompted. - -“It comes to this; either it was a sheer accident--a stone falling -from the roof--or there was foul play. Mr. Lushing says it was foul -play.” - -“Lushing? You don’t mean to say that he has had the brazen effrontery -to come to you!” - -“No; he didn’t come here. He sent me a note; an unsigned note, because -he is a coward. He did it once before, when he was dis--when he left -the Grillage Company. He says you will be tried for murder if the man -dies, and he throws it in my face.” - -David got upon his feet rather unsteadily, but the unsteadiness was of -rage. - -“There wasn’t any murder last night, but there is going to be one when -I can find this man who writes anonymous letters to you!” he broke out. - -“No; sit down again, please. I am not nearly through. It makes very -little difference what Mr. Lushing, or anybody else, may write or -say to me, David; but there are other things that do make a world of -difference. What special thing is there in that tunnel that you don’t -want Mr. Lushing or his engineers to find out?” - -He stared at her gloomily. “If you were your father’s son instead of -his daughter, I might tell you.” - -“You will tell me anyhow,” she declared quickly. “If you don’t, I shall -find out for myself.” - -“I believe you are quite capable of it. But there is nothing to be told -more than I have already told you. You may remember that I admitted -that there was a place in the tunnel that may be called dangerous. -If Lushing finds out about it, he will immediately insist that it is -dangerous, and the railroad people will make us spend a lot of money -needlessly. Your father didn’t put me here to bankrupt the Grillage -Engineering Company, Vinnie.” - -She ignored the clause in condonation. - -“So, accordingly, you have given orders to our men to have an accident -happen if the secret seems likely to be discovered. This is simply -horrible, David!” - -“It is rather primitive, I’ll admit. But it’s business--in the modern -meaning of the word. More than that, I owe it to your father.” - -“You don’t owe him _anything_ that ought to be paid with such a -frightful price! What ought to be done with that place in the tunnel? -What would be done if you were not blind to everything but profit and -loss?” - -David shrugged his shoulders and turned his face away. “I suppose the -bad piece of roof would be shot down.” - -“And you are deliberately allowing it to stay up--if it will--and -endangering the lives of your workmen every hour of the day and night?” - -“Hard-rock men always take a chance. It is a part of their trade. And -Regnier, or some other member of the staff, is always there to take it -with them.” - -“You are hopeless--absolutely and utterly hopeless, David! Don’t you -see what you are forcing me to do?” - -“No.” - -“I have some little conscience, if you haven’t. I can’t say anything -to Mr. Lushing, of course, and I wouldn’t if I could. But I can write -to Mr. Maxwell, the general manager of the railroad at Brewster. It so -happens that I know him, and his wife.” - -“Hold on; you wouldn’t do anything like that! Think a minute of the -position in which it would place your father.” - -She shook her head despairingly. - -“You drive me into a corner and then beat me!” she cried. “It is all -wrong, wrong! And you have broken my heart, David, because I thought -you were different. You lay this horrible burden upon me one minute, -and tie my hands the next. What if this man who was hurt last night -should die?” - -“He won’t die; but neither will he talk,” was the gritting reply. - -The young woman had risen and her color was coming and going in hot -little flashes. - -“You think because I am my father’s daughter you are safe in saying -anything you please, and in going on in any hard-hearted way you -choose! It is what I might have expected of a man who would deny his -only sister her one little chance of happiness. You are worse than -other men, because you know the right way and you won’t walk in it!” - -He sprang up suddenly and caught her hands in both of his. - -“You are right, Vinnie; I do know better. Every word you have been -saying has cut like a knife!” he burst out, smashing all the barriers -of insincerity at a single blow. “I know where I stand, and what I’ve -been doing, and I have been a conscious hypocrite every time I have -pleaded the way of the world as my excuse. But a man _must_ be loyal -to something. For the obligation, the immense obligation, I owe your -father. I have put my hands between his knees as the old-time vassals -used to do, and sworn to make his cause my cause. He knows about that -bad tunnel roof; knows more than I do; and when I spoke to him, he -told me to forget it. I can’t be disloyal to him--and keep even a -thief’s sense of honor!” - -She released her hands quickly. It was early for any of the porch -loungers to be out, but they were standing fairly in front of the lobby -windows. - -“That is better; much better,” she commended with a little sigh. “I -thought you were gone, David; honestly, I was afraid that the good old -David I used to know and--and think a lot of--was dead and buried--and -it hurt me as much as it would if you had been my own brother. Now, if -I could only forget what happened last night----” - -“You may set your mind at rest about Strayer,” he put in quickly. “He -won’t die; and he wasn’t assaulted, as you seem to think he was, though -I won’t say what might or might not have happened in another minute or -two. He was testing the bad roof with the point of an iron bar, and a -loose rock came down upon his head.” - -“But now you will pull the roof down, or timber it, or do whatever is -needful to make it safe?” she said, half pleading with him. - -“No; my hands are tied, too. I can’t saddle the company with the added -expense after your father has told me in so many words to let it -alone. Neither must I let Lushing find out and force it upon him if I -can help it. We must just trust to luck, Vinnie; there is no help for -it.” - -“There is going to be help for it,” she asserted, with true Grillage -resolution. Then: “One more word before you go, David: you won’t -fi--quarrel with Mr. Lushing again?” - -But at this his eyes grew hard. “I owe him something more, now, for -that anonymous letter. Besides, he’s out for my scalp, personally, and -I shall certainly try to hold up my end if he starts anything. You -can’t blame me for that, Vinnie. But that is a future. There is Wishart -coming out of the breakfast-room, and I suppose he is looking for you. -Anyway, my job is yelling for me and I must go. Don’t you worry a -single minute about anything; do you hear?” - -“Not even about Herbert and Lucille?” she threw in quickly, as one -thrusts an antagonist who is helplessly off his guard. - -“Oh, say; that isn’t fair!” he retorted, with a frown that turned -itself into a grin in spite of the reluctances. “I’m right about Bert -and the little sister--I’m practically certain I am; but you’ve got me -going, and you know it. Do whatever you think is best. Good-by.” - -What Miss Virginia thought was best was not to stay and meet the -short-sighted heir of the breakfast-foods who was rambling aimlessly in -her direction. Instead, she went into the lobby and sent a telegram. It -was addressed to her father at Red Butte, and it was short and to the -point: - - “Highly important that you return at once. - - “V.” - - - - -XXV - -Cataclysmic - - -Notwithstanding his chief’s angry assertion that he did not need -safeguarding, Silas Plegg had contrived to keep track of the goings -and comings of “the little big boss” on the job, and his vigilance was -increased after the near-tragedy in the tunnel. The gossip of the camps -made much of the little war which had developed between the Grillage -Company’s chief and Lushing, and it was quickly passed from lip to -lip that the enmity between the two men had now become actively and -vindictively personal; had, in the phrase of the unfettered desert -country, reached the stage in which each was “looking” for the other -with vengeful intent. In spite of the assertion, often repeated and -as often contradicted, that Strayer’s injury was purely the result of -an unlucky accident, there were many to speak of it with an eyelid -drooped, and to intimate that Lushing would go far to even up the -account with David Vallory, an account which carried its largest debit -item in the blow which had disfigured him. - -For Plegg there was a small lessening of one of the many stresses when -David, on the day after the accident, had modified the order given in -the battle night when he had so promptly backslidden into the field of -things elemental. - -“About keeping that tunnel situation dark, Plegg: I’ve been thinking -that some of our men might take me too literally--that possibly you -did,” was the way the modifying clause was introduced. “I was pretty -savage that night. I told you that Lushing shot at me, but let you -infer that he missed. It was a miss, but it wouldn’t have been if my -field-note book hadn’t turned the bullet.” - -“I saw the hole in your coat afterwards,” said Plegg quietly. - -“Yes; the shock stopped the clock for me, and the gambling house people -carried me out for dead--thought I was dead. Naturally, when the clock -got to running again, I was hot; was still pretty warm when I talked -with you at Brady’s. Of course, I didn’t mean to convey the idea that -Lushing, or any member of his staff, was to be massacred out of hand.” - -“Of course not,” the first assistant agreed, readily enough. “But we -are not to let them find out about the ‘fault,’ are we?” - -“Not if we can help it without going to extremes. Mr. Grillage will -be back before long, and I’m going to put that tunnel-roof question -up to him again good and hard. I know what it will mean to us if we -have to dig that hollow tooth out and fill it, but just the same, the -responsibility is getting too heavy for me, Plegg. It’s got so I wake -up in the night to think about it, and that’s bad medicine.” - -Plegg offered no comment on this, but he made haste to pass the word -to Regnier that guile, and not violence, was henceforth to be used in -preserving the secret of the bad roof. Shortly after the word-passing -Regnier had a deduction of his own to proffer. It was to be inferred -that the secret had finally escaped, through the man Backus, or -otherwise, and that Strayer’s accident had been taken as a warning. -None of the railroad inspectors were venturing into the tunnel since -Strayer had been injured, Regnier reported. - -Beyond this, there was a plot of some sort afoot, so Regnier told -Plegg. An attempt had been made to bribe one of the portal watchmen -posted to keep unauthorized visitors out of the tunnel, and the briber -was one of the Powder Can dive-keepers--not Dargin, but one of his -concessionaries, who was also known as “Black Jack.” The watchman had -proved incorruptible, and had reported the attempt to Regnier. His -story was that he had been offered a certain sum of money if he would -find out when Vallory was to be in the tunnel at any shift-changing -time, and would use the working telephone to notify the briber -beforehand. - -Plegg said nothing of this to his chief, but it made him doubly -watchful. Also, it made him fertile in excuses to keep Vallory from -making any but strictly unannounced visits to Heading Number One. -Time was all the first assistant hoped to gain. It was reported that -Mr. Grillage’s private car was on its way back from Red Butte, and -there was the slender chance that, with the president on the ground -again, something might be done to clear the air and quiet the various -gathering menaces. - -This was the situation at the close of the day when the private Pullman -_Athenia_ came in and was shunted to its former position on the spur -track. At the moment of its arrival David Vallory was making a tour of -the lower camps. Plegg was in the construction yard, and he saw Eben -Grillage and his fishing companion leave the car and go up to the Inn -together. And after dinner he saw the king of the contractors come back -to the car alone. Later still, the first assistant, smoking his pipe on -the platform of the office bunk car, saw a woman descending the path -from the hotel. Recognizing the big boss’s daughter, Plegg dutifully -went across the yard tracks to meet her. - -“Thank you, Mr. Plegg,” she said, as he came up. “I imagine I was just -about to lose myself. Whereabouts is the _Athenia_?” - -“I’ll show you,” he offered, and he led her around an obstructing -material train and over to the spur-track, where he helped her up the -steps of the private car. As he was lifting his hat to go away she -stopped him to ask a question. - -“Do you happen to know where Mr. Vallory is?” - -Plegg gave such information as he had, or thought he had: the chief was -somewhere down the line at one of the lower camps; or at least he had -gone down earlier in the evening and he had not come back to supper. -The young woman appeared to be satisfied with the answer, and when -the porter had admitted her to her father’s car, Plegg went his way, -wondering if anything new had developed. The conclusion was negative. -Miss Virginia’s question was natural and casual; one that need have no -bearing upon the threatening conditions--doubtless had none. But if he -could have been a listener at the door of the office compartment in -the _Athenia_, he would have known better how much was at stake in the -matter of keeping in close touch with his chief’s movements. - -Miss Virginia found her father planted in his great chair behind the -glass-topped table-desk. The fishing absence was responsible for a -huge accumulation of mail, and he was slitting the envelopes with -a nimble dexterity curiously at variance with his massive bulk and -knotty-knuckled, square-fingered hands. - -“Hello, little girl; you down here?” he rumbled; and before she could -speak: “I got your wire--two days late. What is it?--something that -won’t keep until I have read my mail?” Then, with a chuckling laugh: -“Which one is it you’re going to spring on me--Wishart, or the ‘belted -earl’?” - -“Neither,” she replied succinctly. “I have come to talk business.” - -“Oho! business, is it? Well, I guess I’m a business man. Go ahead and -open up your samples.” - -“The reason why I telegraphed you to come back was because you haven’t -kept your promise.” - -“Which one?” he inquired, with large indulgence. - -“The one you made me when you were sending David out here. You promised -me that he wasn’t to be spoiled.” - -“Oh, that’s it, is it?”--with another of the deep-chested chuckles. -“All right; let’s have it: what do you think you’ve found out?” - -“You know, well enough,” she returned coldly. “For a time, I think, Mr. -Plegg was able to keep the crooked things hidden from David--as you -doubtless instructed him to. But of course David soon found out what is -being done, and that it is being done by your orders. And now you are -about to make a criminal of him. I don’t see how you can ever look his -father in the face.” - -Eben Grillage wagged his big head sorrowfully. - -“You’re all I’ve got in the world, Vinnie, girl, and there’s mighty -little I wouldn’t do for you; but it’s terribly hard to live up to your -notions, sometimes. You’ve been a business man’s daughter all your -life, and yet you haven’t the faintest idea of what business means.” - -“I have a very clear idea of what it means to cheat, to lie, to put -human life in jeopardy, and to take a clean, straightforward young man -like David Vallory and turn him into a potential murderer.” - -“Oh, pshaw!” grunted the king of the contractors. “I suppose somebody -has been scaring you about that tunnel and the few cracks it has in the -roof. Was it David?” - -“No, it wasn’t David; I found out about it myself, before you went -away. And the ‘few cracks’ have nearly killed one man, already.” - -“Strayer, you mean?--I had David’s report of that. Strayer is a pretty -good engineer, and he ought to have known better than to pry a rock -loose and let it fall on his own head. Vinnie, I’m getting sore about -this thing. That tunnel roof will stand up all right if they’ll only -quit monkeying with it and let it alone.” - -“I’m not here to argue with you about the tunnel as a tunnel,” said the -daughter, with a touch of the true Grillage bluntness. “I merely wish -to find out if you’re going to try to patch up that broken promise.” - -“What in the name of common sense can I do--more than I have done? I -wrote Plegg to keep David on the windward side of the little economies -we have to make, and I’m sorry if he hasn’t been able to do it. I’ll -haul Plegg over the coals, if that will make you feel any better.” - -“Mr. Plegg doubtless did his best, and it wasn’t good enough. David is -a graduate engineer and a grown man. He would be singularly stupid if -he could be your chief of construction and not know what was going on -right under his eyes. But that is not the point now. Are you, or are -you not, going to give David authority to do what he, and Mr. Plegg, -and every member of your own engineering staff, know ought to be done -to that dangerous place in the tunnel--a thing that is endangering the -lives of the men every day? That is what I came to ask.” - -It was a rare thing for Eben Grillage to refuse his daughter’s demands, -even when they were unreasonable; but the habits of a ruthless -life-time were too strong to be set aside, even at the bidding of -indulgent fatherly affection. - -“You are my daughter, Vinnie, but you are just like other women when -you get your head set on anything. If I should let you run my business -for me, there wouldn’t be any business left after a little while, and -we’d both join the bread line. If you’ve made up your mind that David -is the man you want, just say so and I’ll take him off the job and set -him up in any kind of business you pick out--if you can pick one that -measures up to your Utopian notions of honesty. That’s fair, isn’t it?” - -She did not answer the question. There was one more arrow in her quiver -and she fitted it to the string and drew the bow. - -“The tunnel isn’t the only thing, as you know. James Lushing makes it -an open boast that he will break you, and you know best what reasons he -may have for thinking such a thing possible. Beyond that, David has met -him and they have quarreled--fought. I have been told that Lushing’s -first blow will be struck at David, to get him out of the way.” - -“Who told you any such thing as that?” - -“No matter; I have heard it, and I have no reason to doubt the truth of -the report. David is so loyal to you that he is the biggest obstacle in -Lushing’s way. Everybody knows that Lushing can command the help of any -number of desperate characters in Powder Can. It wouldn’t be beyond him -to----” - ---“To have David killed off out of the way?” supplied the big man, with -another chuckle. “If you go much deeper, you’ll be telling me that -David is the man, after all. But don’t you worry. When you marry David -Vallory, Vinnie, you’ll marry a man. If he is half the scrapper I take -him to be, he’ll be well able to take care of himself in any mix-up -with Jim Lushing--or with any of Lushing’s paid blacklegs.” - -The special pleader’s eyes grew suddenly weary. - -“Then you will do nothing about the tunnel?” she asked patiently. - -“Not until I have some better reason than a foolish little girl’s -notion--no.” - -“Hasn’t David told you what he thinks ought to be done?” - -“Oh, yes, of course; the hard-rock men got him rattled, right at the -start, and he came to me about it, boy-like.” - -“And you told him to let it alone?” - -“Sure I did. We are going to lose money enough on this job, as it is.” - -The fine persistence was broken at last. The daughter of the -luxuries--and the ideals--rose and moved toward the door. As she -reached the vestibule exit she turned and gazed at the big man filling -the great arm-chair, and there was neither anger nor impatience in her -eyes; only a profound depth of shocked disappointment and reproach. - -“I never knew you _could_ be so hard and pitiless,” she said slowly. -“If this is what money and the love of it can do to you----” The swing -door of the vestibule yielded under her hand and she went out, leaving -the sentence unfinished. - -At the car-steps the negro porter had placed his carpeted foot-stool, -but Silas Plegg was not there to see the president’s daughter safely -across the tracks. It is conceivable that she did not mark the -omission. From childhood she had known construction yards and the -paraphernalia of the contracting trade, and her father was fond of -boasting that she was as self-reliant as any boy. - -Picking her way in the gathering dusk around the obstructing cars -filled with building material, she came presently to the foot of the -path leading up to the Inn. Out of the first clump of scrub pine on -the hill trail a woman darted into the path and blocked it. Virginia -Grillage stopped short with a little gasp of apprehension. Then she saw -who it was. - -“You--Judith? were you looking for me?” - -“I was. They couldn’t tell me at the hotel, and I was that frightened I -thought I’d be choking. Jack Dargin sent me, and the other Jack--Black -Jack Runnels, he is--would be killing me if he knew I came. You’ll -remember what I was telling you yesterday. David is to be murdered--in -the tunnel some way--I don’t know how. They’re to get him in between -the shifts; when the day men have come out and before the night men -have gone in. Dargin says there’d be a clock of some kind in a box--he -said to tell you that, and you’d understand.” - -“But David isn’t at the tunnel; he is at one of the lower camps. Mr. -Plegg told me so just a few minutes ago.” - -“Maybe he was, but he isn’t now; he went up on an engine not ten -minutes ago. It was Simmy Backus’s job to get him there--to ’phone -him there was a man hurt in the tunnel. He’d fall for that--David -would--and he went. I saw the engine when it passed me, going up. What -must we do? ’Tis you that would be loving David, Vinnie Grillage, and -that I know well, but you’re not the only one: I--I’d die for him this -minute!” - -For a moment Virginia Grillage, quick-witted and resourceful as any -daughter of Eve since the world began, stood shocked and irresolute, -fighting desperately for some shreddings of the capability to act which -had suddenly deserted her. Then the lost self-control came back with a -bound. - -“The telephone!” she gasped. “You run back to the hotel, Judith, and -find Bert Oswald--tell him what you’ve told me and he’ll know what -to do! While you’re doing that, I’ll try to find a ’phone here in -the yards. Run!” and she set the example by flying down the path and -dodging around the obstructing cars to reach the _Athenia_. - -To her utter dismay, she found the private car untenanted. The lights -were still on, and the recently opened mail lay on the desk, but the -big swing-chair was empty. Twice, and again, she called her father, -and when there was no answer she caught up the telephone set from the -desk and tried to make somebody hear. But the set was dead; the wires -connecting it with the working system had not been restrung since the -_Athenia_ had returned from Red Butte. - -Next she made frantic and fruitless search for the porter; but the -negro, too, had disappeared. Plegg was the alternative now, and she ran -breathlessly up the yard to the office bunk car. But this, also, proved -to be a hope defeated, or at least deferred. The car was dark when -she reached it, and when she tried the door she found it locked. The -remaining expedient, the only one that suggested itself, was to run to -the Inn railroad station a half-mile distant down the yard, where she -knew there was an accessible telephone. It was a lame expedient and she -knew it; a thousand things might delay the sending of the message of -warning to the tunnel, and time was priceless. Yet she ran, stumbling -over the loosely bedded cross-ties, and praying that she might happen -upon Plegg or some other member of the staff who would know what to do -and how to do it. - -She had scarcely begun this new flight when she saw one of the -construction locomotives lumbering toward her on the main track. The -quick wit was coming to its own again, and she stopped, stripping off -her coat and stepping into the cone of the headlight beam so that she -could be seen when she waved her signal. The engine was Callahan’s -“mogul,” and she gave a little sob of joy when she recognized the -good-natured Irishman who leaned from his cab window to ask what she -wanted. Callahan was the driver with whom she had ridden oftenest when -David Vallory had been showing her over the job. - -“I want you and your engine, Mr. Callahan!” she panted. “Will you take -orders from me?” - -“Sure I will, Miss Vinnie,” was the quick response; and when the -fireman had helped her up to the foot-board: “Where will ye be wanting -the ould ’Thirty-six to be taking you?” - -“To the tunnel--as fast as ever you can go! It’s--it’s life and death!” - -Callahan asked no further questions. Miss Virginia was the big boss’s -daughter, and her demands were sufficient law and Gospel for any man on -the Grillage Company’s pay-rolls. While the fireman was lifting her to -his box, the heavy construction machine went slamming out over the yard -switches, shrieking its warning to all and sundry, and the race was -begun. - -Though the track was new and rough, and the detours around the hill -cuttings held curves of hazard, Callahan--“Wild Irish,” they called -him on the job--slackened speed for nothing. Onward and upward through -the gathering darkness roared the big locomotive, vomiting a trail of -sparks to mark its crooked climb. Virginia Grillage tried pitifully -hard to plan what she should do when the goal should be reached; -but the dominant impulse would have nothing to do with cool-headed -plannings. David’s life hung in the balance, and David must be warned. -She could get no further than this. - -So it came about that when the tunnel portal was reached, and Callahan -and his firemen were helping her down from the high cab, common -sense and clarity of mind fled away, and she was once more only an -incoherent and badly frightened young woman. A gang of workmen waited -at the tunnel mouth; dimly she realized that this was the night shift, -preparing to go in when the day men should come out. One glance showed -her that there was no member of the engineering staff with them; no one -in authority save the burly Cornish drill-boss. - -“Mr. Vallory!” she demanded; “where is he?” - -The Cornishman knew the president’s daughter by sight. He pointed into -the dark depths of the tunnel. “If ye’ll wait just a minute; it’s time -for the shift to be coomin’ out, and he’ll be----” but the remainder -of the sentence was lost upon the young woman who had darted into the -black depths with neither light nor guide, stumbling blindly over the -cross-ties of the spoil-track in her flight, and following the lead -of the wide-spaced line of electric bulbs into the grim heart of the -mountain. - - * * * * * - -A scant margin of two minutes after his daughter had halted and boarded -a construction engine to be whirled away to the tunnel, Eben Grillage, -who had been across to the commissary to put in a call for Plegg, -returned to his desk in the _Athenia_ and once more began the reading -of his neglected mail. A matter of three-quarters of an hour later, -while he was still immersed in his correspondence, the swing-door of -the forward corridor flew open as from the impact of a heavy projectile -and Silas Plegg staggered into the office compartment. His lips were -drawn back and he was shaking like one in an ague fit. - -“The roof in Heading Number One!” he jerked out. “It’s down, damn you, -do you hear that?--it’s down, and the day shift is behind it!” - -Eben Grillage’s heavy face went purple, and for an instant his jaw -sagged and he gasped for breath. Then the strong will triumphed for the -moment over the failing body and he sprang out of his chair to catch -the news-bringer in a grasp that threatened to crush muscle and bone. - -“Vallory--where’s David Vallory?” he stormed. - -“He’s--he’s in there with the men--and--and that isn’t all: your -daughter’s there, too--if she isn’t buried under the slide!” - -Slowly the big man’s grasp upon Plegg relaxed and the veins in his -forehead swelled to whip-cords. Eben Grillage’s day of reckoning had -come. Before the first assistant realized what was happening, the -gigantic figure of the contractor-king swayed like a toppling tower -and would have fallen with a crash if Plegg had not braced himself and -caught it. - - - - -XXVI - -The Heart of Qojogo - - -Virginia Grillage, flying into the tunnel depths over the rock-strewn -spoil-track, was mercifully spared the introductory horrors of the -sudden entombment. An earthquake crash, so close behind her that she -was enveloped in a shower of flakings and spallings and stifling dust, -a rush of air that was like a tornado to sweep her from her feet, and -she stumbled and fell and was blotted out. - -When she recovered consciousness there was darkness that could be felt -and a silence to match it. She was lying on a pallet of coats; she knew -they were coats because the sleeves of one of them were drawn over her; -and some one was chafing her hands. - -“Is it you, David?” she asked in a voice made small and weak by the -horrible stillness. - -“Yes; can you tell me how badly you are hurt?” - -She grasped his arm and sat up. - -“I--I think I’m not hurt at all,” she stammered. Then: “Did the roof -come down?” - -“It did. We found you half buried in the muck. What under heaven were -you doing in here?” - -“I came to tell you,” she said simply. “Where are the men?” - -“They are all down at the slide, and Regnier is with them. They are -trying to find out how effectually we are buried. You are sure you’re -not hurt?” - -“A little bruised and shaken up, of course, but that is nothing. Will -the men be able to dig us out?” - -With any other woman he knew as the questioner, David Vallory might -have temporized. But he knew Virginia Grillage’s quality and the -steel-true fineness of it. - -“We shall not be able to dig out from this side,” he said soberly. “We -are not equipped for it.” - -She shuddered. - -“This darkness is very horrible, isn’t it? And the air--it seems so -close.” - -David did not tell her that there was the best of reasons for the -closeness of the air; that the ventilating conduit, and the smaller -pipe-line which supplied the air pressure for the drills, were crushed -under the avalanche, leaving them in a sealed pocket in the heart of -Qojogo. - -“You mustn’t let it grip you too hard,” he said, meaning to hearten her -if he could. “By this time every camp on the line will have heard the -news, and there will be no lack of help.” - -She groped in the darkness and found his hand. - -“I am not afraid, David--this is no time to be afraid. So you needn’t -blink the facts for me. How wide was the bad place in the roof?” - -“Twenty feet or more.” - -“You say there are plenty of men to help; but you know, and I know, -that only a few of them can work at one time in such a narrow place as -the tunnel. Tell me plainly: will there be air enough to last until -we starve to death? Or shall we be stifled before we have had time to -starve?” - -“I am not admitting either contingency yet; and you mustn’t. While -there is life, there is always hope. But I can’t understand why you -came here. What made you think I needed to be told?” - -“That much is easily explained,” she said calmly. “There was a plot to -murder you, and at the same time to bring about the first of a series -of disasters that would smash the Grillage Company. Did you get a -telephone message that a man was hurt, and that you were wanted up -here?” - -“I did. I was at McCulloch’s camp and I took an engine and came up -here in a hurry. The accident report was a fake, and I came in to ask -Regnier what he knew about it.” - -“It was a part of the plot,” she went on evenly. “It was Judith -Fallon who came and told me. She had already warned me that there was -something threatening, but she did not know what it was. That first -time was just before Mr. Strayer was hurt, and all she could tell me -then was that James Lushing ‘had it in for you,’ as she put it, and was -plotting with a man named Black Jack Runnels.” - -“Runnels?” he queried. “Not Dargin?” - -“No, it was Runnels; I’m sure of the name. Yesterday she came again. -She had heard a little more, but nothing very definite. Then this -evening I had been down to the _Athenia_--it came in from Red Butte -on the afternoon train, as perhaps you know--and I was on my way back -to the Inn. Judith met me on the path; she had been up to the hotel, -looking for me.” - -“Yes,” he encouraged. - -“She was terribly excited and said that the thing, whatever it was, was -to be done this evening, at the changing hour of the shifts. She told -me that a man named Backus was to call you by ’phone and tell you that -there was a man hurt in the tunnel. Then she said that you had already -gone up the line; she saw you on an engine that overtook and passed -her.” - -“I saw a woman running on the Powder Can road, but I didn’t recognize -her as Judith,” said David. - -“You wouldn’t, of course, with the engine running fast. When she told -me that you were already on your way up here, I didn’t know what to do. -Then I thought of the telephones, and sent her up to the hotel to find -Herbert Oswald and ask him to call you at the tunnel ’phone, while I -ran down to the _Athenia_ to get father to ’phone. There was nobody in -the _Athenia_; father had gone out somewhere. Then I tried to find Mr. -Plegg, but he was gone, too. I didn’t know where to look for another -telephone nearer than the Inn railroad station, and I was starting to -run down there when I saw Callahan on his engine and made him bring me -up here.” - -“But surely you saw the night shift getting ready to come in, -didn’t you? Do you mean to tell me that that bunch of thick-headed -stone-borers let you come in here alone?” - -“They were not to blame--not at all. I merely asked if you were in -here, and when one of them said you were, I ran.” - -“I am too thankful to say what I ought to say, about them and about -you--thankful that you are alive,” said David, and his voice trembled -a little. “One second, a half-second, later and you would have been -fairly under the slide. As it was, we had to dig you out; and--and -Vinnie, I hope no human being will ever suffer as I did when we found -you. I--I thought you were dead, and that I had killed you!” - -“It wouldn’t have been you,” she said softly; “it would have been the -thing we call Business; the thing that is killing all the kindliness, -all the fairness, all the best there is in us.” - -“No,” he denied sturdily, “I can’t let you shift the blame that way. I -knew what ought to be done here; I have known it all along. If I had -made a fight for it with your father, as I should have done, he would -have given in.” - -“I don’t know,” she said wearily. “That was what I went down to the -_Athenia_ for this evening--before I met Judith. Father wouldn’t listen -to me; and now----” - -David knew what it was she had begun to say and could not finish; that -now Eben Grillage had lost the daughter for whom, at the end of the -ends, all the cost-cuttings and life-risking economies had been made. -Hence, he tried again to comfort her. - -“We must always give him the benefit of the doubt,” he interposed. -“From what Judith told you, it is perfectly plain that the roof hasn’t -fallen of its own accord at this particular time, though there isn’t -much doubt but that it would have come down some time. Within the past -few days a crack had opened in one side of it big enough to conceal -a charge of dynamite--or a time-clock infernal machine, which was -probably what was used. It was timed to go off between the shifts, -and Regnier and I were the only ones they meant to catch. It was the -natural inference that we would stay in the heading to see the night -shift come on; Regnier always does that.” - -As if the mention of his name had evoked him, the fiery little -French-Canadian came up to the heading with a flickering candle-end -shielded between his hands. His first inquiry was for the president’s -daughter. - -“Mees Virginia--you vill not been keel? Zat ees _tres bon_!” - -“What did you find out, Jean?” David demanded. - -“Eet ees bad--ver’ bad. They vill deeg on the other -side--peek--peek--but zat loose stuff she ees come down so fast as -they peek it out, _oui_. Eet ees come down on our side, _aussi_, like -one damn’ hopper--pardon, M’am’selle--like one hopper full with loose -stones.” - -“We have no tools on this side?” - -“Nossing moch. The men s’all deeg with zat what they ’ave; the peek and -shovel of the mucker; but eet ees nossing.” - -Since anything was better than stagnation, Virginia proposed that they -go to the slide to look on, or to help, if they could. The pilgrimage -was made in silence, Regnier lighting the way as best he could with -his candle-end. The barrier, as the candles revealed it, was a blank -slope of broken rock. Four or five men of the day shift were shoveling -half-heartedly at it, and the futility of the effort was apparent at -once. For every shovelful removed, two more rolled down from the filled -“hopper” above. David Vallory called a halt at once on the discouraging -attempt. - -“Let it alone, men; it isn’t worth while,” he said. “You are only -wasting your strength, and you may need it all before we get out of -here.” - -With the small confusion of the shoveling stopped they all fell to -listening. Far away, so far that it sounded like miles instead of feet -and inches, they could hear faint tappings, followed at irregular -intervals by the hoarse rumble of falling detritus. David went on his -knees at one side of the pit to examine the pipe of the air-line. It -was bent and crushed out of shape, and there was no air coming through -it, though a subdued hissing proved that the pressure was on, and that -the engineer at the portal compressor-plant was still trying to force -air into the blocked heading. - -While he was kneeling at the pipe, David discovered another ominous -threat; his knees were wet, and in the drainage ditch cut at the side -of the tunnel a little pool was forming. He knew well what this meant; -that death in still another form was creeping upon them. The tunnel had -been a “wet” tunnel almost from the beginning, and here was a hint that -the great slide might possibly prove to be a dam as well as a barrier. -Fortunately, however, there was a slight up-grade in the bore, and it -might be hours, or even days, before the highest point, at the working -end of the bore, would overflow. - -“We are not doing any good here,” he said to the young woman who stood -listening with him. “We may as well go back where it is drier.” - -The men had scattered as far as the limits of the cavern would permit, -and Regnier surrendered his bit of candle to David to light the -retreat. In the heading David made a platform of a few of the bulkhead -planks and rearranged the coat-cushioned pallet. - -“In a little while the close air will make you sleepy,” he told his -fellow-prisoner. “When it does, you must get all the rest you can. I am -afraid we are in for a long siege.” - -She nodded and sat down on the plank pallet, locking her hands over her -knees. - -“You needn’t be afraid to say what you think--to me, David. In your own -mind you are wondering which will come first: hunger, the bad air, the -rising water, or the digging away of the slide. I can face what is in -store for us as well as another.” - -“I don’t question your courage; God knows, you proved it sufficiently -by coming in here when you knew what was going to happen--for you -practically did know,” he hastened to say. Then: “Some of us men will -probably break long before you will. That is why I say you must rest -while you can. You may be needed later on--to keep some of us from -forgetting that we _are_ men.” - -She gave him a tired little smile. “You are giving me a name to live up -to. I wonder if I shall be able to do it--at the last?” - -“I don’t doubt it for a single moment; I have never doubted it. Did -you have dinner before you began on this hideous adventure?” - -She nodded again. “It was a good dinner, too. Your father and mine were -at the table, and Lucille and Herbert Oswald.” - -“And Wishart and the Englishman?” - -“No; they respected the family reunion. Your father looked years -younger, and he is as brown as anything. And that reminds me; there is -something I ought to tell you--before a time comes when I may not care -to talk, or you to listen. It is about Lucille and Herbert.” - -“Go on,” he said gently. - -“I gave Herbert his hint--after you had given me leave to do as I -pleased. That same evening, when I was in my bed-room lying down, -Herbert came up to find Lucille. They sat together in the sitting-room -of our suite, and, most naturally, they thought I had gone out. It was -wicked of me to lie there and listen, but I hadn’t the heart to let -them know that they were not alone.” - -“Everybody knows about your heart,” David put in, striving to dispel a -little of the gloom. - -“Herbert said his little say very gently and tenderly, and oh, David, I -wish you could have seen Lucille’s face! It was just like a beautiful -rose blossoming while you looked. She didn’t say anything at first; -she just put her hand up to Herbert’s face, and I could see her -touching his forehead and eyes and lips with those finger-tips of hers -that can see more than most of us can with our eyes. ‘I--I wanted to -see if you really meant it, Herbert, or if you were only just sorry for -me,’ she said, so softly that it was hardly more than a whisper; and -then: ‘Oh, my dear, my dear--I am _so_ happy!’” - -There was silence for a little time; then David said: “I am glad you -have told me, Vinnie; it’s a tremendous comfort to me now, in the light -of what may happen to us here. You see, I am taking you at your word -and not trying to hide things from you.” - -“Then you think it is doubtful--our getting out alive?” - -“Very doubtful,” he admitted, lowering his voice so that the men might -not hear. “If it were a mere matter of digging out what has already -fallen in--but it isn’t, you know. The crevice has been ‘prospected’ -with test holes all the way up to the surface on the mountain-side -three hundred feet above us. Plegg told me that only yesterday. It is -rotten all the way through, and it will probably fall in as fast as it -can be dug out.” - -Again there was an interval of speechlessness, and then the hushed -voice of the young woman sitting with her hands locked over her knees. - -“Did my father know of that prospecting?” she asked. - -“Yes.” - -“Poor father!” she said, and her voice was shaken. “He is just simply -stone blind on that side, David. I’ve tried and tried, and I can’t make -him see! And now--he is going--to pay--the highest price he knows--for -the dreadful cure!” - -“It is time for you to forget for a while, if you can,” said David, not -knowing what else to say; and he went aside with Regnier, blowing out -the light of the precious candle-end to save it for a time of greater -need. - -A little later, when he came back and struck a match, he found her -sleeping with her face hidden in the crook of an arm, and he was glad. - - - - -XXVII - -The Terror - - -When Virginia opened her eyes, after a troubled sleep which seemed to -her to have lasted only a few moments, it was with a start, and out of -the depths of a nightmare in which she had dreamed that some one was -smothering her. - -“_David!_” she called softly; and he answered at once out of the -enveloping darkness. - -“I am here--sitting beside you. Have you had a good sleep?” - -“It was dreadful!” she shuddered. “I dreamed that a big man like--like -my father--had his hand over my face and was stifling me. What time is -it?” - -“It is another day. It was a little past eight o’clock when I struck a -match about an hour ago. You have slept all night.” - -“And you?” she inquired quickly. - -“I couldn’t sleep very much--naturally. Besides, I didn’t wish to. I -was afraid you might waken and call me, and I shouldn’t hear.” - -“There is no news?” - -“A little. Regnier reports that the digging has gone on steadily all -night. He knows the Morse alphabet, and he contrived to get into -communication with Plegg during the night by tapping on the crushed -air-pipe; so they know on the outside that we are here and alive.” - -She pressed her hands to her forehead. Though he could not see the -movement, he knew she made it. - -“Does your head ache?” he asked. - -“Some. The air is much worse, isn’t it?” - -“It isn’t any better,” he conceded. “Once, in the night, they tried -shooting the slide from the other side--blasting it with dynamite, you -know. That was what made Regnier try the pipe-tapping. The fumes of the -dynamite were blown through the loose stuff and that made it worse for -us. Now they are trying to force a large pipe through the mass of the -slide to give us air and food.” - -“Will they succeed?” she queried. - -“I promised, last night, to talk straight to you. If the slide is made -up entirely of broken rock in small pieces, as it seems to be from our -side, it should be comparatively easy to drive through it. But if the -mass happens to contain large bowlders----” - -“Then they will drill and blast them,” she put in quickly. - -“Yes; but it may prove to be a long job; and I must be plain again. -Every move they make seems to bring down more of the stuff from above. -The water is not rising much, but the air is growing worse every hour.” - -“All of which means that you think we should be prepared for the worst?” - -“Yes; always continuing to hope for the best, of course. Are you very -hungry?” - -“Not yet. But you must be.” - -“I can stand it better than the workmen. They have had nothing since -they came in yesterday at ten o’clock. Very few of them carry a dinner -bucket on an eight-hour shift.” - -“How are they enduring it?” - -“Each after his kind. Three of the Welshmen wanted to sing a while ago, -but I wouldn’t let them. I knew it would waken you, and I thought you -ought to sleep as long as you could.” - -“Go right away and tell them to sing all they wish to!” she commanded -instantly; and a little time after he had gone and returned, a Welsh -melody rose on the stagnant air, lifted by voices that were strangely -deadened by the stifling closeness of the dank cavern. - -This was the beginning of a day of creeping horrors. Steadily, hour -by hour, the vitiated air grew worse. All day long the rescuers were -apparently fighting madly with the difficulties encountered in the -pipe-driving attempt, but the buried ones could form no estimate of the -progress made, or, indeed, if there were any progress at all. - -As the hours wore on, the imprisoned workmen began to react to the -torturings of the foul air and the despairing situation, each after his -kind, as David had said. One man, a huge-muscled Cornish miner, went -stark mad and it took the united strength of all the others to conquer -and tie him. Another, a north-of-England coal miner, by his burring -speech, was the next to break; he was not violent, but he babbled -incessantly of green fields and sunshine--of running brooks, and the -fresh, keen air of the north. - -David Vallory tried to shield the woman he loved from as much of this -as he could, and Regnier seconded him loyally. But at the last the -heroic heart refused to be sheltered longer and kept away from the -abyss into which the men were slipping one by one. - -“No; you must let me do what I can, while I can!” she cried; and then -she went about among the men and talked to them, bidding them be -of good cheer, and telling them that they must be men to the very -end--that God was good and merciful and He would not let them suffer -more than they could bear. And once she persuaded the Welshmen to sing -a hymn with her, her woman’s voice rising clear above the deeper tones -of the men, and never faltering even on the last heart-moving stanza: - - “Hold thou thy cross before my closing eyes; - Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies; - Heaven’s morning breaks and earth’s vain shadows flee; - In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.” - -It was then that Patrick Connolly, drill foreman and the leader in many -a brutal pay-day brawl, made husky confession. - -“’Tis your father’s blame, this, and well do we know it,” he grated. -“’Twas in the back of me mind all night and all day that if we ever -got out o’ this I’d take me two hands and choke him to hell, as we’re -chokin’ this minut’. But ’tis all past and gone now, what wid the -blessed love an’ nerve of you, little gyerl; an’ here’s hopin’ that the -Gawd you believe in ’ll let you die quiet-like an’ peaceable, as I’d -want my own little gyerl to go if I had wan.” - -Through all this, David Vallory lived as one in hideous dream. But -when the flare of another of the precious matches, a tiny flame that -was scarcely visible in its brief and futile struggle with the heavy -air, showed him that a second night was far advanced, he drew Virginia -away to the heading and made her lie down on the coat-covered pallet, -which he had remade, propping it as high as he could on the broken -stone to escape the lower stratum of air. - -For a long time she was silent, and when she spoke it was to ask if he -were still beside her. - -“Yes, Vinnie; I am here--and I shall be here when they find us.” - -“You think it is all over, then?” - -“I know that in a few more hours, a very few, the end must come. We -can’t go on breathing this air indefinitely.” - -She sat up again at that, and again he knew that she was holding her -head in her hands. - -“Have you ever wondered how the end would come to you, David?--how you -would feel, and what you would do?” - -“Not as often as I ought perhaps. There was a time last year, when -I was in a caisson with Shubrick at Coulee du Sac. The bottom blew -out under the air pressure, and we all thought we were gone. I don’t -remember much about what I thought--only that Shubrick and I owed it -to the ‘sand-hogs’ to get them into the air-lock first.” - -“Once I saw a woman die,” she said, her voice thrilling with suppressed -emotion. “She was horribly frightened at the last, and--and I’ve always -prayed since then that when my time should come I might not go that -way.” - -“You won’t,” he made himself say; “there isn’t a drop of craven blood -in you, Vinnie--dear.” - -Again the brooding silence fell, and, as before, it was the young woman -who broke it. - -“If we are going to be stifled in a little while--as I suppose we -are--it doesn’t matter much what we say to each other, does it, David? -I mean that we needn’t consider any future, so far as we usually count -futures in a conventional way?” - -“No; we are only a man and a woman, naked before the God who created -us, Vinnie--and we are about to die.” - -“Then--David, dear--_I love you!_” - -“I know it,” he returned gently; “I have known it for a night and a -day,” and he took her in his arms and kissed her almost solemnly. “You -are giving your life because you tried to save mine.” - -She made no effort to free herself. She was weary and weak to the point -of collapse, and the supporting arms were grateful and comforting. - -“I had ambitions,” she murmured; “such splendid ambitions! Ever since I -have been old enough to understand, I have known how dis--dishonestly -much of the money was made in the contracting, and it has hurt me--oh, -you don’t know how it has hurt me! Father doesn’t see; he simply can’t -see. And then my ambition came. A year ago I saw how father felt toward -you; first because you were Adam Vallory’s son, and afterward because -you were yourself--just such a son as he would have given worlds to -have for his own. I whispered to myself then that I would make you love -me and marry me; and then there would be two of us to fight for honesty -and fair-dealing and the--the righteousness that cares for something -more than merely keeping clear of the law. You would have helped me, -wouldn’t you, David?” - -He bent and kissed the pulse in the throbbing temple. - -“You could have made of me anything that you wished, dear. You know -that.” - -“I didn’t wish to make anything of you but what you were; what you had -always been until father tied you hand and foot with that horrible -debt of gratitude. Then he sent you out here, and I knew what would -happen--what simply _must_ happen; how your gratitude to him would -break you down, first in the little things, and then in the terrible -ones. And that was why I persuaded him to come, and to bring me. Was it -all very--unwomanly, David?” - -“It was the finest thing a woman ever did for the man she loved. But -you have always done the fine things.” - -“Even when I made you fall in love with me when you didn’t want to?” - -“I outdistanced you by many miles in that,” he said with sober gravity. -“I think it went back to the kiddie days in old Middleboro.” - -“In spite of Judith?” - -He held her closer. “That is the one thing that I have to confess, -Vinnie. I did go about a good bit with Judith, in my college years and -before. We were just good chums, and I never thought for a moment----” - -“Of course you didn’t! But I don’t blame Judith, either; I can’t, when -I’ve done the same thing myself. But you were saying it went back to -the kiddie days with--with me.” - -“Yes; but I didn’t realize it until we met in Florida. I was full of -hope then: I meant to make a success of myself so that I might go to -your father like a man and say, ‘I want to marry your daughter.’ Then -the big debt fell on me, and I couldn’t say anything while I owed your -father more than I could ever hope to repay.” - -“If you hadn’t died--we are both just the same as dead, aren’t we?--if -you hadn’t died, you were going to pay him in the best possible way; -by making ‘the apple of his eye’ deliriously happy, and by showing -him the honest way out of all the little crookednesses and the big -ones, too. Oh, yes; that was what was going to happen. After we were -married he would have taken you into the company, and in just a little -while you and I together would have been setting the pace; the good -old-fashioned, honest pace. Isn’t it the pity of all pities that we had -to go and die and spoil it all?--that we couldn’t have lived to make it -come true, David, dear?” - -“God!” he said under his breath, but for other reply there were no -words. - -After a time she spoke again. - -“I--I think I’m going now, David. You said I’d outlast you and the men, -but I shouldn’t want that. No, dear; there isn’t any pain, except in my -head. I’m just--tired--and--sleepy.” - -“You mustn’t give up, Vinnie!” he pleaded passionately. “We must -live--both of us--to make it all come true! Listen! Isn’t that the men -trying to cheer? _O my God, I thank thee!_” - -A roaring blast of clean, fresh air, driven strongly enough to -penetrate even to their distant retreat at the heading, fanned their -faces. “The pipe!” he shouted; “they’ve got the pipe through and -they’ve turned the air on. Vinnie--_Vinnie!_--we shall live, and it -_shall_ come true!” - -But the sudden reversal from despair to hope had been too much for the -strong heart. The yielding body David was clasping in his arms had -become limp and unresponsive, and the lips were silent. - - - - -XXVIII - -Regeneration - - -The pipe of life, a four-inch steel tube which had been driven by -screw-jack pressure through the mass of the slide as a result of -Plegg’s inventive strugglings, soon refreshed the vitiated air in the -sealed cavern. Beyond this, food, in well-wrapped paper cartridges, and -hot coffee, in bottles, were passed through the tube, and the famished -prisoners were able to break their long fast. That nothing within the -possibilities should be lacking, Plegg ran electric wires, with an -incandescent bulb attached, through the conduit, and thus the feast was -lighted. - -In the fast-breaking, Regnier ate with his men, but David carried -his portion and Virginia’s a little apart. Though she had revived -quickly in the splendid rebound of youth and health under the changed -conditions, the king’s daughter ate sparingly and with eyes downcast, -and was, in David’s eyes, more radiantly beautiful than she had ever -been. After the keen edge of famine--David’s famine--was a little -blunted, she looked up and met his glances bravely. - -“We didn’t die, David, and--and you must forget,” she pleaded. “You -will forget, won’t you?” - -“Forget?--not if I live to be a million years old,” he avowed gravely. -And after a pause: “You mustn’t be an Indian, Vinnie--to give, and then -want the gift returned. I am going to talk to Plegg again in a few -minutes, and you shall hear what I say to him.” - -The previsioned talk with the first assistant--the four-inch pipe -serving for a speaking-tube--turned out to be principally technical, to -be sure. In his proper person as chief engineer, David gave directions -for the pushing forward of the rescue work. The jack-screw process was -to be employed again, this time to press a steel shield into the mass -of loose debris, so that the rescuers might be protected as they dug. -The shield could be made out of a cast-off boiler shell with the heads -removed. In this manner a tunnel within the tunnel could be excavated -and the prisoners released. - -With so much for the technicalities, the human side of things came in -for its word. - -“Is Mr. Grillage with you?” David asked. - -Plegg’s reply was guarded. He guessed, and guessed rightly, that Eben -Grillage’s daughter was listening with David at the prison end of the -speaking-tube. - -“Mr. Grillage is at the hotel; he is not very well. He has had a stroke -of some sort, but the Brewster doctor who is with him says it isn’t -necessarily dangerous.” - -“You have sent him word that we are all alive and well?” - -“Sure; that was the first thing we did.” - -“Good. Now listen, and carry out my orders to the letter. After you get -the tunneling started here, put Altman in charge and go yourself to the -telegraph office at the Inn station. I heard, day before yesterday, -that President Ford of the P. S-W. was in Denver, with a number of -his directors. The report was that Mr. Ford and his party were making -an inspection trip over the western lines of the system. You send a -telegram to Mr. Ford, asking him if he will come here for a conference -with me, bringing as many of the directors as may be willing to come. -Do you get that?” - -“Perfectly. What else?” - -“You may sign my name to the telegram, and make it as urgent as you -can. This is important. Then I want you to go up to the Inn and see -Mr. Grillage for yourself. Find out his condition exactly, and come -back here and report.” - -“All right; is that all?” - -“Not quite. While you are at the hotel, see my father and sister and -Herbert Oswald, and tell them that the danger is all over for us--that -is, if you haven’t already ’phoned them.” - -“Your father and Oswald came up here with me when the alarm was given, -and they have been here ever since until a couple of hours ago, when I -persuaded Oswald to take your father back to the Inn on the assurance -that we should reach you with the pipe within a short time. Your father -was pretty well tuckered out, and I didn’t dare to let him stay here -any longer.” - -“Good man!” said David; “I owe you something for that, Silas. Be sure -and tell them at the hotel that we are all right and quite comfortable, -and that there is nothing to worry about. And while you’re at it, you -may give Oswald and my sister my hearty congratulations, and tell them, -from Miss Virginia and me, that we hope they’ll be as happy as they -deserve to be.” - -Plegg, the imperturbable, let slip a little imprecation of joy. - -“I--I’ll be damned!” he burbled; “you don’t know what a relief it is -to hear you talking that way! Any more errands?” - -“Yes; one more. Our engagement--Miss Virginia’s and mine--hasn’t been -announced yet, so you may break the news, if you care to; to Mr. -Grillage when you see him, to my people, and to the folks at the Inn. -Also, you may let it go to the fellows on the staff and to the men on -the job. We shall be married as soon as Mr. Grillage is up and able to -give the bride away.” - -“Good!--oh, _bully_ good!” came from the other end of the tube, from -which it may be inferred that the first assistant’s half-cynical -habit of self-restraint and reticence was broken beyond repair. -Then: “Of course, I’m taking your word for it, but if Miss Virginia -would--er--sort of counter-sign the order ... I haven’t heard her voice -yet.” - -Virginia put her lips to the tube and her eyes were dancing. - -“It’s so, Mr. Plegg; can you hear me? And there are some other things -that are going to be so, too--things in which you’ll have to help. We -are counting upon you--may we?” - -“You may, indeed; to the last scrapings of the grab-bucket!” was the -ready assurance. “Now--I don’t want to be impolite, but if that is all, -I’ll ask you both to take your faces away from the pipe; I’m going to -put the air blast on again.” - -Even with the help of the steel shield it took the remainder of the -night and the better part of the next forenoon for the outside men, -working in fifteen-minute shifts, to dig through the mass of the slide, -the work being delayed somewhat by the encountering, in the midst of -things, of a great bowlder which had to be carefully blasted with -dynamite. Nevertheless, the task was accomplished finally. With the -advancing shield the diggers burst through with a yell of triumph, and -the poor prisoners were passed out one by one to the clean air and the -blessed sunshine of the outdoor world. - -Once more able to take command, David Vallory gave directions for the -clearing of the tunnel by digging and timber-shoring from either side -of the slide, and outlined for Plegg in a few words a plan for the -excavating and permanent filling and arching of the breach. Plegg heard -him through, and then looked up to say: “Does this mean that we’re to -have a new deal?” - -“Either a new deal or a smash. If I can come to some sort of terms with -Mr. Ford, we’ll go on and finish this job honestly, the way it ought -to be finished. If I can’t, we’ll take our losses and get out, without -waiting to be kicked out.” - -An engine had been ’phoned for to come up after the chief and Miss -Grillage, but it was as yet only on the way. Miss Virginia was talking -to the released hard-rock men, praising them for their courage, and -telling them how glad she was to have been given the chance to share -the peril with them, since the peril had to be. This gave Plegg his -opportunity with his chief. - -“You are speaking for Mr. Grillage, Vallory?--or only for yourself?” he -queried. - -“I hope I’m speaking for both of us. I’m afraid Mr. Grillage is out of -the active part of it, permanently. Miss Virginia tells me that this is -his second stroke.” - -“Miss Virginia,” said Plegg; “of course, she is with you on this -reformation turn-over?” - -“Heart and soul; in fact, it is her idea. We’ll fight it through -together.” - -Once more the quaint smile twitched at the corners of the -first assistant’s thin-lipped mouth and his eyes twinkled. “My -congratulations,” he said; “I--I’m damned if you aren’t going to be -‘too good,’ after all! I hope you won’t fire your first assistant -crook, Vallory. I’d like to see how it feels to work for an absolutely -honest outfit for just one time before I die. Do I stay?” - -“Just as long as I do, Silas.” And then the engine came, and David and -his charge were whirled away to the valley. - -At the stop at the foot of the Inn ridge, David helped Virginia down -from the engine cab, and together they climbed the hill path. The news -had been passed to the tunnel that President Ford and his inspecting -committee had arrived at Powder Gap an hour earlier and were quartered -in the Alta Vista; wherefore David Vallory knew that his request had -been granted and that his hour was come. - -“You will go to your father at once, of course,” he said, as they -were ascending the steps of the Inn entrance. Then: “You must stand -to your guns, Vinnie, and do all the things you said you’d like to do -when you thought we had to die. Mr. Ford is here, and after I’ve had a -word with Dad and sister, I’m going to fight the good fight with the -Short Line people, taking matters entirely into my own hands. If Mr. -Ford doesn’t fire us bodily, this job shall be finished--and finished -honestly. After that, your father may fire me if he wishes to; but he -must be made to understand that if he does, he is firing his daughter’s -husband.” - -“Oh!” she said softly, “it’s such a precious thing to find that you -are just as big and strong as I always believed you were, David! -I’ll stand by, and after you are through with Mr. Ford, you must -come straight to our suite.” Then, with exaggerated humility: “May -I have your august permission to say good-by to Freddy Wishart and -Cumberleigh?” - -“You can’t--unless you do it by wire,” he grinned. “Plegg tells me they -went East on the morning train, shortly after he had announced our -engagement here at the hotel. We can send them cards a little later, if -you wish.” - - - - -XXIX - -As It Should Be - - -The conference in the Alta Vista’s sun-parlor, which was isolated for -the purpose, was rather long drawn out, as it was constrained to be, -but in due time the large-bodied, shrewd-eyed man who had been doing -practically all of the talking for the railroad company brought it to a -conclusion. - -“I have no more use for a welsher than you have, Mr. Vallory,” he said, -referring pointedly to one James Lushing. “You have frankly admitted -that there have been the usual contractor’s shavings and parings on -the job, to the manifest detriment of the railroad company’s interest. -I’ll be equally frank and say that Lushing was given his place with -us largely because he knew of the little parings--having devised a -good many of them himself, probably--and was therefore able to check -and prevent them. But I wish it to be distinctly understood that we -don’t stand for any highbinding methods; and your evidence of sheer -criminality on Lushing’s part seems to be entirely conclusive. You say -they have found the wrecked time-clock of the infernal machine in the -tunnel digging?” - -David nodded. “We have that, and the testimony of the young woman I -speak of. Also, we have another witness in the person of a man named -Dargin, who, my assistant tells me, is ready to testify that Lushing, -the man Backus, and another named Runnels, deliberately plotted the -blowing up of the tunnel, partly for the purpose of smashing our -company, but principally--so Dargin says--to dispose of me in a manner -which would appear to be entirely accidental.” - -“Dargin?” said the president, with a faint smile. “Isn’t he the head -and front of these Powder Can nuisances that you described in your -letter to me, and wished to have us help you clean out?” - -“The same,” said David. - -“Did he know of your effort in this direction?” - -“He did.” - -“And yet he tried to warn you through the woman Fallon? What sort of a -desperado is he, Mr. Vallory?” - -“Really, I don’t know,” David confessed. “He is rather beyond me. -Desperado is the word; he has a perfectly horrifying list of shootings -to his credit, and is, generally, what is known west of civilization -as a ‘bad man.’ And yet he agreed with me when I told him that his -dives ought to be cleaned up, and that I was going to try to clean them -up; adding that some day he might do it himself, if I didn’t beat him -to it.” - -“That would be a miracle, indeed,” said the railroad president. - -“Yet it is one that is already wrought,” David put in. “Mr. Plegg--my -assistant--assures me that the Powder Can saloons and gambling dens -were all closed on the night of the tunnel explosion, and that Dargin -had sent him word that they would not be reopened.” - -Again the big-bodied president smiled. “We are living in an age of -wonders, Mr. Vallory. This man Dargin’s action proves it, and, if you -will permit me to say it, so does yours in asking for this conference. -Do you know what has become of Lushing?” - -“I do not. When it became known, as it was almost immediately, that the -tunnel disaster was not an accident, Lushing disappeared, together with -his accomplices. But, as I have pointed out, we have the evidence.” - -“You could scarcely make a legal case against the railroad company,” -said the president. “Lushing was acting entirely on his own -responsibility when he stepped over into the criminal field to satisfy -his grudge against you and Mr. Grillage. But I understand from what -you have said that you have no intention of taking the matter into the -courts.” - -“None whatever. I am merely asking you gentlemen for a square deal in -return for a square deal. Our bid on this job was too low, if the work -were to be done honestly. If the railroad company will allow the slight -increase in the estimates that I have asked for, we shall go on and -complete the job to your entire satisfaction. And you may cover the -entire mileage six feet deep with inspectors if you choose.” - -There was a little interval of silence to follow this statement, with -some uneasy moving in their chairs on the part of the four Short Line -directors who had listened to the arguments pro and con. - -“I believe in you, Mr. Vallory,” said the president at length, slightly -stressing the pronoun. “If the matter were solely in your hands, I -should say, go ahead on the plan you have outlined. But what guaranty -can you give us that Mr. Grillage will permit you to carry out your -ideas? You must remember that we have had dealings with him before -this.” - -“Mr. Grillage will not interfere,” said David calmly. “The chief reason -is that before the new plan goes into effect, I shall be his son-in-law -and a partner in the business of the Grillage Engineering Company.” - -“Oho!” said the railroad magnate, with a good-natured chuckle. “So -the wind sets in that quarter, does it? Are we to understand that you -will have your wife’s approval and--er--coöperation in these business -matters?” - -“To the very fullest extent,” was the prompt rejoinder. “In fact, the -course I have indicated is based more upon her initiative than mine.” - -“That is better. I have had the privilege of meeting Miss Virginia, -and--you are to be congratulated, most heartily, Mr. Vallory. Did -the--er--accident in the tunnel contribute something toward the -bringing about of this happy state of affairs?” - -“It did,” said David shortly. “You may, or may not, have heard that -Miss Virginia took her life in her hands to save mine and those of the -men of the day shift.” - -President Ford rose to intimate that the conference was ended. - -“We’ll meet you half-way, Mr. Vallory, and in good faith,” he said. -“I am told you have a lawyer friend here in the house; our attorneys -will meet him and draw up new contracts. We shall ask only for decent -economy and fairness; and if you can do as you promise--get the line -open before snow flies--there will be a substantial bonus for you, -individually; which may enable you to make your interest in the -Grillage Engineering Company a financial as well as a--er--sentimental -one. I think that is all we need to say this morning.” - -David Vallory passed through the corridor to the Grillage suite with -the blood hammering in his veins. In the hour-long conference with the -railroad magnates he had kept his word to Virginia, fighting openly and -honestly, and battling his way through to the desired end. The battle -had not been won without stress. At first, there had been only silence -and cold attention on the part of the magnates. But the triumphant fact -remained: he had warmed them finally and the victory was won. - -But now the real crisis was at hand. Would Eben Grillage, the -benefactor to whom he owed his fealty in the final analysis, turn -the helm over to a moneyless youngster who was masterfully proposing -to marry his daughter out of hand, and to throw all of the Grillage -business methods and maxims into the scrap-heap? - -Virginia met him at the door of the private suite, and her eyes were -full of trouble. - -“You must be prepared for a great change, David,” she told him. “It is -paralysis, and he will never be the same man again. You must help me, -dear; in a way, you know, I was the cause of it.” - -“We’ll carry the load--together,” he assured her gently, and then she -led him to the bedside of the stricken giant. - -Her word of warning did not come amiss. For a moment David was shocked -silent, and he could scarcely realize that the big figure propped among -the pillows was that of the man who had stood as the very image of -strength and aggressive vigor at their last meeting on the morning of -the departure for the fishing excursion. The beetle-browed eyes were -undimmed, to be sure, but the heavy face hung in folds, and its color -was that of age-old parchment. Yet the indomitable spirit was unbroken. - -“Come to look over the wreck, have you, David?” he said, with the grim -Grillage smile strangely distorted by his malady. “Makes me think of -that advertisement of the insurance people: ‘A house may burn, but a -man _must_ die.’ I’m not dead yet, though.” - -“Of course you’re not,” said David cheerfully. “You’re not going to be -allowed to die before I’ve paid you some of the big debt I owe you.” - -Again the grim smile flitted across the flabby expanse of the wrecked -face. - -“Vinnie tells me you’re aiming to make the debt bigger before you make -it less. Do you realize that you’re taking all I’ve got in the world -worth having, David? But of course you don’t; you young robbers never -do. Have you seen President Ford?” - -“Yes; I have just had a talk with him and four of his directors. We are -to have a new contract, with increased estimates, and a square deal all -around. And bygones are to be bygones.” - -Eben Grillage rocked his head slowly back and forth on the pillows, and -this time the grim smile was almost ghastly. - -“You might have waited until I was safely under ground, you and Vinnie, -before you began on your Utopian house-wrecking,” he said, with a touch -of humor that was too bitter to be merely sardonic. “Are you trying to -tell me that Ford is going to pay more than the original contract calls -for?” - -“Just that--for the right kind of work. I had to argue for a solid -hour, but I carried my point.” - -“I suppose you told him that the old buccaneer was as good as dead, and -that the Golden Rule had been taken out of its wrappings and polished -up so you could see your face in it?” - -At this the buccaneer’s daughter broke in, speaking for the first time -in the brisk interchange of question and reply. - -“I can’t let you torture David that way!” she protested. “He speaks of -his debt to you, and you have spoken of it; can’t you see that he is -trying to pay it in the biggest, finest way there is?” - -Again the big head wagged on the pillows. - -“You’ll tell me, you two, that it is the day of the new generation, and -that I’m only a wornout back-number. Maybe it’s so. But Utopia isn’t -here yet, and the world I’ve fought in ... but what’s the use? You two -wouldn’t see it my way if I should talk till midnight. What is it that -you want to do, David?” - -David slipped an arm around Virginia to make what he was about to say a -joint declaration. - -“We mean to have you live to hear the Grillage Engineering Company -called the squarest contracting firm in the business; to see the time -when its bid will be the highest one made on a job, and yet will be -the bid that is accepted. That is how we shall try to pay some part of -the big debt. You’ll let us try for it, won’t you?” - -For a full minute the fierce eyes were closed and the massive figure -outlined under the bed-clothes lay motionless and rigid. When the eyes -were unclosed the king of the contractors was himself again, in curt -decision and terseness of speech, at least. - -“Have your way, both of you,” he growled. “It isn’t my way, and you -can’t hope to teach an old dog new tricks. Find Oswald, and we’ll draw -up some kind of a document that will put you in the saddle and give -you the authority to make the deal with Ford and his lawyers. And say: -tell Oswald to bring me a cigar--the blackest one he can find.... No, I -don’t care a damn what the doctor says!” - - * * * * * - -There was a double wedding in the Inn club-room a week later, the -Grillage private car having been sent all the way to Brewster to -bring the officiating clergyman. Contrary to all precedent--at least -in Virginia Grillage’s world--there was no formality. The Inn guests -were invited in a body; and on David’s side there was a crowding of -engineers in working clothes, of grade foremen and subcontractors, of -all and sundry who could be spared from the big job. - -Eben Grillage, his great body propped in a wheel-chair, gave one of -the brides away; but the chief interest for the onlookers centered in -the slender, sylph-like figure of the other bride, whose face, almost -other-worldly in its delicate, rose-leaf beauty, was as the face of -an innocent child, and whose eyes, seeing neither the throng nor the -morning sunlight streaming through the windows of the transformed -lounging-room, were yet shining with happiness ineffable. - -“I--I simply _can’t_ believe she is blind!” whispered one white-haired -mother of daughters among the witnesses; and there were others, also, -to wink away the quick-springing tears of sympathy. - -Again, contrary to all precedent, there was no wedding journey to -follow the simple ceremony in the hotel club-room. Almost immediately -the Oswalds went across to the cottage they were to occupy; and a short -half-hour after her marriage, Virginia Vallory, clad in serviceable -khaki, forthfared with her husband to make a round over the job. - -The sun was setting crimson fires alight in Qojogo’s cloud cap when -they returned to a late dinner. The summerers were thickly clustered -on the Inn porches, and the two who had just reached the summit of the -steep ridge path turned their backs upon the conventions and their -faces toward the western effulgences. - -“You’ve had the better part of a day to think about it; are you sorry -for that little minute of confessions in the tunnel, Vinnie?” David -asked, as one still unable to realize his blessings and the full -magnitude of them. - -“Sorry? Why should I be sorry?” - -“You might have had an old and honorable title, you know,” he reminded -her. “Cumberleigh could have given you that much, at least.” - -She glanced up with a bewitching little twist of the lips which -carried him swiftly back to childhood days, and to his memories of her -childhood. - -“I have a title,” she retorted; “the most honorable title in all the -world. When I die it shall be graven on my tombstone.” - -“Epitaphs--already?” he deprecated, with his sober smile. Then, in a -sudden rush of poignant tenderness: “Oh, my dear one--let us hope that -the day is far distant!” - -“Amen!” she said softly; “because I don’t want to leave you, David. -But when the day does come I shall have my title: I thought of it -this afternoon when we were at McCulloch’s camp, and I stood aside and -heard you say, ‘No, Mac--do the job just as if you were doing it for -yourself.’ Then I saw just how my epitaph-title was going to read: -‘Here lies Virginia Vallory, the wife of an honest man.’ There now; if -that crowd wasn’t looking on with all its eyes, I’m sure you’d kiss me -for that. Let’s go in to dinner; I’m actually unromantic enough to be -fiercely hungry. Good-by, blessed sunset,” and she blew a kiss to the -crimson west. - - - - -TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: - - - Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. - - Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. - - Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. - - Archaic or alternate spelling has been retained from the original. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DAVID VALLORY *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. 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