"Spearman, Frank H - The Run of the Yellow Mail" - читать интересную книгу автора (Spearman Frank H)

the time these fellows take to cut the Alleghanies. Do sixty, and I will put
mail in 'Frisco a day earlier every week in the year."
"Nothing on the West End to keep you from doing it," said General Manager Bucks.
He had been put up then only about six months. "But--"
Every one looked at the young manager. The Pennsylvania man looked with
confidence, for he instantly suspected there must be a string to such a
proposition, or that the new representative was "talking through his hat."
"But what?" asked the Cabinet member, uncomfortably apprehensive.
"But we are not putting on a sixty-five mile schedule just because we love our
country, you understand, nor to lighten an already glorious reputation. Oh, no,"
smiled Bucks faintly, "we are doing it for the stuff. You put up the money; we
put up the speed. Not sixty miles; sixty-five--from the Missouri to the Sierras.
No; no more wine. Yes, thank you, I will take a cigar."
The trade was on from that minute. Bucks said no more then; he was a good
listener. But next day--when it came to talking money--he talked more money into
the West End treasury for one year's running than was ever talked before on a
mail contract for the best three years' work we ever did.
When they asked him how much time he wanted to get ready, and told him to take
plenty, three months were stipulated. The contracts were drawn, and they were
signed by our people without hesitation because they knew Bucks. But while the
preparations for the fast schedule were being made, the Government weakened on
signing. Nothing ever got through a Washington department without hitch, and
they said our road had so often failed on like propositions that they wanted a
test. There was a deal of wrangling, then a test run was agreed upon by all the
roads concerned. If it proved successful--if the mail was put to the Golden Gate
on the second of the schedule--public opinion and the interests in the
Philippines, it was concluded, would justify the heavy premium asked for the
service.
In this way the dickering and the figuring became, in a measure, public, and
keyed up everybody interested to a high pitch. We said nothing for publication,
but under Bucks' energy sawed wood for three whole months. Indeed, three months
goes as a day getting a system into shape for an extraordinary schedule. Success
meant with us prestige; but failure meant obloquy for the road and for our
division chief who had been so lately called to handle it.
The real strain, it was clear, would come on his old--the mountain--division;
and to carry out the point rested on the motive power of the mountain division;
hence, concretely, on Doubleday, master mechanic of the hill country.
In thirty days Neighbor, superintendent of the motive power, called for reports
from the division master mechanics on the preparations for the Yellow Mail run,
and they reported progress. In sixty days he called again. The subordinates
reported well except Doubleday. Doubleday said merely "Not ready"; he was busy
tinkering with his engines. There was a third call in eighty days, and on the
eighty-fifth a peremptory call. Everybody said ready except Doubleday. When
Neighbor remonstrated sharply, he would say only that he would be ready in time.
That was the most he would promise, though it was generally understood that if
he failed to deliver the goods he would have to make way for somebody who could.

The plains division of the system was marked up for seventy miles an hour, and,
if the truth were told, a little better; but, with all the help they could give
us, it still left sixty for the mountains to take care of, and the Yellow Mail