He found it kicked to one side against the front of The Silver Dollar, shouldered it, and set off through the night toward camp, utterly amazed at what had taken place.
But a new shock awaited him there. One of the cook’s flunkies, whom he persuaded to go to the cook tent and set out some cold food for him, told him while he ate that Shanty Madge’s boss-powderman, Jawbone Mahoney, had gone on the job intoxicated and had fired a big shot, with the result that the wet, crumbly top of the big hill was sliding into the tunnel and that all efforts at stopping it had been of no avail. Shanty Madge, the old-time stiffs were gossiping, was ruined.
CHAPTER XX
“A LITTLE SLEEP”
SINCE Joshua Cole already was on vacation, he decided to extend his absence from work for one more day and hurry in the morning to Madge and her mother. He would at least be able to voice his sympathy over the catastrophe, though he realized this would help matters not at all.
Directly after breakfast he set out afoot, and covered the distance between the camps in a little over an hour. Mrs. Mundy he found in their home tent, but Madge was up at the works.
“I felt that it was coming, Joshua,” Elizabeth Mundy said wearily. “They say Demarest, Spruce and Tillou will have to take over our outfit in the end in payment for the help and materials they will have to supply us with to clear the tunnel. We haven’t much besides the outfit—that is, in the way of cash. If they are obliged to come to our aid we’re lost. You see, it will be just as if we were put on force account by the railroad company. When it becomes apparent that a contractor working directly for the railroad company—as are Demarest, Spruce and Tillou—is not going to make good on his contract, the company puts his outfit on force account. That means that the owner and his outfit are virtually hired by the day to do the work. He receives so much for each team, so much for each man’s wages, and so much for his own salary. And in the end, if he fails under this procedure, he is obliged to forfeit everything. With us, since we are sub-contracting from Demarest, Spruce and Tillou, we are responsible to them rather than directly to the company. So it will be they who will take everything from us if we can’t fulfill our contract. They’re nice gentlemen—all of them—but friendship won’t—mustn’t—stand in the way of their fulfilling what they have contracted to do. Poor Madge! She’s nearly distracted.”
“Is the situation entirely hopeless?” asked Joshua.
“I’m afraid so.”
They talked for an hour before Joshua left to go to the tunnel, and in the course of their conversation he told her of his prospective homestead.
“Joshua,” she said, “I’m going to tell you something that you mustn’t tell Madge. You’ll be astonished to know that, if we fail and lose the outfit, I shall be glad. I don’t want my daughter to follow railroad construction as her life’s work. I suppose I’m selfish and old-fashioned, but I can’t bring myself to feel that a girl was brought into this world to do work like that. So far as the outdoor life is concerned, I am delighted with that phase of railroading. But I’d prefer to be on a farm somewhere—or a ranch here in the West—and live a simpler life. Madge would like it too if she could be convinced that she was not deserting the ship by giving up contracting. She wants to carry on the work started by her father, who was just gaining a good foothold when he died. That is a pretty sentiment, but it is all wrong. If Madge were his son it would be a different matter. But I’m tiring you—and I know you understand my feelings. If only we could have one of those homesteads—that’s what I’m trying to work up to. Then Madge could still work off her surplus energy with implements and horses, which seems to be her delight. She would be right at home, and we would be free of forever running over the United States, from job to job. But she never would consent.”