it was, of course, not intrusted with the new International Bridge
which was about to be commenced. When Bertram Meade read of the new
undertaking, it cut him to the heart. This time there would be no
mistake. In the necessity of recouping its fortunes, the Martlet
Bridge Company entered upon an even wider career. The directors took
contracts which they had hitherto disdained because they were
comparatively unimportant, and they bid on operations which they had
hitherto left to competitors. They cut the prices down to the lowest
limit to get work, to demonstrate that the company was still a force
to be reckoned with, a power to be considered in the engineering
problems of the world.
They were building the great steel viaduct by the town of Coronado
below the dam, and they had already built the splendid steel arch
that spanned the ravine, here almost a gorge, in the valley of the
Kicking Horse to the eastward of the big mesa.
After Christmas, Colonel Illingworth decided to make another of his
tours of inspection, and as Helen was not looking particularly well
from the strain under which she was laboring, he offered to take her
with him, especially as he was going to the far Southwest, where the
weather would be mild and pleasant, to inspect the growing viaduct
and the completed arch. She gladly availed herself of the
permission. There was always a possibility, albeit a most remote
one, that she might hear of Meade if she got in touch with
engineering works, and here was not one project but three!
Accordingly, feeling the value of his presence, she suggested to her
father, in view of the wide extent of the trip and the important
interest of engineering circles in the viaduct and dam and irrigation
project, that it might be well to invite a representative of _The
Engineering News_, to wit, Rodney, to accompany them, so that the
really splendid work the Martlet Company was doing to regain its
former high position might be made widely known. The party consisted
of the father and daughter, Curtiss, the chief engineer, Dr.
Severance, the vice-president and financial man, and Rodney.
Now Helen Illingworth had not the least reason in the world to
suspect that Bertram Meade was in any way connected with this
engineering project, but Rodney had pointed out and had imbued her
with his own belief that sooner or later when Meade was found, he
would be found engaged in engineering in some capacity.
"It's in his blood," said Rodney. "He can no more keep away from it
than he can stop breathing. He can't do anything else. Somewhere
he's at the old job. It might be in America, and it might be out
there at Coronado, or it might be in South America, Europe, Asia,
or----"
"I wonder if we can't find out all the engineering work that is being
done in the world and send representatives to seek him," said Helen
Illingworth.
Rodney laughed.
"To hunt that way would be like hunting a needle in a haystack. I
cannot bid you hope that he is there; in fact I think it is most
unlikely that he would be any place near where the Martlet people are
operating, but there's a chance, even if only the faintest one."
Well, women's hearts can build a great deal on a faint chance. They
are calculated for the forlorn hope. And so Helen Illingworth stood
on the steps of the private car as it rolled across the mile-long
temporary bridge at Coronado, and scanned the workmen grouped on one
side of the track, their work suspended for a moment that the train
might pass on the wooden trestling, in hope that she could see in one
of them the man she loved and sought. And Rodney stood by her side,
equally interested, searching the crowd with his glance, also.
There was nothing in the town to attract Helen Illingworth out of the
car. She had visited West and Southwest many times. Colonel
Illingworth, with Rodney and Severence, there left the train. They
had, of course, business connected with the bridge which Rodney
wanted to see and report upon. Miss Illingworth decided to go into
the hills and get away from the arid and heated plains. A siding had
been built near the steel arch under the slope of the hill from which
the huge mesa arose. It would be pleasanter and quieter to
side-track the car there. The siding was within two miles of the dam
and the mesa was something to look at and something to climb. The
Kicking Horse ravine and the Picket Wire valley presented rather
attractive possibilities for exploration and adventure in their
pine-clad hills and the car was to be placed there. The men left
behind would use the private car of the division superintendent of
the railroad when they had ended their several tasks.
It had been raining dismally during the afternoon and when the car
was detached and switched to the siding and left up in the hills some
twenty miles from the town, it was too wet and uncomfortable to leave
it. Disregarding the downpour, however, Curtiss, who had come up
with it, made a very careful investigation of the completed steel
arch bridge, which more than surpassed his expectations in its
appearance of sturdy grace, as well as in the evidences of careful
workmanship in its erection.
That evening the special engine pushed the other private car up from
the valley, bringing the people who had inspected the bridge. A few
more weeks would complete the great viaduct. Everything was
proceeding in the most satisfactory way and Colonel Illingworth was
very much elated over the situation.
"Who would have thought," he said as they sat down to dinner in the
brightly lighted observation room, "that it would rain in this
country at this season of the year?"
"It will probably be over by tomorrow morning," observed Rodney.
"If it continued long enough and rained hard enough that dam would
have to be looked after. We'll go over and see it tomorrow," said
the Colonel cheerfully.
"What would happen if it gave way?" asked his daughter.
"It would flood the valley, sweep away the town, and----" he paused.
"Well, father?"
"Ruin the bridge."
"We can't afford to have another failure after the International,"
said Severence.
Now there was a newcomer at the table, a big rancher named Winters,
whom Rodney had met in the town and had introduced to Colonel
Illingworth. The latter had invited him to dinner and to stay the
night in the extra sleeper, and Winters, who had particular reasons
for wanting to talk with Rodney and to meet Miss Illingworth, had
accepted.
"You can count on its stopping," he said at last. "My ranch is a
hundred miles to the north of here. I heard Rodney was with your
party and as he was an old classmate of mine, in fact my best friend
at Harvard along with Bert Meade"--and the mention of the forbidden
name caused quick glances to be passed around the table, but raised
no comment--"the chance of seeing him brought me down here. I know
the weather along this whole section of the country, it's the driest
place on earth, and I would almost offer to swallow all the rain that
will fall after this storm spends itself."
"Well, that's good," said Curtiss, "because I've heard that the dam
lacks a very little of completion but that the spill-way has been
delayed."
"You'll find that the storm has broken in the morning," said Winters
confidently.
After dinner Colonel Illingworth, desirous of talking business,
called the men of the party, except Rodney and Winters, back into the
observation room of the other car, leaving the two men with Helen.
"Mr. Shurtliff," said Helen, as the men stepped out on the platform,
the secretary following, since his employer had intimated his
services might be needed, "if you can, I wish you would come back
here as soon as possible."
"Certainly, Miss Illingworth," said the secretary, "immediately, if
your father finds that he does not need me."
"Rod," said Winters when they were alone, "I'd go a long way to see
you, but I might as well be frank. I did not come down these hundred
miles, leaving my ranch in the dead of winter with all its
possibilities of mishap to the cattle, simply to see you, or even
Miss Illingworth here, although she's worth it," he went on with the
frank bluntness of a Western man.
"Of course, you didn't," said Rodney, smiling. "I know I'm not a
sufficient attraction."
"I came to talk about Meade."
"Mr. Winters," said Helen, clasping her hands over her knees and
leaning forward, "if you know anything about him, where he is, what
he is doing, how he fares, is he well, does he think of--I beg you to
tell me."
"Miss Illingworth, there is nothing I would refuse to tell you if it
rested with me."
"I don't mind confessing to you, you are such old friends, you and
Mr. Rodney, and so devoted to Bert, that I am worrying----"
"You need say nothing more, Miss Illingworth. I know all about the
situation. Rodney wrote me and----"
"Well then, you understand my anxiety, my reason for asking?"
"I do."
"And you will tell us?"
"I wish to God I could."
"Can't you tell us anything?"
"Well, yes, I can."
"What?"
"It may be a breach of confidence."
"I'd take the risk," said the girl, her bosom heaving. Was she at
last about to hear from her lover?
"Know where he is, old man?" asked Rodney.
"I think so, not sure, but----"
"Where?" from the woman, breathlessly.
"I didn't agree to tell you that."
"What then?"
"All I can say is that after the death of his father he turned up at
my ranch one day some five months ago and told me his story."
"What!" exclaimed Rodney. "Did he tell you he was innocent?"
"Not at first. He told me he was guilty."
"But you didn't believe him, did you?" asked the woman impulsively.
"I certainly did not."
"Why not?"
"Well, I don't know why. I just didn't, that's all. I know Meade.
I know him well. I know his makeup. We get accustomed to sizing up
a man's actions out West here and it didn't take me longer than it
took him to tell the story to know that it wasn't true."
"Oh, thank you for that," said the woman.
"But our beliefs are not evidence, Dick," interposed Rodney.
"We can't prove it and that's the point, I told him," continued
Winters, "that it was a da--darned lie--I beg your pardon, Miss
Illingworth. I mean I told him that it was not true and that he was
a fool for sticking to it, and--er--he--admitted--I--er," floundered
Winters, suddenly realizing that he was on the eve of a breach of
confidence and checking himself just in time. "In fact the subject
was painful to him and I let him alone, which is what we generally do
to a man who doesn't want his affairs inquired into too closely,"
Winters ended lamely, realizing how near he had come to betraying his
friend's confidence and telling of Meade's own admission that he had
said what he had to save the fame and honor of the father.
"Well, what next?" asked Rodney, understanding as did Helen
Illingworth herself the ranchman's hesitation and respecting it,
although the unavoidable inference gave her great joy.
"He hung around the ranch for a month or six weeks to get his
balance. He was pretty badly broken up. I'm a bachelor myself and
don't know much about those things, but I can say that he loved you,
Miss Illingworth, more than life itself."
"But not more than the reputation of his father," she said with a
little tinge of bitterness.
"Well, I take it he looked at that as a matter of honor. You know a
man's got to keep his ideals of honor."
"Even at the expense of a woman's heart?" said the girl.
"It sounds hard, but I guess we've got to admit that. But that's
neither here nor there," he continued, gliding over the subject, "the
point is I found that he had to fight it out himself and I mainly let
him alone. I gave him a horse and gun and turned him loose in the
wilds. Best place on earth for a man in his condition, Miss
Illingworth. You can go out into the wilderness and get nearer to
God there than any place I know of. He came back finally, turned in
his gun, borrowed the horse, bade me good-bye and said he was going
out to make a new start."
"Where did he go? Which way?"
"He was headed south when I saw him last, and all this lay in his
way."
"You mean----?" cried the woman.
"He may be here?" said Rodney.
Winters nodded.
"I have thought so. It's only a guess, of course, and probably a
poor one. But when I read in the papers that Colonel Illingworth was
coming out here and that you were along, and Miss Illingworth, I
thought I'd just take a run down here and see what could be done."
"Oh, I'm so glad you have come."
"He's not working on the bridge," said Rodney.
"How do you know, Rod?"
"I examined all the payrolls and none of them bears his name."
"He wouldn't work under his own name in the Martlet Bridge Company,"
said the woman.
"Certainly not. That was only my first step. I went around among
the workmen, too, and I got a look at every one of them. I'm sure
he's not there."
"He wouldn't be a common workman, would he?" asked the girl, more
disappointed than she could express.
"Certainly not. He'd be keeping track of material, or running a
transit, or acting as a gang foreman. Most of the workmen are
foreigners, although the bridge erectors are Americans."
"You're sure that he's not there?"
"Absolutely."
"There's the dam," said Winters. "We'll try that in the morning."
"What good is it going to do us, Dick?" asked Rodney a little
irritably. "Even if we do find him, we can't make him speak."
"I don't know," answered the woman slowly. "But if I could just see
him once again, Mr. Rodney"--she spoke without hesitation or reserve
and both men felt deeply for her--"if I could just speak to him, if
he would only----"
"I believe you can persuade him," said Winters.
"Yes, perhaps, but I want Shurtliff to speak first, then we can
approach our friend himself with more confidence," said Rodney.
XXVII
BRUTE FORCE OR FINESSE
"What do you want me to say, Mr. Rodney?" asked Shurtliff, coming
through the door, having caught Rodney's use of his name.
"Oh, Shurtliff----" began Rodney, somewhat embarrassed at having been
overheard.
"What do you want me to speak about?" continued the old man
suspiciously, not giving the younger man time to finish. "And what
friend can you then approach, sir?"
"I'll tell you what I want," said Rodney.
He quickly came to a decision. Standing up and facing the old man,
he staked everything on one bold throw. Grasping the situation,
Helen Illingworth held her breath. Winters moved to take his own
part in the game at the proper time.
"What is it, sir?" asked the secretary.
"Shut the door and come in," was the answer.
Rodney spoke sharply and it was a sort of indication, characteristic
of the difference in station between an independent young man and a
subservient old man.
"Here I am, sir," answered Shurtliff, closing the door and standing
before it.
He shot a quick glance at the young woman. He observed her tense
position. He saw the emotions that filled her soul in her face and
bearing. All his old suspicions rose like a flood. For the moment
he no longer cared for her. He almost hated her. He looked from her
to the dark-faced, determined Rodney, to big, powerful, quiet
Winters. Was this a trap? Were they going to try to force him to
speak? He was a brave man, old Shurtliff, but his heart beat a
little faster as he faced them. He was quite master of himself,
though, cool, watchful, determined; in their eyes rather admirable
than otherwise.
"The time has come for you to tell us the truth," began Rodney
emphatically. "You know that the whole blame and responsibility for
the failure of the International Bridge is loaded on the wrong man.
You know that you permitted, and even made possible, the sacrifice of
the reputation of the son for the sake of the fame of the father.
You know that this girl here is breaking her heart, that Meade's life
is ruined, and you're to blame. Now the time has come for you to
speak. We know as well as you that young Meade is innocent. Here's
our evidence."
He drew a handful of papers from his breast pocket and shook them in
the face of the old man, who had shrunk back against the side of the
car and stood staring, white-faced, thin-lipped, close-mouthed,
inexorably resolved still.
"Read them," continued Rodney. "I'll admit to you that the whole
thing would not be worth the paper it's written on in a court of law
or even in a newspaper report, but it's convincing to us and you can
make it convincing to everybody. You've got to speak."
"Do you think, sir, that there's any power in your stretched out arm
or in your rude voice or in your threatening gesture to make me
speak?"
"By the Lord," exclaimed Winters, suddenly whipping out a Colt's
forty-five from the holster at his belt--he was dressed just as he
had been when he rode away from the ranch--"out West we've got ways
for persuading men to speak and this is one of them."
Winters was a bigger man than Rodney. His life had been wild and
rough and his manner when he wanted was according. He would fain add
physical compulsion under threat of death to Rodney's mental
insistence.
"And do you think, sir, that I'm afraid of any lethal weapon you can
produce or even use, any more than I am of Mr. Rodney's words?" The
old man's eyes flashed and his knees shook, but he had all the spirit
of a soldier as he looked into Winters' stern face, full of threat
and menace. His thin voice took on a certain quality of courage. It
even rang a little. His courage was mainly moral, but there was some
accompanying physical hardihood, that was undoubted. "You can beat
me, you can even kill me, if you wish, but you can't make me say a
word I don't want to say of my own free will," he cried out at last,
his voice strangely rising.
"Gentlemen, gentlemen," said Helen Illingworth, rising and swiftly
interposing between the secretary and the two angry men. She
realized that the affair had gone far enough and that she must
intervene. They had certainly failed lamentably, almost ludicrously.
"You are wrong to threaten Mr. Shurtliff. He is old enough to be the
father of either of you. Drop your arm, Mr. Rodney. Put up that
pistol, Mr. Winters. Mr. Shurtliff," said the girl quickly, "as I am
in a certain sense your hostess and as you are in a certain sense my
guest here, I apologize to you for the improper and impulsive conduct
of these young men. They love Bertram Meade dearly as I do. Let
that be their excuse. Meanwhile, they will apologize to you here and
now, I am sure."
There was a moment of silence. Rodney and Winters stared at each
other and both looked at the girl, confronting them so confidently in
her superb and beautiful way. Winters smiled a little shamefacedly
as he shoved his gun back into its holster. His had indeed been the
greater offense.
"Mr. Winters, Mr. Rodney," said the girl insistently.
"Oh, I apologize. I suppose it was wrong to threaten him," said
Rodney disgustedly.
"Hang it," said Winters, now utterly forgetful of conventions, "it
wasn't the thing to do to draw a gun on a little, old man and I'm
sorry I did it."
"And now that we've apologized you'll tell us the truth, won't you?"
asked Rodney swiftly, with no appreciable change of manner.
"Yes, we beg it now, humbly," chimed in Winters, with anything but an
humble air or voice.
"I won't have Mr. Shurtliff even appealed to now," said Miss
Illingworth. "You have threatened him and you have apologized.
Whether he forgives you or not is for him to decide, but he shall not
be worried, or questioned, or insulted any more."
"Thank you, Miss Illingworth. I came for that book on the desk; your
father wants it," said Shurtliff grimly, bowing slightly to her.
He stepped a little tremblingly--the scene had been unnerving--past
the young men, picked up the book, bowed again formally and
unmistakably to Miss Illingworth alone, and went out of the car. The
honors of the encounter were certainly his.
"Well, Miss Illingworth," said Winters, "I don't know whether you
made a mistake or not. I think I could have scared it out of him
with this little persuader of mine----" He tapped the butt of the
pistol.
"You couldn't have done it if you had killed him," said the woman,
who had read the old secretary correctly. "He isn't what I call a
daring man, but he has courage that would take him to the stake
rather than make him give way, the courage of endurance rather than
of action. When he speaks, if he ever does, it will be of his own
free will."
"Or because you may persuade him," said Rodney. "By Jove, when I
think it over it was the finest thing you ever did."
"Bert Meade's a lucky fellow," said Winters. "You're the kind of a
girl that ought to marry out West, where we try to breed men that
will match up."
Helen Illingworth laughed a little, although she felt no inclination
to merriment.
"That's a fine compliment," she said. "Well, this has rather shaken
me and I'm going to ask you gentlemen to excuse me."
"We'll see if he is working on the dam tomorrow."
"You will stay all night, Mr. Winters?"
"Your father invited me to take a bunk in his car and to be perfectly
frank with you I'd sleep out in the open rain rather than miss a
chance of being in on the end of a game like this."
The girl bowed and left them.
"Dick," said Rodney slowly at last as the two sat smoking together in
the silence of complete understanding and good comradeship, which
requires no expression in talk, "you're not the only man who thinks
that girl would be a good wife to a man."
"Ah," said Winters, "sits the wind in that quarter, Rod?"
"Yes," answered the other, "but I'm fighting this thing through for
Meade."
"Well, by George," said the big ranchman, "you're as good a man as
Meade any day, fine fellow as he is. I wish I had some chance to get
in on this game and make myself worthy of the two of you, let alone
the lady."
It was a rare confidence that Rodney had vouchsafed to his friend,
and like every other Anglo-Saxon, having said his say he did not wish
to discuss it further.
"Do you know," he began, changing the subject abruptly, "I think
things have turned out pretty well in spite of our foolishness a
while ago. I believe if there's a spark of human gratitude in
Shurtliff's heart the girl's interposition when you and I were
threatening him, and her refusal to allow him to be questioned later,
will fan it into a flame. And I have an idea that when he thinks it
over he'll be about ready to tell."
"Are you sure he has anything to tell?"
"Certain."
"Well, I guess you're right. It sort of consoles me for having drawn
my gun, without using it, too. And if he tells in the morning and we
find Meade everything will be lovely."
"For everybody but me," said Rodney.
"I'll tell you what, old man, when this thing's over you're coming
out to spend the rest of the winter with me on the ranch. It's the
greatest place on earth for a man to buck up. There's no woman
within fifty miles."
Rodney laughed a little grimly.
"I'll go you," he said.
XXVIII
THE BATTLE FROM ABOVE
The rain had stopped by morning, to the great relief of Colonel
Illingworth, Severence and Curtiss, and the satisfaction of Helen
Illingworth. There was little sun to dry the big, red sandstone
mesa, its sides seamed into fantastic shapes, which rose grandly
between the valley of the Picket Wire and the ravine of the Kicking
Horse, and which the young woman intended to cross in her walk toward
the dam with Rodney and Winters. The siding near the steel arch
bridge was close to the rock wall of the ravine, which here had been
so scoured out of the rocky side of the mesa by torrents of other
days that it could fairly be called a gorge. Consequently the bank
of clouds above the horizon to the northwest was hid behind the big
butte from the occupants of the two private cars. Although the day
did not promise to be fair, they had no idea of the further threat of
storm presaged by the black masses to the northwest.
In sandy, porous soils such as here prevailed the rain is absorbed
quickly. They could traverse the trails carpeted with the needles of
centuries that ran through the dripping pines without getting muddy
and with nothing more to fear than a wetting. Colonel Illingworth,
Severence, and Curtiss announced their intention of going back to the
town to continue their consultations and observations concerning the
progress of work on the bridge. Shurtliff, who went about his
business gravely reserved, frigidly cold and self-contained, had work
to do at his desk. The woman and the two young men were for the dam.