Just the same, her confidence did not greatly encourage Ralph. The day schedule did not much trouble him, but at night it grew worse and worse. As he had feared, with the increased number of wheat trains trying to get through, there being a big movement of grain to Europe at this time, most other freight was side-tracked. The passenger trains, too, were displaced.
Two mornings in succession the Midnight Flyer got to Hammerfest so late that the Boise City connection was lost. Passengers had to wait two hours. Yet the train could not be started earlier than midnight from Rockton because the connection from the east could not be made.
“Old Byron Marks is a has-been,” the master mechanic said to Ralph on one occasion. “But what can I do? It is out of my hands. The old man can’t make the time, and he knows it. But he doesn’t want to fall down on the run, either. You know what that would mean.”
“It would give the super a chance to demand his withdrawal,” said Ralph.
“You bet. And Bart Hopkins is only waiting for that. If he had his way, and if it wasn’t for the Brotherhoods, he’d scrap every man with gray hair on the division.”
“Can’t anybody talk with Byron and show him how to get out gracefully?”
“He’s as touchy as a hen with a brood of chicks. I’d like to send him back to a switch engine. We need on that Flyer somebody like you, Ralph. Yes, sir, it’s a run that calls for young blood!”
But Ralph raised both hands and gestured him away from his desk. “No, no! Tempt me not!” he cried. “Haven’t I trouble enough of my own right here and now?”
“But if I have to take Byron off for incompetency, and that certainly will kill the old man, whom shall I put in his place? Every good man is needed. This blamed new eight hour rule—well, it’s good in some ways, of course; but it makes us short-handed.”
The official went away grumbling. He, too, had his troubles. He had to take his orders from the supervisor and some of them were not to his taste.