XVI
Master and Man
ON the day following the arrival of Mr. Grillage’s private car at Powder Gap, word was passed from camp to camp that the big boss was about to make an inspection round with the new chief of construction, and the activities automatically speeded themselves up to grace the occasion.
At the bridge sites the clank and grind of the concrete mixers, the upshoot and dumping tip of the hoist buckets, and the clattering descent of the concrete into the forms played the industrial quick-step. In the hill cuttings the intermittent clamor of steam-shovels and the strident exhausts of locomotives dragging the spoil to the fills made deafening discords. In the short tunnel under Dead Man’s Ridge the hard-rock men timed their forenoon blasts accurately to make a thunderous crash of dynamite salute the upcoming of the light engine and way-car bearing President Grillage and his chief engineer.
So far as any routine-changing result was concerned, the inspection trip was conspicuously barren. It was rather a triumphal progress for the new chief. At each stopping-place the big boss climbed down dutifully from the way-car to look on and listen while David explained some new method of cost-cutting, and there was always the word of gruff approval, coupled with the suggestion that they move along.
“I’m taking all your little economies and short-cuttings for granted, David,” said the tamed tyrant, as the way-car special shot around the curves of approach to the main tunnel. “I got it pretty straight from Coulee du Sac that you were up in all the late kinks in money-saving and systematizing. You are doing good work, and I’m right proud of you.”
Again David’s heart warmed to the big man who had been so grossly misrepresented as a hard boss. Thus far, there had been no single word of criticism; nothing but hearty appreciation and praise. David knew well enough that his work couldn’t be beyond criticism; that to a master workman as experienced as Eben Grillage the shortcomings must surely be apparent. Yet there had been nothing said that would lead him to believe that the contractor-king was making anything but the most perfunctory duty trip over the job.
At the tunnel portal they found Plegg, who was apparently waiting for them. There was a halt of a few minutes while the first assistant, in obedience to a signal which David was not permitted to see, held his chief to ask some routine question about a proposed re-sloping of the approach cutting. Eben Grillage walked on into the tunnel alone. The great black bore was lighted only by a string of inadequate electric bulbs hung at hundred-foot intervals, and the massive figure of the president was soon lost to view in the depths. David Vallory answered Plegg’s queries impatiently, the more so because they seemed to be peculiarly trivial and ill-timed. It was something less than respectful to allow the president to go stumbling into the tunnel unattended.
When they finally overtook him the big boss had penetrated to the working heading, and was looking on quietly while the drillers and their helpers removed the drill-columns and prepared for a blast. Again there were words commendatory of the discipline and the industrial systematizing.
“Fine!” was Eben Grillage’s comment, when David came up with Plegg at his elbow. “I’ll be losing you two fellows to the efficiency squad one of these fine days; that’s a fact.” Then to the black-eyed, black-mustached little French-Canadian who had taken Altman’s place: “Hello, Regnier! So they’ve got you on the mole job, now, have they?”
Regnier came across to join the onlooking group.