Benson's Bridge-timbers

: Red Butte Western

It was on the morning following the startling episode at the Dawsons'

gate that Benson, lately arrived from the west on train 204, came into

the superintendent's office with the light of discovery in his eye. But

the discovery, if any there were, was made to wait upon a word of

friendly solicitude.



"What's this they were telling me down at the lunch-counter just

now--about somebody taking a pot-shot at yo
last night?" he asked.

"Dougherty said it was Bart Rufford; was it?"



Lidgerwood confirmed the gossip with a nod. "Yes, it was Rufford, so

Dawson says. I didn't recognize him, though; it was too dark."



"Well, I'm mighty glad to see that he didn't get you. What was the row?"



"I don't know, definitely; I suppose it was because I told McCloskey to

discharge his brother a while back. The brother has been hanging about

town and making threats ever since he was dropped from the pay-rolls,

but no one has paid any attention to him."



"A pretty close call, wasn't it?--or was Dougherty only putting on a few

frills to go with my cup of coffee?"



"It was close enough," admitted Lidgerwood half absently. He was

thinking not so much of the narrow escape as of the fresh and

humiliating evidence it had afforded of his own wretched unreadiness.



"All right; you'll come around to my way of thinking after a while. I

tell you, Lidgerwood, you've got to heel yourself when you live in a gun

country. I said I wouldn't do it, but I have done it, and I'll tell you

right now, when anybody in this blasted desert makes monkey-motions at

me, I'm going to blow the top of his head off, quick."



Lidgerwood's gaze was resting on the little drawer in his desk which now

contained nothing but a handful of loose cartridges.



"Hasn't it ever occurred to you, Jack, that I am the one man in the

desert who cannot afford to go armed? I am supposed to stand for law and

order. What would my example be worth if it should be noised around that

I, too, had become a 'gun-toter'?"



"Oh, I'm not going to argue with you," laughed Benson. "You'll go your

own way and do as you please, and probably get yourself comfortably shot

up before you get through. But I didn't come up here to wrangle with you

about your theoretical notions of law and order. I came to tell you that

I have been hunting for those bridge-timbers of mine."



"Well?" queried Lidgerwood; "have you found them?"



"No, and I don't believe anybody will ever find them. It's going to be

another case of Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be

comforted because they are not."



"But you have discovered something?"



"Partly yes, and partly no. I think I told you at the time that they

vanished between two days like a puff of smoke, leaving no trace behind

them. How it was done I couldn't imagine. There is a wagon-road

paralleling the river over there at the Siding, as you know, and the

first thing I did the next morning was to look for wagon-tracks. No set

of wheels carrying anything as heavy as those twelve-by-twelve

twenty-fours had gone over the road."



"How were they taken, then? They couldn't have been floated off down the

river, could they?"



"It was possible, but not at all probable," said the engineer. "My

theory was that they were taken away on somebody's railroad car. There

were only two sources of information, at first--the night operator at

Little Butte twelve miles west, and the track-walker at Point-of-Rocks,

whose boat goes down to within two or three miles of the Gloria bridge.

Goodloe, at Little Butte, reports that there was nothing moving on the

main line after the passing of the midnight freight east; and

Shaughnessy, the track-walker, is just a plain, unvarnished liar: he

knows a lot more than he will tell."



"Still, you are looking a good bit more cheerful than you were last

week," was Lidgerwood's suggestion.



"Yes; after I got the work started again with a new set of timbers, I

spent three or four days on the ground digging for information like a

dog after a woodchuck. There are some prospectors panning on the bar

three miles up the Gloria, but they knew nothing--or if they knew they

wouldn't tell. That was the case with every man I talked to on our side

of the river. But over across the Timanyoni, nearly opposite the mouth

of the Gloria, there is a little creek coming in from the north, and on

this creek I found a lone prospector--a queer old chap who hails from

my neck of woods up in Michigan."



"Go on," said Lidgerwood, when the engineer stopped to light his pipe.



"The old man told me a fairy tale, all right," Benson went on. "He was

as full of fancies as a fig is of seeds. I have been trying to believe

that what he told me isn't altogether a pipe-dream, but it sounds

mightily like one. He says that about two o'clock in the morning of

Saturday, two weeks ago, an engine and a single car backed down from the

west to the Gloria bridge, and a crowd of men swarmed off the train,

loaded those bridge-timbers, and ran away with them, going back up the

line to the west. He tells it all very circumstantially, though he

neglected to explain how he happened to be awake and on guard at any

such unearthly hour."



"Where was he when he saw all this?"



"On his own side of the river, of course. It was a dark night, and the

engine had no headlight. But the loading gang had plenty of lanterns,

and he says they made plenty of noise."



"You didn't let it rest at that?" said the superintendent.



"Oh, no, indeed! I put in the entire afternoon that day on a hand-car

with four of my men to pump it for me, and if there is a foot of the

main line, side-tracks, or spurs, west of the Gloria bridge, that I

haven't gone over, I don't know where it is. The next night I crossed

the Timanyoni and tackled the old prospector again. I wanted to check

him up--see if he had forgotten any of the little frills and details. He

hadn't. On the contrary, he was able to add what seems to me a very

important detail. About an hour after the disappearance of the one-car

train with my bridge-timbers, he heard something that he had heard many

times before. He says it was the high-pitched song of a circular saw. I

asked him if he was sure. He grinned and said he hadn't been brought up

in the Michigan woods without being able to recognize that song wherever

he might hear it."



"Whereupon you went hunting for saw-mills?" asked Lidgerwood.



"That is just what I did, and if there is one within hearing distance of

that old man's cabin on Quartz Creek, I couldn't find it. But I am

confident that there is one, and that the thieves, whoever they were,

lost no time in sawing my bridge-timbers up into board-lumber, and I'll

bet a hen worth fifty dollars against a no-account yellow dog that I

have seen those boards a dozen times within the last twenty-four hours,

without knowing it."



"Didn't see anything of our switch-engine while you were looking for

your bridge-timbers and saw-mills and other things, did you?" queried

Lidgerwood.



"No," was the quick reply, "no, but I have a think coming on that, too.

My old prospector says he couldn't make out very well in the dark, but

it seemed to him as if the engine which hauled away our bridge-timbers

didn't have any tender. How does that strike you?"



Lidgerwood grew thoughtful. The missing engine was of the "saddle-tank"

type, and it had no tender. It was hard to believe that it could be

hidden anywhere on so small a part of the Red Butte Western system as

that covered by the comparatively short mileage in Timanyoni Park. Yet

if it had not been dumped into some deep pot-hole in the river, it was

unquestionably hidden somewhere.



"Benson, are you sure you went over all the line lying west of the

Gloria bridge?" he asked pointedly.



"Every foot of it, up one side and down the other ... No, hold on, there

is that old spur running up on the eastern side of Little Butte; it's

the one that used to serve Flemister's mine when the workings were on

the eastern slope of the butte. I didn't go over that spur. It hasn't

been used for years; as I remember it, the switch connections with the

main line have been taken out."



"You're wrong about that," said Lidgerwood definitely. "McCloskey

thought so too, and told me that the frogs and point-rails had been

taken out at Silver Switch--at both of the main-line ends of the

'Y',--but the last time I was over the line I noticed that the old

switch stands were there, and that the split rails were still in place."



Benson had been tilting comfortably in his chair, smoking his pipe, but

at this he got up quickly and looked at his watch.



"Say, Lidgerwood, I'm going back to the Park on Extra 71, which ought to

leave in about five minutes," he said hurriedly. "Tell me half a dozen

things in just about as many seconds. Has Flemister used that spur since

you took charge of the road?"



"No."



"Have you ever suspected him of being mixed up in the looting?"



"I haven't known enough about him to form an opinion."



Benson stepped to the door communicating with the outer office, and

closed it quietly.



"Your man Hallock out there; how is he mixed up with Flemister?"



"I don't know. Why?"



"Because, the day before yesterday, when I was on the Little Butte

station platform, talking with Goodloe, I saw Flemister and Hallock

walking down the new spur together. When they saw me, they turned around

and began to walk back toward the mine."



"Hallock had business with Flemister, I know that much, and he took half

a day off Thursday to go and see him," said the superintendent.



"Do you happen to know what the business was?"



"Yes, I do. He went at my request."



"H'm," said Benson, "another string broken. Never mind; I've got to

catch that train."



"Still after those bridge-timbers?"



"Still after the boards they have probably been sawed into. And before I

get back I am going to know what's at the upper end of that old Silver

Switch 'Y' spur."



The young engineer had been gone less than half an hour, and Lidgerwood

had scarcely finished reading his mail, when McCloskey opened the door.

Like Benson, the trainmaster also had the light of discovery in his eye.



"More thievery," he announced gloomily. "This time they have been

looting my department. I had ten or twelve thousand feet of high-priced,

insulated copper wire, and a dozen or more telephone sets, in the

store-room. Mr. Cumberley had a notion of connecting up all the Angels

departments by telephone, and it got as far as the purchasing of the

material. The wire and all those telephone sets are gone."



"Well?" said Lidgerwood, evenly. The temptation to take it out upon the

nearest man was still as strong as ever, but he was growing better able

to resist it.



"I've done what I could," snapped McCloskey, seeming to know what was

expected of him, "but nobody knows anything, of course. So far as I

could find out, no one of my men has had occasion to go to the

store-room for a week."



"Who has the keys?"



"I have one, and Spurlock, the line-chief, has one. Hallock has the

third."



"Always Hallock!" was the half-impatient comment. "I hope you don't

suspect him of stealing your wire."



McCloskey tilted his hat over his eyes, and looked truculent enough to

fight an entire cavalry troop.



"That's just what I do," he gritted. "I've got him dead to rights this

time. He was in that store-room day before yesterday, or rather night

before last. Callahan saw him coming out of there."



Lidgerwood sat back in his chair and smiled. "I don't blame you much,

Mac; this thing is getting to be pretty binding upon all of us. But I

think you are mistaken in your conclusion, I mean. Hallock has been

making an inventory of material on hand for the past week or more, and

now that I think of it, I remember having seen your wire and the

telephone sets included in his last sheet of telegraph supplies."



"There it goes again," said the trainmaster sourly. "Every time I get a

half-hitch on that fellow, something turns up to make it slip. But if I

had my way about twenty minutes I'd go and choke him till he'd tell me

what he has done with that wire."



Lidgerwood was smiling again.



"Try to be as fair to him as you can," he advised good-naturedly. "I

know you dislike him, and probably you have good reasons. But have you

stopped to ask yourself what possible use he could make of the stolen

material?"



Again McCloskey's hat went to the pugnacious angle. "I don't know

anything any more; you couldn't prove it by me what day of the week it

is. But I can tell you one thing, Mr. Lidgerwood"--shaking an emphatic

finger--"Flemister has just put a complete system of wiring and

telephones in his mine, and if he had the stuff for the system shipped

in over our railroad, the agent at Little Butte doesn't know anything

about it. I asked Goodloe, by grapples!"



But even this was unconvincing to the superintendent.



"That proves nothing against Hallock, Mac, as you will see when you cool

down a little," he said.



"I know it doesn't," wrathfully; "nothing proves anything any more. I

suppose I've got to say it again: I'm all in, down and out." And he went

away, growling to his hat-brim.



Late in the evening of the same day, Benson returned from the west,

coming in on a light engine that was deadheading from Red Butte to the

Angels shops. He sought out Lidgerwood at once, and flinging himself

wearily into a chair at the superintendent's elbow, made his report of

the day's doings.



"I have, and I haven't," he said, beginning in the midst of things, as

his habit was. "You were right about the track connection at Silver

Switch. It is in; Flemister put it in himself a month ago when he had a

car-load of coal taken up to the back door of his mine."



"Did you go up over the spur?"



"Yes; and I had my trouble for my pains. Before I go any further,

Lidgerwood, I'd like to ask you one question: can we afford to quarrel

with Mr. Pennington Flemister?"



"Benson, we sha'n't hesitate a single moment to quarrel with the biggest

mine-owner or freight-shipper this side of the Crosswater Hills if we

have the right on our side. Spread it out. What did you find?"



Benson sank a little lower in his chair. "The first thing I found was a

couple of armed guards--a pair of tough-looking citizens with guns

sagging at their hips, lounging around the Wire-Silver back door. There

is quite a little nest of buildings at the old entrance to the

Wire-Silver, and a stockade has been built to enclose them. The old spur

runs through a gate in the stockade, and the gate was open; but the two

toughs wouldn't let me go inside. I wrangled with them first, and tried

to bribe them afterward, but it was no go. Then I started to walk around

the outside of the stockade, which is only a high board fence, and they

objected to that. Thereupon I told them to go straight to blazes, and

walked away down the spur, but when I got out of sight around the first

curve I took to the timber on the butte slope and climbed to a point

from which I could look over into Flemister's carefully built

enclosure."



"Well, what did you see?"



"Much or little, just as you happen to look at it. There are half a

dozen buildings in the yard, and two of them are new and unpainted.

Sizing them up from a distance, I said to myself that the lumber in them

hadn't been very long out of the mill. One of them is evidently the

power-house; it has an iron chimney set in the roof, and the power-plant

was running."



For a little time after Benson had finished his report there was

silence, and Lidgerwood had added many squares to the pencillings on his

desk blotter before he spoke again.



"You say two of the buildings are new; did you make any inquiries about

recent lumber shipments to the Wire-Silver?"



"I did," said the young engineer soberly. "So far as our station records

show, Flemister has had no material, save coal, shipped in over either

the eastern or the western spur for several months."



"Then you believe that he took your bridge-timbers and sawed them up

into lumber?"



"I do--as firmly as I believe that the sun will rise to-morrow. And that

isn't all of it, Lidgerwood. He is the man who has your switch-engine.

As I have said, the power-plant was running while I was up there to-day.

The power is a steam engine, and if you'd stand off and listen to it

you'd swear it was a locomotive pulling a light train up an easy grade.

Of course, I'm only guessing at that, but I think you will agree with me

that the burden of proof lies upon Flemister."



Lidgerwood was nodding slowly. "Yes, on Flemister and some others. Who

are the others, Benson?"



"I have no more guesses coming, and I am too tired to invent any.

Suppose we drop it until to-morrow. I'm afraid it means a fight or a

funeral, and I am not quite equal to either to-night."



For a long time after Benson had gone, Lidgerwood sat staring out of his

office window at the masthead electrics in the railroad yard. Benson's

news had merely confirmed his own and McCloskey's conclusion that some

one in authority was in collusion with the thieves who were raiding the

company. Sooner or later it must come to a grapple, and he dreaded it.



It was deep in the night when he closed his desk and went to the little

room partitioned off in the rear of the private office as a

sleeping-apartment. When he was preparing to go to bed, he noticed that

the tiny relay on the stand at his bed's head was silent. Afterward,

when he tried to adjust the instrument, he found it ruined beyond

repair. Some one had connected its wiring with the electric lighting

circuit, and the tiny coils were fused and burned into solid little

cylinders of copper.



More

;