Chapter XXVII: A Weird Night

CLICKETY clack, rick rack! Clickety clack, rick rack!

It seemed to Bertha that the horrible noise and rattle had been going on for hours, and days, and weeks. Her head ached from the constant noise and the lack of ventilation, her arms ached, her back ached, and she ached in every bone in her body. A small, badly trimmed lamp swung from a hook above her head and occasionally dropped kerosene upon her; but she could not move away, because there was no room to move two inches in any direction. She was wedged in on one side by a great roll of bedding, while on the other the stout figure of Mrs. Walford crowded against her.

But, horrid as was the smell of the lamp, it would have been ten times worse to be without it; for they had not been half an hour on their journey before she had seen the inquisitive nose of a big rat peering down at them from a great pile of bedding. A jerk of her head had scared it away then, but she had not dared to say anything about it; for Mrs. Walford had confided to her only a few minutes before how much she feared and disliked rats.

That rat would come back again, Bertha was sure of it, and the fear kept her awake long after her companion had sunk into peaceful slumber. Bertha had no book, and the light would not have been good enough to read by in any case, so there was nothing for her to do while the long hours dragged wearily away but to think; and naturally enough her thoughts clung with maddening persistence to the interview that she was going to face when that nightmare journey should be at an end.

She thought of Edgar Bradgate as she had seen him first, sitting in his boat on the Shark’s Teeth rocks at Mestlebury. The next time she had seen him was when the wheat fired, and he had come along with the Smiths to help put it out. She had not recognized him until afterwards, and even then she had not been sure who he was—indeed, it had seemed to be her fate not to know him when she encountered him. There was that other time, when the horses brought him unconscious and half-dead to Duck Flats. She had not known him then, otherwise this horrible journey need not have been undertaken, and she would have been safely at home in the humdrum isolation of the lonely prairie house, instead of riding through the black night cooped up in a box car of bedding on her way to railhead, a place where a girl very rarely ventured.

“Oh, I am stupid, I am sure of it!” she muttered to herself for about the hundredth time.

Clickety clack, rick rack! Clickety clack, rick rack!

“If only that fearful clatter would stop for half an hour, how thankful I would be!” she went on, talking to herself in whispers, because it somehow kept her from feeling so lonely, though she was careful not to disturb Mrs. Walford by speaking aloud. “But no, I don’t want it to stop, because if it did it would mean that we were standing still, and that would lengthen the journey. I shall not mind anything when once I have got my errand done, and can turn my face towards home again.”

There was a dismal fear at the back of her mind, lest the journey should take longer than she had expected and arranged for. A hundred miles on a well-made line would not be a very serious matter, but they might have to travel for miles and miles over a skeleton line, that is, a part of the track not yet finished, and then the pace would be of the slowest, certainly not faster than, probably not so fast as, an average horse would travel on trail. And suppose that she could not get back to Rownton in time to take the wagon back at the appointed time!

But there is no sense in meeting trouble halfway. By the watch on her wrist Bertha saw that it was a little past two o’clock, and they seemed to be going ahead at a fine rate, so there might be no delay after all. It might even be possible to get a little sleep. She had not seen the rat again, so it had most likely been effectually scared away. Mrs. Walford was still sleeping profoundly, and it seemed foolish to keep awake for nothing at all.

She was dozing from sheer exhaustion, and in a few minutes would probably have been fast asleep, when there came a fearful lurch, followed by a crash. The lamp swung violently and then went out, and for a moment Bertha thought the train must have been wrecked; but no, it was still going on, only now the pace was an absolute crawl, varied by so many bumps and such violent shaking, that even the profound repose of Mrs. Walford was not equal to the strain put upon it, and she awoke with a start, crying out at the darkness, and groping for something familiar to the touch in the dense gloom.

“Where am I? Where am I? And oh, what is happening?” she gasped, in accents of terror, as another violent lurch of the train sent her flying on to Bertha once more.

“I think we must have reached the skeleton line, because it is bumping and shaking so desperately,” said Bertha, who was somewhat damaged, and decidedly out of breath, from the violent assaults of Mrs. Walford’s bulky form.

“Oh dear! oh dear! And now we shall have to bear this kind of thing right up to the end of the journey,” groaned Mrs. Walford, as the cars swayed and bumped along at a slow crawl, and they were shaken in a most wearing fashion.

“Do you know how long it is likely to take?” gasped Bertha, who began to feel most horribly sick from the swaying, although she had never suffered from train-sickness before.

“No, nor anyone else. We may be out of it in a couple of hours, or it may go on for goodness knows how long. It is one of those things that you can’t reckon on at all. But oh, dear, how I wish that the lamp had not gone out! Do you happen to have any idea what the time is, my dear?” asked Mrs. Walford, with a windy sigh.

“It was a little past two o’clock when I looked at my watch, but I don’t know how long ago that was, because I was nearly asleep when the first bump came,” replied Bertha.

“That makes eight hours since we started, and if we haven’t stopped anywhere in the night we must have passed Wastover and got a good way out on the skeleton line before the shaking began. Oh-h-h, ah-h-h!”

The exclamations were dragged from Mrs. Walford by the violence of the motion to which she was at that moment subjected; then came another violent lurch, and then the cars stopped.

“Oh, what a relief!” sighed Bertha, who had been battling with her bad feelings as best she could.

“You won’t say that if we are stuck here for three or four solid hours. What I feel about it is that I would rather suffer and get it over; there is no sense in prolonging the misery,” said the stout woman tartly; for the last shaking had banged her arm against the post of the door, and she felt very badly bruised indeed.

“But as the stopping is not our fault, there is no wrong in enjoying the relief of it,” said Bertha, with a laugh.

Then they began to crawl forward again with much clanking and groaning of coupling-irons; but the whole train was scarcely in motion again before there was another pull-up, followed by another attempt at starting, and so on, for what seemed to be an interminable time. This was followed by quite a long wait, accompanied by much shouting from driver, stoker, and brakeman, then there was a terrific jolt which sent the two unfortunate passengers flying into each other’s arms. The coupling-irons clanked again, and then they heard the whole train moving off, but they remained still.

“Now, what does that mean, I wonder?” said Mrs. Walford, in a tone of concern.

“Our car was the last on the train at Rownton, so it looks as if we have been left behind,” said Bertha, straining her ears to catch the rumble of the train which was rapidly dying away in the distance.

“Ah, I expect that the couplers broke when that last jolt came, in which case here we shall be stuck until those precious train-men discover what has happened, and that may not be until they reach Brocken Ridge,” groaned Mrs. Walford.

“But we cannot stay here indefinitely!” cried Bertha, in dismay. “Just think of our plight, shut in this stuffy place in the dark, and without a mouthful of food. We have been here eight hours already, and I do not know how you feel, but I am nearly starving.”

“It is very bad, I know,” admitted Mrs. Walford, “but I have been in tighter places myself and endured more discomfort, too. I don’t say that I should not be glad of a little more fresh air, for this bedding does smell horribly fusty.”

“I wonder if I could work the door unfastened. We should get air then, and if we have got to starve, there is no reason why we should suffer from poisoning by bad air also,” said Bertha, getting on to her feet with some difficulty and beginning to grope for the fastening of the doors.

“Why, they are locked, of course. Don’t you remember hearing the brakeman lock them before we left Rownton?” asked Mrs. Walford, wincing, as Bertha inadvertently trod on her foot.

“That is so much the better! If they had been fastened by a bar dropped into a socket, I could not have hoped to get them open. As it is, I may succeed if I try hard enough,” Bertha replied, as she groped and fumbled with her naked fingers round the doors. “Ah, here is the lock! Now, I wonder if I can work it back with a hairpin. I have no pocket knife with me. Have you one that I can have?”

“Yes, I have a knife, and a bradawl too; or you can have a small nail. What are you going to do? Work the lock back?”

“Very likely; but if I cannot do that easily, I may be able to unscrew the lock and take it off, as you have a bradawl, which is just about as useful as a chisel, if only one knows how to use it,” answered Bertha.

“A screwdriver you mean, I guess,” laughed Mrs. Walford. “Well, this is an adventure for two lone women at dead of night on a skeleton railway! But it will do well to put in your next story, my dear,” and the stout woman laughed in a cheerful fashion, which showed her in no way daunted by the situation.

“How did you know that I wrote stories?” demanded Bertha, in a tone of amazement, as she worked away at the lock with that very useful hairpin, prodding her fingers badly in the darkness, but caring very little about the pain, because she felt that the lock was giving, which meant that if only she were patient enough she would get it unfastened.

“Why, because I have read them, to be sure,” replied the other, with a complacent chuckle. “That one which came out in last week’s _Banner of Liberty_ was fine; but I should not have known it was you that I’d got the pleasure of travelling with, if it had not been that Inspector Grant hadn’t told me to take special care of you, because you were the young lady that wrote the stories about the prairies.”

“I wonder how he knew?” said Bertha musingly; for although her work was all signed with her own name, it had never occurred to her that perhaps the people of the district would ever find out that they had an author living among them. Moreover, the papers for which she wrote would scarcely be likely to have much circulation through that impoverished district.

“I don’t know, but the magazines were sent from somewhere down east to that poor man who was ill at the barracks so long, and as I have done the washing for the barracks all winter, ever since my husband was sent up to Brocken Ridge, they often used to let me see books and papers; for I’m downright fond of a bit of reading, and I liked your stories so much because they were so true to life. Why, dear me! you might have been talking about people and things that I have known, I mean writing about them; it was all so natural,” said Mrs. Walford.

Bertha thrilled from head to foot. To her this was the sweetest commendation that she had ever had for her work, and it more than compensated for heaps of hard things which she had been called upon to endure. She suddenly realized that it would not have been possible for her to have written as she had done, but for the disasters which had overtaken the Ellis household.

There were tears of happiness in her eyes and such a radiant joy in her heart, that when once again she sent the sharp point of the hairpin right into her finger she did not even wince, and the next jab she gave the lock was successful in fetching it open.

“Hurrah!” she cried, as with a smart push she sent the two doors swinging outwards; then, after one startled glance into the blackness below, she dropped back upon Mrs. Walford, gasping and speechless from sheer terror.

“What is it, Miss Doyne? Good gracious! what is the matter?” asked the good woman, in great amazement, seizing Bertha and holding her fast, under the impression that she had had a bad scare.

“We are on a bridge or something. It almost seems as if we were suspended in mid air, and down below, oh, such a horrible, horrible way, I could see the stars reflected in the water!” said Bertha, with a shudder of horror.

“Is that all?” said Mrs. Walford, greatly relieved. “We have been left on a bridge, of course, a skeleton bridge like all the rest of this precious line; but if it would bear the whole train to pass over it safely, it will certainly bear the weight of this one car, so that you have nothing to be afraid of. But, my word, how bitterly cold it is!”

“I will shut the doors again. We have had enough fresh air to last us for a little while, and I do not want to look down there oftener than I can help,” said Bertha faintly; then she gathered up her courage to reach outward for the purpose of drawing the doors towards her, although she was trembling in every limb from the shock of seeing that gleaming water so far below.

“Sit still; you are shaking like a leaf. If you get leaning out in this condition, the next thing will be that you will take a header into the water, and a pretty business that would be. I will shut the doors myself, for my head is steady enough,” replied Mrs. Walford sharply; for she guessed that Bertha’s trembling was largely hysterical, the result of overwrought nerves and want of food.

“The wind will shut them for you if you will wait a minute. Oh, how it roars!” exclaimed Bertha, as a trumpet blast of wind rushed up the river valley and shook the car so much, that it moved forward on the rails, then slid back again, as if the gradient were against it.

A shudder shook Mrs. Walford then, for she was a sufficiently experienced traveller to know that there was grave danger in a car which could be moved backwards and forwards at the mercy of the wind.

Bang came one door, and she reached out her arm to seize it and hold it fast, until she could bolt it to the floor.

But somehow neither she nor Bertha could ever quite tell how it came about. A gust of wind jerked the door outwards again, and she was carried with it. But she was not even clinging with all her might, so when the strain of her heavy weight came upon her arms she could not keep her hold; and with a scream of terror she dropped downward into the blackness below.

A wild shriek broke from Bertha, although she was not conscious of it, and, clutching at the door-frame with both hands, she peered down into that awful void which showed below the swaying car. It was getting lighter, dawn was not very far away; and the clouds drifting just then from the face of the waning moon, lighted up the trestle framework of the bridge, which looked so slender and cobwebby in the gloom, but that was in reality so strong.

At first Bertha could see nothing but the framework, and she strained her ears to catch the splash from far down below which would tell her that poor Mrs. Walford had fallen into the water, but none came; and then, after what seemed an interminable agony of waiting, she thought that she heard a faint groan or cry from somewhere down below, but the wind bowled so loudly through the trestling that at first she could not be sure. When she heard it again she was quite sure, and, raising her voice to a joyful shout, she cried: “Mrs. Walford, where are you?”

“Down here,” cried a voice faintly; and to Bertha it seemed to come from beneath her, although she still could not see whence it came.

“Hold on tightly! I will come and help you,” she called back, making her voice sound as courageous as possible; for well she guessed that even a small gleam of hope might make all the difference between life and death to the unfortunate woman at this juncture.

“Stay where you are, child; it is an awful risk to climb down here,” cried Mrs. Walford; but Bertha shouted back that she was coming and would soon reach her.

Winding a blanket round her neck for use in case Mrs. Walford was unable to climb back to the car, Bertha began to creep out slowly from the door of the car down on to the ties which carried the rails across the void. The door swung back with the wind, and only escaped crushing her by a margin so narrow that it seemed almost like a miracle, and the wheel on which she had placed her foot jerked round as the force of the wind moved the car along the rails, causing her to drop on to the ties, where she clung for a long moment, too sick to move backward or forward.

“I cannot get down—oh, I cannot!” she moaned to herself, as the force of the wind, rapidly rising to a gale, nearly tore her from her hold. Then the thought of Mrs. Walford’s peril stirred her to fresh courage, so cautiously lowering herself through the ties, she got a foothold on the trestling and began to climb down.

The light was stronger now, and she could see Mrs. Walford lying on a sort of trellis-work platform, but though she called loudly to her there was no response that she could hear. Either the poor woman had fainted from fright, or else the wind carried the sound of her voice away.

Down, down, down went Bertha, her head clear and her courage steady now; for the danger was so great that in some strange way it had taken away her fear.

“I wonder however I shall get her to climb up here,” she said to herself, as she paused, breathless, to get a little rest before going lower. There was only one more section now between her and Mrs. Walford; but her hands and arms were aching so much from the continual strain, that she was forced to wait a few minutes before finishing her perilous journey.

At last she had reached the spot where Mrs. Walford lay.

Then, as she stooped and laid her hand on the huddled figure, a dreadful fear assailed her, lest the poor woman had died from the shock of her fall.

“Mrs. Walford, are you hurt?” she cried anxiously.

Mrs. Walford gave a great start and looked up, then gasped in amazement, as if unable to believe the evidence of her eyes. “Miss Doyne, is it really you?”

“Yes, yes, and I have come to help you climb back again. You would never have fallen, if it had not been for my cowardice in being afraid to shut the door. I am so very, very sorry,” said Bertha, with a sob coming up in her throat.

“You need not be; for you could not help the wind catching me in that fashion. Oh, the wonder is that I was saved from an awful death! It was a simply miraculous escape!” exclaimed Mrs. Walford, as she scrambled to a sitting position and, woman-like, began to arrange her disordered hair.

“Are you hurt?” asked Bertha, greatly relieved to find that her companion could sit up; but hardly able to believe even yet that there was no serious damage.

“I don’t think so. I may be bruised a bit, and certainly I have had the wind pretty well knocked out of me, but one soon gets over these things. I feel horribly sick and giddy, though. I am afraid to stay here, and I dare not attempt to move. Whatever shall we do?”

“Oh, I will help you climb up to the railway track, then we will get into the car again,” said Bertha confidently, although privately she very much feared that Mrs. Walford’s courage would give out under the strain.

“I can’t climb up there—I dare not—I would rather die!” cried Mrs. Walford, with a sob, as she cast a fearful glance upward at the network of trestling, on the top of which she could see the car moving to and fro on the track under the influence of the wind.

“But if you don’t climb back, what will you do?” asked Bertha, in dismay. But part of her trouble was because she had seen how the car was sliding to and fro, and she wondered however they would be able to climb into it, even if they succeeded in reaching the track.

“I don’t know, and I don’t care. I feel as if I would like to drop down the rest of the way and end it all. Oh, it is dreadful, dreadful to be in a place like this! Whatever shall I do?” wailed the poor frightened woman.

Bertha tried to comfort her, pointing out if she had fallen so far without receiving serious hurt, she would certainly be able to manage the journey upward with help.

“No, no; I tell you I cannot get up there!” cried Mrs. Walford, with hysterical violence; then suddenly Bertha caught a glimpse of something which seemed to fairly make her heart stand still.

The wind was blowing a gale now, and roaring up the river valley with a noise like thunder. The car, perched up so high, and with nothing to steady it, was oscillating violently, and, the momentum increasing, it presently went over with a crash, falling into the river with a terrific splash. A groan broke from Mrs. Walford and a sharp cry came from Bertha’s dry lips. What would have been their fate but for the accident to the former, which had sent the latter to her rescue, and so saved the lives of both of them. For a time they crouched close together, unable to move or to speak, dumb from the mercy of their great deliverance, and trembling before the dangers which might yet be in store for them.

But the thunder of the wind roared on, filling their ears with sound and their hearts with awe. They were in the grip of Nature in her wildest mood, and it was small wonder that they were afraid.