CHAPTER XIIPRESCOTT’S FLIGHT
Two days after the arrival of the Colstons, Gertrude Jernyngham walked down the trail from the Leslie homestead in a very bitter mood. During the last few weeks her cold nature had kindled into sudden warmth; love had most unexpectedly crept into her heart. At first she had struggled against and been ashamed of it, for its object was a man beneath her in rank and of widely different mode of thought; but by degrees the judgment she had hitherto exercised had given place to passion. After the narrow, conventional life she had led, there was a strange exhilaration and excitement in yielding to her impulses; the virility of Prescott’s character and his physical perfection stirred her. She desired him and had boldly used such charms as she possessed in his subjugation. Misled by his gentleness, she imagined him responsive, and then Muriel had appeared on the scene and the truth was plain to her when she saw his face light up at sight of the girl. She had read warm love in his eager glance.
Now Gertrude was crushed and humbled. She had cheapened herself, as she thought of it, to this rancher, only to find that he preferred another. Her punishment was severe, but she felt that it was deserved, and her ripening passion had turned to something very much like hate. Whether he had really had any hand in her brother’s death was a point she would not calmly reasonout, though she had a half-conscious feeling that he could not be charged with this. She wanted to think him base: to believe in his guilt would be an excuse for making him suffer.
While she walked, she cast quick glances across the waste of grass, looking for a mounted figure that did not appear, until at last she turned with a start at the sound of footsteps as Muriel came up.
“I saw you alone and thought I would join you,” Muriel said.
“It’s a relief to be by oneself now and then,” Gertrude answered with curt ungraciousness.
“One can understand that. I tried to give Harry a hint that our visit might be an intrusion, when he talked of joining your father; but he thought it would be some comfort for you to have your friends about you.”
“He was some time in putting his idea into practise.”
“We started as soon as we heard of your trouble,” said Muriel. “We were in Mexico then, and as we had moved about a good deal there was some delay in our letters. Has your father decided to stay with the Leslies?”
“Yes, for a while. It was, of course, impossible for us to remain with Mr. Prescott.”
“Why could you not?” Muriel asked with sparkling eyes.
“Isn’t it obvious, after what you heard the man admit?”
Muriel stopped, the color creeping into her face, which was filled with anger.
“It’s impossible that Mr. Prescott could have had any connection with Cyril’s disappearance. It’s wicked and cruel to suspect him!”
“You seem strangely convinced of his innocence,” Gertrude retorted with a somber glance at her. “We shall see by and by whether you or my father is right.”
They walked on slowly, and shortly afterward two mounted figures appeared on the plain. Gertrude watched them draw near, and then turned to her companion.
“The police; we have been expecting them,” she said. “My father sent a message to the corporal after Prescott had gone.”
“Then he will be deeply ashamed of his harshness before long,” Muriel declared as she abruptly moved away.
Gertrude let her go with a cruel smile. She thought she knew how matters stood, and if the girl were suffering, she had no pity for her. Then she waited until the police trotted by, and afterward walked slowly toward the house. On reaching it, she met Curtis coming out and he asked for a word with her.
“I understand you were the last person to see Prescott when he left this place the other night,” he said.
Gertrude admitted it, watching the man. He looked disturbed, as if he did not know what to think. Private Stanton was sitting in his saddle with an expressionless face a few yards away, but she imagined it was intended that he should hear her answers.
“Well,” Curtis resumed, “I have to ask what he said to you; anyway, so far as it bears on the business we have in hand. You know why I was sent for?”
Gertrude hesitated. She was very angry with Prescott, and there was a statement he had made which would prove damaging to him if she repeated part of it without the rest. She shrank from this course, but her rancor against the man suddenly grew too strong for her.
“I suppose I must answer that?”
“It’s your duty.”
“Then,” she said in a strained voice, “Mr. Prescott told me he was going away.”
“Going away!” Curtis looked astonished. “I guess you realize that this is a serious matter. Did he mention when?”
“I understood it would be very soon.” Gertrude looked at the man haughtily. “That is all I have to tell.”
She went into the house, feeling that she had said enough, and Curtis motioned to his companion and rode away. They had gone some distance when Stanton turned to his superior.
“Pretty significant. What are you going to do about it?” he asked.
“I’ll have to apply for a warrant.”
“You certainly will.”
“Well,” Curtis went on, “this thing isn’t quite so simple as it seems. To begin with, it’s my idea that Miss Jernyngham hasn’t told us all she knows; you want to remember that Prescott’s a good-looking fellow with a taking manner. I can see complications, though I can’t get the right drift of them.”
“Guess the matter will be worse mussed up if Prescott lights out. Now that Bardsley’s gone down the line, you can’t get your warrant for a day or two.”
“That’s so,” Curtis agreed. “I’ll make for the settlement and wire Bardsley and our bosses at Regina; you’ll ride on and keep Prescott in sight—though it would be better if you didn’t let him know you were watching him. When he clears, take the trail behind him and send back word to Sebastian. Soon as I get the warrant or instructions, I’ll come after you.”
They separated and some time later Stanton took up his station in a bluff which commanded a view of the Prescott homestead. Lying hidden with his horse, he saw the rancher drive up and disappear within the house. Prescott had been very busy during the past two days and had found strenuous application something of a relief. He recognized that suspicion was centering on him and that he might expect a visit from the police, but the only way of proving his innocence that he could see was to produce his supposed victim. He foresaw that it might take a long while to find the man, and he must make preparations for a lengthy absence. The risk he ran in remaining until he had completed them was grave, but there was a vein of dogged persistency in him and he would not go before he was ready.
He had, however, other matters to think of. Miss Jernyngham had turned against him; after the confidence she had expressed, he could not understand why she had done so. Muriel Hurst, however, still believed in him, which was a comforting thought, though he would not permit himself to dwell on it. He loved the girl, but it seemed impossible that she should marry him. There was so much against this: the mode of life to which she had been accustomed, his obscure position, the prejudices of her relations. He blamed himself for not struggling more determinedly against the charm she had exerted on him; but it was too late to regret this now. He must bear his trouble and try to think of her as seldom as possible, which would be the easier, inasmuch as the work that waited him would demand his close attention. As soon as it grew dark that evening, he must set off on his search for Cyril Jernyngham.
Dusk was falling when he rode away from the homestead with a couple of blankets and provisions for a few days strapped to his saddle. Though he could trust Svendsen to look after things in his absence, he was anxious and dejected, and it was with keen regret that he cast a last glance across the sweep of shadowy stubble toward the lighted windows of the house. All he saw belonged to him; he had by patient labor in frost and scorching sun built up the farm, and he was conscious of a strong love for it. It was hard to go away, an outcast, branded with black suspicion, leaving the place in another’s charge; but there was no remedy.
The sky was faintly clouded, the moon, which was near its setting, obscured; the prairie ran back, dim and blurred; the air was keen and still. Prescott thought he heard a soft beat of hoofs behind him. He could, however, see nobody, and he rode on faster, heading for the house of a neighbor with whom he had some business, near the trail to the settlement. After a while he pulled up, and listening carefully heard the sound again. It looked as if he were being followed and he thought that if the police were on his trail, they would expect him to make for the American frontier, and to do that he must pass through or near Sebastian. If they believed this was his object, it might save him trouble, for he meant to ride north in search of Jernyngham after calling at the farm.
Checking his horse, he rode on without haste until it became obvious that the man behind was drawing up, then he set off at a gallop. Behind the farm he meant to visit lay a belt of broken ground, marked by scrub and scattered bluffs, where it should not be difficult to evade his pursuer. The staccato thud of the gallop would ringfar through the still, night air, but this was of no consequence; he was some distance ahead and his horse was fresh and powerful. In a few minutes he believed that he was gaining and when he rode into sight of the little wooden house, which showed up black against the sky with one dim light in it, he was seized by a new idea. A horse stood outside the door, and he supposed the rancher had just returned. The man was a friend of Prescott’s and believed in his innocence.
“Larry,” he cried as he rode up, and added when a shadowy figure came out: “You can send along your teams and do that breaking we were speaking of. Svendsen will pay you when you’re through with it. I’m off to the north.”
“Ah!” exclaimed the other sharply. “I guess I know what you’re after. It strikes me you should have gone before.”
He paused with a lifted hand as he heard the drumming of hoofs, and Prescott laughed.
“That’s so. I believe you’ll have a police trooper here in the next few minutes. Your horse is still saddled?”
“Yes; I’ve just come back from Gillom’s.”
“Then get up and ride for the settlement. Mail an order for some harness or anything useful to Regina by the night train, when you get there; you can let Svendsen have the bill. You had better go pretty fast and keep ahead of the trooper as long as you can. I guess you understand.”
“Sure,” grinned the other, and getting into the saddle, rode away at a smart trot, while Prescott dismounted and led his horse quietly toward the nearest bluff.
On reaching it he stopped and, listening carefully,heard the rancher riding down the trail to Sebastian, and another beat of hoofs that grew rapidly louder. By and by he made out a dim mounted figure that pressed on fast across the shadowy waste, and for a few anxious moments wondered whether the policeman would call at the house and discover its owner’s absence. He passed on, however, and was presently lost in the darkness. When the drumming of his horse’s hoofs gradually died away, Prescott mounted and rode hard toward the north. It would, he thought, be an hour or two before the trooper found out his mistake; the rancher would not betray him, and there was a prospect of his getting clear away.
CHAPTER XIIITHE CONSTRUCTION CAMP
The light was fading when Prescott walked into sight of the construction camp. It was situated on the edge of a belt of a muskeg sprinkled with birches and small pines, where the new railroad, leaving the open country to the south, ran up toward the great coniferous forest that fringes the northern portion of the prairie. Prescott had sold his horse at a lonely farm and he was now tired and hungry, but he felt satisfied that he was on the right track and had succeeded in eluding the police. Curtis and Private Stanton were men of fixed ideas; believing Jernyngham to be dead, they had, no doubt, merely made a few perfunctory inquiries at the nearest railroad camps. Moreover, as they had reason for concluding that Prescott would seek refuge across the American boundary, they would concentrate their efforts on looking for him there. Accordingly, he felt safe from pursuit.
By and by he stopped to look about. To the eastward all was gray, a dim waste of grass dotted with shadowy trees; but a vivid band of green still glowed on the western horizon. In front lay a broad shallow basin, streaked with filmy trails of mist, between which came the wan gleam of little pools. A causeway stretched out into the morass, sprinkled with the indistinct figures of toiling men. At its inner end, where it left the higher ground, a row of cars stood on a side-track, and near-bythere were ranged straggling lines of tents and wooden shacks. Wisps of blue smoke drifted across the swamp, and a beam of strong white light streamed out from the electric head-lamp of a locomotive. The still air was filled with the clink of shovels, the clang of flung-down rails, and the sharp rattle of falling gravel.
Going on until he reached the camp, Prescott stopped beside a group of men sitting about a fire, and loosed the heavy pack that galled his shoulders.
“If you can give me a place to lie down and a bit of supper, boys, I’d be obliged,” he said.
Two or three of them turned and looked at him without much curiosity. They were strong, brown-faced fellows, dressed in old duck overalls and slate-colored shirts, with shapeless hats and dilapidated knee-boots.
“Why, certainly,” responded one in a clean English intonation. “However, as we’re paying for our board, we’ll have to invite you as the guest of the construction contractor; but there’s no reason you should be shy about accepting his hospitality. Sit down until Shan Li brings the grub along.”
“Here’s a place,” said another. “Want a job?”
“I don’t know yet,” Prescott answered. “I’m looking for a friend of mine: man of middle height, with pale-blue eyes and a curious twinkling smile. He was wearing a green shirt of finer stuff than they generally sell at the settlements when I last saw him, and I expect he’d have a fresh scar on his head.”
There was signs of interest and amusement which suggested that Prescott was on the right track.
“Did he call himself Kermode?” one of the men asked.
Prescott hesitated. It was possible that some of them had heard of the Jernyngham affair, and he had no wish that they should connect him with it. While he considered his answer, the man with the English accent broke in:
“We needn’t trouble about the point. One name’s as good as another, as our friend Kermode, who seems to have been a bit of philosopher, remarked when they put him on the pay-roll.”
“When I was back at Nelson a smart policeman rode into the camp,” said another of the group. “Wanted to know if we had seen the man you’re asking for; gave us quite a good description of him. Anyway, I hadn’t seen him then, and when I struck him afterward I didn’t send word to the police. I’ve no use for those fellows; they’re best left alone.”
“Then you know him?” Prescott exclaimed eagerly.
The man looked at his comrades and there was a laugh.
“Oh, yes,” said one of them; “we know him all right. Glad to meet a man who’s a friend of his; but if you expect a job here, you don’t want to mention it. If another fellow of that kind comes along, the boss will get after him with a gun.”
“Kermode,” the Englishman explained, “is a man of happy and original thoughts. I believe I might say he is unique.”
The conversation was interrupted by a steadily increasing rattle, and a great light that moved swiftly blazed on the camp. It faded as a ballast-train rolled out upon the bank which traversed the swamp, with a swarm of indistinct figures clinging to the low cars. When it stopped, the sides of the cars fell outward, a big plow moved forward from one to another, and broken rockand gravel, pouring off, went crashing and rattling down the slope. The noise it made rang harshly through the stillness of the evening, and when it ceased a whistle screamed and the clangor of the wheels began again. As the engine backed the train away, the blaze of the head-lamp fell on an object lying half buried in the muskeg about sixty feet below the line, and one of the men, pointing to it, touched Prescott’s arm.
“See what that is?” he said.
Prescott saw that it was what the railroad builders call a steel dump: a metal wagon capable of carrying thirty or forty tons of ballast, with an automatic arrangement for throwing out its load.
“How did it get there?” he asked.
“Tell you after supper,” said the fellow. “They’re bringing it along.”
A whistle blew and Prescott followed his companions into a shed built of railroad ties and galvanized iron. It was lighted by kerosene lamps which diffused an unpleasant odor, and fitted with rude tables and benches; but the meal laid out in it was bountiful and varied: pork, hard steak, fish from the lakes, potatoes, desiccated fruits, and tea. The shovel-gang paid six dollars a week for their board and got good value. As usual, most of them were satisfied in fifteen minutes, for in the West the rank and file eat with determined haste, and when they trooped out Prescott went back with his new friends to the fire. Taking out his pipe, he made himself as comfortable as possible on a pile of gravel and, tired with a long day’s march, looked lazily about. The strong light still blazed along the bank where hurrying men passed through the stream of radiance, vanished into the shadows, and appeared again. There was a continuous rattling andclinking and roar of falling stones; rails rang as they were moved, and now and then hoarse orders came out of the darkness.
After Prescott had asked a few leading questions, the men began to talk of Kermode, who had already left the camp, and the rancher was able to put together the story of his doings there.
The muskeg was an unusually bad one. It swallowed the rock the men dumped in; logs, brush, and branches afforded no foundation, and a long time elapsed before the engineers were satisfied about the base of the embankment. The weather remained unusually hot until late in the fall, and the contractor, already behind time and anxious to make progress before the frost interfered with his work, developed a virulent temper. His construction foreman drove the men mercilessly, spurring on the laggards with scathing words and occasionally using a heavy fist when they showed resentment. The laborers’ nerves were worn raw, their strength was exhausted; but the muskeg must be filled and, while carload after carload of rock and gravel was hurled down, the line crept on.
Things were in this state when Kermode reached the camp and, on applying for work, was given a shovel and made to use it in a strenuous fashion. It appeared that he was not expert with the tool and the foreman’s most pointed remarks were generally addressed to him, but he had a humorous manner which gained him friends. Once or twice, to his comrades’ admiration, he engaged his persecutor in a wordy contest and badly routed him, which did not improve matters. Indeed, his last victory proved a costly one, because afterward when there was anything particularly unpleasant or dangerous to be done, Kermodewas selected. As it happened, the risks that must be faced were numerous.
Kermode stood it for some weeks, though he grew thin and his hands were often bleeding. In spite of this, his eyes still twinkled mischievously and, when occasion demanded, his retort was swift and edged with wit. Now and then he made reprisals, for when, as happened once or twice, a load of gravel nearly swept the foreman down the bank, Kermode was engaged in the vicinity. Another time, the bullying martinet was forced to jump into the muskeg, where he sank to the waist, in order to avoid a mass of ballast sent down before its descent was looked for.
There was a difference of opinion about the cause of Kermode’s holding out. Some of his comrades said he must have meant to wait for the arrival of the pay car, so as to draw his wages before he left; others declared that this did not count with him, and he stayed because he would not be driven out. The Englishman took the latter view for, as he told Prescott, Kermode once said to him, “I want the opposition to remember me when I quit.”
By degrees the foreman’s gibes grew less frequent. Kermode was more than a match for him, and his barbed replies were repeated with laughter about the camp; but his oppressor now relied on galling commands which could not be disobeyed. Kermode’s companions sympathized with him, and waited for the inevitable rupture, which they thought would take a dramatic shape. At length two big steel dump cars were sent up from the east and run backward and forward between the muskeg and a distant cutting where they were filled with broken rock. This was deposited in places where the embankment needed the most reinforcing, but after a while the foremandecided that the locomotive of the gravel train need not be detained to move the cars. They could, he said, be pushed by hand, and nobody was surprised when Kermode was among the men chosen for the task.
Though the nights were getting cold, the days were still very hot, and those engaged in it found the work of propelling a steel car carrying about thirty tons of stone over rails laid roughly on a slight upward grade remarkably arduous. This, however, did not content the foreman. He took two men away; and when those whom he left had been worked to exhaustion, he changed them, with the exception of Kermode, who was kept steadily at the task. As a result, he came to be looked on as leader of the gang, and his companions took their instructions from him, which the foreman concurred in, because it enabled him to hold Kermode responsible for everything that went wrong.
Then the pay car arrived, and when wages were drawn, the men awaited developments with interest; but nothing unusual occurred until a week had passed. Kermode had had his hand crushed by a heavy stone and meant to rest it for a day or two, but his persecutor drove him out to work. He obeyed with suspicious meekness and toiled in the scorching sun all day; but a few minutes before the signal to stop in the evening for which they were eagerly waiting, the gang was ordered to run a loaded dump car to the end of the line. The men were worn out, short in temper, and dripping with perspiration. Kermode’s hand pained him and in trying to save it he had strained his shoulder; but he encouraged the others, and they slowly pushed the load along, moving it a yard or two, and stopping for breath. The men on the bank were dawdling through the last few minutes, waiting tolay down their tools, and they offered the gang their sympathy as they passed. Then there was a change in their attitude as the foreman strode up the track.
“Shove!” he ordered. “Get a move on! You have to dump that rock before you quit.”
They were ready to turn on him and Kermode’s eyes flashed; but he spoke quietly to his men:
“Push!”
A few more yards were covered, the foreman walking beside the gang until they stopped for breath.
“Get on!” he cried. “Send her along, you slobs!”
“We’re pretty near the top of the grade,” Kermode answered him quietly. “We want to go easy, so as to stop her at the dumping-place.”
The line, when finished, would cross the muskeg with a slight ascent; but the bank sank as they worked at it, and the track now led downhill toward its end. The foreman failed to remember this in his vicious mood.
“Are you going to call me down?” he roared. “Mean to teach me my job? If this crowd’s a sample of white men, give me Chinamen or niggers! Get on before you make me sick, you slouching hogs!”
He became more insulting, using terms unbearable even in a construction camp, but Kermode did not answer him.
“Keep her going, boys,” he said.
They made another few yards, gasping, panting, with dripping faces; and then the work grew easier as they crossed the top of the ascent.
“Push!” said Kermode. “Send her along!”
They looked at him in surprise. It was getting dark, but they could still see his face, which was quietly resolute; he evidently meant what he said, and they obeyed him.The big car began to move more freely, and they waited for an order to slacken the pace; but their leader seemed to be increasing his exertions and his eyes gleamed.
“He told us to push, boys!” he reminded them. “Rush her ahead!”
Then comprehension dawned on them. The foreman had dropped behind, satisfied, perhaps, with bullying them, but every man taxed his tired muscles for a last effort. The wheels turned faster, the men broke into a run, and none of them was astonished when a warning cry rose behind them.
“Go on!” shouted Kermode. “He’ll hold me responsible! You know what to do!”
Men along the line called to them as they passed, and they answered with a breathless yell. The car was gathering speed, and they kept it going. There were further warnings, but they held on, until Kermode raised his voice harshly:
“A good shove, boys, and let her go!”
They stopped, exhausted, but the dump rolled on with its heavy load of rock, struck the guard-beams at the end of the track and smashed through them. Then with a crash and a roar the big steel car plunged down the slope, plowing up the gravel, hurling out massive stones. A cloud of dust leaped about it; there was a shrill ringing sound as an axle broke, a last downward leap, and with a mighty splash the dump came to rest, half buried, in the muskeg.
Kermode turned with a cheerful smile as the foreman ran up; and the spectators knew that the time for words had passed. Nobody could remember who struck the first blow, but Kermode’s left hand was injured, and he clinched as soon as he could. For a few minutes themen reeled about the track; and then with a tense effort Kermode pushed the foreman off the bank and went down with him. The gravel was small and slippery, lying at a steep slope, and they rolled down, still grappling with each other, until there was a splash below. A few moments later Kermode painfully climbed the bank alone.
“I guess you had better go down and pull your boss out,” he said. “It’s pretty soft in the muskeg; I believe he got his head in, and by the way he’s floundering it looks as if he couldn’t see.” He paused and waved his hand in genial farewell. “Good-night, boys! I’m sorry I have to leave you; but considering everything, I think I’ll take the trail.”
Then he turned and moved down the track, vanishing into the growing darkness.
When the tale was finished, Prescott sat a while, smoking thoughtfully. He imagined that he had struck Jernyngham’s trail; all that he had heard was characteristic of the man.
“Do you know where Kermode went?” he asked.
“No. Guess he might have headed for a camp farther west; I’ve heard they’re short of men.”
Prescott thought this probable and determined to resume his search in the morning. Presently the gravel train came back and the stream of light from the head-lamp, blazing along the embankment, rested on the half-buried dump. Then there was a roar as the plow flung the load off the cars, and in the silence that followed one of the men got up.
“Morning will come soon enough; I guess it’s time for sleep,” he said.
CHAPTER XIVON THE TRAIL
When Prescott got up the next morning, dawn was breaking across the muskeg. There was frost in the air, the freight-cars on the side-track and the roofs of the shacks were white, and a nipping breeze swept through the camp. It was already filled with sounds of activity—hoarse voices, heavy footsteps, the tolling of a locomotive bell, and the rattle of wheels—and Prescott’s new friends were eating in a neighboring shed. Going in, he was supplied with breakfast, and when he left the table the Englishman joined him.
“Have you made up your mind whether you want a job or not?” he asked.
Prescott said he thought he would push on, and the man looked at him deprecatingly.
“Well,” he said, “we don’t want to appear inhospitable, but as things are run here, you’re the guest of the boss, and since he didn’t give the invitation, there might be trouble if he noticed you.”
“As it happens, I want to get hold of Kermode as soon as I can,” Prescott answered.
“You shouldn’t have much difficulty in finding him. It’s hardly possible for a man of his gifts to go through the country without leaving a plain trail behind.”
Prescott agreed with this. He had not much doubt of Kermode’s identity, and he thought his missing friendwould give any acquaintances he made on his travels cause to remember him.
“There’s a construction train starting west in about half an hour,” resumed the railroad hand. “If you get on board with the boys, it will look as if you belonged to the gang.”
Daylight had come when Prescott clambered up on one of the long flat cars loaded with rails and ties, and in a few minutes the train started. It followed what was called a cut-out line, which worked round the muskeg and back to the main track through a country too difficult for the latter to traverse; and for a while Prescott’s interest was occupied by its progress. Groups of men in brown overalls were seated on the rails, which clanged musically in rude harmony with the clatter of the wheels. A sooty cloud streamed back above them, now and then blotting out the clusters of figures; the cars swayed and shook, and in view of the roughness of the line Prescott admired the nerve of the engineer.
The wind that whipped his face was cold and pierced the blanket he had flung over his shoulders; but the sunshine was growing brighter and the mist in the hollows was rapidly vanishing. As a rule, the depressions were swampy, and as they sped across them Prescott could see the huge locomotive rocking, while the rails, which were spiked to ties thrown down on brush, sank beneath the weight and sprang up again as the cars jolted by. As they rushed down tortuous declivities, the cars banged and canted round the curves, while Prescott held on tight, his feet braced against a rail. It was better when they joined the graded track, and toward noon he was given a meal with the others at a camp where a bridge was being strengthened. When they startedagain, he lay down in his blanket where the sunshine fell upon him and the end of the car kept off the wind, and lighting his pipe became lost in reflection.
It was obvious that he must use every effort to find Jernyngham and he thought he might succeed in this; but what then? To prove his innocence, in which she already believed, would not bridge the gulf between him and Muriel Hurst. It seemed impossible that she should be willing to marry a working rancher. Yet he knew that he could not overcome his love for her; there was pleasure as well as pain in remembering her frankness and gaiety and confidence in him; and the charm of her beauty was strong. He recalled the crimson of her lips, the glow of warm color in her hair, the brightness of her smile, and the softness he had once or twice seen in her violet eyes. Then he drove these thoughts away; to indulge in them would only make the self-denial he must practise the harder.
He next tried to occupy his mind with Gertrude Jernyngham, for he was still without a clue to her disconcerting change of mood. She had no great attraction for him, but he had pitied her and found a certain pleasure in her society. It was strange that after taking his view of her brother’s fate against the one her father held, she should suddenly turn upon him in bitter anger. He was hurt at this, particularly as he did not think the revelation that he had personated Cyril accounted for everything. However, as it was unavoidable, he thought he could bear Miss Jernyngham’s suspicion.
He was disturbed in his reflections by a sudden jolt of the train as it stopped at a water-tank. Getting down with the others, he saw a man standing in the entrance of ahalf-finished wooden building. The fellow looked like a mechanic, and his short blue-serge jacket and other details of his dress suggested that he was an Englishman. On speaking to him, Prescott learned that the train would be detained a while, because a locomotive and some empty cars were coming down the line. The man further mentioned that a number of railroad hands had been engaged in putting up the building until lately, when they had been sent on somewhere else, and Prescott inquired if there had been a man among them who answered to his friend’s description.
“There was,” said the other dryly, and called to somebody inside: “Here’s a fellow asking for Kermode!”
“Bring him in!” replied a voice, and Prescott entered the building.
It contained a pump and two large steel tanks. Near one of them a man was doing something with a drill, but he took out his pipe and pointed to a piece of sacking laid on a beam.
“Sit down and have a smoke,” he said. “You have plenty of time. Was Kermode a friend of yours?”
Prescott looked about the place. He saw that it was a filtering station for the treatment of water unfit for locomotive use.
“Thanks,” he responded. “I knew Kermode pretty well; but I needn’t stop you.”
“Oh, don’t mind that!” grinned the other. “We’re not paid by the piece on this job. Besides, they’ve some chisels for us on your train and we haven’t got them yet.”
“You’re English, aren’t you?” Prescott asked. “Are you stopping out here?”
“Not much!” exclaimed the other with scorn. “Whatd’you take me for? There’s more in life than whacking rivets and holding the caulker. When a man has finished his work in this wilderness, what has he to do? There’s no music halls, no nothing; only the dismal prairie that makes your eyes sore to look at.”
Prescott had heard other Englishmen express themselves in a similar fashion, and he laughed.
“If that’s what you think of the country, why did you come here?”
“Big wages,” replied the first man, entering the building. “Funny, isn’t it, that when you want good work done you have to send for us? Every machine-shop in your country’s full of labor-saving and ingenious tools, but when you build bridges with them they fall down, and I’ve seen tanks that wouldn’t hold water.”
“Oh, well,” said Prescott, divided between amusement and impatience, “this isn’t to the point. I understand Kermode was here with you?”
“He was. Came in on a construction train, looking for a job, and when we saw he was from the old country we put him on.”
“You put him on? Don’t these things rest with the division boss?”
The man grinned.
“You don’t understand. We’re specialists and get what we ask for. Sent the boss word we wanted an assistant, and, as we’d picked one up, all he had to do was to put him on the pay-roll.”
“And did Kermode get through his work satisfactorily?”
“For a while. He was a handy man; might have made a boiler-maker if he’d took to it young. When we had nothing else to keep him busy, he’d cut tobacco for us and set us laughing with his funny talk.”
This was much in keeping with Jernyngham’s character. But the man went on:
“When we’d made him a pretty good hand with the file and drill, he got Bill to teach him how to caulk. He shaped first-rate, so one day we thought we’d leave him to it while we went off for a jaunt. Bill had bought an old shot-gun from a farmer, and we’d seen a lot of wild hens about.”
“It would be close time—you can only shoot them in October; but I suppose that wouldn’t count.”
“Not a bit,” said the boiler-maker. “All we were afraid of was that a train might come in with the boss on board; but we chanced it. We told Kermode he might go round the tank-plate landings—the laps, you know—with the caulker, and give them a rough tuck in, ready for us to finish; and then we went off. Well, we didn’t shoot any wild hens, though Bill got some pellets in his leg, and when we came back we both felt pretty bad when we saw what Kermode had done. Bill couldn’t think of names enough to call him, and he’s good at it.”
“What had he done?”
“Hammered the inside of the landings down with a gullet you could put your finger in. Too much energy’s your mate’s complaint. Nobody could tell what that man would do when he gets steam up. Understand, we’re boiler-making specialists, sent out on awkward jobs; and he’d put in work that would disgrace a farmer! For all that, it was Bill’s fault for speaking his mind too free—he got thrown behind the tank.”
“I wasn’t,” contradicted the other. “He jumped at me unexpected when the spanner hit him, and I fell.”
Prescott laughed. Remembering how Jernyngham had driven a truculent rabble out of Sebastian, he couldimagine the scene in the shed; but it was evident that the boiler-makers bore him no malice.
“After all,” said the first one, “when we cooled off and got talking quiet, he said he’d better go, and we parted friendly.”
“Do you know where he went?”
“I don’t; we didn’t care. We’d had enough of him. First thing was to put that caulking right, and we spent three or four days driving the landings down—you can do a lot with good soft steel. Anyhow, when we filled up the time-sheet showing how far we’d got on with the job, there was a nasty letter from the engineer. Wanted to know what we’d been playing at and said he’d have us sent home if we couldn’t do better.”
While Prescott thanked them for the information a bell began to toll and there was a rattle of wheels. Hurrying out, he saw a locomotive approaching the tank and men clambering on to the cars in which he had traveled. Soon after he joined them, the train rolled out of the side-track and sped west, clattering and jolting toward the lurid sunset that burned upon the edge of the plain. Jack-pines and scattered birches stood out hard and black against the glare, the rails blazed with crimson fire and faded as the ruddy light changed to cold green, and there was a sting of frost in the breeze.
They dropped a few men at places where work was going on, stopped for water, and crawled at slow speed over half-finished bridges and lengths of roughly graded line. After nightfall it grew bitterly cold and Prescott, lying on the boards with his blanket over him, shivered, half asleep. For the most part, darkness shut them in, but every now and then lights blazed beside the line and voices hailed the engineer as the pace decreased. Then,while the whistle shrieked, ballast cars on a side-track and tall iron frameworks slipped by, and they ran out again into the silent waste. Prescott was conscious of a continuous jolting which shook him to and fro; he thought he heard a confused altercation among his companions at the end of the car, and the clang of wheels and the shaking rails rang in measured cadence in his ears. Then the sounds died away and he fell into a heavy sleep.
It was noon the next day when he alighted, aching all over, where the line ran into a deep hollow between fir-clad hills. A stream came flashing through the gorge and at the mouth of it shacks and tents and small frame houses straggled up a rise, with a wooden church behind them. Farther up, the hollow was filled with somber conifers, and the hills above it ran back, ridge beyond ridge, into the distance. Then, looking very high and far away, a vast chain of snowy summits was etched against a sky of softest blue. Those that caught the light gleamed with silvery brightness, but part of the great range lay in shadow, steeped in varying hues of ethereal gray. From north to south, as far as the eye could follow, the serrated line of crag and peak swept on majestically.
Tired as he was, Prescott felt the impressiveness of the spectacle; but he had other things to think about, and slipping away from the railroad hands, he turned toward a rude frame hotel which stood among the firs beside the river. Rows of tall stumps spread about it, farther back lay rows of logs, diffusing a sweet resinous fragrance. Through a gap between the towering trunks one looked up the wild, forest-shrouded gorge, and the litter of old provision cans, general refuse, and discardedboots could not spoil the beauty of the scene. Prescott asked for a room; and sitting outside after dinner, he gathered from some men, who were not working, the story of Kermode’s next exploit. Their accounts of it were terse and somewhat disconnected, but Prescott was afterward able to amplify them from the narrative of a more cultured person.
Kermode had been unloading rails all day, and he was standing on the veranda one evening when a supply train from the east was due. It appeared that he had renewed his wardrobe at the local store and invariably changed his clothes when his work was finished. This was looked upon as a very unusual thing, and his companions thought it even more curious that he had not been known to enter the bar of the hotel; its proprietor was emphatic on the point. A number of railroad hands lounged about, attired as usual in their working clothes.
At length the tolling of a bell broke through the silence of the woods and the train ran in. The rutted street became crowded with unkempt, thirsty men, and in a few minutes the hotel was filled with their harsh voices. Last of all appeared a girl, with a very untidy man carrying a bag beside her. She walked with a limp, and looked jaded and rather frightened. Her light cloak was thick with dust and locomotive cinders which clung to the woolly material; her face was hot and anxious, but attractive.
“Thank you,” she said to her companion, opening her purse when they reached the veranda.
“Shucks! You can put that back,” returned the man with an awkward gesture and then, lifting the bag, carefully replaced the end of a garment that projectedthrough the bottom. “I’ll carry the grip in for you, but you want to be careful with the thing. Seems to have got busted when the rails fell on it.”
The girl passed through a wire-net door that he opened, and Kermode, following, waited for several minutes after her companion had rung a bell. Then a man in a white shirt and smart clothes appeared.
“Can I send a telegram from here to Drummond?” she asked him.
“No; the wires won’t run into that district until next year.”
“How can I get there?”
“I guess you’ll have to hire a team at the livery-stable; take you about three days to get through.”
The girl looked dismayed.
“Then can you give me a room to-night?” she asked.
“Sorry,” said the man, “we’re full up with the railroad boys; the waitresses have to camp in the kitchen. Don’t know if anybody can take you in; the track bosses have got all the rooms in town.”
He disappeared and the girl sat down, looking very forlorn and disconsolate. Her voice was English and she had obviously traveled a long distance in an open car on the supply train. Kermode felt sorry for her. He took off his hat as he approached.
“If you don’t mind waiting a few minutes, I’ll see if I can find you quarters,” he said.
She glanced at him suspiciously, with a heightened color, which he thought a favorable sign, but her eyes grew more confident and when she agreed he withdrew. As a man of experience who had been a favorite with women, he was, however, guilty of an error of judgment during his search. A smart young woman with whom hewas on friendly terms managed a cigar store, and it is possible that she would have taken some trouble to oblige him; but his request that she should offer shelter to another girl whose acquaintance he seemed to have made in a most casual manner was received with marked coldness. Kermode, indeed, felt sorry he had suggested it when he left the store and set out for a shack belonging to the widow of a man killed on the line. She was elderly and grim, a strict Methodist from the east, who earned a pittance by mending the workmen’s clothes. After catechizing Kermode severely, she gave a very qualified assent; and returning to the hotel, he found the girl anxiously waiting for him. She looked relieved when he reported his success.
“I had better go at once,” she said. “You think Mrs. Jasper will take me in?”
Kermode picked up the bag.
“To tell the truth, she only promised to have a look at you.” Then he smiled reassuringly. “I’ve no doubt there’ll be no difficulty when she has done so.”
The girl followed him and, as they went slowly up the street, while all the loungers watched them, she gave Kermode a confused explanation. Her name was Helen Foster, and she had come from England to join a brother who had taken up a farm near Drummond, which Prescott had heard was a remote settlement. Her brother had told her to notify him on her arrival at Winnipeg and await instructions, but on board the steamer she had met the wife of a railroad man engaged on the new line who had offered her company to a point in the west from which Helen could reach her destination. On arriving at the railroad man’s station, he had sent her on by the supply train.
A little distance up the street, Kermode stopped outside a shed in which a fellow of unprepossessing appearance was rubbing down a horse. His character, as Kermode knew, was no better than his looks.
“I must see the liveryman,” he told the girl, and when he had sent the hostler for him the proprietor came out.
“The round-trip to Drummond will take six days, and you’d want a team,” he said. “I’d have to charge you thirty dollars.”
Kermode looked dubious, his companion dismayed. She had three dollars and a few cents.
“Can you drive this lady there?” Kermode asked.
“I can’t. Jim would have to go.”
“I think not,” said Kermode firmly. “I’ll see you about a saddle-horse in the morning.” He turned to the girl: “We’ll go along again.”
A few minutes later they reached the widow’s shack and Kermode waited some time after his companion was admitted. As she did not come out, he concluded that Mrs. Jasper was satisfied and returned to the hotel, where he was freely bantered by the loungers.
“That will do, boys,” he said at length. “If there’s any more of this kind of talk, the man who keeps it up will get badly hurt.”
They saw that he meant it and, as he was popular, they left him in peace.