Keeping pace with this big-bodied stranger the two were close upon his heels when he strode in among the workmen and asked brusquely for the boss. A foreman pointed out the chief engineer coming down the track, and a moment later the rough-looking stranger was confronting the man he was looking for.
“Your name’s Ackerman?” was the blunt query; and when the Short Line chief nodded: “Well, mine’s Grimmer, and I’m a deputy sheriff of Butte County. I’m servin’ papers on yuh in the case of Shaw and Bolton ’g’inst your company; injunction forbiddin’ yuh to trespass on this here minin’ claim. Here yuh are,” and he thrust a folded paper into the chief engineer’s hand.
Mr. Ackerman, as the boys heard, made a dignified protest.
“You are probably doing your sworn duty, Mr. Grimmer, and for that nobody can blame you,” he said. “But——” it was at this point that he opened the paper and glanced at it. “Why, this isn’t an injunction notice at all; it’s merely a trespass warning issued by a justice of the peace. How is that?”
“It’ll hold all the water you need, just the same!” rasped the stranger. “You’re trespassin’ right now on that Shaw and Bolton minin’ claim. I’m givin’ yuh peaceable notice to stop work and call your men off, see?”
Again the mild-mannered chief tried to protest.
“We can’t do that merely upon notice from a justice,” he objected. “We are entitled to our day in court, and until we have had it, and have failed to prove our right to build this railroad in this particular place, only an injunction order from a court of competent jurisdiction can stop us.”
“I’ll show yuh if we can’t stop yuh!” said the big deputy grittingly. “You come along with me—you’re under arrest!”
“Not without a better warrant than this trespass warning,” was the quiet but grim refusal. “When you want to arrest me or any member of my force, you must come prepared with the proper legal papers; otherwise you don’t get anywhere, Mr. Grimmer.”
“Huh!—you’ll resist an off’cer o’ the law, will yuh?”