"That they could, sir," came dolefully. Then Garrity, the old lump in his throat, waited to be excused, and backed from the office. That rotary snow plough had been his own, his pet idea—and it had been wrong!
Gloomily he returned to Northport, his headquarters, there to observe a group of grinning railroad men gathered about a great, bulky object parked in front of the roundhouse. Behind it were other contraptions of shining steel, all of which Martin recognized without a second glance—his snow-fighting equipment, just arrived. Nor did he approach for a closer view. Faintly he heard jeering remarks from the crowd; then laughter. He caught the mention of his own name, coupled with derisive comment. His hands clenched. His red neck bulged. His big lungs filled—then slowly deflated; and Martin went slowly homeward, in silence.
"And is it your liver?" asked Jewel Garrity as they sat at dinner.
"It is not!" bawled Martin. He rose. He pulled his napkin from his chin with Garrity emphasis and dropped it in the gravy. He thumped about the table, then stopped.
One big freckled paw reached uncertainly outward and plunked with intended gentleness upon the woman's shoulder, to rest, trembling there, a second. Then silently Martin went on upstairs. For that touch had told her that it was—his heart!
A heart that ached with a throbbing sorrow which could not be downed as the summer passed and Martin heard again and again the reflexes brought about by the purchase of his snow ploughs. Vainly he stormed up and down the line of the Ozark Central with its thousands of labourers. Vainly he busied himself with a thousand intricacies of construction, in the hope of forgetfulness. None of it could take from his mind the fact that railroad men were laughing at him, that chuckling train-butchers were pointing out the giant machinery to grinning passengers, that even the railroad journals were printing funny quips about Barstow's prize superintendent and his mountain snow plough. Nor could even the news that Aldrich, over on the Blue Ribbon division, was allowing that once proud bit of rail to degenerate into an ordinary portion of a railroad bring even a passing cheer. They, too, were laughing! In a last doglike hope Martin looked up the precipitation reports. It only brought more gloom. Only four times in thirty years had there been a snowfall in Missouri that could block a railroad!
The summer crept into autumn; autumn to early winter, bringing with it the transformation of the rickety old Ozark Central to a smooth, well-cushioned line of gleaming steel, where the trains shot to and fro with hardly a tremor, where the hollow thunder of culvert and trestle spoke of sturdy strength, where the trackwalker searched in vain for loose plates or jutting joints; but to Garrity, it was only the fulfilment or the work of a mechanical second nature. December was gliding by in warmth and sunshine. January came, with no more than a hatful of snow, and once more Martin found himself facing the president.
"We'll win that contract, Martin!" It almost brought a smile to the superintendent's face. "I've just been over the road—on the quiet. We made eighty miles an hour with hardly a jolt!"
"Thankee, sir." A vague sense of joy touched Martin's aching heart—only to depart.
"By the way, I noticed when I went through Northport that you've still got that rotary where everybody can see it. I wish you'd move that stuff—behind the roundhouse, out of sight."