A FOOL FOR LOVE

By Francis Lynde

Author of "The Grafters, " "The Master of Appleby, " etc. 

CONTENTS

 I In Which We Take Passage on the Limited II In Which an Engine is Switched III In Which an Itinerary is Changed IV The Crystalline Altitudes V The Landslide VI The Rajah Gives an Order VII The Majesty of the Law VIII The Greeks Bringing Gifts IX The Block Signal X Spiked Switches XI The Right of Way

I. IN WHICH WE TAKE PASSAGE ON THE LIMITED

It was a December morning, --the Missouri December of mild temperaturesand saturated skies, --and the Chicago and Alton's fast train, drippingfrom the rush through the wet night, had steamed briskly to itsterminal track in the Union Station at Kansas City. 

Two men, one smoking a short pipe and the other snapping the ash froma scented cigarette, stood aloof from the hurrying throngs on theplatform, looking on with the measured interest of those who are ina melee but not of it. 

"More delay, " said the cigarettist, glancing at his watch. "We areover an hour late now. Do we get any of it back on the run to Denver?"

The pipe-smoker shook his head. 

"Hardly, I should say. The Limited is a pretty heavy train to pickup lost time. But it won't make any particular difference. The westernconnections all wait for the Limited, and we shall reach the seatof war to-morrow night, according to the Boston itinerary. "

Mr. Morton P. Adams flung away the unburned half of his cigaretteand masked a yawn behind his hand. 

"It's no end of a bore, Winton, and that is the plain, unlacqueredfact, " he protested. "I think the governor owes me something. Iworried through the Tech because he insisted that I should have aprofession; and now I am going in for field work with you in a howlingwinter wilderness because he insists on a practical demonstration. I shall ossify out there in those mountains. It's written in thebook. "

"Humph! it's too bad about you, " said the other ironically. He wasa fit figure of a man, clean-cut and vigorous, from the steadfastoutlook of the gray eyes and the firm, smooth-shaven jaw to the squarefingertips of the strong hands, and his smile was of good-naturedcontempt. "As you say, it is an outrage on filial complaisance. Allthe same, with the right-of-way fight in prospect, Quartz Creek Canyonmay not prove to be such a valley of dry bones as--Look out, there!"

The shifting-engine had cut a car from the rear of the lately-arrivedAlton, and was sending it down the outbound track to a coupling withthe Transcontinental Limited. Adams stepped back and let it miss himby a hand's-breadth, and as the car was passing, Winton read the nameon the paneling. 

"The Rosemary: somebody's twenty-ton private outfit. That cooks ourlast chance of making up any lost time between this and tomorrow--"

He broke off abruptly. On the square rear observation platform ofthe private car were three ladies. One of them was small andblue-eyed, with wavy little puffs of snowy hair peeping out underher dainty widow's cap. Another was small and blue-eyed, with wavymasses of flaxen hair caught up from a face which might have servedas a model for the most exquisite bisque figure that ever came outof France. But Winton saw only the third. 

She was taller than either of her companions--tall and straight andlithe; a charming embodiment of health and strength and beauty:clear-skinned, brown-eyed--a very goddess fresh from the bath, inWinton's instant summing up of her, and her crown of red-gold hairhelped out the simile. 

Now, thus far in his thirty-year pilgrimage John Winton, man andboy, had lived the intense life of a working hermit, so far as thesocial gods and goddesses were concerned. Yet he had a pang--ofdisappointment or pointless jealousy, or something akin to both--whenAdams lifted his hat to this particular goddess, was rewarded by alittle cry of recognition, and stepped up to the platform to bepresented to the elder and younger Bisques. 

So, as we say, Winton turned and walked away as one left out, feelingone moment as though he had been defrauded of a natural right, andderiding himself the next, as a sensible man should. After a bit hewas able to laugh at the "sudden attack, " as he phrased it, but later, when he and Adams were settled for the day-long run in the Denversleeper, and the Limited was clanking out over the switches, hebrought the talk around with a carefully assumed air of lack-interestto the party in the private car. 

"She is a friend of yours, then?" he said, when Adams had taken thebaited hook open-eyed. 

The Technologian modified the assumption. 

"Not quite in your sense of the word, I fancy. I met her a numberof times at the houses of mutual friends in Boston. She was studyingat the Conservatory. "

"But she isn't a Bostonian, " said Winton confidently. 

"Miss Virginia?--hardly. She is a Carteret of the Carterets;Virginia-born-bred-and-named. Stunning girl, isn't she?"

"No, " said Winton shortly, resenting the slang for no reason thathe could have set forth in words. 

Adams lighted another of the scented villainies, and his clean-shavenface wrinkled itself in a slow smile. 

"Which means that she has winged you at sight, I suppose, as she doesmost men. " Then he added calmly, "It's no go. "

"What is 'no go'?"

Adams laughed unfeelingly, and puffed away at his cigarette. 

"You remind me of the fable about the head-hiding ostrich. Didn'tI see you staring at her as if you were about to have a fit? But itis just as I tell you: it's no go. She isn't the marrying kind. Ifyou knew her, she'd be nice to you till she got a good chance to flayyou alive--"

"Break it off!" growled Winton. 

"Presently. As I was saying, she would miss the chance of marryingthe best man in the world for the sake of taking a rise out of him. Moreover, she comes of old Cavalier stock with an English earldomat the back of it, and she is inordinately proud of the fact; whileyou--er--you've given me to understand that you are a man of thepeople, haven't you?"

Winton nodded absently. It was one of his minor fads to ignore hislineage, which ran decently back to a Colonial governor on hisfather's side, and to assert that he did not know his grandfather'smiddle name--which was accounted for by the very simple fact thatthe elder Winton had no middle name. 

"Well, that settles it definitely, " was the Bostonian's comment. "Miss Carteret is of the _sang azur_. The man who marries her willhave to know his grandfather's middle name--and a good bit morebesides. "

Winton's laugh was mockingly good-natured. 

"You have missed your calling by something more than a hair's-breadth, Morty. You should have been a novelist. Give you a spike and across-tie and you'd infer a whole railroad. But you pique mycuriosity. Where are these American royalties of yours going in theRosemary?"

"To California. The car belongs to Mr. Somerville Darrah, who isvice-president and manager in fact of the Colorado and Grand Riverroad: the 'Rajah, ' they call him. He is a relative of the Carterets, and the party is on its way to spend the winter on the Pacific coast. "

"And the little lady in the widow's cap: is she Miss Carteret'smother?"

"Miss Bessie Carteret's mother and Miss Virginia's aunt. She is thechaperon of the party. "

Winton was silent while the Limited was roaring through a villageon the Kansas side of the river. When he spoke again it was not ofthe Carterets; it was of the Carterets' kinsman and host. 

"I have heard somewhat of the Rajah, " he said half-musingly. "Infact, I know him, by sight. He is what the magazinists are fond ofcalling an 'industry colonel, ' a born leader who has fought his wayto the front. If the Quartz Creek row is anything more than a stiffbluff on the part of the C. G. R. It will be quite as well for usif Mr. Somerville Darrah is safely at the other side of thecontinent--and well out of ordinary reach of the wires. "

Adams came to attention with a half-hearted attempt to galvanize aninterest in the business affair. 

"Tell me more about this mysterious jangle we are heading for, " herejoined. "Have I enlisted for a soldier when I thought I was onlygoing into peaceful exile as assistant engineer of construction onthe Utah Short Line?"

"That remains to be seen. " Winton took a leaf from his pocketmemorandum and drew a rough outline map. "Here is Denver, and hereis Carbonate, " he explained. "At present the Utah is running intoCarbonate this way over the rails of the C. G. R. On a joint trackagreement which either line may terminate by giving six months'notice of its intention to the other. Got that?"

"To have and to hold, " said Adams. "Go on. "

"Well, on the first day of September the C. G. R. People gave theUtah management notice to quit. "

"They are bloated monopolists, " said Adams sententiously. "Still Idon't see why there should be any scrapping over the line in QuartzCreek Canyon. "

"No? You are not up in monopolistic methods. In six months fromSeptember first the Utah people will be shut out of Carbonatebusiness, which is all that keeps that part of their line alive. If they want a share of that traffic after March first, they willhave to have a road of their own to carry it over. "

"Precisely, " said Adams, stifling a yawn. "They are building one, aren't they?"

"Trying to, " Winton amended. "But, unfortunately, the only practicableroute through the mountains is up Quartz Creek Canyon, and the canyonis already occupied by a branch line of the Colorado and Grand River. "

"Still I don't see why there should be any scrap. "

"Don't you? If the Rajah's road can keep the new line out of Carbonatetill the six months have expired, it will have a monopoly of all thecarrying trade of the camp. By consequence it can force every shipperin the district to make iron-clad contracts, so that when the Utahline is finally completed it won't be able to secure any freight fora year, at least. "

"Oho! that's the game, is it? I begin to savvy the burro: that's theproper phrase, isn't it? And what are our chances?"

"We have about one in a hundred, as near as I could make out fromMr. Callowell's statement of the case. The C. G. R. People are movingheaven and earth to obstruct us in the canyon. If they can delay thework a little longer, the weather will do the rest. With the firstheavy snow in the mountains, which usually comes long before this, the Utah will have to put up its tools and wait till next summer. "

Adams lighted another cigarette. 

"Pardon me if I seem inquisitive, " he said, "but for the life of meI can't understand what these obstructionists can do. Of course, theycan't use force. "

Winton's smile was grim. "Can't they? Wait till you get on the ground. But the first move was peaceable enough. They got an injunction fromthe courts restraining the new line from encroaching on their rightof way. "

"Which was a thing that nobody wanted to do, " said Adams, betweeninhalations. 

"Which was a thing the Utah _had_ to do, " corrected Winton. "Thecanyon is a narrow gorge--a mere slit in parts of it. That is wherethey have us. "

"Oh, well, " returned Adams, "I suppose we took an appeal and askedto have the injunction set aside?"

"We did, promptly; and that is the present status of the fight. Theappeal decision has not yet been handed down; and in the meantimewe go on building railroad, incurring all the penalties for contemptof court with every shovelful of earth moved. Do you still think youwill be in danger of ossifying?"

Adams let the question rest while he asked one of his own. 

"How do you come to be mixed up in it, Jack? A week ago some onetold me you were going to South America to build a railroad in theAndes. What switched you?"

Winton shook his head. "Fate, I guess; that and a wire from PresidentCallowell of the Utah offering me this. Chief of Construction Evarts, in charge of the work in Quartz Creek Canyon, said what you said afew minutes ago--that he had not hired out for a soldier. He resigned, and I'm taking his berth. "

Adams rose and buttoned his coat. 

"By all of which it seems that we two are in for a good bit morethan the ossifying exile, " he remarked. And then: "I am going backinto the Rosemary to pay my respects to Miss Virginia Carteret. Won'tyou come along?"

"No, " said Winton, more shortly than the invitation warranted; andthe other went his way alone. 

II. IN WHICH AN ENGINE IS SWITCHED

"'Scuse me, sah; private cyah, sah. "

It was the porter's challenge in the vestibule of the Rosemary. Adamsfound a card. 

"Take that to Miss Carteret--Miss Virginia Carteret, " he directed, andwaited till the man came back with his welcome. 

The extension table in the open rear third of the private car wasclosed to its smallest dimensions, and the movable furnishings weredisposed about the compartment to make it a comfortable lounging room. 

Mrs. Carteret was propped among the cushions of a divan with a book. Her daughter occupied the undivided half of a tete-a-tete chair witha blond athlete in a clerical coat and a reversed collar. MissVirginia was sitting alone at a window, but she rose and came to greetthe visitor. 

"How good of you to take pity on us!" she said, giving him her hand. Then she put him at one with the others: "Aunt Martha you have met;also Cousin Bessie. Let me present you to Mr. Calvert: Cousin Billy, this is Mr. Adams, who is responsible in a way for many of myBoston-learned gaucheries. "

Aunt Martha closed the book on her finger. "My dear Virginia!" sheprotested in mild deprecation; and Adams laughed and shook hands withthe Reverend William Calvert and made Virginia's peace all in the samebreath. 

"Don't apologize for Miss Virginia, Mrs. Carteret. We were very goodfriends in Boston, chiefly, I think, because I never objected when shewanted to--er--to take a rise out of me. " Then to Virginia: "I hope Idon't intrude?"

"Not in the least. Didn't I just say you were good to come? UncleSomerville tells us we are passing through the famous GoldenBelt, --whatever that may be, --and recommends an easy-chair and awindow. But I haven't seen anything but stubble-fields--dismally wetstubble-fields at that. Won't you sit down and help me watch them goby?"

Adams placed a chair for her and found one for himself. 

"'Uncle Somerville'--am I to have the pleasure of meeting Mr. Somerville Darrah?"

Miss Virginia's laugh was non-committal. 

"_Quien sabe_?" she queried, airing her one Westernism before she wasfairly in the longitude of it. "Uncle Somerville is a law untohimself. He had a lot of telegrams and things at Kansas City, and heis locked in his den with Mr. Jastrow, dictating answers by thedozen, I suppose. "

"Oh, these industry colonels!" said Adams. "Don't their toilings makeyou ache in sheer sympathy sometimes?"

"No, indeed, " was the prompt rejoinder; "I envy them. It must be fineto have large things to do, and to be able to do them. "

"Degenerate scion of a noble race!" jested Adams. "What ancientCarteret of them all would have compromised with the necessities bybecoming a captain of industry?"

"It wasn't their _metier_, or the _metier_ of their times, " said MissVirginia with conviction. "They were sword-soldiers merely becausethat was the only way a strong man could conquer in those days. Now itis different, and a strong man fights quite as nobly in anotherfield--and deserves quite as much honor. "

"Think so? I don't agree with you--as to the fighting, I mean. I liketo take things easy. A good club, a choice of decent theaters, thesociety of a few charming young women like--"

She broke him with a mocking laugh. 

"You were born a good many centuries too late, Mr. Adams; you wouldhave fitted so beautifully, into decadent Rome. "

"No--thanks. Twentieth-century America, with the commercial frenzytaken out of it, is good enough for me. I was telling Winton a littlewhile ago--"

"Your friend of the Kansas City station platform?" she interrupted. "Mightn't you introduce us a little less informally?"

"Beg pardon, I'm sure--yours and Jack's: Mr. John Winton, of New Yorkand the world at large, familiarly known to his intimates--and theyare precious few--as 'Jack W. ' As I was about to say--"

But she seemed to find a malicious satisfaction in breaking in uponhim. 

"'Mr. John Winton': it's a pretty name as names go, but it isn't asstrong as he is. He is an 'industry colonel, ' isn't he? He looks it. "

The Bostonian avenged himself at Winton's expense for the unwelcomeinterruption. 

"So much for your woman's intuition, " he laughed. "Speaking of idlers, there is your man to the dotting of the 'i'; a dilettante raised tothe _nth_ power. "

Miss Carteret's short upper lip curled in undisguised scorn. 

"I like men who do things, " she asserted with pointed emphasis;whereupon the talk drifted eastward to Boston, and Winton was ignoreduntil Virginia, having exhausted the reminiscent vein, said, "You aregoing on through to Denver?"

"To Denver and beyond, " was the reply. "Winton has a notion ofhibernating in the mountains--fancy it; in the dead of winter!--and hehas persuaded me to go along. He sketches a little, you know. "

"Oh, so he is an artist?" said Virginia, with interest newly aroused. 

"No, " said Adams gloomily, "he isn't an artist--isn't much ofanything, I'm sorry to say. Worse than all, he doesn't know hisgrandfather's middle name. Told me so himself. "

"That is inexcusable--in a dilettante, " said Miss Virginia mockingly. "Don't you think so?"

"It is inexcusable in anyone, " said the Technologian, rising to takehis leave. Then, as a parting word: "Does the Rosemary set its owntable? or do you dine in the dining-car?"

"In the dining-car, if we have one. Uncle Somerville lets us dodge theRosemary's cook whenever we can, " was the answer; and with this bit ofinformation Adams went his way to the Denver sleeper. 

Finding Winton in his section, poring over a blue-print map and makingnotes thereon after the manner of a man hard at work, Adams turnedback to the smoking-compartment. 

Now for Mr. Morton P. Adams the salt of life was a joke, harmless orotherwise, as the tree might fall. So, during the long afternoon whichhe wore out in solitude, there grew up in him a keen desire to seewhat would befall if these two whom he had so grotesquelymisrepresented each to the other should come together in the pathwayof acquaintanceship. 

But how to bring them together was a problem which refused to besolved until chance pointed the way. Since the Limited had lostanother hour during the day there was a rush for the dining-car assoon as the announcement of its taking-on had gone through the train. Adams and Winton were of this rush, and so were the members of Mr. Somerville Darrah's party. In the seating the party was separated, asroom at the crowded tables could be found; and Miss Virginia's fategave her the unoccupied seat at one of the duet tables, opposite ayoung man with steadfast gray eyes and a firm jaw. 

Winton was equal to the emergency, or thought he was. Adams was stillwithin call and he beckoned him, meaning to propose an exchange ofseats. But the Bostonian misunderstood wilfully. 

"Most happy, I'm sure, " he said, coming instantly to the rescue. "MissCarteret, my friend signals his dilemma. May I present him?"

Virginia smiled and gave the required permission in a word. But forWinton self-possession fled shrieking. 

"Ah--er--I hope you know Mr. Adams well enough to make allowances forhis--for his--" He broke down helplessly and she had to come to hisassistance. 

"For his imagination?" she suggested. "I do, indeed; we are quite oldfriends. "

Here was "well enough, " but Winton was a man and could not let italone. 

"I should be very sorry to have you think for a moment that Iwould--er--so far forget myself, " he went on fatuously. "What I hadin mind was an exchange of seats with him. I thought it would bepleasanter for you; that is, I mean, pleasanter for--" He stoppedshort, seeing nothing but a more hopeless involvement ahead; alsobecause he saw signals of distress or of mirth flying in the browneyes. 

"Oh, please!" she protested in mock humility. "Do leave my vanity justthe tiniest little cranny to creep out of, Mr. Winton. I'll promise tobe good and not bore you too desperately. "

At this, as you would imagine, the pit of utter self-abasement yawnedfor Winton, and he plunged headlong, holding the bill of fare wrongside up when the waiter asked for his dinner order, and otherwisedemeaning himself like a man taken at a hopeless disadvantage. Shetook pity on him. 

"But let's ignore Mr. Adams, " she went on sweetly. "I am much moreinterested in this, " touching the bill of fare. "Will you order forme, please? I like--"

When she had finished the list of her likings, Winton was able tosmile at his lapse into the primitive, and gave the dinner order fortwo with a fair degree of coherence. After that they got on better. Winton knew Boston, and, next to the weather, Boston was the safestand most fruitful of the commonplaces. Nevertheless, it was notimmortal; and Winton was just beginning to cast about for some othersafe riding road for the shallop of small talk when Miss Carteret sentit adrift with malice aforethought. 

It was somewhere between the entrees and the fruit, and the point ofdeparture was Boston art. 

"Speaking of art, Mr. Winton, will you tell me how you came to thinkof sketching in the mountains of Colorado at this time of year? Ishould think the cold would be positively prohibitive of anything likethat. "

Winton stared--open-mouthed, it is to be feared. 

"I--I beg your pardon, " he stammered, with the inflection which takesits pitch from blank bewilderment. 

Miss Virginia was happy. Dilettante he might be, and an unhumbled manof the world as well; but, to use the Reverend Billy's phrase, shecould make him "sit up. "

"I beg yours, I'm sure, " she said demurely. "I didn't know it was acraft secret. "

Winton looked across the aisle to the table where the Technologian wassitting opposite a square-shouldered, ruddy-faced gentleman with fieryeyes and fierce white mustaches, and shook a figurative fist. 

"I'd like to know what Adams has been telling you, " he said. "Sketching in the mountains in midwinter! that would be decidedlyoriginal, to say the least of it. And I think I have never done anoriginal thing in all my life. "

For a single instant the brown eyes looked their pity for him; genericpity it was, of the kind that mounting souls bestow upon the stagnant. But the subconscious lover in Winton made it personal to him, and itwas the lover who spoke when he went on. 

"That is a damaging admission, is it not? I am sorry to have to makeit--to have to confirm your poor opinion of me. "

"Did I say anything like that?" she protested. 

"Not in words; but your eyes said it, and I know you have beenthinking it all along. Don't ask me how I know it: I couldn't explainit if I should try. But you have been pitying me, in a way--you knowyou have. "

The brown eyes were downcast. Frank and free-hearted after her kind asshe was, Virginia Carteret was finding it a new and singularexperience to have a man tell her baldly at their first meeting thathe had read her inmost thought of him. Yet she would not flinch or goback. 

"There is so much to be done in the world, and so few to do the work, "she pleaded in extenuation. 

"And Adams has told you that I am not one of the few? It is trueenough to hurt. "

She looked him fairly in the eyes. "What is lacking, Mr. Winton--thespur?"

"Possibly, " he rejoined. "There is no one near enough to care, or tosay 'Well done!'"

"How can you tell?" she questioned musingly. "It is not alwayspermitted to us to hear the plaudits or the hisses--happily, I think. Yet there are always those standing by who are ready to cry '_Iotriumphe_!' and mean it, when one approves himself a good soldier. "

The coffee had been served, and Winton sat thoughtfully stirring thelump of sugar in his cup. Miss Carteret was not having a monopoly ofthe new experiences. For instance, it had never before happened toJohn Winton to have a woman, young, charming, and altogether lovable, read him a lesson out of the book of the overcomers. 

He smiled inwardly and wondered what she would say if she could knowto what battlefield the drumming wheels of the Limited were speedinghim. Would she be loyal to her mentorship and tell him he must win, atwhatever the cost to Mr. Somerville Darrah and his businessassociates? Or would she, womanlike, be her uncle's partizan and writeone John Winton down in her blackest book for daring to oppose theRajah?

He assured himself it would make no jot of difference if he knew. Hehad a thing to do, and he was purposed to do it strenuously, inflexibly. Yet in the inmost chamber of his heart, where thebarbarian ego stands unabashed and isolate and recklessly contemptuousof the moralities minor and major, he saw the birth of an influencewhich inevitably must henceforth be desperately reckoned with. 

Given a name, this new-born life-factor was love; love barelyawakened, and as yet no more than a masterful desire to stand well inthe eyes of one woman. None the less, he saw the possibilities: that atime might come when this woman would have the power to intervene;would make him hold his hand in the business affair at the verymoment, mayhap, when he should strike the hardest. 

It was a rather unnerving thought, and when he considered it he wasglad that their ways, coinciding for the moment, would presently goapart, leaving him free to do battle as an honest soldier in any causemust. 

The Rosemary party was rising, and Winton rose, too, folding the seatfor Miss Virginia and carefully reaching her wrap from the rack. 

"I am so glad to have met you, " she said, giving him the tips of herfingers and going back to the conventionalities as if they had neverbeen ignored. 

But the sincerity in Winton's reply transcended the conventional formof it. 

"Indeed, the pleasure has been wholly mine, I assure you. I hope thefuture will be kind to me and let me see more of you. "

"Who knows?" she rejoined, smiling at him level-eyed. "The world hasbeen steadily growing smaller since Shakespeare called it 'narrow. '"

He caught quickly at the straw of hope. "Then we need not saygood-by?"

"No; let it be _auf Wiedersehen_, " she said; and he stood aside toallow her to join her party. 

Two hours later, when Adams was reading in his section and Winton wassmoking his short pipe in the men's compartment and thinking thingsunspeakable with Virginia Carteret for a nucleus, there was a seriesof sharp whistle-shrieks, a sudden grinding of the brakes, and ajarring stop of the Limited--a stop not down on the time-card. 

Winton was among the first to reach the head of the long train. Thehalt was in a little depression of the bleak plain, and the train-menwere in conference over a badly-derailed engine when Winton came up. A vast herd of cattle was lumbering away into the darkness, and amangled carcass under the wheels of the locomotive sufficientlyexplained the accident. 

"Well, there's only the one thing to do, " was the engineer's verdict. "That's for somebody to mog back to Arroyo to wire for thewreck-wagon. "

"Yes, by gum! and that means all night, " growled the conductor. 

There was a stir in the gathering throng of half-alarmed andall-curious passengers, and a red-faced, white-mustached gentleman, whose soft southern accent was utterly at variance with his manner, hurled a question bolt-like at the conductor. 

"All night, you say, seh? Then we miss ouh Denver connections?"

"You can bet to win on that, " was the curt reply. 

"Damn!" said the ruddy-faced gentleman; and then in a lower tone: "Ibeg your pahdon, my deah Virginia; I was totally unaware of yourpresence. "

Winton threw off his overcoat. 

"If you will take a bit of help from an outsider, I think we needn'twait for the wrecking-car, " he said to the dubious trainmen. "It'sbad, but not so bad as it looks. What do you say?"

Now, as everyone knows, it is not in the nature of operative railwaymen to brook interference even of the helpful sort. But they are asquick as other folk to recognize the man in essence, as well as toknow the clan slogan when they hear it. Winton did not wait forobjections, but took over the command as one in authority. 

"Think we can't do it? I'll show you. Up on the tank, one of you, andheave down the jacks and frogs. We'll have her on the steel againbefore you can say your prayers. "

At the hearty command, churlish reluctance vanished and everybody lenta willing hand. In two minutes the crew of the Limited knew it wasworking under a master. The frogs were adjusted under the derailedwheels, the jack-screws were braced to lift and push with the nicestaccuracy, and all was ready for the attempt to back the engine intrial. But now the engineer shook his bead. 

"I ain't the artist to move her gently enough with all that string o'dinkeys behind her, " he said unhopefully. 

"No?" said Winton. "Come up into the cab with and I'll show you how. "And he climbed to the driver's footboard with the doubting engineer athis heels. 

The reversing-lever went over with a clash; the air whistled into thebrakes; and Winton began to ease the throttle open. The steam sanginto the cylinders, the huge machine trembling like a living thingunder the hand of a master. 

Slowly and by almost imperceptible degrees the life of the pent-upboiler power crept into the pistons and out through the connectingrods to the wheels. With the first thrill of the gripping tires Wintonleaned from the window to watch the derailed trucks climb byhalf-inches up the inclined planes of the frogs. 

At the critical instant, when the entire weight of the forward half ofthe engine was poising for the drop upon the rails, he gave theprecise added impulse. The big ten-wheeler coughed hoarsely and spatfire; the driving-wheels made a quick half-turn backward; and a cheerfrom the onlookers marked the little triumph of mind over matter. 

Winton found Miss Carteret holding his overcoat when he swung downfrom the cab, and he fancied her enthusiasm was tempered withsomething remotely like embarrassment. But she suffered him to walkback to the private car beside her; and in this sudden retreat fromthe scene of action he missed hearing the comments of his fellowcraftsmen. 

"You bet, he's no 'prentice, " said the fireman. 

"Not much!" quoth the engineer. "He's an all-round artist, that'sabout what he is. Shouldn't wonder if he was the travelin' engineerfor some road back in God's country. "

"Travelin' nothing!" said the conductor. "More likely he's atrain-master, 'r p'raps a bigger boss than that. Call in the flag, Jim, and we'll be getting a move. "

Oddly enough, the comment on Winton did not pause with the encomiumsof the train crew. When the Limited was once more rushing on its waythrough the night, and Virginia and her cousin were safe in theprivacy of their state-room, Miss Carteret added her word. 

"Do you know, Bessie, I think it was Mr. Adams who scored thisafternoon?" she said. 

"How so?" inquired _la petite_ Bisque, who was too sleepy to beover-curious. 

"I think he 'took a rise' out of me, as he puts it. Mr. Winton isprecisely all the kinds of man Mr. Adams said he wasn't. "

III. IN WHICH AN ITINERARY IS CHANGED

It was late breakfast time when the Transcontinental Limited sweptaround the great curve in the eastern fringe of Denver, paused for aregistering moment at "yard limits, " and went clattering in over theswitches to come to rest at the end of its long westward run on thein-track at the Union Depot. 

Having wired ahead to have his mail meet him at the yard limitsregistering station, Winton was ready to make a dash for the telegraphoffice the moment the train stopped. 

"That is our wagon, over there on the narrow-gage, " he said to Adams, pointing out the waiting mountain train. "Have the porter transfer ourdunnage, and I'll be with you as soon as I can send a wire or two. "

On the way across the broad platform he saw the yard crew cutting outthe Rosemary, and had a glimpse of Miss Virginia clinging to thehand-rail and enjoying enthusiastically, he fancied, her first view ofthe mighty hills to the westward. 

The temptation to let the telegraphing wait while he went to say goodmorning to her was strong, but he resisted it and hastened the morefor the hesitant thought. Nevertheless, when he reached the telegraphoffice he found Mr. Somerville Darrah and his secretary there ahead ofhim, and he observed that the explosive gentleman who presided overthe destinies of the Colorado and Grand River appeared to be in a morethan usually volcanic frame of mind. 

Now Winton, though new to the business of building railroads for theUtah Short Line, was not new to Denver or Colorado. Hence when theRajah, followed by his secretarial shadow, had left the office, Wintonspoke to the operator as to a friend. 

"What is the matter with Mr. Darrah, Tom? He seems to be uncommonlyvindictive this morning. "

The man of dots and dashes nodded. 

"He's always crankier this time than he was the other. He's a holyterror, the Rajah is. I wouldn't work on his road for a farm downEast--not if my job took me within cussing distance of him. Bet a henworth fifty dollars he is up in Mr. Colbert's office right now, raising particular sand because his special engine wasn't standinghere ready to snatch his private car on the fly, so's to go on withoutlosing headway. "

Winton frowned thoughtfully, and he let his writing hand pause whilehe said, "So he travels special from Denver, does he?"

"On his own road?--well, I should smile. Nothing is too good for theRajah; or too quick, when he happens to be in a hurry. I wonder hedidn't have the T. C. Pull him special from Kansas City. "

Winton handed in his batch of telegrams and went his way reflective. 

What was Mr. Somerville Darrah's particular rush? As set forth byAdams, the plans of the party in the Rosemary contemplated nothingmore hasty than a leisurely trip to the Pacific coast--a pleasurejaunt with a winter sojourn in California to lengthen it. Why, then, this sudden change from Limited regular trains to unlimited specials?Was there fresh news from the seat of war in Quartz Creek Canyon?Winton thought not. In that case he would have had his budget as well;and so far as his own advices went, matters were still as they hadbeen. A letter from the Utah attorneys in Carbonate assured him thatthe injunction appeal was not yet decided, and another from Chief ofConstruction Evarts concerned itself mainly with the major's desire toknow when he was to be relieved. 

But if Winton could have been an eavesdropper behind the door ofSuperintendent Colbert's office on the second floor of the UnionDepot, his doubts would have been resolved instantly. 

The telegraph operator's guess went straight to the mark. Mr. Darrahwas "raising particular sand" because his wire order for a specialengine had not been obeyed to the saving of the ultimate second oftime. But between his objurgations on that score, he was rasping outquestions designed to exhaust the chief clerk's store of informationconcerning the status of affairs at the seat of war. 

"Will you inform me, seh, why I wasn't wired that this beggahly appealwas going against us?" he demanded wrathfully. "What's that you say, seh? Don't tell me you couldn't know what the decision of the cou'twas going to be before it was handed down: that's what you-all areheah for--to find out these things! And what is all this about MajahEva'ts resigning, and the Utah's sending East for a professionalright-of-way fighteh to take his place? Who is this new man? Don'tknow? Dammit, seh! it's your business to know! _Now when do you favehme with my engine_?"

Thus the Rajah; and the chief clerk, himself known from end to end ofthe Colorado and Grand River as a queller of men, could only point outof the window to where the Rosemary stood engined and equipped for therace, and say meekly: "I'm awfully sorry you've been delayed, Mr. Darrah; very sorry, indeed. But your car is ready now. Shall I goalong to be on hand if you need me?"

"No, seh!" stormed the irate master; and the chief clerk's face becameinstantly expressive of the keenest relief. "You stay right heah andsee that the wires to Qua'tz Creek are kept open--wide open, seh. Andwhen you get an ordeh from me--for an engine, a regiment of theNational Gyua'd, or a train-load of white elephants--you fill it. Doyou understand, seh?"

Meantime, while this scene was getting itself enacted in thesuperintendent's office, a mild fire of consternation was alight inthe gathering room of the Rosemary. As we have guessed, Winton'spacket of mail was not the only one which was delivered by specialarrangement that morning to the incoming Limited at the yardregistering station. There had been another, addressed to Mr. Somerville Darrah; and when he had opened it there had been a volcanicexplosion and a hurried dash for the telegraph office, as recorded. 

Sifted out by the Reverend Billy, and explained by him to Mrs. Carteret and Bessie, the firing spark of the explosion appeared to besome news of an untoward character from a place vaguely designated as"the front. "

"It seems that there is some sort of a right-of-way scrimmage going onup in the mountains between our road and the Utah Short Line, " saidthe young man. "It was carried into the courts, and now it turns outthat the decision has gone against us. "

"How perfectly horrid!" said Miss Bessie. "Now I suppose we shall haveto stay here indefinitely while Uncle Somerville does things. " Andplacid Mrs. Carteret added plaintively: "It's too bad! I think theymight let him have one little vacation in peace. "

"Who talks of peace?" queried Virginia, driven in from her post ofvantage on the observation platform by the smoke from theswitching-engine. "Didn't I see Uncle Somerville charging across tothe telegraph office with war written out large in every line of him?"

"I am afraid you did, " affirmed the Reverend Billy; and thereupon theexplanation was rehearsed for Virginia's benefit. 

The brown eyes flashed militant sympathy. 

"Oh, I wish Uncle Somerville would go to 'the front, ' wherever thatis, and take us along!" she cried. "It would be ever so much betterthan California. "

The Reverend William laughed; and Aunt Martha put in her word ofexpostulation, as in duty bound. 

"Why, my dear Virginia--the idea! You don't know in the least what youare talking about. I have been reading in the papers about theseright-of-way troubles, and they are perfectly terrible. One reportsaid they were arming the laboring men, and another said the militiamight have to be called out. "

"Well, what of it?" said Virginia, with all the hardihood of youth andunknowledge. "It's something like a burning building: one doesn't wantto be hard-hearted and rejoice over other people's misfortunes; butthen, if it has to burn, one would like to be there to see. "

Miss Bessie put a stray lock of the flaxen hair up under its propercomb. 

"I'm sure I prefer California and the orange-groves and peace, " sheasserted. "Don't you, Cousin Billy?"

What Mr. Calvert would have replied is no matter for this history, since at this precise moment the Rajah came in, "coruscating, " asVirginia put it, from his late encounter with the superintendent'schief clerk. 

"Give them the word to go, Jastrow, and let's get out of heah, " hecommanded. And when the secretary had vanished the Rajah made hisexplanations to all and sundry. "I've been obliged in a manneh tochange ouh itinerary. Anotheh company is trying to fault us up inQua'tz Creek Canyon, and I am in a meashuh compelled to be on theground. We shall be delayed only a few days, I hope; at the worst onlyuntil the first snow-storm comes; and, in the meantime, Califo'niawon't run away. "

Virginia clapped her hands. 

"Then we are really to go to 'the front' and see a right-of-way fight?Oh, won't that be perfectly intoxicating!"

The Rajah glared at her as if she had said something incendiary. Thepicturesque aspect of the struggle had evidently not appealed to him. But he smiled grimly when he said: "Now there spoke the blood of thefighting Carterets: hope you won't change your mind, my deah. " Andwith that he dived into his working den, pushing the lately-returnedsecretary in ahead of him. 

Virginia linked arms with Bessie, the flaxen-haired, when the wheelsbegan to turn. 

"We are off, " she said. "Let's go out on the platform and see the lastof Denver. "

It was while they were clinging to the hand-rail, and looking backupon the jumble of railway activities out of which they had justemerged that the Rosemary, gaining headway, overtook another movingtrain running smoothly on a track parallel to that upon which theprivate car was speeding. It was the narrow-gage mountain connectionof the Utah line, and Winton and Adams were on the rear platform ofthe last car. So it chanced that the four of them were presentlywaving their adieus across the wind-blown interspace. In the midst ofit, or rather at the moment when the Rosemary, gathering speed as thelighter of the two trains, forged ahead, the Rajah came out to lighthis cigar. 

He took in the little tableau of the rear platforms at a glance, andwhen the slower train was left behind asked a question of Virginia. 

"Ah--wasn't one of those two the young gentleman who called on youyestehday afternoon, my deah?"

Virginia admitted it. 

"Could you faveh me with his name?"

"He is Mr. Morton P. Adams, of Boston. "

"Ah-h! and his friend--the young gentleman who laid his hand to ouhplow and put the engine on the track last night?"

"He is Mr. Winton--a--an artist, I believe; at least, that is what Igathered from what Mr. Adams said of him. "

Mr. Somerville Darrah laughed, a slow little laugh, deep in his chest. 

"Bless youh innocent soul--he a picchuh--painteh? Not in a thousandyeahs, my deah Virginia. He is a railroad man, and a right good one atthat. Faveh me with the name again; Winteh, did you say?"

"No; Winton--Mr. John Winton. "

"D-d-devil!" gritted the Rajah, smiting the hand-rail with hisclenched fist. "Hah! I beg your pahdon, my deahs--a meah slip of thetongue. " And then, to the full as savagely: "By Heaven, I hope thattrain will fly the track and ditch him before eveh he comes withinordering distance of the work in Qua'tz Creek Canyon!"

"Why, Uncle Somerville--how vindictive!" cried Virginia. "Who is he, and what has he done?"

"He is Misteh John Winton, as you informed me just now; one of thebrainiest constructing engineers in this entiah country, and thehardest man in this or any otheh country to down in a right-of-wayfight--that's who he is. And it's not what he's done, my deahVirginia, it's what he is going to do. If I can't get him killed upout of ouh way, "--but here Mr. Darrah saw the growing terror in twopairs of eyes, and realizing that he was committing himself before anunsympathetic audience, beat a hasty retreat to his stronghold at theother end of the Rosemary. 

"Well!" said the flaxen-haired Bessie, catching her breath. ButVirginia laughed. 

"I'm glad I'm not Mr. Winton, " she said. 

IV. THE CRYSTALLINE ALTITUDES

Morning in the highest highlands of the Rockies, a morning clear, cold, and tense, with a bell-like quality in the frosty air to makethe cracking of a snow-laden spruce-bough resound like a pistol-shot. For Denver and the dwellers on the eastern plain the sun is an hourhigh; but the hamlet mining-camp of Argentine, with its dovecoterailway station and two-pronged siding, still lies in the steel-bluedepths of the canyon shadow. 

Massive mountains, dark green to the timber line and dazzling whiteabove it, shut in the narrow valley to right and left. A mimictorrent, ice-bound in the quieter pools, drums and gurgles on itsdescent midway between two railway embankments, the one to which thestation and side-tracks belong, old and well-settled, the other newand as yet unballasted. Just opposite the pygmy station a lateralgorge intersects the main canyon, making a deep gash in the opposingmountain bulwark, around which the new line has to find its way by alooping detour. 

In a scanty widening of the main canyon a few hundred yards below thestation a graders' camp of rude slab shelters is turning out its hordeof wild-looking Italians; and on a crooked spur track fronting theshanties blue wood-smoke is curling lazily upward from the kitchen carof a construction train. 

All night long the Rosemary, drawn by the sturdiest of mountain-climbinglocomotives, had stormed onward and upward from the valley of theGrand, through black defiles and around the shrugged shoulders of themighty peaks to find a resting-place in the white-robed dawn on thesiding at Argentine. The lightest of sleepers, Virginia had awakenedwhen the special was passing through Carbonate; and, drawing the berthcurtain, she had lain for an hour watching the solemn procession ofcliffs and peaks wheeling in stately and orderly array against theinky background of sky. Now, in the steel-blue dawn, she was--orthought she was--the first member of the party to dress and steal outupon the railed platform to look abroad upon the wondrous scene in thecanyon. 

But her reverie, trance-like in its wordless enthusiasm, was presentlybroken by a voice behind her--the voice, namely, of Mr. ArthurJastrow. 

"What a howling wilderness, to be sure, isn't it?" said the secretary, twirling his eyeglasses by the cord and looking, as he felt, interminably bored. 

"No, indeed; anything but that, " she retorted warmly. "It is granderthan anything I ever imagined. I wish there were a piano in the car. It makes me fairly ache to set it in some form of expression, andmusic is the only form I know. "

"I'm glad if it doesn't bore you, " he rejoined, willing to agree withher for the sake of prolonging the interview. "But to me it is nothingmore than a dreary wilderness, as I say; a barren, rock-ribbed gulchaffording an indifferent right of way for two railroads. "

"For one, " she corrected, in a quick upflash of loyalty for her kin. 

The secretary shifted his gaze from the mountains to the maiden andsmiled. She was exceedingly good to look upon--high-bred, queenly, andjust now the fine fire of enthusiasm quickened her pulses and sent therare flush to neck and cheek. 

Jastrow the cold-eyed, the business automaton, set to go off with aclick at Mr. Somerville Darrah's touch, had ambitions not automatic. Some day he meant to put the world of business under foot as aconqueror, standing triumphant on the apex of that pyramid of successwhich the Mr. Somerville Darrahs were so painstakingly uprearing. Whenthat day should come, there would need to be an establishment, amenage, a queen for the kingdom of success. Summing her up for thehundredth time since the beginning of the westward flight, he thoughtMiss Carteret would fill the requirements passing well. 

But this was a divagation, and he pulled himself back to the askingsof the moment, agreeing with her again without reference to hisprivate convictions. 

"For one, I should have said, " he amended. "We mean to have it thatway, though an unprejudiced onlooker might be foolish enough to saythat there is a pretty good present prospect of two. "

But Miss Carteret was in a contradictory mood. Moreover, she was awoman, and the way to a woman's confidence does not lie through theneutral country of easy compliance. 

"If you won't take the other side, I will, " she said. "There will betwo. "

Jastrow acquiesced a second time. 

"I shouldn't wonder. Our competitor's road seems to be only a questionof time--a very short time, judging from the number of men turning outin the track gang down yonder. "

Virginia leaned over the railing to look past the car and the dovecotestation shading her eyes to shut out the snow-blink from the sun-firedpeaks. 

"Why, they are soldiers!" she exclaimed. "At least, some of them haveguns on their shoulders. And see--they are forming in line!"

The secretary adjusted his eye-glasses. 

"By Jove! you are right; they have armed the track force. The newchief of construction doesn't mean to take any chances of being shakenloose by main strength. Here they come. "

The end of track of the new line was diagonally across the creek fromthe Rosemary's berth and a short pistol-shot farther down stream. Butto advance it to a point opposite the private car, and to gain thealtitude of the high embankment directly across from the station, thenew line turned short out of the main canyon at the mouth of theintersecting gorge, describing a long, U-shaped curve around the headof the lateral ravine and doubling back upon itself to reenter thecanyon proper at the higher elevation. 

The curve which was the beginning of this U-shaped loop was themorning's scene of action, and the Utah track-layers, two hundredstrong, moved to the front in orderly array, with armed guards asflankers for the handcar load of rails which the men were pushing upthe grade. 

Jastrow darted into the car, and a moment later his place on theobservation platform was taken by a wrathful industry colonel freshfrom his dressing-room--so fresh, indeed, that he was coatless, hatless, and collarless, and with the dripping bath-sponge clutchedlike a missile to hurl at the impudent invaders on the opposite sideof the canyon. 

"Hah! wouldn't wait until a man could get into his clothes!" herasped, apostrophizing the Utah's new chief of construction. "Jastrow!Faveh me instantly, seh! Hustle up to the camp there and turn out theconstable, town-marshal, or whatever he is. Tell him I have a writ forhim to serve. Run, seh!"

The secretary appeared and disappeared like a marionette when thestring has been jerked by a vigorous hand, and Virginia smiled--thiswithout prejudice to a very acute appreciation of the gravepossibilities which were preparing themselves. But having her share ofthe militant quality which made her uncle what he was, she stood herground. 

"Aren't you afraid you will take cold, Uncle Somerville?" she askedarchly; and the Rajah came suddenly to a sense of his incompletenessand went in to finish his ablutions against the opening of the battleactual. 

At first Virginia thought she would follow him. When Mercury Jastrowshould return with the officer of the law there would be trouble ofsome sort, and the woman in her shrank from the witnessing of it. Butat the same instant the blood of the fighting Carterets asserteditself and she resolved to stay. 

"I wonder what uncle hopes to be able to do?" she mused. "Will alittle town constable with a bit of signed paper from some lawyer orjudge be mighty enough to stop all that furious activity over there?It's more than incredible. "

From that she fell to watching the activity and the orderly purpose ofit. A length of steel, with men clustering like bees upon it, wouldslide from its place on the hand-car to fall with a frosty clang onthe cross-ties. Instantly the hammermen would pounce upon it. Onewould fall upon hands and knees to "sight" it into place; two otherswould slide the squeaking track-gage along its inner edge; a quartet, working like the component parts of a faultless mechanism, would tapthe fixing spikes into the wood; and then at a signal a dozen of theheavy pointed hammers swung aloft and a rhythmic volley of resoundingblows clamped the rail into permanence on its wooden bed. 

Ahead of the steel-layers were the Italians placing the cross-ties inposition to receive the track, and here the foreman's badge of officeand scepter was a pick-handle. Above all the clamor and the shoutingsVirginia could hear the bull-bellow of this foreman roaring out hiscommands--in terms happily not understandable to her; and once shedrew back with a little cry of womanly shrinking when the pick-handlethwacked upon the shoulders of one who lagged. 

It was this bit of brutality which enabled her to single out Winton inthe throng of workers. He heard the blow, and the oath that went withit, and she saw him run forward to wrench the bludgeon from thebully's hands and fling it afar. What words emphasized the act shecould not hear, but the little deed of swift justice thrilled hercuriously, and her heart warmed to him as it had when he had thrownoff his coat to fall to work on the derailed engine of the Limited. 

"That was fine!" she said to herself. "Most men in his place wouldn'tcare, so long as the work was done, and done quickly. I wonderif--oh, you startled me!"

It was Mr. Somerville Darrah again, clothed upon and in his rightmind; otherwise the mind of a master of men who will brook neitherdefeat at the hands of an antagonist nor disobedience on the part ofhis following. He was scowling fiercely across at the Utah activitieswhen she spoke, but at her exclamation the frown softened into a smilefor his favorite niece. 

"Startled you, eh? Pahdon me, my deah Virginia. But as I am about tostartle some one else, perhaps you would better go in to your aunt. "

She put a hand on his arm. "Please let me stay out here, UncleSomerville, " she said. "I'll be good and not get in the way. "

He shook his head, in deprecation rather than in refusal. 

"An officer will be here right soon now to make an arrest. There maybe a fight, or at least trouble of a sort you wouldn't care to see, mydeah. "

"Is it--is it Mr. Winton?" she asked. 

He nodded. 

"What has he been doing--besides being 'The Enemy'?"

The Rajah's smile was ferocious. 

"Just now he is trespassing, and directing others to trespass, uponprivate property. Do you see that dump up there on the mountain?--thehole that looks like a mouth with a long gray beard hanging below it?That is a mine, and its claim runs down across the track where MistehWinton is just now spiking his rails. "

"But, I don't understand, " she began; then she stopped short and clungto the strong arm. A man in a wide-flapped hat and cowboy_chaparejos_, with a revolver on either hip, was crossing the streamon the ice-bridge to scramble up the embankment of the new line. 

"The officer?" she asked in an awed whisper. 

The Rajah made a sign of assent. Then, identifying Winton in thethrong of workers, he forgot Virginia's presence. "Confound him!" hefumed. "I'd give a thousand dollars if he'd faveh me by showing fightso we could lock him up on a criminal count!"

"Why, Uncle Somerville!" she cried. 

But there was no time for reproaches. The leather-breeched personparading as the Argentine town-marshal had climbed the embankment, and, singling out his man, was reading his warrant. 

Contrary to Mr. Darrah's expressed hope, Winton submitted quietly. With a word to his men--a word that stopped the strenuous labor-battleas suddenly as it had begun--he turned to pick his way down the roughhillside at the heels of the marshal. 

For some reason that she could never have set out in words Virginiawas distinctly disappointed. It was no part of her desire to see theconflict blaze up in violence, but it nettled her to see Winton giveup so easily. Some such thought as this had possession of her whilethe marshal and his prisoner were picking their way across the ice, and she was hoping that Winton would give her a chance to requite him, if only with a look. 

But it was Town-Marshal Peter Biggin, affectionately known to hisconstituents as "Bigginjin Pete, " who gave her the covetedopportunity. Instead of disappearing decently with his captive, themarshal made the mistake of his life by marching Winton up the trackto the private car, thrusting him forward, and saying: "Here's yermeat, Guv'nor. What-all 'ud ye like fer me to do with hit now I'vegot it?"

Now it is safe to assume that the Rajah had no intention of appearingthus openly as the instigator of Winton's arrest. Hence, if a fiercescowl and a wordless oath could maim, it is to be feared that theoverzealous Mr. Biggin would have been physically disqualified on thespot. As it was, Mr. Darrah's ebullient wrath could find no adequatespeech forms, and in the eloquent little pause Winton had time tosmile up at Miss Carteret and to wish her the pleasantest ofgood-mornings. 

But the Rajah's handicap was not permanent. 

"Confound you, seh!" he exploded. "I'm not a justice of the peace! Ifyou've made an arrest, you must have had a warrant for it, and youought to know what to do with your prisoneh. "

"I'm dashed if I do, " objected the simple-hearted Mr. Biggin. "Iallowed you wanted him. "

Winton laughed openly. 

"Simplify it for him, Mr. Darrah. We all know that it was your move tostop the work, and you have stopped it--for the moment. What is thecharge, and where is it answerable?"

The Rajah dropped the mask and spoke to the point. 

"The cha'ge, seh, is trespass, and it is answerable in JudgeWhitcomb's cou't in Carbonate. The plaintiff in this particular caseis John Doe, the supposable owneh of that mining claim up yondeh. Inthe next it will probably be Richa'd Roe. You are fighting a losingbattle, seh. "

Winton's smile showed his teeth. 

"That remains to be seen, " he countered coolly. 

The Rajah waved a shapely hand toward the opposite embankment, wherethe tracklayers were idling in silent groups waiting for some one inauthority to tell them what to do. 

"We can do that every day, Misteh Winton. And each separate individualarrest will cost your company twelve hours, or such a matteh--the timerequired for you to go to Carbonate to give bond for your appearance. "

During this colloquy Virginia had held her ground stubbornly, thisthough she felt intuitively that it would be the greatest possiblerelief to all three of these men if she would go away. 

But now a curious struggle as of a divided allegiance was holding her. Of course, she wanted Mr. Somerville Darrah to win. Since he was itsadvocate, his cause must be righteous and just. But against thisdutiful convincement there was a rebellious hope that Winton would notallow himself to be beaten; or, rather, it was a feeling that shewould never forgive him if he should. 

So it was that she stood with face averted lest he should see her eyesand read the rebellious hope in them. And in spite of the precautionhe both saw and read, and made answer to the Rajah's ultimatumaccordingly. 

"Do your worst, Mr. Darrah. We have some twenty miles of steel to layto take us into the Carbonate yards. That steel shall go down in spiteof anything you can do to prevent it. "

Virginia waited breathless for her uncle's reply to this cooldefiance. Quite contrary to all precedent, it was mildlyexpostulatory. 

"It grieves me, seh, to find you so determined to cou't failure, " hebegan; and when the whistle of the upcoming Carbonate train gave himleave to go on: "Constable, you will find transpo'tation for yourselfand one in the hands of the station agent. Misteh Winton, that is yourtrain. I wish you good-morning and a pleasant journey. Come, Virginia, we shall be late to ouh breakfast. "

Winton walked back to the station at the heels of his captor, cudgeling his brain to devise some means of getting word to Adams. Happily the Technologian, who had been unloading steel at theconstruction camp, had been told of the arrest, and when Wintonreached the station he found his assistant waiting for him. 

But now the train was at hand and time had grown suddenly precious. Winton turned short upon the marshal. 

"This is not a criminal matter, Mr. Biggin: will you give me a momentwith my friend?"

The ex-cowboy grinned. "Bet your life I will. I ain't lovin' that oldb'iler-buster in the private car none too hard. " And he went in to getthe passes. 

"What's up?" queried Adams, forgetting his drawl for once in a way. 

"An arrest--trumped-up charge of trespass on that mining claim upyonder. But I've got to go to Carbonate to answer the charge and givebonds, just the same. "

"Any instructions?"

"Yes. When the train is out of sight and hearing, you get back overthere and drive that track-laying for every foot there is in it. "

Adams nodded. "I'll do it, and get myself locked up, I suppose. "

"No, you won't; that's the beauty of it. The majesty of the law--allthere is of it in Argentine--goes with me to Carbonate in the personof the town-marshal. "

"Oh, good--succulently good! Well, so long. I'll look for you back onthe evening train?"

"Sure, " was the confident reply, "if the Rajah doesn't order it to beabandoned on my poor account. "

Ten minutes later, when the train had gone storming on its way toCarbonate and the Rosemary party was at breakfast, the clank of steeland the chanteys of the hammermen on the other side of the canyonbegan again with renewed vigor. The Rajah threw up his head like awar-horse scenting the battle from afar and laid his commands upon thelong-suffering secretary. 

"Faveh me, Jastrow. Get out there and see what they are doing, seh. "

The secretary was back in the shortest possible interval, and hisreport was concise and business-like. 

"Work under full headway again, in charge of a fellow who wears abilly-cock hat and smokes cigarettes. "

"Mr. Morton P. Adams, " said Virginia, recognizing the description. "Will you have him arrested too, Uncle Somerville?"

But the Rajah rose hastily without replying and went to his officestate-room, followed, shadow-like, by the obsequious Jastrow. 

It was some little time after breakfast, and Virginia and the ReverendBilly were doing a constitutional on the plank platform at thestation, when the secretary came down from the car on his way to thetelegraph office. 

It was Virginia who stopped him. "What do we do next, Mr. Jastrow?"she said; "call in the United States Army?"

For reply he handed her a telegram, damp from the copying press. Itwas addressed to the superintendent of the C. G. R. At Carbonate, andshe read it without scruple. 

 "Have the Sheriff of Ute County swear in a dozen deputies and come with them by special train to Argentine. Revive all possible titles to abandoned mining claims on line of the Utah Extension, and have Sheriff Deckert bring blank warrants to cover any emergency. 

 "DARRAH V. -P. "

"That's one of them, " said the secretary. "I daren't show you theother. "

"Oh, please!" she said, holding out her hand, while the Reverend Billyconsiderately turned his back. 

Jastrow weighed the chances of detection. It was little enough hecould do to lay her under obligations to him, and he was willing to dothat little as he could. "I guess I can trust you, " he said, and gaveher the second square of press-damp paper. 

Like the first, it was addressed to the superintendent at Carbonate. But this time the brown eyes flashed and her breath came quickly asshe read the vice-president's cold-blooded after-thought:

 "Town-Marshal Biggin will arrive in Carbonate on Number 201 this A. M. With a prisoner. Have our attorneys see to it that the man is promptly jailed in default of bond. If he is set at liberty, as he is likely to be, I shall trust you to arrange for his rearrest and detention at all hazards. 

 "D. "

V. THE LANDSLIDE

Virginia took the first step in the perilous path of the strategistwhen she handed the incendiary telegram back to Jastrow. 

"Poor Mr. Winton!" she said, with the real sympathy in the words mademost obviously perfunctory by the tone. "What a world of possibilitiesthere is masquerading behind that little word 'arrange. ' Tell me moreabout it, Mr. Jastrow. How will they 'arrange' it?"

"Winton's rearrest? Nothing easier in a tough mining-camp likeCarbonate, I should say. "

"Yes, but how?"

"I can't prophesy how Grafton will go about it, but I know what Ishould do. "

Virginia's smile was irresistible, but there was a look in the deepestdepth of the brown eyes that was sifting Mr. Arthur Jastrow to theinnermost sand-heap of his desert nature. 

"How would you do it, Mr. Napoleon Jastrow?" she asked, giving him theexact fillip on the side of gratified vanity. 

"Oh, I'd fix him. He is in a frame of mind right now; and by the timethe lawyers are through drilling him in the trespass affair, he'll bejust spoiling for a row with somebody. "

"Do you think so? Oh, how delicious! And then what?"

"Then I'd hire some plug-ugly to stumble up against him and pick aquarrel with him. He'd do the rest--and land in the lock-up. "

Those who knew her best said it was a warning to be heeded in MissVirginia Carteret when her eyes were downcast and her voice sank toits softest cadence. 

"Why, certainly; how simple!" she said, taking her cousin's arm again;and the secretary went in to set the wires at work in Winton's affair. 

Now Miss Carteret was a woman in every fiber of her, but among hergifts she might have counted some that were, to say the least, super-feminine. One of these was a measure of discretion which wouldhave been fairly creditable in a past master of diplomacy. So, whilethe sympathetic part of her was crying out for a chance to talkWinton's threatened danger over with some one, she lent herselfoutwardly to the Reverend Billy's mood--which was one of scenicenthusiasm; this without prejudice to a growing determination tointervene in behalf of fair play for Winton if she could find a way. 

But the way obstinately refused to discover itself. The simple thingto do would be to appeal to her uncle's sense of justice. It was notlike him to fight with ignoble weapons, she thought, and a tactfulword in season might make him recall the order to the superintendent. But she could not make the appeal without betraying Jastrow. She knewwell enough that the secretary had no right to show her the telegrams;knew also that Mr. Somerville Darrah's first word would be a demand toknow how she had learned the company's business secrets. RegardingJastrow as little as a high-bred young woman to whom sentiment is asthe breath of life can regard a man who is quite devoid of it, she wasstill far enough from the thought of effacing him. 

To this expedient there was an unhopeful alternative: namely, thesending, by the Reverend Billy, or, in the last resort, by herself, ofa warning message to Winton. But there were obstacles seeminglyinsuperable. She had not the faintest notion of how such a warningshould be addressed; and again, the operator at Argentine was aColorado and Grand River employee, doubtless loyal to his salt, inwhich case the warning message would never get beyond hiswaste-basket. 

"Getting too chilly for you out here? Want to go in?" asked theReverend Billy, when the scenic enthusiasm began to outwear itself. 

"No; but I am tired of the sentry-go part of it--ten steps and aturn, " she confessed. "Can't we walk on the track a little way?"

Calvert saw no reason why they might not, and accordingly helped herover to the snow-encrusted path between the rails. 

"We can trot down and have a look at their construction camp, if youlike, " he suggested, and thitherward they went. 

There was not much to see, after all, as the Reverend Billy remarkedwhen they had reached a coign of vantage below the curve. A string ofuse-worn bunk cars; a "dinkey" caboose serving as the home on wheelsof the chief of construction and his assistant; a crooked siding witha gang of dark-skinned laborers at work unloading a car of steel. These in the immediate foreground; and a little way apart, perchedhigh enough on the steep slope of the mountain side to be out of thecamp turmoil, a small structure, half plank and half canvas--to wit, the end-of-track telegraph office. 

It was Virginia who first marked the boxed-up tent standing on theslope. 

"What do you suppose that little house-tent is for?" she asked. 

"I don't know, " said Calvert. Then he saw the wires and ventured aguess which hit the mark. 

"I didn't suppose they would have a telegraph office, " she commented, with hope rising again. 

"Oh, yes; they'd have to have a wire--one of their own. Under thecircumstances they could hardly use ours. "

"No, " she rejoined absently. She was scanning the group ofsteel-handlers in the hope that a young man in a billy-cock hat andwith a cigarette between his lips would shortly reveal himself. Shefound him after a time and turned quickly to her cousin. 

"There is Mr. Adams down by the engine. Do you think he would comeover and speak to us if he knew we were here?"

The Reverend Billy's smile was of honest admiration. 

"How could you doubt it? Wait here a minute and I'll call him foryou. "

He was gone before she could reply--across the ice-bridge spanning oneof the pools, and up the rough, frozen embankment of the new line. There were armed guards here, too, as well as at the front, and one ofthem halted him at the picket line. But Adams saw and recognized him, and presently the two were crossing to where Virginia stood waitingfor them. 

"Eheu! what a little world we live in, Miss Virginia! Who would havethought of meeting you here?" said Adams, taking her hand at theprecise elevation prescribed by good form--Boston good form. 

"The shock is mutual, " she laughed. "I must say that you and Mr. Winton have chosen a highly unconventional environment for yoursketching-field. "

"I'm down, " he admitted cheerfully; "please don't trample on me. Butreally, it wasn't all fib. Jack does do things with a pencil--otherthings besides maps and working profiles, I mean. Won't you come overand let me do the honors of the studio?"--with a grandiloquentarm-sweep meant to include the construction camp in general and the"dinkey" caboose-car in particular. 

It was the invitation she would have angled for, but she was too wiseto assent too readily. 

"Oh, no; I think we mustn't. I'm afraid Mr. Winton might not like it. "

"Not like it? If you'll come he'll never forgive himself for not beinghere to 'shoot up' the camp for you in person. He is away, you know;gone to Carbonate for the day. "

"Ought we to go, Cousin Billy?" she asked, shifting, not the decision, but the responsibility for it, to broader shoulders. 

"Why not, if you care to?" said the athlete, to whom right-of-wayfights were mere matters of business in no wise conflicting with thesocial ameliorations. 

Virginia hesitated. There was a thing to be said to Mr. Adams, andthat without delay; but how could she say it with her cousin standingby to make an impossible trio out of any attempted duet confidential?A willingness to see that Winton had fair play need not carry with itan open desertion to the enemy. She must not forget to be loyal to hersalt; and, besides, Mr. Somerville Darrah's righteous indignation wasa possibility not lightly to be ignored. 

But, the upshot of the hesitant pause was a decision to brave theconsequences--all of them; so she took Calvert's arm for the slipperycrossing of the ice-bridge. 

Once on his own domain, Adams did the honors of the camp as thoroughlyand conscientiously as if the hour held no care heavier than theentertainment of Miss Virginia Carteret. He explained the system underwhich the material was kept moving forward to the ever-advancingfront; let her watch the rhythmic swing and slide of the rails fromthe car to the benches; took her up into the cab of the big "octopod"locomotive; gave her a chance to peep into the camp kitchen car; andconcluded by handing her up the steps of the "dinkey. "

"Oh, how comfortable!" she exclaimed, when he had shown her all thespace-saving contrivances of the field office. "And this is where youand Mr. Winton work?"

"It is where we eat and sleep, " corrected Adams. "And speaking ofeating: it is hopelessly the wrong end of the day, --or it would be inBoston, --but our Chinaman won't know the difference. Let me have himmake you a dish of tea, "--and the order was given before she couldprotest. 

"While we are waiting for Ah Foo I'll show you some of Jack'ssketches, " he went on, finding a portfolio and opening it upon thedrawing-board. 

"Are you quite sure Mr. Winton won't mind?" she asked. 

"Mind? He'd give a month's pay to be here to show them himself. He ispeacock vain of his one small accomplishment, Winton is--bores me todeath with it sometimes. "

"Really?" was the mocking rejoinder, and they began to look at thesketches. 

They were heads, most of them, impressionistic studies in pencil orpastel, with now and then a pen-and-ink bearing evidence of morepainstaking after-work. They were made on bits of map paper, the backsof old letters, and not a few on leaves torn from an engineer'snote-book. 

"They don't count for much in an artistic way, " said Adams, with thebrutal frankness of a friendly critic, "but they will serve to showyou that I wasn't all kinds of an embroiderer when I was telling youabout Winton's proclivities the other day. "

"I shouldn't apologize for that, if I were you, " she retorted. "It iswell past apology, don't you think?" And then: "What is this one?"

They had come to the last of the sketches, which was a rude map. Itwas penciled on the leaf of a memorandum, and Adams recognized it asthe outline Winton had made and used in explaining the right-of-wayentanglement. 

"It is a map, " he said; "one that Jack drew day before yesterday whenhe was trying to make me understand the situation up here. I wonderwhy he kept it? Is there anything on the other side?"

She turned the leaf, and they both went speechless for the moment. Thereverse of the scrap of cross-ruled paper held a very fair likeness ofa face which Virginia's mirror had oftenest portrayed: a sketchsetting forth in a few vigorous strokes of the pencil theimpressionist's ideal of the "goddess fresh from the bath. "

"By Jove!" exclaimed Adams, when he could find the word for hissurprise. Then he tried to turn it off lightly. "There is a good bitmore of the artist in Jack than I have been giving him credit for. Don't you know, he must have got the notion for that between twohalf-seconds--when you recognized me on the platform at Kansas City. It's wonderful!"

"So very wonderful that I think I shall keep it, " she rejoined, notwithout a touch of austerity. Then she added: "Mr. Winton willprobably never miss it. If he does, you will have to explain the bestway you can. " And Adams could only say "By Jove!" again, and busyhimself with pouring the tea which Ah Foo had brought in. 

In the nature of things the tea-drinking in the stuffy "dinkey"drawing-room was not prolonged. Time was flying. Virginia's errand ofmercy was not yet accomplished, and Aunt Martha in her character ofanxious chaperon was not to be forgotten. Also, Miss Carteret had afeeling that under his well-bred exterior Mr. Morton P. Adams waschafing like any barbarian industry captain at this unwarrantableintrusion and interruption. 

So presently they all forthfared into the sun-bright, snow-blinding, out-of-door world, and Virginia gathered up her courage and took herdilemma by the horns. 

"I believe I have seen everything now except that tent-place upthere, " she asserted, groping purposefully for her opening. 

Adams called up another smile of acquiescence. "That is our telegraphoffice. Would you care to see it?" He was of those who shirk all orshirk nothing. 

"I don't know why I should care to, but I do, " she replied, withcharming and childlike wilfulness; so the three of them trudged up theslippery path to the operator's den on the slope. 

Not to evade his hospitable duty in any part, Adams explained the useand need of a "front" wire, and Miss Carteret was properly interested. 

"How convenient!" she commented. "And you can come up here and talk toanybody you like--just as if it were a telephone?"

"To anyone in the company's service, " amended Adams. "It is not acommercial wire. "

"Then let us send a message to Mr. Winton, " she suggested, playing thepart of the capricious _ingenue_ to the very upcast of a pair ofmischievous eyes. "I'll write it and you may sign it. "

Adams stretched his complaisance the necessary additional inch andgave her a pencil and a pad of blanks. She wrote rapidly:

 "Miss Carteret has been here admiring your drawings. She took one of them away with her, and I couldn't stop her without being rude. You shouldn't have done it without asking her permission. She says--"

"Oh, dear! I am making it awfully long. Does it cost so much a word?"

"No, " said Adams, not without an effort. He was beginning to bedistinctly disappointed in Miss Virginia, and was inwardly wonderingwhat piece of girlish frivolity he was expected to sign and send tohis chief. Meanwhile she went on writing:

 "--I am to tell you not to get into any fresh trouble--not to let anyone else get you into trouble; by which I infer she means that some attempt will be made to keep you from returning on the evening train. "

"There, can you send all that?" she asked sweetly, giving the pad toher host. 

Adams read the first part of the letter length telegram with inwardgroanings, but the generous purpose of it struck him like a whip-blowwhen he came to the thinly-veiled warning. Also it shamed him for hisunworthy judgment of Virginia. 

"I thank you very heartily, Miss Carteret, " he said humbly. "It shallbe sent word for word. " Then, for the Reverend William's benefit:"Winton deserves all sorts of a snubbing for taking liberties withyour portrait. I'll see he gets more when he comes back. "

Here the matter rested; and, having done what she conceived to be hercharitable duty, Virginia was as anxious to get away as heart--theheart of a slightly bored Reverend Billy, for instance--could wish. 

So they bade Adams good-by and picked their way down the frozenembankment and across the ice-bridge; down and across and back to theRosemary, where they found a perturbed chaperon in a flutter ofsolicitude arising upon their mysterious disappearance and longabsence. 

"It may be just as well not to tell any of them where we have been, "said Virginia in an aside to her cousin. And so the incident oftea-drinking in the enemy's camp was safely put away like a littlepersonal note in its envelop with the flap gummed down. 

VI. THE RAJAH GIVES AN ORDER

While Adams was dispensing commissary tea in iron-stone china cups tohis two guests in the "dinkey" field office, his chief, taking theRosemary's night run in reverse in the company of Town-Marshal Biggin, was turning the Rajah's coup into a small Utah profit. 

Having come upon the ground late the night before, and from theopposite direction, he had seen nothing of the extension grade west ofArgentine. Hence the enforced journey to Carbonate only anticipated aninspection trip which he had intended to make as soon as he had seatedAdams firmly in the track-laying saddle. 

Not to miss his opportunity, at the first curve beyond Argentine hepassed his cigar-case to Biggin and asked permission to ride on therear platform of the day-coach for inspection purposes. 

"Say, pardner, what do you take me fer, anyhow?" was the reproachfulrejoinder. 

"For a gentleman in disguise, " said Winton promptly. 

"Sim'larly, I do you; savvy? You tell me you ain't goin' to stampede, and you ride anywhere you blame please. See? This here C. G. R. Outfitain't got no surcingle on me. "

Winton smiled. 

"I haven't any notion of stampeding. As it happens, I'm only a dayahead of time. I should have made this run to-morrow of my own accordto have a look at the extension grade. You will find me on the rearplatform when you want me. "

"Good enough, " was the reply; and Winton went to his post ofobservation. 

Greatly to his satisfaction, he found that the trip over the C. G. R. Answered every purpose of a preliminary inspection of the Utah gradebeyond Argentine. For seventeen of the twenty miles the two lines werescarcely more than a stone's throw apart, and when Biggin joined himat the junction above Carbonate he had his note-book well filled withthe necessary data. 

"Make it, all right?" inquired the friendly bailiff. 

"Yes, thanks. Have another cigar?"

"Don't care if I do. Say, that old fire-eater back yonder in theprivate car has got a mighty pretty gal, ain't he?"

"The young lady is his niece, " said Winton, wishing that Mr. Bigginwould find other food for comment. 

"I don't care; she's pretty as a Jersey two-year-old. "

"It's a fine day, " observed Winton; and then, to background MissCarteret effectually as a topic: "How do the people of Argentine feelabout the opposition to our line?"

"They're red-hot; you can put your money on that. The C. G. R. 's asure-enough tail-twister where there ain't no competition. Yourroad'll get every pound of ore in the camp if it ever gets through. "

Winton made a mental note of this up-cast of public opinion, and setit over against the friendly attitude of the official Mr. Biggin. Itwas very evident that the town-marshal was serving the Rajah's purposeonly because he had to. 

"I suppose you stand with your townsmen on that, don't you?" heventured. 

"Now you're shouting: that's me. "

"Then if that is the case, we won't take this little holiday of oursany harder than we can help. When the court business is settled--itwon't take very long--you are to consider yourself my guest. We stopat the Buckingham. "

"Oh, we do, do we? Say, pardner, that's white--mighty white. If I'd'a' been an inch or so more'n half awake this morning when that oldb'iler-buster's hired man routed me out, I'd 'a' told him to go toblazes with his warrant. Nex' time I will. "

Winton shook his head. "There isn't going to be any 'next time, 'Peter, my son, " he prophesied. "When Mr. Darrah gets fairly down tobusiness he'll throw bigger chunks than the Argentine town-marshal atus. "

By this time the train was slowing into Carbonate, and a few minutesafter the stop at the crowded platform they were making their way upthe single bustling street of the town to the court-house. 

"Ever see so many tin-horns and bunco people bunched in all yourround-ups?" said Biggin, as they elbowed through the uneasy shiftinggroups in front of the hotel. 

"Not often, " Winton admitted. "But it's the luck of the big camps:they are the dumping-grounds of the world while the high pressure ison. "

The ex-range-rider turned on the courthouse steps to look the sidewalkloungers over with narrowing eyes. 

"There's Sheeny Mike and Big Otto and half a dozen others right therein front o' the Buckingham that couldn't stay to breathe twice inArgentine. And this town's got a po-lice!"--the comment withlip-curling scorn. 

"It also has a county court which is probably waiting for us, " saidWinton; whereupon they went in to appease the offended majesty of thelaw. 

As Winton had predicted, his answer to the court summons was a mereformality. On parting with his chief at the Argentine stationplatform, Adams' first care had been to wire news of the arrest to theUtah headquarters. Hence Winton found the company's attorney waitingfor him in Judge Whitcomb's courtroom, and his release on anappearance bond was only a matter of moments. 

The legal affair dismissed, there ensued a weary interval oftime-killing. There was no train back to Argentine until nearly fiveo'clock in the afternoon, and the hours dragged heavily for the two, who had nothing to do but wait. Biggin endured his part of it manfullytill the midday dinner had been discussed; then he drifted off withone of Winton's cigars between his teeth, saying that he should "takepoison" and shoot up the town if he could not find some more peacefulmeans of keeping his blood in circulation. 

It was a little after three o'clock, and Winton was sitting at thewriting-table in the lobby of the hotel elaborating his hasty notebookdata of the morning's inspection, when a boy came in with a telegram. The young engineer was not so deeply engrossed in his work as to bedeaf to the colloquy. 

"Mr. John Winton? Yes, he is here somewhere, " said the clerk in answerto the boy's question; and after an identifying glance: "There heis--over at the writing-table. "

Winton turned in his chair and saw the boy coming toward him; also hesaw the ruffian pointed out by Biggin from the court-house steps andlabeled "Sheeny Mike" lounging up to the clerk's desk for a whisperedexchange of words with the bediamonded gentleman behind it. 

What followed was cataclysmic in its way. The lounger took threestaggering lurches toward Winton, brushed the messenger boy aside, andburst out in a storm of maudlin invective. 

"Sign yerself 'Winton' now, do yet ye lowdown, turkey-trodden--"

"One minute, " said Winton curtly, taking the telegram from the boy andsigning for it. 

"I'll give ye more'n ye can carry away in less'n half that time--see?"was the minatory retort; and the threat was made good by an awkwardbuffet which would have knocked the engineer out of his chair if hehad remained in it. 

Now Winton's eyes were gray and steadfast, but his hair was of thatshade of brown which takes the tint of dull copper in certain lights, and he had a temper which went with the red in his hair rather thanwith the gray in his eyes. Wherefore his attempt to placate hisassailant was something less than diplomatic. 

"You drunken scoundrel!" he snapped. "If you don't go about yourbusiness and let me alone, I'll turn you over to the police with abroken bone or two!"

The bully's answer was a blow delivered straight from the shoulder--toostraight to harmonize with the fiction of drunkenness. Winton saw thesober purpose in it and went battle-mad, as a hasty man will. Being askilful boxer, --which his antagonist was not, --he did what he had todo neatly and with commendable despatch. Down, up; down, up; down athird time, and then the bystanders interfered. 

"Hold on!"

"That'll do!"

"Don't you see he's drunk?"

"Enough's as good as a feast--let him go. "

Winton's blood was up, but he desisted, breathing threatenings. Whereat Biggin shouldered his way into the circle. 

"Pay your bill and let's hike out o' this, _pronto_!" he said in a lowtone. "You ain't got no time to fool with a Carbonate justice shop. "

But Winton was not to be brought to his senses so easily. 

"Run away from that swine? Not if I know it. Let him take it intocourt if he wants to. I'll be there, too. "

The beaten one was up now and apparently looking for an officer. 

"I'm takin' ye all to witness, " he rasped. "I was on'y askin' him tocash up what he lost to me las' night, and he jumps me. But I'll stickhim if there's any law in this camp. "

Now all this time Winton had been holding the unopened telegramcrumpled in his fist, but when Biggin pushed him out of the circle andthrust him up to the clerk's desk, he bethought him to read themessage. It was Virginia's warning, signed by Adams, and a singleglance at the closing sentence was enough to cool him suddenly. 

"Pay the bill, Biggin, and join me in the billiard-room, quick!" hewhispered, pressing money into the town-marshal's hand and losinghimself in the crowd. And when Biggin had obeyed his instructions:"Now for a back way out of this, if there is one. We'll have to taketo the hills till train time. "

They found a way through the bar and out into a side street leadingabruptly up to the spruce-clad hills behind the town. Biggin held hispeace until they were safe from immediate danger of pursuit. Then hiscuriosity got the better of him. 

"Didn't take you more'n a week to change your mind about pullin' itoff with that tinhorn scrapper in the courts, did it?"

"No, " said Winton. 

"'Tain't none o' my business, but I'd like to know what stampededyou. "

"A telegram, "--shortly. "It was a put-up job to have me locked up on acriminal charge, and so hold me out another day. "

Biggin grinned. "The old b'iler-buster again. Say, he's a holy terror, ain't he?"

"He doesn't mean to let me build my railroad if he can help it. "

The ex-cowboy found his sack of chip tobacco and dexterously rolled acigarette in a bit of brown wrapping-paper. 

"If that's the game, Mr. Sheeny Mike, or his backers, will be mostlikely to play it to a finish, don't you guess?"

"How?"

"By havin' a po-liceman layin' for you at the train. "

"I hadn't thought of that. "

"Well, I can think you out of it, I reckon. The branch train is a'commodation, and it'll stop most anywhere if you throw up your handat it. We can take out through the woods and across the hills, and mogup the track a piece. How'll that do?"

"It will do for me, but there is no need of your tramping when you canjust as well ride. "

But now that side of Mr. Peter Biggin which endears him and his kindto every man who has ever shared his lonely round-ups, or broken breadwith him in his comfortless shack, came uppermost. 

"What do you take me fer?" was the way it vocalized itself; but therewas more than a formal oath of loyal allegiance in the curt question. 

"For a man and a brother, " said Winton heartily; and they set outtogether to waylay the outgoing train at some point beyond the dangerlimit. 

It was accomplished without further mishap, and the short winter daywas darkening to twilight when the train came in sight and theengineer slowed to their signal. They climbed aboard, and when theyhad found a seat in the smoker the chief of construction spoke to theex-cowboy as to a friend. 

"I hope Adams has knocked out a good day's work for us, " he said. 

"Your pardner with the store hat and the stinkin' cigaroots?--he's allright, " said Biggin; and it so chanced that at the precise moment ofthe saying the subject of it was standing with the foreman oftrack-layers at a gap in the new line just beyond and above theRosemary's siding at Argentine, his day's work ended, and his menloaded on the flats for the run down to camp over the lately-laidrails of the lateral loop. 

"Not such a bad day, considering the newness of us and the bridge atthe head of the gulch, " he said, half to himself. And then morepointedly to the foreman: "Bridge-builders to the front at the firstcrack of dawn, Mike. Why wasn't this break filled in the grading?"

"Sure, sorr, 'tis a dhrain it is, " said the Irishman; "from the placerup beyant, " he added, pointing to a washed-out excoriation on thesteep upper slope of the mountain. "Major Evarts did be tellin' uswe'd have the lawyers afther us hot-fut again if we didn't be lavin'ut open the full width. "

"Mmph!" said Adams, looking the ground over with a critical eye. "It'sa bad bit. It wouldn't take much to bring that whole slide down on usif it wasn't frozen solid. Who owns the placer?"

"Two fellies over in Carbonate. The company did be thryin' to buy theclaim, but the sharps wouldn't sell--bein' put up to hold ut by thimC. G. R. Divils. It's more throuble we'll be havin' here, I'mthinking. "

While they lingered a shrill whistle, echoing like an eldrich laughamong the cliffs of the upper gorge, announced the coming of a trainfrom the direction of Carbonate. Adams looked at his watch. 

"I'd like to know what that is, " he mused. "It's an hour too soon forthe accommodation. By Jove!"

The exclamation directed itself at a one-car train which camethundering down the canyon to pull in on the siding beyond theRosemary. The car was a passenger coach, well-lighted, and from hispost on the embankment Adams could see armed men filling the windows. Michael Branagan saw them, too, and the fighting Celt in him rose tothe occasion. 

"'Tis Donnybrook Fair we've come to this time, Misther Adams. Shall Icall up the b'ys wid their guns?"

"Not yet. Let's wait and see what happens. "

What happened was a peaceful sortie. Two men, each with a kit of somekind borne in a sack, dropped from the car, crossed the creek, andstruggled up the hill through the unbridged gap. Adams waited untilthey were fairly on the right of way, then he called down to them. 

"Halt, there! you two. This is corporation property. "

"Not much it ain't!" retorted one of the trespassers gruffly. "It'sthe drain-way from our placer up yonder. "

"What are you going to do up there at this time of night?"

"None o' your blame business!" was the explosive counter-shot. 

"Perhaps it isn't, " said Adams mildly. "Just the same, I'm thirstingto know. Call it vulgar curiosity if you like. "

"All right, you can know, and be cussed to you. We're goin' to workour claim. Got anything to say against it?"

"Oh! no, " rejoined Adams; and when the twain had disappeared in theupper darkness he went down the grade with Branagan and took his placeon the man-loaded flats for the run to the construction camp, thinkingmore of the lately-arrived car with its complement of armed men thanof the two miners who had calmly announced their intention of workinga placer claim on a high mountain, without water, and in the dead ofwinter! By which it will be seen that Mr. Morton P. Adams, C. E. M. I. T. Boston, had something yet to learn in the matter ofpractical field work. 

By the time Ah Foo had served him his solitary supper in the dinkey hehad quite forgotten the incident of the mysterious placer miners. Worse than this, it had never occurred to him to connect theirmovements with the Rajah's plan of campaign. On the other hand, he wasthinking altogether of the carload of armed men, and trying to devisesome means of finding out how they were to be employed in furtheringthe Rajah's designs. 

The means suggested themselves after supper, and he went alone over toArgentine to spend a half-hour in the bar of the dance-hall listeningto the gossip of the place. When he had learned what he wanted toknow, he forthfared to meet Winton at the incoming train. 

"We are in for it now, " he said, when they had crossed the creek tothe dinkey and the Chinaman was bringing Winton's belated supper. "TheRajah has imported a carload of armed mercenaries, and he is going toclean us all out to-morrow: arrest everybody from the gang foremenup. "

Winton's eyebrows lifted. "So? that is a pretty large contract. Has hemen enough to do it?"

"Not so many men. But they are sworn-in deputies, with the sheriff ofUte County in command--a posse, in fact. So he has the law on hisside. "

"Which is more than he had when he set a thug on me this afternoon atCarbonate, " said Winton sourly; and he told Adams about themisunderstanding in the lobby of the Buckingham. His friend whistledunder his breath. "By Jove! that's pretty rough. Do you suppose theRajah dictated any such Lucretia Borgia thing as that?"

Winton took time to think about it and admitted a doubt, as he had notbefore. Believing Mr. Somerville Darrah fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils in his official capacity of vice-president of a fightingcorporation, he was none the less disposed to find excuses for MissVirginia Carteret's uncle. 

"I did think so at first, but I guess it was only the misguided zealof some understrapper. Of course, word has gone out all along theC. G. R. Line that we are to be delayed by every possible expedient. "

But Adams shook his head. 

"Mr. Darrah dictated that move in his own proper person. "

"How do you know that?"

"You had a message from me this afternoon?"

"I did. "

"What did you think of it?"

"I thought you might have left out the first part of it; also that youmight have made the latter half a good bit more explicit. "

A slow smile spread itself over Adams' impassive face. 

"Every man has his limitations, " he said. "I did the best I could. Butthe Rajah knew very well what he was about--otherwise there would havebeen no telegram. "

Winton sent the Chinaman out for another cup of tea before he said, "Did Miss Carteret come here alone?"

"Oh, no; Calvert came with her. "

"What brought them here?"

Adams spread his hands. 

"What makes any woman do precisely the most unexpected thing?"

Winton was silent for a moment. Finally he said: "I hope you did whatyou could to make it pleasant for her. "

"I did. And I didn't hear her complain. "

"That was low-down in you, Morty. "

Adams chuckled reminiscently. "Had to do it to make my day-before-yesterdaylie hold water. And she was immensely taken with the scrawls, especiallywith one of them. "

Winton flushed under the bronze. 

"I suppose I don't need to ask which one. "

Adams' grin was a measure of his complacence. 

"Well, hardly. "

"She took it away with her?"

"Took it, or tore it up, I forget which. "

"Tell me, Morty, was she very angry?"

The other took the last hint of laughter out of his eyes before hesaid solemnly: "You'll never know how thankful I was that you weretwenty miles away. "

Winton's cup was full, and he turned the talk abruptly to theindustrial doings and accomplishments of the day. Adams made a verbalreport which led him by successive steps up to the twilight hour whenhe had stood with Branagan on the brink of the placer drain, but, strangely enough, there was no stirring of memory to recall theincident of the upward-climbing miners. 

When Winton rose he said something about mounting a night guard on theengine, which was kept under steam at all hours; and shortly afterwardhe left the dinkey ostensibly to do it, declining Adams' offer ofcompany. But once out-of-doors he climbed straight to the operator'stent on the snow-covered slope. Carter had turned in, but he sat up inhis bunk at the noise of the intrusion. 

"That you, Mr. Winton? Want to send something?" he asked. 

"No, go to sleep. I'll write a wire and leave it for you to send inthe morning. "

He sat down at the packing-case instrument table and wrote out a briefreport of the day's progress in track-laying for the general manager'srecord. But when Carter's regular breathing told him he was alone hepushed the pad aside, took down the sending-hook, and searched untilhe had found the original copy of the message which had reached him atthe moment of cataclysms in the lobby of the Buckingham. 

"Um, " he said, and his heart grew warm within him. "It's just about asI expected: Morty didn't have anything whatever to do with it--exceptto sign and send it as she commanded him to. " And the penciled sheetwas folded carefully and filed in permanence in the inner breastpocket of his brown duck shooting-coat. 

The moon was rising behind the eastern mountain when he extinguishedthe candle and went out. Below lay the chaotic construction campburied in silence and in darkness save for the lighted windows of thedinkey. He was not quite ready to go back to Adams, and after making around of the camp and bidding the engine watchman keep a sharp lookoutagainst a possible night surprise, he set out to walk over thenewly-laid track of the day. 

Another half-hour had elapsed, and a waning moon was clearing thetopmost crags of Pacific Peak when he came out on the high embankmentopposite the Rosemary, having traversed the entire length of thelateral loop and inspected the trestle at the gulch head by the lightof a blazing spruce-branch. 

The station with its two one-car trains, and the shacks of the littlemining-camp beyond, lay shimmering ghost-like in the new-born light ofthe moon. The engine of the sheriff's car was humming softly with anote like the distant swarming of bees, and from the dancehall inArgentine the snort of a trombone and the tinkling clang of a crackedpiano floated out upon the frosty night air. 

Winton turned to go back. The windows of the Rosemary were all dark, and there was nothing to stay for. So he thought, at all events; butif he had not been musing abstractedly upon things widely separatedfrom his present surroundings, he might have remarked two tiny starsof lantern-light high on the placer ground above the embankment; or, failing the sight, he might have heard the dull, measured _slumph_of a churn-drill burrowing deep in the frozen earth of the slope. 

As it was, a pair of brown eyes blinded him, and the tones of a voicesweeter than the songs of Oberon's sea-maid filled his ears. Whereforehe neither saw nor heard; and taking the short cut across the mouth ofthe lateral gulch back to camp, he boarded the dinkey and went to bedwithout disturbing Adams. 

The morning of the day to come broke clear and still, with the starspaling one by one at the pointing finger of the dawn, and thefrost-rime lying thick and white like a snowfall of erect andglittering needles on iron and steel and wood. 

Obedient to orders, the bridge-builders were getting out theirhand-car at the construction camp, the wheels shrilling merrily on thefrosted rails, and the men stamping and swinging their arms to startthe sluggish night-blood. Suddenly, like the opening gun of a battle, the dull rumble of a mighty explosion trembled upon the still air, followed instantly by a sound as of a passing avalanche. 

Winton was out and running up the track before the camp was fairlyaroused. What he saw when he gained the hither side of the lateralgulch was a sight to make a strong man weep. A huge landslide, starting from the frozen placer ground high up on the westernpromontory, had swept every vestige of track and embankment into thedeep bed of the creek at a point precisely opposite Mr. SomervilleDarrah's private car. 

VII. THE MAJESTY OF THE LAW

Virginia was up and dressed when the sullen shock of the explosionset the windows jarring in the Rosemary. 

She hurried out upon the observation platform and so came to lookupon the ruin wrought by the landslide while the dust-like smoke ofthe dynamite still hung in the air. 

"Rather unlucky for our friends the enemy, " said a colorless voicebehind her; and she had an uncomfortable feeling that Jastrow hadbeen lying in wait for her. 

She turned upon him quickly. 

"Was it an accident, Mr. Jastrow?"

"How could it be anything else?" he inquired mildly. 

"I don't know. But there was an explosion: I heard it. "

"It is horribly unfair, " she went on. "I understand the sheriff ishere. Couldn't he have prevented this?"

The secretary's rejoinder was a platitude: "Everything is fair inlove or war. "

"But this is neither, " she retorted. 

"Think not?" he said coolly. "Wait, and you'll see. And a word inyour ear, Miss Carteret: you are one of us, you know, and you mustn'tbe disloyal. I know what you did yesterday after you read thosetelegrams. "

Virginia's face became suddenly wooden. Until that moment it had notoccurred to her that Jastrow's motive in showing her the two telegramsmight have been carefully calculated. 

"I have never given you the right to speak to me that way, Mr. Jastrow, " she said, with the faintest possible emphasis on thecourtesy prefix; and with that she turned from him to focus herfield-glass on the construction camp below. 

At the Utah stronghold all was activity of the fiercest. Winton hadraced back with his news of the catastrophe, and the camp was alivewith men clustering like bees and swarming upon the flat-cars of thematerial-train to be taken to the front. 

While she looked, studiously ignoring the man behind her, Virginiasaw the big octopod engine clamoring up the grade. In a twinklingthe men were off and at work. 

Virginia's color rose and the brown eyes filled swiftly. One partof her ideal was courage of the sort that rises the higher forreverses. But at the instant she remembered the secretary, and, lesthe should spy upon her emotion, she turned and took refuge in thecar. 

In the Rosemary the waiter was laying the plates for breakfast, andBessie and the Reverend William were at the window, watching thestirring industry battle now in full swing on the opposite slope. Virginia joined them. 

"Isn't it a shame!" she said. "Of course, I want our side to win;but it seems such a pity that we can't fight fairly. "

Calvert said, "Isn't what a shame?" thereby eliciting a crispexplanation from Virginia in which she set well-founded suspicionin the light of fact. 

The Reverend Billy shook his head. 

"Such things may be within the law--of business; but they will surelybreed bad blood--"

The interruption was the Rajah in his proper person, bustling outfiercely to a conference with his Myrmidons. By tacit consent thethree at the window fell silent. 

There was a hasty mustering of armed men under the windows of theRosemary, and they heard Sheriff Deckert's low-voiced instructionsto his posse. 

"Take it slow and easy, boys, and don't get rattled. Now, then; gunsto the front! Steady!"

The Reverend Billy rose. 

"What are you going to do?" said Virginia. 

"I'm going to give Winton a tip if it's the last thing I ever do. "

She shook her head and pointed eastward to the mouth of the lateralgulch. Under cover of a clump of evergreen-scrub a man in awideflapped hat and leather breeches was climbing swiftly to the levelof the new line, cautiously waving a handkerchief as a peace token. "That is the man who arrested Mr. Winton yesterday. This time he isgoing to fight on the other side. He'll carry the warning. "

"Think so?" said Calvert. 

"I am sure of it. Open the window, please. I want to see better. "

As yet there was no sign of preparation on the embankment. For themoment the rifles of the track force were laid aside, and every manwas plying pick or shovel. 

Winton was in the thick of the pick-and-shovel melee, urging it on, when Biggin ran up. 

"Hi!" he shouted. "Fixin' to take another play-day in Carbonate?Lookee down yonder!"

Winton looked and became alive to the possibilities in the turningof a leaf. 

"Guns!" he yelled; and at the word of command the tools were flungaside, and the track force, over two hundred strong, became an army. 

"Mulcahey, take half the men and go up the grade till you can rakethose fellows without hitting the car. Branagan, you take the otherhalf and go down till you can cross-fire with Mulcahey. Aim low, bothof you; and the man who fires before he gets the word from me willbreak his neck at a rope's end. Fall in!"

"By Jove!" said Adams. "Are you going to resist? That spells felony, doesn't it?"

Winton pointed to the waiting octopod. 

"I'm going to order the Two-fifteen down out of the way: you may gowith her if you like. "

"I guess not!" quoth the assistant, calmly lighting a fresh cigarette. And then to the water-boy, who was acting quartermaster: "Give mea rifle and a cartridge-belt, Chunky, and I'll stay here with theboss. "

"And where do I come in?" said Biggin to Winton reproachfully. 

"You'll stay out, if your head's level. You've done enough alreadyto send you to Canyon City. "

"I ain't a-forgettin' nothing, " said Peter cheerfully, casting himselfflat behind a heap of earth on the dump-edge. 

While the sheriff's posse was picking its way gingerly over the looserock and earth dam formed by the landslide, the window went up inthe Rosemary and Winton saw Virginia. Without meaning to, she gavehim his battle-word. 

"We are a dozen Winchesters to your one, Mr. Deckert, and we shallresist force with force. Order your men back or there will betrouble. "

Winton stood out on the edge of the cutting, a solitary figure wherea few minutes before the earth had been flying from a hundred shovels. 

The sheriff's reply was an order, but not for retreat. 

"He's one of the men we want; cover him!" he commanded. 

Unless the public occasion appeals strongly to the sympathies or thepassions, a picked-up sheriff's posse is not likely to have very goodmetal in it. Peter Biggin laughed. 

"Don't be no ways nervous, " he said in an aside to Winton. "Themprofessional veniry chumps couldn't hit the side o' Pacific Peak. "

Winton held his ground, while the sheriff tried to drive his men upa bare slope commanded by two hundred rifles to right and left. Theattempt was a humiliating failure. Being something less than soldierstrained to do or die, the deputies hung back to a man. 

Virginia could not forbear a smile. The sheriff burst into causticprofanity. Whereupon Mr. Peter Biggin rose up and sent a bullet toplow a little furrow in the ice within an inch of Deckert's heels. 

"Ex-cuse _me_, Bart, " he drawled, "but no cuss words don't go. "

The sheriff ignored Peter Biggin as a person who could be argued withat leisure and turned to Winton. 

"Come down!" he bellowed. 

Winton laughed. 

"Let me return the invitation. Come up, and you may read your warrantsto us all day. "

Deckert withdrew his men, and at Winton's signal the track-layerscame in and the earth began to fly again. 

Virginia sighed her relief, and Bessie plucked up courage to go tothe window, which she had deserted in the moment of impending battle. 

"Breakfast is served, " announced the waiter as calmly as if themorning meal were the only matter of consequence in a world ofhappenings. 

They gathered about the table, a silent trio made presently a quartetby the advent of Mrs. Carteret, who had neither seen nor heardanything of the warlike episode with which the day had begun. 

Mr. Darrah was late, so late that when he came in, Virginia was theonly one of the four who remained at table. She stayed to pour hiscoffee and to bespeak peace. 

"Uncle Somerville, can't we win without calling in these horrid menwith their guns?"

A mere shadow of a grim smile came and went in the Rajah's eyes. 

"An unprejudiced outsideh might say that the 'horrid men with theirguns' were on top of that embankment, my deah--ten to ouh one, " heremarked. 

"But I should think we might win in some other way, " Virginiapersisted undauntedly. 

Mr. Darrah pushed his plate aside and cleared his throat. 

"For business reasons which you--ah--wouldn't undehstand, we can'tlet the Utah finish this railroad of theirs into Carbonate thiswinteh. "

"So much I have inferred. But Mr. Winton seems to be very determined. "

"Mmph! I wish Mr. Callowell had favehed us with some one else--anyone else. That young fellow is a bawn fighteh, my deah. "

Virginia had a bright idea, and she advanced it without examiningtoo closely into its ethical part. 

"Mr. Winton is working for wages, isn't he?" she asked. 

"Of cou'se; big money, at that. His sawt come high. "

"Well, why can't you hire him away from the other people? Mr. Callowell might not be so fortunate next time. "

The Rajah sat back in his chair and regarded her thoughtfully. 

"What is it?" she asked. 

"Nothing my deah--nothing at all. I was just wondering how awoman's--ah--sense of propo'tion was put togetheh. But your plan hasmerit. Do I understand that you will faveh me with your help?"

"Why, ye-es, certainly, if I can, " she assented, not without dubiety. "That is, I'll be nice to Mr. Winton. "

"That is precisely what I mean, my deah. We'll begin by having himheah to dinneh this evening, him and the otheh young man--what's hisname?--Adams. "

And the upshot of the matter was a dainty note which found its wayby the hands of the private-car porter to Winton, laboring manfullyat his task of repairing the landslide damages. 

"Mr. Somerville Darrah's compliments to Mr. John Winton and Mr. MortonP. Adams, and he will be pleased if they will dine with the partyin the car Rosemary at seven o'clock. 

"Informal. 

"Wednesday, December the Ninth. "

VIII. THE GREEKS BRINGING GIFTS

Adams said "By Jove!" in his most cynical drawl when Winton gave himthe dinner-bidding to read: then he laughed. 

Winton recovered the dainty note, folding it carefully and putting itin his pocket. The handwriting was the same as that of the telegramabstracted from Operator Carter's sending-book. 

"I don't see anything to laugh at, " he objected. 

"No? First the Rajah sends the sheriff's posse packing withoutstriking a blow, and now he invites us to dinner. "

"You make me exceedingly tired at odd moments, Morty. Why can't yougive Mr. Darrah the credit of being what he really is at bottom--aright-hearted Virginia gentleman of the old school?"

"You don't mean that you are going to accept!" said Adams, aghast. 

"Certainly; and so are you. "

There was no more to be said, and Adams held his peace while Wintonscribbled a line of acceptance on a leaf of his note-book and sent itacross to the Rosemary by the hand of the water-boy. 

Their reception at the steps of the Rosemary was a generous proof ofthe aptness of that aphorism which sums up the status _post bellum_ inthe terse phrase, "After war, peace. " Mr. Darrah met them; wasevidently waiting for them. 

"Come in, gentlemen; come in and be at home, "--this with a hand foreach. "Virginia allowed you wouldn't faveh us, but I assured her shedidn't rightly know men of the world: told her that a picayunebusiness affair in which we are all acting as corporation proxiesneedn't spell out anything like a blood feud between gentlemen. "

For another man the informal table gathering might have been easilyprohibitive of confidences _a deux_, even with a Virginia Carteret tohelp, but Winton was far above the trammelings of time and place. Hehad eyes and ears only for the sweet-faced, low-voiced young womanbeside him, and some of his replies to the others were irrelevantenough to send a smile around the board. 

"How very absent-minded Mr. Winton seems to be this evening!" murmuredBessie from her niche between Adams and the Reverend Billy at thefarther end of the table. "He isn't quite at his best, is he, Mr. Adams?"

"No, indeed, " said Adams, matching her undertone, "very far from it. He has been a bit off all day: touch of mountain fever, I'm afraid. "

"But he doesn't look at all ill, " objected Miss Bessie. "I should sayhe is a perfect picture of rude health. "

The coffee was served, and Mrs. Carteret was rising. Whereupon MissVirginia handed her cup to Adams, and so had him for her companion inthe tete-a-tete chair, leaving Winton to shift for himself. 

The shifting process carried him over to the Rajah and the ReverendBilly, to a small table in a corner of the compartment, and theenjoyment of a mild cigar. 

Later, when Calvert had been eliminated by Miss Bessie, Winton lookedto see the true inwardness of the dinner-bidding made manifest by hishost. 

But Mr. Darrah chatted on, affably noncommittal, and after a timeWinton began to upbraid himself for suspecting the ulterior motive. And when he finally rose to excuse himself on a letter-writing plea, his leave-taking was that of the genial host reluctant to part companywith his guest. 

"I've enjoyed your conve'sation, seh; enjoyed it right much. May Ihope you will faveh us often while we are neighbors?"

Winton rose, made the proper acknowledgments, and would have crossedthe compartment to make his adieus to Mrs. Carteret. But at thatmoment Virginia came between. 

"You are not going yet, are you, Mr. Winton? Don't hurry. If you aredying to smoke a pipe, as Mr. Adams says you are, we can go out on theplatform. It isn't too cold, is it?"

"It is clear and frosty, a beautiful night, " he hastened to say. "MayI help you with your coat?"

So presently Winton had his heart's desire, which was to be alone withVirginia. 

She nerved herself for the plunge, --her uncle's plunge. 

"Your part in the building of this other railroad is purely a businessaffair, is it not?"

"My personal interest? Quite so; a mere matter of dollars and cents, you may say. "

"If you should have another offer, from some other company--"

"That is not your argument; it is Mr. Darrah's. You know well enoughwhat is involved: honor, integrity, good faith, everything a manvalues, or should value. I can't believe you would ask such asacrifice of me--of any man. 

"Indeed, I do not ask it, Mr. Winton. But it is only fair that youshould have your warning. My uncle will leave no stone unturned todefeat you. "

He was still looking into her eyes, and so had courage to say whatcame uppermost. 

"I don't care: I shall fight him as hard as I can, but I shall alwaysbe his debtor for this evening. Do you understand?"

In a flash her mood changed and she laughed lightly. 

"Who would think it of you, Mr. Winton. Of all men I should have saidyou were the last to care so much for the social diversions. Shall wego in?"

IX. THE BLOCK SIGNAL. If Mr. John Winton, C. E. , stood in need of a moral tonic, as Adamshad so delicately intimated to Miss Bessie Carteret, it wasadministered in quantity sufficient before he slept on the night ofdinner-givings. 

For a clear-eyed theorist, free from all heart-trammelings and able tograsp the unsentimental fact, the enemy's new plan of campaign wroteitself quite legibly. With his pick and choice among the time-killingexpedients the Rajah could scarcely have found one more to his purposethan the private car Rosemary, including in its passenger list a MissVirginia Carteret. 

All of which Adams, substituting friendly frankness for thedisciplinary traditions of the service, set forth in good BostonianEnglish for the benefit and behoof of his chief, and was answeredaccording to his deserts with scoffings and deridings. 

"I wasn't born yesterday, Morty, and I'm not so desperately asinine asyou seem to think, " was the besotted one's summing-up. "I know theRajah doesn't split hairs in a business fight, but he is hardlyunscrupulous enough to use Miss Carteret as a cat's-paw. "

But Adams would not be scoffed aside so easily. 

"You're off in your estimate of Mr. Darrah, Jack, 'way off. I know thetradition: that a Southern gentleman is all chivalry when it comes toa matter touching his womankind, and I don't controvert it as ageneral proposition. But the Rajah has been a fighting Westernrailroad magnate so long that his accent is about the only Southernasset he has retained. If I'm any good at guessing, he will stick atnothing to gain his end. "

Winton admitted the impeachment without prejudice to his own point ofview. 

"Perhaps you are right. But forewarned is forearmed. And Miss Virginiais not going to lend herself to any such nefarious scheme. "

"Not consciously, perhaps; but you don't know her yet. If she saw agood chance to take the conceit out of you, she'd improve it--withoutthinking overmuch of the possible consequences to the Utah company. "

"Pshaw!" said Winton. "That is another of your literary inferences. I've met her only twice, yet I venture to say I know her better thanyou do. If she cared anything for me--which she doesn't--"

"Oh, go to sleep!" said Adams, who was not minded to argue furtherwith a man besotted; and so the matter went by default for the time. 

But in the days that followed, days in which the sun rose and set incloudless winter splendor and the heavy snows still held aloof, Adams'prediction wrought itself out into sober fact. After the single appealto force, Mr. Darrah seemed to give up the fight. None the less, thedeparture of the Rosemary was delayed, and its hospitable door wasalways open to the Utah chief of construction and his assistant. 

It was very deftly done, and even Adams, the clear-eyed, could nothelp admiring the Rajah's skilful finesse. Of formal dinner-givingsthere might easily have been an end, since the construction camp hadnothing to offer in return. But the formalities were studiouslyignored, and the two young men were put upon a footing of intimacy andencouraged to come and go as they pleased. 

Winton took his welcome broadly, as what lover would not? and within aweek was spending most of his evenings in the Rosemary--this at a timewhen every waking moment of the day and night was deeply mortgaged tothe chance of success. For now that the Rajah had withdrawn hisopposition, Nature and the perversity of inanimate things had taken ahand, and for a fortnight the work of track-laying paused fairlywithin sight of the station at Argentine. 

First it was a carload of steel accidentally derailed and dumped intoQuartz Creek at precisely the worst possible point in the lowercanyon, a jagged, rock-ribbed, cliff-bound gorge where each separatepiece of metal had to be hoisted out singly by a derrick erected forthe purpose--a process which effectually blocked the track for threeentire days. Next it was another landslide (unhelped by dynamite, this) just above the station, a crawling cataract of loose, slidingshale which, painstakingly dug out and dammed with plank bulkheadduring the day, would pour down and bury bulkhead, buttresses, and thevery right of way in the night. 

In his right mind--the mind of an ambitious young captain of industrywho sees defeat with dishonor staring him in the face--Winton wouldhave fought all the more desperately for these hindrances. But, unfortunately, he was no longer an industry captain with an eye singleto success. He was become that anomaly despised of the workingworld--a man in love. 

"It's no use shutting our eyes to the fact, Jack, " said Adams oneevening, when his chief was making ready for his regular descent uponthe Rosemary. "We shall have to put night shifts at work on thatshale-slide if we hope ever to get past it with the rails. "

"Hang the shale!" was the impatient rejoinder. "I'm no galley slave. "

Adams' slow smile came and went in cynical ripplings. 

"It is pretty difficult to say precisely what you are just now. But Ican prophesy what you are going to be if you don't wake up and comealive. "

Having no reply to this, Adams went back to the matter of nightshifts. 

"If you will authorize it, I'll put a night gang on and boss itmyself. What do you say?"

"I say you are no end of a good fellow, Morty. And that's the plainfact. I'll do as much for you some time. "

"I'll be smashed if you will--you'll never get the chance. When I leta pretty girl make a fool of me--"

But the door of the dinkey slammed behind the outgoing one, and theprophet of evil was left to organize his night assault on theshale-slide, and to command it as best he could. 

So, as we say, the days, days of stubborn toil with the enthusiasmtaken out, slipped away unfruitful. Of the entire Utah force Adamsalone held himself up to the mark, and being only second in command, he was unable to keep the bad example of the chief from working likea leaven of inertness among the men. Branagan voiced the situation inrich brogue one evening when Adams had exhausted his limitedvocabulary of abuse on the force for its apathy. "'Tis no use, ava, Misther Adams. If you was the boss himself 'twould be you as would putthe comether on thim too quick. But it's 'like masther, like mon. ' Theb'ys all know that Misther Winton don't care a damn; and they'll notbe hurtin' thimselves wid the wurrk. "

And the Rajah? Between his times of smoking high-priced cigars withWinton in the lounging-room of the Rosemary, he was swearing Jubilatesin the privacy of his working-den state-room, having tri-daily weatherreports wired to him by way of Carbonate and Argentine station, andbusying himself in the intervals with sending and receiving sundrymysterious telegrams in cipher. 

Thus Mr. Somerville Darrah, all going well for him until one fatefulmorning when he made the mistake of congratulating his ally. Then--butwe picture the scene: Mr. Darrah late to his breakfast, being just infrom an early-morning reconnaissance of the enemy's advancings;Virginia sitting opposite to pour his coffee. All the others vanishedto some limbo of their own. 

The Rajah rubbed his hands delightedly. 

"We are coming on famously, famously, my deah Virginia. Two weeksgone, heavy snows predicted for the mountain region, and nothing, practically nothing at all, accomplished on the otheh side of thecanyon. When you marry, my deah, you shall have a block of C. G. R. Preferred stock to keep you in pin-money. "

"I?" she queried. "But, Uncle Somerville, I don't understand--"

The Rajah laughed. 

"That was a very pretty blush, my deah. Bless your innocent soul, ifI were young Misteh Winton, I'm not sure but I should consideh thegame well lost. "

She was gazing at him wide-eyed now, and the blush had left a pallorbehind it. 

"You mean that I--that I--"

"I mean that you are a helpeh worth having, Miss Carteret. Anothehtime Misteh Winton won't pay cou't to a cha'ming young girl and try tobuild a railroad at one and the same moment, I fancy. Hah!"

The startled eyes veiled themselves swiftly, and Virginia's voice sankto its softest cadence. 

"Have I been an accomplice, " she began, "in this--this despicablething, Uncle Somerville?"

Mr. Darrah began a little to see his mistake. 

"Ah--an accomplice? Oh, no, my deah Virginia, not quite that. The wordsmacks too much of the po-lice cou'ts. Let us say that Misteh Wintonhas found your company mo' attractive than that of his laborehs, andcommend his good taste in the matteh. "

So much he said by way of damping down the fire he had so rashlylighted. Then Jastrow came in with one of the interminable ciphertelegrams and Virginia was left alone. 

For a time she sat at the deserted breakfast-table, dry-eyed, hot-hearted, thinking such thoughts as would come crowding thicklyupon the heels of such a revelation. Winton would fail: a man withhonor, good repute, his entire career at stake, as he himself hadadmitted, would go down to miserable oblivion and defeat, lacking somefriendly hand to smite him alive to a sense of his danger. And, in heruncle's estimation, at least, she, Virginia Carteret, would figure asthe Delilah triumphant. 

She rose, tingling to her finger-tips with the shame of it, went toher state-room, and found her writing materials. In such a crisis hermethods could be as direct as a man's. Winton was coming again thatevening. He must be stopped and sent about his business. 

So she wrote him a note, telling him he must not come--a note man-likein its conciseness, and yet most womanly in its failure to give eventhe remotest hint of the new and binding reason why he must not come. And just before luncheon an obliging Cousin Billy was prevailed uponto undertake its delivery. 

When he had found Winton at the shale-slide, and had given him MissCarteret's mandate, the Reverend Billy did not return directly to theRosemary. On the contrary, he extended his tramp westward, stumblingon aimlessly up the canyon over the unsurfaced embankment of the newline. 

Truth to tell, Virginia's messenger was not unwilling to spend alittle time alone with the immensities. To put it baldly, he wasbeginning to be desperately cloyed with the sweets of a day-long MissBessie, ennuye on the one hand and despondent on the other. 

Why could not the Cousin Bessies see, without being told in so manywords, that the heart of a man may have been given in times long pastto another woman?--to a Cousin Virginia, let us say. And why must theCousin Virginias, passing by the lifelong devotion of a kinsman lover, throw themselves--if one must put it thus brutally--fairly at the headof an acquaintance of a day?

So questioning the immensities, the Reverend Billy came out after somelittle time in a small upland valley where the two lines, old and new, ran parallel at the same level, with low embankments less than ahundred yards apart. 

Midway of the valley the hundred-yard interspace was bridged by ahastily-constructed spur track starting from a switch on the Coloradoand Grand River main line, and crossing the Utah right of way at abroad angle. On this spur, at its point of intersection with the newline, stood a heavy locomotive, steam up, and manned in every inch ofits standing-room by armed guards. 

The situation explained itself, even to a Reverend Billy. The Rajahhad not been idle during the interval of dinner-givings and socialdivagations. He had acquired the right of way across the Utah's linefor his blockading spur; had taken advantage of Winton's inalertnessto construct the track; and was now prepared to hold the crossing witha live engine and such a show of force as might be needful. 

Calvert turned back from the entrance of the valley, and was minded, in a spirit of fairness, to pass the word concerning the newobstruction on to the man who was most vitally concerned. But alas!even a Reverend Billy may not always arise superior to his hamperingsas a man and a lover. Here was defeat possible--nay, say rather defeatprobable--for a rival, with the probability increasing with each hourof delay. Calvert fought it out by length and by breadth a dozen timesbefore he came in sight of the track force toiling at the shale-slide. Should he tell Winton, and so, indirectly, help to frustrate Mr. Darrah's well-laid plan? Or should he hold his peace and thus, indirectly again, help to defeat the Utah company?

He put it that way in decent self-respect. Also he assured himselfthat the personal equation as between two lovers of one and the samewoman was entirely eliminated. But who can tell which motive it wasthat prompted him to turn aside before he came to the army of toilersat the slide: to turn and cross the stream and make as wide a detouras the nature of the ground would permit, passing well beyond callfrom the other side of the canyon?

The detour took him past the slide in silent safety, but it did nottake him immediately back to the Rosemary. Instead of keeping on downthe canyon on the C. G. R. Side, he turned up the gulch at the back ofArgentine and spent the better half of the afternoon tramping beneaththe solemn spruces on the mountain. What the hours of solitude broughthim in the way of decision let him declare as he sets his face finallytoward the station and the private car. 

"I can't do it: I can't turn traitor to the kinsman whose bread I eat. And that is what it would come to in plain English. Beyond that I haveno right to go: it is not for me to pass upon the justice of thispetty war between rival corporations. "

Ah, William Calvert! is there no word then of that other and farsubtler temptation? When you have reached your goal, if reach it youmay, will there be no remorseful looking back to this mile-stone wherea word from you might have taken the fly from your pot of preciousointment?

The short winter day was darkening to its close when he returned tothe Rosemary. By dint of judicious manoeuvering, with a too-fondBessie for an unconscious confederate, he managed to keep Virginiafrom questioning him; this up to a certain moment of climaxes in theevening. 

But Virginia read momentous things in his face and eyes, and when thetime was fully ripe she cornered him. It was the old story over again, of a woman's determination to know pitted against a truthful man'sblundering efforts to conceal; and before he knew what he was aboutCalvert had betrayed the Rajah's secret--which was also the secret ofthe cipher telegrams. 

Miss Carteret said little--said nothing, indeed, that an anxiouskinsman lover could lay hold of. But when the secret was hers shedonned coat and headgear and went out on the square-railed platform, whither the Reverend Billy dared not follow her. 

But another member of the Rosemary group had more courage---or fewerscruples. When Miss Carteret let herself out of the rear door, Jastrowdisappeared in the opposite direction, passing through the forwardvestibule and dropping cat-like from the step to inch his way silentlyover the treacherous snow-crust to a convenient spying place at theother end of the car. 

Unfortunately for the spying purpose, the shades were drawn behind thetwo great windows and the glass door, but the starlight sufficed toshow the watcher a shadowy Miss Virginia standing motionless on theside which gave her an outlook down the canyon, leaning out, it mightbe, to anticipate the upcoming of some one from the construction campbelow. 

The secretary, shivering in the knife-like wind slipping down from thebald peaks, had not long to wait. By the time his eyes were fitted tothe darkness he heard a man coming up the track, the snow crunchingfrostily under his steady stride. Jastrow ducked under the platformand gained a viewpoint on the other side of the car. The crunchingfootfalls had ceased, and a man was swinging himself up to the forwardstep of the Rosemary. At the instant a voice just above the spy's headcalled softly, "Mr. Winton!" and the new-comer dropped back into thesnow and came tramping to the rear. 

It was an awkward moment for Jastrow; but he made shift to dodgeagain, and so to be out of the way when the engineer drew himself upand climbed the hand-rail to stand beside his summoner. 

The secretary saw him take her hand and heard her exclamation, halfindignant, wholly reproachful:

"You had my note: I told you not to come!"

"So you did, and yet you were expecting me, " he asserted. He was stillholding her hand, and she could not--or did not--withdraw it. 

"Was I, indeed!" There was a touch of the old-time raillery in thewords, but it was gone when she added: "Oh, why will you keep oncoming and coming when you know so well what it means to you and yourwork?"

"I think you know the answer to that better than anyone, " he rejoined, his voice matching hers for earnestness. "It is because I love you;because I could not stay away if I should try. Forgive me, dear; I didnot mean to speak so soon. But you said in your note that you would beleaving Argentine immediately--that I should not see you again: so Ihad to come. Won't you give me a word, Virginia?--a waiting word, ifit must be that?"

Jastrow held his breath, hope dying within him and sullen ferocitycrouching for the spring if her answer should urge it on. But when shespoke the secretary's anger cooled and he breathed again. 

"No: a thousand times, no!" she burst out passionately; and Wintonstaggered as if the suddenly-freed hand had dealt him a blow. 

X. SPIKED SWITCHES

For a little time after Virginia's passionate rejection of him Wintonstood abashed and confounded. Weighed in the balance of theafter-thought, his sudden and unpremeditated declaration could pleadlittle excuse in encouragement. And yet she had been exceedingly kindto him. 

"I have no right to expect a better answer, " he said finally, when hecould trust himself to speak. "But I am like other men: I should liketo know why. "

"You can ask that?" she retorted. "You say you have no right: whathave you done to expect a better answer?"

He shrugged. "Nothing, I suppose. But you knew that before. "

"I only know what you have shown me during the past three weeks, andit has proved that you are what Mr. Adams said you were--though he wasonly jesting. "

"And that is?"

"A _faineant_, a dilettante; a man with all the God-given ability todo as he will and to succeed, and yet who will not take the trouble topersevere. "

Winton smiled, a grim little smile. 

"You are not quite like any other woman I have ever known--not likeany other in the world, I believe. Your sisters, most of them, wouldtake it as the sincerest homage that a man should neglect his work forhis love. Do you care so much for success, then?"

"For the thing itself--nothing, less than nothing. But--but one maycare a little for the man who wins or loses. "

He tried to take her hand again, tried and failed. 

"Virginia!--is that my word of hope?"

"No. Will you never see the commonplace effrontery of it, Mr. Winton?Day after day you have come here, idling away the precious hours thatmeant everything to you, and now you come once again to offer me ashare in what you have lost. Is that your idea of chivalry, of truemanhood?"

Again the grim smile came and went. 

"An unprejudiced onlooker might say that you have made me verywelcome. "

"Mr. Winton! Is that generous?"

"No; perhaps it is hardly just. Because I counted the cost and havepaid the price open-eyed. You may remember that I told you that firstevening I should come as often as I dared. I knew then, what I haveknown all along: that it was a part of your uncle's plan to delay mywork. "

"His and mine, you mean; only you are too kind--or not quite braveenough--to say so. "

"Yours? Never! If I could believe you capable of such a thing--"

"You may believe it, " she broke in. "It was I who suggested it. "

He drew a deep breath, and she heard his teeth come together with aclick. It was enough to try the faith of the loyalest lover: it triedhis sorely. Yet he scarcely needed her low-voiced, "Don't you despiseme as I deserve, now?" to make him love her all the more. 

"Indeed, I don't. Resentment and love can hardly find room in the sameheart at the same time, and I have said that I love you, " he rejoinedquickly. 

She went silent at that, and when she spoke again the listeningJastrow tuned his ear afresh to lose no word. 

"As I have confessed, I suggested it: it was just after I had seenyour men and the sheriff's ready to fly at one another's throats. Iwas miserably afraid, and I asked Uncle Somerville if he could notmake terms with you in some other way. I didn't mean--"

He made haste to help her. 

"Please don't try to defend your motive to me; it is whollyunnecessary. It is more than enough for me to know that you wereanxious about my safety. "

But she would not let him have the crumb of comfort undisputed. 

"There were other lives involved besides yours. I didn't say I wasspecially afraid for you, did I?"

"No, but you meant it. And I thought afterward that I should havegiven you a hint in some way, though the way didn't offer at the time. There was no danger of bloodshed. I knew--we all knew--that Deckertwouldn't go to extremities with the small force he had. "

"Then it was only a--a--"

"A bluff, " he said, supplying the word. "If I had believed there wasthe slightest possibility of a fight, I should have made my men taketo the woods rather than let you witness it. "

"You shouldn't have let me waste my sympathy, " she protestedreproachfully. 

"I'm sorry; truly, I am. And you have been wasting it in anotherdirection as well. To-night will see the shale-slide conquereddefinitely, I hope, and three more days of good weather will send usinto the Carbonate yards. "

She broke in upon him with a little cry of impatient despair. 

"That shows how unwary you have been! Tell me: is there not a littlevalley just above here--an open place where your railroad and UncleSomerville's run side by side?"

"Yes, it is a mile this side of the canyon head. What about it?"

"How long is it since you have been up there?" she queried. 

Winton stopped to think. "I don't know--a week, possibly. "

"Yet if you had not been coming here every evening, you or Mr. Adamswould have found time to go--to watch every possible chance ofinterference, wouldn't you?"

"Perhaps. That was one of the risks I took, a part of the price-payingI spoke of. If anything had happened, I should still be unrepentant. "

"Something _has_ happened. While you have been taking things forgranted, Uncle Somerville has been at work day and night. He has builta track right across yours in that little valley, and he keeps a trainof cars or something, filled with armed men, standing there all thetime!"

Winton gave a low whistle. Then he laughed mirthlessly. 

"You are quite sure of this?" he asked. "There is no possibility ofyour being mistaken?"

"None at all, " she replied. "And I can only defend myself by sayingthat I didn't know about it until a few minutes ago. What is to bedone? But stop; you needn't tell me. I am not worthy of yourconfidence. "

"You are; you have just proved it. But there isn't anything to bedone. The next thing in order is the exit of one John Winton indisgrace. That spur track and engine means a crossing fight which canbe prolonged indefinitely, with due vigilance on the part of Mr. Darrah's mercenaries. I'm smashed, Miss Carteret, thoroughly andpermanently. Ah, well, it's only one more fool for love. Hadn't webetter go in? You'll take cold standing out here. "

She drew herself up and put her hands behind her. 

"Is that the way you take it, Mr. Winton?"

The acrid laugh came again. 

"Would you have me tear a passion to tatters? My ancestors were notFrench. "

Trying as the moment was, she could not miss her opportunity. 

"How can you tell when you don't know your grandfather's middle name?"she said, half crying. 

His laugh at this was less acrid. "Adams again? My grandfather had nomiddle name. But I mustn't keep you out here in the cold talkinggenealogies. "

His hand was on the door to open it for her. Like a flash she camebetween, and her fingers closed over his on the door-knob. 

"Wait, " she said. "Have I done all this--humbled myself into the verydust--to no purpose?"

"Not if you will give me the one priceless word I am thirsting for. "

"Oh, how shameless you are!" she cried. "Will nothing serve to arousethe better part of you?"

"There is no better part of any man than his love for a woman. Youhave aroused that. "

"_Then prove it by going and building your railroad_, Mr. Winton. Whenyou have done that--"

He caught at the word as a drowning man catches at a straw. 

"When I have won the fight--Virginia, let me see your eyes--when Ihave won, I may come back to you?"

"I didn't say anything of the kind! But I will say what I said to Mr. Adams. I like men who _do_ things. Good night. " And before he couldreply she had made him open the door for her, and he was left alone onthe square-railed platform. 

In the gathering-room of the private car Virginia found an atmospheresurcharged with electrical possibilities, felt it and inhaled it, though there was nothing visible to indicate it. The Rajah was buriedin the depths of his particular easy-chair, puffing his cigar; Bessiehad the Reverend Billy in the tete-a-tete contrivance; and Mrs. Carteret was reading under the Pintsch drop-light at the table. 

It was the chaperon who applied the firing spark to the electricalpossibilities. 

"Didn't I hear you talking to some one out on the platform, Virginia?"she asked. 

"Yes, it was Mr. Winton. He came to make his excuses. "

Mr. Somerville Darrah awoke out of his tobacco reverie with a start. 

"Hah!" he said fiercely. Then, in his most courteous phrase: "Did Iundehstand you to say that Misteh Winton would not faveh us to-night, my deah Virginia?"

"He could not. He has come upon--upon some other difficulty, Ibelieve, " she stammered, steering a perilous course among the rocks ofequivocation. 

"Mmph!" said the Rajah, rising. "Ah--where is Jastrow?"

The obsequious one appeared, imp-like, at the mention of his name, andreceived a curt order. 

"Go and find Engineer McGrath and his fireman. Tell him I want theengine instantly. Move, seh!"

Virginia retreated to her state-room. In a few minutes she heard heruncle go out; and shortly afterward the Rosemary's engine shook itselffree of the car and rumbled away westward. At that, Virginia went backto the others and found a book. But if waiting inactive weredifficult, reading was blankly impossible. 

"Goodness!" she exclaimed impatiently at last. "How hot you peoplekeep it in here! Cousin Billy, won't you take a turn with me on thestation platform? I can't breathe!"

Calvert acquiesced eagerly, scenting an opportunity. But when theywere out under the frosty stars he had the good sense to walk her upand down in the healing silence and darkness for five full minutesbefore he ventured to say what was in his mind. 

When he spoke it was earnestly and to the purpose, not withouteloquence. He loved her; had always loved her, he thought. Could shenot, with time and the will to try, learn to love him?--not as acousin?

She turned quickly and put both hands on his shoulders. 

"Oh, Cousin Billy--_don't_!" she faltered brokenly; and he, seeing atonce that he had played the housebreaker where he would fain have beenthe welcome guest, took his punishment manfully, drawing her arm inhis and walking her yet other turns up and down the long platformuntil his patience and the silence had wrought their perfect work. 

"Does it hurt much?" she asked softly, after a long time. 

"You would have to change places with me to know just how much ithurts, " he answered. "And yet you haven't left me quite desolate, Virginia. I still have something left--all I've ever had, I fancy. "

"And that is--"

"My love for you, you know. It isn't at all contingent upon your yesor no; or upon possession--it never has been, I think. It has neverasked much except the right to be. "

She was silent for a moment. Then she said: "Cousin Billy, I dobelieve that you are the best man that ever lived. And I amashamed--ashamed!"

"What for?"

"If I have spoiled you, ever so little, for some truer, worthierwoman. "

"You haven't, " he responded; "you mustn't take that view of it. I amdecently in love with my work--a work that not a few wise men haveagreed could best be done alone. I don't think there will be any otherwoman. You see, there is only one Virginia. Shall we go in now?"

She nodded, but when they reached the Rosemary the returning enginewas rattling down upon the open siding. Virginia drew back. 

"I don't want to meet Uncle Somerville just now, " she confessed. "Can't we climb up to the observation platform at the other end of thecar?"

He said yes, and made the affirmative good by lifting her in his armsover the high railing. Once safely on the car, she bade him leave her. 

"Slip in quietly and they won't notice, " she said. "I'll comepresently. "

Calvert obeyed, and Virginia stood alone in the darkness. Down in theUtah construction camp lights were darting to and fro; and before longshe heard the hoarse puffs of the big octopod, betokening activities. 

She was shivering a little in the chill wind sliding down from thesnow-peaks, yet she would not go in until she had made sure. In alittle time her patience was rewarded. The huge engine came stormingup the grade on the new line, pushing its three flat-cars, which wereblack with clinging men. On the car nearest the locomotive, where thedazzling beam of the headlight pricked him out for her, stood Winton, braced against the lurchings of the train over the uneven track. 

"God speed you, my--love!" she murmured softly; and when the gloom ofthe upper canyon cleft had engulfed man and men and storming engineshe turned to go in. 

She was groping for the door-knob in the darkness made thicker by theglare of the passing headlight when a voice, disembodied for themoment, said: "Wait a minute, Miss Carteret; I'd like to have a wordwith you. "

She drew back quickly. 

"Is it you, Mr. Jastrow? Let me go in, please. "

"In one moment. I have something to say to you--something you ought tohear. "

"Can't it be said on the other side of the door? I am cold--very cold, Mr. Jastrow. "

It was his saving hint, but he would not take it. 

"No, it must be said to you alone. We have at least one thing incommon, Miss Carteret--you and I: that is a proper appreciation of thesuccessful realities. I--"

She stopped him with a quick little gesture of impatience. 

"Will you be good enough to stand aside and let me go in?"

The keen breath of the snow-caps was summer-warm in comparison withthe chilling iciness of her manner; but the secretary went on unmoved:

"Success is the only thing worth while in this world. Winton willfail, but I shan't. And when I do succeed, I shall marry a woman whocan wear the purple most becomingly. "

"I hope you may, I'm sure, " she answered wearily. "Yet you will excuseme if I say that I don't understand how it concerns me, or why youshould keep me out here in the cold to tell me about it. "

"Don't you? It concerns you very nearly. You are the woman, MissCarteret. "

"Indeed? And if I decline the honor?"

The contingency was one for which the suitor seemed not entirelyprepared. Yet he evinced a willingness to meet the hypothesis in aspirit of perfect candor. 

"You wouldn't do that, definitely, I fancy. It would be tantamount todriving me to extremities. "

"If you will tell me how I can do it 'definitely, ' I shall be mosthappy to drive you to extremities, or anywhere else out of my way, "she said frigidly. 

"Oh, I think not, " he rejoined. "You wouldn't want me to go and tellMr. Darrah how you have betrayed him to Mr. Winton. I had the singulargood fortune to overhear you conversation--yours and Mr. Winton's, youknow; and if Mr. Darrah knew, he would cut you out of his will withvery little compunction, don't you think? And, really, you mustn'tthrow yourself away on that sentimental Tommy of an engineer, MissVirginia. He'll never be able to give you the position you're fittedfor. "

Since French was a dead language to Mr. Arthur Jastrow, he never knewwhat it was that Miss Carteret named him. But she left him in no doubtas to her immediate purpose. 

"If that be the case, we would better go and find my uncle at once, "she said in her softest tone; and before he could object she had ledthe way to the Rajah's working-den state-room. 

Mr. Darrah was deep in one of the cipher telegrams when they entered, and he looked up to glare fiercely at one and then the other of theintruders. Virginia gave her persecutor no time to lodge hisaccusation. 

"Uncle Somerville, Mr. Winton was here an hour ago, as you know, and Itold him what you had done--what I had helped you do. Also, I sent himabout his business; which is to win his railroad fight if he can. Mr. Jastrow overheard the conversation, purposely, and as he threatens toturn informer, I am saving him the trouble. Perhaps I ought to add thathe offered to hold his peace if I would promise to marry him. "

What the unlucky Jastrow might have said in his own behalf is not tobe here set down in peaceful black and white. With the final word ofVirginia's explanation the fierce old master of men was up andclutching for the secretary's throat, and the working complement ofthe Rosemary suffered instant loss. 

"You'll spy upon a membeh of my family, will you, seh!" he stormed. "Out with you, bag and baggage, befo' I lose my tempeh and forget whatis due to this young lady you have insulted, seh, with your infamousproposals! Faveh me instantly, while you have a leg to run with! Go!"

Jastrow disappeared; and when the door closed behind him Virginiafaced her irate clan-chief bravely. 

"He was a spy, and he would have been a traitor. But I am littlebetter. What will you do to me?"

The Rajah's wrath evaporated quickly, and a shrewd smile, notunkindly, wrinkled the ruddy old face. 

"So it was a case of the trappeh trapped, was it, my deah? I'msorry--right sorry. I might have known how it would be; a youngeh manwould have known. But you have done no unpahdonable mischief: MistehWinton would have found out for himself in a few hours, and we areready for him now. "

"Oh, dear! Then he will be beaten?"

"Unquestionably. Faveh me by going to bed, my deah. Your roses willsuffeh sadly for all this excitement, I feah. Good night. "

XI. THE RIGHT OF WAY

It seemed to Virginia that she had but just fallen asleep when she wasrudely awakened by the jar and grind of the Rosemary's wheels onsnow-covered rails. Drawing the curtain, she found that a new day wascome, gray and misty white in the gusty swirl of a mountainsnow-squall. 

Without disturbing the sleeping Bessie, she dressed quickly andslipped out to see what the early-morning change of base portended. The common room was empty when she entered it, but before she couldcross to the door the Reverend Billy came in, stamping the snow fromhis feet. 

"What is it?" she asked eagerly. "Are we off for California?"

"No, it's some more of the war. Winton has outgeneraled us. During thenight he pushed his track up to the disputed crossing, 'rushed' theguarded engine, and ditched it. "

Virginia felt that she ought to be decorously sorry for relationship'ssake, but the effort ended in a little paean of joy. 

"But Uncle Somerville--what will he do?"

"He is with McGrath on the engine, getting himself--and us--to thefront in a hurry, as you perceive. "

"Isn't it too late to stop Mr. Winton now?"

"I don't know. From what I could overhear I gathered that the ditchedengine is still in the way; that they are trying to roll it over intothe creek. Bless me! McGrath is getting terribly reckless!"--this as aspiteful lurch of the car flung them both across the compartment. 

"Say Uncle Somerville, " she amended. "Don't charge it to Mr. McGrath. Can't we go out on the platform?"

"It's as much as your life is worth, " he asserted, but he opened thedoor for her. 

The car was backing swiftly up the grade with the engine behindserving as a "pusher. " At first the fiercely-driven snow-whirl madeVirginia gasp. Then the speed slackened and she could breathe and see. 

The shrilling wheels were tracking around a curve into a scantywidening of the canyon. To the left, on the rails of the new line, thebig octopod was heaving and grunting in the midst of an army ofworkmen swarming thick upon the overturned guard engine. 

"Goodness! it's like a battle!" she shuddered. As she spoke theRosemary stopped with a jerk and McGrath's fireman darted past to setthe spur-track switch. 

The points were snow-clogged, and the fireman wrestled with the lever, saying words. The delay was measurable in heart-beats, but itsufficed. The big octopod coughed thrice like a mighty giant in aconsumption; the clustering workmen scattered like chaff to a ringingshout of "Stand clear!" and the obstructing mass of iron and steelrolled, wallowing and hissing, into the stream. 

"Rails to the front! Hammermen!" yelled Winton; and the scatteredforce rallied instantly. 

But now the wrestling fireman had thrown the switch, and at theRajah's command the Rosemary shot out on the spur to be thrust withlocked brakes fairly into the breach left defenseless by the ditchedengine. With a mob-roar of wrath the infuriated track-layers made arush for the new obstruction. But Winton was before them. 

"Hold on!" he shouted, bearing them back with outflung arms. "Hold on, men, for God's sake! There are women in that car!"

The wrathful wave broke and eddied murmurous while a square-shoulderedold man with fierce eyes and huge white mustaches, and with an extinctcigar between his teeth, clambered down from the Rosemary's engine tosay:

"Hah! a ratheh close connection, eh, Misteh Winton? Faveh me with amatch, if you please, seh. May I assume that you won't tumble myprivate car into the ditch?"

Winton was white-hot, but he found a light for the Rajah's cigar, easing his mind only as he might with Virginia looking on. 

"I shall be more considerate of the safety of the ladies than you seemto be, Mr. Darrah, " he retorted. "You are taking long chances in thisgame, sir. "

The Rajah's laugh rumbled deep in his chest. "Not so vehy much longerthan you have been taking during the past fo'tnight, my deah seh. Butneveh mind; all's fair in love or war, and we appeah to be having alittle of both now up heah in Qua'tz Creek, hah?"

Winton flushed angrily. It was no light thing to be mocked before hismen, to say nothing of Miss Carteret standing within arm's reach onthe railed platform of the Rosemary. 

"Perhaps I shall give you back that word before we are through, Mr. Darrah, " he snapped. Then to the eddying mob-wave: "Tools up, boys. Wecamp here for breakfast. Branagan, send the Two-fifteen down for thecook's outfit. "

The Rajah dropped his cigar butt in the snow and trod upon it. 

"Possibly you will faveh us with your company to breakfast in theRosemary, Misteh Winton--you and Misteh Adams. No? Then I bid you avehy good morning, gentlemen, and hope to see you lateh. " And he swungup to the steps of the private car. 

Half an hour afterward, the snow still whirling dismally, Winton andAdams were cowering over a handful of hissing embers, drinking theircommissary coffee and munching the camp cook's poor excuse for abreakfast. 

"Jig's up pretty definitely, don't you think?" said Adams, with aglance around at the idle track force huddling for shelter under thelee of the flats and the octopod. 

Winton shook his head and groaned. "I'm a ruined man, Morty. "

Adams found his cigarette case. 

"I guess that's so, " he said quite heartlessly. Then: "Hello! what isour friend the enemy up to now?"

McGrath's fireman was uncoupling the engine from the Rosemary, and Mr. Somerville Darrah, complacently lighting his after breakfast cigar, came across to the hissing ember fire. 

"A word with you, gentlemen, if you will faveh me, " he began. "I amabout to run down to Argentine on my engine, and I propose leaving theladies in your cha'ge, Misteh Winton. Will you give me your word ofhoneh, seh, that they will not be annoyed in my absence?"

Winton sprang up, losing his temper again. 

"It's--well, it's blessed lucky that you know your man, Mr. Darrah!"he exploded. "Go on about your business--which is to bring anotherarmy of deputy-sheriffs down on us, I take it. You know well enoughthat no man of mine will lay a hand on your car so long as the ladiesare in it. "

The Rajah thanked him, dismissed the matter with a Chesterfieldianwave of his hand, climbed to his place in the cab, and the engineshrilled away around the curve and disappeared in the snow-wreaths. 

Adams rose and stretched himself. 

"By Jove! when it comes to cheek, pure and unadulterated, commend meto a Virginia gentleman who has acquired the proper modicum of Westernbluff, " he laughed. Then, with a cavernous yawn dating back to thesleepless night: "Since there is nothing immediately pressing, Ibelieve I'll go and call on the ladies. Won't you come along for awhile?"

"No!" said Winton savagely; and the assistant lounged off by himself. 

Some little time afterward Winton, glooming over his handful ofspitting embers, saw Adams and Virginia come out to stand together onthe observation platform of the Rosemary. They talked long andearnestly, and when Winton was beginning to add the dull pang ofunreasoning jealousy to his other hurtings, Adams beckoned him. Hewent, not unwillingly, or altogether willingly. 

"I should think you might come and say 'Good morning' to me, Mr. Winton. I'm not Uncle Somerville, " said Miss Carteret. 

Winton said "Good morning, " not too graciously, and Adams mocked him. 

"Besides being a bear with a sore head, Miss Carteret thinks you'renot much of a hustler, Jack, " he said coolly. "She knows thesituation; knows that you were stupid enough to promise not to layhands on the car when we could have pushed it out of the way withoutannoying anybody. None the less, she thinks that you might find a wayto go on building your railroad without breaking your word to Mr. Darrah. "

Winton put his sore-heartedness far enough behind him to smile andsay: "Perhaps Miss Virginia will be good enough to tell me how. "

"I don't know how, " she rejoined quickly. "And you'd only laugh at meif I should tell you what I thought of. "

"You might try it and see, " he ventured. "I'm desperate enough to takesuggestions from anyone. "

"Tell me something first: is your railroad obliged to run straightalong in the middle of this nice little ridge you've been making forit?"

"Why--no; temporarily, it can run anywhere. But the problem is to getthe track laid beyond this crossing before your uncle gets back with atrainload of armed guards. "

"Any kind of track would do, wouldn't it?--just to secure thecrossing?"

"Certainly; anything that would hold the weight of the octopod. Weshall have to rebuild most of the line, anyway, as soon as the frostcomes out of the ground in the spring. "

The brown eyes became far-seeing. 

"I was thinking, " she said musingly. "There is no time to make anothernice little ridge. But you have piles and piles of logs overthere, "--she meant the cross-ties, --"couldn't you build a sort ofcobhouse ridge with those between your track and Uncle's, and crossbehind the car? Don't laugh, please. "

But Winton was far enough from laughing at her. Why so simple anexpedient had not suggested itself instantly he did not stop toinquire. It was enough that the Heaven-born idea had been given. 

"Down out of that, Morty!" he cried. "It's one chance in a thousand. Pass the word to the men; I'll be with you in a second. " And whenAdams was rousing the track force with the bawling shout of"_Ev-erybody_!" Winton looked up into the brown eyes. 

"My debt to you was already very great: I owe you more now, " he said. 

But she gave him his quittance in a whiplike retort. 

"And you will stand here talking about it when every moment isprecious? Go!" she commanded; and he went. 

So now we are to conceive the maddest activity leaping into being infull view of the watchers at the windows of the private car. Winton'schilled and sodden army, welcoming any battle-cry of action, flew tothe work with a will. In a twinkling the corded piles of cross-tieshad melted to reappear in cobhouse balks bridging an angle from theUtah embankment to that of the spur track in the rear of theblockading Rosemary. In briefest time the hammermen were spiking therails on the rough-and-ready trestle, and the Italians were bringingup the crossing-frogs. 

But the Rajah, astute colonel of industry, had not left himselfdefenseless. On the contrary, he had provided for this precisecontingency by leaving McGrath's fireman in mechanical command on theRosemary. If Winton should attempt to build around the private car, the fireman was to wait till the critical moment: then he was tolessen the pressure on the automatic air-brakes and let the car dropback down the grade just far enough to block the new crossing. 

So it came about that this mechanical lieutenant waited, laughing inhis sleeve, until he saw the Italians coming with the crossing-frogs. Then, judging the time to be fully ripe, he ducked under the Rosemaryto "bleed" the air-brake. 

Winton heard the hiss of the escaping air above all the industryclamor; heard, and saw the car start backward. Then he had a flittingglimpse of a man in grimy overclothes scrambling terror-frenzied frombeneath the Rosemary. The thing done had been overdone. The firemanhad "bled" the air-brake too freely, and the liberated car, gatheringmomentum with every wheel-turn, surged around the circling spur trackand shot out masterless on the steeper gradient of the main line. 

Now, for the occupants of a runaway car on a Rocky Mountain canyonline there is death and naught else. Winton saw, in a phantasmagoricflash of second sight, the meteor flight of the heavy car; saw theReverend Billy's ineffectual efforts to apply the hand-brakes, if bygood hap he should even guess that there were any hand-brakes; saw thecar, bounding and lurching, keeping to the rails, mayhap, for some fewmiles below Argentine, where it would crash headlong into the upwardclimbing Carbonate train, and all would end. 

In unreasoning misery, he did the only thing that offered: ran blindlydown his own embankment, hoping nothing but that he might have onelast glimpse of Virginia clinging to the hand-rail before she shouldbe lost to him for ever. 

But as he ran a thought white-hot from the furnace of despair fellinto his brain to set it ablaze with purpose. Beyond the litter ofactivities the octopod was standing, empty of its crew. Bounding upinto the cab, he released the brake and sent the great engine flyingdown the track of the new line. 

In the measuring of the first mile the despair-born thought took shapeand form. If he could outpace the runaway on the parallel line, stopthe octopod and dash across to the C. G. R. Track ahead of theRosemary, there was one chance in a million that he might flinghimself upon the car in mid flight and alight with life enough left tohelp Calvert with the hand-brakes. 

Now, in the most unhopeful struggle it is often the thing least hopedfor that comes to pass. At Argentine, Winton's speed was a mile aminute over a track rougher than a corduroy wagon-road; yet theoctopod held the rail and was neck and neck with the runaway. Whiskingpast the station, Winton had a glimpse of a white-mustached old manstanding bareheaded on the platform and gazing horror-stricken at thetableau; then man and station and lurching car were left behind, andthe fierce strife to gain the needed mile of lead went on. 

Three miles more of the surging, racking, nerve-killing race andWinton had his hand's-breadth of lead and had picked his place for themillion-chanced wrestle with death. It was at the C. G. R. Station ofTierra Blanca, just below a series of sharp curves which he hopedmight check a little the arrow-like flight of the runaway. 

Twenty seconds later the telegraph operator at the lonely little waystation of Tierra Blanca saw a heroic bit of man-play. Theupward-bound Carbonate train was whistling in the gorge below when outof the snow-wreaths shrouding the new line a big engine shot down tostop with fire grinding from the wheels, and a man dropped from thehigh cab to dash across to the station platform. 

At the same instant a runaway passenger car thundered out of thecanyon above. The man crouched, flung himself at it in passing, missedthe forward hand-rail, caught the rear, was snatched from his feet andtrailed through the air like the thong of a whip-lash, yet made goodhis hold and clambered on. 

This was all the operator saw, but when he had snapped his key and runout he heard the shrill squeal of the brakes on the car and knew thatthe man had not risked his life for nothing. 

And on board the Rosemary? Winton, spent to the last breath, was lyingprone on the railed platform, where he had fallen when the last twisthad been given to the shrieking brakes. 

"Run, Calvert! Run ahead and--stop--the--up-train!" he gasped; thenthe light went out of the gray eyes and Virginia wept unaffectedly andfell to dabbling his forehead with handfuls of snow. 

"Help me get him in to the divan, Cousin Billy, " said Virginia, whenall was over and the Rosemary was safely coupled in ahead of theupcoming train to be slowly pushed back to Argentine. 

But Winton opened his eyes and struggled to his feet unaided. 

"Not yet, " he said. "I've left my automobile on the other side of thecreek; and besides, I have a railroad to build. My respects to Mr. Darrah, and you may tell him I'm not beaten yet. " And he swung overthe railing and dropped off to mount the octopod and to race it backto the front. 

 * * * * *

Three days afterward, to a screaming of smelter whistles and othernoisy demonstrations of mining-camp joy, the Utah Short Line laid thefinal rail of its new Extension in the Carbonate yards. 

The driving of the silver spike accomplished, Winton and Adams slippedout of the congratulatory throng and made their way across theC. G. R. Tracks to a private car standing along the siding. Its railedplatform, commanding a view of the civic celebration, had its quota ofonlookers--a fierce-eyed old man with huge mustaches, an athleticyoung clergyman, two Bisques, and a goddess. 

"Climb up, Misteh Winton, and you, Misteh Adams; climb up and joinus, " said the fierce-eyed one heartily. "Virginia, heah, thinks weought to call one anotheh out, but I tell her--"

What the Rajah had told his niece is of small account to us. But whatWinton whispered in her ear when he had taken his place beside her ismore to the purpose of this history. 

"I have built my railroad, as you told me to, and now I have come formy--"

"Hush!" she said softly. "Can't you wait?"

"No. "

"Shameless one!" she murmured. 

But when the Rajah proposed an adjournment to the gathering-room ofthe car, and to luncheon therein, he surprised them standinghand-in-hand and laughed. 

"Hah, you little rebel!" he said. "Do you think you dese've that blockof stock I promised you when you should marry? Anseh me, my deah. "

She blushed and shook her head, but the brown eyes were dancing. 

The Rajah opened the car door with his courtliest bow. 

"Nevertheless, you shall have it, my deah Virginia, if only to remindan old man of the time when he was simple enough to make a businessconfederate of a cha'ming young woman. Straight on, Misteh Adams;afteh you, Misteh Winton. "