A Fool For Love | Page 3

I enlisted for a soldier when I thought I was only going into peaceful exile as assistant engineer of construction on the Utah Short Line?"
"That remains to be seen." Winton took a leaf from his pocket memorandum and drew a rough outline map. "Here is Denver, and here is Carbonate," he explained. "At present the Utah is running into Carbonate this way over the rails of the C. G. R. on a joint track agreement which either line may terminate by giving six months' notice of its intention to the other. Got that?"
"To have and to hold," said Adams. "Go on."
"Well, on the first day of September the C. G. R. people gave the Utah management notice to quit."
"They are bloated monopolists," said Adams sententiously. "Still I don't see why there should be any scrapping over the line in Quartz Creek Canyon."
"No? You are not up in monopolistic methods. In six months from September first the Utah people will be shut out of Carbonate business, which is all that keeps that part of their line alive. If they want a share of that traffic after March first, they will have to have a road of their own to carry it over."
"Precisely," said Adams, stifling a yawn. "They are building one, aren't they?"
"Trying to," Winton amended. "But, unfortunately, the only practicable route through the mountains is up Quartz Creek Canyon, and the canyon is already occupied by a branch line of the Colorado and Grand River."
"Still I don't see why there should be any scrap."
"Don't you? If the Rajah's road can keep the new line out of Carbonate till the six months have expired, it will have a monopoly of all the carrying trade of the camp. By consequence it can force every shipper in the district to make iron-clad contracts, so that when the Utah line is finally completed it won't be able to secure any freight for a year, at least."
"Oho! that's the game, is it? I begin to savvy the burro: that's the proper phrase, isn't it? And what are our chances?"
"We have about one in a hundred, as near as I could make out from Mr. Callowell's statement of the case. The C. G. R. people are moving heaven and earth to obstruct us in the canyon. If they can delay the work a little longer, the weather will do the rest. With the first heavy snow in the mountains, which usually comes long before this, the Utah will have to put up its tools and wait till next summer."
Adams lighted another cigarette.
"Pardon me if I seem inquisitive," he said, "but for the life of me I can't understand what these obstructionists can do. Of course, they can't use force."
Winton's smile was grim. "Can't they? Wait till you get on the ground. But the first move was peaceable enough. They got an injunction from the courts restraining the new line from encroaching on their right of way."
"Which was a thing that nobody wanted to do," said Adams, between inhalations.
"Which was a thing the Utah had to do," corrected Winton. "The canyon is a narrow gorge--a mere slit in parts of it. That is where they have us."
"Oh, well," returned Adams, "I suppose we took an appeal and asked to have the injunction set aside?"
"We did, promptly; and that is the present status of the fight. The appeal decision has not yet been handed down; and in the meantime we go on building railroad, incurring all the penalties for contempt of court with every shovelful of earth moved. Do you still think you will be in danger of ossifying?"
Adams let the question rest while he asked one of his own.
"How do you come to be mixed up in it, Jack? A week ago some one told me you were going to South America to build a railroad in the Andes. What switched you?"
Winton shook his head. "Fate, I guess; that and a wire from President Callowell of the Utah offering me this. Chief of Construction Evarts, in charge of the work in Quartz Creek Canyon, said what you said a few minutes ago--that he had not hired out for a soldier. He resigned, and I'm taking his berth."
Adams rose and buttoned his coat.
"By all of which it seems that we two are in for a good bit more than the ossifying exile," he remarked. And then: "I am going back into the Rosemary to pay my respects to Miss Virginia Carteret. Won't you come along?"
"No," said Winton, more shortly than the invitation warranted; and the other went his way alone.

II
IN WHICH AN ENGINE IS SWITCHED
"'Scuse me, sah; private cyah, sah."
It was the porter's challenge in the vestibule of the Rosemary. Adams found a card.
"Take that to Miss Carteret--Miss Virginia Carteret," he directed, and waited till the man came