The Iron Trail Part 29

Appleton hastened back to his boats, where he found his men sprawled among the boulders sleeping the sleep of complete exhaustion. They were drenched, half numbed by the chill air of the glacier, and it was well that he roused them.

"Gordon's men are camped just above," he told them. "But we must get through without waking them. No talking, now, until we're safe."

Silently the crew resumed their tow-lines, fitting them to their aching shoulders; gingerly the boats were edged out into the current.

It was fortunate that the place was noisy, and that the voice of the river and the periodic bombardment from the glaciers drowned the rattle of loose stones dislodged by their footsteps. But it was a trying half-hour that followed. Dan did not breathe easily until his party had crossed the bar and were safely out upon the placid waters of the lake, with the last stage of the journey ahead of them.

About mid-forenoon of the following day Curtis Gordon halted his party at the lower end of the rapids and went on alone. To his right lay the cataract and along the steep slope against which it chafed wound a faint footpath scarcely wide enough in places for a man to pa.s.s. This trail dipped in and out, wound back and forth around frowning promontories. It dodged through alder thickets or spanned slides of loose rock, until, three miles above, it emerged into the more open country back of the parent range. It had been worn by the feet of wild animals and it followed closely the right-of-way of the S. R. & N. To the left the hills rose swiftly in great leaps to the sky; to the right, so close that a false step meant disaster, roared the cataract, muddy and foam-flecked.

As Gordon neared the first bluff he heard, above the clamor of the flood, a faint metallic "tap-tap-tap," as of hammer and drill, and, drawing closer, he saw Dan Appleton perched upon a rock which commanded a view in both directions. Just around the shoulder, in a tiny gulch, or gutter from the slopes above, were pitched several tents, from one of which curled the smoke of a cook-stove. Close at hand were moored four battered poling-boats.

"Look out!" Appleton shouted from on high.

Gordon flushed angrily and kept on, scanning the surroundings with practised eye.

"Hey, you!" Dan called, for a second time. "Keep back! We're going to shoot."

Still heedless of the warning, Gordon held stubbornly to his stride. He noted the heads of several men projecting from behind boulders, and his anger rose. How dared this whipper-snapper shout at him! He felt inclined to toss the insolent young scoundrel into the rapids. Then suddenly his resentment gave place to a totally different emotion. The slanting bank midway between him and Appleton lifted itself bodily in a chocolate-colored upheaval, and the roar of a dynamite blast rolled out across the river. It was but a feeble echo of the majestic reverberations from the glacier across the lake, but it was impressive enough to send Curtis Gordon scurrying to a place of safety. He wheeled in his tracks, doubling himself over, and his long legs began to thresh wildly. Reaching the shelter of a rock crevice, he hurled himself into it, while over his place of refuge descended a shower of dirt and rocks and debris. When the rain of missiles had subsided he stepped forth, his face white with fury, his big hands twitching. His voice was hoa.r.s.e as he shouted his protest.

Appleton scrambled carefully down from his perch in the warm sunshine and approached with insolent leisure.

"Say! Do you want to get your fool self killed?" he cried; then in an altered tone: "Oh! Is it you, Gordon?"

"You knew very well it was I." Gordon swallowed hard and partially controlled his wrath. "What do you mean by such carelessness?" he demanded. "You ought to be hung for a thing like that." He brushed the dirt from his expensive hunting-suit.

"I yelled my head off! You must be deaf."

"You saw me coming! Don't say you didn't. Fortunately I wasn't hurt."

In a tone of command he added, "You'll have to stop blasting until I go through with my party."

"Sorry! Every day counts with us." Appleton grinned. "You know how it is--short season, and all that."

"Come, come! Don't be an idiot. I have no time to waste,"

"Then you'll have to go around," said Dan. "This isn't a public road, you know."

Gordon had come to argue, to pacify, to gain his ends by lying, if necessary, but this impudent jackanapes infuriated him. His plans had gone smoothly so far, and the unexpected threat of resistance momentarily provoked him beyond restraint.

"You scoundrel," he cried. "You'd have blown me into the river if you could. But I'll go through this canon--"

"Go as far and as fast as you like," Dan interrupted with equal heat, "only take your own chances, and have a net spread at the lower end of the rapids to catch the remains."

They eyed each other angrily; then Gordon said, more quietly:

"This is ridiculous. You can't stop me."

"Maybe I can't and maybe I can, I'm under orders to rush this work and I don't intend to knock off to please you. I've planted shots at various places along our right-of-way and I'll set 'em off when it suits me. If you're so anxious to go up-river, why don't you cross over to the moraine? There's a much better trail on that side. You'll find better walking a few miles farther up, and you'll run no danger of being hurt."

"I intend to run a survey along this hillside."

"There isn't room; we beat you to it."

"The law provides--"

"Law? Jove! I'd forgotten there is such a thing. Why don't you go to law and settle the question that way? We'll have our track laid by the time you get action, and I'm sure Mr. O'Neil wouldn't place any obstacles in the way of your free pa.s.sage back and forth. He's awfully obliging about such things."

Gordon ground his fine, white, even teeth. "Don't you understand that I'm ent.i.tled to a right-of-way through here under the law of common user?" he asked, with what patience he could command.

"If you're trying to get a legal opinion on the matter why don't you see a lawyer? I'm not a lawyer, neither am I a public speaker nor a piano-tuner, nor anything like that--I'm an engineer."

"Don't get funny. I can't send my men in here if you continue blasting."

"So it seems to me, but you appear to be h.e.l.l bent on trying it."

Dan was enjoying himself and he deliberately added to the other's anger by inquiring, as if in the blinding light of a new idea:

"Why don't you bridge over and go up the other side?" He pointed to the forbidding, broken country which faced them across the rapids.

Gordon snorted. "How long do you intend to maintain this preposterous att.i.tude?" he asked.

"As long as the powder lasts--and there's a good deal of it."

The promoter chewed his lip for a moment in perplexity, then said with a geniality he was far from feeling:

"Appleton, you're all right! I admire your loyalty, even though it happens to be for a mistaken cause. I always liked you. I admire loyalty--It's something I need in my business. What I need I pay for, and I pay well."

"So your man Linn told us."

"I never really discharged you. In fact, I intended to re-employ you, for I need you badly. You can name your own salary and go to work any time."

"In other words, you mean you'll pay me well to let you through."

"Fix your own price and I'll double it."

"Will you come with me up this trail a little way?" Dan inquired.

"Certainly."

"There's a spot where I'd like to have you stand. I'll save you the trouble of walking back to your men--you'll beat the echo."

There was a pause while Gordon digested this. "Better think it over,"

he said at length. "I'll never let O'Neil build his road, not if it breaks me, and you're merely laying yourself open to arrest by threatening me."

"Please come with me!" urged Appleton. "You'll never know what hit you."

With a curse the promoter wheeled and walked swiftly down the trail by which he had come.

"Get ready to shoot," Dan ordered when he had returned to his vantage-point. A few moments later he saw the invading party approach, but he withheld his warning shout until it was close at hand. Evidently Gordon did not believe he would have the reckless courage to carry out his threat, and had determined to put him to the test.