CHAPTER XXII.
GATHERING OF OMINOUS FORCES.
Kingston was a boiling, seething, steaming volcano of hot wrath, burning indignation and fiery protest. Kingston cursed, raved, stormed and resoluted, then stormed, raved and resoluted some more. Kingston was tricked, betrayed, cheated, defrauded, insulted and mocked. And the unspeakable villain, the sordid wretch, the miserable gamester who had ruined Kingston was Jefferson Worth.
It is unknown to this day who first brought the news that all work on the railroad for a distance of seven miles out from Kingston was stopped and that the camps with their entire outfits had disappeared, leaving the scenes of their stirring activity as still and lifeless as if they had never existed. Next it was known that from Deep Well southward the construction train was still pushing its way into the Basin and that the work ahead of the train went on.
Then, while Kingston was wondering, questioning, discussing, the word went quickly around that the grading crews were setting up their camps twelve miles east of the Company town and that a line of stakes led one way to the town of Barba and the other way in the direction to meet the construction train working out from the junction with the S. & C. at Deep Well.
Then the startled people grasped the truth of the appalling situation and awoke from their dream. In the line of the railroad survey that had led to Kingston as straight as you could draw a string, there was now a curve seven miles away, the tangent of which would carry it twelve miles east of the Company town and straight into Barba.
Practically all business ceased, while the citizens in knots and groups discussed the situation. Jefferson Worth was in the Coast city and telegrams to him, all save one, received no answer. To a message from Mr. Burk he replied that the line had been changed by his orders. As for Abe Lee, they might as well have questioned one of the surveyor's grade stakes. Even Barbara, besought by the distracted citizens, could tell them nothing except that her father would return Saturday. There was nothing to do save to wait for Mr. Worth and to prepare for his coming.
When the president of The King's Basin Land and Irrigation Company arrived on the scene in answer to an urgent wire from his Manager, he was at once the center of public interest. But Mr. Greenfield escaped quickly from the crowd at the hotel and was very soon closeted with Burk in the office.
Then a boy found Horace P. Blanton. Horace P. was not hard to find.
With the word that Mr. Greenfield desired to see him immediately,
Horace P. Blanton increased visibly—so visibly that the spectators
watched the white vest with no little anxiety.
"Tell Mr. Greenfield that I will see him immediately," he said in a voice that was easily heard across the street. Then Horace P. arrived at the door of the Company office a full length ahead of the messenger.