The Road Builders. Merwin Samuel

those two eyes of his. ‘What are you up to, Hen?’ he said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      “Well, sir, they did it – coupled up, link and pin. The engineer was leaning ‘way out the window, and he didn’t wait very long after getting the signal, before he was a-hiking it down the yard, tooting his whistle for the draw. Heaven only knows what might have happened,