XXVIIIRegeneration
THE pipe of life, a four-inch steel tube which had been driven by screw-jack pressure through the mass of the slide as a result of Plegg’s inventive strugglings, soon refreshed the vitiated air in the sealed cavern. Beyond this, food, in well-wrapped paper cartridges, and hot coffee, in bottles, were passed through the tube, and the famished prisoners were able to break their long fast. That nothing within the possibilities should be lacking, Plegg ran electric wires, with an incandescent bulb attached, through the conduit, and thus the feast was lighted.
In the fast-breaking, Regnier ate with his men, but David carried his portion and Virginia’s a little apart. Though she had revived quickly in the splendid rebound of youth and health under the changed conditions, the king’s daughter ate sparingly and with eyes downcast, and was, in David’s eyes, more radiantly beautiful than shehad ever been. After the keen edge of famine—David’s famine—was a little blunted, she looked up and met his glances bravely.
“We didn’t die, David, and—and you must forget,” she pleaded. “You will forget, won’t you?”
“Forget?—not if I live to be a million years old,” he avowed gravely. And after a pause: “You mustn’t be an Indian, Vinnie—to give, and then want the gift returned. I am going to talk to Plegg again in a few minutes, and you shall hear what I say to him.”
The previsioned talk with the first assistant—the four-inch pipe serving for a speaking-tube—turned out to be principally technical, to be sure. In his proper person as chief engineer, David gave directions for the pushing forward of the rescue work. The jack-screw process was to be employed again, this time to press a steel shield into the mass of loose debris, so that the rescuers might be protected as they dug. The shield could be made out of a cast-off boiler shell with the heads removed. In this manner a tunnel within the tunnel could be excavated and the prisoners released.
With so much for the technicalities, the human side of things came in for its word.
“Is Mr. Grillage with you?” David asked.
Plegg’s reply was guarded. He guessed, andguessed rightly, that Eben Grillage’s daughter was listening with David at the prison end of the speaking-tube.
“Mr. Grillage is at the hotel; he is not very well. He has had a stroke of some sort, but the Brewster doctor who is with him says it isn’t necessarily dangerous.”
“You have sent him word that we are all alive and well?”
“Sure; that was the first thing we did.”
“Good. Now listen, and carry out my orders to the letter. After you get the tunneling started here, put Altman in charge and go yourself to the telegraph office at the Inn station. I heard, day before yesterday, that President Ford of the P. S-W. was in Denver, with a number of his directors. The report was that Mr. Ford and his party were making an inspection trip over the western lines of the system. You send a telegram to Mr. Ford, asking him if he will come here for a conference with me, bringing as many of the directors as may be willing to come. Do you get that?”
“Perfectly. What else?”
“You may sign my name to the telegram, and make it as urgent as you can. This is important. Then I want you to go up to the Inn and see Mr.Grillage for yourself. Find out his condition exactly, and come back here and report.”
“All right; is that all?”
“Not quite. While you are at the hotel, see my father and sister and Herbert Oswald, and tell them that the danger is all over for us—that is, if you haven’t already ’phoned them.”
“Your father and Oswald came up here with me when the alarm was given, and they have been here ever since until a couple of hours ago, when I persuaded Oswald to take your father back to the Inn on the assurance that we should reach you with the pipe within a short time. Your father was pretty well tuckered out, and I didn’t dare to let him stay here any longer.”
“Good man!” said David; “I owe you something for that, Silas. Be sure and tell them at the hotel that we are all right and quite comfortable, and that there is nothing to worry about. And while you’re at it, you may give Oswald and my sister my hearty congratulations, and tell them, from Miss Virginia and me, that we hope they’ll be as happy as they deserve to be.”
Plegg, the imperturbable, let slip a little imprecation of joy.
“I—I’ll be damned!” he burbled; “you don’tknow what a relief it is to hear you talking that way! Any more errands?”
“Yes; one more. Our engagement—Miss Virginia’s and mine—hasn’t been announced yet, so you may break the news, if you care to; to Mr. Grillage when you see him, to my people, and to the folks at the Inn. Also, you may let it go to the fellows on the staff and to the men on the job. We shall be married as soon as Mr. Grillage is up and able to give the bride away.”
“Good!—oh,bullygood!” came from the other end of the tube, from which it may be inferred that the first assistant’s half-cynical habit of self-restraint and reticence was broken beyond repair. Then: “Of course, I’m taking your word for it, but if Miss Virginia would—er—sort of counter-sign the order ... I haven’t heard her voice yet.”
Virginia put her lips to the tube and her eyes were dancing.
“It’s so, Mr. Plegg; can you hear me? And there are some other things that are going to be so, too—things in which you’ll have to help. We are counting upon you—may we?”
“You may, indeed; to the last scrapings of the grab-bucket!” was the ready assurance. “Now—I don’t want to be impolite, but if that is all, I’llask you both to take your faces away from the pipe; I’m going to put the air blast on again.”
Even with the help of the steel shield it took the remainder of the night and the better part of the next forenoon for the outside men, working in fifteen-minute shifts, to dig through the mass of the slide, the work being delayed somewhat by the encountering, in the midst of things, of a great bowlder which had to be carefully blasted with dynamite. Nevertheless, the task was accomplished finally. With the advancing shield the diggers burst through with a yell of triumph, and the poor prisoners were passed out one by one to the clean air and the blessed sunshine of the outdoor world.
Once more able to take command, David Vallory gave directions for the clearing of the tunnel by digging and timber-shoring from either side of the slide, and outlined for Plegg in a few words a plan for the excavating and permanent filling and arching of the breach. Plegg heard him through, and then looked up to say: “Does this mean that we’re to have a new deal?”
“Either a new deal or a smash. If I can come to some sort of terms with Mr. Ford, we’ll go on and finish this job honestly, the way it ought to be finished. If I can’t, we’ll take our losses and get out, without waiting to be kicked out.”
An engine had been ’phoned for to come up after the chief and Miss Grillage, but it was as yet only on the way. Miss Virginia was talking to the released hard-rock men, praising them for their courage, and telling them how glad she was to have been given the chance to share the peril with them, since the peril had to be. This gave Plegg his opportunity with his chief.
“You are speaking for Mr. Grillage, Vallory?—or only for yourself?” he queried.
“I hope I’m speaking for both of us. I’m afraid Mr. Grillage is out of the active part of it, permanently. Miss Virginia tells me that this is his second stroke.”
“Miss Virginia,” said Plegg; “of course, she is with you on this reformation turn-over?”
“Heart and soul; in fact, it is her idea. We’ll fight it through together.”
Once more the quaint smile twitched at the corners of the first assistant’s thin-lipped mouth and his eyes twinkled. “My congratulations,” he said; “I—I’m damned if you aren’t going to be ‘too good,’ after all! I hope you won’t fire your first assistant crook, Vallory. I’d like to see how it feels to work for an absolutely honest outfit for just one time before I die. Do I stay?”
“Just as long as I do, Silas.” And then the enginecame, and David and his charge were whirled away to the valley.
At the stop at the foot of the Inn ridge, David helped Virginia down from the engine cab, and together they climbed the hill path. The news had been passed to the tunnel that President Ford and his inspecting committee had arrived at Powder Gap an hour earlier and were quartered in the Alta Vista; wherefore David Vallory knew that his request had been granted and that his hour was come.
“You will go to your father at once, of course,” he said, as they were ascending the steps of the Inn entrance. Then: “You must stand to your guns, Vinnie, and do all the things you said you’d like to do when you thought we had to die. Mr. Ford is here, and after I’ve had a word with Dad and sister, I’m going to fight the good fight with the Short Line people, taking matters entirely into my own hands. If Mr. Ford doesn’t fire us bodily, this job shall be finished—and finished honestly. After that, your father may fire me if he wishes to; but he must be made to understand that if he does, he is firing his daughter’s husband.”
“Oh!” she said softly, “it’s such a precious thing to find that you are just as big and strong as I always believed you were, David! I’ll standby, and after you are through with Mr. Ford, you must come straight to our suite.” Then, with exaggerated humility: “May I have your august permission to say good-by to Freddy Wishart and Cumberleigh?”
“You can’t—unless you do it by wire,” he grinned. “Plegg tells me they went East on the morning train, shortly after he had announced our engagement here at the hotel. We can send them cards a little later, if you wish.”