With his late employer's gear he fastened to the old
castings and the boiler, lifted them with the derrick on the
wrecking-car, and swung them up and around onto the flat-cars. By the
middle of the afternoon the crossing was once more clear. Then the
Cardigan crew fell upon it while Jules Rondeau ran the train back to
the Laguna Grande yards, dismissed his crew, returned to the mill-
office, and released the manager.
"You'll pay through the nose for this, you scoundrel," Sexton
whimpered. "I'll fix you, you traitor."
"You feex nothing, M'sieur Sexton," Rondeau replied imperturbably.
"Who is witness Jules Rondeau tie you up? Somebody see you, no? I
guess you don' feex me. Sacre! I guess you don' try."
CHAPTER XXXVII
Colonel Pennington's discovery at San Francisco that Bryce Cardigan
had stolen his thunder and turned the bolt upon him, was the hardest
blow Seth Pennington could remember having received throughout
thirty-odd years of give and take. He was too old and experienced a
campaigner, however, to permit a futile rage to cloud his reason; he
prided himself upon being a foeman worthy of any man's steel.
On Tuesday he returned to Sequoia. Sexton related to him in detail
the events which had transpired since his departure, but elicited
nothing more than a noncommittal grunt.
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