The Rainy Day Railroad War | Page 7

gaze.
"I say, Jerrard, you seem to be in a good humor."
"Nothing like the ozone of the forest to make you sparkle," chuckled
the traffic-manager.
It is unnecessary to describe the incidents of the trip across the lake, the
apprehensive flinching of the fat president whenever the canoe lurched,
and his fear of breaking through the bottom of the frail shell.

But when they were well out on the carry road in the buckboard,
Jerrard, gazing on the indescribable mixture of reproach, horror, pain
and astonishment that the president's face presented laughed until
Whittaker forgot dignity, cares and fears, and laughed, too.
Two days later, as they were eating their lunch beside the famous
spring in the north cove of Kennemagon Whittaker stretched himself
luxuriously on the gray moss, and said;
"Jerrard, it's an earthly paradise! I never had such fishing, never saw
such scenery. I want to come here every summer. I'd like to buy a tract
here. But that six-mile drive--O dear me! It makes me shiver when I
think I've got to bump back over it in two weeks."
That evening one Rowe, a timber-land exploring prospector, whose
employment was locating tracts for the cutting of pulp stuff, stopped at
the camp and accepted hospitality for the night. After supper the three
lay in their bunks and chatted, while the guide pottered about the
household tasks.
"Much travel over the Poquette Carry?" asked Whittaker.
"Good deal," said Rowe. "It's the thoroughfare between the West
Branch and Spinnaker, you know. All the men for the woods leave the
train at Sunkhaze, boat it across Spinnaker, and walk the carry at
Poquette. All the supplies for the camp come that way, too. They
bateau goods up the river from the West Branch end of the carry."
"Why doesn't some one fix that road?" asked the president. "Looks to
me as if they had brought rocks and thrown them into the trail just to
make it worse."
"It's all wild lands hereabouts," explained the prospector. "The county
commissioners lay out the roads and the landowners are supposed to
build them, but they don't. Timber-land owners don't like roads through
their woods, anyway."
"I see they don't," replied Whittaker dryly. "What did you pay, Jerrard,

for having your canoe and truck carried across?"
"Fifteen dollars for the duffel, and four dollars each for the guide,
myself and you."
"How's that for a tariff?" laughed the president. Then he took out his
pencil and book and put a series of interrogations to Rowe. At the close
he pondered a while, and said to Jerrard:
"According to our friend here, at least five thousand men cross that
carry each year, making ten thousand through fares one way.
Supplies--pressed hay, grain, foodstuffs and all that sort of
freight--from ten to fifteen thousand tons. Then there's the sportsman
traffic, which could be built up indefinitely if there were suitable
transportation conveniences here. Say, Jerrard, do you know there's a
fine place for a six-mile narrow-gage railroad right there on Poquette
Carry? You and I didn't come down here looking up railroad
possibilities, but really this thing strikes me favorably. Slow time and
not very expensive equipment, but think what a convenience! It will
also give you and me an excuse to come down here summers, eh?" he
added, humorously.
"We'll establish a colony here on Kennemagon," suggested Jerrard, half
in jest, "and start a land boom."
"Seriously," went on Whittaker "the more I talk about that little road
the more I am convinced it would pay a very good dividend. You and I
can swing it. We can use some P. K. & R. rails, fix up one of those
narrow-gage shifters they used on the grain spur, and have a railroad
while you wait. If we only clear enough to pay our own passage twice a
year we'll be 'doing fairly well. And I'll be willing to pass dividends for
the sake of riding from Spinnaker to the West Branch on a car-seat
instead of a buckboard. Say, Rowe," he went on, jocosely, "I suppose
they'll have a mass-meeting and pass votes of thanks to Jerrard and
myself if we put that project through, won't they?"
Rowe squinted his eye along the sliver he was whittling. "I don't know
of any one specially that's hankering for railroad-lines round here," said

he.
"You don't mean to tell me that abomination of stones and muck-holes
suits the public, do you?"
"I know the folks I work for don't want to have it a mite smoother than
it is. They're the public that's running this part of the world."
"Here's a brand-new thing in transportation ideas, Jerrard!" cried the
president of the P. K. &R.
"Nothing strange about our side of it," said the prospector. "The people
I work