“To that extent; yes. Now if you will excuse me: I’m pretty busy this morning.”
It was a dismissal, polite, but straight to the jaw, as Dick would have said, and it delighted the hearts of the two boys who stood aside listening. The one thing that had gone most against the grain with them during the summer-long struggle with the Overland Central had been the fact that their chief took the various bullyings of the rival railroad too good-naturedly.
The deputy sheriff went away swearing, facing about and making for the river crossing. At that moment Goldrick came up and Dick and Larry heard him say:
“Pulling the law on us, are they?”
Chief Ackerman shook his head doubtfully.
“I’m not at all certain about the legal part of it; not sure that the man wasn’t merely acting a part. We’re warned off this mining claim; by some justice of the peace in Burnt Canyon—which is strictly an O. C. town. That fellow was trying to arrest me, but he had no warrant and showed no badge of authority. What about those two placer miners?”
“They haven’t shown up, and there is nobody at the claim shack now,” Goldrick returned. “I’ve just been up there and the place is deserted. It’s a ‘frame-up,’ pure and simple; and these fellows, Shaw and Bolton, are merely men of straw set up for the O. C. pirates to hide behind. I have told the bridge carpenters to go ahead setting that trestle in. If those placer fellows were intending to make a real fight, they’d be here on the ground.”
Dick and Larry moved away. Another material train had just come up, and they went to check the rails as they were unloaded. From the new position they had a fair view of the activities on the other side of the valley. Two locomotives were shifting cars on the O. C. tracks, and far down the valley they could see the smoke of another train. Dick saw it first and called Larry’s attention to it.
“More material, I suppose,” said Larry, when he had seen the smoke of the upcoming train.