“At Sherman?”
“Yes. Peet isn’t sending those cars out here, and I’m going to find out where he is sending them.”
“There’s one thing, Carhart,” said Tiffany, as they rose, “I’m sure Peet don’t know how bad off you were for water. He was holding up the trains for material.”
“He ought to understand, Tiffany. I wired him to send the water anyway.”
“I know. But that would be wholesale murder. He didn’t realize—”
“I’m going to undertake the job of making him realize, Tiffany.”
The whistle of the vice-president’s special engine was tooting as they started back. On the one hand, as far as human beings could be distinguished with the naked eye, the groups and the long lines of laborers were shuffling to and from their work on the grade; the picked men of the iron squad, muscular, deep chested, were working side by side with the Mexicans and the negroes, as also were the spikers and strappers and the men of the tie squad. On the other hand, the ladies of the vice-president’s party were picking their way daintily back toward Mr. Chambers’s private car, where savory odors and a white-clad chef awaited them.
Carhart had time only to wash his face and hands before rejoining the party at the car steps. His clothing was downright disreputable, and he wanted the physique, the height and breadth and muscle display, which alone can give distinction to rough garments. Even his clean-cut face and reserved, studious expression were not positive features, and could hardly triumph over the obvious facts of his dress. Mrs. Chambers and the young women again glanced toward him, and again they had nothing to say to him. To the truth that this ugly, noisy scene was a resolving dissonance in the harmony of things, that this rough person in spectacles was heroically forging a link in the world’s girdle, these women were blind. They had been curious to come; and now that they were here and were conscious of the dirtiness and meanness of the hundreds of men about them, now that the gray hopelessness of the desert was getting on their nerves, they were eager to go back. And so the bell rang, the driving-wheels spun around, slipping under the coughing engine, the car began to rumble forward, the ladies bowed, the vice-president, taking a last look at things from the rear platform, nodded a good-by, and the incident was closed.
There were a number of things for Carhart to attend to after he had eaten supper and dressed, and before he could get away,—some of which will have to find a place in a later chapter,—and it was eleven o’clock at night when he finally put aside his maps and reports. He then wrote a note to Scribner, telling the engineer of the second division that the last report of his pile inspector was not satisfactory,—the third bent in the trestle over Tiffany Hollow on “mile fifty-two” showed insufficient resistance. He left for Young Van’s attention a pile of letters with memoranda for the replies. He sent for Old Van, and went over with him the condition of the work on the first division. And finally he wrote the following letter to John Flint:—