"Draw back the traveler and put no more men on the bridge. Stop work
until we can get word to----"
"If I thought there was the least danger," said the other man, "I
would do what you say, of course, but we are way behind now--weeks
behind in spite of my driving. They don't seem to be able to get the
stuff to me. There's a big penalty for non-completion of the
contract within the limits. I get wires every day urging me on."
"I don't care what you get."
"You heard what the Colonel said last week."
"Yes, I heard, but it makes no difference, the work must stop."
"It can't--and it shan't," cried the other with sudden fierceness.
"Abbott!"
"Don't talk to me, boy. Damn the camber! I know my business. This
isn't the first deflection I ever saw, is it?"
"No, of course not."
"Well, I tell you I can jack it back. That member's big enough and
strong enough to hold up the world."
"What are you going to jack against?" Meade asked, and for the first
time a little of Abbott's contempt appeared in the younger man's
voice.
Abbott reflected that there was nothing firm enough to serve as a
support for jacks and said rather grudgingly, for it seemed like a
concession to the younger and junior engineer:
"Well, I can hook on to the opposite truss and pull it back with turn
buckles."
"That will damage the other truss too much, Abbott," Meade retorted
promptly. "It isn't possible."
"Then I'll think up some other scheme," returned Abbott
indifferently, as if humoring the other. "We can't wait, we've got
to hurry it along."
The two men made no special attempt to conceal their feelings.
Abbott's indifference had been at first good-humored, but it was fast
taking on another character and Meade's insistence and his evident
bad opinion of the other man's obstinacy did not tend to make the
discussion more amicable, or to convince either that the other was
right or even that his opinions should be respected.
"Abbott, I'm just as much interested in finishing the job in a hurry
as you are," explained Meade in a last effort to move him, and too
late appealing to him more gently. "I--you see--Miss Illingworth,
her father said----"
"Oh, you get the girl when the bridge is up?" asked Abbott shrewdly.
"Yes."
"Well, rest easy, son, that will only make me work the harder. I
like you in spite of your fool ideas. I'm going to make a record for
myself on this bridge. It's the biggest thing in the world. There's
going to be no penalty against us on account of me. I won't stop
work a minute," he explained patronizingly.
"There will be a bigger penalty if you don't do what I say, and paid
in another way, in blood. And it will be your fault."
Now both men were angry and in their passion they confronted each
other more resolute and fierce than ever.
"Look here," said Abbott, his fiery temper suddenly breaking from his
control, "who are you anyway? You're only a kid engineer. Your
father approved of the plan of this bridge. I guess we can afford to
bank on his reputation rather than yours."
"Well, he doesn't know of this."
"Nobody is on the bridge now, and nobody is going to be on there
until tomorrow morning. Wire him if you like. He'll wire
Illingworth down at Martlet and we'll get word what to do."
"You won't put any men at work on the bridge until----"
"Not until tomorrow morning," said Abbott decisively, "if I don't
hear from somebody at Martlet tomorrow morning the work goes on."
"But if my father wires you----"
"I take orders from the Martlet Company and no one else," was the
short answer with which Abbott turned away in finality, so that the
other realized the interview was over.
Meade wasted no more pleas on Abbott. As ill luck would have it
something had happened to the telephone and telegraph wires between
the city and the camp. After vainly trying to get a connection when
he climbed back to the office Meade dressed himself, got a handcar,
and was hurried to the nearest town on the railroad's main line.
From there he sent a telegram and tried to get connection with New
York by telephone, but failed. Moved by a natural impulse, in
default of other means of communication, he jumped on the midnight
train for New York. He would go himself in person and attend to the
grave affair. Nothing whatever could be so important.
There had been some friction between Abbott and Meade before on
occasions, not serious, but several times Meade had ventured to
suggest something which to Abbott seemed useless and unnecessary, and
the fact that subsequent events had more often than not proved
Meade's suggestions to be worth while, had not put Abbott in
altogether the best mood toward his young colleague. Abbott never
forgot that Meade had really no official connection with the building
of the bridge, and that he was only there as a special representative
of his father, and although he could not help liking the younger man,
Abbott would have been better pleased if he had been left alone.
He was too honorable and too competent a man to diverge in any way
from the specifications and plans, but in all those matters which are
sometimes of great moment and which are of necessity left to the
discretion of the erector, he liked to be free to follow his own
devices. Consequently he was not predisposed to view any suggestions
from Meade with any great degree of cordiality, or to receive what
had amounted to a positive command with any especial warmth. As he
reflected on the heated debate in his room before he went to sleep he
almost blamed himself for what he considered a censurable weakness in
having suggested that Colonel Illingworth be bothered by wire with
such a trifling proposition. And so obsessed was he by his
conviction of the strength of the bridge and his ability to bring
back the wavering member to its proper relationship to the other
parts of the structure or, if he could not, of the comparative
unimportance of the deflection, that after Meade's departure he
almost found himself wishing that something would prevent
communication between New York and Martlet until he had had a chance
to show that he was right.
Meade had not gone about it in the right way to move a man of
Abbott's temperament. He realized that as he lay awake on the
sleeper speeding to New York. Abbott was a man who could not be
driven. He was a tremendous driver himself and naturally he could
not take his own medicine. If Meade had received the announcement
more quietly and if he had by some subtle suggestion put the idea of
danger into Abbott's mind all would have been well, for when he was
not blinded by prejudice, or his authority or his ability questioned,
Abbott was a sensible man thoroughly to be depended upon. But the
news had come to Meade with such suddenness, Abbott had only casually
mentioned it at the close of a lengthy conversation regarding the
progress of the work as if it were a matter of no especial moment,
that the sudden shock had thrown Meade off his balance.
Thereafter he could see nothing but danger and the necessity for
action. How he should handle his superior, or rather the bridge's
superior, was the last thing in his mind. Aside from his natural
pride in his father and in the bridge and his fear that lives would
be lost if it failed, unless he could get the men withdrawn, there
was the complication of his engagement to Helen Illingworth.
Meade could not close his eyes, he could not sleep a moment on the
train. His mind was in a turmoil. Prayers that he would get to his
father and the bridge people in time to stop work and prevent loss of
life, schemes for taking up the deflection, strengthening the member,
and completing the bridge, and fears that he would lose the woman,
stayed with him through the night.
He was too filled with anxiety and alarm to be anxious as to whether
he was having a relapse or not, but it was a white-faced, bloodshot
man in rough field garb--not intending or expecting to come to New
York, he had not taken time to dress properly, he had dragged on the
clothes at hand in his agitation--who half reeled through the gates
of the Grand Central Station that morning while curious people looked
at him with interest and amazement.
To add to his misfortune the train had been delayed by a disastrous
freight wreck on the line, and was two hours late. Everything was
against him. Even the taxicab burst a tire and delayed him further
in his progress downtown. It was ten o'clock before he reached his
father's office in the Uplift Building, when he should have arrived
much earlier. It was with frantic haste that he ran to the elevator
and then to the office.
X
THE SON OF HIS FATHER INDEED
Meade, Senior, was an old man. Although unlike Moses his eye was dim
and his natural force abated, the evidences of power were still
apparent, especially to the observant. There rose the broad brow of
the thinker. His power of intense concentration was expressed
outwardly by a directness of gaze from the old eyes which, though
faded, could flash on occasion. Other facial characteristics of that
snow-crowned, leonine head, which bespoke that imaginative power
without which a great engineer could not be in spite of all his
scientific exactitudes, had not been cut out of his countenance by
the pruning knife of time.
He was a great engineer and looked it, sitting alone in his office
with the telegram crushed in his trembling hand, despite the fact
that his gray face was the very picture of unwonted weakness, of
impotency, and abiding horror. The message had struck him a terrific
blow. He had reeled under it and had sunk down in the chair in a
state of nervous collapse.
Time was when he would have rallied from the shock, when the stroke
of fortune would have found him ready to deal blow for blow. But he
was now too old for that. He saw himself for the little remainder of
his life bereft of all title and dignity, shamed, dishonored, with
the blood of men and the tears of women and little children upon him.
The telegram fairly burned the clammy palm of his hand. He would
fain have dropped it yet he could not. Slowly he opened it once
more. Ordinarily, powerful glasses stimulated his vision. He needed
nothing to read it again. It is doubtful whether his eyes saw it or
not and there was not need, for the message was burned into his brain.
To a layman the message was harmless enough, indeed, inexplicable,
but to the great engineer it spelled failure in the great project
with which he had fondly hoped to crown his long, distinguished, and
honorable career. It meant financial ruin to great men who had
trusted to his skill; death and destruction to smaller men who had
confided in his assurance; deprivation, sorrow, hardship, starvation,
to dependent women and children.
He read again the mysterious words.
"_One and three-quarter inch camber in C_-10-_R_."
There could be no mistake. The name that was signed to it was the
name of his son, the young engineer, the child of his father's old
age, whom he himself had trained to follow in his footsteps, to don
the royal mantle of supremacy when he had laid it aside. Other
things connected themselves with the hideous fact conveyed by the
telegram. The boy, as the old man thought of him, had ventured to
dispute his father's figures, to question his father's design, but
the elder man had overborne him with his vast experience, his great
authority, his extensive learning, his high reputation. Age had
laughed youth to scorn.
And now the boy was right. Strange to say some little thrill of
pride came to the old engineer at that moment. The boy in this was
greater than he. But it was lost in the imminence and magnitude of
the catastrophe. He tried to find out from the telegram when it had
been sent. That day was a holiday--the birthday of one of the
Worthies of the Republic--in some of the United States, New York and
Pennsylvania among them, and only by chance had he come down to the
office that morning. The wire was dated the night before. Perhaps
even--no, the morning papers would have said if the inevitable
accident had occurred. And he recalled that the state from which the
bridge ran did not observe that day as a holiday. They would be
working on the International as usual unless----
One and three-quarter inches of deflection! Good God! No bridge
that was ever made could stand with a bend like that in the principal
member of its compression chord, much less so vast a structure as
that which was to span the greatest of rivers and to bring nation
into touch with nation. He ought to do something, but what was there
to do? Presently, doubtless, his mind would clear. But on the
instant all he could think of was the impending ruin.
The Uplift Building, in which he had his offices, was mainly deserted
on account of the holiday. The banks were closed and the offices and
most of the shops and stores. It was very still in the hall and,
therefore, he heard distinctly the door of the single elevator in
service open with an unusual crash, then the sound of rapid footsteps
along the corridor as of someone running. They stopped before the
outer door of the suite which bore his name. Instantly he suspected
a messenger of disaster. The door was opened, the office was
crossed, a hand was on the inner door.
The old engineer strove vainly to rise to meet the bearer of evil
tidings, but failed. His trembling limbs would not support him. He
sank back almost as one dead waiting the shock, the blow. It was not
so much of himself as of the consequences to others he thought,
although the one failure would dissolve the fame he had gained by all
the successes of the past.
When the door was opened, instinctively he put his arm across his
eyes as if to shield himself from the attack.
"Father," exclaimed the newcomer.
"Thank God," said the old man, dropping his arm, "you are here."
"You got my telegram?"
The other silently exhibited the crumpled paper in his hand.
"What have you done?"
"Why, I--nothing."
"Good God! Nothing! Why, you must have received it early this
morning. I--
"It's a holiday, don't you know? I only got it a few moments ago.
The bridge?"
"Still stands."
"But for how long?"
"I can't say. The Martlet's resident engineer is mad. I begged,
threatened, implored. I tried to get him to stop work, to take the
men off the bridge, to withdraw the traveler, but he won't do it.
Said you designed it, you knew. I was only a cub."
"But the camber?"
"He said, 'Damn the camber, I'll jack it into line again.' Like
every other engineer who sees a big thing before him it looks to him
as if it would last forever. I tried to get you on the telephone
here and at the house last night and failed. I wired you. Then I
jumped on the midnight express and----"
"What is to be done?" asked the old man.
Meade, Senior, was thankful that the younger man had not said, "I
told you so," as well he might. But really his father's condition
was so pitiful that the son had not the heart.
"Telegraph the Martlet Bridge Company at once," he answered.
"What shall we say?" asked the old man, uncertainly.
The young man shot a quick look at him, that question evidenced the
violence of the shock. His father was old, broken, helpless,
dependent, at last....
"Give me the blank," he answered, "I'll wire in your name."
He repeated the telegram that he had sent to his father and added
these words as he signed the old man's name to it:
"_Put no more load on the bridge. Withdraw men and traveler._"
He read the message to his father. The old man nodded helplessly.
The young man seized the telephone, called up the Western Union and
soon the message was on the wire to the great bridge works in the
Pennsylvania hills.
"Now, father," said the young man encouragingly, "don't give up. The
Martlet people will pay attention to that message. Even if the
bridge goes down, there will be no lives lost."
"How many men are working on it?"
"About two hundred. Abbott told me he wouldn't take a single man
off. I wanted to tell them myself, but I couldn't do that. He is in
charge. I am only representing you. He would not even agree to take
direction from you."
"Of course not."
"We will get hold of the bridge people. Colonel Illingworth will
telegraph Abbott to back up the traveler, withdraw the men, and get
all possible load off the member. Pull yourself together. Let's
figure out some way to strengthen it until we can replace it, or
devise----"
"You are right, boy, you are right," said the old man, rising in his
chair and turning toward his desk. "Let us get to work."
"Good," said the young man. "We ought to hear from Colonel
Illingworth in half an hour and we'll pull the thing through yet."
XI
THE DEATH MESSAGE ON THE WIRE
"I can't understand why we don't hear," said the young engineer,
walking up and down the room in his agitation. "Two telegrams and
now we can't get a telephone connection, or at least any answer after
our repeated calls."
"It's a holiday there as well as here," said the older man. "There
is no one in the office at Martlet."
"I'll try the telephone again. Someone may come in at any time."
He sat down at the desk, and after five minutes of feverish and
excited waiting he finally did get the office of the Martlet Bridge
Company. By a happy fortune it appeared that someone happened to
come into the office just at that moment.
"This is Meade," began the young man, "the consulting engineer of the
International Bridge. Understand? Yes. Well, at ten-thirty this
morning I sent a telegram to Colonel Illingworth and an hour later I
sent another. I've had no reply. I've been trying hard to get the
office on the telephone ever since. What's that?" Young Meade
turned to his father. "He says there's been no one in the office on
account of the holiday. Both telegrams are on the desk. He just
chanced to come in or I couldn't have got the message through."
"It's too late, too late," said the father, wringing his hands.
"Wait," said the son. He turned to the telephone again. "Give me
your name--Johnson--you're one of the clerks there? Well, telephone
Colonel Illingworth at his home and tell him to call me at this
office at once. I'll hold this connection with you until I hear
you've got him. It's most important. We're on the right track now,
father," continued the young man reassuringly. "The bridge must be
all right yet. We would have heard at once if it weren't. Keep up
your courage. We're going to pull through, somehow."
In such talk a few anxious minutes passed.
"Yes," suddenly broke out the younger Meade, who had kept the
receiver to his ear. "What! You can't find him? He isn't at home?
He has gone away? Is the vice-president there--the
superintendent--anybody? The men are having a jollification in the
mountains, you say, and everybody has gone? How far away are they?
Twenty miles! On the railroad? They went in wagons? There's no
telephone? Now, listen, Johnson, this is what you must do. Get a
car, the strongest and fastest you can rent and the boldest
chauffeur, and a couple of men on horses too, and send up to that
place wherever they are, and tell Colonel Illingworth that he must
telephone me and come to his office at once. There are telegrams
there that mean life and death and the safety of the bridge. You
understand? Good. He says he'll do it, father. We've done all we
can," he added. He hung up the receiver, sprang to his feet, looked
at his watch. "It's so important that I'll go down there myself. I
can catch the two-o'clock train, and that will get me there in two
hours. You stay quietly here in the office and wait until I get in
touch with those people. I mean, I want to know where I can reach
you instantly."
"I'll stay right here, my boy. Go, and God bless you."
As usual when in a great hurry there were unexpected delays and the
clock on the tower above the big structural shop was striking five
when a rickety station wagon, drawn by an exhausted horse, which had
been driven unsparingly, drew up before the office door. Flinging
the money at the driver, Meade sprang down from his seat and dashed
up the steps. He threw open the door and confronted Johnson.
"Did you get him?" he cried.
"He isn't here yet. I sent an automobile and two men on horseback
and----"
The next minute the faint note of an automobile horn sounded far down
the valley.
"I hope to God that is he," cried the young engineer, running to the
window.
"That's the car I sent," said Johnson, peering over his shoulder.
"And there are people in it. It's coming this way."
"Johnson," said Meade, "you have acted well in this crisis and I will
see that the Bridge Company remembers it."
"Would you mind telling me what the matter is, Mr. Meade?"
"Matter! The International----"
"Bert," exclaimed a joyous voice, as Helen Illingworth, smiling in
delighted surprise, stepped through the open door and stood expectant
with outstretched hands.
Young Johnson was as discreet as he was prompt and ready. He walked
to the window out of which he stared, with his back ostentatiously
turned toward them. Most considerately he even whistled a little
tune and drummed noisily upon the panes. After a quick glance at the
other man, Meade swept the girl to his heart and held her there a
moment. He did not kiss her before he released her. The woman's
passionate look at him was caress enough and his own adoring glance
fairly enveloped her with emotion. She looked at Johnson and her
brow wrinkled in slight annoyance, but, though he felt unwelcome,
that young man could not go and he had sense enough to know that he
would be needed and that no more time could be wasted by the lovers.
He coughed and turned as the two separated. It was the woman who
recovered her poise quicker. To be sure she did not have the burden
upon her shoulders that Meade had to support.
"What were you saying about our bridge when I came into the room?"
she began, and Meade fully understood the slight but unmistakable
emphasis in the pronoun--our bridge, indeed--"I was lying down this
afternoon, but when I awakened my maid told me about your urgent
calls for father," she ran on, realizing that some trouble portended
and seeking to help her lover by giving him time. "I knew something
must be wrong, so I came here. I didn't expect to see you. Oh, what
is it?" she broke off, suddenly realizing from the mental strain in
her lover's face, which the sudden sight of her had caused him to
conceal for a moment, that something terribly serious had happened,
and she turned a little pale herself as she asked the question, not
dreaming what the answer would be.
"Helen," said the young man, stepping toward her and taking her hands
again, "we're in awful trouble."
"If it is any trouble I can share, Bert," said the girl, flashing at
him a look which set his pulses bounding--at least she was to be
depended on--"you know you can count on me."
"I know I can," he exclaimed gratefully.
"Now tell me."
"The International Bridge is about to fail."
The color came to her face again. Was that all? came into her mind.
That was serious enough, of course, but it would not matter in the
long run. Through its structural weakness the bridge might fail;
through Abbott's obstinacy and pig-headedness those men might die on
it, his father's reputation might go and his own, but as he looked
into the eyes of the woman he knew that all these things would make
no difference to her. Heart once given, love once proffered, they
were his to the end. Her father! Well, Colonel Illingworth was not
the deciding voice, so she had said before. That thought flashed
into Meade's mind. Yet the glad consciousness was accompanied by a
firm resolution to abide by the conditions as set forth by Colonel
Illingworth. Bridge and woman, they went together for him. Indeed
he intended to save his father, even if his own life and happiness,
interwoven with the bridge, were the price of his endeavor. No one
should ever know. It would be his fault. It was. He should have
insisted on his contentions.
He would never involve in his own ruin this glorious woman, whatever
her trust, her affection, her willingness. That bright youthful life
at least should not go down with the bridge. The awful Web of Steel
should not catch her in its meshes. He would tear the rigid bars
apart with his own bleeding hands before that should happen.