“Yes,” Carhart replied, “it’s as bad as that. If I lose, no matter how the fight in the board turns out, you know what it will mean—no more De Reamer and Chambers men on the S. & W. Every De Reamer fireman and brakeman will go. It’ll be a long vacation for the bunch of you.”
Peet was silent. And then, standing there where he had so often and so heedlessly stood before, his sordid, moderately capable mind was torn unexpectedly loose from its well-worn grooves and thrown out to drift on a tossing sea of emotion and of romantic adventure. The breathlessness of the scene was borne in on his consciousness on a wave that almost took away his breath. Carhart was the sort of man whom he could not understand at all. He knew this now, or something near enough to it, clear down to the bottom of his subconscious self. And when he turned and looked at the thin man of the masterful hand, it was with a change of manner. “All right,” he said, “go ahead. Just say what you want me to do.”
At five minutes to ten that night a locomotive lay, the steam roaring in clouds through her safety valve, on the siding by the freight depot; and stretching off behind her was a long string of empties. Carhart, Tiffany, and Peet, walking up alongside the train, could distinguish, through the dark, men sitting on brake wheels, or swinging their legs out of box-car doors or standing in groups in the gondola cars. Once, during a brief lull in the noise of the yard, they heard a gentle snore which was issuing from the dark recesses of one of the box-cars. The three men halted beside the locomotive.
“You’d better go, Paul,” said Tiffany.
Carhart looked at Peet. “I’ll rely on you to keep things coming,” he said.
“Go ahead,” replied the superintendent. “I’ll have the three trains and all the men at Paradise before morning.”
“And we’ll look out for the commissariat too, Paul,” added Tiffany.
“All right,” said Carhart. “But there’s another thing, Peet. I haven’t cars enough yet. As soon as enough come in to make up another train, send it out to me.”
“That’ll be sometime to-morrow afternoon, likely,” Peet replied soberly.