Carhart caught up a sledge, swung it easily over his shoulder, and brought it down with a swing.
“There,” he cried, entering into the spirit of the thing, “there, boys! That means Red Hills or bust.”
The cheer that followed was led by the instrument man. Then Carhart, still smiling, walked back to his office. Now the work was begun.
But Old Van, the division engineer, was scowling. He wished the chief would quit stirring up these skylarking notions—on his division, anyway. It took just that much longer to take it out of the men—break them so you could drive them better.
[CHAPTER IV]
JACK FLAGG SEES STARS
It was a month later, on a Tuesday night, and the engineers were sitting about the table in the office tent. Scribner, the last to arrive, had ridden in after dusk from mile fourteen.
For two weeks the work had dragged. Peet, back at Sherman, had been more liberal of excuses than of materials. It was always the mills back in Pennsylvania, or slow business on connecting lines, or the car famine. And it was not unnatural that the name of the superintendent should have come to stand at the front for certain very unpopular qualities. Carhart had faith in Tiffany, but the railroad’s chief engineer was one man in a discordant organization. Railroad systems are not made in a day, and the S. & W. was new, showing square corners where all should be polished round; developing friction between departments, and bad blood between overworked men. Thus it had been finally brought home to Paul Carhart that in order to carry his work through he must fight, not only time and the elements, but also the company in whose interest he was working.