The Iron Trail Part 59

"It certainly is. It threatens to throw everything out of alignment and prevent us from laying the steel if we don't check it."

"Check it!" cried Eliza. "How can you check a thing like that?"

"Easily enough, if we can spare the hands--by cutting away the ice where it is frozen to the piles, so that it won't lift them with it.

The trouble is to get men enough--you see, the ice is nine feet thick now. I've set every man to work with axes and chisels and steam-points, and I came up to telephone Slater for more help. We'll have to work fast, night and day."

"There's n.o.body left in Omar," Eliza said, quickly.

"I know. Tom's going to gather all he can at Cortez and Hope and rush them out here. Our task is to keep the ice cut away until help arrives."

"I suppose it's too late in the season to repair any serious damage?"

"Exactly. If you care to go back with me you can see what we're doing."

As they set off for the bridge site Murray looked down at Eliza, striding man-like beside him, with something of affectionate appreciation in his eyes, and said humbly: "It was careless of me not to see what you have been doing for me all this time. My only excuse is that I've been driven half mad with other things. I--haven't time to think of myself."

"All housekeepers have a thankless task," laughed Eliza.

When they reached the river-bank she saw everything apparently just as when she had last seen it. "Why, it's not as bad as I imagined!" she exclaimed. "I thought I'd find everything going to smash."

"Oh, there's nothing spectacular about it. There seldom is about serious mishaps in this business. The ice has risen only an inch or more so far, but the very slowness and sureness of it is what's alarming. It shows that the water is backing up, and as the flow increases the rise of the ice will quicken. If it starts to move up or down stream, we're lost."

There was ample evidence that the menace was thoroughly understood, for the whole day shift was toiling at the ice, chopping it, thawing it, shoveling it away, although its tremendous thickness made their efforts seem puerile. Everywhere there was manifested a frantic haste, a grim, strained eagerness that was full of ominous meaning.

All that day Eliza watched the unequal struggle, and in the evening Dan brought her reports that were far from rea.s.suring. The relentless movement showed no sign of ceasing. When she retired that night she sought ease from her anxiety in a prayer that was half a pet.i.tion for O'Neil's success and half an exceedingly full and frank confession of her love for him. Outside, beneath the glare of torches and hastily strung incandescents, a weary army toiled stubbornly, digging, gouging, chopping at the foot of the towering wall of timbers which stretched across the Salmon. In the north the aurora borealis played brilliantly as if to light a council of the G.o.ds.

On the following day "Happy Tom" arrived with fifty men.

"I got the last mother's son I could find," he explained, as he warmed himself at O'Neil's stove.

"Did you go to Hope?"

"I did, and I saw the splavvus, himself."

"Gordon?"

"He's worse than we thought." Tom tapped his shining forehead significantly. "Loft to let!"

"What--insane?"

"Nothing but echoes in his dome. The town's as empty as his bonnet too, and the streets are full of snow. It's a sight!"

"Tell me about Mrs. Gordon."

"She's quite a person," said Slater, slowly. "She surprised me. She's there, alone with him and a watchman. She does all the work, even to LUGGING in the wood and coal--he's too busy to help--but she won't leave him. She told me that Dan and Natalie wanted her to come over here, but she couldn't bring herself to do it or to let them a.s.sist in any way. Gordon spends all his time at his desk, promoting, writing ads and prospectuses. He's got a grand scheme. He's found that 'Hope Consolidated' is full of rich ore, but the trouble is in getting it out; so he's working on a new process of extraction. It's a wonderful process--you'd never guess what it is. He SMOKES it out! He says all he needs is plenty of smoke. That bothered him until he hit on the idea of burning feathers. Now he's planning to raise ducks, because they've got so much down. Isn't that the limit? She'll have to fit him into a padded cell sooner or later."

"Poor devil!" said O'Neil. "I'm sorry. He had an unusual mind."

Slater sniffed. "I think it's pretty soft for him, myself. He's made better than a stand-off--he lost his memory, but he saved his skin.

It's funny how some men can't fall: if they slip on a banana-peel somebody shoves a cushion under 'em before they 'light. _I_ never got the best of anything. If I dropped asleep in church my wife would divorce me and I'd go to the electric chair. Gordon robs widows and orphans, right and left, then ends up with a loving woman to take care of him in his old age. Why, if I even robbed a blind puppy of a biscuit I'd leave a thumb-print on his ear, or the dog's mother would turn out to be a bloodhound. Anyhow, I'd spend MY declining years nestled up to a rock-pile, with a mallet in my mit, and a low-browed gentleman scowling at me from the top of a wall. He'd lean on his shotgun and say, 'Hurry up, Fatty; it's getting late and there's a ton of oak.u.m to pick.' It just goes to show that some of us is born behind the game and never get even, while others, like Gordon, quit winner no matter how much they lose." Having relieved himself of this fervid homily, "Happy Tom" unrolled a package of gum and thrust three sticks into his mouth.

"Speaking of bad luck," he continued, "when are you going to get married, Murray?"

O'Neil started. "Why--never. It isn't the same kind of proposition as building a bridge, you know. There's a little matter of youth and good looks that counts considerably in the marriage business. No woman would have an old chap like me."

Slater took a mournful inventory of his chief's person, then said doubtfully: "You MIGHT put it over, Murray. I ain't strictly handsome, myself, but I did."

As O'Neil slipped into his fur coat, after the fat man had slouched out, he caught sight of himself in the gla.s.s of his bureau and paused.

He leaned forward and studied the care-worn countenance that peered forth at him, then shook his head. He saw that the hair was growing grayer; that the face was very plain, and--yes, unquestionably, it was no longer youthful. Of course, he didn't feel old, but the evidence that he was so admitted of no disproof, and it was evidence of a sort which no woman could disregard. He turned from the gla.s.s with a qualm of disgust at his weakness in allowing himself to be influenced in the slightest by Tom's suggestion.

For a week the ice rose slowly, a foot a day, and in spite of the greatest watchfulness it took the false-work with it here and there.

But concentrated effort at the critical points saved the structure from serious injury. Then the jam in front of Jackson Glacier went out, at least in part, and the ice began to fall. Down it settled, smoothly, swiftly, until it rested once more upon the sh.o.r.es. It was still as firm as in midwinter, and showed no sign of breaking; nor had it moved down-stream a hair's breadth. O'Neil gathered his forces for the final onslaught.

XXVI

THE RACE

On April 5th the last of the steel for Span Number One reached the front, and erection was begun. The men fell to with a vim and an enthusiasm impossible to describe. With incredible rapidity the heavy sections were laid in place; the riveters began their metallic song; the towering three bent traveler ran smoothly on its track, and under it grew a web work of metal, braced and reinforced to withstand, in addition to ordinary strains, the pressure of a hundred-mile-an-hour wind. To those who looked on, the structure appeared to build itself, like some dream edifice; it seemed a miracle that human hands could work that stubborn metal so swiftly and with so little effort. But every piece had been cut and fitted carefully, then checked and placed where it was accessible.

Now that winter had broken, spring came with a rush. The snows began to shrink and the drifts to settle. The air grew balmier with every day; the drip from eaves was answered by the gurgling laughter of hidden waters. Here and there the boldest mountainsides began to show, and the tops of alder thickets thrust themselves into sight. Where wood or metal caught the sun-rays the snow retreated; pools of ice-water began to form at noon.

The days were long, too, and no frozen winds charged out of the north.

As the daylight lengthened, so did the working-hours of the toilers.

On April 18th the span was completed. In thirteen days Mellen's crew had laid four hundred feet of the heaviest steel ever used in a bridge of this type. But there was no halt; the material for the second section had been a.s.sembled, meanwhile, and the traveler began to swing it into place.

The din was unceasing; the clash of riveters, the creak and rattle of hoists, the shouts of men mingled in a persistent, ear-splitting clamor; and foot by foot the girders reached out toward the second monolith which rose from the river-bed. The well-adjusted human machine was running smoothly; every man knew his place and the duties that went with it; the hands of each worker were capable and skilled. But now the hillsides were growing bare, rills gashed the sloping snow-fields, the upper gullies began to rumble to avalanches--forerunners of the process that would strip the earth of snow and ice and free the river in all its fury. In six days three hundred feet more of steel had been bolted fast to the complete section, and Span Two was in place. But the surface of the Salmon was no longer white and pure; it was dirty and discolored now, for the debris which had collected during the past winter was exposing itself. The icy covering was partially inundated also; shallow ponds formed upon it and were rippled by the south breeze. Running waters on every side sang a menace to the workers.

Then progress ceased abruptly. It became known that a part of the material for the third span had gone astray in its long journey across the continent. There had been a delay at the Pittsburg mills, then a blockade in the Sierras; O'Neil was in Omar at the end of the cable straining every nerve to have the shipment rushed through. Mellen brooded over his uncompleted work: Parker studied the dripping hills and measured the melting snows. He still smiled; but he showed his anxiety in a constant nervous unrest, and he could not sleep.

At length news came that Johnny Brennan had the steel aboard his ship and had sailed. A record run was predicted, but meanwhile the south wind brought havoc on its breath. The sun shone hotly into the valley of the Salmon, and instead of warmth it brought a chill to the hearts of those who watched and waited.

Twelve endless, idle days crawled by. Winter no longer gave battle; she was routed, and in her mad retreat she threatened to overwhelm O'Neil's fortunes.

On May 6th the needed bridge members were a.s.sembled, and the erection of Span Three began. The original plan had been to build this section on the cantilever principle, so as to gain independence of the river ice, but to do so would have meant slow work and much delay--an expenditure of time which the terms of the option made impossible.

Arrangements had been made, therefore, to lay it on false-work as the other spans had been laid, risking everything upon the weather.

As a matter of precaution the southern half of the span was connected to the completed portion; but before the connection could be fully made the remainder of the jam in front of Jackson Glacier, which had caused so much trouble heretofore, went out suddenly, and the river ice moved down-stream about a foot, carrying with it the whole intricate system of supporting timbers beneath the uncompleted span. Hasty measurements showed that the north end of the steel then on the false-work was thirteen inches out of line.

It was Mr. Blaine who brought the tidings of this last calamity to Eliza Appleton. From his evident anxiety she gathered that the matter was of graver consequence than she could well understand.

"Thirteen inches in fifteen hundred feet can't amount to much," she said, vaguely.

Blaine smiled in spite of himself. "You don't understand. It's as bad as thirteen feet, for the work can't go on until everything is in perfect alignment. That whole forest of piles must be straightened."

"Impossible!" she gasped. "Why, there are thousands of them."