David Vallory took three seconds for reflection.
“Tell him he has a brain of his own, and now is a good time to use it,” he said shortly. “And you may add that we’d like to buy a little delay if there is any in the market.”
Plegg repeated the message, rounding it out with a demand for a quick report as to results. The waiting interval was remarkably short. When the ’phone buzzed again, Plegg answered with a single word. “Shoot!” he said, and David, sitting in the opposite bunk, could hear the minified repetition of the reporting voice without being able to distinguish the words. Crawford was brief, as befitted a man of action; and when Plegg returned the receiver to its hook he was smiling grimly.
“You’ll have to hand it to Tommy for being able to make a hurry use of what little brain he may have,” he commented. “He slipped a stick of dynamite into the stone bin at Number Three, and now he says there are about forty tons of crushed rock spilled on the track for the gasoline car to climb over. And the car is not yet in sight.”
“That is better,” said David coolly. “They’ll get around the obstruction, no doubt, but it will hold them for a little while. Now for our part of it. You once remarked that the law doesn’t reach this far from the nearest court-house. We don’t know, officially, that these men are coming as officers, and we’ll act upon that ignorance. You go over to the bunk shacks and turn out a handful of Brady’s day-shift men. Tell them to bring pick-handles. Then go to the light plant and tell the night engineer to listen for a pistol shot. If he hears one, he is to pull the switch on the yard circuit and leave us in the dark.”
“So that the Lushing crowd won’t be able to identify any of us?”
“So that we shan’t be able to identify them—as officers.”
“Once more I’m apologizing to you,” said Plegg, in mild irony. “Anything else?”
“Nothing, except that you are to pick your men, and let it be understood that the raiders are after Mr. Grillage and me. If you pick the right men, they’ll fight for that. I’ll run over to the Athenia and get Mr. Grillage out of the way. I don’t want to have him mixed up in this, even by implication.”
As Plegg went one way, David went the other, hurrying across to the private Pullman, which he knew was occupied because it was lighted. When he pushed through the vestibule swing-door he found the contractor-king poring over an estimate sheet. Taken for an instant off his guard, the big man looked haggard and care-worn. It was this that made David begin with a sober protest.