Show A monopoly of mules by E F author of the girl from depton s ahe u per and t e agns gns etc copyright by joseph bowles hard headed iron gray abner green foreman 0 the greer merrill machine company s smaller finishing room E bowled at the landscape his heart wa as sore aa the heart ot man may be for the hope ot 20 good years was gone now the under super In tendency of the works so long his goal and so well merited had been va cant at last and had not been filled by him as had been expected pull pure and simple had brought young burgess from the east and given him the place and there he was settled and self satisfied he was startled by the voice of the youngest apprentice G een barker wants you bar ler was the superintendent barker did not appear inordinately egweet that day lets see your room is working on the smaller parts of the machines tor champlin ln mills yes green that or der n st start on the first week in april not three weeks from now we 11 come near making it hang it near won t do any good we ve got to make it why green that contract is worth a million to greer merrill it s one of the big gest private orders of machinery on record we ve guaranteed to set up their plant and have it running on the first of may that means that every blessed piece must be out of here be fore the sixth of next month it we slip ip barker paused impressive ly it means a penalty of fifteen nun dred dollars for every day of delay the foreman of the finishing room returned to his domain and transmit ted orders days passed rapidly after that days of pell mall scurrying work on a certain friday however the fridly before the week of the cham alln shipment the foreman s de apartment part ment came momentarily to a standstill pending the arrival of rough pieces from the foundry an hour would have to elapse and abner struck off ajr a walk off to the right some half dozen paces little feather creek rippled noisily downhill muddy and exultant in ill new release from the ice prison yes hardly halt a dozen paces from the track and the snow shed and slowly a great conviction came to abner green A mighty thaw was under way and the chicago engineers who constructed that spur of railroad had overlooked something it seemed incredible and yet was not tor they had taken the only path tor the road possible without endless expensive grading and still abner slapped his thigh it s as sartin as the crack doom be informed the rocks above shortly past seven that evening when casays engine ran down to Broad bury to hook up the first empty car abner rode in the cab from there his actions are hazy it s said that he went directly to raymond president of Broad bury s lit tie bank and requested the cashin of a check which would practically wipe out his saving that raymond ingle opened the institution the same being on the ground floor of his resi dence and compiled that green emerged ter ath some one thousand dollars in small bills whatever truth may be in the above one tact stands out with beautiful taint at dawn next morning a herd of 40 sturdy mules wended their way by the back road to the hillside home of abner green led by that person himself and trai ed by a sleepy won dering Broad bury boy the colony of workers below was not an hour of being astir mules were tethered in the barn in danger ous proximity mules were jammed unfeelingly into the woolshed tool shed mules were tied in the patch of woods behind the house good mules and bad mules plump mules and bony mules mules that had been bought for next to noth ing and mules that had seemed much too dear but there they were and the from Broad bury to Gr eorville was reasonably free from superfluous miles barker kept them hard at it until midnight saturday and with the first hour of sunday came the blessed that the champlin ln mills order could start antime that mornin on every hand water was running snow disappearing the ground V as an coze little feather s chatter had swelled to a taint roar through the afternoon the shippers pulled and tugged the string of cars was loaded at last and the machinery of the first lot had been settled for its eastward ride twilight came and a warm drizzle of rain set in toward eight clock casey and his fireman pulled out slowly and a long sigh of relief the day s work was done the men began to scatter then abruptly there came from the west a dull booming a heavy subdued noise as of muffled thunder barker hurried into the works and through to the opposite side he opened a window and thrust his head out into the rain seeking to penetrate the darkness toward the brook he could see nothing but very distinctly very unmistakably through the gloom cam to his ears the gathering clam oring roar of record breaking fresh et would it get to the tracks barker bit his lips pshaw it coulden couldn t he understood little of railroading and it did seem risky having the rails so near the brook and they had squeezed every penny that went into the road but the engineers must have knobb their business the tracks were sate enough aid then camp his answer emphatic and final out in the yards rising faintly above the voice of little feath er startled tart led shouts were audible th heavy puffing of a locomotive a thud a scream of escaping steam case left by one door his fireman by the mothr another roar as water foun the fire lox a great crashing splash then hence the rails had spread adf the load was effectually out of corn miss i LOW ei ginders came at dawn the driz ale of the night had settled to a steady soaking downpour when their buck board drew up testie the greer derrll works they went with barker and looked over the disaster A quarter mile or more had little feather taken to the tracks it wh ried along cheerily the irons boot deep below the surface they prodded at the submerged ralla and ailed dryly th private spur was a wreck 1 could they repair it immediately 9 in a we k perhaps or a month the proposition was absolutely ut terly unfeasible the tact that greer mei rills shipments positively must go out aid not alter that a particle the very best one could hope tor was some spot down the line where a temporary platform could be knocked together and cars run la from Broad bury to take aboard the champlin ln mills ma chinery they found stat spot alve miles be low the works and barker with a sigh halt relief half anger accepted the situation it meant at least a day s delay tor he would have to drag out the discarded trucks and beg buy borrow or steal mules to haul them which meant more expense naturally he came tace to face with the mule problem barker sent for half a dozen of his minor executives and instructed them to sally forth and gather such mules and work horses rare things in that locality as be ob on any terms one of the six was abner green and as they filed out barker detained him el green the superintendent snapped his fingers impatiently see here oe bod or other said that you ve got two or three mules fow all right we want to hire em how many are therea atmer braced himself sixty one sir heya how many greena bar ker s chair whirled about sixty one sixty one yes sir six barker stopped and shrugged his shoulders well it s rather a happy chance green although I 1 dian didn t know you hal gone in tor mule ranching how much do you want to hire them out by the daya I 1 I 1 ain t anxious to hire em mr barker they re for sale for sale eha well how much tor the lot thena three thousand dollars what three thousand dollars sir you want too much altogether green barker stiffened we dont need them that s all abner departed the seekers of mules were already gone the day wore onward rapidly the first of those fifteen hendred dollar days at eventide the five returned five men three mulas and an anaemic horse they had scoured Broad bury they had descended upon red eagle they had searched the country in between it was rather a tor bar ker doubtless there were anore mules in the state but the price seemed to be racing along with the demand and 60 or 70 mules would total a bremen dous figure meanwhile the fifteen hundred per da barker choked down his feelings and sent for green who was working in the finishing room I 1 find that it is going to take a good deal of time to buy the mules we need green we have decided to take yours but you know said abner have riz 1 mornin eha you can hav em tor five thousand sir barker was on his feet dull purple surged into his cheeks infrequent as such an occurrence was the general superintendent was losing his temper green you go to the devil shout ed the otter I 1 won t be bled and I 1 won t allow this firm to be bled by any such trick of an employed emp loye as that I 1 get nut of here abner trudged homeward through the rain serene and elated barker had been wiring details in to the home office A message from there overtook merrall himself in bis parlor car as he spec westward on a little unannounced visit to greenville Gre erville to superintend in person the monster champlin mills delivery he arrived at two clock on tues day morning and listened silently to barker s full report he took pencil and paper and figured for some 15 min utes arrived a a result he looked up and said dryly S nd for this man green barker the foreman returned with the toes looked him over quizzically what Is the current quotation on your mules mr greena he inquired abner glanced flittingly at barker six thousand dollars sir merrall turned imperturbably to the superintendent got that m ich banked at burya not a hundred dollars more give mr green his check and send somebody up mules barker |