Held for Orders: Being Stories of Railroad Life. Spearman Frank Hamilton
a wonder the bridge material came in fast – the Spider stuff first – and early in the summer Hailey, very quiet, and Peeto, very profane, with all and several their traps and slaves and belongings moved into construction headquarters at the Spider, and the first airlock ever sunk west of the Missouri closed over the heads of tall Hailey and big Ed Peeto. Like a swarm of ants the bridge-workers cast the refuse up out of the Spider bed. The blow-pipes never slept: night and day the sand streamed from below, and Hailey's caissons, like armed cruisers, sunk foot by foot towards the rock; by the middle of September the masonry was crowding high-water mark, and the following Saturday Hailey and Peeto ran back to Medicine Bend to rest up a bit and get acquainted with their families. Peeto was so deaf he couldn't hear himself swear, and Hailey looked ragged and thin, like the old depot, but immensely happy.
Sunday morning counted a little even then in the mountains. It was at least a day to get your feet on the tables up in Bucks's office and smoke Callahan's Cavendish – which was enough to make a man bless Callahan if he did forget his Maker. Sunday mornings Bucks would get out the dainty, pearl-handled Wostenholm that Lillienfeld, the big San Francisco spirit-shipper, left annually for him at the Bend, and open the R. R. B. mail and read the news aloud for the benefit of Callahan and Hailey and such hangers-on as Peeto and an occasional stray despatcher.
"Hello," exclaimed Bucks, chucking a nine-inch official manila under the table, "here's a general order – Number Fourteen – "
The boys drew their briers like one. Bucks read out a lot of stuff that didn't touch our End, and then he reached this paragraph:
"'The Mountain and the Inter-mountain divisions are hereby consolidated under the name of the Mountain Division with J. F. Bucks as Superintendent, headquarters at Medicine Bend. C. T. Callahan is appointed Assistant Superintendent of the new division.'"
"Good boy!" roared Ed Peeto, straining his ears.
"Well, well, well," said Hailey, opening his eyes, "here's promotions right and left."
"'H. P. Agnew is appointed Superintendent of bridges of the new division with headquarters at Omaha, vice P. C. Hailey,'" Bucks read on, with some little surprise growing into a shock. Then he read fast looking for some further mention of Hailey. Hailey promoted, transferred, assigned – but there was no further mention of Hailey in G. O. Number Fourteen. Bucks threw down the order in a silence. Ed Peeto broke out first.
"Who's H. P. Canoe?"
"Agnew."
"Who the hell is he?" roared Ed. Nobody answered: nobody knew. Bucks attempted to talk; Callahan lit his lighted pipe; but Ed Peeto stared at Hailey like a drunken man.
"Did you hear that?" he snorted at his superior.
Hailey nodded.
"You're out!" stormed Peeto.
Hailey nodded. The bridge foreman took his pipe from his mouth and dashed it into the stove. He got up and stamped across to the window and was like to have sworn the glass out before Hailey spoke.
"I'm glad we're up to high water at the Spider, Bucks," said he at last. "When they get in the Peace River work, the division will run itself for a year."
"Hailey," Bucks spoke slowly, "I don't need to tell you what I think of it, do I? It's a damned shame. But it's what I've said for a year – nobody ever knows what Omaha will do next."
Hailey rose to his feet. "Where you going, Phil?" asked Bucks.
"Going back to the Spider on Number Two."
"Not going back this morning – why don't you wait for Four, to-night?" suggested Bucks.
"Ed," Hailey raised his voice at the foreman, "will you get those stay-bolts and chuck them into the baggage-car for me on Number Two? I'm going over to the house for a minute." He forgot to answer Bucks; they knew what it meant. He was bracing himself to tell the folks before he left them. Preparing to explain why he wouldn't have the Sunday at home with the children. Preparing to tell the wife – and the old man – that he was out. Out of the railroad system he had given his life to help build up and make what it was. Out of the position he had climbed to by studying like a hermit and working like a hobo. Out – without criticism, or allegation, or reason – simply, like a dog, out.
Nobody at the Wickiup wanted to hear the telling over at the cottage; nobody wanted to imagine the scene. As Number Two's mellow chime whistle rolled down the gorge, they saw Hailey coming out of his house, his wife looking after him, and two little girls tugging at his arms as he hurried along; old Denis behind, head down, carrying the boy's shabby valise, trying to understand why the blow had fallen.
That was what Callahan up with Bucks at the window was trying to figure – what it meant.
"The man that looks to Omaha for rhyme or reason will beggar his wits, Callahan," said Bucks slowly, as he watched Ed Peeto swing the stay-bolts up into the car so they would crack the baggageman across the shins, and then try to get him into a fight about it. "They never had a man – and I bar none, no, not Brodie – that could handle the mountain-water like Hailey; they never will have a man – and they dump him out like a pipe of tobacco. How does it happen we are cursed with such a crew of blooming idiots? Other roads aren't."
Callahan made no answer. "I know why they did it," Bucks went on, "but I couldn't tell Hailey."
"Why?"
"I think I know why. Last time I was down, the president brought his name up and asked a lot of questions about where he was educated and so on. Somebody had plugged him, I could see that in two minutes. I gave him the facts – told him that Brodie had given him his education as an engineer. The minute he found out he wasn't regularly graduated, he froze up. Very polite, but he froze up. See? Experience, actual acquirements," Bucks extended his hand from his vest pocket in an odd wavy motion till it was lost at arm's length, "nothing – nothing – nothing."
As he concluded, Hailey was climbing behind his father into the smoker; Number Two pulled down the yard and out; one thing Hailey meant to make sure of – that they shouldn't beat him out of the finish of the Spider bridge as he had planned it; one monument Hailey meant to have – one he has.
The new superintendent of bridges took hold promptly; we knew he had been wired for long before his appointment was announced. He was a good enough fellow, I guess, but we all hated him. Bucks did the civil, though, and took Agnew down to the Spider in a special to inspect the new work and introduce him to the man whose bread and opportunity he was taking. "I've been wanting to meet you, Mr. Hailey," said Agnew pleasantly after they had shaken hands. Hailey looked at Agnew silently as he spoke; Bucks looked steadfastly at the grasshopper derrick.
"I've been expecting you'd be along pretty soon," replied Hailey presently. "There's considerable to look over here. After that we'll go back to Peace River cañon. We're just getting things started there: then we'll run up to the Bend and I'll turn the office over."
"No hurry about that. You've got a good deal of a bridge here, Mr. Hailey?"
"You'll need a good deal of a bridge here."
"I didn't expect to find you so far along out here in the mountains. Where did you get that pneumatic process?"
It touched Hailey, the pleasant, easy way Agnew took him. The courtesy of the east against the blunt of the west. There wasn't a mean drop anywhere in Hailey's blood, and he made no trouble whatever for his successor.
After he let go on the West End Hailey talked as if he would look up something further east. He spoke about it to Bucks, but Bucks told him frankly he would find difficulty without a regular degree in getting a satisfactory connection. Hailey himself realized that; moreover, he seemed reluctant to quit the mountains. He acted around the cottage and the Wickiup like a man who has lost something and who looks for it abstractedly – as one might feel in his pockets for a fishpole or a burglar. But there were lusty little Haileys over at the cottage to be looked after, and Bucks, losing a roadmaster about that time, asked Hailey (after chewing it a long time with Callahan) to take the place himself and stay on the staff. He even went home with Hailey and argued it.
"I know it doesn't seem just right," Bucks put it, "but, Hailey, you must remember this