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The Road Builders
The Road Builders
CHAPTER I
YOUNG VAN ENGAGES A COOK
The S. & W. was hoping some day to build a large station with a steel and glass trainshed at Sherman. Indeed, a side elevation of the structure, drawn to scale and framed in black walnut, had hung for a number of years in the private office, away down east, of President Daniel De Reamer. But that was to come in the day when Sherman should be a metropolis; at present the steel of which it was to be constructed still lay deep in the earth, unblasted, unsmelted, and unconverted; and the long, very dirty train which, at the time this narrative opens, was waiting to begin its westward journey, lay exposed to the rays of what promised to be, by noon, the hottest sun the spring had so far known. The cars were of an old, ill-ventilated[Pg 1][Pg 2] sort, and the laborers, who were packed within them like cattle in a box-car, had shed coats and even shirts, and now sat back, and gasped and grumbled and fanned themselves with their caps, and steadily lost interest in life.
Apparently there was some uncertainty back in the office of the superintendent. A red-faced man, with a handkerchief around his neck, ran out with an order; whereupon an engine backed in, coupled up to the first car, and whistled impatiently. But they did not go. Half an hour passed, and the red-faced man ran out again, and the engine uncoupled, snorted, rang its bell, and disappeared whence it had come.
At length two men – Peet, the superintendent, and Tiffany, chief engineer of the railroad – walked down the platform together, and addressed a stocky man with a close-cut gray mustache and a fixed frown, who stood beside the rear car.
“Peet says he can’t wait any longer, Mr. Vandervelt,” said Tiffany.
“Can’t help that,” replied Vandervelt.
“But you’ve got to help it!” cried Peet. “What are you waiting for, anyway?”
“If you think we’re starting without Paul Carhart, you’re mistaken.”
“Carhart! Who is Carhart?”
“That’s all right,” Tiffany put in. “He’s in charge of the construction.”
“I don’t care what he is! This train – ”