Show TOR C M A FOOL FOR LOVE LOVIE by FRANCIS LYNDE author of the graffe s etc W copyright b bj J P lipp neo t tco co CHAPTER ill III continued why my dear virginia the idea you don t know in the least what you are talking about I 1 lave nave been read ing in the papers about these right ot of way troubles and they aie ate perfectly terrible one report said they were arming the laboring men and another said the militia might have to be called out well what of if said virginia with all the hardihood of youth and un knowledge it s something like a burning building one doesn doean t want to be hard hearted and rejoice over other people a s misfortunes but then it if it has to burn burn one would like to be there to see miss bessie put a stray lock of the flaxen hair up under its proper comb I 1 in sure I 1 prefer california and the orange groves and peace sl at a e asserted don t you cousin billy W A hat mr calvert would have replied la is no matter for this history since at this precise moment the rajah came in coruscating as virginia put it from hia his late encounter with the su s chiet clerk give them the word to go jastrow and lets get out of heah he corn banded and when the secretary had vanished the rajah made his blons to all and sundry lye I 1 ve been obliged in a manneh to change auh itinerary Ano another theli company Is trying to fault us up in qua tz creek canyon and I 1 am in a compelled to be on the ground we shall be delayed only a few das days I 1 hope at the worst only until the first snowstorm comes and in the meantime kalifo nia won t run away virginia linked arms with bessie the flaxen haired when the wheels began to turn we are off she said let a go out on the platform and see the last of 0 denver it was while they were clinging to the hand rail and looking back upon the jumble ot of railway activities out of chieh they had just emerged that the rpsemary gaining headway overtook another moving train running smooth ly on a track parallel to that upon which the private car was speeding it was the bairow gauge mountain con lection of the utah line and IV winton and adams were nvere on the rear platform of the last car so it chanced that the four our of them were presently waving their adieu adieux across the wind blown in in the midst of it or rather at fit the moment when the rosemary gathering speed as the lighter of the two trains forged ahead the rajah came out to light his cigar he took in the little tableau of the ear platforms at a glance and when the slower train was left behind asked 9 a question of virginia ah gasn wasn t one of those two the young gentleman who called on you yo yesterday yeste liday afternoon my deaha virginia admitted it could you fareh me pie with III name 1 he Is mr air morton P adams of bos ton ah all h and his friend the young gentleman who laid his hand to auh plow and put the engine on the track iasi last night he Is mr winton a an artist I 1 believe at least that is what I 1 gath ered from what mr adams said of him mr somerville darrah laughed a slow litle laugh deep in his throat bless your innocent soul he a pic pie chuh not in a thousand my dean virginia Hel he Is sarail a rail road man and a right good one at that fareh me with the name again win teh eh did no winton mr john winton D d devil gritted the rajah ing the hand rail with hia his clenched fist flat hah I 1 beg your my deans a mean meah slip of the tongue and then to the full as savagely by heaven I 1 hope that train will fly the track and ditch him before ever he comes within ordering distance of the work la in qua tz creek canyon why uncle somerville how vin fictive cried virginia who Is he and what has he done he Is misheh john winton as you informed me just now one of the brainiest constructing engineers in this country and the hardest man in this or any othea country to down in a right of way fight that a who he is and it a not what he a done my dean deah virginia its what he is going to do if I 1 can t get him killed up out of auh way but here mr darrah saw the growing groning terror in two pairs of eyes and realizing that he was committing himself before an unsympathetic au diance beat a hasty retreat to his stronghold at the other end of the rosemary well said the flaxen flaxer haired bes ele ale cat cheing her breath but I 1 ir ginia ginta laughed I 1 m glad I 1 in not mr air winton she said CHAPTER t IV morning in the highest highlands of the a morning clear cold and tense with a bell like quality in the air to make the crac cracking kinz of a 1 J tatt ij laden fir beugli resound like a pistol sh t for denver and the dwell era ers on the eastern plain the sun Is an hour high but th hamlet mining camp of argentine with its dovecote ballway station and two pronged sid aid ing still lies in it tle e steel blue depths of the canyon shadow in a seamy scanty widening of the main canyon a few hundred yards below the station a graders camp of rude slab shelters Is turning out its horde of wild looking italians and on a crooked spur track fronting the shan ties blue wood smoke is curling lazily upward from the kitchen car of a con st ruction train all night long the I 1 josemary drawn by the speediest of mountain climbing locomotives had stormed onward and upward from the valley of the grand through black denies defiles and around the shrugged shoulders of the mighty peaks to find a resting place in the whit whito robed dawn on the siding at ar gent ne the lightest of sleepers vir giell had awakened when m hen the special was passing through carbonate and drawing the berth curtain she had lain tor for hours watching the solemn groces ficai of cliffs and peaks wheeling in stately and orderly array against the lift bially background of sky now in the ate blue dawn she was or thought a was the first member of the par ta t to dress and steal out upon the a led platform to look abroad upon fh th wondrous scene in the canyon rut dut her reverie trance like in its enthusiasm was presently I 1 by a voice behind her the loice namely of mr arthur jastrow what a howling wilderness to be sure lire e isn t ra said the secretary twirling his eye glasses by ta cord bifid pd looking as he felt interminably aured no indeed anything but that agte h retorted warmly it la Is grander than anything I 1 eer eier imagined I 1 wish there were a piano in the car it me fairly ache to set it in some arm of expression and music is the ably form I 1 know I 1 in glad it it doesn doean t bore you ne 4 V V I 1 0 y t 14 Z VAI READING TIIE WARRANT rejoined willing to agree with her for the sake of prolonging the interview but to me it Is nothing more than a dreary wilderness as I 1 say a barren rock ribbed gulch affording an indof ferent right of ay for two railroads for one she corrected in a quick of loyalty for her kin the secretary shifted bis his gaze from the mountains to the maiden and smiled she was exceedingly good to look upon highbred high bred queenly and just now with the fine fire of enghu to quicken her pulses and to send the rare flush to neck and cheek jastrow the cold eyed the business automaton set to go off with a click at mr somerville darrah a touch had ambitions not automatic some day he meant to put the world of business under foot as a conqueror standing triumphant on the apex of that pyra mid of success which the mr somer ville darrahl were so successfully up rearing when that day should come there would need to be an establish ment a menage a queen tor for the king dom of success summing her up tor for the hundredth time since the begin ning of the westward flight he thought miss carteret would fill the require ments well but this was a divagation and he pulled himself back to the askings ot of the moment agreeing with her again without reference to his private con dictions vict lons ions for one I 1 should have said he amended we mean to have it that way though an unprejudiced onlooker might be foolish enough to eay say that there Is a pretty good present pros hect of two but miss carteret was in a contra victory mood moreover she was a woman and the way to a woman a confidence does not HP lip through the neutral country of easy compliance it if ou wont take the other side I 1 will she said there will be two jastrow acquiesced a second time I 1 t wonder our compel etora road seems to betoney a ques tion of time a very short time judg ing from the number of 0 men turning out la in A b track gang down yonder VIrgI hta leaned over the t to look past the car and the dovecote dove cote station shading ber her eyes to shut out the th snow blask alli from the sun fired peaks why they are soldiers she exclaimed at least eom ot of thein them have j guns on their shoulders and see they are forming in line the secretary adjusted his eye glasses I 1 by jove you are right they have armed the track force the new ahlet of construction doesn doean t mean to tak any chances of being shaken loose b force here they come the end of track of the new line was diagonally across the creek tron from the rosemary a berth and a short t pistol shot farther down stream but to 0 o advance it to a point opposite the private car and to gain the altitude ol 01 4 the high embankment directly across from the station the new line turned JA 1 short out of the main canyon at t the he ff mouth of the intersecting gorge de t 1 scribing a long U shaped curve abouna 1 the head of the lateral ravine ano doubling back upon itself to reenter the canyon proper at the higher ele the curve which was the beginning of this U shaped loop was the morn ing a scene of action and the atall track layers strong moved to the front in orderly array with armed guards as flankers for the hand cai caz load of rails which the men were push ing up the grade jastrow darted into the car and a moment later his place on the observe tion platform was taken by a wrath i ful industry colonel fresh from his hi dressing room so fresh indeed that be he was coatless hatless and collarless J and with the dripping bath sponge clutched like a missile to burl hurl at the impudent invader invaders on the opposite side 40 of the canyon hah hahl wouldn t wait until a man t could get into h his Is clothes he rasped the utah s new chief t ot of construction Jas jastrow fareh ME FI instantly sehl sen hustle up to the camp 1 there and turn out the constable town marshal or whatever he Is tell him t I 1 have a writ for him to serve run seh the secretary appeared and digap feared like a marionette when the string has been jerked by a vigorous hand and virginia smiled this nith ith out prejudice to a very iery acute ampre elation of the grai grave e possibilities which were i re paring themselves but hav hay 16 ing her share of the militant quality which made her uncle what he Is she stood her ground 1 aren aran t you afraid you will wll take cold 40 uncle somerville she asked archly and the rajah came suddenly to a sense of his incompleteness and went in n to finish his ablutions against the opening of the battle actual at first virginia thought she would filow him when mercury jastrow should return with the officer of the law there would be trouble of some sort and the woman in her shrank from the witnessing of it but at the bame instant the blood of the fighting Cart erets asserted itself and she re solved to stay I 1 wonder what uncle hopes to be bel able to do she mused will a little town constable with a bit of 0 signed paper from some justice of the peace be mighty enough to stop all that tu fu rious activity over there 9 it its a more than incredible from that she fell to watching the activity and the orderly purpose ot of it d A length of steel with men clustering like bees upon it would slide from its place on the hand car to fall with a frosty clang on the cross ties in scantly the hammersen ham mermen would pounce upon it one would rould fall upon hands and knees to sight it into place two others would slide the squeaking track gauge along its inner edge a working like the component parts of a faultless mechanism would tap the fixing spikes into the wood and then at a signal a dozen of the heavy pointed hammers swung aloft j and a rhythmic volley of hesoun resounding ding I 1 A blows clamped the rail into inta jerna I 1 nence on its wooden bed t TO BE COINTIN CONTINUED ULD |