[CHAPTER VIII]
SHOTS—AND A SCOUTING PARTY
It was early evening. Gus Vandervelt, nervous, exultant, leaving a trail of cigarette stubs behind him, was pacing up and down the track. When he faced the east, his eyes saw far beyond the cars and wagons and clustering tents. Off there, in each mile of the many they had travelled, lay a witness of some battle won. They had fought like soldiers; and the small successes had come rapidly until the men were beginning to take victory as a matter of course. The most stupid of them understood now just what sort of thing the reserved, magnetic Paul Carhart stood for, and they were finding it a very good sort of thing indeed.
As Young Van walked, his imagination leaping forward from battles fought to the battles to come, he heard a step, and saw the stocky figure of his brother approaching through the dusk. He stiffened up and paused, but Old Van marched by without the twitch of a muscle. The young man watched him until he had faded out of sight, then lighted another cigarette, and continued his beat.
A little later, smiling in a nervous way he had of late, Young Van turned toward the headquarters tent. He knew that his brother had gone to make up the material train and would not return for some time.
He found Paul Carhart sitting alone, sewing a button on the yellow linen trousers.
“Did you see any more drunks?” Carhart asked, pausing, needle in air.
Young Van, now that he thought of it, had observed signs of unusual good feeling among the laborers.
“We’re a little too near this Palos settlement to suit me,” said the chief. “Keeping your men in the desert rather spoils one for the advantages of civilization. I never had an easier time with laborers. But these men are a bad lot to bring within five miles of a saloon. They will be fighting before morning.”
“I suppose they will. I hadn’t thought of it. By the way, there’s a rumor about that you had a letter from Mr. Flint to-day.”