The Rainy Day Railroad War | Page 6

and that as he proceeded he was unreeling them as a spider spins its
thread.
When he left the train at Sunkhaze station he was still worrying as to
whether the assistant traffic-manager would be able to beat the O. & O.
road on the grain contract. In thinking it over about a month later it
occurred to him that he had dropped all outside affairs right there on
that station platform.
In the first place the mosquitoes and black flies were waiting. He had
never seen or felt black flies before. He would have scouted the idea
that there were insects no bigger than pinheads that in five minutes
would have his face streaming with blood.
"They do just love the taste of city sports," said the guide. "We old
sanups ain't much of a delicacy 'long side of such as you. Here, let me
put this on." He daubed the white face of the city man with an
evil-smelling compound of tar and oil.
Jerrard's mind was rapidly freeing itself from transportation worries.
Then came the long paddle across Spinnaker Lake, with only the
unfamiliar insecurity of a canoe beneath him, and after that the six-mile
Poquette carry.
By this time Jerrard had forgotten the P. K. & R. entirely.
The canoe and duffel went across the carry slung upon a set of wheels.
Jerrard rode in the low-backed middle seat of a muddy buck-board.
The wheels ran against boulders, grated off with indignant
"chuckering" of axle-boxes, hobbled over stumps and plowed through
"honey-pots" of mud.
"For goodness' sake," gasped Jerrard, holding desperately to the seat,
"why don't you get into the road?"

The driver, a French-Canadian turned and displayed an appreciative
grin.
"Eet ban de ro'd vat you saw de re," he explained, pointing his whip to
the thoroughfare they were pursuing.
"This a road?" demanded Jerrard, with indignation.
"Oui, eet ban a tote-road."
"I never heard of this kind before," ejaculated Jerrard, between bumps,
"but the name 'road' ought not to be disgraced in any such fashion. How
much of it is there?"
"Sax mal'."
"Six miles! All like this?"
"Aw-w-w some pretty well, some as much bad."
"Well, I don't know just what you mean," muttered Jerrard, "but I fear I
can imagine." After what seemed a long interval, and when Jerrard,
dizzied by the bumps and the curves, believed that the end must be
near,--for six miles are but an inconsiderable item to the
traffic-manager of a thousand-mile system,--he asked how far they had
come. The driver looked at the trees. "Wan mal', mabbee, an' some
leetle more." The railroad man opened his mouth to make a
discourteous retort reflecting on the driver's judgment of distances, but
just then one of the rear wheels slipped off a rock. It came down
kerchunk. Jerrard bit his cheek and his tongue. After that he sat and
held to his seat with a hopeless idea that the end of the road was
running away from them.
Half-way through the woods he bought two fat doughnuts and a piece
of apple pie at a wayside log house. He munched his humble fare with a
gusto he had not known for years. The jolting, the shaking, the tossing
had started his sluggish blood and cleared his business-befogged brain.
His food was spiced with the aroma of the hemlocks, and when they

took to the road again he began to hum tunes.
[Illustration: Then he fell to chuckling 049-050]
Then he fell to chuckling. And when a smooth stretch suffered him to
unclasp his cramped hold, he slapped his leg mirthfully. He was
thinking what President Whittaker of the P. K. & R. would be saying in
two weeks.
President Whittaker was a rotund, flabby man, whom long indulgence
in rubber-tired broughams and double-springed private cars had
softened until he reminded one of a fat down pillow.
"Jerrard," he had said, at parting, "if you find good fishing I'll follow
you in two weeks. I need a little outdoor relaxation myself."
Jerrard sent an enthusiastic letter right back by the tote-road driver. He
took the word of his guide about the fishing in prospect. In his new and
ebullient spirits he felt that he could hardly wait two weeks for the
spectacle--Whittaker in the middle seat of a buck-board, on that
six-mile carry road. And when the day came, Jerrard, now bronzed,
alert and agile walked out over the Poquette Carry, paddled down to
Sunkhaze, and received his superior with open arms.
The unconsciousness of the corpulent Whittaker as he left the train,
spick and span in tweed and polished shoes appealed to Jerrard's sense
of the ludicrous so acutely that the president, following the
baggage-laden guide down to the shore of the lake, stopped and looked
at his friend with puzzled