| Show SERIA STORY T 0 R r A FO FOOL FOP F 0 E by Is FR RA pi Autho au or of th graft rafters etc w copyright 1905 baj P lipp noo tco to CHAPTER IX continued but in the days that followed lay lays in which the sun rose an ani I 1 set in cloudless winter splendor and the heavy snows still held aloof adams prediction wrought itself 0 t into sober fact after the single appeal to force clr darrah seemed to have given up the fight none the less the departure depar tuie of the was de la ed and its hospitable door was al ai ways open to the utah chief of con st ruction and his assistant auinton took ill hia welcome broadly as what lover would not and within a wee was spending most of his evenings in the rosemary this at a time when eiery waking moment of the day and night was deeply mort to the chance of success for now that the rajah had withdrawn his opposition nature and the per of inanimate things had taken a hand and for a fortnight the work of track laying pause 1 fairly within sight of the station at argentine first it was a carload of steel ac ci dentally derailed and dumped into quartz creek at precisely the worst possible point in the lower canyon a jagged rock ribbed cliff bound gorge where each separate piece of metal had to be hoisted out singly by a der rick erected for the purpose a process which effectually blocked the track for three entire days next it was an 0 other landslide by mite this just above the station a crawling cataract of loose sliding shale which painstakingly d ig out and dammed with plank bulkhead dur ing the day would pour down and bury bulkhead buttresses and the very right of way in the night in his right mind the mind of an ambitious young captain of ind astry who sees defeat with dishonor staring him in the face i winten would have fought all the more desperately for these hindrances B it unfortunate ly he was no longer an ind astry cap tain with an eye single to success he was become that anomaly despised of the working world a man in fit love it s no use shutting our eyes to the fact jack said adams one even ng when his chief was making ready for his regular descent upon the rose mary we shall have to put night shifts at work on that shale slide if we hope ever to get past it with the rails hang the shale was the ampa tient rejoinder I 1 in no galley slave adams slow smile came and went in cynical ripp lings it Is pretty difficult to say precise y what you vou are just now but I 1 can prophesy what you are going to be if you don dont t wake ake up and come alive having no reply to this adams A went ent back to the matter of night shifts it if you will vi III authorize it III put a night gang on and boss it myself what do you say saya I 1 say you are no end of a good fellow morty and that a the plain fact III do as much for you sometime I 1 it be smashed smas led if you will you 11 never get the chance when I 1 let a pretty girl make a tool fool of me but the door of the dinkey slammed behind the outgoing one and the prophet of evil was left to organize his night assault on the shale slide and to command it as best he could so as we say the days of stubborn toll with the enthusiasm taken out slipped away unfruitful of the en tire utah force adams alone held him self ip lp to the mark and being only second in command he was unable to keep the bad example of the chief from worl ing like a leaven of inert ness among the men Bra branagan voiced the situation in rich brogue one evening when adams had ex bausted his limited vocabulary of abuse on the force for its apathy no use ava listher adams it if you was the boss himself atwould be you as would put the on thim too quick but it s like easther like ike mon the b ys all know that listher winton dont don t care a damn and they 11 not be hurtin themselves thim selves wid the and the rajah between his times ot smoking high priced cigars with winton in the lounging room of the rosemary he was swearing ju jubilates dilates in the privacy of his wor working den stateroom having tn tri dally weather reports wired to him by way of car bonate and argentine station and busying himself in the intervals with sending and receiving sundry ous telegraphs tele grapis grainS in cipher thus mr air somerville llie darrah all going well for him until one fateful morning when he made the mistake of congratulating his ally then but we picture the scene mr bar dar rah late to his breakfast being just in from an early morning recon nals sance of the enemy e vir ginia sitting appo opposite site to pour his ills cof fee all the others vanished to some I 1 abo of their own the rajah rubbed his hands de we ve are coming on famously ta fa my dean deah virginia two weeks gone heavy snows predicted for or the mountain region and nothing AA ag ng at all accod 0 on n ne oinah side of 0 lk atwi an otil TI VI wl en you marry my deah you all have a block of C cf 0 R pre aeriel fen el stock to keep you I 1 in a pin money I 1 ia she Q queried but uncle som arnille en alle I 1 don t understand the A ajah lan hed that wa wat a very pretty blush my deah bless our innocent soul it if I 1 were young winton I 1 in not sure but I 1 should consider con consi deb the game well lost she was as gazing at him now an I 1 the blush had left a pallor I 1 belind ea ind it yo yoi i mein that 1 I that 1 I I 1 mean that I 0 o i are a helper worth baling miss carteret Ariot another heh time misleh winton vi on t pay cout con t to a aa a ning ming yo ing g rl and try to bull I 1 a railroad at one and the sam I 1 fancy hah ahe startled eyes veiled themselves vea ses and Virgl virginias aias voice sank to its softest cadence have I 1 been an accomplice in this this despicable thing uncle somer ville mr air darrah began a little to se his mistake ah an accomplice oh oil no my deah virginia not quite q alte that the tire word smacks too mich m ich of the police po lice cou ts let i 1 3 say that misleh win ton has to fo in 1 3 our company mo ma attractive than that of his laborers labo reha and commend his goo I 1 taste in 1 the mat ten tell so much he said aid by way of damp ing down the fire he had so sa rashly lighted then castlow came in with one of the interminable cipher tele grams 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 thickly upon the hoelsi at of such a revelation winton would tall fall a man with honor good repute his entire career at stake as he himself had admitted would go down to mis erable oblivion and defeat lacking some friendly hand to smite him alive to a sense of his danger and in her uncle uncles s estimation at least she vir hastily constricted spur start ing from a switch on the colored Col orad ana grand river main line aej cr crossing ossini the utah right q of way at a broad an gle on this spur at its point ol 01 in ter section with the new line st od a hea head locomotive steam up and manned in every inch 0 of its standing room by armed giarla guar Is the situation explained itself even to a kever rever nd billy the rajah had not been idle during the interval of 0 dinner ghines and social divagations lie hal ha acq aca ailred the right of way wa across tte the utah s line for his block ading abing spur had taken advantage ol 01 winton s to construct the track and ani was now prepared to hold the cros ing bilth a live engine and such a alio v of force as might be need ful cabert turned back fro i the en trance of the tle valley and was minded in a spirit of fairness to pass the word done aning the new obstruction on to the man wa alo a was most vitally concerned but alas even a rev ebend billy may not always rise BU su perlor to Ms its hampe rings as a man and a loner here was defeat possible nay say rather defeat probable for a rival with the probability increasing with each hour of delay calvert fought it out by length and by breadth a dozen times before he ame came in sight of the track force at the shale slide should he tell winton and sn a indirectly help to frustrate mr bar dar well laid plan or should he hold his peace and thus indirectly again help to defeat the utah corn COM danyl pany I 1 he ile put it that way in decent self respect also he assured himself that the personal equation as between two f lovers rovers of one and the same woman was entirely eliminated but who f can cart tell which motive it was that prompted him to turn aside before he came to the army of toilers at the slide to turn ard cross the stream and make as wide a detour as the nature of the ground would permit passing well beyond call from the ther other side of the canyon the detour took him past the slide in n silent safety but it did not take lot tc V a aa Z P SHE slie HIM A NOTE ginia ginta carteret would figure as the delilah triumphant she rose tingling to her fingertips with the shame of it went to her stateroom and found her writing pia ma aerials in such a crisis her methods could be as direct as a mans man a win ton was coming again that evening he must be stopped and sent about his business so she wrote him a note telling him he must not come a note man like in its conciseness and yet most womanly in its failure to give even the remotest hint of the new and bind ing reason why he be must not come and just before luncheon an obliging cousin billy was prevailed upon to undertake its delivery when he had found winton at the shale slide and had given him miss nils carteret a mandate the reverend bil ly did not return directly to the rosemary on the contrary he extended his tramp westward stumbling lang on aimlessly up the canyon over the un surfaced embankment of the new line truth to tell virginias virginia s messenger was not unwilling to spend a little time alone with the immensities to put it baldly he was beginning to be desperately cloyed with the sweets of a daylong day long miss aliss bessie on the one band hand and despondent on the other why could not the cousin bessler see without being told in so many words that the heart of a man may have been given in times long past to another to a cousin vir ginia let us say and why must the cousin Virgin virginias las passing by the life long devotion of a kinsman lover throw themselves if one must put it thus brutally fairly at the head of an acquaintance of a day so questioning the immensities the reverend billy came out after some little time in a small upland valley where the two lines old and new ran parallel at the same level wild with low embankments less than a hundred yards apart midway of the valley the hundred fard was as bridged by a ma 1 I L f him immediately back to the rosemary instead of keeping on down the canyon on an the C G R side he turned up the gulch at the back of argentine and spent the better halt half of the afternoon tramping beneath the solemn firs on the mountain what I 1 the hours of solitude brought him in the way of decision let him declare as he sets his face finally towards the station and the private car I 1 cant can t do it I 1 can t turn traitor to the kinsman whose bread I 1 eat and that is what it would come to in plain english beyond that I 1 have no right to go it Is not for me to pass upon the justice of this petty war between rival corporations ah william calvert Is there nc word then of that other and tar far subtler temptation 9 when you have reached your goal if reach it you may will there be no remorse tul ful looking back to this milestone mile stone where a word from you might hav havo taken the fly from your pot of pre cloua clous ointment 9 the short winter da was darkening to its close when he returned to th rosemary by dint of judicious ma neutering neu vering with a love weary bessie tor for an unconscious confederate he h managed to keep Nir virginia ginia from ques dioning I 1 hm im this up to a certain mo ment merit of 0 cataclysms in the evening but virginia read momentous thing in his face and eyes and when the time was fully ripe she cornered him it was the old story over oter again of a woman s determination to know pit ted against a truthful mans blunder ing efforts to conceal and before be knew what he was about calvert had betrayed the rajah rajahs a secret which was mas also the secret of the cipher tele grams miss carteret raid little said noth ing indeed that an andio is kinsman lover could lay hold of but when the secret was hers she donned coat and headgear and went out on the square railed platform whither the reverend billy dared not follow her TO BE ad |
