Chapter VI: When the Snows Came Down

At last the work was finished, and Charley, who had been puzzled by something strangely familiar in the face of a stripling who helped to fit the beams, stopped opposite him under the bright glare of the lucigen. Then like a flash his thoughts turned back to the day when their steamer crept slowly through the thick bank fog, and he remembered the white-faced lad waiting outside his dying comrade's room. The picture was so vivid that he almost fancied he could hear the throbbing of the steamer's crew.

"Tom," he said. "I hardly knew you--have you forgotten me?" And, after staring hard at him, the other's eyes brightened as he answered--

"Why, it's Mr. Gordon, whose brother jumped in after me. I am more than glad to see you."

Charley called out excitedly, and when Arthur came up the young man smiled with pleasure as Charley explained who he was. Afterwards, answering the many questions they asked him, he said--

"Yes, I'm Tom, the stowaway. The purser and Mr. Marvin--you will remember him--left me safe in Quebec with friends of theirs. They bought me an outfit--some kind people on the steamer had sent the money--sent me for a year to school, and afterwards set me learning to be a carpenter. Now I'm earning nearly two dollars a day, and this country is good enough for a poor man like me. Yes, you can make quite certain of that--and I'm only sorry poor Jim never lived to reach it. It was he who read those placards, and I can't forget him. No, I still dream of that collision, and sometimes at nights I can see him lying there so white and quiet in the steamer's hospital. 'There's plenty for us two yonder in that good country,' was the last he said. Then I hear the big engines humming. Curious, isn't it?--I can hear them now."

It was a strange meeting up there, after the stress and hurry, in the mountain wilderness, and there was a few moments' silence, while Charley wondered whether the half-starved urchin he met on board the steamer would ever have grown into this sturdy, contented young workman, if he had stayed at home. He hardly though it likely. Then Arthur said--

"I believe he is right about the sound, but it is the snow coming, not the steamer's screw."

A deep, trembling boom commenced and grew louder overhead, then with a hurried tramp of feet the men flocked towards the entrance of the shed, and the surveyor, overtaking Arthur, said--

"We'll have the snow-slide upon us presently, and I'm not quite certain what is best to do. Steam's down on the locomotive, we couldn't raise it in time, and I'm not sure if we could get clear before the wreckage swept the valley. Of course, it will come right down the hollow over the big glacier."

Charley, glancing upwards, saw a dark gap in the lofty line of eternal snow, which glimmered coldly high up under the stars, while the tall pines shivered as a great chorus of sound came vibrating down through the darkness. It drowned the hoarse fret of the river in the gorge below, grew louder and deeper, until the boldest of the workmen ceased their murmuring, and the forests in the valley were wrapped in listening silence while the great peaks spoke. It seemed to Charley's excited fancy it was some majestic chant they raised, for the hills on the further side flung back the sound, and it struck him there was a meaning in the _Benedicite_ he had never understood before. Winter frost that split the hard rock, summer sun, grinding ice, and melting snow, had each their work to do in enriching a good land and wearing down the face of the hills.

Neither was it ruin they wrought, for the wreckage they brought down would fertilize many a valley; and the rest, swept on by a mighty river, help to spread new wheat-lands west into what was then the sea. So Charley, too, felt humbled and awe-stricken, while, in obedience to everlasting laws which were older than the solid earth that trembled as it heard, the great voices of Nature proclaimed their message. Sometimes they speak in thunders, sometimes very softly, but they are never silent, and Charley, unheeding, had heard them in the sigh of the grasses which grew and died for centuries to add a few more inches of black soil to the prairie.

It was the surveyor who broke the silence--

"I guess, all things considered, we had better trust the shed," he said. "Timber-cutter Gordon, we'll test your work to-night, and if you've done it badly there'll be pretty few of us left in the morning to tell you so. Are you willing to take the chances?"

Arthur only bent his head.

"I am content. We tried to do our best," he said; and Charley, who now realised the necessity there is for doing everything well, felt thankful he had made each saw-cut, as Arthur ordered, on the exact centre of the line, even when that necessitated beginning once or twice over again. He looked at the shed, and it seemed solid and strong, a well-braced, dark tunnel, whose slanting roof was level with the top of the hewn-down rock behind. Meantime, through the great booming he could recognise sharper notes, the scream of mighty boulders scoring a pathway over slopes of rock, the roar of sliding gravel and the crash of shattered pines; until it seemed as if the whole mountain side were coming down upon them, and, as occasionally happens in that country, softened by melting snow and rent by alternate frost and thaw, a good deal of it really was. The men about him said nothing, until they murmured hoarsely when, staring up at the climbing forest, they saw its higher edge sink suddenly. Then under the misty moonlight a great wedge of white streaked with darker colour seemed to lick up the stately trees and roll downward irresistibly, leaving an empty gap behind it, where dense forest had been.

"I wonder how many thousand tons of snow and earth and broken rock there is in that," said the surveyor. "A tremendous display of power, and if one could only harness it we would need no more labour for the next few years. However, there's nobody smart enough to drive a snow-slide yet, and a wise man gets out of the way of it. It's time we crawled under cover, boys. Back into the shed!"

The men could scarcely hear his voice as they obeyed, for the whole air seemed throbbing with sound, and the earth shook, while Charley found it comforting to stand holding Reggie's hand close beside his elder brother under the strongest part of the snowshed. Tom also joined them, and when he said something in the latter's ear, Charley remembered it was not the first time the young carpenter and Arthur had watched together in the presence of death, before whom there is no difference between officer of the army and starving stowaway. Then their sense of hearing was completely paralysed, and it seemed to Charley that thousands of loaded trains were rolling over his head, while flakes of stone cracked off from the rock, and splinters peeled from the stout timbers as they bent inward a little under the pressure. In a very terrible manner the avalanche was proving the builders' work for them, and none of those who had toiled at it felt quite comfortable.

It would not have stood the strain a moment had not the shed been built on what is known as the line of least resistance. Nothing that man can make may withstand the primitive forces of the universe, though, after patient study of Nature's laws, which have remained the same since the framing of the earth, he may learn how to profit by obeying them. So, because the roof was sloped in such a way that the wreck of forest and glacier might pass over it without meeting any obstacle, it only shook and rattled beneath the burden.

Then, after a space of waiting, when the men's throats grew dry and their eyes bloodshot, the uproar died gradually away, and at last the surveyor said:

"You built it well, boys, and I'm mighty thankful you did. Now I think we can go out and look at the damage."

When Charley breathed the cool night air again, he could still hear masses of earth and rock plunging down into the ravine, and on looking up hardly believed his eyes, for as far as he could see a great strip of forest had been utterly blotted out. All that remained of it was a few broken and splintered stumps of trees. The rest had been ground into splinters.

"I must thank you again, Contractor Gordon, in the name of the Company," said the surveyor, "and I daresay somehow we will make it up to you. Hullo! wherever are you coming to?"

Tom sprang wildly forward, seized Arthur by the shoulder, and shouting "Stand clear!" hurled him backwards, while as they staggered and went down together, and the surveyor leaped aside for his life, Charley almost choked. With a crash against a broken pine, a great boulder, weighing several tons at least, came whirring down the slope, and passed so close that Charley felt the cold wind it made upon his face, then, striking the rails, it leaped out and vanished into the gorge below.

"Thanks!" said Arthur, helping up the panting lad. "Tom, I think we are even now, only that you might have hung on without my help to the wreck of the lifeboat, while that boulder would certainly have smashed me. As it was, it almost grazed us."

Then the last tinkle of sliding gravel died away, and there followed a deep silence, through which the fret of the river rose more angrily than before, and, throwing themselves down inside the shed by dozens, the men sank, one by one, into slumber. When Charley wakened the sun was high, and, taking Reggie with him, he went out to find Arthur talking to the surveyor.

"We'll have to re-roof part of the shed, but it has saved the track," said the latter, "and I should say this slide has done a good turn to you. You needn't haul logs from the mountain when the snow has brought them down with the bark and branches rubbed off nice and ready for you. Expect you'll find trees by the hundred lying round handy to save you chopping. You have only to pick them out and roll them in. We'll take all you can give us for the new bridges, after the sheds are finished."

Charley beamed with delight when he saw that this was true, for trunks of all sizes lay where the avalanche had passed, and in many places they had only to roll them a short distance with cant-poles to the rails. It meant a great saving of money.

"Yes, it should help us to make up part of what we have lost on the contract," said Arthur; "and I'm glad, because we badly need it."

Afterwards the work went on as before, except that they got their logs much more easily, until at last, one day in early winter, all the inhabitants of the mining town turned out to celebrate the coming of the first train.

Arthur and his brothers stood beside the metals near the last big bridge, the one they had crossed half-finished the eventful night the snows came down. Under the shadow of the scented cedars across the line a procession with flags and banners, which had marched out from the little wooden town, waited to meet the train. One or two men were reading over the speeches they hoped to make, and the rest chatted and laughed boisterously with their eyes turned towards the end of the valley, until an excited shout greeted a puff of white steam as something that twinkled in the sunlight swung round a distant curve. It was a locomotive hauling a passenger train, and it meant that there would no longer be any need to pay famine prices for all foods or stores, which had hitherto been brought in over the snow-choked passes and through thundering rivers by dangerous fords on pack-horses' backs. There were rich minerals in those mountains, and now the locomotive would bring them heavy mining machinery, everybody who lived there hoped the struggling town would grow into a great city.

Arthur Gordon said nothing as he watched the train draw near. He had toiled hard and spent his money freely helping to build that road, but he feared he would be very little richer for it, while how they were to live during the next year he did not know. He wore coarse blue jean, which, like Charley's clothes, was patched with strips of flour bags. In fact, the latter bore the brand, "Champion Early Riser," across his back. None of the brothers were light-hearted that bright morning, but, though they looked sober and serious, their eyes were fearless and they were not beaten yet. The years of work and disappointment had fashioned them into strong, determined men, who could be trusted to fight out even a losing battle bravely, which is not an easy thing to do. The train came on rapidly, then amid a burst of cheering it stopped opposite the brothers, and when a number of gentlemen came out upon the platform of the leading car, a citizen holding a paper stepped forward.

"We welcome this locomotive into Crescent City," he commenced. "Don't see no city? well, you haven't quite got there yet. No; I mean we welcome the honourable company, but we're glad to see both of you. This is going to be one of the greatest towns on earth, and--have patience gentlemen, I've lost my place--I'm proud to be its magistrate and own the smartest store. H'm!--oh, yes; you're introducing a new era of prosperity, and a railroad's the greatest institution of civilisation. The silly man has actually writ it--civility."

The reader stopped, and fumbled desperately with the paper, coughed, and grew red in the face, while a voice rose from the laughing crowd, "Out of breath so early? Forgotten all them pretty things. What about the Maple leaf an' the good old Beaver flag?"

"Gentlemen and fellow citizens--ladies and miners, I mean," recommenced the confused orator. "The Firtree doctor made up this here speech for me, and there was some nice idees in it, but he has written it that scribbly I can't read the thing. What I want to say is, I'm very glad you've come, and we've a feast up yonder waiting; you won't eat anything for a week after. We've made this town out of the barren wilderness, and now we've got a railroad we'll make it a city of palaces. There was some jealous people said we wanted a prison, but they was lying; it's schools, good men, and machines we want, and we mean to get them. I was taught with an ash plant, chiefly to single turnips, back in the old country, and that's why I can't express just what I'm feeling this auspicious day, but my sons won't be, and when we've more men with well crammed brains not ashamed to use their muscles, as the Almighty meant them to, we'll show the rest of the nations what we can do in this part of the Dominion. So, I've only to finish--drive on with your science an' engines, an' bring in prosperity."

Then, while some laughed and many cheered, the surveyor, who stood up among the rich men and railroad company's guests on the platform of the car, to the surprise of Charley, beckoned Arthur.

"This is Contractor Gordon," he said to a famous engineer. "You will remember I told you about him, and how he helped us to save part of the line."

"I am glad to meet you," said the engineer, holding out his hand to Arthur. "We are indebted to you, and should be pleased if you will ride into the town with us. I want to talk to you."

Charley also started when another grey-haired man touched his brother's shoulder, for he recognised Colonel Armadale. "I must congratulate you, too," he said. "We have heard several creditable things about you, and perhaps you did not know I was a large shareholder in this railway. We'll have to talk so much at dinner that you must answer the speeches for us now, Mr. Surveyor."

"I'm a railroad builder, and not a talker," said the surveyor as he faced the expectant crowd. "Talking's easy, railroad building's hard, and you folks should be proud because you've got a good one. Yes, we're going to bring you in prosperity, and, we hope, earn a few dividends, while you build your city, but when you all get rich don't forget the men who made this road. Some lost their money, and some their lives, you know. All fought hard, and you'll give them their due, so when you're raising statues to your mayors and presidents, don't forget a little one to the man with the big, hard hands who swings the shovel."

There was applause which swelled into a roar as a stalwart man in dusty blue jean stood up. "This country fed us well an' we done our little best to pay it back," he said. "It wasn't easy, but we worried through, and I'd like to mention one man to whom partickler thanks are due. He's standing right there beside the surveyor. He struck the hardest bad luck, but he didn't lie down an' die. No, sir; says he, 'What I've begun I'll finish,' an' he done it too. What's more, when any of the rest of us was nearly beat, he stood by an' helped us, helped us with axe an' ox-team, however he was busy. Gave us flour when the grub run out, an' good oats for the starvin' beasts when we couldn't buy no hay. Stand up, Arthur Gordon, we're all looking to you."

The air was filled with lifted hats and excited cries when Arthur Gordon leaned over the platform balustrade, laying a big hand that trembled on the brass rail, and Charley's eyes grew bright with pleasure when there was another roar from the assembly as the surveyor patted his shoulder. Arthur said little, and said it quietly, but it pleased the listeners, for there was a deafening cheer when he finished, and several of the principal guests shook hands with him. Then Charley's flushed face beamed as Tom who came up said, "Just splendid, wasn't it? I wish I had a brother like him. I knew he was going to be a great man ever since the day he jumped overboard to save me."

After this everybody scrambled for a place on the cars, and when, with the whistle screaming, the train moved on, those who could not find one ran behind it cheering towards the town, with Reggie waving his hat among them. When the latter turned back, he and Charley rode quietly home on a trolley to their shanty of cedar bark, while when Arthur returned at night he looked happy, and said he was very thankful.

"They have paid me more than we bargained for," he said--"made it up in a number of small extras; and there's another profitable contract open to me. I'm to go back to the other new railroad, near our homestead, and begin as soon as the frost goes. I'll want several dozen teams, and we should make a good deal out of it. Charley, you and Reggie must sow the crop yourselves next year; there is now no cause for anxiety, and if all goes as well as it promises to, I shall be able to start you by and by on Government land of your own."

Then Arthur took out some old letters, and when he sat down to write under the blinking lamp, Charley smiled at Reggie and they slipped out to join the workmen in camp.

"I think he wants to tell Miss Armadale about it, and won't miss us for once," said Charley.

They spent a happy winter in their own homestead, and when spring came Arthur hired all the men and teams he could on that part of the prairie, and went away to work on the new railroad, though he often rode forty miles to see how his brothers got on with the farm, and went back round by Barholm; while they reaped a very good crop that year. Bad fortune does not last for ever, and the men who succeed are those who can work on and wait patiently, for greater than dash and daring are the powers of slow endurance. Then Arthur brought a Government surveyor and laid out 160 acres of good land ready for Charley, who, with his younger brother, had been hewing logs for their house in the bluff. But before it was ready Arthur married Lilian Armadale, and they went to live in the old homestead, which had been doubled in size. It was Tom, the former stowaway, who took the contract for the carpentry.

So, after many disappointments and an up-hill struggle, the brothers found themselves on the way to prosperity, while when Charley, who is now a stalwart and successful young farmer, rides after his cattle across the prairie, or watches the fresh green wheat cover the ploughing, he looks back to those early days of adversity, and remembers he owes much to them. They had taught him useful lessons he might never have otherwise learned. Once, too, when he reaped his first splendid crop, his sister Alice, who kept house for him, said--

"You see, though sometimes I was afraid we should have to give it up, all happened for the best, and we should never have valued the good things if we got them too easily. Do you know, as I watched the binders pile up the sheaves, something recalled the last harvest-festival I was at in England, and I remember the message so well, 'They who sow in tears shall reap in joy.'"

"Alice is right," said Arthur, smiling at Lilian, who stood close beside him. "This is a good country, but even here one cannot win success and fortune--or a wife worth more than either--without a tough struggle. Still--and we are happier than many, for everybody does not get such prizes--it was well worth while."

THE END.

HEADLEY BROTHERS, PRINTERS, LONDON; AND ASHFORD, KENT.