The Iron Trail Part 38

When O'Neil and Natalie returned they found the two still arguing.

"Haven't you finished your tiresome discussions?" asked Natalie.

"Mr. Trevor has almost convinced me that the octopus is a n.o.ble creature, filled with high ideals and writhing at the thrusts of the muck-rakers," Eliza told them.

But at that the engineer protested. "No, no!" he said. "I haven't half done justice to the subject. There are a dozen men in Kyak to-night who could put up a much stronger case than I. There's McCann, for instance.

He was a prospector back in the States until he made a strike which netted him a hundred thousand dollars. He put nearly all of it into Kyak coal claims and borrowed seventy thousand more. He got tired of the interminable delay and finally mined a few tons which he sent out for a test in the navy. It had better steaming qualities than the Eastern coal now being used, but six weeks later an agent of the Land Office ordered him to cease work until his t.i.tle had been pa.s.sed upon.

That was two years ago, and nothing has been done since. No charges of irregularity of any sort have ever been filed against McCann or his property. The Government has had his money for five years, and still he can't get a ruling. He's broke now and too old to make a living. He's selling pies on the street--"

"He borrowed a dollar from me just now," said O'Neil, who was staring out of a window. Suddenly he turned and addressed his host. "Trevor, it's going to storm." His voice was harsh, his eyes were eager; his tone brought the engineer to his side. Together they looked out across the bay.

The southern sky was leaden, the evening had been shortened by a rack of clouds which came hurrying in from the sea.

"Let it storm," said Trevor, after a moment. "I'm ready."

"Have you ever seen it blow here?"

"The old-timers tell me I haven't, but--I've seen some terrible storms.

Of course the place is unusual--"

"In what way?" Eliza inquired.

"The whole country back of here is ice-capped. This coast for a hundred miles to the east is glacial. The cold air inland and the warm air from the j.a.panese Current are always at war."

"There is a peculiar difference in air-pressures, too," O'Neil explained. "Over the warm interior it is high, and over the coast range it is low; so every valley becomes a pathway for the wind. But that isn't where the hurricanes come from. They're born out yonder." He pointed out beyond the islands from which the breakwater flung its slender arm. "This may be only a little storm, Trevor, but some day the sea and the air will come together and wipe out all your work. Then you'll see that I was right."

"You told me that more than a year ago, but I backed my skill against your prophecy."

O'Neil answered him gravely: "Men like you and me become over-confident of our powers; we grow arrogant, but after all we're only pygmies."

"If Nature beats me here, I'm a ruined man," said the engineer.

"And if you defeat her, I'm ruined." O'Neil smiled at him.

"Let's make medicine, the way the Indians did, and call upon the Spirit of the Wind to settle the question," Eliza suggested, with a woman's quick instinct for relieving a situation that threatened to become constrained. She and Natalie ran to Trevor's sideboard, and, seizing bottle and shaker, brewed a magic broth, while the two men looked on.

They murmured incantations, they made mystic pa.s.ses, then bore the gla.s.ses to their companions.

As the men faced each other Natalie cried:

"To the Wind!"

"Yes! More power to it!" Eliza echoed.

Trevor smiled. "I drink defiance."

"In my gla.s.s I see hope and confidence," said O'Neil. "May the storm profit him who most deserves help."

Despite their lightness, there was a certain gravity among the four, and as the night became more threatening they felt a growing suspense.

The men's restlessness communicated itself to the girls, who found themselves listening with almost painful intentness to the voice of the wind and the rumble of the surf, which grew louder with every hour. By bed-time a torrent of rain was sweeping past, the roof strained, the windows were sheeted with water. Now and then the clamor ceased, only to begin with redoubled force. Trevor's guests were glad indeed of their snug shelter.

As Natalie prepared for bed she said: "It was fine of Mr. Trevor to treat Murray O'Neil so nicely. No one would dream that they were rivals, or that one's success means the other's ruin. Now Gordon--" She turned to see her friend kneeling at the bedside, and apologized quickly.

Eliza lifted her face and said simply, "I'm praying for the Wind."

Natalie slipped down beside her and bowed her dark head close to the light one. They remained there for a long time, while outside the rain pelted, the surf roared, and the wind came shrieking in from the sea.

XVI

THE FRUIT OF THE TEMPEST

Neither O'Neil nor his host was in sight when the girls came to breakfast. The men had risen early, it seemed, and were somewhere out in the storm. A wilder day would be hard to imagine; a hurricane was raging, the rain was whirled ahead of it like charges of shot. The mountains behind Kyak were invisible, and to seaward was nothing but a dimly discernible smother of foam and spray, for the crests of the breakers were s.n.a.t.c.hed up and carried by the wind. The town was sodden; the streets were running mud. Stove-pipes were down, tents lay flattened in the mire, and the board houses were shaking as if they might fly to pieces at any moment. The darkness was uncanny, and the tempest seemed to be steadily growing in violence.

When an hour or two had pa.s.sed with no word from the men Eliza announced her intention of looking them up. She had spent the time at a window, straining her eyes through the welter, while Natalie had curled up cozily with a book in one of Trevor's arm-chairs.

"But, dearie, you'll be drenched." Natalie looked up in surprise. "Mr.

O'Neil is all right."

"Of course he is. I'm not going out to spank him and bring him in. I want to look at the storm."

"So do I, but it won't do any good. I can't make it blow any harder by getting my feet wet."

"You read your novel and talk to Mr. Trevor when he comes back. He knows we're to blame for this storm, so you must be nice to him. I can't." She clad herself in rain-coat, sou'wester, and boots, and hurried out. Walking was difficult enough, even in the shelter of the village, but not until she had emerged upon the beach did she meet the full strength of the gale. Here it wrapped her garments about her limbs until she could scarcely move. The rain came horizontally and blinded her; the wind fairly s.n.a.t.c.hed her breath away and oppressed her lungs like a heavy weight. She shielded herself as best she could, and by clinging to stationary objects and watching her chance she managed to work her way onward. At last she caught sight of O'Neil, standing high above the surf, facing the wind defiantly, as if daring it to unfoot him. He saw her and came in answer to her signal; but to breast that wind was like stemming a rushing torrent, and when he reached her side he was panting.

"Child! What are you doing here?" he demanded.

"I couldn't wait any longer," she shouted back. "You've been out since daylight. You must be wet through."

He nodded. "I lay awake all night listening. So did Trevor. He's beginning to worry already."

"Already? If the breakwater stands this--"

"The storm hasn't half started! Come! We'll watch it together." He took her hand, and they lunged into the gale, battling their way back to his point of vantage. He paused at length, and with his arm about her pointed to the milk-white chaos which marked Trevor's handiwork. The rain pelted against their faces and streamed from their slickers.

The breakwater lay like a reef, and over it the sea was pounding in mighty wrath. High into the air the waters rose, only to disappear upon the bosom of the gale. They engulfed the structure bodily, they raced along it with thunderous detonations, bursting in a lather of rage. Out beyond, the billows appeared to be sheared flat by the force of the wind, yet that ceaseless upheaval of spume showed that the ocean was in furious tumult. For moments at a time the whole scene was blotted out by the scud, then the curtain would tear asunder and the wild scene would leap up again before their eyes.

Eliza screamed a question at her companion, but he did not seem to hear; his eyes roved back and forth along that lace-white ridge of rock on the weakness of which depended his salvation. She had never seen him so fierce, so hawklike, so impa.s.sive. The gusts shook him, his garments slatted viciously, every rag beneath his outer covering was sodden, yet he continued to face the tempest as indifferently as he had faced it since the dawn. The girl thrilled at thought of the issue these mighty forces were fighting out before her eyes, and of what it meant to the man beside her. His interests became hers; she shared his painful excitement. Her warm flesh chilled as the moisture embraced her limbs; but her heart was light, for O'Neil's strong arm encircled her, and her body lay against his.

After a long time he spoke. "See! It's coming up!" he said.

She felt no increase in the wind, but she noted that particles of sand and tiny pebbles from the beach were flying with the salt raindrops.

Her muscles began to tremble from the constant effort at resistance, and she was relieved when Murray looked about for a place of refuge.

She pointed to a pile of bridge timbers, but he shook his head.

"They'll go flying if this keeps up." He dragged her into the shelter of a little knoll. Here the blasts struck them with diminished force, the roaring in their ears grew less, and the labor of breathing was easier.