The previsioned talk with the first assistant—the four-inch pipe serving for a speaking-tube—turned out to be principally technical, to be sure. In his proper person as chief engineer, David gave directions for the pushing forward of the rescue work. The jack-screw process was to be employed again, this time to press a steel shield into the mass of loose debris, so that the rescuers might be protected as they dug. The shield could be made out of a cast-off boiler shell with the heads removed. In this manner a tunnel within the tunnel could be excavated and the prisoners released.
With so much for the technicalities, the human side of things came in for its word.
“Is Mr. Grillage with you?” David asked.
Plegg’s reply was guarded. He guessed, and guessed rightly, that Eben Grillage’s daughter was listening with David at the prison end of the speaking-tube.
“Mr. Grillage is at the hotel; he is not very well. He has had a stroke of some sort, but the Brewster doctor who is with him says it isn’t necessarily dangerous.”
“You have sent him word that we are all alive and well?”
“Sure; that was the first thing we did.”
“Good. Now listen, and carry out my orders to the letter. After you get the tunneling started here, put Altman in charge and go yourself to the telegraph office at the Inn station. I heard, day before yesterday, that President Ford of the P. S-W. was in Denver, with a number of his directors. The report was that Mr. Ford and his party were making an inspection trip over the western lines of the system. You send a telegram to Mr. Ford, asking him if he will come here for a conference with me, bringing as many of the directors as may be willing to come. Do you get that?”
“Perfectly. What else?”
“You may sign my name to the telegram, and make it as urgent as you can. This is important. Then I want you to go up to the Inn and see Mr. Grillage for yourself. Find out his condition exactly, and come back here and report.”