Awaking while it was still dark, the camp rubbed sleepy eyes and looked out, shivering, on smouldering smudges. Outside, the air whined of mosquitoes. At the long hay-racks horses snorted and pawed frantically under the winged torture; patient oxen uttered mained lowings. Growling and grumbling, the camp distributed itself—teamsters to feed and rebuild smudges, choppers and sawyers to the grindstone and filing-benches. It was a cold, dank world. Pessimism prevailed to the extent that a man needed to walk straitly, minding his own business, if he would avoid quarrel. But optimism came with dawn—teamsters hissed cheerfully over their currying, saw-filers and grinders indulged in snatches of song—reaching a climax with the breakfast-call. When, half an hour later, Dorothy appeared in the cook-house doorway, the camp had spilled its freight of men and teams into the forest.Warned by the shadow, the cook looked up and saw her in Stetson hat, short skirt, high-laced shoes, a sunlit vision with the freshness of the morning upon its cheeks. "God bless you! Come right in," he exclaimed. "Your daddy an' Mr. Hart hev' gone down line. Devil's Muskeg got hungry las' night an' swallered ten thousand yards of gradin'."As yet she knew nothing of those treacherous sinks that gulp grades, trestles, and the reputations of their builders as a frog swallows flies, and he went on, answering her puzzled look: "Morass, you know, swamp with quicksand foundation that goes clean down to China. Nope, 'tain't Mr. Carter's loss. He ain't such a fool as to go an' load a muskeg down with clay and rock. An Easterner had it on a sub-contract, an' though Mr. Carter warned him, he reckoned he could make it bear a grade on brush hurdles. Crowed like a Shanghai rooster because it carried trains for a week."Oh, I don't know," he commented upon her pity for the luckless contractor. "You kain't do nothin' with them Easterners. He was warned. Besides," he vengefully added, "he shedn't ha' come crowing over us. More coffee, miss?"Leaving the cook-house, a shadow fell between her and the sun, and Carter gave her good-morning. "Breaks the poor devil," he supplemented the cook's information, "and bothers us. Cuts off our communications. We shall have to move the outfits back to prairie grading till they are re-established. I'm going down there—now, if you'd like a hand-car ride?"Would she? In five minutes she was speeding along under urge of ten strong arms, over high trestles which gave her sudden livid gleams of water far below, through yellow cuts, across hollow-sounding bridges, always between serried ranks of sombre spruce. Sometimes the car rolled in between long lines of men who were tamping gravel under the ties. Rough fellows at the best, they had herded for months in straw and dirt, seeing nothing daintier than their unlovely selves, and as they were not the kind that mortifies the flesh, the girl was much embarrassed by the fire of eyes. Apart from that, she hugely enjoyed the ride. With feet almost touching the road-bed, she got all there was of the motion, besides most of the wind that blew her hair into a dark cloud and set wild roses blooming in her cheeks.She gained, too, a new view-point of Carter, who chatted gayly, pointing, explaining, as though they were merely out for pleasure and another had not been just added to the heavy cares that burdened his broad shoulders. She learned more of the life, its hardship, comedy, tragedy, in half an hour's conversation, than she could have obtained for herself in a year's experience.These different elements sometimes mixed—as when he indicated a blackened excavation. "See that? A man was sitting on the stump that was blasted out there. Reckon he got sort of tired of the world," he replied to her horrified question, "and wanted a good start for the next." Then, easily philosophical, quietly discursive, he wandered along, touching the suicide's motives. There had been different theories—drink, religion, a girl—but he himself inclined to aggravated unsociability. The sombre forest, with its immensity of sad, environing space, had translated mere moroseness into confirmed hypochondria. He had so bored the stumping outfit, to which he belonged, with pessimistic remarks on things in general that, in self-defence, they threw something at him whenever he opened his mouth; and so, bottled up, his gloom accumulated until, in an unusually dismal moment, he placed a full box of dynamite under a stump and sat down to await results."Why didn't some one pull him off?" she cried.His answer was pregnant. "Short fuse. Anyway, the boys didn't feel any call to mix in his experiments—especially as he swore a blue streak at them till the stump lifted.""Horrible!" she breathed."Just what they said." He solemnly misunderstood her. "They never heard such language. 'Twas dreadfully out of place at a funeral.""Oh—I didn't mean that!" Then, considering his serious gravity, "Was—was there—""Pretty clean." He relieved her of the remainder of the question. "Mostly translated."Incredulous, she glanced from him to his men and received grisly confirmation, for one thrust out a grimy finger to show a horseshoe ring. "I picked it up on the track, miss, forty rod from the—obseq'ses. Didn't allow he'd want it again."Shuddering, she turned back to Carter, but before she could make further comment the car rolled from a cut out on the edge of the Devil's Muskeg.She thought him cold-blooded until, that evening, she learned from her friend, the cook, that he had been caught on the edge of the blast as he rushed to save the man and had been thrown a hundred feet. A little disappointed by his apparent callousness, she joined her father and lover, who, with the contractor, stood looking out over the muskeg. Sterile, flat, white with alkali save where black slime oozed from the sunken grade, it stretched a long mile on either side of the right of way. Around its edges skeleton trees thrust blanched limbs upward through the mud, and beyond this charnel forest loomed the omnipresent spruce. In spring-time its quaking depths would have opened under a fox's light padding, but the summer's sun had dried the surface until it carried a team—which fact had lured the contractor to his financial doom. A fat, gross man, he stood mopping his brow and wildly gesticulating towards the half-mile of rails that, with their ties, lay like the backbone of some primeval lizard along the mud, calling heaven and the chief engineer to witness that this calamity was beyond the prevision of man."'Jedgment of God,' it's termed in government contrac's," he exclaimed to the chief, who, however, shrugged at such blackening of Providence."Well, Mr. Buckle," he answered, as Carter came up, "the judgment was delivered against you, not us.""Yes, yes!" the man grovellingly assented. "I know—mine's the loss. But you gentlemen orter give me a chance to make it up building round this cursed mud-hole?""Round what?"He turned scowlingly upon Carter. "This mud-hole, I said." With a greasy sneer, he added: "But mebbe you kin build across it?""I can.""What?" he screamed his angry surprise. "Why, hell! Wasn't it you that tol' me it wouldn't carry a grade?""I said it wouldn't carry yours."His quiet assurance gave the contractor pause, while engineer and surveyor looked their surprise. "Going to drive piles down to China?" The contractor grew hysterically sarcastic. "You'll need a permit from Li Hung Chang. What do you know about grades, anyway? I was building this railroad while you was wearing long clothes.""Likely." Carter's easy drawl set the others a-grin and caused Dorothy to hide her smile in her handkerchief. "But you ain't out of yours yet. A yearling baby wouldn't try to stack rock on top of mud. But that isn't the question. D' you allow to finish the contract?""Think I'm a fool?" the man rasped."'Tain't always polite to state one's thoughts. But—do you?" And when the other tendered a surly negative, he turned to the engineer. "You hear, sir? And now I file my bid."The chief, however, looked his doubt. As yet engineering science offered no solution for the muskeg problem, and this was not the first grade he had seen sacrificed to a theory. "Are you serious?""As a Methodist sermon," Carter answered his grave question. Then, drawing him aside, he pulled a paper from his pocket—an estimate for the work. It was dated two weeks back, prevision that caused the chief to grimly remark: "Pretty much like measuring a living man for his coffin, wasn't it? But look here, Carter! I'd hate to see you go broke on this hole. I doubt—and your figure is far too low. What's your plan?""I'm going to make a sawdust fill with waste from the Portage Mills."Whistling, the chief looked his admiration, then grinned, the idea was so ludicrous in its simplicity. For, all said, the problem resolved itself into terms of specific gravity—iron sinks and wood floats in water; and the muskeg which swallowed clay would easily carry a sawdust bank. Moreover, the idea was thoroughly practicable. Situated five miles from Winnipeg, the Portage Mills were the largest in the province and their owners would willingly part with the refuse that cumbered their yards."You've got it!" he cried, slapping his thigh."That's not all. If old Brass Bowels—" Noticing that the contractor was looking their way, he finished in a whisper, the significance of which caused the chief's grizzled brows to rise till lost in the roots of his hair."You'll break camp—?" he questioned."To-morrow. Build a spur into the mills, then start prairie grading at the American line and run north. Ought to make a junction about the time the sink is filled."And this he did. The few miles of spur-track being quickly built, a yellow tide of sawdust was soon flowing out to the Devil's Muskeg, where Bender's wood gang directed its flow. At first there was great argument about this new material, some holding that one might as well try to build a road-bed with feathers. But it proved itself. Tamping hard as clay, it had greater resilience, and soon the twisted track rose like a mained serpent from the slimy clutch of the devil. Yes, miles of flat-cars, boarded up till they loomed big as houses, moved between mill and slough through that summer, and no one dreamed of their slow procession having other significance up to the moment that Helen heard newsboys crying a special in the hot streets—"Monopoly refuses new line a crossing. Section gangs tear up Carter's diamond."XXVIWINNIPEGBy that time Helen had shaken down to a life that was new as strange—though not without travail; shaking is always uncomfortable.Coming in to the city, a natural nervousness—that indefinite apprehension which assails the stoutest under the frown of new adventures—had been accentuated by heart-sickness from her late experiences, and was justified by some to come. She viewed its distant spires very much as an outlaw might contemplate far-off hostile towers. Entering from the west, as she did, one sees taller buildings poke, one by one, from under the flat horizon. For the city sits by the Red River—smoothest, most treacherous of streams—in the midst of vast alluvial plains, its back to the "Ragged Lands," facing the setting sun. North, south, east, and west of it they stretch, these great flat plains. Vividly emerald in spring-time, June shoots their velvet with chameleon florescences that glow and blaze with the seasons, fix in universal gold, then fade to purest white. Dark, dirty, the city stands out on the soft snow-curtain like a sable blot on an ermine mantle. Withal it is a clean city, for if the black muck of its unpaved streets cakes laboring wagons and Red River carts to the hubs after spring thaws, the dirt is all underfoot. No manufactures foul the winds that sweep in from boreal seas with the garnered essences of an empire of flowers.Purely agricultural, then, in its functions, the bulk of its burgesses were, as might be expected, store-keepers, implement men, bankers, lawyers, land agents, all who serve or prey upon the farmer; for there, also, lurked the usurers, the twenty-per-cent. Shylocks, fat spiders whose strangling webs enmeshed every township from the Rockies to the Red. Spring, fall, or winter, grist failed not in their dark mills, which ground finer and faster than those of the gods. Scattering their evil seed on the dark days, it was their habit to reap in the sunshine, competing for the last straw with their fellows, the business men, in their single season of profit—Harvest. For in summer the city drowsed amid green wheat seas that curved with the degrees over the western world; it slept, nodding, till the wheat, its life-blood, came in huge arterial gushes to gorge its deflated veins.Thus Helen found it—asleep under the midsummer sun. Walking to her destination, she met few people; after the hotel 'buses rattled by, the streets were deserted save for an occasional buck-board or slow ox-team chewing the peaceful cud at the wooden sidewalk. When, later, she walked those hot streets on that most wearisome of occupations, the search for an occupation, she became familiar with the city's more intimate topography—the huge concrete foundations, vacant, gaping as though at the folly which planned them and their superstructures, the aërial castles that blew up with the boom; the occasional brick blocks that raised hot red heads proudly above surrounding buildings, the river, with its treacherous peace; old Fort Garry, which she repeopled with governors, commissioners, factors, and trappers of the Hudson Bay Company.Also she grew sensitive to its varied life, easily distinguishing between emigrants, who were injected by daily spurts into the streets, the city's veins, from the old-timers—remittance-men, in yellow cords and putties; trappers from Keewatin, Athabasca, the Great Slave Lake, in fringed moose-skins; plethoric English farmers, or gaunt Canadian settlers from the rich valley round-about; Indians of many tribes—Cree, Sioux, Ojibway; the heterogeneous mixture that yet lacked a drop of the Yankee or continental blood which would flow, ten years later, in a broad river over the American border. But this was after she had fallen into her place in the household of Glaves's big sister among a scattering of teachers, up for the Normal course, a brace of lawyers, three store-keepers, and a Scotch surgeon.Just what or where that place was would be hard to say, seeing that it varied with the view-point of each lodger, nor remained the same in the opinion of any specific one. Thus did she shine, for one whole week, the particular star in the heaven of an English teacher, a mercurial lad of twenty; then having rejected his heart with a pecuniary attachment of thirty-five dollars per mensem, she fell like a shooting-star and became a mere receptacle for his succeeding passions, which averaged three a month. His fellow-teachers swung on an opposite arc. Canadians, and mostly recruited from the country, the soil still clung to their heavy boots. The profession, its aims and objects, formed their staple of conversation. Deeply imbued with the sense of the central importance of pedagogy in the scheme of things, they wore an air of owlish wisdom that was incompatible with the contemplation of such sublunary things as girls. Having wives, it was not to be expected that the store-keepers could notice a young person whose attractions so far exceeded her known acquaintance, and though the surgeon, a young man prodigiously bony as to the leg and neck, really worshipped her from behind the far folds of his breakfast newspaper, thought transference still lay in the womb of future humbuggery and she catalogued him as injuriously cold.From this conglomerate of humanity she gained one friend, the young wife of a lawyer who had lately come West. Prettily dark as Helen was delicately fair, each made a foil for the other, which necessary base for feminine friendships being established, their relations were further cemented by an equal loneliness, and made more interesting by the expectation of an event. As it was not yet fashionable to shoo the stork away from the roof-tree, behold the pair fussing and sewing certain small garments with much tucking, trimming, insertioning, regulating said processes by the needs of some future mystery dight "shortening"—all of which brought Helen mixed feelings. The young husband's part in said operations was particularly trying. Supposedly immersed in his paper of evenings, he would watch them over the tip with a delighted sagacity akin to the knowing look which a bull-dog bestows on a crawling kitten. At times, too, he would descend upon the work and lay wee undervests out on his big palm, tie ridiculously small caps over his shut fist, ask absurd questions, and generally display the manly ignorance so sweet to the wifely soul; while Helen sat, a silent spectator of their happiness. It is a question which the acquaintance brought her most, pain or pleasure.The tale of the boarders would not be complete without mention of Jean Glaves, a buxom woman, fair of hair, whose strong, broad face seemed to incarnate the very spirit of motherhood. With her Helen's place was never in doubt. Opening her big heart, she took the lonely girl right in, and proved a veritable fount of energy in her disheartening search for work.In this her first experience conformed to that usual with a working-girl—she shivered under icy stares, shrank from the rude rebuffs of busy men, and blushed under smiles of idle ones; sustained the inevitable insult at the hands of a rascally commission broker at the end of one day's employment. His quick, appraising glance, following a first refusal, would have warned a sophisticated business woman, but the innocence which betrayed Helen later proved her best protection. The horror in her eyes, childlike look of hurt surprise, set the dull reds of shame in the fellow's cheeks, but she was out in the street with hat and jacket while he was still muttering his apology. Yet his grossness fell short of the vile circumspection of her next employer. A smug pillar of society and something in a church, caution would not permit him to stake reputation against possible pleasure on a single throw, yet she labored under no illusions as to the motive behind her second discharge."Oh, I can't bear it! I just can't try again!" she cried that night to Jean Glaves."You won't have to, dearie," the big woman comforted, and having tucked her comfortably upon her own lounge with a wet cloth upon her aching head, she went straight to the Scotch surgeon's room.Her choice of confidant may have been due either to intuition or knowledge of what was going on behind the ramparts of the young man's breakfast paper. The event proved it wise, for his giraffe neck lengthened under his angry gulps, his bony hands and nodding head emphasized and attested Jean's scathing deliverence upon men in general. "The scoundrel!" he exclaimed, when she paused for lack of breath. "The scoundrel! I'd flog him mysel' but for the scandal. But see you he'll no' go unpunished. He's a bid in for the hospital supplies, and I'll be having a word with the head doctor." And thus, later, was the smug villain hit to the tune of some hundreds in his tenderest place, the pocket.Not content with future revenge, the Scotchman's sympathy expressed itself in practical suggestion. "If ye'd think, Mistress Glaves"—he always accorded Jean the quaint title, and it fell gracefully from his stiff lips—"now if ye'd suppose the young leddy would like to try her hand at nursing, there's a vacancy in the hospital."While he hesitated, Jean literally grabbed opportunity by the collar. "You come along with me."Introduced a few seconds thereafter to man and subject, Helen exclaimed that she would love the work; nor were her thanks less sincere for being couched in stereotyped form. Howcouldshe thank him? Being sincere to the point of pain, after the fashion of his nation, the young man had almost answered that the obligation lay with him in that his studies behind the newspaper would be furthered and facilitated. He replied, instead, that the pay would be small, the work hard.Not to be discouraged, she was thus launched upon what, in her condition, was the best of possible careers. For the mental suffering which, lacking an outlet, burns inwardly till naught is left of feeling but slag and cinders, becomes the strongest of motor forces when expended in service for others. Throwing herself body and soul into the new work, she forgot the suspicion, scandal that had lately embittered her days, and had such surcease of loneliness that in one month the lines of pain disappeared from around her eyes, her drooping mouth drew again into the old firm tenderness.Besides content, the month brought her other satisfactions. Owing to lack of accommodation at the hospital, she still slept at the boarding-house, and dropping into Jean Glaves's room for a chat one evening, she found her conversing with a girl of her own age. She would have retired but that Jean called her back. "Don't go! We were talking of you. This is Miss Dorothy Chester, who used to board with me. Miss Chester—Mrs. Morrill."There was, of course, nothing in the names to convey the significance of the introduction to either. After that period of secret study which is covered by the feminine amenities, each decided that she liked the other. Helen gladly accepted Dorothy's invitation to call, and in this ordinary fashion began a momentous acquaintance that soon developed through natural affinity into one of those rare and softly beautiful friendships which are occasionally seen between women. And as friendship means association in a city that has no theatre and few amusements, it soon happened that any evening might see Dorothy in Helen's room, or Helen on the way to her friend's hotel. Naturally Helen quickly learned that her friend's father and lover were head engineers on Carter's road, and that she had visited them in camp; and as Dorothy was as willing to talk of her novel experience as Helen to listen, imagine the pair in the former's cosey bedroom, one snugged up on a lounge, the other coiled in some mysterious feminine fashion on pillows at her side, fair girl hanging on dark girl's lips as she prattled of Carter, or joining in speculations as to what kind of a woman his wife might be.She positively jumped when Dorothy declared one evening: "I'm sure he still loves her. Ernest says that he scoured the city for her; only gave up when he felt sure that she had gone East to her friends. When the road is finished, he is going back to look for her."He had searched for her!Still loved her! It rhymed with her deft fingers rolling bandages; tuned her feet as she bore medicine-trays from ward to ward; ousted the dry anatomical terms of the daily lecture from their proper place in her mind. The thought illumined her face so that maimed men twisted on their cots to watch her down the ward. Meeting her on the main stairs, one day, Carruthers, the Scotch surgeon, almost mistook her for the Virgin Mother in the stained window above the landing.He searched for me! is going back East to look for me! The days spun by to that magical refrain.Why, in view of all this, did she not confide in Dorothy? Though its roots grip deep down in woman nature, the strange, contradictory, inconsequential, yet wise woman nature, the reason lies close to the surface. Physically akin to the impulse which urges a shy doe to fly from its forest mate, her feeling flowed, mentally, from injured wifehood. For all her natural sweetness and joy over the thought of reunion, she was not ready to purchase happiness with unconditional surrender; to make overtures directly, or through Dorothy, that might be construed as a bid for executive clemency. As he had deserted her, so he must return; and that prideful resolution was strengthened and justified by the suffering which had immeasurably exceeded her fault. Yes, first he must return, then—would she instantly forgive him? Any lover can answer the question; if not, let him consult his sweetheart. "I'd make him suffer!" she will cry, gritting pretty teeth. So Helen.Veryunchristian, wicked, but natural.No, she did not confide in Dorothy, went quietly about her business, hugging her sweet secret to her own soul, until— But this summary of her thought and feeling would not be complete without mention of a last, perhaps greatest, satisfaction—her joy in reading newspaper accounts of Carter's progress. Editorials, politics, reports, she read all, day by day, glowing over red-hot denunciations of the monopoly while she thought what good men the editors must be, and how intelligent to so clearly discern her husband's merits. She was mightily troubled by the insatiate appetite of the Devil's Muskeg, studying its rapacious dietary as though it were a diabetes patient. She triumphed when Carter successfully treated its ineffable hunger with vegetarian diet of sawdust; shivered when he was refused a crossing of the trunk line; thrilled over the battle when Bender and the woodmen beat back the monopoly's levies while the trackmen laid the "diamond," and grew sick with fear, as before mentioned, when she heard the newsboys crying out Carter's final repulse as she was walking home to her room about eight o'clock one evening.Though very tired, she immediately turned in her agitation, and, undeterred by the continent of blue-print uniform that spread below her brown ulster, she hurried to Dorothy's hotel, an old caravansary that had survived two rebellions and the bursting of the boom. Once chief of the city's hostelries, the old house still attracted people who preferred its solid comfort to the gilt, lacquer, garish splendors of more modern rivals. The parlor in which she waited while her name was taken up to Dorothy, was panelled with sombre woods; her feet literally sank in a pile carpet, thick, green, and dark as forest moss. Walls were upholstered in hammered leather; chairs, heavy table, massive furnishings, all were of black oak. The portraits of governors, high commissioners, and chief factors of the Hudson Bay Company, soldiers and traders or both, seemed ready to step down from their frames to engage in wise council and issue fiats that would set a hundred tribes in motion. Time stood still in that solid atmosphere. Heavy odors of leather and wood, the pervading feeling of peaceful age combined to soothe her fretted nerves, and she had just relaxed her tired body within the embrace of a mighty chair when passing footsteps and a voice brought her up, tense and rigid.Returning just then, the bell-boy repeated her question: "Gentlemen who just passed, Miss? Mr. Greer and Mr. Smythe, people that are financing the new line, and Mr. Carter, their head contractor. They are dining here with the general manager of the trunk line. If you'd like to see them," he added, interpreting her interest as curiosity, "just step this way. They've all gone in, and you can peep through the glass doors. It's that dark in the passage no one will see you."As she tiptoed after him down the dark hallway he whispered further—"Reminds me of them old Romans, the general manager; them fellows that used to invite a man to a poisoned dinner. He's got those chaps shooed up into a corner, and now he's going to kill their financial goose over the cigars and wine. Sure, Miss, everybody knows that Greer's on his last legs. Bit off more than he could chew when he went to railroading; but old Brass Bowels will treat his indigestion. That's him, stout gent with his back this way. Greer and Smythe's either side of him. That's Mr. Carter opposite. T'other gentleman, Mr. Sparks, is general superintendent of the western division."Slipping by the others her glance glued—the term is eschewed by purists, who ironically inquire if the adhesive used was of the carpenter variety, but it exactly describes her steadfast gaze—her glance glued to Carter's face. From above an arc lamp streamed white light down upon him, darkening the hollows under his eyes, raising his strong features in bold relief. This, be it remembered, was the first she had seen of him since he broke in upon the Ravell dinner-party, black, sooty, smelling evilly of sweat and smoke. And now he sat with a waiter behind his chair, at meat with the greatest man in the north, at a table that was spread with plate, cut-glass, linen, all of a costly elegance that transcended her own experience. The champagne bucket, at his elbow, of solid silver, with gold-crusted bottles thrusting sloping shoulders out of cracked ice, the last accessory of luxurious living, took on wonderful significance in that it accentuated to the last degree their changed positions. For surely the gods had turned the tables by bringing her in print hospital uniform and shabby ulster to witness this crowning of his development.Be sure she felt the contrast. How could she do otherwise? Yet her feeling lacked the slightest touch of humiliation. Above such snobbishness, she was filled by joy and pride in his achievement, joined with tremulous fear, for the bell-boy's remarks had quickened her apprehension. That distinguished company, costly appointments, perfect service, impressed her as little as it did Carter, which is saying a good deal, for the pomp of civilization counts more with women than men, and he was bearing himself with the easiness of one who has conquered social circumstance. He chose the right fork for his salad, knife for his butter; broke his bread delicately, trifled with green olives as if born to the taste—though this edible presented itself as a new and bitter experience—small things and foolish if made an end in themselves, yet important in that, with improper usage, they become as barbed thorns in the side of self-respect. Significant things in Carter's case because they showed that he had applied to his social relations the same shrewdness, common-sense, keen sight that was making him successful in large undertakings.Of course she noted his improvement? That he no longer used knife for spoon, squared elbows over his head, sopped bread in gravy? On the contrary, she saw only his face, dark and stern save when a smile brought the old humor back to his mouth. Her hungry eyes traced its every line, marking the minutest changes wrought by thought, care, sorrow, time's graving tools. Hands pressing her breast, she struggled for his voice with thick oak and heavy plate-glass, and so stood, wrapped up in him and their past, till the bell-boy spoke."Miss Chester said you was to go right up, Miss."She jumped, and her tremulous fear took form in words. "You are sure the general manager will—""—Do things to 'em?" he finished, as he led her upstairs. "They're dead ones, Miss."XXVIITHE NATURE OF THE CINCHThe bell-boy was not alone in his opinion. Through that summer twenty thousand settler farmers had kept suspicious tab on the monopoly, and now that it felt the clutch reclosing on its throat, the entire province had flamed up in wrath and fear. Press, legislature, and pulpit denounced the refusal of a crossing that was without shadow of a claim in equity, and was plainly intended to kill competition by tedious and costly litigation. In town, village, on trail, at meeting, wherever two settlers were gathered together, the general manager's action was damned in no uncertain terms. Indignation flowed like a tidal-wave over the plains. Skimming low with the north wind, an aeronaut would have heard the hum of speech rise from the face of the land, angry and continuous as the buzz of swarming bees. It had pealed out in clarion triumph, that hugevox humana, when the "diamond" was laid after desperate fighting; it swelled in furious discordance when, the previous day, Carter's men were forced back by sheer weight of the levies that the general manager had gathered and brought in from the sections along three thousand miles of track.It was one of those situations which require only a touch of demagoguery to wreak great harm. Insurrection hung thick in the air. Secession and coalescence with the United States were openly advocated by men who later read with astonishment their own words in the papers of that stormy time. Thousands of armed settlers waited only for the word to fall upon the monopoly's levies, but in face of united public opinion, backed by an inflamed press, Carter and his people remained quiescent—supinely quiescent, according to certain editorials.A morning paper recalled its prediction of months ago: "We warned Mr. Carter not to be deceived by the monopoly's complaisance in bringing his construction outfit and supplies out from the East over its tracks. The concession was merely bait for the trap, analogous to the handing of a rope to a fool wherewith to hang himself. We are loath to quote the old proverb against Mr. Carter, yet were it not for the fact that the monopoly snaps its fingers in the face of this province through him, we should be tempted to show satisfaction at the plight to which his fatuous self-confidence has brought him."The article closed with a vivid word picture of the general manager chucklingà laMephistopheles in the privacy of his luxurious office; which, perhaps, approximated the reality more closely than that in the minds of the laity. For a composite of the popular impression would have shown the entire railroad pantheon, general manager, department heads, with their clerks, sub-heads, assistants, and deputy assistants, all very lofty of brow and solemn of face, in session over the crisis.The reality was much more prosaic. Indifferent to the newsboys, who were crying his crimes on the streets, the general manager sat in the office of the division superintendent that morning, chair tilted back, feet on the table, thumbs comfortably bestowed in the arm-holes of his vest. It has remained for a practical business age to clothe itself in the quintessence of ugliness. Imagine Julius Cæsar in a tuxedo, Hamlet wearing a stove-pipe hat! His black coat, check trousers would have pleased a grocer's fancy in Sunday wear, and it were difficult to realize that their commonplace ugliness clothed a power greater than Cæsar's—the ability to create and people provinces, to annihilate and build up towns, to move cities like checkers over the map; harder still to listen to his curt speech, issuing from blue tobacco smoke, and believe that an empire larger than ancient Rome paid him tribute, that the blood and sweat of a generation had gone to grease his juggernautal wheels. Yet the speech itself certified to the power."We made a mistake, Sparks; but who could foresee this fellow Carter? Here's the N.P. lusting for a chance to cut in over the border. Give them that crossing and old Jim Ball will place their bonds for any amount in exchange for reciprocal running arrangements. So we've got to make a quick killing. Buy 'em out, lock, stock, and barrel, while the fear of God's in their hearts. They must sell—look at this Bradstreet report on old Greer's assets. Just about at the end of his string. So I want you to write and invite them to dinner to-night—Greer, Smythe, and Carter—though the order ought to be reversed; he's the brains of the business. Draw it mild—conference with a view to amicable arrangement of points at issue, and so forth. But when we once get them there—" His nod was brutal in its significance.Equally wide of popular conception was the scene in the banking office of Greer & Smythe when the invitation was delivered. Carter, who swung an easy leg from his favorite perch on the table, seemed to have thrived on defeat; the most elastic imagination would have failed to invest him with the weight of a people's cares. Indeed, he laughed when the senior partner handed him the general manager's note."Hum! 'Will you walk into my parlor, said the spider to the fly!' What do I make of it? That's easy. Has us going—or thinks he has—and is aching to deliver the knock-out. A million to a minute he wants to buy us out.""Well, he never will!" Red and plethoric, the senior partner sprang up. An elderly man, his clear eyes, honest face, framed in white side-whiskers of the Dundreary style, all stamped him as belonging to the old-fashioned school of finance which aimed always to advance the civic interest while turning an honest penny. "No, sir!" he reiterated. "We'll break first; and goodness knows that is not so far away. Yesterday I approached Murray, of the North American Bank, but he answered me in his broad Scotch: 'Hoots, mon! get your crossing first. Get your crossing an' we'll talk.' And so with Butler, Smith, and others who promised support.""Cold feet, eh?" Carter commented. "They'll warm them presently chasing themselves for a chance to come in."The old gentleman ran on in his indignation. "Yes, we are about at the end of our financial string, but we would rather dangle there than yield to these pirates. Am I right, sir?"Smythe, a younger man, lean, laconic, and dark as the other was stout, florid, nodded, and his vigorous answer was untainted by a suspicion of compromise. "Surely, sir! But if Mr. Carter's plan fails—" His shrug supplied the hiatus.Carter answered the shrug. "It won't fail." He held up the invitation. "But, say! Fancy—to-day, of all days?""Of course we won't go," Smythe frowned."Of course we* will*," Carter grinned. "Think what it means? Besides blinding them to the trap, we shall be there when it springs, and I wouldn't miss Brass Bowels' face for a thousand, cash. Let me see; the bid is for eight-thirty. Western flyer is due at Portage station nine-fifteen. He'll hardly broach business before the coffee, and with any kind of luck we ought to serve him up a beautiful case of indigestion.""With luck?" the senior partner echoed."With or without. Everything is planned beyond possibility of failure. Mr. Chester goes with Mr. Hart on the construction-train, while Bender keeps things humming at the crossing. By-the-way, he's in the outer office now, with Hart, waiting for last orders, and if you don't mind I'll have them in. I wouldn't take a chance even on your clerks."In view of just such a contingency, Bender had invested his bulk with store clothes of that indescribable pattern and cut which fulfils lumberman ideals. From his mighty shoulders a quarter-acre of black coat fell half-way down worsted pantaloons that were displaying an unconquerable desire to use the wrinkles of high boots as a step-ladder to his knees. As collars did not come in sizes for his red throat, he had compromised on a kerchief of gorgeous silk, and a soft hat, flat and black, completed a costume that was at once his pride and penance. In the luxurious office, with its rich fittings in mahogany and leather, he loomed larger than ever; was foreign as a bear in a lady's boudoir. Uncomfortably aware of the fact, he took the chair which the senior partner offered with a sigh of relief, and was fairly comfortable till the position discovered its own disadvantages—while his coat announced every movement with miniaturefeux de joiefrom bursting seams, his trousers ascended his boots as a fireman goes up a hotel escape. To which sources of discomfort was added the knowledge that his face mapped in fair characters the fluctuations of the recent combat. But he forgot all—scars, raiment, unconventional bulk—as soon as he began to talk."All ready," he replied to Carter's question. "Buckle has been round the camp some lately. Only this morning I caught him talking to Michigan Red. It's a cinch that he was spotting for the railroad, but as I knew you'd as lief he'd tip us off as not, I didn't bust his head. Jes' allowed I didn't see him.""Yes, let him talk," Carter replied, relative to the broken contractor. "But"—he addressed the surveyor—"there's no whispering in your outfit?""Couldn't be," the young fellow laughed. "Mr. Chester only toldmean hour ago. The men know nothing—willknownothing up to the moment we pull into Prairie.""Good. Now, you are to leave at dusk, and don't forget to grab the operator before he can rattle a key. But turn him loose as soon as you are through and let him wire in the news. And you, Bender, start in at eight, keep 'em busy as long as you can, then load what's left of you in a flat-car and steam round for Mr. Hart.""What's left of me?" Bender growled, as he walked with the surveyor down-street a few minutes later. "Hum! Give me the Cougar and an even hundred of old-style Michigan men, and I'd drive the last of Brass Bowels' tarriers into the Red and beat you out laying the diamond. But, Lordy, what's the use o' talking! The old stock petering out an' the new's jes' rotten with education. They'd sooner work than fight, an' loaf than either, for they ain't exactly what you'd call perticler hell on labor. What's left of me? Well, there'll be some fragments, I guess. While I was hanging round I picked up an odd score of Oregon choppers that blew in here las' week. Brass Bowels' agent tried for 'em, but they'd lumbered with me in British Columbia. Come out an' see 'em. They're beauties."Perhaps they were, for standards of beauty, morality, of any old thing, are merely relative and depend so much on local color. To Hart, who reviewed the "beauties" in Bender's camp, they seemed the most unmitigated ruffians in his railroad experience; but as they strut on this small section of the world-stage for "Positively one appearance only," let them be judged by their record in the rough work of that night; by the way in which they bore themselves in the roar, surge, and tumble of a losing fight, the echoes of which alarmed the dark city and came with the soup to the general manager's dinner; and let him deliver their valedictory to his guests at table.Throwing a telegram—which a waiter brought in just after Helen went up-stairs—across to Carter, the magnate remarked: "That big foreman of yours has been at it again. He has put two of our heaviest engines into the ditch and ten men into hospital. Not bad, but—he didn't lay the diamond.""Oh, well," Carter shrugged, "better luck next time.""Ah, yes—the next time?" Repeating the phrase with dubious inflection, he went on with his dinner, and for an hour thereafter no one heard the rattle of the skeleton behind the feast. He acted the perfect host, easily courteous, pleasant, anxious for the preference of his guests. As he ran on, drawing from the sources of a wide and unusual experience for his dinner chat, it was curious to note the shadings in his manner. Addressing the partners, he seemed to exhale rather than evidence a superiority which, on their part, they countenanced by an equally subtle homage. Integrity and deprecation of his policy and methods were dominated by the orthodox business sense which forced subconscious recognition of his title as king of their business world. With Carter, however, he was frankly free, as though they two had been section-men eating their bite together on a pile of ties, and doubtless the difference in his manner sprang from some such feeling. For whereas the partners were born to their station, he recognized Carter as a product—unfinished, but still a product—of the forces which had produced himself and a dozen other kings and great contractors of the constructive railroad era. Without invidious distinction or neglect of the others, he yet made him the focus of attention."We heard all about your sawdust grades," he complimented, with real cordiality. "A mighty clever idea, sir; pity you couldn't patent it—though we are glad you cannot, for we intend to apply it on all our Rainy River muskegs."Approaching business at the close of the meal, he was equally suave. "You are to be complimented upon your achievement, gentlemen," he said, addressing the partners. "We feel that while supplying a real need of the province, you have convicted us of remissness. But now that we do see our duty, it would be equally criminal for us to leave you the burden of this heavy responsibility. We know how it has taxed your resources"—his gray eye stabbed the senior partner—"and we are fully prepared to relieve you." Pausing, he lit a cigar, puffed a moment, and finished, "We will take the enterprise off your hands, bag and baggage, on terms that will yield you a handsome profit."A pause followed. No man turns from an easy road to a rocky climb without lingering backward glances, and the partners looked at one another while the general manager leaned back and smoked with the air of one who had faithfully performed a magnanimous duty. Greer spoke first."Very kind offer, I am sure.""Most handsome," Smythe, the laconic, added. "But—" He glanced at Carter, who finished, "We are not on the market."The manager raised his brows. Expecting a first refusal, he was slightly staggered and irritated by its bluntness, yet masked both emotions. "Not on your own terms?""On no terms," Greer emphatically answered; then, flushing, he added: "Our chief motive in going into this enterprise, sir, was to bring sorely needed railroad competition into this province. It would not be subserved by our selling to you."The manager flicked the ash from his cigar. Then, while smoking, he regarded the old gentleman from under bulging lids very much as a curious collector might note the wriggles of an impaled beetle. "Very laudable intention; does you credit, sir. But you must pardon me if I doubt that you will carry it to the length of financial hari-kari. You have heard of that Japanese custom? A man commits suicide, empties himself upon a cold and unsympathetic world for the benefit of his enemy, who is compelled by custom to go and do likewise. In your case the sacrifice would be foolish because we shouldn't follow suit. Now when I spoke of your resources"—during an ugly pause his glance flickered between the partners—"I did not state our exact knowledge of their extent. You are—practically—broke. In addition, we have bought up all of your paper that we could find floating on the market, and three months from now—we shall be in a position to demand a receiver in bankruptcy. Stop!" Frowning down Greer's attempted interruption, he dropped his suave mask and stood out, the financial king, brutal, imperious, predatory. "I know what you would say. Three months is a long time. But no one will make you a better offer—any offer—till you can cross our line. You can force a crossing? Yes, but we'll law you, badger you, carry the case from court to court up to the privy council—two years won't make an end. In the meantime—" He had thrown himself at them, bearing down upon them with all the force of his powerful will, of the furiously strong personality that had crushed financial opposition to plans and projects beside which their enterprise was as a grain of sand to the ocean. Now, in a flash, he became again the polished host. "Take your time, gentlemen.Weare in no hurry. Several days, if you choose. But—be advised."But big, strong, and masterful as the manager was, every Goliath has his David, and the first stone in the forehead came from the sling of Smythe—Smythe, who had hardly opened his mouth through the meal save for the admittance of food or drink. Banging the table so that the glass rang and a champagne bowl flew from its thin stem, he sprang up, his dark face flushed and defiant. "We'll take neither your advice nor your time! God knows that we are hard shoved, but damn a man who sells his country! And since you have been so outspoken, let me tell you that we'll run trains across your line, and that inside—""This hour." In its quiet assurance, Carter's interpolation came with all the force of an accomplished fact. The manager started, and the division superintendent upset his wine. As their backs were to the door, neither saw a waiter take a telegram from a messenger-boy, and sign for its delivery after a glance at the clock, which indicated half-past nine. Nor could either fact have the significance for them that their combination had for Carter.The manager recovered his poise even as the waiter handed the telegram to his colleague, and, though puzzled, hid the feeling behind a show of confident contempt. "I hardly gather your meaning, but presume you mean—war?"Missing the superintendent's sudden consternation, he was going on. "Very well. Ihadhoped—" when the former pulled his sleeve. "What's this?"He stared blankly at the words: "Construction-train, with men and Gatling-guns, across our tracks at Prairie. Number ten, Western Mail, held up with three hundred passengers."During an astonished silence, the partners watched the manager, who looked at Carter, who lightly drummed on the table. "Your train?" he went on, slowly, with words that evidenced his flashing insight into the situation. "Hum! Sawdust, eh? Came down the spur you laid to the Portage Mills at Prairie; grabbed our operator; then extended the mill-switch across our tracks. Know how to kill two birds with one stone, don't you?"During a second silence he fenced glances, nervously fingering the telegram, then suddenly asked: "What's the use? You can't hold it?""With two Gatlings and five hundred men—five thousand, if I need them?""The law's against you.""As it is against you at the crossing. Possession is said to be nine of its points, anyway, so we have you just nine-tenths to the bad." Slightly smiling, he quoted: "'We'll law you, badger you, carry the case from court to court up to the privy council—two years won't make an end.'"The manager raised heavy lids. "In three months we'll break you."Carter shrugged. "Who knows? In the mean time—your traffic will be suspended?"Through all the superintendent had fidgeted nervously; now he broke in: "Pish, man! We'll build round your old train in six hours.""Will you?" Without even a glance in his direction, Carter ran on, addressing the manager: "You see, land is that cheap since the boom that we took options on a right of way from Prairie clean up to the north pole and down to the American border. No, you won't go around us, but we shall go round you and come into this burg south of your tracks.""But you're out of law," the superintendent angrily persisted. "You haven't the shadow of a right—""Oh, shut up, Sparks," the manager impatiently interrupted. "What has right to do with it? He's got us in the door and it's no use squealing. Now"—the glance he turned on Carter was evenly compounded of hostility and admiration—"terms? You'll release our train—""When you cede our legal crossing, and call off your dogs. We'll hold Prairie till every man Jack of your guards is shipped out of the city.""Could you have the papers drawn—" He had intended "to-night," but he paused as Greer drew them from an inner pocket and his iron calm dissolved in comical disgust. "Hum! You're not timid about grabbing time by the forelock. But, let me see!"Once more the arc lights could be heard sputtering. In that tense moment their own fortunes swung in the balance with the welfare of a province, and while the manager read they waited in silence. Trimming the end of a cigar with careful precision, Carter masked all feeling, but the partners could not hide their nervousness—Smythe fidgeted, Greer locked and unlocked clasped fingers. Both held their breath till the manager's pen made a rough scratch on the silence.A good loser, he said, as Greer rose after buttoning his coat over the precious document: "Don't go, gentlemen—at least till we have drunk the occasion. I see another bottle there in the ice."And his toast, "To our next merry meeting," formed the premise of the deduction which Carter returned to Greer's relieved exclamation when they stood, at last, alone in the street."Thank God! It is over!""On the contrary, it is just begun."Passing under a street lamp, its white light revealed the pale disturbance which banished the senior partner's flushed content. Stopping dead, he agitatedly seized Carter's arm."You don't suppose he will go back on his—""Signature? No, he won't repeat. He's done with the crossing.""Then we can weather through," Greer said, and Smythe echoed his sigh of relief."But—" Carter quoted the bucolic proverb which recites the many ways in which a pig may be killed other than by a surfeit of butter."But whatcanhe do?" Greer persisted."Don't know," Carter slowly answered. "Only a man don't have to look at that bull-dog jaw of his a second time to know that he'll do it, and do it quick.""I'd give a good deal to know," Smythe frowned, then smoothed his knotted brow as he laughed at Carter's rejoinder."I'd give three cents myself."Not feeling sleepy, Carter walked on after he had dropped the partners at their respective doors, aimlessly threading the dark streets that gave back his hollow foot-fall; and so passing, by chance, under Helen's window, he brought a pause in the anxious meditation which had kept her restlessly tossing, and set her to momentary speculations as to the owner of that firm and heavy tread. She listened, listened till it grew fainter and died as he turned the corner. Keeping on in the cool silence, he presently came to the Red River suspension bridge, where he paused and leaned on the parapet at the very spot from which she loved to watch Indians and chattering squaws float beneath in quaint birch canoes. There was, of course, nothing to warn him of the fact any more than she could have guessed him as owner of the solitary foot-fall. He thought of her, to be sure. Always she stood in the background, ready to claim him whenever press of affairs permitted reflection; and now she thrust in between him and the twinkling lights of the sleeping city. Where was she? And doing—what? How much longer before he could go in search of her? After long musing he swept the weary intervening days away with an impatient gesture, and his longing took form in muttered speech:"How long? My God! how much longer?"The thought brought him back to his work and the events of the evening. What would be the manager's next move? He gazed down into the dark river intently, as though he expected its hoarse voice to give answer. But though he canvassed, as he thought, every possibility, the reality—which presented itself a week or so after he resumed operations in the Silver Creek forests—was beyond the range of his thought.
Awaking while it was still dark, the camp rubbed sleepy eyes and looked out, shivering, on smouldering smudges. Outside, the air whined of mosquitoes. At the long hay-racks horses snorted and pawed frantically under the winged torture; patient oxen uttered mained lowings. Growling and grumbling, the camp distributed itself—teamsters to feed and rebuild smudges, choppers and sawyers to the grindstone and filing-benches. It was a cold, dank world. Pessimism prevailed to the extent that a man needed to walk straitly, minding his own business, if he would avoid quarrel. But optimism came with dawn—teamsters hissed cheerfully over their currying, saw-filers and grinders indulged in snatches of song—reaching a climax with the breakfast-call. When, half an hour later, Dorothy appeared in the cook-house doorway, the camp had spilled its freight of men and teams into the forest.
Warned by the shadow, the cook looked up and saw her in Stetson hat, short skirt, high-laced shoes, a sunlit vision with the freshness of the morning upon its cheeks. "God bless you! Come right in," he exclaimed. "Your daddy an' Mr. Hart hev' gone down line. Devil's Muskeg got hungry las' night an' swallered ten thousand yards of gradin'."
As yet she knew nothing of those treacherous sinks that gulp grades, trestles, and the reputations of their builders as a frog swallows flies, and he went on, answering her puzzled look: "Morass, you know, swamp with quicksand foundation that goes clean down to China. Nope, 'tain't Mr. Carter's loss. He ain't such a fool as to go an' load a muskeg down with clay and rock. An Easterner had it on a sub-contract, an' though Mr. Carter warned him, he reckoned he could make it bear a grade on brush hurdles. Crowed like a Shanghai rooster because it carried trains for a week.
"Oh, I don't know," he commented upon her pity for the luckless contractor. "You kain't do nothin' with them Easterners. He was warned. Besides," he vengefully added, "he shedn't ha' come crowing over us. More coffee, miss?"
Leaving the cook-house, a shadow fell between her and the sun, and Carter gave her good-morning. "Breaks the poor devil," he supplemented the cook's information, "and bothers us. Cuts off our communications. We shall have to move the outfits back to prairie grading till they are re-established. I'm going down there—now, if you'd like a hand-car ride?"
Would she? In five minutes she was speeding along under urge of ten strong arms, over high trestles which gave her sudden livid gleams of water far below, through yellow cuts, across hollow-sounding bridges, always between serried ranks of sombre spruce. Sometimes the car rolled in between long lines of men who were tamping gravel under the ties. Rough fellows at the best, they had herded for months in straw and dirt, seeing nothing daintier than their unlovely selves, and as they were not the kind that mortifies the flesh, the girl was much embarrassed by the fire of eyes. Apart from that, she hugely enjoyed the ride. With feet almost touching the road-bed, she got all there was of the motion, besides most of the wind that blew her hair into a dark cloud and set wild roses blooming in her cheeks.
She gained, too, a new view-point of Carter, who chatted gayly, pointing, explaining, as though they were merely out for pleasure and another had not been just added to the heavy cares that burdened his broad shoulders. She learned more of the life, its hardship, comedy, tragedy, in half an hour's conversation, than she could have obtained for herself in a year's experience.
These different elements sometimes mixed—as when he indicated a blackened excavation. "See that? A man was sitting on the stump that was blasted out there. Reckon he got sort of tired of the world," he replied to her horrified question, "and wanted a good start for the next." Then, easily philosophical, quietly discursive, he wandered along, touching the suicide's motives. There had been different theories—drink, religion, a girl—but he himself inclined to aggravated unsociability. The sombre forest, with its immensity of sad, environing space, had translated mere moroseness into confirmed hypochondria. He had so bored the stumping outfit, to which he belonged, with pessimistic remarks on things in general that, in self-defence, they threw something at him whenever he opened his mouth; and so, bottled up, his gloom accumulated until, in an unusually dismal moment, he placed a full box of dynamite under a stump and sat down to await results.
"Why didn't some one pull him off?" she cried.
His answer was pregnant. "Short fuse. Anyway, the boys didn't feel any call to mix in his experiments—especially as he swore a blue streak at them till the stump lifted."
"Horrible!" she breathed.
"Just what they said." He solemnly misunderstood her. "They never heard such language. 'Twas dreadfully out of place at a funeral."
"Oh—I didn't mean that!" Then, considering his serious gravity, "Was—was there—"
"Pretty clean." He relieved her of the remainder of the question. "Mostly translated."
Incredulous, she glanced from him to his men and received grisly confirmation, for one thrust out a grimy finger to show a horseshoe ring. "I picked it up on the track, miss, forty rod from the—obseq'ses. Didn't allow he'd want it again."
Shuddering, she turned back to Carter, but before she could make further comment the car rolled from a cut out on the edge of the Devil's Muskeg.
She thought him cold-blooded until, that evening, she learned from her friend, the cook, that he had been caught on the edge of the blast as he rushed to save the man and had been thrown a hundred feet. A little disappointed by his apparent callousness, she joined her father and lover, who, with the contractor, stood looking out over the muskeg. Sterile, flat, white with alkali save where black slime oozed from the sunken grade, it stretched a long mile on either side of the right of way. Around its edges skeleton trees thrust blanched limbs upward through the mud, and beyond this charnel forest loomed the omnipresent spruce. In spring-time its quaking depths would have opened under a fox's light padding, but the summer's sun had dried the surface until it carried a team—which fact had lured the contractor to his financial doom. A fat, gross man, he stood mopping his brow and wildly gesticulating towards the half-mile of rails that, with their ties, lay like the backbone of some primeval lizard along the mud, calling heaven and the chief engineer to witness that this calamity was beyond the prevision of man.
"'Jedgment of God,' it's termed in government contrac's," he exclaimed to the chief, who, however, shrugged at such blackening of Providence.
"Well, Mr. Buckle," he answered, as Carter came up, "the judgment was delivered against you, not us."
"Yes, yes!" the man grovellingly assented. "I know—mine's the loss. But you gentlemen orter give me a chance to make it up building round this cursed mud-hole?"
"Round what?"
He turned scowlingly upon Carter. "This mud-hole, I said." With a greasy sneer, he added: "But mebbe you kin build across it?"
"I can."
"What?" he screamed his angry surprise. "Why, hell! Wasn't it you that tol' me it wouldn't carry a grade?"
"I said it wouldn't carry yours."
His quiet assurance gave the contractor pause, while engineer and surveyor looked their surprise. "Going to drive piles down to China?" The contractor grew hysterically sarcastic. "You'll need a permit from Li Hung Chang. What do you know about grades, anyway? I was building this railroad while you was wearing long clothes."
"Likely." Carter's easy drawl set the others a-grin and caused Dorothy to hide her smile in her handkerchief. "But you ain't out of yours yet. A yearling baby wouldn't try to stack rock on top of mud. But that isn't the question. D' you allow to finish the contract?"
"Think I'm a fool?" the man rasped.
"'Tain't always polite to state one's thoughts. But—do you?" And when the other tendered a surly negative, he turned to the engineer. "You hear, sir? And now I file my bid."
The chief, however, looked his doubt. As yet engineering science offered no solution for the muskeg problem, and this was not the first grade he had seen sacrificed to a theory. "Are you serious?"
"As a Methodist sermon," Carter answered his grave question. Then, drawing him aside, he pulled a paper from his pocket—an estimate for the work. It was dated two weeks back, prevision that caused the chief to grimly remark: "Pretty much like measuring a living man for his coffin, wasn't it? But look here, Carter! I'd hate to see you go broke on this hole. I doubt—and your figure is far too low. What's your plan?"
"I'm going to make a sawdust fill with waste from the Portage Mills."
Whistling, the chief looked his admiration, then grinned, the idea was so ludicrous in its simplicity. For, all said, the problem resolved itself into terms of specific gravity—iron sinks and wood floats in water; and the muskeg which swallowed clay would easily carry a sawdust bank. Moreover, the idea was thoroughly practicable. Situated five miles from Winnipeg, the Portage Mills were the largest in the province and their owners would willingly part with the refuse that cumbered their yards.
"You've got it!" he cried, slapping his thigh.
"That's not all. If old Brass Bowels—" Noticing that the contractor was looking their way, he finished in a whisper, the significance of which caused the chief's grizzled brows to rise till lost in the roots of his hair.
"You'll break camp—?" he questioned.
"To-morrow. Build a spur into the mills, then start prairie grading at the American line and run north. Ought to make a junction about the time the sink is filled."
And this he did. The few miles of spur-track being quickly built, a yellow tide of sawdust was soon flowing out to the Devil's Muskeg, where Bender's wood gang directed its flow. At first there was great argument about this new material, some holding that one might as well try to build a road-bed with feathers. But it proved itself. Tamping hard as clay, it had greater resilience, and soon the twisted track rose like a mained serpent from the slimy clutch of the devil. Yes, miles of flat-cars, boarded up till they loomed big as houses, moved between mill and slough through that summer, and no one dreamed of their slow procession having other significance up to the moment that Helen heard newsboys crying a special in the hot streets—
"Monopoly refuses new line a crossing. Section gangs tear up Carter's diamond."
XXVI
WINNIPEG
By that time Helen had shaken down to a life that was new as strange—though not without travail; shaking is always uncomfortable.
Coming in to the city, a natural nervousness—that indefinite apprehension which assails the stoutest under the frown of new adventures—had been accentuated by heart-sickness from her late experiences, and was justified by some to come. She viewed its distant spires very much as an outlaw might contemplate far-off hostile towers. Entering from the west, as she did, one sees taller buildings poke, one by one, from under the flat horizon. For the city sits by the Red River—smoothest, most treacherous of streams—in the midst of vast alluvial plains, its back to the "Ragged Lands," facing the setting sun. North, south, east, and west of it they stretch, these great flat plains. Vividly emerald in spring-time, June shoots their velvet with chameleon florescences that glow and blaze with the seasons, fix in universal gold, then fade to purest white. Dark, dirty, the city stands out on the soft snow-curtain like a sable blot on an ermine mantle. Withal it is a clean city, for if the black muck of its unpaved streets cakes laboring wagons and Red River carts to the hubs after spring thaws, the dirt is all underfoot. No manufactures foul the winds that sweep in from boreal seas with the garnered essences of an empire of flowers.
Purely agricultural, then, in its functions, the bulk of its burgesses were, as might be expected, store-keepers, implement men, bankers, lawyers, land agents, all who serve or prey upon the farmer; for there, also, lurked the usurers, the twenty-per-cent. Shylocks, fat spiders whose strangling webs enmeshed every township from the Rockies to the Red. Spring, fall, or winter, grist failed not in their dark mills, which ground finer and faster than those of the gods. Scattering their evil seed on the dark days, it was their habit to reap in the sunshine, competing for the last straw with their fellows, the business men, in their single season of profit—Harvest. For in summer the city drowsed amid green wheat seas that curved with the degrees over the western world; it slept, nodding, till the wheat, its life-blood, came in huge arterial gushes to gorge its deflated veins.
Thus Helen found it—asleep under the midsummer sun. Walking to her destination, she met few people; after the hotel 'buses rattled by, the streets were deserted save for an occasional buck-board or slow ox-team chewing the peaceful cud at the wooden sidewalk. When, later, she walked those hot streets on that most wearisome of occupations, the search for an occupation, she became familiar with the city's more intimate topography—the huge concrete foundations, vacant, gaping as though at the folly which planned them and their superstructures, the aërial castles that blew up with the boom; the occasional brick blocks that raised hot red heads proudly above surrounding buildings, the river, with its treacherous peace; old Fort Garry, which she repeopled with governors, commissioners, factors, and trappers of the Hudson Bay Company.
Also she grew sensitive to its varied life, easily distinguishing between emigrants, who were injected by daily spurts into the streets, the city's veins, from the old-timers—remittance-men, in yellow cords and putties; trappers from Keewatin, Athabasca, the Great Slave Lake, in fringed moose-skins; plethoric English farmers, or gaunt Canadian settlers from the rich valley round-about; Indians of many tribes—Cree, Sioux, Ojibway; the heterogeneous mixture that yet lacked a drop of the Yankee or continental blood which would flow, ten years later, in a broad river over the American border. But this was after she had fallen into her place in the household of Glaves's big sister among a scattering of teachers, up for the Normal course, a brace of lawyers, three store-keepers, and a Scotch surgeon.
Just what or where that place was would be hard to say, seeing that it varied with the view-point of each lodger, nor remained the same in the opinion of any specific one. Thus did she shine, for one whole week, the particular star in the heaven of an English teacher, a mercurial lad of twenty; then having rejected his heart with a pecuniary attachment of thirty-five dollars per mensem, she fell like a shooting-star and became a mere receptacle for his succeeding passions, which averaged three a month. His fellow-teachers swung on an opposite arc. Canadians, and mostly recruited from the country, the soil still clung to their heavy boots. The profession, its aims and objects, formed their staple of conversation. Deeply imbued with the sense of the central importance of pedagogy in the scheme of things, they wore an air of owlish wisdom that was incompatible with the contemplation of such sublunary things as girls. Having wives, it was not to be expected that the store-keepers could notice a young person whose attractions so far exceeded her known acquaintance, and though the surgeon, a young man prodigiously bony as to the leg and neck, really worshipped her from behind the far folds of his breakfast newspaper, thought transference still lay in the womb of future humbuggery and she catalogued him as injuriously cold.
From this conglomerate of humanity she gained one friend, the young wife of a lawyer who had lately come West. Prettily dark as Helen was delicately fair, each made a foil for the other, which necessary base for feminine friendships being established, their relations were further cemented by an equal loneliness, and made more interesting by the expectation of an event. As it was not yet fashionable to shoo the stork away from the roof-tree, behold the pair fussing and sewing certain small garments with much tucking, trimming, insertioning, regulating said processes by the needs of some future mystery dight "shortening"—all of which brought Helen mixed feelings. The young husband's part in said operations was particularly trying. Supposedly immersed in his paper of evenings, he would watch them over the tip with a delighted sagacity akin to the knowing look which a bull-dog bestows on a crawling kitten. At times, too, he would descend upon the work and lay wee undervests out on his big palm, tie ridiculously small caps over his shut fist, ask absurd questions, and generally display the manly ignorance so sweet to the wifely soul; while Helen sat, a silent spectator of their happiness. It is a question which the acquaintance brought her most, pain or pleasure.
The tale of the boarders would not be complete without mention of Jean Glaves, a buxom woman, fair of hair, whose strong, broad face seemed to incarnate the very spirit of motherhood. With her Helen's place was never in doubt. Opening her big heart, she took the lonely girl right in, and proved a veritable fount of energy in her disheartening search for work.
In this her first experience conformed to that usual with a working-girl—she shivered under icy stares, shrank from the rude rebuffs of busy men, and blushed under smiles of idle ones; sustained the inevitable insult at the hands of a rascally commission broker at the end of one day's employment. His quick, appraising glance, following a first refusal, would have warned a sophisticated business woman, but the innocence which betrayed Helen later proved her best protection. The horror in her eyes, childlike look of hurt surprise, set the dull reds of shame in the fellow's cheeks, but she was out in the street with hat and jacket while he was still muttering his apology. Yet his grossness fell short of the vile circumspection of her next employer. A smug pillar of society and something in a church, caution would not permit him to stake reputation against possible pleasure on a single throw, yet she labored under no illusions as to the motive behind her second discharge.
"Oh, I can't bear it! I just can't try again!" she cried that night to Jean Glaves.
"You won't have to, dearie," the big woman comforted, and having tucked her comfortably upon her own lounge with a wet cloth upon her aching head, she went straight to the Scotch surgeon's room.
Her choice of confidant may have been due either to intuition or knowledge of what was going on behind the ramparts of the young man's breakfast paper. The event proved it wise, for his giraffe neck lengthened under his angry gulps, his bony hands and nodding head emphasized and attested Jean's scathing deliverence upon men in general. "The scoundrel!" he exclaimed, when she paused for lack of breath. "The scoundrel! I'd flog him mysel' but for the scandal. But see you he'll no' go unpunished. He's a bid in for the hospital supplies, and I'll be having a word with the head doctor." And thus, later, was the smug villain hit to the tune of some hundreds in his tenderest place, the pocket.
Not content with future revenge, the Scotchman's sympathy expressed itself in practical suggestion. "If ye'd think, Mistress Glaves"—he always accorded Jean the quaint title, and it fell gracefully from his stiff lips—"now if ye'd suppose the young leddy would like to try her hand at nursing, there's a vacancy in the hospital."
While he hesitated, Jean literally grabbed opportunity by the collar. "You come along with me."
Introduced a few seconds thereafter to man and subject, Helen exclaimed that she would love the work; nor were her thanks less sincere for being couched in stereotyped form. Howcouldshe thank him? Being sincere to the point of pain, after the fashion of his nation, the young man had almost answered that the obligation lay with him in that his studies behind the newspaper would be furthered and facilitated. He replied, instead, that the pay would be small, the work hard.
Not to be discouraged, she was thus launched upon what, in her condition, was the best of possible careers. For the mental suffering which, lacking an outlet, burns inwardly till naught is left of feeling but slag and cinders, becomes the strongest of motor forces when expended in service for others. Throwing herself body and soul into the new work, she forgot the suspicion, scandal that had lately embittered her days, and had such surcease of loneliness that in one month the lines of pain disappeared from around her eyes, her drooping mouth drew again into the old firm tenderness.
Besides content, the month brought her other satisfactions. Owing to lack of accommodation at the hospital, she still slept at the boarding-house, and dropping into Jean Glaves's room for a chat one evening, she found her conversing with a girl of her own age. She would have retired but that Jean called her back. "Don't go! We were talking of you. This is Miss Dorothy Chester, who used to board with me. Miss Chester—Mrs. Morrill."
There was, of course, nothing in the names to convey the significance of the introduction to either. After that period of secret study which is covered by the feminine amenities, each decided that she liked the other. Helen gladly accepted Dorothy's invitation to call, and in this ordinary fashion began a momentous acquaintance that soon developed through natural affinity into one of those rare and softly beautiful friendships which are occasionally seen between women. And as friendship means association in a city that has no theatre and few amusements, it soon happened that any evening might see Dorothy in Helen's room, or Helen on the way to her friend's hotel. Naturally Helen quickly learned that her friend's father and lover were head engineers on Carter's road, and that she had visited them in camp; and as Dorothy was as willing to talk of her novel experience as Helen to listen, imagine the pair in the former's cosey bedroom, one snugged up on a lounge, the other coiled in some mysterious feminine fashion on pillows at her side, fair girl hanging on dark girl's lips as she prattled of Carter, or joining in speculations as to what kind of a woman his wife might be.
She positively jumped when Dorothy declared one evening: "I'm sure he still loves her. Ernest says that he scoured the city for her; only gave up when he felt sure that she had gone East to her friends. When the road is finished, he is going back to look for her."
He had searched for her!Still loved her! It rhymed with her deft fingers rolling bandages; tuned her feet as she bore medicine-trays from ward to ward; ousted the dry anatomical terms of the daily lecture from their proper place in her mind. The thought illumined her face so that maimed men twisted on their cots to watch her down the ward. Meeting her on the main stairs, one day, Carruthers, the Scotch surgeon, almost mistook her for the Virgin Mother in the stained window above the landing.He searched for me! is going back East to look for me! The days spun by to that magical refrain.
Why, in view of all this, did she not confide in Dorothy? Though its roots grip deep down in woman nature, the strange, contradictory, inconsequential, yet wise woman nature, the reason lies close to the surface. Physically akin to the impulse which urges a shy doe to fly from its forest mate, her feeling flowed, mentally, from injured wifehood. For all her natural sweetness and joy over the thought of reunion, she was not ready to purchase happiness with unconditional surrender; to make overtures directly, or through Dorothy, that might be construed as a bid for executive clemency. As he had deserted her, so he must return; and that prideful resolution was strengthened and justified by the suffering which had immeasurably exceeded her fault. Yes, first he must return, then—would she instantly forgive him? Any lover can answer the question; if not, let him consult his sweetheart. "I'd make him suffer!" she will cry, gritting pretty teeth. So Helen.Veryunchristian, wicked, but natural.
No, she did not confide in Dorothy, went quietly about her business, hugging her sweet secret to her own soul, until— But this summary of her thought and feeling would not be complete without mention of a last, perhaps greatest, satisfaction—her joy in reading newspaper accounts of Carter's progress. Editorials, politics, reports, she read all, day by day, glowing over red-hot denunciations of the monopoly while she thought what good men the editors must be, and how intelligent to so clearly discern her husband's merits. She was mightily troubled by the insatiate appetite of the Devil's Muskeg, studying its rapacious dietary as though it were a diabetes patient. She triumphed when Carter successfully treated its ineffable hunger with vegetarian diet of sawdust; shivered when he was refused a crossing of the trunk line; thrilled over the battle when Bender and the woodmen beat back the monopoly's levies while the trackmen laid the "diamond," and grew sick with fear, as before mentioned, when she heard the newsboys crying out Carter's final repulse as she was walking home to her room about eight o'clock one evening.
Though very tired, she immediately turned in her agitation, and, undeterred by the continent of blue-print uniform that spread below her brown ulster, she hurried to Dorothy's hotel, an old caravansary that had survived two rebellions and the bursting of the boom. Once chief of the city's hostelries, the old house still attracted people who preferred its solid comfort to the gilt, lacquer, garish splendors of more modern rivals. The parlor in which she waited while her name was taken up to Dorothy, was panelled with sombre woods; her feet literally sank in a pile carpet, thick, green, and dark as forest moss. Walls were upholstered in hammered leather; chairs, heavy table, massive furnishings, all were of black oak. The portraits of governors, high commissioners, and chief factors of the Hudson Bay Company, soldiers and traders or both, seemed ready to step down from their frames to engage in wise council and issue fiats that would set a hundred tribes in motion. Time stood still in that solid atmosphere. Heavy odors of leather and wood, the pervading feeling of peaceful age combined to soothe her fretted nerves, and she had just relaxed her tired body within the embrace of a mighty chair when passing footsteps and a voice brought her up, tense and rigid.
Returning just then, the bell-boy repeated her question: "Gentlemen who just passed, Miss? Mr. Greer and Mr. Smythe, people that are financing the new line, and Mr. Carter, their head contractor. They are dining here with the general manager of the trunk line. If you'd like to see them," he added, interpreting her interest as curiosity, "just step this way. They've all gone in, and you can peep through the glass doors. It's that dark in the passage no one will see you."
As she tiptoed after him down the dark hallway he whispered further—"Reminds me of them old Romans, the general manager; them fellows that used to invite a man to a poisoned dinner. He's got those chaps shooed up into a corner, and now he's going to kill their financial goose over the cigars and wine. Sure, Miss, everybody knows that Greer's on his last legs. Bit off more than he could chew when he went to railroading; but old Brass Bowels will treat his indigestion. That's him, stout gent with his back this way. Greer and Smythe's either side of him. That's Mr. Carter opposite. T'other gentleman, Mr. Sparks, is general superintendent of the western division."
Slipping by the others her glance glued—the term is eschewed by purists, who ironically inquire if the adhesive used was of the carpenter variety, but it exactly describes her steadfast gaze—her glance glued to Carter's face. From above an arc lamp streamed white light down upon him, darkening the hollows under his eyes, raising his strong features in bold relief. This, be it remembered, was the first she had seen of him since he broke in upon the Ravell dinner-party, black, sooty, smelling evilly of sweat and smoke. And now he sat with a waiter behind his chair, at meat with the greatest man in the north, at a table that was spread with plate, cut-glass, linen, all of a costly elegance that transcended her own experience. The champagne bucket, at his elbow, of solid silver, with gold-crusted bottles thrusting sloping shoulders out of cracked ice, the last accessory of luxurious living, took on wonderful significance in that it accentuated to the last degree their changed positions. For surely the gods had turned the tables by bringing her in print hospital uniform and shabby ulster to witness this crowning of his development.
Be sure she felt the contrast. How could she do otherwise? Yet her feeling lacked the slightest touch of humiliation. Above such snobbishness, she was filled by joy and pride in his achievement, joined with tremulous fear, for the bell-boy's remarks had quickened her apprehension. That distinguished company, costly appointments, perfect service, impressed her as little as it did Carter, which is saying a good deal, for the pomp of civilization counts more with women than men, and he was bearing himself with the easiness of one who has conquered social circumstance. He chose the right fork for his salad, knife for his butter; broke his bread delicately, trifled with green olives as if born to the taste—though this edible presented itself as a new and bitter experience—small things and foolish if made an end in themselves, yet important in that, with improper usage, they become as barbed thorns in the side of self-respect. Significant things in Carter's case because they showed that he had applied to his social relations the same shrewdness, common-sense, keen sight that was making him successful in large undertakings.
Of course she noted his improvement? That he no longer used knife for spoon, squared elbows over his head, sopped bread in gravy? On the contrary, she saw only his face, dark and stern save when a smile brought the old humor back to his mouth. Her hungry eyes traced its every line, marking the minutest changes wrought by thought, care, sorrow, time's graving tools. Hands pressing her breast, she struggled for his voice with thick oak and heavy plate-glass, and so stood, wrapped up in him and their past, till the bell-boy spoke.
"Miss Chester said you was to go right up, Miss."
She jumped, and her tremulous fear took form in words. "You are sure the general manager will—"
"—Do things to 'em?" he finished, as he led her upstairs. "They're dead ones, Miss."
XXVII
THE NATURE OF THE CINCH
The bell-boy was not alone in his opinion. Through that summer twenty thousand settler farmers had kept suspicious tab on the monopoly, and now that it felt the clutch reclosing on its throat, the entire province had flamed up in wrath and fear. Press, legislature, and pulpit denounced the refusal of a crossing that was without shadow of a claim in equity, and was plainly intended to kill competition by tedious and costly litigation. In town, village, on trail, at meeting, wherever two settlers were gathered together, the general manager's action was damned in no uncertain terms. Indignation flowed like a tidal-wave over the plains. Skimming low with the north wind, an aeronaut would have heard the hum of speech rise from the face of the land, angry and continuous as the buzz of swarming bees. It had pealed out in clarion triumph, that hugevox humana, when the "diamond" was laid after desperate fighting; it swelled in furious discordance when, the previous day, Carter's men were forced back by sheer weight of the levies that the general manager had gathered and brought in from the sections along three thousand miles of track.
It was one of those situations which require only a touch of demagoguery to wreak great harm. Insurrection hung thick in the air. Secession and coalescence with the United States were openly advocated by men who later read with astonishment their own words in the papers of that stormy time. Thousands of armed settlers waited only for the word to fall upon the monopoly's levies, but in face of united public opinion, backed by an inflamed press, Carter and his people remained quiescent—supinely quiescent, according to certain editorials.
A morning paper recalled its prediction of months ago: "We warned Mr. Carter not to be deceived by the monopoly's complaisance in bringing his construction outfit and supplies out from the East over its tracks. The concession was merely bait for the trap, analogous to the handing of a rope to a fool wherewith to hang himself. We are loath to quote the old proverb against Mr. Carter, yet were it not for the fact that the monopoly snaps its fingers in the face of this province through him, we should be tempted to show satisfaction at the plight to which his fatuous self-confidence has brought him."
The article closed with a vivid word picture of the general manager chucklingà laMephistopheles in the privacy of his luxurious office; which, perhaps, approximated the reality more closely than that in the minds of the laity. For a composite of the popular impression would have shown the entire railroad pantheon, general manager, department heads, with their clerks, sub-heads, assistants, and deputy assistants, all very lofty of brow and solemn of face, in session over the crisis.
The reality was much more prosaic. Indifferent to the newsboys, who were crying his crimes on the streets, the general manager sat in the office of the division superintendent that morning, chair tilted back, feet on the table, thumbs comfortably bestowed in the arm-holes of his vest. It has remained for a practical business age to clothe itself in the quintessence of ugliness. Imagine Julius Cæsar in a tuxedo, Hamlet wearing a stove-pipe hat! His black coat, check trousers would have pleased a grocer's fancy in Sunday wear, and it were difficult to realize that their commonplace ugliness clothed a power greater than Cæsar's—the ability to create and people provinces, to annihilate and build up towns, to move cities like checkers over the map; harder still to listen to his curt speech, issuing from blue tobacco smoke, and believe that an empire larger than ancient Rome paid him tribute, that the blood and sweat of a generation had gone to grease his juggernautal wheels. Yet the speech itself certified to the power.
"We made a mistake, Sparks; but who could foresee this fellow Carter? Here's the N.P. lusting for a chance to cut in over the border. Give them that crossing and old Jim Ball will place their bonds for any amount in exchange for reciprocal running arrangements. So we've got to make a quick killing. Buy 'em out, lock, stock, and barrel, while the fear of God's in their hearts. They must sell—look at this Bradstreet report on old Greer's assets. Just about at the end of his string. So I want you to write and invite them to dinner to-night—Greer, Smythe, and Carter—though the order ought to be reversed; he's the brains of the business. Draw it mild—conference with a view to amicable arrangement of points at issue, and so forth. But when we once get them there—" His nod was brutal in its significance.
Equally wide of popular conception was the scene in the banking office of Greer & Smythe when the invitation was delivered. Carter, who swung an easy leg from his favorite perch on the table, seemed to have thrived on defeat; the most elastic imagination would have failed to invest him with the weight of a people's cares. Indeed, he laughed when the senior partner handed him the general manager's note.
"Hum! 'Will you walk into my parlor, said the spider to the fly!' What do I make of it? That's easy. Has us going—or thinks he has—and is aching to deliver the knock-out. A million to a minute he wants to buy us out."
"Well, he never will!" Red and plethoric, the senior partner sprang up. An elderly man, his clear eyes, honest face, framed in white side-whiskers of the Dundreary style, all stamped him as belonging to the old-fashioned school of finance which aimed always to advance the civic interest while turning an honest penny. "No, sir!" he reiterated. "We'll break first; and goodness knows that is not so far away. Yesterday I approached Murray, of the North American Bank, but he answered me in his broad Scotch: 'Hoots, mon! get your crossing first. Get your crossing an' we'll talk.' And so with Butler, Smith, and others who promised support."
"Cold feet, eh?" Carter commented. "They'll warm them presently chasing themselves for a chance to come in."
The old gentleman ran on in his indignation. "Yes, we are about at the end of our financial string, but we would rather dangle there than yield to these pirates. Am I right, sir?"
Smythe, a younger man, lean, laconic, and dark as the other was stout, florid, nodded, and his vigorous answer was untainted by a suspicion of compromise. "Surely, sir! But if Mr. Carter's plan fails—" His shrug supplied the hiatus.
Carter answered the shrug. "It won't fail." He held up the invitation. "But, say! Fancy—to-day, of all days?"
"Of course we won't go," Smythe frowned.
"Of course we* will*," Carter grinned. "Think what it means? Besides blinding them to the trap, we shall be there when it springs, and I wouldn't miss Brass Bowels' face for a thousand, cash. Let me see; the bid is for eight-thirty. Western flyer is due at Portage station nine-fifteen. He'll hardly broach business before the coffee, and with any kind of luck we ought to serve him up a beautiful case of indigestion."
"With luck?" the senior partner echoed.
"With or without. Everything is planned beyond possibility of failure. Mr. Chester goes with Mr. Hart on the construction-train, while Bender keeps things humming at the crossing. By-the-way, he's in the outer office now, with Hart, waiting for last orders, and if you don't mind I'll have them in. I wouldn't take a chance even on your clerks."
In view of just such a contingency, Bender had invested his bulk with store clothes of that indescribable pattern and cut which fulfils lumberman ideals. From his mighty shoulders a quarter-acre of black coat fell half-way down worsted pantaloons that were displaying an unconquerable desire to use the wrinkles of high boots as a step-ladder to his knees. As collars did not come in sizes for his red throat, he had compromised on a kerchief of gorgeous silk, and a soft hat, flat and black, completed a costume that was at once his pride and penance. In the luxurious office, with its rich fittings in mahogany and leather, he loomed larger than ever; was foreign as a bear in a lady's boudoir. Uncomfortably aware of the fact, he took the chair which the senior partner offered with a sigh of relief, and was fairly comfortable till the position discovered its own disadvantages—while his coat announced every movement with miniaturefeux de joiefrom bursting seams, his trousers ascended his boots as a fireman goes up a hotel escape. To which sources of discomfort was added the knowledge that his face mapped in fair characters the fluctuations of the recent combat. But he forgot all—scars, raiment, unconventional bulk—as soon as he began to talk.
"All ready," he replied to Carter's question. "Buckle has been round the camp some lately. Only this morning I caught him talking to Michigan Red. It's a cinch that he was spotting for the railroad, but as I knew you'd as lief he'd tip us off as not, I didn't bust his head. Jes' allowed I didn't see him."
"Yes, let him talk," Carter replied, relative to the broken contractor. "But"—he addressed the surveyor—"there's no whispering in your outfit?"
"Couldn't be," the young fellow laughed. "Mr. Chester only toldmean hour ago. The men know nothing—willknownothing up to the moment we pull into Prairie."
"Good. Now, you are to leave at dusk, and don't forget to grab the operator before he can rattle a key. But turn him loose as soon as you are through and let him wire in the news. And you, Bender, start in at eight, keep 'em busy as long as you can, then load what's left of you in a flat-car and steam round for Mr. Hart."
"What's left of me?" Bender growled, as he walked with the surveyor down-street a few minutes later. "Hum! Give me the Cougar and an even hundred of old-style Michigan men, and I'd drive the last of Brass Bowels' tarriers into the Red and beat you out laying the diamond. But, Lordy, what's the use o' talking! The old stock petering out an' the new's jes' rotten with education. They'd sooner work than fight, an' loaf than either, for they ain't exactly what you'd call perticler hell on labor. What's left of me? Well, there'll be some fragments, I guess. While I was hanging round I picked up an odd score of Oregon choppers that blew in here las' week. Brass Bowels' agent tried for 'em, but they'd lumbered with me in British Columbia. Come out an' see 'em. They're beauties."
Perhaps they were, for standards of beauty, morality, of any old thing, are merely relative and depend so much on local color. To Hart, who reviewed the "beauties" in Bender's camp, they seemed the most unmitigated ruffians in his railroad experience; but as they strut on this small section of the world-stage for "Positively one appearance only," let them be judged by their record in the rough work of that night; by the way in which they bore themselves in the roar, surge, and tumble of a losing fight, the echoes of which alarmed the dark city and came with the soup to the general manager's dinner; and let him deliver their valedictory to his guests at table.
Throwing a telegram—which a waiter brought in just after Helen went up-stairs—across to Carter, the magnate remarked: "That big foreman of yours has been at it again. He has put two of our heaviest engines into the ditch and ten men into hospital. Not bad, but—he didn't lay the diamond."
"Oh, well," Carter shrugged, "better luck next time."
"Ah, yes—the next time?" Repeating the phrase with dubious inflection, he went on with his dinner, and for an hour thereafter no one heard the rattle of the skeleton behind the feast. He acted the perfect host, easily courteous, pleasant, anxious for the preference of his guests. As he ran on, drawing from the sources of a wide and unusual experience for his dinner chat, it was curious to note the shadings in his manner. Addressing the partners, he seemed to exhale rather than evidence a superiority which, on their part, they countenanced by an equally subtle homage. Integrity and deprecation of his policy and methods were dominated by the orthodox business sense which forced subconscious recognition of his title as king of their business world. With Carter, however, he was frankly free, as though they two had been section-men eating their bite together on a pile of ties, and doubtless the difference in his manner sprang from some such feeling. For whereas the partners were born to their station, he recognized Carter as a product—unfinished, but still a product—of the forces which had produced himself and a dozen other kings and great contractors of the constructive railroad era. Without invidious distinction or neglect of the others, he yet made him the focus of attention.
"We heard all about your sawdust grades," he complimented, with real cordiality. "A mighty clever idea, sir; pity you couldn't patent it—though we are glad you cannot, for we intend to apply it on all our Rainy River muskegs."
Approaching business at the close of the meal, he was equally suave. "You are to be complimented upon your achievement, gentlemen," he said, addressing the partners. "We feel that while supplying a real need of the province, you have convicted us of remissness. But now that we do see our duty, it would be equally criminal for us to leave you the burden of this heavy responsibility. We know how it has taxed your resources"—his gray eye stabbed the senior partner—"and we are fully prepared to relieve you." Pausing, he lit a cigar, puffed a moment, and finished, "We will take the enterprise off your hands, bag and baggage, on terms that will yield you a handsome profit."
A pause followed. No man turns from an easy road to a rocky climb without lingering backward glances, and the partners looked at one another while the general manager leaned back and smoked with the air of one who had faithfully performed a magnanimous duty. Greer spoke first.
"Very kind offer, I am sure."
"Most handsome," Smythe, the laconic, added. "But—" He glanced at Carter, who finished, "We are not on the market."
The manager raised his brows. Expecting a first refusal, he was slightly staggered and irritated by its bluntness, yet masked both emotions. "Not on your own terms?"
"On no terms," Greer emphatically answered; then, flushing, he added: "Our chief motive in going into this enterprise, sir, was to bring sorely needed railroad competition into this province. It would not be subserved by our selling to you."
The manager flicked the ash from his cigar. Then, while smoking, he regarded the old gentleman from under bulging lids very much as a curious collector might note the wriggles of an impaled beetle. "Very laudable intention; does you credit, sir. But you must pardon me if I doubt that you will carry it to the length of financial hari-kari. You have heard of that Japanese custom? A man commits suicide, empties himself upon a cold and unsympathetic world for the benefit of his enemy, who is compelled by custom to go and do likewise. In your case the sacrifice would be foolish because we shouldn't follow suit. Now when I spoke of your resources"—during an ugly pause his glance flickered between the partners—"I did not state our exact knowledge of their extent. You are—practically—broke. In addition, we have bought up all of your paper that we could find floating on the market, and three months from now—we shall be in a position to demand a receiver in bankruptcy. Stop!" Frowning down Greer's attempted interruption, he dropped his suave mask and stood out, the financial king, brutal, imperious, predatory. "I know what you would say. Three months is a long time. But no one will make you a better offer—any offer—till you can cross our line. You can force a crossing? Yes, but we'll law you, badger you, carry the case from court to court up to the privy council—two years won't make an end. In the meantime—" He had thrown himself at them, bearing down upon them with all the force of his powerful will, of the furiously strong personality that had crushed financial opposition to plans and projects beside which their enterprise was as a grain of sand to the ocean. Now, in a flash, he became again the polished host. "Take your time, gentlemen.Weare in no hurry. Several days, if you choose. But—be advised."
But big, strong, and masterful as the manager was, every Goliath has his David, and the first stone in the forehead came from the sling of Smythe—Smythe, who had hardly opened his mouth through the meal save for the admittance of food or drink. Banging the table so that the glass rang and a champagne bowl flew from its thin stem, he sprang up, his dark face flushed and defiant. "We'll take neither your advice nor your time! God knows that we are hard shoved, but damn a man who sells his country! And since you have been so outspoken, let me tell you that we'll run trains across your line, and that inside—"
"This hour." In its quiet assurance, Carter's interpolation came with all the force of an accomplished fact. The manager started, and the division superintendent upset his wine. As their backs were to the door, neither saw a waiter take a telegram from a messenger-boy, and sign for its delivery after a glance at the clock, which indicated half-past nine. Nor could either fact have the significance for them that their combination had for Carter.
The manager recovered his poise even as the waiter handed the telegram to his colleague, and, though puzzled, hid the feeling behind a show of confident contempt. "I hardly gather your meaning, but presume you mean—war?"
Missing the superintendent's sudden consternation, he was going on. "Very well. Ihadhoped—" when the former pulled his sleeve. "What's this?"
He stared blankly at the words: "Construction-train, with men and Gatling-guns, across our tracks at Prairie. Number ten, Western Mail, held up with three hundred passengers."
During an astonished silence, the partners watched the manager, who looked at Carter, who lightly drummed on the table. "Your train?" he went on, slowly, with words that evidenced his flashing insight into the situation. "Hum! Sawdust, eh? Came down the spur you laid to the Portage Mills at Prairie; grabbed our operator; then extended the mill-switch across our tracks. Know how to kill two birds with one stone, don't you?"
During a second silence he fenced glances, nervously fingering the telegram, then suddenly asked: "What's the use? You can't hold it?"
"With two Gatlings and five hundred men—five thousand, if I need them?"
"The law's against you."
"As it is against you at the crossing. Possession is said to be nine of its points, anyway, so we have you just nine-tenths to the bad." Slightly smiling, he quoted: "'We'll law you, badger you, carry the case from court to court up to the privy council—two years won't make an end.'"
The manager raised heavy lids. "In three months we'll break you."
Carter shrugged. "Who knows? In the mean time—your traffic will be suspended?"
Through all the superintendent had fidgeted nervously; now he broke in: "Pish, man! We'll build round your old train in six hours."
"Will you?" Without even a glance in his direction, Carter ran on, addressing the manager: "You see, land is that cheap since the boom that we took options on a right of way from Prairie clean up to the north pole and down to the American border. No, you won't go around us, but we shall go round you and come into this burg south of your tracks."
"But you're out of law," the superintendent angrily persisted. "You haven't the shadow of a right—"
"Oh, shut up, Sparks," the manager impatiently interrupted. "What has right to do with it? He's got us in the door and it's no use squealing. Now"—the glance he turned on Carter was evenly compounded of hostility and admiration—"terms? You'll release our train—"
"When you cede our legal crossing, and call off your dogs. We'll hold Prairie till every man Jack of your guards is shipped out of the city."
"Could you have the papers drawn—" He had intended "to-night," but he paused as Greer drew them from an inner pocket and his iron calm dissolved in comical disgust. "Hum! You're not timid about grabbing time by the forelock. But, let me see!"
Once more the arc lights could be heard sputtering. In that tense moment their own fortunes swung in the balance with the welfare of a province, and while the manager read they waited in silence. Trimming the end of a cigar with careful precision, Carter masked all feeling, but the partners could not hide their nervousness—Smythe fidgeted, Greer locked and unlocked clasped fingers. Both held their breath till the manager's pen made a rough scratch on the silence.
A good loser, he said, as Greer rose after buttoning his coat over the precious document: "Don't go, gentlemen—at least till we have drunk the occasion. I see another bottle there in the ice."
And his toast, "To our next merry meeting," formed the premise of the deduction which Carter returned to Greer's relieved exclamation when they stood, at last, alone in the street.
"Thank God! It is over!"
"On the contrary, it is just begun."
Passing under a street lamp, its white light revealed the pale disturbance which banished the senior partner's flushed content. Stopping dead, he agitatedly seized Carter's arm.
"You don't suppose he will go back on his—"
"Signature? No, he won't repeat. He's done with the crossing."
"Then we can weather through," Greer said, and Smythe echoed his sigh of relief.
"But—" Carter quoted the bucolic proverb which recites the many ways in which a pig may be killed other than by a surfeit of butter.
"But whatcanhe do?" Greer persisted.
"Don't know," Carter slowly answered. "Only a man don't have to look at that bull-dog jaw of his a second time to know that he'll do it, and do it quick."
"I'd give a good deal to know," Smythe frowned, then smoothed his knotted brow as he laughed at Carter's rejoinder.
"I'd give three cents myself."
Not feeling sleepy, Carter walked on after he had dropped the partners at their respective doors, aimlessly threading the dark streets that gave back his hollow foot-fall; and so passing, by chance, under Helen's window, he brought a pause in the anxious meditation which had kept her restlessly tossing, and set her to momentary speculations as to the owner of that firm and heavy tread. She listened, listened till it grew fainter and died as he turned the corner. Keeping on in the cool silence, he presently came to the Red River suspension bridge, where he paused and leaned on the parapet at the very spot from which she loved to watch Indians and chattering squaws float beneath in quaint birch canoes. There was, of course, nothing to warn him of the fact any more than she could have guessed him as owner of the solitary foot-fall. He thought of her, to be sure. Always she stood in the background, ready to claim him whenever press of affairs permitted reflection; and now she thrust in between him and the twinkling lights of the sleeping city. Where was she? And doing—what? How much longer before he could go in search of her? After long musing he swept the weary intervening days away with an impatient gesture, and his longing took form in muttered speech:
"How long? My God! how much longer?"
The thought brought him back to his work and the events of the evening. What would be the manager's next move? He gazed down into the dark river intently, as though he expected its hoarse voice to give answer. But though he canvassed, as he thought, every possibility, the reality—which presented itself a week or so after he resumed operations in the Silver Creek forests—was beyond the range of his thought.