CHAPTER IX
THE MISUNDERSTANDING
No attempt was made to minimize the truth that the blow to thedivision was a staggering one. The loss of Smoky Creek Bridge putalmost a thousand miles of the mountain division out of business.Perishable freight and time freight were diverted to other lines.Passengers were transferred; lunches were served to them in the deepvalley, and they were supplied by an ingenuous advertising departmentwith pictures of the historic bridge as it had long stood, and theiraddresses were taken with the promise of a picture of the ruins. SmokyCreek Bridge had long been famous in mountain song and story. For onegeneration of Western railroad men it had stood as a monument to theearliest effort to conquer the Rockies with a railroad. Built longbefore the days of steel, this high and slender link in the firsttranscontinental line had for thirty years served faithfully at itsdanger-post, only to fall in the end at the hands of a bridgeassassin; nor has the mystery of its fate ever completely been solved,though it is believed to lie with Murray Sinclair in the Frenchmanhills. The engineering department and the operating department unitedin a tremendous effort to bring about a resumption of traffic.Glover's men, pulled off construction, were sent forward intrainloads. Dancing's linemen strung arc-lights along the creek untilthe canyon twinkled at night like a mountain village, and men in threeshifts worked elbow to elbow unceasingly to run the switchbacks downto the creek-bed. There, by cribbing across the bottom, they got in atemporary line.
Train movement was thrown into a spectacle of confusion. Upon theincessant and well-ordered activities of the road the burning of thebridge fell like the heel of a heavy boot on an ant-hill; but therailroad men like ants rose to the emergency, and, where the possiblefailed, achieved the impossible.
McCloud spent his days at the creek and his nights at Medicine Bendwith his assistant and his chief despatcher, advising, counselling,studying out trouble reports, and steadying wherever he could theweakened lines of his operating forces. He was getting his first tasteof the trials of the hardest-worked and poorest-paid man in theoperating department of a railroad--the division superintendent.
To these were added personal annoyances. A trainload of Duck Barsteers, shipped by Lance Dunning from the Crawling Stone Ranch, hadbeen caught west of the bridge the very night of the fire. They hadbeen loaded at Tipton and shipped to catch a good market, and underextravagant promises from the live-stock agent of a quick run toChicago. When Lance Dunning learned that his cattle had been caughtwest of the break and would have to be unloaded, he swore up a horsein hot haste and started for Medicine Bend. McCloud, who had notclosed his eyes for sixty hours, had just got into Medicine Bend fromSmoky Creek and was sitting at his desk buried in a mass of papers,but he ordered the cattleman admitted. He was, in fact, eager to meetthe manager of the big ranch and the cousin of Dicksie. Lance Dunningstood above six feet in height, and was a handsome man, in spite ofthe hard lines around his eyes, as he walked in; but neither hismanner nor his expression was amiable.
"Are you Mr. McCloud? I've been here three times this afternoon to seeyou," said he, ignoring McCloud's answer and a proffered chair. "Thisis your office, isn't it?"
McCloud, a little surprised, answered again and civilly: "It certainlyis; but I have been at Smoky Creek for two or three days."
"What have you done with my cattle?"
"The Duck Bar train was run back to Point of Rocks and the cattle wereunloaded at the yard."
Lance Dunning spoke with increasing harshness: "By whose order wasthat done? Why wasn't I notified? Have they had feed or water?"
"All the stock caught west of the bridge was sent back for feed andwater by my orders. It has all been taken care of. You should havebeen notified, certainly; it is the business of the stock agent to seeto that. Let me inquire about it while you are here, Mr. Dunning,"suggested McCloud, ringing for his clerk.
Dunning lost no time in expressing himself. "I don't want my cattleheld at Point of Rocks!" he said angrily. "Your Point of Rocks yardsare infected. My cattle shouldn't have been sent there."
"Oh, no! The old yards where they had a touch of fever were burned offthe face of the earth a year ago. The new yards are perfectlysanitary. The loss of the bridge has crippled us, you know. Yourcattle are being well cared for, Mr. Dunning, and if you doubt it youmay go up and give our men any orders you like in the matter at ourexpense."
"You're taking altogether too much on yourself when you run my stockover the country in this way," exclaimed Dunning, refusing to beplacated.
"How am I to get to Point of Rocks--walk there?"
"Not at all," returned McCloud, ringing up his clerk and asking for apass, which was brought back in a moment and handed to Dunning. "Thecattle," continued McCloud, "can be run down, unloaded, and drivenaround the break to-morrow--with the loss of only two days."
"And in the meantime I lose my market."
"It is too bad, certainly, but I suppose it will be several daysbefore we can get a line across Smoky Creek."
"Why weren't the cattle sent through that way yesterday? What havethey been held at Point of Rocks for? I call the thing badlymanaged."
"We couldn't get the empty cars up from Piedmont for the transferuntil to-day; empties are very scarce everywhere now."
"There always have been empties here when they were wanted untillately. There's been no head or tail to anything on this division forsix months."
"I'm sorry that you have that impression."
"That impression is very general," declared the stockman, with anoath, "and if you keep on discharging the only men on this divisionthat are competent to handle a break like this, it is likely tocontinue!"
"Just a moment!" McCloud's finger rose pointedly. "My failure toplease you in caring for your stock in an emergency may be properly amatter for comment; your opinion as to the way I am running thisdivision is, of course, your own: but don't attempt to criticise theretention or discharge of any man on my payroll!"
Dunning strode toward him. "I'm a shipper on this line; when it suitsme to criticise you or your methods, or anybody else's, I expect to doso," he retorted in high tones.
"But you cannot tell me how to run my business!" thundered McCloud,leaning over the table in front of him.
As the two men glared at each other Rooney Lee opened the door. Hissurprise at the situation amounted to consternation. He shuffled tothe corner of the room, and while McCloud and Dunning engaged hotlyagain, Rooney, from the corner, threw a shot of his own into thequarrel. "On time!" he roared.
The angry men turned. "What's on time?" asked McCloud curtly.
"Number One; she's in and changing engines. I told them you were goingWest," declared Rooney in so deep tones that his fiction would neverhave been suspected. If his cue had been, "My lord, the conductorwaits," it could not have been rung in more opportunely.
Dunning, to emphasize, without a further word, his disgust for thesituation and his contempt for the management, tore into scraps thepass that had been given him, threw the scraps on the floor, took acigar from his pocket and lighted it; insolence could do no more.
McCloud looked over at the despatcher. "No, I am not going West,Rooney. But if you will be good enough to stay here and find out fromthis man just how this railroad ought to be run, I will go to bed. Hecan tell you; the microbe seems to be working in his mind right now,"said McCloud, slamming down the roll-top of his desk. And with LanceDunning glaring at him, somewhat speechless, he put on his hat andwalked out of the room.
It was but one of many disagreeable incidents due to the loss of thebridge. Complications arising from the tie-up followed him at everyturn. It seemed as if he could not get away from trouble followingtrouble. After forty hours further of toil, relieved by four hours ofsleep, McCloud found himself, rather dead than alive, back at MedicineBend and in the little dining-room at Marion's. Coming in at thecottage door on Fort Street, he dropped into a chair. The cottagerooms were empty. He heard Marion's voice in the front shop; she wasengaged with a customer. Pu
tting his head on the table to wait amoment, nature asserted itself and McCloud fell asleep. He wokehearing a voice that he had heard in dreams. Perhaps no other voicecould have wakened him, for he slept for a few minutes a death-likesleep. At all events, Dicksie Dunning was in the front room andMcCloud heard her. She was talking with Marion about the burning ofSmoky Creek Bridge.
"Every one is talking about it yet," Dicksie was saying. "If I hadlost my best friend I couldn't have felt worse; you know, my fatherbuilt it. I rode over there the day of the fire, and down into thecreek, so I could look up where it stood. I never realized before howhigh and how long it was; and when I remembered how proud fatheralways was of his work there--Cousin Lance has often told me--I satdown right on the ground and cried. Really, the ruins were the mostpathetic thing you ever saw, Marion, with great clouds of smokerolling up from the canyon that day; the place looked so lonely when Irode away that every time I turned to look back my eyes filled withtears. Poor daddy! I am almost glad he didn't live to see it. Howtimes have changed in railroading, haven't they? Mr. Sinclair was overjust the other night, and he said if they kept using this new coal inthe engines they would burn up everything on the division. Do youknow, I have been waiting in town three or four hours now for CousinLance? I feel almost like a tramp. He is coming from the West with thestock train. It was due here hours ago, but they never seem to knowwhen anything is to get here the way things are run on the railroadnow. I want to give Cousin Lance some mail before he goes through."
"The passenger trains crossed the creek over the switchbacks hoursago, and they say the emergency grades are first-rate," said MarionSinclair, on the defensive. "The stock trains must have followed rightalong. Your cousin is sure to be here pretty soon. Probably Mr.McCloud will know which train he is on, and Mr. Lee telephoned thatMr. McCloud would be over here at three o'clock for his dinner. Heought to be here now."
"Oh, dear, then I must go!"
"But he can probably tell you just when your cousin will be in."
"I wouldn't meet him for worlds!"
"You wouldn't? Why, Mr. McCloud is delightful."
"Oh, not for worlds, Marion! You know he is discharging all the bestof the older men, the men that have made the road everything it is,and of course we can't help sympathizing with them over our way. Formy part, I think it is terrible, after a man has given all of his lifeto building up a railroad, that he should be thrown out to starve inthat way by new managers, Marion."
McCloud felt himself shrinking within his weary clothes. Resentmentseemed to have died. He felt too exhausted to undertake controversy,even if it were to be thought of, and it was not.
Nothing further was needed to complete his humiliation. He picked uphis hat and with the thought of getting out as quietly as he had comein. In rising he swept a tumbler at his elbow from the table. Theglass broke on the floor, and Marion exclaimed, "What is that?" andstarted for the dining-room.
It was too late to get away. McCloud stepped to the portieres of thetrimming-room door and pushed them aside. Marion stood with a hat inher hand, and Dicksie, sitting at the table, was looking directly atthe intruder as he appeared in the doorway. She saw in him herpleasant acquaintance of the wreck at Smoky Creek, whose name she hadnot learned. In her surprise she rose to her feet, and Marion spokequickly: "Oh, Mr. McCloud, is it you? I did not hear you come in."
Dicksie's face, which had lighted, became a spectacle of confusionafter she heard the name. McCloud, conscious of the awkwardness ofhis position and the disorder of his garb, said the worst thing atonce: "I fear I am inadvertently overhearing your conversation."
He looked at Dicksie as he spoke, chiefly because he could not helpit, and this made matters hopeless.
She flushed more deeply. "I cannot conceive why our conversationshould invite a listener."
Her words did not, of course, help to steady him. "I tried to getaway," he stammered, "when I realized I was a part of it."
"In any event," she exclaimed hastily, "if you are Mr. McCloud I thinkit unpardonable to do anything like that!"
"I am Mr. McCloud, though I should rather be anybody else; and I amsorry that I was unable to help hearing what was said; I----"
"Marion, will you be kind enough to give me my gloves?" said Dicksie,holding out her hand.
Marion, having tried once or twice to intervene, stood between thefiring-lines in helpless amazement. Her exclamations were lost; thetwo before her gave no heed to ordinary intervention.
McCloud flushed at being cut off, but he bowed. "Of course," he said,"if you will listen to no explanation I can only withdraw."
HELEN HOLMES AS MARION SINCLAIR IN THE PHOTO-PLAYPRODUCTION OF "WHISPERING SMITH." (C) _American Mutual Studio_.]
He went back, dinnerless, to work all night; but the switchbacks weredoing capitally, and all night long, trains were rolling throughMedicine Bend from the West in an endless string. In the morning theyard was nearly cleared of westbound tonnage. Moreover, the mail inthe morning brought compensation. A letter came from Glover tellinghim not to worry himself to death over the tie-up, and one came fromBucks telling him to make ready for the building of the Crawling StoneLine.
McCloud told Rooney Lee that if anybody asked for him to report himdead, and going to bed slept twenty-four hours.
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