During each hour Glover was over every foot of the work, and inspecting
the track building. If a track boss couldn't understand what he wanted
the engineer could take a pick or a bar and give the man an object
lesson. He patrolled the cañon walls, the roadmasters behind him, with
so good an eye for loose bowlders, and fragments such as could be moved
readily with a gad, that his assistants before a second round had
spotted every handy chunk of rock within fifty feet of the water. He
put his spirit into the men and they gave their work the enthusiasm of
soldiers. But closest of all Glover watched the preparations for the
blast on the Cat's Paw.
Morris Blood in the meantime was sweeping the division for stone,
ballast, granite, gravel, anything that would serve to dump on Glover's
rock after the blast, and the two men were conferring on the track
about the supplies when a messenger appeared with word for Glover that
Mr. Brock's party were coming down the cañon.
When Glover intercepted the visitors they had already been guided to
the granite bench where his headquarters were fixed. With Mr. Brock
had come the young men, Miss Donner, and Mrs. Whitney. Mrs. Whitney
signalized her arrival by sitting down on a chest of dynamite--having
intimidated the modest headquarters custodian by asking for a chair so
imperiously that he was glad to walk away at her suggestion that he
hunt one up--though there was not a chair within several miles. It had
been no part of Glover's plan to receive his guests at that point, and
his first efforts after the greetings were to coax them away from the
interest they expressed in the equipment of an emergency headquarters,
and get them back to where the track crossed the river. But when the
young people learned that the blue-eyed boy at the little table on the
rock could send a telegram or a cablegram for them to any part of the
world, each insisted on putting a message through for the fun of the
thing, and even Mrs. Whitney could hardly be coaxed from the
illimitable possibilities just under her.
With a feeling of relief he got them away from the giant powder which
Ed Smith's men were still bringing in, and across the river to the
ledge that commanded the whole scene, and was safely removed from its
activities.
Glover took ten minutes to point out to the president of the system the
difficulties that would always confront the operating department in the
cañon. He charted clearly for Mr. Brock the whole situation, with the
hope that when certain very heavy estimates went before the directors
one man at least would understand the necessity for them. Mr. Brock
was a good questioner, and his interest turned constantly from the
general observations offered by Glover to the work immediately in hand,
which the engineer had no mind to exploit. The young people, however,
were determined to see the blast, and it was only by strongly advising
an early dinner and promising that they should have due notice of the
blast that Glover got rid of his visitors at all.