Larry Donovan, begrimed and sweaty, retreated suddenly into his shell of embarrassment when the mayor of Little Ophir bustled up and asked for Mr. Ackerman. So it was Dick who had to do the explaining, and he told why there were no officials on hand to receive the welcome.
“Arrested your chief and all your bosses?” exclaimed the mayor. “And, in spite of that, you’ve laid three miles of track since this morning—just you two boys?”
“Oh, no, indeed!” said Dick hastily; “it was the men themselves. Larry, here, just got ’em together and told ’em what the O. C. was trying to do to us, and——”
The interruption was the swift upcoming of a one-car train over the newly laid track; a train which edged its way gingerly through the cheering throng up to the very end of the last pair of rails. Down from the steps of the car swung the Short Line chief of construction, followed by the members of his staff and all the “John Does” and “Richard Roes” that had been gathered in by the blanket warrant of arrest. Then the band began to blare out “Hail to the Chief”; and on the march up to the City Hall, Larry and Dick were able to drop into a less conspicuous—and much more comfortable—background. Their job was done.
Three days after the triumphal entry of the Nevada Short Line into Little Ophir, and, incidentally, at a moment when the defeated Overland Central was still wrestling with the rocky barrier two miles below the town, Larry Donovan found himself sitting on the edge of a chair in the private office of the general manager in the Brewster headquarters, waiting while the stocky, gray-mustached “Big Boss” at the desk went thoughtfully over the pages of a typewritten report.
“Well,” said the stocky gentleman, finally laying the report aside, “Dick tells me you’ve both had a fine summer up yonder on the Tourmaline, and Mr. Ackerman tells me here”—tapping the report—“what you did on the last day of the track-laying. That was a fine thing, Larry; a mighty fine thing for the company. How did you come to think of it?”
“Going on with the job, you mean? Why—er—there didn’t seem to be anything else to do.”
“Yes; but the method of it; getting the men to elect their own foremen. What put that into your head?”
“Why, I don’t know, sir. I was just thinking——”