“’Twas in the back of me mind all night and all day that if we ever
got out o’ this I’d take me two hands and choke him to hell, as we’re
chokin’ this minut’. But ’tis all past and gone now, what wid the
blessed love an’ nerve of you, little gyerl; an’ here’s hopin’ that the
Gawd you believe in ’ll let you die quiet-like an’ peaceable, as I’d
want my own little gyerl to go if I had wan.”
Through all this, David Vallory lived as one in hideous dream. But
when the flare of another of the precious matches, a tiny flame that
was scarcely visible in its brief and futile struggle with the heavy
air, showed him that a second night was far advanced, he drew Virginia
away to the heading and made her lie down on the coat-covered pallet,
which he had remade, propping it as high as he could on the broken
stone to escape the lower stratum of air.
For a long time she was silent, and when she spoke it was to ask if he
were still beside her.
“Yes, Vinnie; I am here--and I shall be here when they find us.”
“You think it is all over, then?”
“I know that in a few more hours, a very few, the end must come. We
can’t go on breathing this air indefinitely.”
She sat up again at that, and again he knew that she was holding her
head in her hands.
“Have you ever wondered how the end would come to you, David?--how you
would feel, and what you would do?”
“Not as often as I ought perhaps. There was a time last year, when
I was in a caisson with Shubrick at Coulee du Sac. The bottom blew
out under the air pressure, and we all thought we were gone. I don’t
remember much about what I thought--only that Shubrick and I owed it
to the ‘sand-hogs’ to get them into the air-lock first.”
“Once I saw a woman die,” she said, her voice thrilling with suppressed
emotion. “She was horribly frightened at the last, and--and I’ve always
prayed since then that when my time should come I might not go that
way.”
“You won’t,” he made himself say; “there isn’t a drop of craven blood
in you, Vinnie--dear.”
Again the brooding silence fell, and, as before, it was the young woman
who broke it.
“If we are going to be stifled in a little while--as I suppose we
are--it doesn’t matter much what we say to each other, does it, David?
I mean that we needn’t consider any future, so far as we usually count
futures in a conventional way?”
“No; we are only a man and a woman, naked before the God who created
us, Vinnie--and we are about to die.”
“Then--David, dear--_I love you!_”
“I know it,” he returned gently; “I have known it for a night and a
day,” and he took her in his arms and kissed her almost solemnly. “You
are giving your life because you tried to save mine.”
She made no effort to free herself. She was weary and weak to the point
of collapse, and the supporting arms were grateful and comforting.
“I had ambitions,” she murmured; “such splendid ambitions! Ever since I
have been old enough to understand, I have known how dis--dishonestly
much of the money was made in the contracting, and it has hurt me--oh,
you don’t know how it has hurt me! Father doesn’t see; he simply can’t
see. And then my ambition came. A year ago I saw how father felt toward
you; first because you were Adam Vallory’s son, and afterward because
you were yourself--just such a son as he would have given worlds to
have for his own. I whispered to myself then that I would make you love
me and marry me; and then there would be two of us to fight for honesty
and fair-dealing and the--the righteousness that cares for something
more than merely keeping clear of the law. You would have helped me,
wouldn’t you, David?”
He bent and kissed the pulse in the throbbing temple.
“You could have made of me anything that you wished, dear. You know
that.”
“I didn’t wish to make anything of you but what you were; what you had
always been until father tied you hand and foot with that horrible
debt of gratitude. Then he sent you out here, and I knew what would
happen--what simply _must_ happen; how your gratitude to him would
break you down, first in the little things, and then in the terrible
ones. And that was why I persuaded him to come, and to bring me. Was it
all very--unwomanly, David?”
“It was the finest thing a woman ever did for the man she loved. But
you have always done the fine things.”
“Even when I made you fall in love with me when you didn’t want to?”
“I outdistanced you by many miles in that,” he said with sober gravity.
“I think it went back to the kiddie days in old Middleboro.”
“In spite of Judith?”
He held her closer. “That is the one thing that I have to confess,
Vinnie. I did go about a good bit with Judith, in my college years and
before. We were just good chums, and I never thought for a moment----”
“Of course you didn’t! But I don’t blame Judith, either; I can’t, when
I’ve done the same thing myself. But you were saying it went back to
the kiddie days with--with me.”
“Yes; but I didn’t realize it until we met in Florida. I was full of
hope then: I meant to make a success of myself so that I might go to
your father like a man and say, ‘I want to marry your daughter.’ Then
the big debt fell on me, and I couldn’t say anything while I owed your
father more than I could ever hope to repay.”
“If you hadn’t died--we are both just the same as dead, aren’t we?--if
you hadn’t died, you were going to pay him in the best possible way;
by making ‘the apple of his eye’ deliriously happy, and by showing
him the honest way out of all the little crookednesses and the big
ones, too. Oh, yes; that was what was going to happen. After we were
married he would have taken you into the company, and in just a little
while you and I together would have been setting the pace; the good
old-fashioned, honest pace. Isn’t it the pity of all pities that we had
to go and die and spoil it all?--that we couldn’t have lived to make it
come true, David, dear?”
“God!” he said under his breath, but for other reply there were no
words.
After a time she spoke again.
“I--I think I’m going now, David. You said I’d outlast you and the men,
but I shouldn’t want that. No, dear; there isn’t any pain, except in my
head. I’m just--tired--and--sleepy.”
“You mustn’t give up, Vinnie!” he pleaded passionately. “We must
live--both of us--to make it all come true! Listen! Isn’t that the men
trying to cheer? _O my God, I thank thee!_”
A roaring blast of clean, fresh air, driven strongly enough to
penetrate even to their distant retreat at the heading, fanned their
faces. “The pipe!” he shouted; “they’ve got the pipe through and
they’ve turned the air on. Vinnie--_Vinnie!_--we shall live, and it
_shall_ come true!”
But the sudden reversal from despair to hope had been too much for the
strong heart. The yielding body David was clasping in his arms had
become limp and unresponsive, and the lips were silent.
XXVIII
Regeneration
The pipe of life, a four-inch steel tube which had been driven by
screw-jack pressure through the mass of the slide as a result of
Plegg’s inventive strugglings, soon refreshed the vitiated air in the
sealed cavern. Beyond this, food, in well-wrapped paper cartridges, and
hot coffee, in bottles, were passed through the tube, and the famished
prisoners were able to break their long fast. That nothing within the
possibilities should be lacking, Plegg ran electric wires, with an
incandescent bulb attached, through the conduit, and thus the feast was
lighted.
In the fast-breaking, Regnier ate with his men, but David carried
his portion and Virginia’s a little apart. Though she had revived
quickly in the splendid rebound of youth and health under the changed
conditions, the king’s daughter ate sparingly and with eyes downcast,
and was, in David’s eyes, more radiantly beautiful than she had ever
been. After the keen edge of famine--David’s famine--was a little
blunted, she looked up and met his glances bravely.
“We didn’t die, David, and--and you must forget,” she pleaded. “You
will forget, won’t you?”
“Forget?--not if I live to be a million years old,” he avowed gravely.
And after a pause: “You mustn’t be an Indian, Vinnie--to give, and then
want the gift returned. I am going to talk to Plegg again in a few
minutes, and you shall hear what I say to him.”
The previsioned talk with the first assistant--the four-inch pipe
serving for a speaking-tube--turned out to be principally technical, to
be sure. In his proper person as chief engineer, David gave directions
for the pushing forward of the rescue work. The jack-screw process was
to be employed again, this time to press a steel shield into the mass
of loose debris, so that the rescuers might be protected as they dug.
The shield could be made out of a cast-off boiler shell with the heads
removed. In this manner a tunnel within the tunnel could be excavated
and the prisoners released.
With so much for the technicalities, the human side of things came in
for its word.
“Is Mr. Grillage with you?” David asked.
Plegg’s reply was guarded. He guessed, and guessed rightly, that Eben
Grillage’s daughter was listening with David at the prison end of the
speaking-tube.
“Mr. Grillage is at the hotel; he is not very well. He has had a stroke
of some sort, but the Brewster doctor who is with him says it isn’t
necessarily dangerous.”
“You have sent him word that we are all alive and well?”
“Sure; that was the first thing we did.”
“Good. Now listen, and carry out my orders to the letter. After you get
the tunneling started here, put Altman in charge and go yourself to the
telegraph office at the Inn station. I heard, day before yesterday,
that President Ford of the P. S-W. was in Denver, with a number of
his directors. The report was that Mr. Ford and his party were making
an inspection trip over the western lines of the system. You send a
telegram to Mr. Ford, asking him if he will come here for a conference
with me, bringing as many of the directors as may be willing to come.
Do you get that?”
“Perfectly. What else?”
“You may sign my name to the telegram, and make it as urgent as you
can. This is important. Then I want you to go up to the Inn and see
Mr. Grillage for yourself. Find out his condition exactly, and come
back here and report.”
“All right; is that all?”
“Not quite. While you are at the hotel, see my father and sister and
Herbert Oswald, and tell them that the danger is all over for us--that
is, if you haven’t already ’phoned them.”
“Your father and Oswald came up here with me when the alarm was given,
and they have been here ever since until a couple of hours ago, when I
persuaded Oswald to take your father back to the Inn on the assurance
that we should reach you with the pipe within a short time. Your father
was pretty well tuckered out, and I didn’t dare to let him stay here
any longer.”
“Good man!” said David; “I owe you something for that, Silas. Be sure
and tell them at the hotel that we are all right and quite comfortable,
and that there is nothing to worry about. And while you’re at it, you
may give Oswald and my sister my hearty congratulations, and tell them,
from Miss Virginia and me, that we hope they’ll be as happy as they
deserve to be.”
Plegg, the imperturbable, let slip a little imprecation of joy.
“I--I’ll be damned!” he burbled; “you don’t know what a relief it is
to hear you talking that way! Any more errands?”
“Yes; one more. Our engagement--Miss Virginia’s and mine--hasn’t been
announced yet, so you may break the news, if you care to; to Mr.
Grillage when you see him, to my people, and to the folks at the Inn.
Also, you may let it go to the fellows on the staff and to the men on
the job. We shall be married as soon as Mr. Grillage is up and able to
give the bride away.”
“Good!--oh, _bully_ good!” came from the other end of the tube, from
which it may be inferred that the first assistant’s half-cynical
habit of self-restraint and reticence was broken beyond repair.
Then: “Of course, I’m taking your word for it, but if Miss Virginia
would--er--sort of counter-sign the order ... I haven’t heard her voice
yet.”
Virginia put her lips to the tube and her eyes were dancing.
“It’s so, Mr. Plegg; can you hear me? And there are some other things
that are going to be so, too--things in which you’ll have to help. We
are counting upon you--may we?”
“You may, indeed; to the last scrapings of the grab-bucket!” was the
ready assurance. “Now--I don’t want to be impolite, but if that is all,
I’ll ask you both to take your faces away from the pipe; I’m going to
put the air blast on again.”
Even with the help of the steel shield it took the remainder of the
night and the better part of the next forenoon for the outside men,
working in fifteen-minute shifts, to dig through the mass of the slide,
the work being delayed somewhat by the encountering, in the midst of
things, of a great bowlder which had to be carefully blasted with
dynamite. Nevertheless, the task was accomplished finally. With the
advancing shield the diggers burst through with a yell of triumph, and
the poor prisoners were passed out one by one to the clean air and the
blessed sunshine of the outdoor world.
Once more able to take command, David Vallory gave directions for the
clearing of the tunnel by digging and timber-shoring from either side
of the slide, and outlined for Plegg in a few words a plan for the
excavating and permanent filling and arching of the breach. Plegg heard
him through, and then looked up to say: “Does this mean that we’re to
have a new deal?”
“Either a new deal or a smash. If I can come to some sort of terms with
Mr. Ford, we’ll go on and finish this job honestly, the way it ought
to be finished. If I can’t, we’ll take our losses and get out, without
waiting to be kicked out.”
An engine had been ’phoned for to come up after the chief and Miss
Grillage, but it was as yet only on the way. Miss Virginia was talking
to the released hard-rock men, praising them for their courage, and
telling them how glad she was to have been given the chance to share
the peril with them, since the peril had to be. This gave Plegg his
opportunity with his chief.
“You are speaking for Mr. Grillage, Vallory?--or only for yourself?” he
queried.
“I hope I’m speaking for both of us. I’m afraid Mr. Grillage is out of
the active part of it, permanently. Miss Virginia tells me that this is
his second stroke.”
“Miss Virginia,” said Plegg; “of course, she is with you on this
reformation turn-over?”
“Heart and soul; in fact, it is her idea. We’ll fight it through
together.”
Once more the quaint smile twitched at the corners of the
first assistant’s thin-lipped mouth and his eyes twinkled. “My
congratulations,” he said; “I--I’m damned if you aren’t going to be
‘too good,’ after all! I hope you won’t fire your first assistant
crook, Vallory. I’d like to see how it feels to work for an absolutely
honest outfit for just one time before I die. Do I stay?”
“Just as long as I do, Silas.” And then the engine came, and David and
his charge were whirled away to the valley.
At the stop at the foot of the Inn ridge, David helped Virginia down
from the engine cab, and together they climbed the hill path. The news
had been passed to the tunnel that President Ford and his inspecting
committee had arrived at Powder Gap an hour earlier and were quartered
in the Alta Vista; wherefore David Vallory knew that his request had
been granted and that his hour was come.
“You will go to your father at once, of course,” he said, as they
were ascending the steps of the Inn entrance. Then: “You must stand
to your guns, Vinnie, and do all the things you said you’d like to do
when you thought we had to die. Mr. Ford is here, and after I’ve had a
word with Dad and sister, I’m going to fight the good fight with the
Short Line people, taking matters entirely into my own hands. If Mr.
Ford doesn’t fire us bodily, this job shall be finished--and finished
honestly. After that, your father may fire me if he wishes to; but he
must be made to understand that if he does, he is firing his daughter’s
husband.”
“Oh!” she said softly, “it’s such a precious thing to find that you
are just as big and strong as I always believed you were, David!
I’ll stand by, and after you are through with Mr. Ford, you must
come straight to our suite.” Then, with exaggerated humility: “May
I have your august permission to say good-by to Freddy Wishart and
Cumberleigh?”
“You can’t--unless you do it by wire,” he grinned. “Plegg tells me they
went East on the morning train, shortly after he had announced our
engagement here at the hotel. We can send them cards a little later, if
you wish.”
XXIX
As It Should Be
The conference in the Alta Vista’s sun-parlor, which was isolated for
the purpose, was rather long drawn out, as it was constrained to be,
but in due time the large-bodied, shrewd-eyed man who had been doing
practically all of the talking for the railroad company brought it to a
conclusion.
“I have no more use for a welsher than you have, Mr. Vallory,” he said,
referring pointedly to one James Lushing. “You have frankly admitted
that there have been the usual contractor’s shavings and parings on
the job, to the manifest detriment of the railroad company’s interest.
I’ll be equally frank and say that Lushing was given his place with
us largely because he knew of the little parings--having devised a
good many of them himself, probably--and was therefore able to check
and prevent them. But I wish it to be distinctly understood that we
don’t stand for any highbinding methods; and your evidence of sheer
criminality on Lushing’s part seems to be entirely conclusive. You say
they have found the wrecked time-clock of the infernal machine in the
tunnel digging?”
David nodded. “We have that, and the testimony of the young woman I
speak of. Also, we have another witness in the person of a man named
Dargin, who, my assistant tells me, is ready to testify that Lushing,
the man Backus, and another named Runnels, deliberately plotted the
blowing up of the tunnel, partly for the purpose of smashing our
company, but principally--so Dargin says--to dispose of me in a manner
which would appear to be entirely accidental.”
“Dargin?” said the president, with a faint smile. “Isn’t he the head
and front of these Powder Can nuisances that you described in your
letter to me, and wished to have us help you clean out?”
“The same,” said David.
“Did he know of your effort in this direction?”
“He did.”
“And yet he tried to warn you through the woman Fallon? What sort of a
desperado is he, Mr. Vallory?”
“Really, I don’t know,” David confessed. “He is rather beyond me.
Desperado is the word; he has a perfectly horrifying list of shootings
to his credit, and is, generally, what is known west of civilization
as a ‘bad man.’ And yet he agreed with me when I told him that his
dives ought to be cleaned up, and that I was going to try to clean them
up; adding that some day he might do it himself, if I didn’t beat him
to it.”
“That would be a miracle, indeed,” said the railroad president.
“Yet it is one that is already wrought,” David put in. “Mr. Plegg--my
assistant--assures me that the Powder Can saloons and gambling dens
were all closed on the night of the tunnel explosion, and that Dargin
had sent him word that they would not be reopened.”
Again the big-bodied president smiled. “We are living in an age of
wonders, Mr. Vallory. This man Dargin’s action proves it, and, if you
will permit me to say it, so does yours in asking for this conference.
Do you know what has become of Lushing?”
“I do not. When it became known, as it was almost immediately, that the
tunnel disaster was not an accident, Lushing disappeared, together with
his accomplices. But, as I have pointed out, we have the evidence.”
“You could scarcely make a legal case against the railroad company,”
said the president. “Lushing was acting entirely on his own
responsibility when he stepped over into the criminal field to satisfy
his grudge against you and Mr. Grillage. But I understand from what
you have said that you have no intention of taking the matter into the
courts.”
“None whatever. I am merely asking you gentlemen for a square deal in
return for a square deal. Our bid on this job was too low, if the work
were to be done honestly. If the railroad company will allow the slight
increase in the estimates that I have asked for, we shall go on and
complete the job to your entire satisfaction. And you may cover the
entire mileage six feet deep with inspectors if you choose.”
There was a little interval of silence to follow this statement, with
some uneasy moving in their chairs on the part of the four Short Line
directors who had listened to the arguments pro and con.
“I believe in you, Mr. Vallory,” said the president at length, slightly
stressing the pronoun. “If the matter were solely in your hands, I
should say, go ahead on the plan you have outlined. But what guaranty
can you give us that Mr. Grillage will permit you to carry out your
ideas? You must remember that we have had dealings with him before
this.”
“Mr. Grillage will not interfere,” said David calmly. “The chief reason
is that before the new plan goes into effect, I shall be his son-in-law
and a partner in the business of the Grillage Engineering Company.”
“Oho!” said the railroad magnate, with a good-natured chuckle. “So
the wind sets in that quarter, does it? Are we to understand that you
will have your wife’s approval and--er--coöperation in these business
matters?”
“To the very fullest extent,” was the prompt rejoinder. “In fact, the
course I have indicated is based more upon her initiative than mine.”
“That is better. I have had the privilege of meeting Miss Virginia,
and--you are to be congratulated, most heartily, Mr. Vallory. Did
the--er--accident in the tunnel contribute something toward the
bringing about of this happy state of affairs?”
“It did,” said David shortly. “You may, or may not, have heard that
Miss Virginia took her life in her hands to save mine and those of the
men of the day shift.”
President Ford rose to intimate that the conference was ended.
“We’ll meet you half-way, Mr. Vallory, and in good faith,” he said.
“I am told you have a lawyer friend here in the house; our attorneys
will meet him and draw up new contracts. We shall ask only for decent
economy and fairness; and if you can do as you promise--get the line
open before snow flies--there will be a substantial bonus for you,
individually; which may enable you to make your interest in the
Grillage Engineering Company a financial as well as a--er--sentimental
one. I think that is all we need to say this morning.”
David Vallory passed through the corridor to the Grillage suite with
the blood hammering in his veins. In the hour-long conference with the
railroad magnates he had kept his word to Virginia, fighting openly and
honestly, and battling his way through to the desired end. The battle
had not been won without stress. At first, there had been only silence
and cold attention on the part of the magnates. But the triumphant fact
remained: he had warmed them finally and the victory was won.
But now the real crisis was at hand. Would Eben Grillage, the
benefactor to whom he owed his fealty in the final analysis, turn
the helm over to a moneyless youngster who was masterfully proposing
to marry his daughter out of hand, and to throw all of the Grillage
business methods and maxims into the scrap-heap?
Virginia met him at the door of the private suite, and her eyes were
full of trouble.
“You must be prepared for a great change, David,” she told him. “It is
paralysis, and he will never be the same man again. You must help me,
dear; in a way, you know, I was the cause of it.”
“We’ll carry the load--together,” he assured her gently, and then she
led him to the bedside of the stricken giant.
Her word of warning did not come amiss. For a moment David was shocked
silent, and he could scarcely realize that the big figure propped among
the pillows was that of the man who had stood as the very image of
strength and aggressive vigor at their last meeting on the morning of
the departure for the fishing excursion. The beetle-browed eyes were
undimmed, to be sure, but the heavy face hung in folds, and its color
was that of age-old parchment. Yet the indomitable spirit was unbroken.
“Come to look over the wreck, have you, David?” he said, with the grim
Grillage smile strangely distorted by his malady. “Makes me think of
that advertisement of the insurance people: ‘A house may burn, but a
man _must_ die.’ I’m not dead yet, though.”
“Of course you’re not,” said David cheerfully. “You’re not going to be
allowed to die before I’ve paid you some of the big debt I owe you.”
Again the grim smile flitted across the flabby expanse of the wrecked
face.