AT THE LIVERY STABLE, a smiling old Mexican was properly introduced to Shadow, after bowing low to Slade who greeted him in flawless Spanish, to the old fellow’s unconcealed delight. Butler evidently noticed the respect accorded his companion but said nothing.
“And now we’ll put on the nosebag,” he announced. “I figure it’s been a good day and feel like putting away a hefty surrounding.”
Slade slanted him a sideways glance. “Brought up on the range, were you not, Mr. Butler?” he remarked.
“That’s right,” the engineer replied. “Started out following a cow’s tail, as I’ve a notion you did, too. Worked my way through school and college and got my degree. I’ve still got a lot to learn, but I hope to get there and be a topflight engineer.”
“And I have not the slightest doubt but that you’ll do it,” Slade said, and meant it.
“Yes, a topflight engineer, like yourself,” Butler said, adding a little wistfully, “but I fear I lack something that you have.”
“Yes? What’s that?” Slade prompted.
“The ability,” Butler replied slowly, “to have men follow you wherever you choose to lead, no matter how tough the going or how lopsided the odds. With just a few words today you cemented the loyalty of those roughnecks. No matter what you propose, you won’t have to look back to see if they’re coming along. If you take a notion to lead an expedition into Mexico and capture Chihuahua City, they’ll be right there in the front rank with you.”
Slade laughed heartily. “I don’t think they’ll be required to make such a sacrifice,” he chuckled. “But thank you for saying it. Well, this looks like your Churn Head saloon. At least that’s what the name on the window says.”
“Yep, this is it,” said Butler. “In we go.”
The Churn Head was big, well lighted, and busy, a typical border town saloon. There was a long bar, already fairly well crowded although it was still early in the evening, a dance floor, a couple of roulette wheels, a faro bank, poker tables, a lunch counter, and tables for more leisurely diners.
“Here comes Pickle,” said Butler as they sat down at a table which Slade chose because, although Butler didn’t know it, it afforded a clear view of the swinging doors, an act habitual with El Halcón.
Pickle Simon, big, lanky, spindle-legged, and long-armed, had the lugubrious expression of a well-vinegared pickle, which was perhaps the derivative of his unusual nickname, but there were grin quirkings at the corners of his mouth and a twinkle in the depths of his deep-set blue eyes. Altogether, he reminded Slade of a rather mournful stork.
“Howdy, Mr. Butler, it’s sure a nice day,” he said sadly. “Glad to have you with us.” He glanced suggestively at Slade. Butler performed the introductions and Pickle shook hands with a good grip.
“How be you?” he said dolefully. “I’ll send over a drink.”
“He’s all right, even though he does talk as if somebody’d swiped the silver lining of his cloud,” chuckled Butler.
“From Down East, eh?” Slade remarked.
“Believe somebody did say he comes from Vermont,” agreed Butler. “How’d you guess it?”
“Very seldom that you hear the expression, ‘be you’ other than in New England,” Slade explained.
“Don’t miss much, do you?” Butler said admiringly. “Here come the snorts, and I figure I can use one. To bridges that won’t wash away!”
Slade smiled, and drank the toast with him. Despite his evident somewhat irascible disposition, John Butler had a sense of humor.
Their meal arrived and they set to with appetite. While they were eating, the orchestra filed in, the dance-floor girls put in an appearance and soon the evening’s entertainment was in full swing. For it was now full dark and the Churn Head was becoming crowded.
Butler suddenly uttered an exclamation. Slade glanced at him inquiringly.
“That’s old Andy Jorg, who owns the Barred Diamond ranch. Just came in with some of his hands.” Butler explained. “He hasn’t any use for the railroad.”
Slade had already noted the slender, neatly dressed elderly man who had just entered with half a dozen cowhands trailing after him. He had a handsome, though lined face, quick, alert gray eyes and a tight mouth. His movements were graceful and assured. But Slade seemed to sense an aura of loneliness that enveloped him, the loneliness of a man who has everything but still has nothing. He wondered just what was the old fellow’s history; would very likely be interesting to read.
Jorg’s gaze swept the room, centered for an instant on the table occupied by Slade and Butler, then shifted aside.
“The big fellow beside him is Hal Murdock, his range boss,” Butler remarked. “A hard character and a tough man in a rough-and-tumble I understand.”
Slade studied Murdock a moment and decided that Butler very likely had sized him up correctly. He was a giant of a man, approaching middle age, with thick and slightly bowed shoulders, long, dangling arms and blunt-fingered hands. His clear brown eyes shot glances in every direction as he shouldered his way to the bar, making room for Jorg. Slade noted that the Barred Diamond bunch were close to a group of the railroad construction men, numbering seven or eight.
Jorg and his men ordered drinks and stood talking together, apparently paying no attention to the other occupants of the bar. Slade turned back to Butler.
“I gathered from Mr. Dunn that you do not anticipate any trouble with the steel work of the bridge,” he observed. Butler shook his head vigorously.
“Steel is steel and I’ve had plenty of experience with it,” he replied. “Besides, I have a couple of good foremen who know all the angles of steel. With the approaches and piers where they should be, as they will be now, I’ll go along skalleyhooting. Approaches and piers are something with which I’ve had no experience. That’s why Mr. Dunn sent Quigley to handle that angle.”
“I see,” Slade said thoughtfully. “Tomorrow I’ll head back for the camp and start the wagons rolling down here with the stone for the piers. I noticed several carloads already on a siding up there.”
“Fine!” exclaimed Butler. “With the boys bending their backs like they’ll be doing for you, we’ll be ready for it soon. Say! looks like an argument starting at the bar.”
Slade nodded. Watching the two groups, he had seen that they were throwing remarks back and forth, voices loudening.
Somebody went too far. A fist swung. Instantly that whole end of the bar was a kicking, clawing, hitting tussle.
Butler started to rise, but Slade, rather amused by the ruckus typical of men who knew little of the manly art of self defense, laid a restraining hand on his arm.
“Let them alone,” he advised. “It’s just a fist wring with no real harm in it. Pickle and his floor men will break it up in a minute.”
As might have been expected, Hal Murdock, the big range boss, was in the forefront of the row. Old Andy Jorg, standing a little back, viewed the disturbance with a cynical smile.
Abruptly things got serious. Murdock caught a good one that sent him reeling. He bawled an oath, jerked his gun and flung it high for a lethal blow with the heavy barrel.
Walt Slade’s hand moved like a blur of light. The hanging lamps jumped to the crash of a shot.
Hal Murdock gave a yelp of pain. His gun, the lock smashed by Slade’s bullet, thudded to the floor half a dozen yards distant.
The two groups fell apart, staring at Slade, who holstered his still smoking Colt and strode across to confront Murdock.
“What’s the matter with you, fellow?” he asked. “Can’t you have a sociable wring without trying to kill somebody?”
Murdock, rubbing his tingling hand, glared at him. “I’ll wring you!” he howled and launched a blow at Slade’s face.
Before it traveled six inches it was blocked and a sizzling left hook purpled Murdock’s cheekbone. He swayed back, tripped over his own feet and hit the floor with a crash. Mouthing curses, he scrambled erect and rushed, and caught another hook that sent him off balance for an instant.
Slade did not follow up his advantage but waited for Murdock to recover. He was not particularly worried about the outcome although he knew he had a fight on his hands. Murdock outweighed him by perhaps thirty pounds, he was quick on his feet and he could hit. In he came again, got past Slade’s guard and rocked his head with an uppercut, followed by a solid smash to the chest that caused the Ranger to give ground. Murdock made the mistake of coming in too fast and caught another stinging hook, this time to the nose, that sent blood spurting from that member. And Slade decided it was time to stop fooling with him. He had noted that Murdock was left-handed, that he hit mostly with his right. But in his passive left, Slade felt the real threat lay. He weaved aside as Murdock rushed again, stepped on a wet cigar butt that slid under his foot and floundered for an instant. Murdock bounded in for the kill, and over came the left.
But with cat-like agility, Slade recovered, jerked his head aside and the big fist whizzed over his shoulder. His own hand shot forward in a straight right with all his two hundred muscular pounds behind it, catching Murdock squarely on the angle of the jaw and lifting him clean off his feet. He hit the floor with a crash and that time he stayed there, gulping and groaning and rolling his bristly red head from side to side.
Slade slanted a glance at the Barred Diamond bunch. They were standing rigid, not moving a hand.
Not surprising, however. Pickle Simon was regarding them dejectedly over the twin muzzles of a cocked, sawed-off shot-gun.
“Guess that’ll be about all, gents,” he said lugubriously. “Somebody help Murdock to stand up.”
It was Slade who helped the range boss to rise. Murdock, rubbing his swelling jaw gazed at him a moment. Then the fire in his deep-set eyes softened to a sly and humorous twinkle.
“Feller, you’re good, darned good,” he said, still working on the jaw. “Ain’t been hit so hard since I told my dad I was too big to whup and he showed me I wasn’t, with a scantlin’. Hope there’s no hard feelings; I sure don’t hold any, and here’s my hand on it.”
He thrust forth his big paw as he spoke and they shook solemnly, smiling into each other’s eyes. Slade felt it would not be hard to like Hal Murdock. He turned at a touch on his elbow to face old Andy Jorg’s cold stare.
“So!” Jorg said softly. “So Dunn has brought in a professional gun-slinger and fancy man to do his fighting for him.”
“Not necessarily to do fighting, but if any is brought my way I aim to accommodate,” Slade replied.
For a moment their glances locked like rapier blades. Jorg’s eyes were first to slide away. He turned to his men.
“Come on, let’s get out of here,” he said. The hands dutifully obeyed. Hal Murdock, who evidently wasn’t afraid of his boss, picked up his battered gun and winked at Slade as they passed through the swinging doors. Slade went back to his table where Butler had already resumed his seat.
“You’re good with your hands, Mr. Slade, mighty good,” the engineer said. “But when it comes to shooting—Gentll-lmen hush! I never saw anything like it. In fact I didn’t really see at all. It just happened.”
Slade smiled deprecatingly. “I was lucky and didn’t miss,” he replied. “I feared that with his weight back of the blow, he might have seriously injured someone, and figured I’d better try and stop him.”
“You stopped him, all right, in various ways,” Butler agreed dryly. “And he’s a tough customer.”
“I figure he’s all right, but with a loosely látigoed temper,” Slade commented.
Butler nodded dubiously, apparently not precisely agreeing with Slade’s estimate of Hal Murdock.
“What do you think of old Jorg?” he asked.
“A dangerous man,” Slade replied briefly.
“Yes?”
“Yes. He has what Murdock does not, perfect control of his emotions and a cool, calculating brain. Andy Jorg can be somebody to reckon with.”
“My sentiments,” said Butler. “Do you figure it’s him that’s been causing the trouble for the road?”
“Frankly, I don’t know,” Slade replied. “He doesn’t look like that sort, but I could be mistaken. When a man really gets his bristles up over something, it is sometimes surprising the lengths to which he will go. Could be the case with Jorg who is an old-timer and bitterly resentful of anything that threatens the existing order, which he firmly believes is just as it should be and cannot be bettered. None are so blind as those who will not see. Jorg may have to be enlightened, perhaps in the manner in which Pharaoh was enlightened, by sorrow and tribulation.” Butler nodded sober agreement.
“By the way,” Slade said, “do you know anything much about Potter Quigley, the bridge engineer who quit on account of ill health?”
“Why, not a great deal,” Butler answered. “I understand he came to the C. & P. from the Weston people who recommended him highly.”
“A competent and trustworthy firm,” Slade commented. “Do you know whom he was with before joining the Weston Company?”
“No, I don’t,” Butler replied. “I don’t recall him ever mentioning it.”
John Butler was not slow-witted and he regarded Slade curiously for a moment.
“Mr. Slade,” he said, “just what is back of those questions? You must have a reason for asking them.”
“Mr. Butler, I have,” Slade admitted. “As you must know—”
The grin that so changed Butler’s expression suddenly flashed out.
“Say!” he interrupted, “don’t you think we can do away with the Mistering? Looks like we’ll be associated for quite some time, so why not drop the formality?”
“Okay, John,” Slade smiled. “As you must know, a competent bridge engineer such as Potter Quigley appears to be would undoubtedly realize that those approaches and the sites for the piers are wrong. Does it seem reasonable that Quigley should make such a glaring error?”
Butler stroked his stubborn chin a moment before replying.
“Walt, it doesn’t,” he said. “I’ve been wondering about it ever since you showed me the error.”
“So perhaps you’ll understand the reason for my questions,” Slade said. “I’d certainly like to learn something relative to Potter Quigley’s background, and I intend to try. At present the evidence points not to a miscalculation but a deliberate attempt to put in a bridge that sooner or later the Rio Grande would destroy. Quite likely sooner, for fast approaching is the season of violent storms on the upper river and its tributaries. If the Rio Grande suddenly comes down in flood we’ll have trouble enough on our hands without a shaky bridge to worry about. As I said, the Rio Grande is a most unpredictable stream and it’s wise to expect the worst.”
“But why should Quigley do such a thing—what has he to gain by it?” Butler wanted to know.
“At the present, your guess is as good as mine,” Slade replied. He did not care to mention his suspicion that probably the M. &. K. Railroad, the C. & P.’s great rival, had something to do with the business, for all he had to go on was suspicion.
“I wonder,” Butler remarked reflectively, “if Gordon Plant, who owns the carting lines, could be back of what happened?”
“I will have to hold judgment on Plant in abeyance until I meet him and learn more about him,” Slade answered. “Plant might gain a temporary pecuniary advantage by delaying the road, but certainly not enough to warrant risking a penitentiary sentence or the noosed end of a rope if somebody happened to be killed in the course of such depredations. Unless he is absolutely terrapin-brained he must know that he can’t hope to stop the railroad. But, as I said, men do strange things in a moment of anger or resentment, so we can’t altogether rule out Gordon Plant.”
“Guess you’re right,” agreed Butler. “How do you feel? You took a couple of hot ones during your shindig with Murdock.”
“My ribs are a mite sore, and so is my jaw, but nothing to really bother about,” Slade answered. “The big jigger can hit, but nothing like he would be able to if he learned to really use his strength. And to control his temper, which is his great weakness. In his anger he laid himself wide open.”
“Uh-huh, to somebody who knows how to take advantage of it,” Butler grunted. “I sure wouldn’t want to tangle with him, and he ain’t so much bigger than me, either. The way you handled him was something!”
“I’ll stay with you tomorrow until you get your survey started,” Slade deftly changed the subject. “Then I’ll ride back to the camp for a talk with Mr. Dunn before he leaves for Chicago, which he wishes to do as soon as possible. Also, I hope to speed up the work on the iron; the quicker we get the tracks laid to here the better. Freighting material by wagon is expensive and slow. And very soon you’ll be needing plenty of steel, which isn’t easy to transport by wagon.”
Pickle Simon, the owner, strolled over to the table. “Much obliged, Mr. Slade, for keeping something really bad from happening,” he said. “Was almighty funny, the way you larruped Hal Murdock. Cussed if I didn’t come nigh to laughing out loud when he walked into that last one,” he added sadly. “Hal’s all right but a mite uppity and holds his comb a bit too high. He needed to be taken down a peg.”
“I don’t think he was much affected one way or another,” Slade returned. “I’ve a notion he really likes fighting.”
“Could be,” conceded Pickle. “Well, you sure got all the boys talking and all the girls looking. Hope you’ll come back, Mr. Slade. Usually sorta peaceful and homey here. I’ll send over a drink.”
After they finished the drink, Slade said, “Now I think I’ll go to bed. Getting late and I want to be up early tomorrow.”
“Me, too,” replied Butler. “I’ll get busy on the surveys first thing in the morning. I sleep in a hotel here in town—the boys sleep at the camp. You can get a room, I’m pretty sure. Okay?”
“That’ll be fine,” Slade said. “All set? Let’s go.”
At the bar, a burly railroader accosted Slade. “Much obliged, sir, for saving me a split noggin,” he said. “I thought I was a goner when Murdock pulled that gun.”
“Glad to have been able to help,” Slade replied, and shook the hand the worker diffidently extended.
As he and Butler passed through the swinging doors, they heard a voice say proudly to a new arrival, “That’s our Old Man, a right hombre.”