第3章

There was a jolly group at one end of the long table, and they wished to emphasize the fact by laughing a little more hysterically at their remarks than the humor of those witticisms seemed to justify.A daughter-in-law of Mrs.Porter was their leader in this, and at one point she stopped in the middle of a story and waving her hand at the double row of faces turned in her direction, which had been attracted by the loudness of her voice, cried, gayly, ``Don't listen.This is for private circulation.It is not a jeune-fille story.'' The debutantes at the table continued talking again in steady, even tones, as though they had not heard the remark or the first of the story, and the men next to them appeared equally unconscious.But the cowboy, Miss Langham noted out of the corner of her eye, after a look of polite surprise, beamed with amusement and continued to stare up and down the table as though he had discovered a new trait in a peculiar and interesting animal.For some reason, she could not tell why, she felt annoyed with herself and with her friends, and resented the attitude which the new-comer assumed toward them.

``Mrs.Porter tells me that you know her son George?'' she said.

He did not answer her at once, but bowed his head in assent, with a look of interrogation, as though, so it seemed to her, he had expected her, when she did speak, to say something less conventional.

``Yes,'' he replied, after a pause, ``he joined us at Ayutla.It was the terminus of the Jalisco and Mexican Railroad then.He came out over the road and went in from there with an outfit after mountain lions.I believe he had very good sport.''

``That is a very wonderful road, I am told,'' said King, bending forward and introducing himself into the conversation with a nod of the head toward Clay; ``quite a remarkable feat of engineering.''

``It will open up the country, I believe,'' assented the other, indifferently.

``I know something of it,'' continued King, ``because I met the men who were putting it through at Pariqua, when we touched there in the yacht.They shipped most of their plant to that port, and we saw a good deal of them.They were a very jolly lot, and they gave me a most interesting account of their work and its difficulties.''

Clay was looking at the other closely, as though he was trying to find something back of what he was saying, but as his glance seemed only to embarrass King he smiled freely again in assent, and gave him his full attention.

``There are no men to-day, Miss Langham,'' King exclaimed, suddenly, turning toward her, ``to my mind, who lead as picturesque lives as do civil engineers.And there are no men whose work is as little appreciated.''

``Really?'' said Miss Langham, encouragingly.

``Now those men I met,'' continued King, settling himself with his side to the table, ``were all young fellows of thirty or thereabouts, but they were leading the lives of pioneers and martyrs--at least that's what I'd call it.They were marching through an almost unknown part of Mexico, fighting Nature at every step and carrying civilization with them.They were doing better work than soldiers, because soldiers destroy things, and these chaps were creating, and making the way straight.They had no banners either, nor brass bands.They fought mountains and rivers, and they were attacked on every side by fever and the lack of food and severe exposure.They had to sit down around a camp-fire at night and calculate whether they were to tunnel a mountain, or turn the bed of a river or bridge it.And they knew all the time that whatever they decided to do out there in the wilderness meant thousands of dollars to the stockholders somewhere up in God's country, who would some day hold them to account for them.They dragged their chains through miles and miles of jungle, and over flat alkali beds and cactus, and they reared bridges across roaring canons.We know nothing about them and we care less.When their work is done we ride over the road in an observation-car and look down thousands and thousands of feet into the depths they have bridged, and we never give them a thought.They are the bravest soldiers of the present day, and they are the least recognized.I have forgotten their names, and you never heard them.But it seems to me the civil engineer, for all that, is the chief civilizer of our century.''

Miss Langham was looking ahead of her with her eyes half-closed, as though she were going over in her mind the situation King had described.

``I never thought of that,'' she said.``It sounds very fine.

As you say, the reward is so inglorious.But that is what makes it fine.''

The cowboy was looking down at the table and pulling at a flower in the centre-piece.He had ceased to smile.Miss Langham turned on him somewhat sharply, resenting his silence, and said, with a slight challenge in her voice:--``Do you agree, Mr.Clay,'' she asked, ``or do you prefer the chocolate-cream soldiers, in red coats and gold lace?''

``Oh, I don't know,'' the young man answered, with some slight hesitation.``It's a trade for each of them.The engineer's work is all the more absorbing, I imagine, when the difficulties are greatest.He has the fun of overcoming them.''

``You see nothing in it then,'' she asked, ``but a source of amusement?''

``Oh, yes, a good deal more,'' he replied.``A livelihood, for one thing.I--I have been an engineer all my life.I built that road Mr.King is talking about.''

An hour later, when Mrs.Porter made the move to go, Miss Langham rose with a protesting sigh.``I am so sorry,'' she said, ``it has been most interesting.I never met two men who had visited so many inaccessible places and come out whole.You have quite inspired Mr.King, he was never so amusing.But I should like to hear the end of that adventure; won't you tell it to me in the other room?''

Clay bowed.``If I haven't thought of something more interesting in the meantime,'' he said.