Thurston of Orchard Valley Part 14

"The trestle is all right," answered Geoffrey, climbing into the cab.

"I held you up, and I'm going on with you to bring out a doctor to my partner, who is dangerously ill."

The engineer's comments were indignant and sulphurous, while the big fireman turned back his shirt sleeves as if preparing to chastise the man rash enough to interfere with express freight traffic. Geoffrey, reaching for a shovel, said:

"When we get there, I'll go with you to your superintendent at Vancouver; but, if either of you try to put me off or to call a.s.sistance, I'll make good use of this. I tell you it's a question of life and death, and two at least of your directors are good friends of the man I want to help. They wouldn't thank you for destroying his last chance. Meantime you're wasting precious moments. Start the train."

"Hold fast!" commanded the grizzled engineer, opening the throttle.

"When she's under way, I'll talk to you, and unless you satisfy me, by the time we reach Vancouver there won't be much of you left for the police to take charge of."

Then the two locomotives started the long cars on their inter-ocean race again.

CHAPTER XII

GEOFFREY TESTS HIS FATE

It was a lowering afternoon in the Fall, when Thurston and Julius Savine stood talking together upon a spray-drenched ledge in the depths of a British Columbian canon. On the crest of the smooth-scarped hillside, which stretched back from the sheer face of rock far overhead, stood what looked like a tiny fretwork in ebony, and consisted of two-hundred-foot conifers. Here and there a clamorous torrent had worn out a gully, and, with Thurston's a.s.sistance, Savine had accomplished the descent of one of the less precipitous. Elsewhere the rocks had been rubbed into smooth walls, between which the river had fretted out its channel during countless ages. The water was coming down in a mad green flood, for the higher snows had melted fast under the autumn sun, and the clay beneath the glaciers had stained it.

Foam licked the ledges, a roaring white wake streamed behind each boulder's ugly head, and the whole gloomy canon rang with the thunder of a rapid, whose filmy stream whirled in the chilly breeze.

Savine gazed at the rapid and the whirlpool that fed it, distinguishing the roar of scoring gravel and grind of broken rock from its vibratory booming, and though he was a daring man, his heart almost failed him.

"It looks ugly, horribly ugly, and I doubt if another man in the Dominion would have suggested tackling the river here, but you are right," he admitted. "Human judgment has its limits, and the constant bursts have proved that no d.y.k.es which wouldn't ruin me in the building could stand high-water pressure long. If you don't mind, Thurston, we'll move farther from the edge. I've been a little shaky since that last attack."

"The climb down was awkward, but you have looked better lately,"

declared Geoffrey and Savine sighed.

"I guess my best days are done, and that is one reason why I wish to end up with a big success," he said. "I got a plain warning from the Vancouver doctor you brought me in that morning. You managed it smartly."

"I was lucky," said Thurston, laughing. "At first, I expected to be ignominiously locked up after the engineer and fireman had torn my clothes off me. But we did not climb down here to talk of that."

"No!" and Savine looked straight at his companion. "This is a great scheme, Thurston, the biggest I have ever undertaken. There will be room for scores of ranches, herds of cattle, wheat fields and orchards, if we can put it through--and we have just got to put it through.

Those confounded d.y.k.es have drained me heavily, and they'll keep right on costing money. Still, even to me, it looks almost beyond the power of mortal man to deepen the channel here. The risk will figure high in money, but higher in human life. You feel quite certain you can do it?"

"Yes!" a.s.serted Geoffrey. "I believe I can--in winter, when the frost binds the glaciers and the waters shrink. Once it is done, and the only hard rock barrier that holds the water up removed, the river will scour its own way through the alluvial deposits. I have asked a long price, but the work will be difficult."

Savine nodded. He knew that it would be a task almost fit for demi-G.o.ds or giants to cut down the bed of what was a furious torrent, thick with grinding debris and scoring ice, and that only very strong bold men could grapple with the angry waters, amid blinding snow or under the bitter frost of the inland ranges in winter time.

"The price is not too heavy, but I don't accept your terms," Savine said. "Hold on until I have finished and then begin your talking.

I'll offer you a minor partnership in my business instead. Take time, and keep your answer until I explain things in my offices, in case you find the terms onerous; but there are many men in this country who would be glad of the chance you're getting."

Geoffrey stood up, his lean brown face twitching. He walked twice along the slippery ledge, and then halted before Savine. "I will accept them whatever they are on one condition, which I hardly dare hope you will approve," he replied. "That is, regarding the partnership, for in any case, holding to my first suggestion, you can count on my best help down here. I don't forget that I owe you a heavy debt of grat.i.tude, sir, though, as you know, I have had several good offers latterly."

Savine, who had been abstractedly watching the mad rush of the stream, looked up as he inquired:

"What is the condition? You seem unusually diffident to-day, Thurston."

"It is a great thing I am going to ask." Geoffrey, standing on the treacherous ledge above the thundering river, scarcely looked like a suppliant as he put his fate to the test. "It is your permission to ask Miss Savine to marry me when the time seems opportune. It would not be surprising if you laughed at me, but even then I should only wait the more patiently. This is not a new ambition, for one day when I first came, a poor man, into this country I set my heart upon it, and working ever since to realize it, I have, so far at least as worldly prospects go, lessened the distance between us."

Savine, who betrayed no surprise, was silent for a little while. Then he answered quietly:

"I am, according to popular opinion, anything but a poor man, and though those d.y.k.es have bled me, such a match would, as you suggest, be unequal from a financial point of view, unless Helen marries against my wishes. Then she should marry without a dollar. Does that influence you?"

Thurston spread out his hands with a contemptuous gesture, which his quiet earnestness redeemed from being theatrical.

"For my own sake I should prefer it so. Dollars! How far would anyone count dollars in comparison with Miss Savine? But I do not fear being able to earn all she needs. When the time seems opportune the inequality may be less."

"It is possible," continued Savine. "One notices that the man who knows exactly what he wants and doesn't fool his time away over other things not infrequently gets it. You have not really surprised me.

Now--and I want a straight answer--why did you leave the Old Country?"

"For several reasons. I lost my money mining. The lady whom I should have married, according to arrangements made for us, tired of me. It is a somewhat painful story, but I was bound up in the mine, and there were, no doubt, ample excuses for her. We were both of us almost too young to know our own minds when we fell in with our relatives' wishes, and, though I hardly care to say so, it was perhaps well we found out our mistake in time."

"All!" said Savine. "Were there no openings for a live man in the Old Country, and have you told me all?"

"I could not find any place for a man in my position," Geoffrey let the words fall slowly. "I come of a reckless, hard-living family, and I feared that some of their failings might repeat themselves in me. I had my warnings. Had I stayed over there, a disappointed man, they might have mastered me, and so, when there was nothing to keep me, I turned my back--and ran. Out here any man who hungers for it can find quite sufficient healthful excitement for his needs, and excitement is as wine to me. These, I know, seem very curious qualifications for a son-in-law, but it seemed just to tell you. Need I explain further?"

"No," answered Savine, whose face had grown serious. "Thanks for your honesty. I guess I know the weaknesses you mean--the greatest of them is whiskey. I've had scores of brilliant men it has driven out from Europe to shovel dirt for me. It's not good news, Thurston. How long have you made head against your inherited failings?"

"Since I could understand things clearly," was the steady answer. "I feared only what might happen, and would never have spoken had I not felt that this country had helped me to break the entail, and set me free. You know all, sir, and to my disadvantage I have put it before you tersely, but there is another aspect."

Thurston's tone carried conviction with it, but Savine cut him short.

"It is the practical aspect that appeals to me," he said. He stared down at the river for several minutes before he asked:

"Have you any reason to believe that Helen reciprocates the attachment?"

"No." Geoffrey's face fell. "Once or twice I ventured almost to hope so; more often I feared the opposite. All I ask is the right to wait until the time seems ripe, and know that I shall have your good will if it ever does. I could accept no further benefits from your hands until I had told you."

"You have it now," Savine declared very gravely. "As you know, my life is uncertain, and I believe you faithful and strong enough to take care of Helen. After all, what more could I look for? Still, if she does not like you, there will be an end of the matter. It may be many would blame me for yielding, but I believe I could trust you, Thurston--and there are things they do not know."

Savine sighed after the last words. His face clouded. Then he added abruptly: "Speak when it suits you, Thurston, and good luck to you.

There are reasons besides the fact that I'm an old man why I should envy you."

Had Geoffrey been less exultant he might have noticed something curious in Savine's expression, but he was too full of his heart's desire to be conscious of more than the one all-important fact that Helen's father wished him well. It was in a mood of high hopefulness he a.s.sisted Mr.

Savine during the arduous scramble up out of the canon. Later his elation was diminished by the recollection that he had yet to win the good will of Miss Savine.

Some time had pa.s.sed after the interview in the canon, when one afternoon Geoffrey walked out on the veranda at High Maples in search of Helen Savine. It was winter time, but the climate near the southwestern coast is mild. High Maples was sheltered, and the sun was faintly warm. There were a few hardy flowers in the borders fringing the smooth green lawn, a striking contrast to the snow-sheeted pines of the ice-bound wilderness in which Thurston toiled. Helen was not on the veranda, and not knowing where to search further, the young man sank somewhat heavily into a chair. Geoffrey had ridden all night through powdery snow-drifts which rose at times to the stirrup, and at others so high that his horse could scarcely flounder through them. He had made out lists of necessary stores as the jolting train sped on to Vancouver, and had been busy every moment until it was time to start for High Maples. Though he would have had it otherwise, he dare not neglect one item when time was very precious. He had not spared himself much leisure for either food or sleep of late, for by the short northern daylight, and flame of the roaring lucigen, through the long black nights, he and his company of carefully picked men had fought stubbornly with the icy river.

The suns rays grew brighter, there was still no sign of Helen. Tired in mind and body Geoffrey sat still, lost in a reverie. He had left the camp in a state of nervous suspense, but overtaxed nature had conquered, and now he waited not less anxious than he had been, but with a physical languidness due to the reaction.

When Helen Savine finally came out softly through a long window Geoffrey did not at first see her, and she had time to cast more than a pa.s.sing glance at him as he sat with head resting gratefully on the back of the basket chair. His face, deeply tanned by the snow, had grown once more worn and thin. There were lines upon the forehead and wrinkles about his eyes; one bronzed hand lay above the other on his knee, as the complement of a pose that suggested the exhaustion of over-fatigue. The sight roused her pity, and she felt unusually sympathetic towards the tired man.

Then Geoffrey started and rose quickly. Helen noticed how he seemed to fling off his weariness as he came towards her, hat in hand.

"I have made a hurried journey to see you, Miss Savine," he said. "I have something to tell you, something concerning which I cannot keep silence any longer. If I am abrupt you will forgive me, but will you listen a few moments, and then answer me a question?"