The Rainy Day Railroad War. Holman Day
matter drop, Mr. Searles,” said the young man. “I'm thoroughly ashamed of the whole thing.”
“Well, I was going to say,” went on the elderly man, “that civil engineers in these days get just as good wages without being shoulder-hitters. You'll get along faster on the peace basis.”
That was Parker's reflection two days later when he was in the room of the chief engineer of the P. K. & R. system, at the company's general offices.
“By the way,” said the chief, after his subordinate had finished his regular report, “Mr. Jerrard wishes to see you.”
Jerrard was general traffic manager and chief executive.
The young engineer went slowly down the long corridor, apprehension gnawing at his heart. He huskily muttered his name to the clerk at the grilled door and was admitted. He fairly dragged his feet along the strip of matting that led to the general manager's private office. It was like the Bridge of Sighs to him.
“Parker, eh?” repeated the general manager, whirling in his chair and letting his eyeglasses drop against his plump “front elevation,” as Parker whimsically termed it in his thoughts, even in this moment of his distress.
Jerrard gazed at him for a little while, a rather curious expression in his eyes under their shaggy gray brows, then whirled back to his desk and scrabbled among his papers. He drew forth a sheet of memoranda, gave Parker another shrewd glance and inquired:
“Is it true, sir, that you have been interfering in the padrone system of the construction department?”
“I suppose what I did might be termed that, tho I wasn't intending to be meddlesome, Mr. Jerrard.”
“Nothing in general instructions, was there, to lead a cub assistant in the engineering corps to revise a boarding house bill of fare?”
“No, sir.”
“I find it further mentioned that you were back next day and herded about seventy-five Italians into a victualling camp as you would drive steers to a fodder rack. Don't you know that we reserve that sort of business for a squad of police?”
“Mr. Jerrard,” said the young man, recovering some of his self-possession tho his tone was apologetic, “since I have been on the road I saw what happened once when the police came with their clubs and revolvers. There was a free fight and two men were killed. I thought I saw a chance for one man to arbitrate a little difficulty—and arbitration is pretty highly recommended in these days by good authorities. When I found that arbitration didn't make things stay put I meddled once more in order to undo my first mistake—if we may call it that. It probably was a mistake, looked at officially. But you see—” his voice faltered a little, for the manager was surveying him with rather a hard look in his eyes, “I hoped that putting the padrone into line on his food question would prevent a strike; when I drove the men to table I had only the interests of the road at heart, for the strike was then fairly on.”
“Well,” said the manager, a bit of a smile at the corners of his mouth, “you certainly were not thinking very hard of your own interests when you went into that rabid gang.”
“I can see that I made a botch of it generally, Mr. Jerrard. I will save you the trouble of requesting my resignation.”
But as he bowed and turned Jerrard spoke sharply.
“Not so fast, young man,” he said. “As the executive of the P. K. & R, system it wouldn't be exactly official and proper in me to approve your judgment in that matter of the Italians; but as a man—plain man, now, you understand—I know grit when I see it and—” he dropped his bluff stiffness got out of his chair and came along and squeezed Parker's muscular arm, “you've got a brand of it that I admire. Yes, I do. No mistake! But that is just between you and me. That is simply my own personal opinion. I don't believe the directors relish the idea of gladiators in the engineering corps. Just respect this little private hint of mine hereafter please.”
He surveyed the young man with twinkling and appreciative eyes.
“Parker,” he said, “once in a while there comes up in the railroad business a demand for a man who has brains and spunk and muscle all rolled up in one bundle. I haven't tested you out yet on the first named but the chief engineer speaks in your behalf. The last two you certainly have. There's the story of a man who was going home late at night and picked up what he thought was a kitten and found it to be a pole-cat. It was good judgment to set it down again mighty sudden. But the skin was worth something and he resolved to have the skin to pay for the damage. Now President Whittaker and myself have been up in the north woods this season—among the big game, you understand. We picked up what we thought was a kitten. It has turned out to be something else. But we are not going to drop it.”
The young engineer was looking at him with puzzled gaze.
“You don't understand a bit of it, do you?” laughed the traffic manager. “Well, I can't explain the thing just yet. I'll simply leave it this way today: Do you want to take a pole-cat and skin it for us? I don't mean by that that it's a job that any enterprising young man should be ashamed or afraid of. It's a job in your line. It's something of close personal interest to the president of this system and myself. It is going to take you away into the big woods. Do you want it—yes or no?”
The engineer hesitated only a moment.
“I'll take it,” he said simply.
“That's the boy!” cried Jerrard. His tone was so enthusiastic that Parker's instinct told him that this bluff offer was another test of his readiness in an emergency and had succeeded.
The manager put his hand against his shoulder and gently pushed him out of the office.
“Get ready for a cold winter out of doors and practice your tongue on the names To-quette Carry' and 'Colonel Gideon Ward' until you are not afraid of the sound of them.”
With a chuckle he shut the door on the astonished young man, but opened it again before Parker had moved from the mat outside.
“Don't be worried, my boy, because I cannot explain the whole situation today.” There was kindly reassurance in his tones. “You'll make out all right, I'm sure of that.” A queer little smile puckered the corners of his eyes and his voice again became teasing. “The idea is, you've taken a contract to do up the Gideonites of the Wilderness in a lone-handed job. But I think you're good for the trick.” He shut the door again.
CHAPTER TWO—THE WHIM THAT PROJECTED THE FAMOUS “POQUETTE CARRY RAILROAD”
Weeks passed before Rodney Parker got any more light on the matter in which he had blindly given his word.
He understood this silence better when the situation was set before him at last. There are some projects that captains of industry dilate upon with pride. But big men are cautious about letting the world know their whims. And whims that lead to exasperating complications that no business judgment has provided for, do not form pleasant topics for conversation or publicity.
Many railroad projects have been launched, some of them unique, but never before was enterprise conceived in just the spirit that gave the Poquette Carry Railway to the transportation world. There have been railroads that “began somewhere and ended in a sheep pasture.” The Poquette Carry Road, known to the legislature of its state as “The Rainy-Day Railroad,” is even more indifferently located, for it twists for six miles, from water to water, through as tangled and lonely a wilderness as ever owl hooted in.
Yet it has two of the country's railroad kings behind it and at its inception some very wrathful lumber kings were ahead of it, and the final and decisive battle that was fought was between the champions of the respective sides—an old man and a young one.
The