The old man slept that night in Parker's tent and went on his way at morning light, and tho the engineer pressed back again into his hands, unopened, the packet that was proffered, and assured him that no harm should befall Gideon Ward through complaint or report for which he was responsible, Parker still felt that somehow there was a balance due old Joshua Ward on their books of tacit partnership in well-doing;—such was the honest faith, and patient self-abnegation of the good old man, who had endured so much for others' sake.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN—THE DAY WHEN POQUETTE BURST WIDE OPEN
Through the spring and the early summer Poquette Carry was an animated theater of action. Woodsmen, went up and woodsmen came down, and mingled with the busy railroad crews. All examined the progress of construction with curiosity, and passed on, uttering picturesque comment. Strange old men came paddling down West Branch from unknown wildernesses, and trudged their moccasined way from end to end of the line, as if to convince themselves that Colonel Gideon Ward really had been conquered on his own ground. Newspaper reporters came from the nearest city, and pressed Engineer Parker to make a statement “Gentlemen,” he said, with a laugh, “not a word for print from me. I was sent here to build this bit of a railroad quietly and unobtrusively. Circumstances have paraded our affairs before the public in some measure. Now if you quote me, or twist anything I may say into an interview, my employers will have good reason to be disgusted with me, as well as with the situation here. Furthermore, there are personal reasons why I do not wish to talk.”
Whether Parker's eager appeal had effect upon the reporters, or whether the timber barons influenced the editors, the whole affair of the sunken engine was lightly passed over as the prank of roistering woodsmen, and Colonel Ward was left wholly undisturbed in his retreat. Even the calamity that had befallen him was not mentioned except by word of mouth among the woodsmen of the region.
With self-restraint that is rare in young men, Parker still refused to talk about the matter even in Sunkhaze. When he first returned, a sense of chagrin at his discomfiture along with reasons that have been mentioned kept him silent, it is true, but now, with complete victory in his hands, he was sincerely affected by the misfortune that had overtaken his enemy.
The “Swamp Swogon,” now that it was running on its own rails and was hauling building materials along the crooked railroad, was renicknamed “The Stump Dodger.” Parker's chief pride in the road was necessarily based on the fact that it had been constructed without exceeding the appropriation, a fact that excused many curves.
Late in June the last rails were laid and the ballasting, such as it was, was well under way.
The “terminal stations,” as the engineer jocosely called them, were neat little structures of logs, and there was a log roundhouse, where the Stump Dodger retired in smutty and smoky seclusion when its day's toil was finished.
So the engineer prepared for the day of opening, and requested the state railroad commissioners to make their final inspection of the road. The three officials gravely travelled from end to end of the line in the secondhand P. K. & R. coach, the only passenger-car of the road, and after some jocular remarks, issued a certificate empowering the Poquette Carry Road to convey passengers and collect fares. Then, after a telegraphic conference with his employers, Parker announced the day for the formal opening of the road.