“Then get off my land.”
“Now, see here, Colonel Ward, you know as well as I that my principals have complied with all the provisions of law in taking this location. This road is going through. I am going to put it through.”
“Talk back to me, will you? Talk to me! ni—I'll—” Ward's rage choked his utterance.
“Certainly I'll talk to you, sir, and I am perfectly qualified to boss my men. Go ahead there, boys!” he called.
“A moment, Mr. Parker,” broke in the suave voice of the lawyer. “I see you don't understand the entire situation. Briefly, then, Mr. Ward has a telephone-line across this carry. You may see the wires from where you stand. I find that your right of way trespasses on Colonel Ward's telephone location. In this confusion of locations, you will see the advisability of suspending operations until the matter can be referred to the courts.”
“There is room for Colonel Ward's telephone and for our railroad, too,” he retorted. “If we are compelled to remove any poles, we'll replace them.”
Of course Parker did not know that the telephone-line was, in fact, only Colonel Ward's private line, and after the taking by the railroad was on the location wholly without right. But that was a matter for his superiors, and not for him.
“Another point that I fear you have not noted. Colonel Ward's telephone wires are affixed to trees, and your men are preparing to cut down these same trees in clearing your right of way. You see it can't be done, Mr. Parker.”
There was an unmistakable sneer in the lawyer's tones. Parker's anger mounted to his cheeks.
“I'm no lawyer,” he cried, “but I have been assured by our counsel that I have the right to build a railroad here, and I reckon he knows! I've been told to build this railroad and, Mr. Attorney, I'm going to build it. I've been told to have it completed by a certain time, and I haven't days and weeks to spend splitting hairs in court.”