The Iron Trail Part 46

At that moment Mellen and McKay burst into the bungalow, demanding the truth behind the rumor which had just come to their ears; and there followed fresh explanations and rejoicings, through which Eliza sat quietly, thrilled by the note of genuine affection and loyalty that pervaded it all. But, now that the general despondency had vanished and joy reigned in its place, Tom Slater relapsed into his habitual gloom and spoke forebodingly of the difficulties yet to be encountered.

"Murray don't say how MUCH he's raised," he remarked. "It may be only a drop in the bucket. We'll have to go through all this again, probably, and the next time he won't find it so easy to sting a millionaire."

"We'll last through the winter anyhow--"

"Winter!" Slater shook his bald head. "Winter is hard on old men like me."

"We'll have the bridge built by spring, sure!" Mellen declared.

"Maybe! I hope so. I wish I could last to see it, but the smallpox undermined me. Perhaps it's a mercy I'm so far gone; n.o.body knows yet whether the bridge will stand, and--I'd hate to see it go out."

"It won't go out," said the engineer, confidently.

"Maybe you're right. But that's what Trevor said about his breakwater.

His work was done, and ours isn't hardly begun. By the way, Murray didn't say he HAD the money; he just said he expected to get it."

"Go out and hang your crepe on the roundhouse," Dan told him; "this is a jubilee. If you keep on rejoicing you'll have us all in tears." When the others had gone he turned to Eliza. "Why don't you want O'Neil to know about that money, Sis?" he asked, curiously. "When I'm a hero I like to be billed as one."

"Please!" She hesitated and turned her face away. "You--you are so stupid about some things."

On the afternoon of this very day Curtis Gordon found Natalie at a window staring out across the sound in the direction of Omar. He laid a warm hand upon her shoulder and said:

"My dear, confess! You are lonesome."

She nodded silently.

"Well, well! We mustn't allow that. Why don't you run over to Omar and see your friend Miss Appleton? She has a cheerful way with her." "I'm afraid things aren't very gay over there," said Natalie, doubtfully.

"Quite probably. But the fact that O'Neil is on his last legs needn't interfere with your pleasure. A change will do you good."

"You are very kind," she murmured. "You have done everything to make me happy, but--it's autumn. Winter is coming. I feel dull and lonely and gray, like the sky. Are you sure Mr. O'Neil has failed?"

"Certainly. He tried to sell his holdings to the Trust, but they refused to consider it. Poor fellow!" he continued, unctuously. "Now that he's down I pity him. One can't dislike a person who has lost the power of working harm. His men are quitting: I doubt if he'll dare show his face in this country again. But never mind all that. There's a boat leaving for Omar in the morning. Go; have a good time, return when you will, and tell us how they bear up under their adversity." He patted her shoulder affectionately and went up to his room.

It was true enough that Natalie had been unhappy since returning to Hope--not even her mother dreamed how she rebelled at remaining here.

She was lonely, uninterested, vaguely homesick. She missed the intimate companionship of Eliza; she missed Dan's extravagant courting and O'Neil's grave, respectful attentions. She also felt the loss of the honest good-fellowship of all those people at Omar whom she had learned to like and to admire. Life here was colorless, and was still haunted by the shadow of that thing from which she and her mother had fled.

Gordon, indeed, had been generous to them both. Since his marriage his att.i.tude had changed entirely. He was polite, agreeable, charmingly devoted: no ship arrived without some tangible and expensive evidence of his often-expressed desire to make his wife and stepdaughter happy; he antic.i.p.ated their slightest wish. Under his a.s.siduous attentions Natalie's distrust and dislike had slowly melted, and she came to believe that she had misjudged him. There were times when he seemed to be overdoing the matter a bit, times when she wondered if his courtesy could be altogether disinterested; but these occasions were rare, and always she scornfully accused herself of disloyalty. As for Gloria, she was deeply contented--as nearly happy, in fact, as a woman of her temperament could be, and in this the daughter took her reward.

Natalie arrived at Omar in time to see the full effect of the good news from New York, and joined sincerely in the general rejoicing. She returned after a few days, bursting with the tidings of O'Neil's victory.

Gordon listened to her with keenest attention; he drew her out artfully, and when he knew what he had sent her to learn he gave voice to his unwelcome surprise.

"Jove!" he snarled. "That beggar hoodwinked the Heidlemanns, after all.

It's their money. What fools! What fools!"

Natalie looked up quickly.

"Does it affect your plans?" she asked.

"Yes--in a way. It consolidates my enemies."

"You said you no longer had any ill feeling toward Mr. O'Neil."

Gordon had resumed his usual suavity. "When I say enemies," he qualified, "of course, I mean it only in a business sense. I heard that the Trust had withdrawn, discouraged by their losses, but, now that they re-enter the field, I shall have to fight them. They would have done well to consult me--to buy me off, rather than be bled by O'Neil.

They shall pay well for their mistake, but--it's incredible! That man has the luck of the devil."

That evening he and Denny sat with their heads together until a late hour, and when they retired Gordon had begun to whip new plans into shape.

XX

HOW GORDON CHANGED HIS ATTACK

O'Neil's return to Omar was triumphal. All his lieutenants gathered to meet him at the pier and the sincerity of their welcome stirred him deeply. His arrangements with Illis had taken time; he had been delayed at Seattle by bridge details and the placing of steel contracts. He had worked swiftly, and with such absorption that he had paid little heed to the rumors of Gordon's latest activities. Of the new venture which his own success had inspired he knew only the bare outline. He had learned enough, however, to arouse his curiosity, and as soon as the first confusion of his arrival at the front was over he asked for news.

"Haven't you read the papers?" inquired "Happy Tom." He had attached himself to O'Neil at the moment of his stepping ash.o.r.e, and now followed him to headquarters, with an air of melancholy satisfaction in mere physical nearness to his chief.

"Barely!" O'Neil confessed. "I've been working twenty hours a day getting that steel under motion."

Dr. Gray said with conviction: "Gordon is a remarkable man. It's a pity he's crooked."

"I think it's dam' lucky," declared Tom. "He's smarter than us, and if he wasn't handicapped by a total lack of decency he'd beat us."

"After the storm," explained Gray, "he moved back to Hope, and we thought he'd made his last bow, but in some way he got the idea that the Trust was back of us."

"So I judged from the little I read."

"Well, we didn't undeceive him, of course. His first move was an attack through the press in the shape of a broadside against the Heidlemanns.

It fairly took our breaths. It appeared in the Cortez Courier and all over the States, we hear--a letter of defiance to Herman Heidlemann. It declared that the Trust was up to its old tricks here in Alaska had gobbled the copper; had the coal tied up under secret agreements, and was trying to get possession of all the coast-range pa.s.ses and defiles--the old story. But the man can write. That article caused a stir."

"I saw it."

"Naturally, the Cortez people ate it up. They're sore at the Trust for leaving their town, and at us for building Omar. Then Gordon called a ma.s.s-meeting, and some of us went up to watch the fireworks. I've never seen anything quite like that meeting; every man, woman, and child in the city was there, and they hissed us when we came in. Gordon knew what he was about, and he was in fine voice. He told them Cortez was the logical point of entry to the interior of Alaska and ought to have all the traffic. He fired their animosity toward the Trust, and accused us of basely selling out to it. Then he broached a project to build, by local subscription, a narrow-gauge electric line from Cortez, utilizing the waterfalls for power. The idea caught on, and went like wild-fire: the people cheered themselves hoa.r.s.e, and pledged him over a hundred thousand dollars that night. Since then they have subscribed as much more, and the town is crazy. Work has actually begun, and they hope to reach the first summit by Christmas."

Slater broke in: "He's a spell-binder, all right. He made me hate the Heidlemanns and detest myself for five minutes. I wasn't even sure I liked YOU, Murray."

"It's a wild scheme, of course," continued the doctor, "but he's putting it over. The town council has granted him a ninety-nine-year lease covering every street; the road-bed is started, and things are booming. Lots have been staked all over the flats, property values are somersaulting, everybody is out of his head, and Gordon is a G.o.d. All he does is organize new companies. He has bought a sawmill, a wharf, a machine shop, acres of real estate. He has started a bank and a new hotel; he has consolidated the barber shops; and he talks about roofing in the streets with gla.s.s and making the town a series of arcades."

Slater half smiled--evidence of a convulsive mirth within.

"They've picked out a site for a university!" he said, bitterly.

"Cortez is going to be a seat of learning and culture. They're planning a park and a place for an Alaskan World's Fair and a museum and a library. I've always wondered who starts public libraries--it's 'nuts.'

But I didn't s'pose more than one or two people got foolish that way."

O'Neil drew from his pocket a newspaper five days old, which he unfolded and opened at a full-page advertis.e.m.e.nt, headed: