41]"/> camp of his own; John Flint would be pushing out there into the sunset for the better part of a week, across the desert, through the gray hills, and down to the yellow La Paz. The youngsters were shy at first; but after Tiffany had winked and said, “It’ll never do to start this dry, boys,” and had produced a bottle from some mysterious corner, they felt easier. Even Carhart, for the time, laid aside the burden which, like Christian, he must carry for many days. A good many stories were told, most of them by Tiffany, who had run the gamut of railroading, north, south, east, and west.

“That was a great time we had up at Pittsburgh,” said he, “when I stole the gondola cars,”—he placed the accent on the do,—“best thing I ever did. That was when I was on the Almighty and Great Windy that used to run from Pittsburg up to the New York State line. I was acting as a sort of traffic superintendent, among other things,—we had to do all sorts of work then; no picking and choosing and no watching the clock for us.” He turned on the long-nosed instrument man. “That was when you were just about a promising candidate for long pants, my friend.”

“We had a new general manager—named MacBayne. He didn’t know anything about railroading,—had been a telegraph operator and Durfee’s nephew,—yes, the same old Commodore, it was,—and, getting boosted up quick, that way, he got into that frame of mind where he wouldn’t ever have contradicted you if you’d said he was the Almighty and Great Windy. First thing he did was to put in a system of bells to call us to his office,—but I didn’t care such a heap. He enjoyed it so. He’d lean back and pull a little handle, and then be too busy to talk when one of us came running in—loved to make us stand around a spell. Hadn’t but one eye, MacBayne hadn’t, and you never could tell for downright certain who he was swearing at.

“The company had bought a little railroad, the P. G.—Pittsburg and Gulf,—for four hundred and fifty thousand. Just about such a line as our Paradise spur, only instead of the directors buying it personal, they’d bought it for the company.

“One day my little bell tinkled, and I got up and went into the old man’s office. He was smoking a cigar and trying to look through a two-foot wall into Herb Williams’s pickle factory. Pretty soon he swung his one good eye around on me and looked at me sharp. ‘Hen,’ he said, ‘we’re in a fix. We haven’t paid but two hundred thousand on the P.G.—and what’s more, that’s all we can pay.’

“‘Well, sir,’ said I, ‘what’s the trouble?’ It’s funny—he’s always called me Hen, and I’ve always called him sir and Mister MacBayne. He ain’t anybody to-day, but if I went back to Pittsburg to-morrow and met him in Morrison’s place, he’d say, ‘Well, Hen, how’re you making it?’ and I’d say, ‘Pretty well, Mister MacBayne.’—Ain’t it funny? Can’t break away from it.

“I’ve just had a wire from Black,’ said he,—Black was our attorney up at Buffalo,—‘saying that the sheriff of Erie County,’ over the line in New York State, ‘has attached all our gondola cars up there, and won’t release ’em until we pay up. What’ll we do?’

“‘Hum!’ said I. ‘We’ve got just a hundred and twenty gondolas in Buffalo to-day.’ A hundred and twenty cars was a lot to us, you understand—just like it would be to the S. & W. Imagine what would happen to you fellows out here if Peet had that many cars taken away from him. So I thought a minute, and then I said, ‘Has the sheriff chained ’em to the track, Mister MacBayne?’

“‘I don’t know about that,’ said he.

“‘Well,’ said I, ‘don’t you think it would be a good plan to find that out first thing?’

“He looked at me sharp, then he sort o’ grinned. ‘What’re you thinking about, Hen?’ he asked.

“I didn’t answer direct. ‘You find that out,’ I told him, ‘and let me know what he says.’

“About an hour later the bell tinkle-winkled again. ‘No,’ he said, when I went in his office, ‘they ain’t chained down—not yet, anyway. Now, what’ll we do?’

“‘Why don’t you go up there?’ said I. ‘Hook your car on to No. 5’—that was our night express for Buffalo, a long string of oil and coal cars with a baggage car, coach, and sleeper on the end of it. It ran over our line and into Buffalo over the Southeastern.

“‘All right, Hen,’ said he. ‘Will you go along?’

“‘Sure,’ I told him.

“On our way out we picked up Charlie Greenman too. He was superintendent of the State Line Division—tall, thin man, very nervous, Charlie was.

“Next morning, when we were sitting over our breakfast in the Swift House, the old man turned his good eye on me and said, ‘Well, Hen, what next?’ I’d brought him up there, you see, and now he was looking for results.

“‘Well,’ said I, speaking slow and sort of thinking it over, ‘look here, Mister MacBayne, why don’t you get a horse and buggy and look around the city? They say it’s a pretty place. Or you could pick up a boat, you and Charlie, and go sailing on Lake Erie. Or you might run over and see the falls—Ever been there?’

“The old man was looking on both sides of me with those two eyes of his. ‘What are you up to, Hen?’ he said.

“‘Nothing,’ I answered, ‘not a thing. But say, Mister MacBayne, I forgot to bring any money. Let me have a little, will you,—about a hundred and fifty?’

“When I said that, the old man gulped, and looked almost scared. I saw then, just what I’d suspected, that he wouldn’t be the least use to me. I’d ‘a’ done better to have left him behind. ‘Why, yes, Hen,’ said he, ‘I can let you have that!’ He went out, and pretty soon he came back with the money in a big roll of small bills.

“‘Well, good morning, gentlemen,’ said I. ‘I’ll see you at five o’clock this afternoon.’

“I went right out to the Erie yards, where they were unloading twenty-two of our coal cars. Jim Harvey was standing near by, and he gave me a queer look, and asked me what I was doing in Buffalo.

“‘Doing?’ said I, ‘I’m looking after my cars. What did you suppose? And see here, Jim, while you were about it, don’t you think you might have put ’em together. Here you’ve got twenty-two of ’em, and there’s forty over at the Lake Shore, and a lot more in Chaplin’s yards? There ain’t but one of me—however do you suppose I’m going to watch ’em all, even see that the boys keep oil in the boxes?’ ‘I don’t know anything about that,’ said he.

“‘Well now, look here, Jim,’ said I, ‘how many more of these cars have you got to unload?’ ‘Twelve,’ said he. ‘How soon can you get it done—that’s my question?’ ‘Oh, I’ll finish it up to-morrow morning.’ ‘Well, now, Jim,’ said I, ‘I want you to put on a couple of extra wagons and get these cars emptied by five o’clock this afternoon. Then I want you to get all our cars together over there in Chaplin’s yards, where I can keep an eye on ’em!’ ‘Oh, see here,’ said he, ‘I can’t do that, Hen. The sheriff—’

“‘Damn the sheriff,’ said I. ‘I ain’t going to hurt the sheriff. What I want is to get my cars together where I can know what’s being done to ’em.’

“Well, he didn’t want to do it, but some of the long green passed and then he thought maybe he could fix me