Chapter VI: Part 6

The engineer gauged his distance nicely, and when the new-comers had fairly passed within the danger zone he gave the signal to fire.

A blast heavier than the one which had discouraged Gordon's advance followed his command, and down upon the new-comers rained a deluge which sent them scurrying to cover. Fortunately no one was injured.

An hour later the invaders had pitched camp a mile below, and after placing a trusted man on guard Appleton sent his weary men to bed.

It was Curtis Gordon himself who brought O'Neil the first tidings of this encounter, for, seeing the uselessness of an immediate attempt to overcome Dan's party by force, he determined to make formal protest. He secured a boat, and a few hours later the swift current swept him down to the lower crossing, where McKay put a locomotive at his disposal for the trip to Omar. By the time he arrived there he was quite himself again, suave, self-possessed, and magnificently outraged at the treatment he had received. O'Neil met him with courtesy.

"Your man Appleton has lost his head," Gordon began. "I've come to ask you to call him off."

"He is following instructions to the letter."

"Do you mean that you refuse to allow me to run my right-of-way along that hillside? Impossible!" His voice betokened shocked surprise.

"I am merely holding my own survey. I can't quit work to accommodate you."

"But, my dear sir, I must insist that you do."

O'Neil shrugged.

"Then there is but one way to construe your refusal--it means that you declare war."

"You saved me that necessity when you sent Linn to hire my men away."

Gordon ignored this reference. "You must realize, O'Neil," said he, "that I am merely asking what is mine. I have the right to use that canonside--the right to use your track at that point, in fact, if it proves impracticable to parallel it--under the law of common user. You are an experienced contractor; you must be familiar with that law."

"Yes. I looked it up before beginning operations, and I found it has never been applied to Alaska."

Gordon started. "That's a ridiculous statement."

"Perhaps, but it's true. Alaska is not a territory, it's a district, and it has its own code. Until the law of common user has been applied here you'll have to use the other side of the river."

"That would force me to bridge twice in passing the upper glacier. We shall see what the courts have to say."

"Thanks! I shall be grateful for the delay."

Gordon rose with a bow. The interview had been short and to the point. O'Neil put an engine at his service for the return trip, and after a stiff adieu the visitor departed, inwardly raging.

It was his first visit to Omar, and now that he was here he determined to see it all. But first another matter demanded his attention--a matter much in his mind of late, concerning which he had reached a more or less satisfactory decision during his journey.

He went directly to the new hotel and inquired for Gloria Gerard.

Beneath the widow's coldness when she came to meet him he detected an uncertainty, a frightened indecision which assured him of success, and he set himself to his task with the zest he always felt in bending another to his will.

"It has been the greatest regret of my life that we quarreled," he told her when their strained greeting was over. "I felt that I had to come and see with my own eyes that you are well."

"I am quite well."

"Two people who have been to each other as much as we have been cannot lightly separate; their lives cannot be divided without a painful readjustment." He paused, then reflecting that he could afford a little sentimental extravagance, added, "Flowers cannot easily be transplanted, and love, after all, is the frailest of blooms."

"I--think it is perennial. Have you--missed me?" Her dark eyes were strained and curious.

"My dear, you can never know how much, nor how deeply distressing this whole affair has been to me." He managed to put an affecting pathos into words sufficiently banal, for he was an excellent actor. "I find that I am all sentiment. Under the shell of the hard-headed business man beats the heart of a school-boy. The memory of the hours we have spent together, the places we have seen, the joys and discouragements we have shared, haunts me constantly. Memory can glean but never renew: 'joy's recollection is no longer joy while sorrow's memory is sorrow still.'"

The spell of his personality worked strongly upon her. "Recollection is the only paradise from which we cannot be turned out," she said. "You read that to me once, but I didn't dream that my own happiness would some day consist of recollection."

"Why should it, Gloria? Hope is ready to welcome you. Your home stands open; my arms are outstretched."

"No!" she exclaimed, with a shake of her dark head. "There is some one besides myself to consider. Natalie is happy here; no one seems to know or to care what I have done."

"But surely you are not satisfied with this."

He ran his eye critically over the garish newness of the little hotel parlor. It was flimsy, cheap, fresh with paint, very different from the surroundings he had given her at Hope. "I wonder that he presumed to offer you this after what you have had. A hotel-keeper! A landlady!"

"I was glad to get even this, for I have no pride now," she returned, coldly. "At least the house is honest, and the men who come here are the same. Mr. O'Neil is especially kind to Natalie, and she thinks a great deal of him."

"I presume he wants to marry her."

"I pray that he will. I don't intend her to make the mistake I did."

Gordon received this announcement with grim satisfaction. It was what he had suspected, and it fitted perfectly into his plans.

"I sha'n't allow this to continue, Gloria," he said. "Our difference has gone far enough, and I sha'n't permit O'Neil to put me in his debt. We have come to a final understanding, he and I. While my views on the holiness of the marriage relation have not changed in the least, still I am ready to follow your wishes."

"You--mean it?" she queried, breathlessly.

"I do. Come home, Gloria."

"Wait! I must tell Natalie." She rose unsteadily and left the room, while he reflected with mingled scorn and amusement upon the weakness of human nature and the gullibility of women.

A moment later mother and daughter appeared, arm in arm, both very pale.

"Is this true?" Natalie demanded.

"Quite true. You and Gloria seem to think I owe something; I never shirk a debt." Mrs. Gerard's fingers tightened painfully upon her daughter's arm as he continued: "There is only one condition upon which I insist: you must both return to Hope at once and have done with this--this man."

Natalie hesitated, but the look in her mother's eyes decided her. With some difficulty she forced herself to acquiesce, and felt the grip upon her arm suddenly relax. "When will the wedding take place?" she asked.

"At the earliest possible moment," Gordon declared, with well-feigned seriousness. "Once we return to God's country--"

"No!" cried Natalie. "We can't go back to Hope until she is married; it would be scandalous."

"Why more scandalous to accept my protection than that of a stranger? Do you care what these people think?" he demanded, with an air of fine scorn.

"Yes! I care very much."

"Is there any--reason for waiting?" Mrs. Gerard inquired.

"Many! Too many to enumerate. It is my condition that you both leave Omar at once."

Gloria Gerard looked at her daughter in troubled indecision, but Natalie answered firmly:

"We can't do that."

"So! You have your own plans, no doubt, and it doesn't trouble you that you are standing in the way of your mother's respectability!" His voice was harsh, his sneer open. "Bless my soul! Is the generosity to be all on my side? Or has this man O'Neil forbidden you to associate with me?"

"I don't trust you." Natalie flared up. "I'm afraid you are trying--"

"It is my condition, and I am adamant. Believe me, O'Neil knows of your disgrace, or will learn of it in time. It would be well to protect your name while you can." Turning to the other woman, he said loudly: "Gloria, the girl is ready to sacrifice you to her own ends."

"Wait!" Natalie's nerves were tingling with dislike of the man, but she said steadily: "I shall do exactly as mother wishes."

Be it said to the credit of Gloria Gerard that she did not hesitate.

"I shall be here when you are ready," she told him.

With an exclamation of rage Gordon rose and strode out of the room.

XIII

WE JOURNEY TO A PLACE OF MANY WONDERS

Curtis Gordon's men broke camp upon his return from Omar, and by taking the east bank of the Salmon River pressed through to the upper valley. Here they recrossed to the west side and completed their survey, with the exception of the three-mile gap which Dan Appleton held.

Gordon continued to smart under the sting of his defeat, however. O'Neil had gotten the better of him in argument, and Natalie's simplicity had proved more than a match for his powers of persuasion. At no time had he seriously considered making Mrs. Gerard his wife, but he had thought to entice the two women back under his own roof, in order to humble both them and their self-appointed protector. He felt sure that Natalie's return to Hope and her residence there would injure her seriously in the eyes of the community, and this would be a stab to O'Neil. Although he had failed for the moment, he did not abandon the idea. His display of anger upon leaving the hotel had been due mainly to disappointment at the checkmate. But knowing well the hold he possessed upon the older woman, he laid it away for later use when the fight grew hot, and meanwhile devoted himself to devising further measures by which to harass his enemy and incidentally advance his own fortunes.

Gordon's business career had consisted of a series of brilliant manipulations whereby, with little to go upon, he had forced financial recognition for himself. No one knew better than he the unstable foundation beneath his Alaskan enterprises; yet more than once he had turned as desperate ventures into the semblance of success. By his present operations he sought not only to hamper O'Neil, but to create an appearance of opposition to both him and the Trust that could be coined into dollars and cents. There are in the commercial world money wolves who prey upon the weak and depend upon the spirit of compromise in their adversaries. Gordon was one of these. He had the faculty of snatching at least half a victory from apparent defeat, and for this reason he had been able to show a record sufficiently impressive to convince the average investor of his ability.

By purchasing for a song the McDermott rights at Kyak he had placed himself in position to share in the benefits of the Heidlemann breakwater, and by rapidly pushing his tracks ahead he made his rivalry seem formidable. As a means of attack upon O'Neil he adopted a procedure common in railroad-building. He amended his original survey so that it crossed that of the S. R. & N. midway between the lower bridge over the Salmon River and the glaciers, and at that point began the hasty erection of a grade.

It was at the cost of no little inconvenience that he rushed forward a large body of men and supplies, and began to lay track across the S. R. & N. right-of-way. If Appleton could hold a hillside, he reasoned, he himself could hold a crossing, if not permanently, at least for a sufficient length of time to serve his purpose.

His action came as a disagreeable surprise to Omar. These battles for crossings have been common in the history of railroading, and they have not infrequently resulted in sanguinary affrays. Long after the ties are spiked and the heads are healed, the legal rights involved have been determined, but usually amid such a tangle of conflicting testimony and such a confusion of technicalities as to leave the justice of the final decision in doubt. In the unsettled conditions that prevailed in the Salmon River valley physical possession of a right-of-way was at least nine-tenths of the law, and O'Neil realized that he must choose between violence and a compromise. Not being given to compromise, he continued his construction work, and drew closer, day by day, to the point of contact.

Reports came from the front of his opponent's preparations for resistance. Gordon had laid several hundred yards of light rails upon his grade, and on these he had mounted a device in the nature of a "go-devil" or skip, which he shunted back and forth by means of a donkey-engine and steel cable. With this in operation across the point of intersection like a shuttle, interference would be extremely dangerous. In addition, he had built blockhouses and breast-works of ties, and in these, it was reported, he had stationed the pick of his hired helpers, armed and well provisioned.

Toward this stronghold Murray O'Neil's men worked, laying his road-bed as straight as an arrow, and as the intervening distance decreased anxiety and speculation at Omar increased.

Among those who hung upon the rumors of the approaching clash with greatest interest was Eliza Appleton. Since Dan's departure for the front she had done her modest best to act the part he had forced upon her, and in furtherance of their conspiracy she had urged O'Neil to fulfil his promise of taking her over the work. She felt an ever-growing curiosity to see those glaciers, about which she had heard so much; and she reflected, though not without a degree of self-contempt, that nothing could be more favorable to her design than the intimacy of several days together on the trail. Nothing breeds a closer relationship than the open life, nothing brings people more quickly into accord or hopeless disagreement. Although she had no faintest idea that Murray could or would ever care seriously for her, she felt that there was a bare possibility of winning his transient interest and in that way, perhaps, affording her brother time in which to attain his heart's desire. Of course, it was all utterly absurd, yet it was serious enough to Dan; and her own feelings--well, they didn't matter.

She was greatly excited when O'Neil announced one evening:

"I'm ready to make that trip to the front, if you are. I have business at Kyak; so after we've seen the glaciers we will go down there and you can take in the coal-fields."

"How long shall we be gone?"

"Ten days, perhaps. We'll start in the morning."

"I'm ready to leave at a moment's notice."

"Then perhaps you'd better help Natalie."

"Natalie!" exclaimed Eliza, seeing all her well-laid plans tottering. "Is she going?"

"Oh yes! It's an opportunity she shouldn't miss, and I thought it would be pleasanter for you if she went with us."

Eliza was forced to acknowledge his thoughtfulness, although it angered her to be sacrificed to the proprieties. Her newspaper training had made her feel superior to such things, and this of all occasions was one upon which she would have liked to be free of mere conventions. But of course she professed the greatest delight.

O'Neil had puzzled her greatly of late; for at times he seemed wrapped up in Natalie, and at other times he actually showed a preference for Eliza's own company. He was so impartial in his attentions that at one moment the girl would waver in her determination and in the next would believe herself succeeding beyond her hope. The game confused her emotions curiously. She accused herself of being overbold, and then she noted with horror that she was growing as sensitive to his apparent coldness as if she were really in earnest. She had not supposed that the mere acting of a sentimental role could so obsess her.

To counteract this tendency she assumed a very professional air when they set out on the following morning. She was once more Eliza Appleton the reporter, and O'Neil, in recognition of this fact, explained rapidly the difficulties of construction which he had met and overcome. As she began to understand there came to her a fuller appreciation of the man and the work he was doing. Natalie, however, could not seem to grasp the significance of the enterprise. She saw nothing beyond the even gravel road-bed, the uninteresting trestles and bridges and cuts and fills, the like of which she had seen many times before, and her comment was childlike. O'Neil, however, appeared to find her naivete charming, and Eliza reflected bitterly:

"If my nose was perfectly chiseled and my eyebrows nice, he wouldn't care if my brain was the size of a rabbit's. Here am I, talking like a human being and really understanding him, while she sits like a Greek goddess, wondering if her hat is on straight. If ever I find a girl uglier than I am I'll make her my bosom friend." She jabbed her pencil viciously at her notebook.

The track by this time had been extended considerably beyond the lower crossing--a circumstance which rendered their boat journey to the glaciers considerably shorter than the one Dan had taken with his cargo of dynamite. When the engine finally stopped it was in the midst of a tent village beside which flowed one of the smaller branches of the Salmon. In the distance the grade stretched out across the level swamps like a thin, lately healed scar, and along its crest gravel-trains were slowly creeping. An army of men like a row of ants were toiling upon it, and still farther away shone the white sides of another encampment.

"Oh! That's Gordon's track," Eliza cried, quickly. "Why, you're nearly up to him. How do you intend to get across?"

O'Neil nodded at the long thin line of moiling men in the distance.

"There's a loose handle in each one of those picks," he said.

"Somebody will be killed in that kind of a racket."

"That rests with Gordon. I'm going through."

"Suppose he had said that when Dan stopped him at the canon?"

"If he'd said it and meant it he'd probably have done it. He bluffs; I don't! I have to go on; he didn't. Now lunch is served; and since this is our last glimpse of civilization, I advise you to fortify yourselves. From here on we shall see nothing but the wilderness."

He led them to a spotless tent which had been newly erected at the edge of the spruce. It was smoothly stretched upon a framework of timber, its walls and floor were of dressed lumber, and within were two cots all in clean linen. There were twin washstands also, and dressers and rocking-chairs, a table and a stove. On the floor beside the beds lay a number of deep, soft bear-rugs. A meal was spread amid glass and figured china and fresh new napery.

"How cozy! Why, it's a perfect dear of a house!" exclaimed Natalie.

"You will leave everything but your necessaries here, for we are going light," Murray told them. "You will stop here on our way back to Kyak, and I'll warrant you'll be glad to see the place by that time."

"You built this just for us," Eliza said, accusingly.

"Yes. But it didn't take long. I 'phoned this morning that you were coming." He ran a critical eye over the place to see that its equipment was complete, then drew out their chairs for them.

A white-coated cook-boy served a luncheon in courses, the quality of which astonished the visitors, for there was soup, a roast, delicious vegetables, crisp salad, a camembert which O'Neil had imported for his private use, and his own particular blend of coffee.

The girls ate with appetites that rivaled those of the men in the mess-tent near by. Their presence in the heart of a great activity, the anticipation of adventure to come, the electric atmosphere of haste and straining effort on every hand excited them. Eliza began to be less conscious of her secret intention, and Natalie showed a gaiety rare in her since the shadow of her mother's shame had fallen upon her life.

The boat crews were waiting when they had finished, and they were soon under way. A mile of comparatively slack water brought them out into one of the larger estuaries of the river, and there the long, uphill pull began. O'Neil had equipped his two companions with high rubber boots, which they were only too eager to try. As soon as they got ashore they began to romp and play and splash through the shallows quite like unruly children. They spattered him mischievously, they tugged at the towing-ropes with a great show of assistance, they scampered ahead of the party, keeping him in a constant panic lest they meet with serious accident.

It was with no little relief that he gave the order to pitch camp some hours later. After sending them off to pick wild currants, with a grave warning to beware of bears, he saw to the preparations for the night. They returned shortly with their hats filled and their lips stained; then, much to his disgust, they insisted upon straightening out his tent with their own hands. Once inside its low shelter, they gleefully sifted sand between his blankets and replaced his pillow with a rock; then they induced the cook to coil a wet string in his flapjack. When supper was over and the camp-fires of driftwood were crackling merrily, they fixed themselves comfortably where their feet would toast, and made him tell them stories until his eyes drooped with weariness.

It was late summer, and O'Neil had expected to find the glaciers less active than usual, but heavy rains in the interior and hot thawing weather along the coast had swelled the Salmon until many bergs clogged it, while the reverberations which rolled down the valley told him that both Garfield and Jackson were caving badly. It was not the safest time at which to approach the place, he reflected, but the girls had shown themselves nimble of foot, and he put aside his uneasiness.

Short though the miles had been and easy as the trip had proved, Eliza soon found herself wondering that it should be possible to penetrate this region at all. The snarling river, the charging icebergs, the caving banks, and the growing menace of that noisy gap ahead began to have their effect upon her and Natalie; and when the party finally rounded the point where Murray and Dan had caught their first glimpse of the lower glacier they paused with exclamations of amazement. They stood at the upper end of a gorge between low bluffs, and just across the hurrying flood lay the lower limit of the giant ice-field. The edge, perhaps six hundred feet distant, was sloping and mud-stained, for in its slow advance it had plowed a huge furrow, lifting boulders, trees, acres of soil upon its back. The very bluff through which the river had cut its bed was formed of the debris it had thrown off, and constituted a bulwark protecting its flank. Farther up-stream the slope, became steeper, then changed to a rugged perpendicular face showing marks of recent cleavage. This palisade extended on and on, around the nearest bend, following the contour of the Salmon as far as they could see. The sun was reflected from its myriad angles and facets in splendid iridescence. Mammoth caves and caverns gaped. In spots the ice was white, opaque; in other places it was a light cerulean blue which shaded into purple. Ribbons and faint striations meandered through it like the streaks in an agate. But what struck the beholders with overwhelming force was the tremendous, the unbelievable bulk of the whole slowly moving mass. It reared itself sheerly three hundred feet high, and along its foot the river hurried, dwarfed to an insignificant trickle. Here and there it leaned outward threateningly, bulging from the terrific weight behind; at other points the muddy flood recoiled from vast heaps which had slid downward and half dammed its current. Back of these piles the fresh cleavage showed dazzlingly. On, upward, back into the untracked mountains it ran through mile upon mile of undulations, until at last it joined the ice-cap which weighted the plateau. As far as the eye could follow the river ahead it stood solidly. Across its entire face it was dripping; a thousand little rills and waterfalls ate into it, and over it swept a cool, dank breath.

The effect of the first view was overwhelming. Nothing upon the earth compares in majesty and menace to these dull-eyed monsters of bygone ages; nothing save the roots of mountains can serve to check them; nothing less than the ceaseless energy of mighty rivers can sweep away their shattered fragments.

Murray O'Neil had seen Jackson Glacier many times, but always he experienced the same feeling of awe, of personal insignificance, as when he first came stumbling up that gorge more than a year before.

For a long time the girls stood gazing without a word. They seemed to have forgotten his presence.

"Well?" he said at last.

"Isn't it BIG?" Natalie faltered, with round eyes. "Will it fall over on us?"

He shook his head. "The river is too wide for that, but when a particularly big mass drops it makes waves large enough to sweep everything before them. This bank on our right is sixty feet high, but I've seen it inundated."

Turning to Eliza, he inquired:

"What do you think of it?"

Her face as she met his was strangely glorified, her eyes were shining, her fingers tightly interlocked.

"I--I'd like to cry or--or swear," she said, uncertainly,

"Why, Eliza!" Natalie regarded her friend in shocked amazement, but Murray laughed.

"It affects people differently," he said. "I have men who refuse to make this trip. There's something about Jackson that frightens them--perhaps it is its nearness. You see, there's no other place on the globe where we pygmies dare come so close to a live glacier of this size."

"How can we go on?" Natalie asked. "We must work our boats along this bank. If the ice begins to crack anywhere near us I want you both to scamper up into the alders as fast as your rubber boots will carry you."

"What will you do?" Eliza eyed him curiously.

"Oh, I'll follow; never fear! If it's not too bad, I'll stay with the boats, of course. But we're not likely to have much difficulty at this season."

Eliza noted the intensity with which the boatmen were scanning the passage ahead, and something in O'Neil's tone told her he was speaking with an assurance he did not wholly feel.

"You have lost some men here, haven't you?" she asked.

"Yes. But the greater danger is in coming down. Then we have to get out in the current and take our chances."

"I'd like to do that!" Her lips were parted, her eyes were glowing, but Natalie gave a little cry of dismay.

"It's an utterly new sensation," O'Neil admitted. "I've been thinking of sending you up across the moraine, but the trail is bad, and you might get lost among the alders--"

"And miss any part of this! I wouldn't do it for worlds." Eliza's enthusiasm was irresistible, and the expedition was soon under way again.

Progress was more difficult now, for the river-shore was paved with smooth, round stones which rolled under foot, and the boats required extreme attention in the swift current. The farther they proceeded, the more the ice wall opposite increased in height, until at last it shut off the mountains behind. Then as they rounded the first bend a new prospect unfolded itself. The size of Jackson became even more apparent; the gravel bank under which they crept was steeper and higher also. In places it was undercut by the action of the waves which periodically surged across. At such points Murray sent his charges hurrying on ahead, while he and his men tracked the boats after them. In time they found themselves opposite the backbone of the glacier, where the Salmon gnawed at the foot of a frozen cliff of prodigious height. And now, although there had been no cause for apprehension beyond an occasional rumble far back or a splitting crack from near at hand, the men assumed an attitude of strained watchfulness and kept their faces turned to the left. They walked quietly, as if they felt themselves in some appalling presence.

At last there came a sound like that of a cannon-shot, and far ahead of them a fragment loosened itself and went plunging downward. Although it appeared small, a ridge promptly leaped out from beneath the splash and came racing down the river's bosom toward them.

"Better go up a bit," O'Neil called to his charges.

The men at the ends of the tow-lines scrambled part way up the shelving beach and braced themselves, then wrapped the ropes about their waists, like anchormen on a tug-of-war team. Their companions waded into the flood and fended the boats off the rocks.

The wave came swiftly, lifting the skiffs high upon the bank, then it sucked them back amid a tangle of arms and legs. A portion of the river-bottom suddenly bared itself and as suddenly was submerged again. The boats plunged and rolled and beat themselves upon the shore, wrenching the anchormen from their posts. They were half filled with water too, but the wave had passed and was scudding away down-stream.

Eliza Appleton came stumbling back over the rock-strewn bank, for during that first mad plunge she had seen O'Neil go down beneath one of the rearing craft. A man was helping him out.

"Nothing but my ankle!" he reassured her when she reached his side. "I was dragged a bit and jammed among the boulders." He sank down, and his lips were white with pain, but his gray eyes smiled bravely. The boatman removed his chief's boot and fell to rubbing the injury, while the girls looked on helplessly.

"Come, come! We can't stay here," Murray told them. He drew on the boot again to check the swelling.

"Can you walk?" they asked him, anxiously.

"Certainly! Two feet are really unnecessary. A man can get along nearly as well on one." He hurried his men back to their tasks, and managed to limp after them, although the effort brought beads of sweat to his lips and brow.

It was well that he insisted upon haste, for they had not gone far when the glacier broke abreast of the spot they had just left. There came a rending crack, terrifying in its loudness; a tremendous tower of ice separated itself from the main body, leaned slowly outward, then roared downward, falling in a solid piece like a sky-scraper undermined. Not until the arc described by its summit had reached the river's surface did it shiver itself. Then there was a burst as of an exploded mine. The saffron waters of the Salmon shot upward until they topped the main rampart, and there separated into a cloud of spray which rained down in a deluge. Out from the fallen mass rushed a billow which gushed across the channel, thrashed against the high bank, then inundated it until the alder thickets on its crest whipped their tips madly. A giant charge of fragments of every size flew far out across the flats or lashed the waters to further anger in its fall.

The prostrate column lay like a wing-dam, half across the stream, and over it the Salmon piled itself. Disintegration followed; bergs heaved themselves into sight and went rolling and lunging after the billow which was rushing down-stream with the speed of a locomotive. They ground and clashed together in furious confusion as the river spun them; the greater ones up-ended themselves, casting off muddy cascades. From the depths of the flood came a grinding and crunching as ice met rock.

Spellbound, the girls watched that first wave go tearing out of sight, filling the river bank-full. With exclamations of wonder, they saw the imprisoned waters break the huge dam to pieces. Finally the last shattered fragment was hurried out of sight, the flood poured past unhampered, and overhead the glacier towered silent, unchanged, staring at them balefully like a blind man with filmed eyes. There remained nothing but a gleaming scar to show where the cataclysm had originated.

"If I'd known the river was so high I'd never have brought you," O'Neil told them. "It's fortunate we happened to be above that break. You see, the waves can't run up against the current." He turned to his men and spurred them on.

It was not until the travelers had reached the camp at the bridge site that all the wonders of this region became apparent. Then the two girls, in spite of their fatigue, spent the late afternoon sight-seeing. At this point they were able to gain a comprehensive view; for at their backs lay Jackson Glacier, which they had just passed, and directly fronting them, across a placid lake, was Garfield, even larger and more impressive than its mate. Thirty, forty miles it ran back, broadening into a frozen sea out of which scarred mountain peaks rose like bleak islands, and on beyond the range of vision was still more ice.

They were surrounded by ragged ramparts. The Salmon River ran through a broken chalice formed by the encircling hills, and over the rim of the bowl or through its cracks peered other and smaller ice bodies. The lake at its bottom was filled by as strange a navy as ever sailed the sea; for the ships were bergs, and they followed each other in senseless, ceaseless manoeuvers, towed by the currents which swept through from the cataract at its upper end. They formed long battle-lines, they assembled into flotillas, they filed about the circumference of a devil's whirlpool at the foot of the rapids, gyrating, bobbing, bowing until crowded out by the pressure of their rivals. Some of them were grounded, like hulks defeated in previous encounters, and along the guardian bar which imprisoned them at the outlet of the lake others were huddled, a mass of slowly dissolving wreckage.

O'Neil was helped into camp, and when his boot had been cut away he sent news of his arrival to Dan, who came like an eager bridegroom.

XIV

HOW THE TRUTH CAME TO ELIZA

Appleton found his employer with one foot in a tub of hot water and his lap full of blueprints. O'Neil explained briefly the condition of affairs down the river.

"I want some one to make that crossing," he said.

"A volunteer?" asked Dan, with quickened pulses.

"Yes."

"Will I do?"

"I sent for you to give you the first chance--you've been chafing so at your idleness. We must have steel laid to this point before snow flies. Every hour counts. I daren't risk Mellen or McKay, for they might be disabled. I intended to take charge myself, but I won't be able to walk now for some time." He swore a little, and Dan nodded sympathetically. "I wouldn't send anybody where I'd refuse to go myself. You understand?"

"Of course."

"If either McKay or Mellen were hurt I couldn't build the bridge, and the bridge must be built."

"If Gordon stands pat somebody may be--hurt."

"I don't look for anything worse than a few broken heads, but of course I can't tell. I'll stand behind you with my last dollar, no matter what happens."

Dan laughed. "As I understand the situation you won't have a dollar unless we make the crossing."

"Right!" O'Neil smiled cheerfully. "The life of the S. R. & N. depends upon it. I'd give ten thousand dollars for your right ankle."

"You can have it for nothing, Chief. I'd amputate the whole leg and present it to you," Dan declared earnestly.

Murray took his hand in a hearty grip. "Perhaps I'll be able to serve you some time," he said, simply. "Anyhow, I'll look out for the chance. Now spend the evening with the girls, and leave in the morning. I'll be down as soon as I can travel, to watch the fight from the side-lines." O'Neil's voice was level, but his teeth were shut and his fingers were clenched with rage at his disability.

Dan hurried away highly elated, but when he told Eliza of the part he had undertaken she stormed indignantly.

"Why, the brute! He has no right to send you into danger. This isn't war."

"Sis, dear, it's my chance. He can't stand, and he daren't risk his right-hand men."

"So he sacrifices you! I won't permit it. Your life and safety are worth more than all his dollars. Let his old railroad go to smash!"

"Wait! More than my safety depends on this. He said he'd wait for a chance to pay me back. If I do this he'll owe me more than any man on the job, and when he learns that I love Natalie--"

"Dan!" exclaimed his sister.

"Oh, he'll make good!"

"Why, you're worse than he! The idea of suggesting such a thing!"

"Don't preach! I've had nothing to do lately but think of her; she's always in my mind. The loneliness up here has made me feel more than ever that I can't exist without her. The river whispers her name; her face looks at me from the campfire; the wind brings me her messages--"

"Fiddlesticks! She saves her messages for him. When a man reaches the poetical stage he's positively sickening. You'll be writing verses next."

"I've written 'em," Dan confessed, sheepishly; "oceans of mush."

"Fancy! Thank Heaven one of us is sane."

"Our dispositions were mixed when we were born, Eliza. You're unsentimental and hard-headed: I'm romantic. You'll never know what love means."

"If you are a sample, I hope not." Eliza's nose assumed an even higher tilt than usual.

"Well, if I knew I had no chance with Natalie I'd let Gordon's men put an end to me--that's how serious it is. But I have a chance--I know I have."

"Bosh! You've lived in railroad camps too long. I know a dozen girls prettier than she." Eying him with more concern, she asked, seriously, "You wouldn't really take advantage of a service to Murray O'Neil to--to tell him the nature of your insanity?"

"I might not actually tell him, but I'd manage it so he'd find out."

"Don't you think Natalie has something to say? Don't you think she is more than a piece of baggage waiting to be claimed by the first man who comes along?" sputtered Miss Appleton in fine disgust at this attitude. "She has more sense and determination than any girl, any pretty girl, I ever saw. That's one reason why I hate her so. There's no use trying to select a husband for her. When the time comes she'll do the selecting herself. She'll knock over all our plans and walk blushingly up to the altar with O'Neil, leaving us out on the sidewalk to cheer. I'm sorry I ever tried to help you! I'm going to quit and get back my self-respect."

"You'll do no such thing. You'll continue to help your poor red-headed brother to the finish. Say! When I'm alone I'm just bursting with optimism; when I'm with you I wither with despair; when I'm with Natalie I become as heavy and stupid as a frog full of buckshot--I just sit and blink and bask and revel in a sort of speechless bliss. If she ever saw how really bright and engaging I am--"

"You!" Eliza sniffed. "You're as uninteresting as I am."

"Now that you've pledged your undying support, here goes for some basking," said Dan; and he made off hastily in search of Miss Gerard.

Eliza had really made up her mind to wash her hands of the affair, but she wavered, and, as usual, she gave in. She did go to O'Neil to protest at Dan's selection for the post of danger, but after talking with him she began to see the matter in a new light, and her opposition weakened. He showed her that the S. R. & N. had an individuality of its own--an individuality greater than Murray O'Neil's, or Dan Appleton's, or that of any man connected with it. She began to understand that it was a living thing, and that O'Neil was merely a small part of it--a person driven by a power outside himself, the head servant of a great undertaking, upon whom rested a heavy responsibility. She saw for the first time that the millions invested in the project imposed upon those concerned with its management a sacred duty, and that failure to defend the company's rights would be the worst sort of treachery. She began to appreciate also how men may be willing to lay down their lives, if necessary, to pave the way for the march of commerce.

"I never looked at it in this way," she told him, when he had finished. "I--don't like to take that view of it, even now, but I suppose I must."

"Try not to worry about Dan," he said, sympathetically. "We'll start back as soon as I'm able to move around, and I'll do my best to see that he isn't hurt. It's--tough to be laid up this way."

"There's another sick man in camp, by the way."

"Who?"

"The Indian boy who helps the cook. He was hunting and shot himself in the arm."

"They told me he was doing well."

"Oh, he is, but the pain has kept the poor fellow awake until he's nearly out of his head. There are no drugs here."

"None this side of the end of the track."

"Can't we do something?"

"We can give Dan a note to 'Happy Tom' in the morning and have whatever you want sent up. Tom will be there, and perhaps if you ask him he'll despatch a man on foot at once."

Seizing pen and paper from the table, Eliza wrote a note, which she read aloud:

"DEAR UNCLE TOM,--There is a sick Indian here. Won't you please send up an opiate by special messenger, and receive the blessing of, Your affectionate, ELIZA."

"Better change the word 'opiate,'" O'Neil advised. "I don't think Tom is equal to that; he might send overalls!" So Eliza substituted "something to put him to sleep." This message Dan promised faithfully to deliver.

Murray had expected to begin the return journey within twenty-four hours after his arrival; but his injury mended slowly, and when the time came he was still unable to stand. This interval the girls spent in watching the glaciers, of which they never seemed to tire, and in spoiling many films.

It was late on the second day when a tired and sodden messenger bearing the marks of heavy travel appeared at O'Neil's tent and inquired for Miss Appleton. To her he handed a three-foot bundle and a note from Tom Slater which read:

DEAR MADAM,--Here is the best thing I know of to put an Indian to sleep. THOS. SLATER.

"There's some mistake, surely," said the girl, as she unrolled the odd-looking package; then she cried out angrily, and O'Neil burst into laughter. For inside the many wrappings was a pick-handle.

Eliza's resentment at "Happy Tom's" unsympathetic sense of humor was tempered in a measure by the fact that the patient had taken a turn for the better and really needed no further medical attention. But she was not accustomed to practical jokes, and she vowed to make Tom's life miserable if ever the occasion offered.

As the days wore on and Murray remained helpless his impatience became acute, and on the fourth morning he determined to leave, at whatever cost in pain or danger to the injury. He gave orders, therefore, to have a boat prepared, and allowed himself to be carried to it. The foreman of the bridge crew he delegated to guide the girls down across the moraine, where he promised to pick them up. The men who had come with him he sent on to the cataract where Dan had been.

"Aren't you coming with us?" asked Natalie, when they found him seated in the skiff with an oarsman.

"It's rough going. I'd have to be carried, so I prefer this," he told them.

"Then we'll go with you," Eliza promptly declared.

Natalie paled and shook her dark head. "Is it safe?" she ventured.

"No, it isn't! Run along now! I'll be down there waiting, when you arrive."

"If it's safe enough for you, it's safe enough for us," said Eliza. Climbing into the boat, she plumped herself down with a look which seemed to defy any power to remove her. Her blue eyes met O'Neil's gray ones with an expression he had never seen in them until this moment.

"Nonsense, child!" he said. "Don't be silly."

"Don't you try to put me out. I'll hang on and--kick. Don't you say 'please,' either," she warned him.

"I must," he protested. "Please don't insist."

She scowled like an angry boy, and seized the gunwales firmly. Her expression made him smile despite his annoyance, and this provoked her the more.

"I'm going!" she asserted, darkly.

This outing had done wonders for both girls. The wind and the sunshine had tanned them, the coarse fare had lent them a hearty vigor, and they made charming pictures in their trim short skirts and sweaters and leather-banded hats.

"Very well! If you're going, take off your boots," commanded O'Neil.

"What for?"

"We may be swamped and have to swim for it. You see the man has taken his off." Murray pointed to the raw-boned Norwegian oarsman, who had stripped down as if for a foot-race.

Eliza obeyed.

"Now your sweater."

Natalie had watched this scene with evident concern. She now seated herself upon a boulder and began to tug at her rubber boots.

"Here! Here! You're not going, too!" O'Neil exclaimed.

"Yes, I am. I'm frightened to death, but I won't be a coward." Her shaking hands and strained voice left no doubt of her seriousness.

"She can't swim," said Eliza; and O'Neil put an end to this display of heroism with a firm refusal.

"You'll think I'm afraid," Natalie expostulated.

"Bless you, of course we will, because you are! So am I, and so is Eliza, for that matter. If you can't swim you'd only be taking a foolish risk and adding to our danger. Besides, Eliza doesn't know the feel of cold water as we do."

Natalie smiled a little tremulously at recollection of the shipwreck.

"I'd much rather walk, of course," she said; and then to Eliza, "It--it will be a lovely ramble for us."

But Eliza shook her head. "This is material for my book, and I'll make enough out of it to--to--"

"Buy another orchard," Murray suggested.

Feeling more resigned now that the adventure had taken on a purely financial color, Natalie at length allowed herself to be dissuaded, and Eliza settled herself in her seat with the disturbing consciousness that she had made herself appear selfish and rude in O'Neil's eyes. Nevertheless, she had no notion of changing her mind.

When the other girl had gone the oarsman completed his preparations by lashing fast the contents of the skiff--a proceeding which Eliza watched with some uneasiness. O'Neil showed his resentment by a pointed silence, which nettled her, and she resolved to hold her seat though the boat turned somersaults.

Word was finally given, and they swung out into the flood. O'Neil stood as best he could on his firm leg, and steered by means of a sculling-oar, while the Norwegian rowed lustily.

Bits of drift, patches of froth, fragments of ice accompanied them, bobbing alongside so persistently that Eliza fancied the boat must be stationary until, glancing at the river-banks, she saw them racing past like the panoramic scenery in a melodrama. The same glance showed her that they were rushing directly toward the upper ramparts of Jackson Glacier, as if for an assault. Out here in the current there were waves, and these increased in size as the bed of the Salmon grew steeper, until the poling-boat began to rear and leap like a frightened horse. The gleaming wall ahead rose higher with every instant: it overhung, a giant, crumbling cliff, imposing, treacherous. Then the stream turned at right angles; they were swept along parallel with the ice face, and ahead of them for three miles stretched the gauntlet. The tottering wall seemed almost within reaching distance; its breath was cold and damp and clammy. O'Neil stood erect and powerful in the stern, swaying to the antics of the craft, his weight upon the sweep, his eyes fixed upon the Thing overhead. The Norwegian strained at his oars while the sweat ran down into his open shirt. The boat lunged and wallowed desperately, rising on end, falling with prodigious slaps, drenching the occupants with spray. It was splendid, terrifying! Eliza clung to her seat and felt her heartbeats smothering her. Occasionally the oarsman turned, staring past her with round, frightened eyes, and affording her a glimpse of a face working with mingled fear and exultation.

Thus far the glacier had not disputed their passage; it maintained the silence and the immobility of marble; nothing but the snarl of the surging flood re-echoed from its face. But with the suddenness of a rifle-shot there came a detonation, louder, sharper than any blast of powder. The Norwegian cursed; the helmsman dropped his eyes to the white face in the bow and smiled.

Half a mile ahead of them a mass of ice came rumbling down, and the whole valley rocked with the sound. Onward the little craft fled, a dancing speck beneath the majesty of that frozen giant, an atom threatened by the weight of mountains. At last through the opening of the gorge below came a glimpse of the flats that led to the sea. A moment later the boat swung into an eddy and came to rest, bumping against the boulders.

O'Neil sat down, wiping his wet face.

"Well, was it worth your trouble, Miss Kick-over the-traces?" he asked.

"Oh, it was glorious! I'll never forget it."

Eliza's cheeks were burning now, her aching hands relaxed their hold, and she drew a deep breath--the first of which she had been conscious since the start, fifteen minutes before.

"Now, on with your boots and your sweater. We'll have an hour's wait for Natalie."

She gave a cry of surprise and offered him a glimpse of a trim ankle and a dripping foot.

"See! They're wet, and I wriggled my toes right through my stockings. I NEVER was so excited."

The boatman fastened the painter and resumed his outer clothing. O'Neil lit a cigar and asked:

"Tell me, why did you insist on coming?"

"I was afraid something might happen to you."

He raised his brows, and she flushed. "Don't you understand? Dan would never have forgiven me, and--and--I just HAD to come, that's all. It's corking material for me--I thought you might upset, and I--I don't know why I insisted." She bent over her stubborn boots, hiding her face. She was flaming to the ears, for suddenly she knew the reason that had prompted her. It rushed upon her like a sense of great shame. She recalled the desperate grip at her heart when she had seen him ready to leave, the wildness of her longing to share his danger, the black fear that he might meet disaster alone. It had all come without warning, and there had been no time for self-consciousness, but now she realized the truth. The poignant pain of it made her fingers clumsy and sent that flood of scarlet to her neck and ears.

When Natalie arrived they cast off, and the remaining miles were made in a few hours.

Appleton joined them for lunch in the tent they remembered so well, and professed to be shocked at the report of his sister's foolhardiness. But whatever may have been Natalie's fear of ridicule, it promptly disappeared under his complete indorsement of her wisdom in refraining from such a mad adventure. As if to put her even more at ease, O'Neil was especially attentive to her; and Eliza reflected gloomily that men, after all, dislike bravado in women, that a trapeze artist or a lady balloonist inspires only a qualified admiration.

During O'Neil's absence work had progressed steadily. On his return he found the grade completed to within a few yards of Gordon's right-of-way. Although he was still unable to walk, he insisted upon going to the front, whither he was helped by Appleton and "Happy Tom."