CHAPTER XXVIEn Route
Berthagave a little gasp of surprise. An hour ago she would have been most dreadfully dismayed at such a disaster, but now it seemed like a providential chance which would admit of her going to railhead without seriously upsetting the plans of anyone.
“It is not so much what shall I do, as what you can do yourself,” she answered slowly. “I thought that you said you must get home to-night, because you had some work to do.”
“So I must, even though I have to walk every step of the way, although luckily that is not necessary, as I can ride one of the horses,” he answered.
“Would you like me to wait in the town and drive the wagon home when it is mended?” she asked. “I could stay at Mrs. Smith’s boarding-place, where I stayed when I came west, until Tom could meet me.”
“If you could do that I’d be more obliged than I could say. But wouldn’t you be afraid to bring the horse and wagon all those miles alone?”
“Not if you will leave me Jupiter to drive,” she said. “I should be afraid of the black horse because it does rear so, but I could manage the other very well indeed.”
“You are a downright brick of a girl, and I’ll send young Fricker over to Duck Flats to-morrow to tell Eunice that she will have to hang on at your job until you can get back. And we will manage the post office somehow; there is not much business doing these days, that is one comfort under present circumstances,” said Bill Humphries, with an air of huge relief. “I wish that you would just come along with me to Luke Moulden’s and arrange with him about what time he is to have the wagon ready for you the day after to-morrow. My word, but you have taken a load off my mind!” Bill Humphries gave vent to a windy, gasping sigh as he spoke, and hurried through the slush of the badly made sidewalk at such a rate, that Bertha had some difficulty in keeping up with him.
It was not the wheel only which had suffered from the collision, but one side of the wagon was stove in also; and Luke Moulden scratched his head in a dubious fashion when told that he must have it done by the day after to-morrow.
“It is sprung and it is ratched, the panel is broke right through, and, goodness gracious, man! do you think that I can mend your old wagon by steam?” demanded Luke, as he walked round the derelict, surveying the damages which he would have to put straight.
“You will have to this time, and if you have to charge a leetle extra for making haste, why, that is not my fault; and seeing that the railway people have got to pay the bill, because it was the carelessness of their man what did the mischief, why, I shan’t be so much upset as if it had got to come out of my pocket,” drawled Bill Humphries, winking in the direction of the depot yard, as if it were all a very good joke indeed.
“Needs must, I suppose, when the old ’un drives,” rejoined Luke Moulden, with a slow, rumbling laugh. “You shall have the job finished to time, even if I have to sit up both nights to get it through, and I’ll hitch up for the young lady smart and early; for she won’t want to get benighted on the road.”
“I thought that I should manage him if I just happened to say he could charge a trifle more for getting it done quick,” chuckled Bill, as he went back with Bertha along the muddy road to the stores, where he spent half an hour with her, arranging for the lading of the wagon and the sort of goods he wanted her to bring back; and, when this was done, he had to mount his horse and ride off to Pentland Broads at the best pace he could make, while Bertha, left to her own devices, went slowly towards the police barracks to see what arrangements Inspector Grant had been able to make for her.
She did not have to wait for him this time, but found that he was waiting for her, and there was a smile on his face which seemed to indicate that he had been able to manage to his own satisfaction.
“Well, Miss Doyne, I have got on better than I expected,” he said cheerfully. “The wife of one of our men stationed at Brocken Ridge wants to go through to her husband, and she will take care of you on the way out to railhead, look after you while you are there, and see you safely on the cars for the return. I have got to write a pass for her, and I will write one for you also, then the journey will cost you nothing beyond your food and the bodily discomfort which you are bound to endure; for I warn you that the journey will not be exactly a picnic, as you will have to travel out on a freighter.”
“How very kind you are!” she exclaimed. “I don’t in the least mind the discomfort, if only I can get my errand done.”
“Very well, be at the depot by six o’clock this evening, and I will step along to introduce you to Mrs. Walford; she is a very respectable sort, and will take proper care of you. If I had had any doubt about her, I should not have allowed you to go; for railhead is not a nice place for a girl, despite the efforts of the contractors to keep the construction camps clean and wholesome.”
“I am not afraid,” said Bertha simply.
“I don’t believe that you are,” he answered, smiling at her in a kind, fatherly fashion, “but that is all the more reason why other people should be afraid for you when duty calls you into questionable places. Now, don’t forget it is six o’clock sharp, and be sure that you are at the depot in good time.”
Bertha thanked him, and then made her way to the boarding house kept by Mrs. Smith, a little Irishwoman who had arrived at Rownton with the railway and stayed there ever since.
She received Bertha with a great demonstration of welcome, for no one who had ever spent a night under her roof was forgotten, and she declared that the prairie life must have suited the girl from the east, who had been so homesick, because it had made her so good-looking.
“It is rale beautiful that you have grown, my dear. Sure, but there is nothing to equal these lonely places for making the roses bloom in the faces of girls like yourself!” she exclaimed, taking Bertha by the shoulders and turning her round to the light.
Bertha flushed, and a happy light stole into her eyes. It had always been a secret trouble to her that she should be so plain and uninteresting, when Anne and Hilda had been so pleasant to look upon; therefore the feeling that someone thought that she was nice-looking warmed her heart and sent a glow of happiness through every fibre of her being.
“The prairie is a wonderful place for bringing out what there is in one,” she answered, laughing and flushing under the little woman’s gaze. “I had no idea that I could work so hard until I came out west.”
“And do you like it better than you thought that you would, or are you homesick still for the woods, the hills, and the seashore?” asked Mrs. Smith; and there was a wistfulness in her own eyes which seemed to point to the fact that she herself had unsatisfied longings for the land of her past.
“I believe that I long just as much as ever for the beautiful scenery, and especially for the sea. But one cannot have everything, you know, and I have so much more to fill my life now than I had in the past; so I am content,” replied Bertha, smiling down into the wistful eyes of the little Irishwoman.
“Ah, and it is that which makes for your good looks, my dear! Sure, and there’s nothing like contentment for making the roses bloom in the cheeks and the eyes to shine. How long have you come to stay with me, dear?” said Mrs. Smith, giving Bertha a gentle push into the big rocking chair which stood beside the stove.
“I am here for two nights, only I shall not be here,” replied Bertha, in some confusion, and then broke into a laugh at her own foolishness in mixing her speech up in such a fashion. “I mean that I am not going back to my cousin’s house until the day after to-morrow, but I have business which will take me to railhead, that is out beyond Wastover, and I am going out to-night in a freighter, and I suppose that I shall come back some time to-morrow night, only I can’t be sure when.”
“But you can’t go to railhead alone; them construction camps ain’t no place for a young girl like you,” objected Mrs. Smith, uplifting her hands in horror at the bare idea of such a thing.
“I am not going alone,” answered Bertha, with a reassuring smile. “Mrs. Walford, of the Mounted Police, is to take care of me, and Inspector Grant has written me a pass.”
“Ah, then it is right you are if the inspector has had anything to do with it, for he is the most particular man, and as careful of women and children as if they was new-laid eggs!” said Mrs. Smith, and then she bustled about getting a meal for Bertha. The supper at her boarding house was always spread for half-past six o’clock, which, of course, would be too late for Bertha, who, therefore, had to be fed separately.
Having had no food since her early breakfast, Bertha was quite prepared to do justice to Mrs. Smith’s providing, especially as it was exceedingly doubtful when and where she would obtain her next meal. There was time for a brief half-hour of rest after her early supper, but Bertha could not sleep, being too much oppressed by a dread of losing her train. A few minutes before six o’clock she walked across to the depot, and the first person she saw when she arrived was a stout, elderly woman, who promptly pounced upon her much as a hungry cat might spring for a young and tender mouse.
“Now, do say, are you Miss Doyne, the young lady that is going to railhead?” demanded the stout woman, with a blowing sort of gasp intended to relieve her feelings.
“Yes, that is my name, and I am going to railhead. Are you Mrs. Walford?” asked Bertha, smiling at the stout woman with great satisfaction, because she looked so comfortable and motherly a woman.
“That is my name, and I am not so old as I look. It is this dreadful stoutness that is so aging,” said Mrs. Walford, with a second blowing gasp, which reminded Bertha of an engine letting off steam. “Forty-five, I am, and not a week more, for my birthday was the day before yesterday; and, I am sure, to look at, anyone might well take me for sixty. I tell Walford sometimes that I will go in for some of those patent medicines that are advertised for reducing the figure. Then he laughs at me, and offers to swop jobs for a few weeks; for, as he says, a mounted policeman has no use for fat, and certainly he can’t keep it.”
“What a good idea! Why don’t you try it?” asked Bertha, laughing at the fancy picture her mind conjured up of plump Mrs. Walford in a policeman’s uniform, seated upon a frisky horse.
The stout woman laughed too, as if the little joke tickled her, then she answered, in her gasping, jerky fashion, “I would swop jobs with him for a time if it wasn’t for one thing, and that is, I would not dare to mount a horse. My own two legs are shaky, I know; but I do feel safe when I am on them, which is more than I should do if I were mounted on four legs. But though I can’t take his job I can share his life, and now that they are going to have a police barracks at Brocken Ridge, I’m going to live there, to make some sort of a home for him and the other men stationed in that district, and it won’t be my fault if I don’t manage to run off a little of this fat of mine before I have done.”
“I am sure I hope that you will be successful, if it is going to make you more comfortable,” said Bertha, and then she asked, “Do you know if Inspector Grant is coming to the depot before we start?”
“He was coming, but just as we were moving out of the door a message came for him that he was wanted at Ardley Crossing as soon as he could get there, and so he had to go. He told me I was to find you, and I wasn’t to go without you, even if I had to get the freighter kept waiting for half an hour, though I guess there would be a pretty row among the officials if I were to try on any games of that sort,” said Mrs. Walford.
Bertha laughed, and then turned to follow her companion towards the door of a covered freight wagon (box car, as it was called), and of which there were only three in the long train of wagons, laden with railway construction stuff, which had drawn into the Rownton depot.
“Now, which of these cars have we got to ride in, I wonder?” said Mrs. Walford, in a puzzled tone, as the first car appeared to be fast locked, and there was no possibility of getting near the others save by wading or swimming, as the melted snow covered the track in pools of muddy water; then, seeing a man in the distance who appeared to be in some way connected with the train, she called out loudly, “Here! Hi! young man, can you tell me which of these cars has been reserved for Mrs. Walford, of the Mounted Police?”
“This ain’t a passenger train, ma’am, but only a freighter going through to railhead loaded with construction stuff,” said the young man, lifting his cap politely.
“I did not say it was, but it has got to carry a passenger, or rather two passengers, this trip, so just stir round, will you, please, and see where we are to be accommodated, for I don’t want to stand in this cutting wind much longer,” said Mrs. Walford impatiently.
“But there ain’t anywhere for you to ride,” objected the young man, looking so much worried by the stout woman’s persistence, that Bertha had some difficulty in keeping from laughing.
“Well, all I have got to say about it is that you will have to make a place for us to ride, then, and that very quickly, too, for I’m not here to be kept waiting,” rejoined Mrs. Walford, with a note of asperity creeping into her tone. “I have a pass from Inspector Grant to carry this young lady and myself to railhead, and we have got to be taken there, even if you have to unload one box car on purpose for us.”
“I wish that we could be told when we have got to carry passengers, then we might be able to have proper accommodation for them,” said the young man, whereupon he departed in all haste to find the brakeman, who was presently unearthed from the caboose of the engine, where he had been refreshing himself with a cup of hot coffee, and was only dragged forth by the importunities of the young man, who was really concerned on account of the stout woman and her companion.
“There is a lot of camp bedding in that first box car; we might make room for you in there. It will be rather close, I’m afraid, and you won’t be able to have a fire, but it is the best that we can do for you,” said the brakeman, when he had mentally figured out the different kinds of lading contained in the three box cars.
“We shan’t need a fire if there is so much bedding. The nights are not as cold as they were, and, for my own part, I would rather not be shut up in a box car, with a red-hot stove, over a track that is not properly settled,” said Mrs. Walford, who was an old hand at pioneer travelling, and knew to a nicety what it was best to avoid.
“Well, come along, and I will stow you away as comfortably as I can manage it. We are due to draw out of Rownton in less than half an hour, and we shall need as much as that, I guess, to fix you up so that you won’t fall out of bed,” said the man, and, seizing a lantern which hung inside the depot shed, he fixed a short ladder to the opening high up on the side of the box car, and, running up it, he unlocked the doors and swung them back.
The car was packed from floor to ceiling with bundles of bedding fastened up in coarse canvas, and at first sight there did not appear to be an inch of space in which the two passengers could be stowed; but the brakeman called the young man to whom Mrs. Walford had at first applied, and the two worked with so much zeal and energy, that at the end of twenty minutes they had succeeded in clearing a little space which would enable Mrs. Walford and Bertha to sit side by side, though they could not lie down. Then, ripping open a bundle of blankets, the brakeman spread them out for the comfort of the adventurous pair of travellers, and the preparations were complete.
“I’m sure I hope that you will be comfortable,” said the brakeman, as he helped them to climb up the side into the car. “I remember taking a couple of men a night journey in a car of bedding five years ago, when I was braking down in Montana, and when we opened the car in the morning they was both as dead as door nails. Fact is, they was drunker than they should have been when we took them on board, and we found two empty whisky bottles lying beside them.”
And with this cheery reminiscence, he locked the doors on Mrs. Walford and Bertha.
CHAPTER XXVIIA Weird Night
Clicketyclack, rick rack! Clickety clack, rick rack!
It seemed to Bertha that the horrible noise and rattle had been going on for hours, and days, and weeks. Her head ached from the constant noise and the lack of ventilation, her arms ached, her back ached, and she ached in every bone in her body. A small, badly trimmed lamp swung from a hook above her head and occasionally dropped kerosene upon her; but she could not move away, because there was no room to move two inches in any direction. She was wedged in on one side by a great roll of bedding, while on the other the stout figure of Mrs. Walford crowded against her.
But, horrid as was the smell of the lamp, it would have been ten times worse to be without it; for they had not been half an hour on their journey before she had seen the inquisitive nose of a big rat peering down at them from a great pile of bedding. A jerk of her head had scared it away then, but she had not dared to say anything about it; for Mrs. Walford had confided to her only a few minutes before how much she feared and disliked rats.
That rat would come back again, Bertha was sure of it, and the fear kept her awake long after her companion had sunk into peaceful slumber. Bertha had no book, and the light would not have been good enough to read by in any case, so there was nothing for her to do while the long hours dragged wearily away but to think; and naturally enough her thoughts clung with maddening persistence to the interview that she was going to face when that nightmare journey should be at an end.
She thought of Edgar Bradgate as she had seen him first, sitting in his boat on the Shark’s Teeth rocks at Mestlebury. The next time she had seen him was when the wheat fired, and he had come along with the Smiths to help put it out. She had not recognized him until afterwards, and even then she had not been sure who he was—indeed, it had seemed to be her fate not to know him when she encountered him. There was that other time, when the horses brought him unconscious and half-dead to Duck Flats. She had not known him then, otherwise this horrible journey need not have been undertaken, and she would have been safely at home in the humdrum isolation of the lonely prairie house, instead of riding through the black night cooped up in a box car of bedding on her way to railhead, a place where a girl very rarely ventured.
“Oh, I am stupid, I am sure of it!” she muttered to herself for about the hundredth time.
Clickety clack, rick rack! Clickety clack, rick rack!
“If only that fearful clatter would stop for half an hour, how thankful I would be!” she went on, talking to herself in whispers, because it somehow kept her from feeling so lonely, though she was careful not to disturb Mrs. Walford by speaking aloud. “But no, I don’t want it to stop, because if it did it would mean that we were standing still, and that would lengthen the journey. I shall not mind anything when once I have got my errand done, and can turn my face towards home again.”
There was a dismal fear at the back of her mind, lest the journey should take longer than she had expected and arranged for. A hundred miles on a well-made line would not be a very serious matter, but they might have to travel for miles and miles over a skeleton line, that is, a part of the track not yet finished, and then the pace would be of the slowest, certainly not faster than, probably not so fast as, an average horse would travel on trail. And suppose that she could not get back to Rownton in time to take the wagon back at the appointed time!
But there is no sense in meeting trouble halfway. By the watch on her wrist Bertha saw that it was a little past two o’clock, and they seemed to be going ahead at a fine rate, so there might be no delay after all. It might even be possible to get a little sleep. She had not seen the rat again, so it had most likely been effectually scared away. Mrs. Walford was still sleeping profoundly, and it seemed foolish to keep awake for nothing at all.
She was dozing from sheer exhaustion, and in a few minutes would probably have been fast asleep, when there came a fearful lurch, followed by a crash. The lamp swung violently and then went out, and for a moment Bertha thought the train must have been wrecked; but no, it was still going on, only now the pace was an absolute crawl, varied by so many bumps and such violent shaking, that even the profound repose of Mrs. Walford was not equal to the strain put upon it, and she awoke with a start, crying out at the darkness, and groping for something familiar to the touch in the dense gloom.
“Where am I? Where am I? And oh, what is happening?” she gasped, in accents of terror, as another violent lurch of the train sent her flying on to Bertha once more.
“I think we must have reached the skeleton line, because it is bumping and shaking so desperately,” said Bertha, who was somewhat damaged, and decidedly out of breath, from the violent assaults of Mrs. Walford’s bulky form.
“Oh dear! oh dear! And now we shall have to bear this kind of thing right up to the end of the journey,” groaned Mrs. Walford, as the cars swayed and bumped along at a slow crawl, and they were shaken in a most wearing fashion.
“Do you know how long it is likely to take?” gasped Bertha, who began to feel most horribly sick from the swaying, although she had never suffered from train-sickness before.
“No, nor anyone else. We may be out of it in a couple of hours, or it may go on for goodness knows how long. It is one of those things that you can’t reckon on at all. But oh, dear, how I wish that the lamp had not gone out! Do you happen to have any idea what the time is, my dear?” asked Mrs. Walford, with a windy sigh.
“It was a little past two o’clock when I looked at my watch, but I don’t know how long ago that was, because I was nearly asleep when the first bump came,” replied Bertha.
“That makes eight hours since we started, and if we haven’t stopped anywhere in the night we must have passed Wastover and got a good way out on the skeleton line before the shaking began. Oh-h-h, ah-h-h!”
The exclamations were dragged from Mrs. Walford by the violence of the motion to which she was at that moment subjected; then came another violent lurch, and then the cars stopped.
“Oh, what a relief!” sighed Bertha, who had been battling with her bad feelings as best she could.
“You won’t say that if we are stuck here for three or four solid hours. What I feel about it is that I would rather suffer and get it over; there is no sense in prolonging the misery,” said the stout woman tartly; for the last shaking had banged her arm against the post of the door, and she felt very badly bruised indeed.
“But as the stopping is not our fault, there is no wrong in enjoying the relief of it,” said Bertha, with a laugh.
Then they began to crawl forward again with much clanking and groaning of coupling-irons; but the whole train was scarcely in motion again before there was another pull-up, followed by another attempt at starting, and so on, for what seemed to be an interminable time. This was followed by quite a long wait, accompanied by much shouting from driver, stoker, and brakeman, then there was a terrific jolt which sent the two unfortunate passengers flying into each other’s arms. The coupling-irons clanked again, and then they heard the whole train moving off, but they remained still.
“Now, what does that mean, I wonder?” said Mrs. Walford, in a tone of concern.
“Our car was the last on the train at Rownton, so it looks as if we have been left behind,” said Bertha, straining her ears to catch the rumble of the train which was rapidly dying away in the distance.
“Ah, I expect that the couplers broke when that last jolt came, in which case here we shall be stuck until those precious train-men discover what has happened, and that may not be until they reach Brocken Ridge,” groaned Mrs. Walford.
“But we cannot stay here indefinitely!” cried Bertha, in dismay. “Just think of our plight, shut in this stuffy place in the dark, and without a mouthful of food. We have been here eight hours already, and I do not know how you feel, but I am nearly starving.”
“It is very bad, I know,” admitted Mrs. Walford, “but I have been in tighter places myself and endured more discomfort, too. I don’t say that I should not be glad of a little more fresh air, for this bedding does smell horribly fusty.”
“I wonder if I could work the door unfastened. We should get air then, and if we have got to starve, there is no reason why we should suffer from poisoning by bad air also,” said Bertha, getting on to her feet with some difficulty and beginning to grope for the fastening of the doors.
“Why, they are locked, of course. Don’t you remember hearing the brakeman lock them before we left Rownton?” asked Mrs. Walford, wincing, as Bertha inadvertently trod on her foot.
“That is so much the better! If they had been fastened by a bar dropped into a socket, I could not have hoped to get them open. As it is, I may succeed if I try hard enough,” Bertha replied, as she groped and fumbled with her naked fingers round the doors. “Ah, here is the lock! Now, I wonder if I can work it back with a hairpin. I have no pocket knife with me. Have you one that I can have?”
“Yes, I have a knife, and a bradawl too; or you can have a small nail. What are you going to do? Work the lock back?”
“Very likely; but if I cannot do that easily, I may be able to unscrew the lock and take it off, as you have a bradawl, which is just about as useful as a chisel, if only one knows how to use it,” answered Bertha.
“A screwdriver you mean, I guess,” laughed Mrs. Walford. “Well, this is an adventure for two lone women at dead of night on a skeleton railway! But it will do well to put in your next story, my dear,” and the stout woman laughed in a cheerful fashion, which showed her in no way daunted by the situation.
“How did you know that I wrote stories?” demanded Bertha, in a tone of amazement, as she worked away at the lock with that very useful hairpin, prodding her fingers badly in the darkness, but caring very little about the pain, because she felt that the lock was giving, which meant that if only she were patient enough she would get it unfastened.
“Why, because I have read them, to be sure,” replied the other, with a complacent chuckle. “That one which came out in last week’sBanner of Libertywas fine; but I should not have known it was you that I’d got the pleasure of travelling with, if it had not been that Inspector Grant hadn’t told me to take special care of you, because you were the young lady that wrote the stories about the prairies.”
“I wonder how he knew?” said Bertha musingly; for although her work was all signed with her own name, it had never occurred to her that perhaps the people of the district would ever find out that they had an author living among them. Moreover, the papers for which she wrote would scarcely be likely to have much circulation through that impoverished district.
“I don’t know, but the magazines were sent from somewhere down east to that poor man who was ill at the barracks so long, and as I have done the washing for the barracks all winter, ever since my husband was sent up to Brocken Ridge, they often used to let me see books and papers; for I’m downright fond of a bit of reading, and I liked your stories so much because they were so true to life. Why, dear me! you might have been talking about people and things that I have known, I mean writing about them; it was all so natural,” said Mrs. Walford.
Bertha thrilled from head to foot. To her this was the sweetest commendation that she had ever had for her work, and it more than compensated for heaps of hard things which she had been called upon to endure. She suddenly realized that it would not have been possible for her to have written as she had done, but for the disasters which had overtaken the Ellis household.
There were tears of happiness in her eyes and such a radiant joy in her heart, that when once again she sent the sharp point of the hairpin right into her finger she did not even wince, and the next jab she gave the lock was successful in fetching it open.
“Hurrah!” she cried, as with a smart push she sent the two doors swinging outwards; then, after one startled glance into the blackness below, she dropped back upon Mrs. Walford, gasping and speechless from sheer terror.
“What is it, Miss Doyne? Good gracious! what is the matter?” asked the good woman, in great amazement, seizing Bertha and holding her fast, under the impression that she had had a bad scare.
“We are on a bridge or something. It almost seems as if we were suspended in mid air, and down below, oh, such a horrible, horrible way, I could see the stars reflected in the water!” said Bertha, with a shudder of horror.
“Is that all?” said Mrs. Walford, greatly relieved. “We have been left on a bridge, of course, a skeleton bridge like all the rest of this precious line; but if it would bear the whole train to pass over it safely, it will certainly bear the weight of this one car, so that you have nothing to be afraid of. But, my word, how bitterly cold it is!”
“I will shut the doors again. We have had enough fresh air to last us for a little while, and I do not want to look down there oftener than I can help,” said Bertha faintly; then she gathered up her courage to reach outward for the purpose of drawing the doors towards her, although she was trembling in every limb from the shock of seeing that gleaming water so far below.
“Sit still; you are shaking like a leaf. If you get leaning out in this condition, the next thing will be that you will take a header into the water, and a pretty business that would be. I will shut the doors myself, for my head is steady enough,” replied Mrs. Walford sharply; for she guessed that Bertha’s trembling was largely hysterical, the result of overwrought nerves and want of food.
“The wind will shut them for you if you will wait a minute. Oh, how it roars!” exclaimed Bertha, as a trumpet blast of wind rushed up the river valley and shook the car so much, that it moved forward on the rails, then slid back again, as if the gradient were against it.
A shudder shook Mrs. Walford then, for she was a sufficiently experienced traveller to know that there was grave danger in a car which could be moved backwards and forwards at the mercy of the wind.
Bang came one door, and she reached out her arm to seize it and hold it fast, until she could bolt it to the floor.
But somehow neither she nor Bertha could ever quite tell how it came about. A gust of wind jerked the door outwards again, and she was carried with it. But she was not even clinging with all her might, so when the strain of her heavy weight came upon her arms she could not keep her hold; and with a scream of terror she dropped downward into the blackness below.
A wild shriek broke from Bertha, although she was not conscious of it, and, clutching at the door-frame with both hands, she peered down into that awful void which showed below the swaying car. It was getting lighter, dawn was not very far away; and the clouds drifting just then from the face of the waning moon, lighted up the trestle framework of the bridge, which looked so slender and cobwebby in the gloom, but that was in reality so strong.
At first Bertha could see nothing but the framework, and she strained her ears to catch the splash from far down below which would tell her that poor Mrs. Walford had fallen into the water, but none came; and then, after what seemed an interminable agony of waiting, she thought that she heard a faint groan or cry from somewhere down below, but the wind bowled so loudly through the trestling that at first she could not be sure. When she heard it again she was quite sure, and, raising her voice to a joyful shout, she cried: “Mrs. Walford, where are you?”
“Down here,” cried a voice faintly; and to Bertha it seemed to come from beneath her, although she still could not see whence it came.
“Hold on tightly! I will come and help you,” she called back, making her voice sound as courageous as possible; for well she guessed that even a small gleam of hope might make all the difference between life and death to the unfortunate woman at this juncture.
“Stay where you are, child; it is an awful risk to climb down here,” cried Mrs. Walford; but Bertha shouted back that she was coming and would soon reach her.
Winding a blanket round her neck for use in case Mrs. Walford was unable to climb back to the car, Bertha began to creep out slowly from the door of the car down on to the ties which carried the rails across the void. The door swung back with the wind, and only escaped crushing her by a margin so narrow that it seemed almost like a miracle, and the wheel on which she had placed her foot jerked round as the force of the wind moved the car along the rails, causing her to drop on to the ties, where she clung for a long moment, too sick to move backward or forward.
“I cannot get down—oh, I cannot!” she moaned to herself, as the force of the wind, rapidly rising to a gale, nearly tore her from her hold. Then the thought of Mrs. Walford’s peril stirred her to fresh courage, so cautiously lowering herself through the ties, she got a foothold on the trestling and began to climb down.
The light was stronger now, and she could see Mrs. Walford lying on a sort of trellis-work platform, but though she called loudly to her there was no response that she could hear. Either the poor woman had fainted from fright, or else the wind carried the sound of her voice away.
Down, down, down went Bertha, her head clear and her courage steady now; for the danger was so great that in some strange way it had taken away her fear.
“I wonder however I shall get her to climb up here,” she said to herself, as she paused, breathless, to get a little rest before going lower. There was only one more section now between her and Mrs. Walford; but her hands and arms were aching so much from the continual strain, that she was forced to wait a few minutes before finishing her perilous journey.
At last she had reached the spot where Mrs. Walford lay.
Then, as she stooped and laid her hand on the huddled figure, a dreadful fear assailed her, lest the poor woman had died from the shock of her fall.
“Mrs. Walford, are you hurt?” she cried anxiously.
Mrs. Walford gave a great start and looked up, then gasped in amazement, as if unable to believe the evidence of her eyes. “Miss Doyne, is it really you?”
“Yes, yes, and I have come to help you climb back again. You would never have fallen, if it had not been for my cowardice in being afraid to shut the door. I am so very, very sorry,” said Bertha, with a sob coming up in her throat.
“You need not be; for you could not help the wind catching me in that fashion. Oh, the wonder is that I was saved from an awful death! It was a simply miraculous escape!” exclaimed Mrs. Walford, as she scrambled to a sitting position and, woman-like, began to arrange her disordered hair.
“Are you hurt?” asked Bertha, greatly relieved to find that her companion could sit up; but hardly able to believe even yet that there was no serious damage.
“I don’t think so. I may be bruised a bit, and certainly I have had the wind pretty well knocked out of me, but one soon gets over these things. I feel horribly sick and giddy, though. I am afraid to stay here, and I dare not attempt to move. Whatever shall we do?”
“Oh, I will help you climb up to the railway track, then we will get into the car again,” said Bertha confidently, although privately she very much feared that Mrs. Walford’s courage would give out under the strain.
“I can’t climb up there—I dare not—I would rather die!” cried Mrs. Walford, with a sob, as she cast a fearful glance upward at the network of trestling, on the top of which she could see the car moving to and fro on the track under the influence of the wind.
“But if you don’t climb back, what will you do?” asked Bertha, in dismay. But part of her trouble was because she had seen how the car was sliding to and fro, and she wondered however they would be able to climb into it, even if they succeeded in reaching the track.
“I don’t know, and I don’t care. I feel as if I would like to drop down the rest of the way and end it all. Oh, it is dreadful, dreadful to be in a place like this! Whatever shall I do?” wailed the poor frightened woman.
Bertha tried to comfort her, pointing out if she had fallen so far without receiving serious hurt, she would certainly be able to manage the journey upward with help.
“No, no; I tell you I cannot get up there!” cried Mrs. Walford, with hysterical violence; then suddenly Bertha caught a glimpse of something which seemed to fairly make her heart stand still.
The wind was blowing a gale now, and roaring up the river valley with a noise like thunder. The car, perched up so high, and with nothing to steady it, was oscillating violently, and, the momentum increasing, it presently went over with a crash, falling into the river with a terrific splash. A groan broke from Mrs. Walford and a sharp cry came from Bertha’s dry lips. What would have been their fate but for the accident to the former, which had sent the latter to her rescue, and so saved the lives of both of them. For a time they crouched close together, unable to move or to speak, dumb from the mercy of their great deliverance, and trembling before the dangers which might yet be in store for them.
But the thunder of the wind roared on, filling their ears with sound and their hearts with awe. They were in the grip of Nature in her wildest mood, and it was small wonder that they were afraid.
CHAPTER XXVIIIConsternation
Theend of steel, as railhead is called, on this particular bit of track, was at the junction of a small river with a large one, which necessitated the building of an extra long bridge to take the track across the river valley into the country of low rolling hills which lay beyond.
The building of the bridge naturally delayed progress, so, meantime, quite a considerable town had grown up. There were stores of sorts, and a hotel, so-called, which was kept by a dour-faced Scot and his smiling Irish wife.
The huts of the construction workers were made of any odd materials that came handy; indeed, some of them were mere holes scraped from the face of the cliff-like banks of the river and fronted with boards, sheets of tin, or any other building material which came to hand. But the whole place hummed with work and endeavour; there was no room for idleness or even leisure. From dawn to dark, or, to use a colloquialism, from kin to k’int, everyone toiled to the utmost of their strength; since the more work they did the more money they earned, and to earn money was with most of them the sole end and aim of their existence.
The place was all astir when, in the first faint light of dawn, the long freight train from Rownton rolled and rocked over the last half-mile of unfinished track, finally coming to a stand in the middle of the crazy collection of dwellings which, after the manner of such places, had the impudence to consider itself a full-fledged town.
It had been expected from the previous evening, and quite a crowd had gathered, since it would bring a mail bag, newspapers, and all those other attributes of civilization for which the dweller in the wilderness hungers; so when the engine was sighted coming round a bend in the track, there was something like a rush to be the first to greet the arrivals. Foremost among these was a big man wearing the uniform of the Mounted Police. Mike Walford was a splendid specimen of a man, and he towered over his fellows like a pine tree of the forest might tower above the scrub growing at its base.
“Hulloa! Here, I say, have you got my wife on board?” he shouted, in a voice that matched the rest of him, as with much squealing and groaning of couplings the long freighter came to a standstill.
“We’ve got two passengers on board this trip. At this rate we shall soon need to hitch a pullman on at the end of every freighter,” said the brakeman, with a pretended groan of dismay at this addition to his work.
There was an instant rush to follow the brakeman along to the rear of the train, which, owing to the curve in the track, was not visible from the engine; but, sweeping the others to the right and left of him, Mike Walford strode to the side of the brakeman and led the way.
“My word, what a train! The last car, did you say? Why, man, it is a wagon loaded with ties! You surely did not put a couple of women to ride all night in a place like that!” exclaimed Mike, with anger in his tone.
“They are in a box car of bedding—a little stuffy, but downright warm and comfortable,” explained the brakeman, and then suddenly he stopped, and a cold horror crept into his eyes. “The car is gone—broke away it must have done; and yet I know that it was safe when we cleared out of Wastover.”
Mike Walford turned on him savagely. “How was it that you didn’t take more care? And I thought that it was the place of the brakeman to ride in the rear of his train?”
“It ain’t no use to do that when there are as many cars as we have got here, so I ride in the middle, then I can see her tail as she twists round the curves, and yet I’m not too far away to call to the driver if I want to,” said the brakeman, on the defensive now, for it was a serious thing to drop a wagonen routeand not to know that it was gone. Then he started to run back towards the engine, while Mike Walford, with dismay in his heart, started to run by his side, and the crowd coming along in the rear ran also.
If the brakeman had looked dismayed, it was nothing to the consternation displayed by the engine driver, who was prompt to locate the place at which the disaster must have occurred.
“You remember the job we had with her when we came over the Wastover bridge?” he said, with a jerk of his head towards the long train of freight wagons that comprised the “her” of which he spoke. “I thought at one time that we should have had to leave half the train behind and come on with the first part, for there is a bit of up-grade directly the bridge is past, and this old puffer had its work cut out to pull her along; so it must have been when we were starting and stopping, starting and stopping, that the couplers of the last car broke. How many wagons is missing, Jim?”
But Jim, who was the brakeman, declared that he had been too scared to count. The thing which mattered most was that the box car with the passengers was not there.
“Uncouple that old engine of yours and set off back as hard as you can go, and don’t waste any more time in talking about it,” said Mike Walford sternly. “You’ll take me with you too, if you please.”
“That is what we are going to do, just as soon as we can get her unhooked from the wagons; but we shall have to break up a bit before the engine can get past,” answered the driver, as he began to shout to the brakeman, who in his turn shouted back, while the stoker had to turn shunter for the time being; so half an hour was wasted in endless starting and stopping, pulling up and setting back, in order that the wagons might be out of the way, to allow the engine to slip back on to the main rails.
If Mike Walford raged up and down silently abusing the men for their slowness, he might surely be forgiven, since he knew the country so well, and all his fears pointed to the car having broken away on the bridge; and Wastover bridge was not a very safe place to be stranded upon with the wind blowing a gale as it was this morning.
The crowd looked on for the most part with a sort of fascinated curiosity. No one could quite make up his mind to go back to work while the engine was puffing and panting to and fro, and Mike Walford was raging up and down like a wild beast escaped from his cage. There was an element of tragedy peeping through his unrestrained anxiety, for, as a rule, he was one of the most unemotional sort of men, as some of them knew to their cost.
At last the engine had a clear track, and was able to slide out backwards on to the main track, to go in search of the car that had broken away. But before he boarded her to go with the train-men, Mike Walford held up his hand and called for volunteers.
“I want half a dozen men who are prepared to risk their lives, and to lose them, if need be,” he said, his strong voice echoing clear and steady over the silent crowd. “I know what that bridge at Wastover is like when the wind is blowing only half a gale, and this morning it is more than that. If the car broke away on the bridge, something will have happened to it before we can get back there; so I want six men who can dig, and who are willing to risk their lives for the sake of saving life.”
Thirty men rushed forward. Thirty more would have followed, if there had been the slightest chance of their being able to go. But of the first lot Mike hastily chose six who happened to have shovels in their hands, and the last man thus picked was Edgar Bradgate.
“Hold, Bradgate, you mustn’t go; remember, man, how long you have been ill, and you can’t swim, either,” objected a clerk of works, as Bradgate swung himself aboard the crazy tender, which rocked behind the locomotive.
“There are other things to do besides swimming, and I’m not afraid to risk my life, or to lose it either, if need should be. Besides, Mike is my friend, and I’m proud to be chosen to help him now,” replied Edgar Bradgate, with a haughty upward fling of his head, which might have gone against him with the clerk had the fellow not been sufficiently a gentleman to recognize another gentleman when he saw one.
“Well, go along with you then; all the luck comes to some people!” growled the clerk, in such deep chagrin at not having been chosen for the purpose of risking his life, that it would have been comic if only it had not been so intensely tragic.
Directly the engine and tender had slid out of sight round the bend, everyone hurried off to work again, for they could do no good by hanging about there staring at the empty track; while the need to earn money was acute, and the necessity to toil so urgent, that nothing in the nature of delay could be excused.
The volunteers rode on the tender with the brakeman, but Mike Walford was on the engine itself, prepared to help stoke if need be, and also determined to see that the driver got every ounce of speed possible out of the crazy old engine.
The rocking was truly awful as the engine tore its way along the half-made track, and the marvel was that those men, who had come out to risk their lives if it were necessary, did not lose them on the way to the scene of action.
It was fifteen miles to Wastover bridge, and the engine did it in something over an hour, though it had taken the train more than three hours to crawl its weary way up to Brocken Ridge. But every minute of that backward journey was a peril so great, that nothing but the danger of the two in the box car could have justified the risk being taken.
“There is no car on the bridge,” said Mike, as they came in sight of the towering trestles which carried the railway track across the Wastover river.
“Then it’s below the bridge that we’ll have to look for it!” groaned the driver, “for I’m sure that is the only place where it could have broken away. Jim went the length of the train before we cleared out of Wastover town, and the car was all right then, and being downgrade until the bridge, there would be no pull on the couplers, can’t you see?”
Mike nodded, and now his gaze went searching along that bewildering network of bars and crossbars, almost as if he expected to find the missing car stuck somewhere halfway down. In reality he was trying to see the water, but could not as yet, because the valley was so narrow and deep that the river was not visible until they were close on to the bridge.
“What is that?” cried Mike, in a tone of horror, as with slackened speed the engine went slowly out on to the bridge, and every man of them all was craning his head downwards to get a better view of the river, swollen now with melting snows.
“It is the car! Holy Mary, have mercy on the women!” groaned the driver, who was a good Catholic when he remembered to be anything at all, and then he put his head down on the side of the cab and burst into tears like a woman. But Mike Walford gave him a fierce push and bade him reverse his engine.
“Slip back to the bank, man, and stop. I’m going down there to find my wife, and you can do your howling while I am gone,” he said, with brutal sternness, which was the only way he had of hiding his own pain.
“You’ll never be for swimming out in such a current?” objected the driver. “It will be murder and sooicide all in one, for where you go the boys will be sure to follow.”
“If my wife is down there I am going to get her out, dead or alive,” replied Mike; and there was that in his tone which made the other feel that he dared say no more.
The engine retreated slowly to where the land, rising in an embankment, gave it a little shelter from the wind. There it stopped, and the little band of volunteers scrambled down and, falling into line behind their leader, made their way down the steep slope to the water’s edge.
“I will swim out first with a rope,” said Mike, who had a serviceable hatchet slung at his waist; “then one of you can follow when I’ve got the rope fixed, and we will chop an opening at the end of the car that is out of water, and pray God we are not too late!”
There was a murmur which sounded like “Amen”, and then the men scrambled downwards for a few moments in silence.
“Help! Help! Help!” It was a girl’s voice, hoarse and strained, shrieking against the roaring of the wind. The heads of the men jerked upwards with a sudden flash of hope, for the sound had come from above.
“There they are—two of them!” yelled out one of the volunteers. “Hurrah!”
“Hurrah! Hurrah!” chorused the others, as, breaking into a run, they scrambled across the rough slope to the trestling, up which they swarmed like a set of monkeys.