"Twelve miles, I believe you said: that is a very considerable increase, I should say. The great eastern companies are spending millions of dollars, Mr. Ford, to shorten their lines by half-mile cut-offs."

Ford had his reply ready.

"The conditions are entirely different. It will be many years before a fast through service is either practicable or profitable over the extension; and when it comes to that, we shall still have the short line from Denver to Green b.u.t.te by forty-two miles. But I explained all this at the time, Mr. Colbrith, and I understood that I had the executive committee's approval of the changed route."

"Qualifiedly, Mr. Ford; only qualifiedly. Yet you have gone ahead in your usual impetuous way, abandoning the short line through the canyon and building the detour. Your motive for haste must have been a very strong one--very strong."

"It was. I am not here to kill time."

"So it appears. But I am here, Mr. Ford, to consider carefully, and to investigate. We shall go first over this route you have abandoned. I wish to see for myself the difficulties you have so painstakingly described."

Ford shrugged.

"I'm quite at your service, of course. But you will find it a hard trip.

Indeed, if we drive, we shall have to cross the river and take the other side. The canyon on this side is impa.s.sable in places for a man on foot."

"I provided for that," said the president, letting his ferrety eyes rest for a moment upon the reluctant one. "You will find two buckboards with their drivers at the MacMorrogh headquarters. Be good enough to order them around, and we'll start at once. No; no protests, Mr. Ford. My responsibilities are not to be shirked. Penfield will drive with me, and you may take Mr. Frisbie with you, if you see fit. I understand he is implicated with you in this matter."

Ford bridled angrily at the word.

"There is no implication about it, Mr. Colbrith. You continually refer to it as if it were a crime."

"Ah! the word is yours, Mr. Ford. We shall see--we shall see. That is all, for the present."

Ford was raging when he found Frisbie and gave the order for the vehicles.

"He turned me out of his office state-room as if I had been a messenger boy or tramp! Get those teams out, d.i.c.k, and give me a chance to cool down. If my job is to last through this day--"

Frisbie laughed. "Go and dip your head in the Pannikin while you wait.

Or, better still, chew on this. It's a cipher message that Durgin has just been sending for Penfield to Vice-President North. Wouldn't that make you weep and howl?"

Ford was still puzzling over the meaningless code words when he took his seat in the second of the two buckboards with Frisbie. The first a.s.sistant waited until the horses had splashed through the shallows of the river crossing; waited further until the president's vehicle had gained a little start. Then he said: "Is it possible that you had Penfield for a spy on you as long as you did without working out his cipher code? Good Lord! I got that down before I did anything else--last spring when you left me to run the Plug Mountain. Here's what he says to North"--taking the code message and translating: "Ford suspects something. Don't know how much. He and Miss Adair are putting their heads together. She has authority of some kind from her brother.

President goes with Ford to examine abandoned route, as arranged. Will wire result later.'"

"'As arranged,'" was Ford's wrathful comment.

"Apparently, everything is arranged for us. Some day, d.i.c.k, I'll lose my temper, tie Penfield in a hard knot and throw him into the river! It's like a chapter out of Lucretia Borgia!"

XIX

THE RELUCTANT WHEELS

It was possibly an hour after Penfield's cipher message reached the Southwestern Pacific headquarters in the Colorado capital, when a fair-haired young man in London-cut clothes, and with a tourist's quota of hand-luggage, crossed the Denver Union Station platform from the Pullman of a belated Chicago train.

Ascertaining from a gateman that the Plug Mountain day train had long since gone on its way up the canyon, the young man left his many belongings at the check-stand and had himself driven up-town to the Guaranty Building. It was Eckstein who took his card in Mr. North's outer office. The private secretary was dictating to a stenographer, and was impatient of the interruption. But the name on the card wrought a miracle.

"Mr. North? Why, surely, Mr. Adair. He is always at liberty for you.

Right through this way"--holding the gate in the counter railing at its widest--"we're mighty glad to see you in Denver, always."

Adair had acquired the monocle habit on his latest run across the Atlantic, and to keep in practice he gave the secretary the coldest of stares through the disconcerting gla.s.s. "Really! I'm quite delighted.

Who is the other member of the 'we,' Mr.--er--er--"

"Eckstein," prompted the secretary; but he said no more, being prudently anxious to be quit of the transfixing stare before a worse thing should befall.

In the inner room the vice-president was less effusive, but no less cordial. It was a rare thing to see one of the company's directors in the Denver business offices. Mr. North was of the opinion that it would be a good investment of time and effort for all concerned if the members of the board used their privilege oftener. So on through half a dozen polite time-killers to the reluctant query: What could the general manager do for Mr. Adair?

Given leave to speak, Adair stated his needs succinctly. He wanted a special train to Saint's Rest; he wanted it suddenly, and he asked that it be given the right of the road.

"My dear sir!" protested the vice-president, "you mustn't ask impossibilities! You shall have the train at once, of course: you shall have my private car. But when it comes to the right of way, you'll have to appeal to Mr. Ford. Why, he doesn't scruple to lay out the United States mails for his material trains!"

"Um," said Adair. "Where can I reach Ford?"

Mr. North did not equivocate; he never lied when the truth would answer the purpose equally well.

"He is out on the extension; or more correctly speaking, somewhere beyond the present end of the construction telegraph line. I'm afraid you couldn't reach him by wire."

"And the president?" queried the visitor.

"Mr. Colbrith's car is at the end-of-track. You wished to join the party in the Nadia?"

"That is what I had in mind," said Adair, not too anxiously.

Mr. North shook his head.

"I don't think you'd enjoy the run over the construction track. Mr.

Colbrith went over it last night because--well, because he believes it to be a presidential duty to inspect everything. If you leave to-day, you will probably meet the Nadia coming out--possibly at Saint's Rest."

Adair suddenly became wary.

"Perhaps that would be the easy thing to do," he said. "I suppose the engineers at Saint's Rest could put me up if I have to stay over night?"

"You needn't ask them. You will have my car--with the best cook this side of Louisiana. Keep it, live in it, till Mr. Colbrith picks you up on his return."

"All right. But you'll give me the special. And let it make as good time as it can, Mr. North; I'm fierce when I have to ride a slow train."

The vice-president's promise was freely given; and to expedite matters, the division superintendent's chief clerk went down to the station with Adair to see the special train properly equipped and started on the mountain-climbing run. Adair left the details to this orderly from the general offices; not knowing how to compa.s.s them himself, he had to. If he could have seen the broad grins on the faces of his train crew when Dobson, the clerk, gave them the despatcher's order--but at that moment he was lounging in Mr. North's easiest chair in the central compartment of the "01," reading for the twentieth time a crease-worn telegram.

The telegram was from Alicia, and it was dated at Denver, three days gone. It was not very explicit; on the contrary, it was rather incoherent.

"You would better come on as fast as you can if you want to save your friend's life. He has been tried and found guilty--of just what, I don't know--and will be hanged pretty soon--within a few days, I think."

"Now that's a nice way to stir a fellow up, isn't it?" soliloquized the pleasure-lover. "Just as I was getting ready to go up to Mount Ptarmigan for the shooting. She knew that, too. I'll bet a picayune it's just a girl's scare. Ford's plenty good and able to take care of himself."

That was Mr. Charles Edward Adair's care-free phrasing of it; but three hours later, when the cook of the "01" served him the most appetizing of luncheons in the big open compartment, and the steeply pitched walls of the lower Blue Canyon were still stinting the outlook from the car windows, he began to grow impatient.