“There has been no sign of Little Hawk yet, sir?” Alex inquired.
“No. I am beginning to think the rascal has gone over to the K. & Z.,” said the superintendent, turning away. At the door he paused. “By the way, Ward, remind me to give you a message to-morrow morning asking for two more operators. We will have made six or seven miles by Monday night, and will be running the train down the branch. And the temporary station is almost completed,” he added, glancing from the window toward a box-car which had been lifted from its trucks and placed on a foundation of ties beside the main-line tracks.
Alex promised gladly. It meant the coming of Jack Orr and Wilson Jennings.
Following breakfast, the morning being a beautiful one, Alex determined on a walk, and set off along the main-line to the west. Two miles distant he struck a small bridge and a deep, dry creek-bed, and turning south along its border, headed for the distant rail-head of the new branch.
At a bend in the creek some two hundred yards from the track-machine and its string of flat-cars, Alex sharply paused. Two saddled ponies were hobbled together in the creek-bottom. Casting a glance toward the construction-train, Alex leaped into the gully, out of sight.
He had not a doubt that the horses belonged to men in the service of the K. & Z., and that something was on foot similar to the attempted burning of the bridge-car.
What should he do? Return the three miles to the junction? or continue on to the track-machine? For undoubtedly the owners of the horses were there; and the machine, he knew, was in the sole charge of an oiler.
Alex decided on the latter course, and making his way along the bed of the stream, passed the hobbled ponies, and on to the new bridge fifty feet in rear of the construction-train.
As he there halted, low voices reached Alex’s ears. Peering cautiously out, and seeing no one, he crept forth, and made his way along the side of the embankment toward the train. A few feet from the rear car Alex came upon a three-wheeled track velocipede, used by Elder, the superintendent’s clerk in running backwards and forwards between the rail-head and the junction. Pausing, he debated whether he should not put it on the rails, and make a run for the junction immediately. Finally Alex concluded first to learn something further of what was going on, and to count on the velocipede as a means of making his escape in case of emergency. To this end he proceeded cautiously to place the little jigger in a position from which he could quickly swing it onto the irons. Then continuing forward under the edge of the train, he reached the pilot-car.
“Yes; it’s a first class machine—the best on the market.”