The Railroad War Read Online Free PDF Page A

houses, and all like that. So the railroad people are mad, and the folks in Hidden Valley are mad, and there’s all sorts of trouble starting.”
    â€œAnd you’d heard your grandfather say that if he ever got into trouble and needed help, he knew Alex Starbuck would help him?”
    â€œYes, ma‘am. Mama heard him say that too, and she told Grandpa he better ask Mr. Starbuck for help before it was too late. And Grandpa always says it’s not that bad yet. So I sorta figured that if he wasn’t going to do anything, and Mama wasn’t going to do anything, I’d better.”
    Jessie said slowly, “Bobby, I don’t suppose you told your mother or your grandfather that you were going to ask for help?”
    Bobby shook his head emphatically. “I sure didn‘t! Because if I’d of told ’em, they’d of said no!”
    â€œHow did you know where to come and look for my father?”
    â€œGrandpa’s talked about Mr. Alex Starbuck ever since I can remember. I wasn’t real sure where this ranch was, so I sorta asked him a few questions, and started out.”
    â€œWhat did you do for money?”
    â€œI work and earn my own money, Miss Starbuck. I didn’t have to ask anybody for help. I hitched some rides on wagons along the way through the valley and rode the stage coach some and got to the Santa Fe railroad. The ticket seller figured out where I had to change trains to get the rest of the way. And I got here, didn’t I?”
    â€œYes, you did, But you came very close to not making it.” When Bobby did not answer, Jessie went on, “What did you expect my father to do for your grandfather, Bobby?”
    â€œI—I guess I ain’t sure. But Grandpa said so many times how certain he was Mr. Alex Starbuck would help him—” The youth stopped short, his lower lip quivering. “I guess I made a mistake, didn’t I? I ought to of found out more before I left. I didn’t know Mr. Starbuck was dead.”
    â€œSometimes news doesn’t travel very fast, Bobby. Even bad news.” Jessie sat silent for a moment, then she asked the boy, “I guess you know what ‘inheritance’ means, don’t you?”
    â€œWhy—it means something that’s passed along in a family, like a house or money, I suppose.”
    â€œOr an obligation,” she added. “No Bobby, even if I don’t quite approve of the way you went about things, you haven’t made a mistake coming here. From what you’ve told me, I’m sure Alex would have helped your grandfather.”
    â€œYou mean you’re going to—”
    â€œOf course. I always try to do what Alex would have done himself, Bobby. We’ll have to talk some more, and you need to rest a few days. But Ki and I will go back to Hidden Valley with you and and see what we can do to help your grandpa get things straightened out.”

Chapter 3
    West of the rutted road over which the lurching, bumping stagecoach was traveling, the land rose steeply in a single breathtaking upward sweep to the towering crests of the pine-covered Sierra Nevadas; to the east, it stretched in a slowly lifting expanse of arid semidesert to the low, broken humps of the barren Wassuk Range.
    Since they’d left the comparatively comfortable seats in the swaying passenger coach of the Santa Fe Railroad at Kingman, Jessie, Ki, and Bobby had jounced and bounced constantly in one or another of several stagecoaches they’d boarded. They’d changed vehicles in tiny towns: Eldorado, Potosi, Reville, Columbus, Belleville, and, most recently, Aurora.
    Jessie thought as they traveled that the towns must have been bitterly disappointing to the first miners and prospectors who had named them out of hopes and dreams and memories. In most of the new communities there had been a few good years, then the lodes had begun to peter out, and the same men who’d established them