Show serba BR A 36 T 0 I 1 R Y Z A foial FOR LOVIE by FRANCIS LYN DE Autho coper copyright 1905 bv baj J P Lip pinco t cc VI continued not such a bad day considering the newness of us and the bridge at the head of the gulch he said halt half to himself and then more pointedly to the foreman Bridge builders to the front at the first crack of dawn mike why gasn wasn this break filled in the grading 9 suie sul e its a darain it Is said the irishman from the placer up be beant ant he added pointing to a washed out excoriation on the steep upper slope of the mountain major evarts did be tellin us we wed A have the lawyers aether us hot t f it again it if w we a t be lavin ut open tap tb full width emph said adams looking the ground over v ath a critical eye Ls i s a bad bit it wouldn t take mu h to bring that whole slide down on us it if it wasn gasn t frozen solid who owns the placer two fellios over in carbonate the company did be to buy buys the claim but the sharps wouldn t sell bein beirl put up to hold ut by thim thlin C G R divlus it its s more th rouble we well 11 be havin here I 1 m thinking while they lingered a shrill whistle echoing among the cliffs of the cpr gorge like an eldritch laugh announced the coming of a train from the diorec tion of carbonate adams looked at hie his watch I 1 d like to know what that Is he mused it its s two hours too soon boon for the accommodation by jove the exclamation directed itself at a car train which came thundering down the canyon to pull in on the siding beyond the rosemary the car was a passenger coach well lighted and from his post on the embankment adams could see armed men filling the windows 0 michael branagan saw them too and the fighting celt in n him rose to the occasion donnybrook pair fair we ve co ie to this time listher adams shall I 1 call up the b ys wid their gunst guns not yet let lets is wait and see what happens what happened was a p etui sortie tao a men each with a kit ot of some kind borne in a sack dropped from the car crossed the creek and struggled up the hill through the un bridged gap adams waited until thea they were fairly or ol the right ot of way then he called down to them halt there you two this Is cor po horation por atlon ration property not much it ain aln tv t retorted one ot of the trespassers gruffly its the drain way from our placer up yonder what are you going to do up there at this time of night none 0 your blame business was the explosive counter shot perhaps it fall t said adams mild ly just the same I 1 in thirsting to know call it vulgar curio curiosity ity if you like all right you can know and be cussed to you were we re goin to work our claim got anything to sly a against it if oh no rejoined adams and when the twain had disappeared in the up per darkness he went down the grade with branagan and took tool his place on the man loaded flats for the run to the construction camp thinking more ot of the lately arrived car with its corn com clement of armed men than of the two miners who had calmly announced their intention of working a placer claim on oil a high mountain without water and in the dead of winter by which it will be seen that mr morton P adams C E dinst tech boston had something yet to learn in the matter ot of pre practical field work by the time ah foo had served him his solitary supper in ili the dinkey he had quite forgotten lor gotten the incident of the mysterious placer miners worse than that it had never occurred to him to conne t their movements with the rajah s plan of campaign on the other hand be was thinking alt ogeth er of the carload c armed men and trying to devise some means of finding out how they were to be employed in furthering the rajah s designs the means suggested themselves after supper and he went alone over to argentine to spend a half hour in the bar of the dance hall listening to the gossip of the place when he had learned what he wanted to know he be forth fared to meet winton at the in coming train we are in tor for it now he said when they had crossed the creek to the dinkey and the chinar an was bringing winton s belated supper the rajah has imported a carload cf armed mercenaries and ha Is going to clean us all out to morrow arrest everybody from the gang foreman up winton s eyebrows lifted soa that Is a pretty large contract lias has he men enough to do ita not so many men but they are sworn in deputies with the sheriff of ute county in command posse in tact so he has the law or his side which Is more than ha he had when he set a thug on me this afternoon at carbonate said winton sourly and he told adams about the mi sunder standing in the bobly of th bucking ham the n whistled wUst led under his breath by uy 0 to o e that s pretty rough i do you suppose the rabah dictated any such lucretia borgia tiling thing as thata I 1 did so at first but I 1 gues it was only the misguided zeal of some understrapper of course word has gone out all along the C G R line that we are to be delayed by every possible expedient 1 2 I 1 now adams had also taken time to think and he hook his head for common humanity s sake I 1 wish I 1 could agree with you jack but leant I 1 can t mr darrah dictated that move in his own proper person how do you know linow thata adaist adams answer took the form of a leading question you had a mes aage age from me this afternoon 7 I 1 did what did you think of it ita I 1 thought you might have left out the first part of it also that you might have made the latter halt half a good bit more explicit if you had put yo ir mind to it A slow smile screal aprea 1 itself over the s impassive face and he lighted another cigarette every man has ills ats limitations he said I 1 did the best I 1 could under the existing circumstances but you will understand the rajah knew very well what he was about otherwise would have been no telegram winton sent the chinaman out tor 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 pre bisely the most unexpected things you 11 have to go bick of me say to confucius or beyond to find that out winton was silent for a moment balancing his spoon on the tip oi 01 his finger finally he said I 1 hope ou did what you could to make it pleas ant for her not that there was much to be don in such a god forsaken chaos as a constriction colstr action camp I 1 did and I 1 didn dian t hear her corn plain of the chaos she seemed as in te rested as a school gin giri particularly in your sketches winton flushed under the bronze of cataclysms in the lobby ot of tha th buckingham lim lin and his heart grew warm within him its jt s just about as I 1 expected morty didn dian t have any thing whatever to do with it except to sign and sen sell I 1 it as she commanded him to ant i the penciled sheet was folded careful 13 and filed in perma nence in the inner breast pocket ot of his brown duck shooting coat the moon was ri ins ing behind the eastern mountain moin mo intrain tain when he extin gulshen tha th candle and went out ue low lay the chaotic construction camf buried in silence and in darkness save for the lighted windows of the dinkey he was not quite ready to go back to adams and alter after making a round of 0 the camp and bidding the engine watchman keep a sharp lookout against a possible night surprise he set out to walk over the newly laid track of the day another half hour had elapsed and a waning moon was clearing the top tacit crags of pacific peak when he came out on the high embankment op the rosemary the station with its two one car trains and the shacks of the little mining camp beyond lay shimmering ghost like in the new born light of the moon the engine of the sheriff sheriffs s car vaa nas humming softly with a note like the distant swarming ot of bees and from the dance hall in argentine the snort of trombone and the tinkling clang of a cracked piano 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 tor for so he thought at all events but li IL he had not been musing abstracted ly f upon things widely separated from his present surroundings he might have remarked two tiny stars of lan ian tern light high on the placer ground above the embankment or tailing failing the sight he might have heard the dull measured klumph 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 voice sweeter than the songs of oberon s iea sea maid tied his ears wherefore awl I 1 I 1 k IT S JUST ABOUT AS I 1 EXPECTED I 1 suppose I 1 don t need to asa aa which one adams grin was a measure of his complacence he ile was coming off easier than he had anticipated well hardly she took tool it away with her hera took it or tore it up I 1 forget which winton a look was that of 0 a man distressed tell me morty was she very an gryb the took the last hint hill of lat leighter laigh ahter ter out ot of his eyes before he said solemnly you 11 never know how thankful I 1 was that you were 20 miles away winton s cup was full and he turned the talk abruptly to the industrial do ings and accomplishments of the day adams made a verbal report which led him by successive steps up to the twilight hour when he had stood with branagan on the brink of the placer drain but strangely enough there was no stirring of memory to recall the in aident of the upward climbing miners when winton rose he said some thing about mounting a night guard on the engine which was kept under steam at all hours and shortly after wards he left the dinkey ostensibly to do it declining adams offer of company but once out ot of doors le 1 climbed straight to the operators tent on the snow covered slope carter had turned in but he sat up in his bunk at the noise of the intrusion blinking sleepily at the flare of winton tons s mitch that you mr wintoni want to send something 7 9 he asked no so go to sleep ill write a wire and leave it tor for you to send in the morning he sat down at the packing case in strument ment table and wrote out a brief report of the days day s progress in track laying aying for the general manager managers s rec ord but when carter a regular breath ing told him he was alone he pushed the pad aside took down the sending rook book and searched until he had found the original cot co of the message which had rei ret had him at the moment he neither saw nor heard and taking the short cut across the mouth of the lateral gulch back to camp he boarded the dinkey and went to bed without disturbing adams the in morning orning of 0 the day to come broke clear and still with the stars paling one line by one at the pointing ger of the dawn and the frost rime lying thick and white like a snowfall of erect and glittering needles on iron and steel and wood obedient to ordera orders the bilde build era were getting 0 it their hand car at the construction camp the cheeld shrilling merrily on the frosted rails and the men stamping and swinging their arms to start the shig sluggish gish night blood suddenly like the opening gun at of a battle the d ill rumble of al d mighty explosion trembled upon the still air follone I 1 instantly by a sound of a passing avalanche winton was out and running up tha the track before the camp was fairly aroused what he saw when hd gained the hither side of the lateral gulch was a sight to make a strong man weep A huge landslide starting from the frozen placer gro ind high up on the western promontory had swept every astige of track and em ban bent into the deep bed of the tho creek at a point precisely opposite mr somerville darrah s private car CHAPTER VII an early rier ri er by choice and made an earlier this morning I 1 y a vague anxiety which had tu ned the ight into a half waking vig I 1 for or her vir ginia was up and greased when the sullen shock shook of the explosion set the windows dairing in the Roq rosemary emary N on dering what adf it thing had happened she hurried out upon the observation platform and so came to look upon the i in wro ight by the landslide while the dual dust like smoke ot of the dynamite still h b ng in the all rather lint icky for our friends the enemy said a ol orles orleAs voice behind her and she had hal an in comfortable feeling that jastrow had been lying in wait waft tor for her levoi led instantly by tha th conviction that he had done the sanu thing tho pravio is morn ng |