Young Van hesitated, and was about to reply, when he heard the chief approaching.

Carhart came in from the rear, nodded to the stranger, and picked up the envelope. "You brought this, sir?" he asked.

"Yes; Mr. Flint asked me to."

Very deliberately Carhart read the letter, and, without the slightest change of expression, tossed it on the table. "You must have supper with us," he said. "If you stopped with John Flint you perhaps know how little an engineer's hospitality amounts to, but such as we have we shall be very glad to share with you."

"Thank you," replied the stranger.

"You are a ranchman, I presume?" Carhart went on.

"Yes--in northwest of Red Hills. I go to Sherman every year."

Young Van spoke, "He thought of taking one of our trains through."

Carhart smiled dryly. "I should be greatly obliged to you, sir, if you could take a train through," he said. "That's something we don't seem able to do."

The wizened one glanced up with a keen expression about his eyes.

"Having trouble back along the line?" he asked.

"You might call it trouble. My old friend Bourke, of the H. D. & W., has cut in behind us with a small army." He gave a little shrug. "I can't get through. I can't get either way now that they've got in between Flint and Red Hills."

"Then I'd better ride down to Pierrepont, hadn't I?"

"I'm afraid that's the best that I can suggest, sir."

"You people certainly seem to be playing in hard luck, Mr. Carhart."

As the wizened one ventured this observation he crossed his legs and thrust his hands into his pockets. The action caused his coat to fall back, and disclosed a small gold pendant hanging from his watch guard.

Young Van observed it, and glanced at Carhart, but he could not tell whether the chief had taken it in.

"It's worse than hard luck," Carhart replied; "it begins to look like defeat. We have been dependent on the Sherman people for material, food, water,--everything. Now Bourke has shut us off."

"But you seem to have plenty of material here, Mr. Carhart."

"Rails--yes. But it takes more than rails."

"And you surely have a large enough force."

"Yes, but moving several hundred men back a hundred and forty miles, fighting it out with Bourke, clearing the track, and getting trains through from Sherman, will take time. Long before we can make any headway, the H. D. & W. will have beaten us into Red Hills."

"Ah--I see," nodded the wizened one. "You're going back after Bourke."

"What else can I do! I can't even wire Sherman without sending a man two hundred miles through the desert. The most important thing to my employers is to maintain possession of the line."

"Of course--I see. I don't know much about these things myself."

After supper the wizened one announced that he must ride on with his party.

"You won't stop with us to-night?" asked Carhart.

"No, thanks. It'll be light an hour or two yet. I've got to move fast.

I'll lose a good deal, you see, going around by way of Pierrepont."

"That's so, of course. Well, good-by, sir."

"Good-by."

The riders swung into their saddles and cantered off eastward. Carhart turned to Young Van and slowly winked. "Come up to headquarters, Gus,"

he said. "I've got some work for you."

"I rather guess you have, if we're going after Bourke."

"After Bourke?" Carhart smiled. "You didn't take that in, Gus?"

"Well--of course, I suspected."

"You saw his badge?"

"Yes."

"Bourke always has a lot of men about him from his own college."

"You really think it, then?"

"It would be hard to say what I think. But I've been going on the a.s.sumption that he is one of Bourke's engineers."

They were approaching the headquarters tent. Young Van looked up and saw that "Arizona," Carhart's new saddle-horse, was. .h.i.tched before it. They entered the tent, and the first thing the chief did was to get out two long blue-nosed revolvers and slip them into his holsters.

A moment later, and Dimond, fitted out for a long ride, appeared at the entrance, saying, "All ready, Mr. Carhart!"

"Now, Gus," said the chief, "I'm off for 'mile 109.' I want you to get about two hundred men together and send them after me to-night or to-morrow morning. I'll tell Scribner, as I pa.s.s him, to have fifty more for you. Every man must have a rifle and plenty of ball cartridges. Send Byers"--this was the instrument man of the long nose--"and two or three others whom you think capable of commanding forty or fifty men each."

"And Bourke?"

"We'll leave him to Mr. Chambers. Give Charlie instructions to strengthen his night guard. Some men will be sent back to guard the second and third wells."

Young Van involuntarily pa.s.sed his hand across his eyes.

"I'm afraid I'm not much good," he said slowly. "I didn't grasp this situation very well. It's rather a new phase of engineering for me. We seem to be plunging all of a sudden into tactics and strategy."

"That's about the size of it, Gus," the chief responded. He had exchanged his old straw hat for a sombrero. His spurs jingled as he moved. There was a sparkle in his eye and a new sort of military alertness about his figure. He paused at the tent entrance, and looked back. "That's about the size of it, Gus," he repeated with a half smile. "And I'm afraid I rather like it."

"Well, good-by. I'll start the men right along after you."

Carhart mounted his horse, Dimond followed his example, and the two rode away in the direction of the La Paz bridge. And ten hours later, at five in the morning, a line of armed hors.e.m.e.n--a long-nosed young man with the light of a pirate soul in his eyes riding at the head, an athletic pile-inspector and a college-bred rodman bringing up the rear--rode westward after him.

Troubles had been coming other than singly on "mile 109." Jack Flagg, with a force which, while smaller than Flint's, was made up of well-armed and well-paid desperadoes, had seized the ridge which shut in the La Paz Valley on the west, had pitched camp, erected rude intrenchments of loose stone, and stopped for the moment all work on the mile-long trestle. So much John Flint had set down in the note which the wizened one had delivered to Carhart. The next adventure befell on the night after the departure of the wizened one; and it brought out the ugly strain in the opera bouffe business of these wild railroading days.