PAGE 2
The Sand-Hog
by
“Then I’ll see you to-night,” said Orton to us feebly. Turning to a tall, spare, wiry chap, of just the build for tunnel work, where fat is fatal, he added: “This is Mr. Capps, my first assistant. He will show you the way down to the street again.”
“Confound it!” exclaimed Craig, after we had left Capps. “What do you think of this? Even before we can get to him something has happened. The plot thickens before we are well into it. I think I’ll not take a cab, or a car either. How are you for a walk until we can see Orton again?”
I could see that Craig was very much affected by the sudden accident that had happened to our friend, so I fell into his mood, and we walked block after block scarcely exchanging a word. His only remark, I recall, was, “Walter, I can’t think it was an accident, coming so close after that letter.” As for me, I scarcely knew what to think.
At last our walk brought us around to the private hospital where Orton was. As we were about to enter, a very handsome girl was leaving. Evidently she had been visiting some one of whom she thought a great deal. Her long fur coat was flying carelessly, unfastened in the cold night air; her features were pale, and her eyes had the fixed look of one who saw nothing but grief.
“It’s terrible, Miss Taylor,” I heard the man with her say soothingly, “and you must know that I sympathise with you a great deal.”
Looking up quickly, I caught sight of Capps and bowed. He returned our bows and handed her gently into an automobile that was waiting.
“He might at least have introduced us,” muttered Kennedy, as we went on into the hospital.
Orton was lying in bed, white and worn, propped up by pillows which the nurse kept arranging and rearranging to ease his pain. The Irishman whom we had seen at the tunnel was standing deferentially near the foot of the bed.
“Quite a number of visitors, nurse, for a new patient,” said Orton, as he welcomed us. “First Capps and Paddy from the tunnel, then Vivian” – he was fingering some beautiful roses in a vase on a table near him – “and now, you fellows. I sent her home with Capps. She oughtn’t to be out alone at this hour, and Capps is a good fellow. She’s known him a long time. No, Paddy, put down your hat. I want you to stay. Paddy, by the way, fellows, is my right-hand man in managing the ‘sandhogs’ as we call the tunnel-workers. He has been a sand-hog on every tunnel job about the city since the first successful tunnel was completed. His real name is Flanagan, but we all know him best as Paddy.”
Paddy nodded. “If I ever get over this and back to the tunnel,” Orton went on, “Paddy will stick to me, and we will show Taylor, my prospective father-in-law and the president of the railroad company from which I took this contract, that I am not to blame for all the troubles we are having on the tunnel. Heaven knows that – “
“Oh, Mr. Orton, you ain’t so bad,” put in Paddy without the faintest touch of undue familiarity. “Look what I was when ye come to see me when I had the bends, sir.”
“You old rascal,” returned Orton, brightening up. “Craig, do you know how I found him? Crawling over the floor to the sink to pour the doctor’s medicine down.”
“Think I’d take that medicine,” explained Paddy, hastily. “Not much. Don’t I know that the only cure for the bends is bein’ put back in the ‘air’ in the medical lock, same as they did with you, and bein’ brought out slowly? That’s the cure, that, an’ grit, an’ patience, an’ time. Mark me wurds, gintlemen, he’ll finish that tunnel an’ beggin’ yer pardon, Mr. Orton, marry that gurl, too. Didn’t I see her with tears in her eyes right in this room when he wasn’t lookin’, and a smile when he was? Sure, ye’ll be all right,” continued Paddy, slapping his side and thigh. “We all get the bends more or less – all us sand-hogs. I was that doubled up meself that I felt like a big jack-knife. Had it in the arm, the side, and the leg all at once, that time he was just speakin’ of. He’ll be all right in a couple more weeks, sure, an’ down in the air again, too, with the rest of his men. It’s somethin’ else he has on his moind.”