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"That's exactly where the shoe begins to pinch, Pennington's main- line tracks enter the city along Water Street, with one spur into his log-dump and another out on his mill-dock. From the main-line tracks we also have built a spur through our drying-yard out to our log-dump and a switch-line out on to our milldock.
"And now," said Hector McKaye to Andrew Daney, his general manager, "when that settles, we'll run a light track out here and use the Sawdust Pile for a drying-yard." The silt settled and dried, and almost immediately thereafter a squatter took possession of the Sawdust Pile.
"In order that I might have a logical and reasonable excuse to furnish Nan Brent with sufficient funds to leave this town and make a new start elsewhere. I have charged the twenty-five hundred to your personal account on the company books." "You also indulged in some extraordinary statements regarding our pressing need for the Sawdust Pile as a drying-yard." "We can use it, sir," Daney replied.
Daney took a secret savage delight in dissipating their nonchalance. "Well, ladies," he began, "I decided yesterday that it was getting along toward the season of the year when my thoughts stray as usual toward the Sawdust Pile as a drying-yard. So I went down to see if Nan Brent had abandoned it again and sure enough, she hadn't."
"Deliver to me by six o'clock Thursday night a temporary franchise from the city council, granting the N. C. O. the right to run a railroad from our drying-yard across Water Street at its intersection with B Street and out Front Street." "Certainly. By all means! Easiest thing I do!
Go down to southern California or Florida for a month or two, and when you're back in your old form, report for duty. I have an idea Mr. Donald intends to make you foreman of the loading-sheds and the drying-yard when you're ready for duty."
"We have robbed you of the ground for a drying-yard for nearly ten years, but this morning the Sawdust Pile is yours." "Bless my soul!" The Laird ejaculated. "Why, we are not at all in distress for more drying-space." "Mr. Daney intimated that you were. He asked me how much I would take to abandon my squatter's right, but I declined to charge you a single cent."
Forty minutes later they rumbled down Water Street and slid to a grinding halt at the intersection of B Street. From the darkness of Cardigan's drying-yard, where they had been waiting, twenty picked men of the mill-crew now emerged, bearing lanterns and tools.
Then they shook hands very formally, and the young laird of Tyee returned to the mill-office to report to Andrew Daney that the Sawdust Pile had been cleaned out, but that, for the present at least, they would get along with the old drying-yard. Somehow, the day came to an end, and he went home with tumult in his soul.
At precisely six fifty-nine and a half, therefore, the engineer's hand closed over the handle of the whistle-cord, and Dan Kenyon, standing on the steam-carriage with his hand on the lever, took a thirty-second squint through a rather grimy window that gave upon the drying-yard and the mill-office at the head of it.
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