A Fool For Love | Page 9

to know! Now when do you faveh me with my engine?"
Thus the Rajah; and the chief clerk, himself known from end to end of the Colorado and Grand River as a queller of men, could only point out of the window to where the Rosemary stood engined and equipped for the race, and say meekly: "I'm awfully sorry you've been delayed, Mr. Darrah; very sorry, indeed. But your car is ready now. Shall I go along to be on hand if you need me?"
"No, seh!" stormed the irate master; and the chief clerk's face became instantly expressive of the keenest relief. "You stay right heah and see that the wires to Qua'tz Creek are kept open--wide open, seh. And when you get an ordeh from me--for an engine, a regiment of the National Gyua'd, or a train-load of white elephants--you fill it. Do you understand, seh?"
Meantime, while this scene was getting itself enacted in the superintendent's office, a mild fire of consternation was alight in the gathering room of the Rosemary. As we have guessed, Winton's packet of mail was not the only one which was delivered by special arrangement that morning to the incoming Limited at the yard registering station. There had been another, addressed to Mr. Somerville Darrah; and when he had opened it there had been a volcanic explosion and a hurried dash for the telegraph office, as recorded.
Sifted out by the Reverend Billy, and explained by him to Mrs. Carteret and Bessie, the firing spark of the explosion appeared to be some news of an untoward character from a place vaguely designated as "the front."
"It seems that there is some sort of a right-of-way scrimmage going on up in the mountains between our road and the Utah Short Line," said the young man. "It was carried into the courts, and now it turns out that the decision has gone against us."
"How perfectly horrid!" said Miss Bessie. "Now I suppose we shall have to stay here indefinitely while Uncle Somerville does things." And placid Mrs. Carteret added plaintively: "It's too bad! I think they might let him have one little vacation in peace."
"Who talks of peace?" queried Virginia, driven in from her post of vantage on the observation platform by the smoke from the switching-engine. "Didn't I see Uncle Somerville charging across to the telegraph office with war written out large in every line of him?"
"I am afraid you did," affirmed the Reverend Billy; and thereupon the explanation was rehearsed for Virginia's benefit.
The brown eyes flashed militant sympathy.
"Oh, I wish Uncle Somerville would go to 'the front,' wherever that is, and take us along!" she cried. "It would be ever so much better than California."
The Reverend William laughed; and Aunt Martha put in her word of expostulation, as in duty bound.
"Why, my dear Virginia--the idea! You don't know in the least what you are talking about. I have been reading in the papers about these right-of-way troubles, and they are 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 it?" said Virginia, with all the hardihood of youth and unknowledge. "It's something like a burning building: one doesn't want to be hard-hearted and rejoice over other people's misfortunes; but then, if it has to 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'm sure I prefer California and the orange-groves and peace," she asserted. "Don't you, Cousin Billy?"
What Mr. Calvert would have replied is no matter for this history, since at this precise moment the Rajah came in, "coruscating," as Virginia put it, from his late encounter with the superintendent's chief clerk.
"Give them the word to go, Jastrow, and let's get out of heah," he commanded. And when the secretary had vanished the Rajah made his explanations to all and sundry. "I've been obliged in a manneh to change ouh itinerary. Anotheh company is trying to fault us up in Qua'tz Creek Canyon, and I am in a meashuh compelled to be on the ground. We shall be delayed only a few days, I hope; at the worst only until the first snow-storm comes; and, in the meantime, Califo'nia won't run away."
Virginia clapped her hands.
"Then we are really to go to 'the front' and see a right-of-way fight? Oh, won't that be perfectly intoxicating!"
The Rajah glared at her as if she had said something incendiary. The picturesque aspect of the struggle had evidently not appealed to him. But he smiled grimly when he said: "Now there spoke the blood of the fighting Carterets: hope you won't change your mind, my deah." And with that he dived into his working den, pushing the lately-returned secretary in ahead of him.
Virginia