To a clattering of hoofs and a jingling of trace-chains the cavalcade moved off down the pike, leaving the deserted boss standing beside the stranded machinery truck. Tregarvon knew very well that by another day the story of the strike and its cause would be passed from lip to ear throughout the length and breadth of the Wehatchee, and there would be no hope of recruiting another gang among the farmers. The half-mile of sandy wood road still remained to be traversed, and without the teams the load could be moved only by means of a block and tackle and winch, manned by Tryon’s gang of track laborers; a process which would add other exasperating days of delay.
The dusk was thickening under the trees when the discouraged hauling-boss took his coat from the truck and struggled into it preparatory to setting out upon the long tramp down the mountain. He had seen nothing of Carfax since an hour before noon, when the yellow car had edged past the road obstructions on its way up the pike. But now he heard the purring of a motor and waited.
The car was coming down the cross-mountain road, and Tregarvon could see that there were two persons in it. Instead of turning in at the campus gates, it came on, and Carfax braked it to a stop opposite the loaded truck. “Is that you, Vance?” he called to the figure standing in the shadow of the pines.
“Yes.” Tregarvon stepped out of the shadows and crossed to the automobile, though the nearer approach was not needed to assure him that Carfax’s companion was Richardia Birrell.
“You are coming along beautifully!” Carfax praised, speaking as one who holds himself delicately aloof from the toilsome details. “It’s great to be a working-man and able to do things. One day more will take you over to the drilling ground, won’t it?”
“Half a day was all I asked, with the men and teams; but I am not going to have it. They have quit on me.”
“A strike? What was the trouble? Weren’t you paying them enough?”
“It wasn’t a question of more money. They seemed to think that I ought to speak softly and say ‘mister’ and ‘please’ when I wanted them to get a move.”
Carfax laughed and turned to his companion in the other half of the driving-seat.
“He puts it rather—er—diplomatically, don’t you think?” he confided to the young woman. “Really, you know, his language has come to be something frightful!” Then to the diplomat: “What are you going to do?”