"And do ye be hearin?" she asked. "The Blue Ribbon's tied up! Not a wheel——"
"Will ye shut up?" Martin suddenly had remembered something. The mail test! Not forty-eight hours away! He blinked. One big hand smacked into the other. "The pound of flesh!" he bellowed. "Be gar! The pound of flesh!"
"And what are ye talkin' ——"
"Woman, shut up," said Martin Garrity. "'Tis me that's goin' to bed.
See that I'm not disturbed. Not even for Mr. Barstow."
"That I will," said Jewel—but that she didn't. It was Martin himself who answered the pounding on the door four hours later, then, in the frigid dining room, stared at the message which the chief dispatcher had handed him:
GARRITY, NORTHPORT: If line is free of snow assemble all snow-fighting equipment and necessary locomotives to handle same, delivering same fully equipped and manned with your own force to Blue Ribbon Division O.R. & T. Accompany this equipment personally to carry out instructions as I would like to have them carried out. Everything depends on your success or failure to open this line.
LEMUEL C. BARSTOW.
So! He was to make the effort; but if he failed that mail contract came automatically to the one road free to make the test, the Ozark Central! That was what Barstow meant! Make the effort, appear to fight with every weapon, that the O.R. & T. might have no claim in the future of unfairness but to fail! Let it be so! The O.R. & T. had broken his heart. Now, at last, his turn had come!
He turned to the telephone and gave his orders. Then up the stairs he clambered and into his clothes. Jewel snorted and awoke.
"Goo'by!" roared Martin as he climbed into his coat. "They've sent for me to open the Blue Ribbon."