The cashier had unlocked the street door for them, and Bartrow ran the splitter of hairs out to the sidewalk.
"You're not going to fail if I can ever succeed in getting you in motion. Good Lord, man! can't you wake up and get a grip of the situation? It isn't the mere saving or losing of the bonanza; it's sheer life or death to Jim Garvin—and you say you owe him. Here,—this cab is as good as any. Midland office, my man; half time, double fare. Don't spare the leather."
At eight-ten to the minute they were negotiating with the superintendent's chief clerk for a special engine to Aspen. Whereupon, as is foreordained in such crises, difficulties multiplied themselves, while the office clock's decorous pendulum ticked off the precious margin of time. Bartrow fought this battle, fought it single-handed and won; but that was because his weapon was invincible. The preliminary passage at arms vocalized itself thus:—
The Clerk, mindful of his superior's moods, and reflectively dubitant: "I'm afraid I haven't the authority. You will have to wait and see the superintendent. He'll be down at nine."
Bartrow: "Make it a dollar a mile."
The Clerk: "Can't be done; or, at least, I can't do it. We're short of motive power. There isn't an engine fit for the run at this end of the division."
Bartrow: "Say a hundred and fifty for the trip."
The Clerk: "I'm afraid we couldn't make it, anyhow. We'd have to send a caller after a crew, and"—
Bartrow, sticking to his single text like a phonograph set to repeat: "Call it a hundred and seventy-five."