The Taming of Red Butte Western | Page 9

corridor door opened and the night despatcher's off-trick man came in with a message for Hallock.
It was a mere routine notification from the line-end operator at Copah, and the chief clerk read it sullenly to the master-mechanic.
"Engine 266, Williams, engineer, and Blackmar, fireman, with service-car Naught-One, Bradford, conductor, will leave Copah at 12:01 A.M., and run special to Angels. By order of Howard Lidgerwood, General Superintendent."
Gridley's pivot-chair righted itself with a snap. But he waited until the off-trick man was gone before he said, "Lidgerwood! Well, by all the gods!" then, with a laugh that was more than half a snarl, "There is a chance for you yet, Rankin."
"Why, do you know him?"
"No, but I know something about him. I've got a line on New York, the same as you have, and I get a hint now and then. I knew that Lidgerwood had been considered for the place, but I was given to understand that he would refuse the job if it were offered to him."
"Why should he refuse?" demanded Hallock.
"That is where my wire-tapper fell down; he couldn't tell."
"Then why do you say there is still a chance for me?"
"Oh, on general principles, I guess. If it was an even break that he would refuse, it is still more likely that he won't stay after he has seen what he is up against, don't you think?"
Hallock did not say what he thought. He rarely did.
"Of course, you made inquiries about him when you found out he was a possible; I'd trust you to do that, Gridley. What do you know?"
"Not much that you can use. He is out of the Middle West; a young man and a graduate of Purdue. He took the Civil degree, but stayed two years longer and romped through the Mechanical. He ought to be pretty well up on theory, you'd say."
"Theory be damned!" snapped the chief clerk. "What he'll need in the Red Desert will be nerve and a good gun. If he has the nerve, he can buy the gun."
"But having the gun he couldn't always be sure of buying the nerve, eh? I guess you are right, Rankin; you usually are when you can forget to be vindictive. And that brings us around to the jumping-off place again. Of course, you will stay on with the new man--if he wants you to?"
"I don't know. That is my business, and none of yours."
It was a bid for a renewal of the quarrel which was never more than half veiled between these two. But Gridley did not lift the challenge.
"Let it go at that," he said placably. "But if you should decide to stay, I want you to let up on Flemister."
The morose antagonism died out of Hallock's eyes, and in its place came craft.
"I'd kill Flemister on sight, if I had the sand; you know that, Gridley. Some day it may come to that. But in the meantime----"
"In the meantime you have been snapping at his heels like a fice-dog, Hallock; holding out ore-cars on him, delaying his coal supplies, stirring up trouble with his miners. That was all right, up to yesterday. But now it has got to stop."
"Not for any orders that you can give," retorted the chief clerk, once more opening the door for the quarrel.
The master-mechanic got up and flicked the cigar ash from his coat-sleeve with a handkerchief that was fine enough to be a woman's.
"I am not going to come to blows with you. Rankin--not if I can help it," he said, with his hand on the door-knob. "But what I have said will have to go as it lies. Shoot Flemister out of hand, if you feel like it, but quit hampering his business."
Hallock stood up, and when he was on his feet his big frame made him look still more a fair match physically for the handsome master-mechanic.
"Why?" The single word shot out of the loose-lipped mouth like an explosive bullet.
Gridley opened the door and turned upon the threshold.
"I might borrow the word from you and say that Flemister's business and mine are none of yours. But I won't do that. I'll merely say that Flemister may need a little Red Butte Western nursing in the Ute Valley irrigation scheme he is promoting, and I want you to see that he gets it. You may take that as a word to the wise, or as a kicked-in hint to a blind mule; whichever you please. You can't afford to fight me, Hallock, and you know it. Sleep on it a few hours, and you'll see it in that way, I'm sure. Good-night."

III
A LITTLE BROTHER OF THE COWS
Crosswater Gap, so named because the high pass over which the railroad finds its way is anything but a gap, and, save when the winter snows are melting,