“I sure did; and I hope I rubbed it in hard enough so that she’ll tell her father.”
Larry’s grin was handsomely appreciative.
“You’re one great little old diplomat, Dick. Suffering cats! I wouldn’t have thought of a dodge like that in a hundred years. Here’s hoping it makes ’em turn around and go back home where they belong. I’ll say we haven’t any special use for ’em up here in this canyon.”
After dinner the two boys went over to the field office, and upon approaching it they found that the chief had company. So they waited at the door. Mr. Ackerman’s caller was a member of the sight-seeing party; a thin, frock-coated little gentleman with graying “toothbrush” side-whiskers, sort of angry eyes, and a high, rasping voice.
“That’s Mr. Oliver Hazzard, chairman of the Executive Board in New York,” said Dick, behind his hand, and Larry nodded complete understanding.
There wasn’t anything of a private nature about the conversation that was going on in the field office. The frock-coated gentleman was insisting that the special train be taken on to the real building “front,” and the chief engineer was deferentially and respectfully interposing one objection after another—apparently without the slightest success.
“Do you mean to say that you are building a railroad that isn’t fit to be used, Mr.—ah—Ackerman?” came in the high, irritable voice. “This Extension is costing us a mint of money, and it is—ah—presumably designed to carry passengers. In view of that fact, I see no reason why we should not be permitted to—ah—inspect it.”
“I have given you the facts, Mr. Hazzard,” was the sober reply. “The track, in its present incomplete condition, is not safe for your Pullman to run over. If you and the men of your party will be content to go up on a flat-car, with one of the lighter construction engines——”
“Nothing of the kind, Mr. Ackerman—nothing of the kind! We can leave the dining-car here, if you insist upon it; but we shall go in our own car in comfort, as we expect our patrons to do after the road is completed.”
Larry, who was watching the big chief out of the corner of his eye, saw the harassed official’s shoulders lift in a little shrug of impatient discouragement.