"Meaning—an hour less and a dollar more? You're sure a psychic, Bill; plumb wasted on railroading. Open an office in town and go to fortune-telling and you'd pull that plaster off your homestead inside a month."
Assured that there was no hurry, that he could take a week to consider the matter, he gravely added: "Obliged to you, Bill; but I don't allow to require it. The world, you'll remember, was made in six days, and this isn't near such a big job. No time like the present, and here's my answer—same hours, same grub, same pay. It's fortune-telling or present rates for yours, Bill."
Through all he entirely ignored the delegation, and now he leaned in the door, idly watching as it made its way across the camp and was swallowed in the crowd of strikers about the bunk-house. But his face fell as he stepped inside beyond eye and ear shot. "Serious?" he repeated Hart's question. "Couldn't be worse. Not one of those fellows could make a quarter of the wages or live half as well on the farm, but they'd hog it all if I died in the ditch. But there's more behind this than their spite and greed. You see, we have just about pulled old Murray in for funds to make a clean finish, and if he gets wind of this he'll crawfish like a one-legged crow. I must go back at once. And you, Bender—you, also, Hart—see to it that not even a dog crawls out of this camp until I return."
"To keep these chaps guessing," he added, after a moment's dark reflection, "I'd better slip out after dusk. You go over, Hart, and whisper the engineer to back out and wait for me at the other side of the cut. Mystery is good as aces up in any old game, and we can't fog them too much."
Pulling out at dark, he made the run back to town—fifty miles—in an hour and a quarter, reckless running on unballasted road. Murray must be fully committed before the news leaked out. We must get him, must get him, must, must, must! The wheels clicked it, the steam hissed it, the fire roared it, the wind shrieked the imperative refrain. But though Bender lived in the strict letter of his instructions so that a mosquito could scarce have escaped from the camp; though a man could not have made the distance in two days on foot, or a wild goose have passed the throbbing engine as it bounded along that raw track, newsboys were yet crying the strike as he came out on Main Street.
Feeling certain that the office would be closed at that hour, he intended to go straight to Greer's house, but seeing a light in the partners' room as he came opposite the building, he went in and found Smythe there, alone. With lean legs thrust out before him, hands deep in his pockets, shoulders hunched to his ears, his attitude incarnated deep dejection; gloom resided in his nod.
"Greer?" he said. "At home—sick. You see, we were to have closed the deal with Murray this very evening, and the disappointment just knocked the old man out. He's been running altogether on his nerve lately; something had to give. Why couldn't this have happened a day later?"
Answering Carter's question, he went on: "We heard it at noon. Papers got out an extra. Presses must have been running it off before you left."
"Noon?" Carter whistled. "Why the men didn't quit till two!" Then as the significance flashed upon him, he exclaimed: "Brass Bowels for a million! It was all cut, dried, and laid away for us, and they served it hot to the minute. Don't—it—beat—hell!"
His comical disgust caused Smythe a wintry grin, but, sobering, he said: "I wouldn't mind so much for myself. I'm young enough to do it again. But the old gentleman—with that nice family! You know he was just about ready to retire; only took up this business from a strong sense of public duty. And now, in his extremity, every rat financier in this city runs to his hole in fear of the cat. The poor old man!"