Peter Part 32

Should it plunge over the crest, the "fill" would melt away as a rising tide melts a sand fort, the work of months be destroyed, and his financial ruin be a certainty.

But the man who had crawled out on the sh.o.r.e end of the great cantilever bridge over the Ohio, and who had with his own hands practically set the last rebellious steel girder one hundred feet above the water level, had still some resources left. Grabbing a shovel from a railroad employee, he called to his men and began digging a trench on the tunnel end of the "fill" to form a temporary spillway should the top of the flood reach the crest of the road bed.

Fifty or more men sprang to his a.s.sistance with pick and shovel wherever one could stand and dig. The water had now reached within five feet of the top: the rise was slower, showing that the volume had lessened; the soakage, too, was helping, but the water still gained. The bottom of the trench, cut transversely across the road bed of the "fill," out of which the dirt was still flying from scores of willing shovels, had reached the height of the flood line. It was wide enough and deep enough to take care of the slowly rising overflow and would relieve the pressure on the whole structure; but the danger was not there. What was to be feared was the scour on the down-stream--far side--slope of the "fill." This also, was of loose earth: too great a gulch might mean total collapse.

To lessen this scour MacFarlane had looted a carload of plank switched on to a siding, and a gang of men in charge of Jack,--who had now reached his Chief's side,--were dragging them along the downstream slope to form sluices with which to break the force of the scour.

The top of the flood now poured into the mouth of the newly dug trench, biting huge mouthfuls of earth from its sides in its rush; spreading the reddish water fan-like over the down-stream slope: first into gullies; then a broad sluiceway that sunk out of sight in the soft earth; then crumblings, slidings of tons of sand and gravel, with here and there a bowlder washed clean; the men working like beavers,--here to free a rock, there to drive home a plank, the trench all the while deepening, widening--now a gulch ten feet across and as deep, now a canon through which surged a solid ma.s.s of frenzied water.

With the completion of the first row of planking MacFarlane took up a position where he could overlook all parts of the work. Every now and then his eyes would rest on a water-gauge which he had improvised from the handle of a pick; the rise and fall of the wet mark showing him both the danger and the safety lines. He seemed the least interested man in the group. Once in a while he would consult his watch, counting the seconds, only to return to the gauge.

That thousands of dollars' damage had so far been done did not seem to affect him in the least. Only when Jack would call out that everything so far was solid on the main "fill" did his calm face light up.

Tightening his wide slouch hat farther down on his head, he drew up the tops of his high-water boots and strode through the slush to the pick-handle. His wooden record showed that half an hour before the water had been rising at the rate of an inch every three minutes; that it had then taken six, and now required eight! He glanced at the sky; it had stopped raining and a light was breaking in the West.

Pocketing his watch he beckoned to Jack:

"The worst is over, Breen," he said in a voice of perfect calmness--the tone of a doctor after feeling a patient's pulse. "Our culvert is doing its work and relieving the pressure. This water will be out of here by morning. Tell the foreman to keep those planks moving wherever they do any good, but they won't count much longer. You can see the difference already in the overflow. And now go up to the house and tell Ruth. She may not know we are all right and will be worrying."

Jack's heart gave a bound. No more delightful duty could devolve on him.

"What shall I tell her about the damage if she asks me, sir?" he demanded, hiding his pleasure in a perfunctory, businesslike tone, "and she will."

"Tell her it means all summer here for me and no new bonnets for her until next winter," replied MacFarlane with a grim smile.

"Yes, I suppose, but I referred to the money loss," Jack laughed in reply. "There is no use worrying her if we are not to blame for this."

He didn't intend to worry her. He was only feeling about for some topic which would prolong his visit and encourage conversation.

"If we are, it means some thousands of dollars on the wrong side of the ledger," answered MacFarlane after a pause, a graver tone in his voice. "But don't tell Ruth that. Just give her my message about the bonnet--she will understand."

"But not if McGowan is liable," argued Jack. If Ruth was to hear bad news it could at least be qualified.

"That depends somewhat on the wording of his contract, Breen, and a good deal on whether this village wants to hold him to it. I'm not crossing any bridges of that kind, and don't you. What I'm worrying about is the number of days and nights it's going to take to patch this work so they can get trains through our tunnel--And, Breen--"

"Yes, sir," answered Jack, as he stopped and looked over his shoulder.

There were wings on his feet now.

"Get into some dry clothes before you come back."

While all this had been going on Ruth had stood at the window in the upper hall opposite the one banked with geraniums, too horrified to move. She had watched with the aid of her opera-gla.s.s the wild torrent rushing through the meadow, and she had heard the shouts of the people in the streets and the prolonged roar when the boulevard embankment gave way.

The hurried entrance and startled cry of the grocer's boy in the kitchen below, and the loud talk that followed, made her move to the head of the stairs. There she stood listening, her heart in her mouth, her knees trembling. Such expressions as "drownded,"--"more'n a hundred of 'em--"

reached her ears. Then came the words--"de boss's work busted; ain't n.o.body seen him alive, so dey say."

For an instant she clutched the hand rail to keep her from falling, then with a cry of terror she caught up an old cloth cape, bound a hat to her head with a loose veil, and was downstairs and into the street before the boy had reached the curb.

"Yes, mum," he stammered, breathlessly, his eyes bulging from his head,--"Oh! it's awful, mum! Don't know how many's drownded! Everybody's shovelin' on de railroad dump, but dere ain't nothin' kin save it, dey say!"

She raced on--across the long street, avoiding the puddles as best she could; past the Hicks Hotel--no sign of Jack anywhere--past the factory fence, until she reached the railroad, where she stopped, gathered her bedraggled skirts in her hand and then sped on over the cross-ties like a swallow, her little feet scarce touching the cinders.

Jack had caught sight of the flying girl as she gained the railroad and awaited her approach; he supposed she was the half-crazed wife or daughter of some workman, bringing news of fresh disaster, until she approached near enough for him to note the shape and size of her boots and the way the hat and veil framed her face. But it was not until she uttered a cry of agony and ran straight toward him, that he sprang forward to meet her and caught her in his aims to keep her from falling.

"Oh, Jack!--where is daddy--where--" she gasped.

"Why, he is all right, Miss Ruth,--everybody's all right! Why did you come here? Oh! I am so sorry you have had this fright! Don't answer,--just lean on me until you get your breath."

"Yes--but are you sure he is safe? The grocer's boy said n.o.body had seen him alive."

"Of course I am sure! Just look across--there he is; n.o.body could ever mistake that old slouch hat of his. And look at the big 'fill.' It hasn't given an inch, Miss Ruth--think of it! What a shame you have had such a fright," he continued as he led her to a pile of lumber beside the track and moved out a dry plank where he seated her as tenderly as if she had been a frightened child, standing over her until she breathed easier.

"But then, if he is safe, why did you leave daddy? You are not hurt yourself, are you?" she exclaimed suddenly, reaching up her hand and catching the sleeve of his tarpaulin, a great lump in her throat.

"Me, hurt!--not a bit of it,--not a scratch of any kind,--see!" As an object-lesson he stretched out his arm and with one clenched hand smote his chest gorilla fashion.

"But you are all wet--" she persisted, in a more rea.s.sured tone. "You must not stand here in this wind; you will get chilled to the bone. You must go home and get into dry clothes;--please say you will go?"

Something warm and scintillating started from Jack's toes as the words left her lips, surged along his spinal column, set his finger tips tingling and his heart thumping like a trip hammer. She had called him "Jack!" She had run a mile to rescue him and her father, and she was anxious lest he should endanger his precious life by catching cold.

Cold!--had he been dragged through the whirlpool of Niagara in the dead of winter with the thermometer at zero and then cast on a stranded iceberg he would now be sizzling hot.

Again she repeated her command,--this time in a more peremptory tone, the same anxious note in her voice.

"Please come, if daddy doesn't want you any more you must go home at once. I wouldn't have you take cold for--" she did not finish the sentence; something in his face told her that her solicitude might already have betrayed her.

"Of course, I will go just as soon as you are rested a little, but you mustn't worry about me, Miss Ruth, I am as wet as a rat, I know, but I am that way half the time when it rains. These tarpaulins let in a lot of water--" here he lifted his arms so she could see the openings herself--"and then I got in over my boots trying to plug the holes in the sluiceway with some plank." He was looking down into her eyes now.

Never had he seen her so pretty. The exercise had made roses of her cheeks, and the up-turned face framed by the thatch of a bonnet bound with the veil, reminded him of a Madonna.

"And is everything all right with daddy? And was there n.o.body in the shanties?" she went on. "Perhaps I might better try to get over where he is;--do you think I can? I would just like to tell him how glad I am it is no worse."

"Yes, if you change boots with me," laughed Jack, determined to divert her mind; "I was nearly swamped getting back here. That is where most of this mud came from--" and Jack turned his long, clay-encrusted boot so that Ruth could see how large a section of the "fill" he had brought with him.

Ruth began to laugh. There was no ostensible reason why she should laugh; there was nothing about Jack's make-up to cause it. Indeed, she thought he had never looked so handsome, even if his hair were plastered to his temples under his water-soaked hat and his clothes daubed with mud.

And yet she did laugh:--At the way her veil got knotted under her chin,--so tightly knotted that Jack had to take both hands to loosen it, begging pardon for touching her throat, and hoping all the while that his clumsy fingers had not hurt her;--at the way her hat was crumpled, the flowers "never,--never, being of the slightest use to anybody again"; at her bedraggled skirts--"such a sight, and sopping wet."

And Jack laughed, too,--agreeing to everything she said, until she reached that stage in the conversation, never omitted on occasions of this kind, when she declared, arching her head, that she must look like a perfect fright, which Jack at once refuted exclaiming that he had never seen her look so--he was going to say "pretty," but checked himself and subst.i.tuted "well," instead, adding, as he wiped off her ridiculously small boots, despite her protests, with his wet handkerchief,--that cloud-bursts were not such bad things, after all, now that he was to have the pleasure of escorting her home.

And so the two walked back to the village, the afternoon sun, which had now shattered the lowering clouds, gilding and glorifying their two faces, Jack stopping at Mrs. Hicks's to change his clothes and Ruth keeping on to the house, where he was to join her an hour later, when the two would have a cup of tea and such other comforts as that young lady might prepare for her water-soaked lover.

CHAPTER XXI

If ten minutes make half an hour, then it took Jack that long to rush upstairs, two steps at a time, burst into his room, strip off his boots, tear off his wet clothes, struggle into others jerked from his wardrobe, tie a loose, red-silk scarf under the rolling collar of his light-blue flannel shirt, slip into a grey pea-jacket and unmentionables, give his hair a brush and a promise, tilt a dry hat on one side of his head and skip down-stairs again.

Old Mrs. Hicks had seen him coming and had tried to catch him as he flew out the door, hoping to get some more definite news of the calamity which had stirred the village, but he was gone before she could reach the front hall.

He had not thought of his better clothes; there might still be work to do, and his Chief might again need his services. Ruth would understand, he said to himself--all of which was true. Indeed, she liked him better in his high-water rubber boots, wide slouch hat and tarpaulins than in the more conventional suit of immaculate black with which he clothed his shapely body whenever he took her to one of the big dinners at one of the great houses on Washington Square.