"That'd be fair, and it'd be easy," went on Tom. "We'll fix it up that-a-way, me and Miss Constance--not you. And as soon as we get to a telegraft office, we fire the general counsel, Mr. Barkley; don't we, Miss Constance?" The girl nodded grimly.

"He's fired," said Tom. "You can take care of that the first thing you do, Mr. Ellsworth. Then you can make out my papers as yardmaster and general boss of the deepot. You can be clerk.

"Now here we go, the railroad cars a choo-chooin' up our canon, same as down here at Sky Top. In the front car is the president, which is Miss Constance, with me clost along, the new yardmaster. Your pa is somewhere back on the train, Miss Constance, with the money to pay off the hands. He's useful, but not inderspensible."

"Go on!" applauded Constance. "Who besides us and poor old dad?"

Tom Osby turned and looked at her gravely.

"And there comes down to meet us at the station," he concluded, "the only man we needed to help us put this thing through." Tom Osby finished his tea in silence. Constance herself made no comment. Her gaze was on the far-off mountains.

"That there man," he resumed, shaking out the grounds from his tea-cup, "is the new division counsel for the road, the first mayor of Heart's Desire,--after Miss Constance,--and mighty likely the next Congressional delergate from this Territory. Now can you both guess who that man is?"

"I'll admit he's a bigger man than Barkley," said Ellsworth, slowly.

"That boy would make a grand trial lawyer. They couldn't beat him."

"No," said Tom Osby, "they'd think he was square, and that means a lot.

They _do_ think he's square; and the boys are goin' to do something for him if they can. Now if he gets back--"

Constance turned upon him with a glance of swift appeal.

"As I was sayin', _when_ he gets back," resumed Tom, "some of us fellers may perhaps take it up with him, and tell him what Miss Constance wants to have done."

This was too much. The girl sprang to her feet. "You'll tell him nothing!" she cried.

Ellsworth turned to Tom Osby with a sober face. "Young Anderson rode away from us the other morning," said he, "and he hardly troubled himself to say good-by. We used to know him back East; and he needn't have taken that affair of the railroad meeting so much to heart."

"Come!" called Constance, "get ready and let's be going. I'm sick of this country!" She walked rapidly away from the others.

"A woman can change some sudden, can't she, Mr. Ellsworth?" remarked Tom Osby, slowly.

"Look here, Miss Constance," said he, presently, when he came nearer to her, standing apart from the wagon, "there's been mistakes and busted plans enough in here already. Now don't get on no high horse and break up my scheme."

"Don't talk to me!" She stamped her foot.

"Ma'am! ain't you ashamed to say them words?" She did not answer, and Tom Osby took the step for which he had been preparing throughout the entire morning.

"Ma'am," said he, "one word from you would bring that feller to you on the keen lope. He'd fix the railroad all right mighty soon. Then besides--"

She turned away. "The question of the railroad is a business one, and nothing else; talk to my father about it."

Tom went silently about his preparations for resuming the journey.

When he came to put the horses to the wagon tongue, he found Constance sitting there, staring with misty eyes at the distant hills beyond which lay Heart's Desire. Tom Osby paused at the shelter of the wagon cover and backed away.

"Something has got to be did," he muttered to himself, "and did mighty blame quick. If we don't get some kind of hobbles on that girl, _she's_ goin' to jump the fence and go back home."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'Something has got to be did, and did mighty blame quick.'"]

CHAPTER XXIV

THE CONSPIRACY AT HEART'S DESIRE

_This being the Story of a Sheepherder, Two Warm Personal Friends, and their Love-letter to a Beautiful Queen_

When Tom Osby came back to Heart's Desire, he drew Curly to one side, and the two walked over to a shady spot at the side of Whiteman's corral, seating themselves for what was evidently to be an executive session.

Tom Osby continued to stuff tobacco into his pipe with a stubby forefinger, and Curly's hat was pushed back from a forehead wrinkled in deep thought.

"It's a good deal like you say, Tom," he a.s.sented; "I know that.

Unless we can get Dan Anderson and that girl to some sort of an understandin', the jig's up, and there ain't a-goin' to be no railroad at Heart's Desire. But how're you a-goin' to _do_ that?"

"Well, I done told you what I thought," said Tom Osby. "I'm a married man, been married seven times, or maybe six. There's just two things I understand, and them is horses and women, which I ought to, from a.s.sociatin' with them constant. Now, I tell you, if I'm any judge of women, that girl thinks a heap of Dan Anderson, no matter what she lets on. It's her that's got the railroad up her sleeve. The old man just thinks she's a tin angel with fresh paint. Why, he's done _give_ her the whole railroad. He don't want it. He's got money now that's sinful. Now, I say, she's got the railroad. Dan Andersen's chances, they go with the railroad. If she could just get _him_ to go with the business _chances_, that'd about fix things; and I more'n half believe she'd drop into line right free and gentle."

"Well, why don't she _say_ so, then," grumbled Curly, "and stop this foolishness?"

"Now there you go!" replied Tom. "Can't you see that any woman on earth, even a married woman, is four-thirds foolishness and the rest human? With girls it's still worse'n that. If I'm any judge, she's wishin' a certain feller'd come along and shake the tree. But she ain't goin' to fall off until the tree's done shook. Consequently, there she is, still up the tree, and our railroad with her."

"Looks like _he_ ought to make the first break," observed Curly, sagely.

"Of course he ought. But _will_ he, that's the question."

"No, he won't," admitted Curly, pushing his hat still farther back on his head. "He's took his stand, and done what he allowed was right.

After that, he ain't built to crawfish. He's pa.s.sed up the girl, and the railroad, too, and I reckon that settles it."

"And yet he thinks a heap of the girl."

"Natural? Of course he does. How can he help it? That's where the trouble is. I tell you, Tom, these here things is sort of _personal_.

If these two folks is havin' trouble of their own, why, it's _their_ trouble, and it ain't for us to square it, railroad or no railroad."

"When two people is d.a.m.n fools," commented Tom Osby, gravely, "it's all right for foreign powers to mediate a-plenty."

"But what you goin' to do? She won't bat a eye at him, and he ain't goin' to send for her."

"Oh, yes he _is_," corrected Tom Osby; and the forefinger, crowding tobacco into his pipe, worked vigorously. "He's _got_ to send for her."

"Looks to me like we can't do nothin'," replied his friend, pessimistically. "I like that girl, too. Say, I'll braid her a nice hair rope and take it down to her. Maybe that'll kind o' square things with her for losin' out with Dan."

"Yes," scoffed Tom Osby, "that's all the brains a fool cow puncher has got. Do you reckon a hair lariat, or a new pair of spurs, is any decent remedy for a girl's wownded affections? No, sir, not none. No, you go on down and take your old hair rope with you, and give it to the girl. That's all right; but you're goin' to take something else along with you at the same time."

"What's that?" "Why, you're goin' to take a letter to her,--a letter from Dan Andersen's death-bed."

"Who--me? Death-bed? Why, he ain't _on_ no death-bed. He's eatin'

three squares a day and settin' up readin' novels. Death-bed nothin'!"

"Oh, no," said Tom Osby, "that's where you're mistaken. Dan Anderson _is_ on his death-bed; and he writes his dyin' confession, his message in such cases made and pervided. He sends his last words to his own true love. Says he, 'All is forgiven.' Then she flies to receive his dyin' words. You ain't got no brains, Curly. You ain't got no imagi_na_tion. Why, if I left all this to you, she'd get here too late for the funeral. You're a specialist, Curly. You can rope and throw a two-thousand-pound steer, but you can't handle a woman that don't weigh over a hundred and twenty-five. Now, you watch your Pa."