ON BOARD THE AQUILA
Tisdale's rooms were very warm that afternoon. It was another of those
rare, breezeless days, an aftermath of August rather than the advent of
Indian summer, and the sun streamed in at the western windows. His injured
hand, his whole feverish body, protested against the heat. The peroxide
which he had applied to the hurt at Wenatchee had brought little relief,
and that morning the increased pain and swelling had forced him to consult
a surgeon, who had probed the wound, cut a little, bandaged it, and
announced curtly that it looked like infection.
"But I can't afford to nurse this hand"--Hollis rose from the couch where
he had thrown himself when he came in from the doctor's office--"I ought
to be using it now." He went over and drew the blinds, but the atmosphere
seemed more stifling. He needed air, plenty of it, clean and fresh in
God's out-of-doors; it was being penned in these close rooms that raised
his temperature. He pulled the shades up again and took a turn across the
floor. Then he noticed the crumpled note which, aimed left-handedly, had
missed the waste basket earlier, when he opened his mail, and he went over
and picked it up. He stood smoothing it on his desk. A perfume, spicy yet
suggestive of roses, pervaded the sheet, which was written in a round,
firm, masculine hand, under the gilt monogram, M.F. His glance ran through
the lines:
"I am writing for my brother, Frederic Morganstein, who is recuperating
aboard his yacht, to ask you to join us on a little cruise around
Bainbridge Island this afternoon at four o'clock. Ever since his interests
have been identified with Alaska, he has hoped to know you personally, and
he wishes particularly to meet you now, to thank you for your services in
Snoqualmie Pass. In the general confusion after the accident I am afraid
none of us remembered to.
"We expect to touch at the Navy Yard and again at Frederic's new villa to
see how the work is coming on, but the trip should not take longer than
four hours, and we are dining informally on board.
"Do not trouble to answer. If the salt air is a strong enough lure this
warm day, you will find the _Aquila_ at Pier Three.
"Very truly yours,
"MARCIA FEVERSHAM.
"Tuesday, September seventh."
"That floating palace ought to stir up some breeze." Tisdale crumpled the
invitation again and dropped it deliberately in the waste basket. "And
to-morrow I shall be shut up on my eastbound train." He looked at his
watch; there was still half an hour to spare before the time of sailing.
"After all, why not?"
A little later, when he had hurried into white flannels as expeditiously
as possible with his disabled hand, the suggestion crept to his inner
consciousness that he might find Mrs. Weatherbee aboard the _Aquila_.
"Well, why not?" he asked himself again. "Why not?" and picked up his hat.
So he came to Pier Number Three and, looking down the gangway as he
crossed, saw her standing in the little group awaiting him on the after
deck. Morganstein spoke to him and introduced him to the ladies. He did
not avoid her look and, under his appraising eyes, he saw the color begin
to play in her face. Then her glance fell to his bandaged hand, and an
inquiry rushed to her lips. But she checked the words in time and drew
slowly aloof to a seat near the rail.
Tisdale took a place near the reclining chair of his host. When she
ventured to give him a swift side-glance, his mouth set austerely. But the
space between them became electrical. It was as though wireless messages
passed continually between them.
"Look back. See how often I tried to tell you! My courage failed. Believe
in me. I am not the monster you thought."
And always the one response: "The facts are all against you."
Duwamish Head had dropped from sight; Magnolia Bluff fell far astern, and
the _Aquila_ steamed out into the long, broad reach of Puget Sound; but
though the tide had turned, there was still no wind. The late sun touched
the glassy swells with the changing effect of a prism. The prow of the
craft shattered this mirror, and her wake stretched in a ragged and
widening crack. But under the awnings Frederic Morganstein's guests found
it delightfully cool. Only Jimmie Daniels, huddled on a stool in the
glare, outside the lowered curtain that cut him off from the breeze
created by the motion of the yacht, felt uncomfortably warm.
The representative of the _Press_ had arrived on board in time to see
Tisdale come down the pier and had discreetly availed himself of the
secluded place that the financier had previously put to his disposal. He
had heard it told at the newspaper office that Tisdale, whose golden
statements were to furnish his little scoop, Hollis Tisdale of Alaska and
the Geographical Survey, who knew more about the coal situation than any
other man, was also the most silent, baffling sphinx on record when it
came to an interview.
At the moment the _Aquila_ came into the open, the Japanese boy placed a
bowl of punch, with, pleasant clinking of ice, on the wicker table before
Mrs. Feversham, who began to serve it. Like Elizabeth's, the emblems on
her nautical white costume were embroidered in scarlet, and a red silk
handkerchief was knotted loosely on her full, boyish chest. She was not
less striking, and indeed she believed this meeting on the deck of the
yacht, where formalities were quickly abridged, would appeal to the
out-of-doors man and pave the way to a closer acquaintance in Washington.
But Tisdale's glance involuntarily moved beyond to the woman seated by the
rail. Her head was turned so that he caught the finely chiseled profile,
the outward sweep of black lashes, the adorable curve of the oval chin to
meet the throat. She too wore the conventional sailor suit, but without
color, and this effect of purity, the inscrutable delicacy of her, seemed
to set her apart from these dark, materialistic sisters as though she had
strayed like a lost vestal into the wrong atmosphere. His brows relaxed.
For a moment the censor that had come to hold dominion in his heart was
off guard. He felt the magnetism of her personality drawing him once more;
he desired to cross the deck to her, drop a word into those deep places he
had discovered, and see her emotions stir and overflow. Then suddenly the
enthusiasm, for which during that drive through the mountains he had
learned to watch, broke in her face. "Look!" she exclaimed softly. "See
Rainier!"
Every one responded, but Tisdale started from his chair, and went over and
stood beside her. There, southward, through golden haze, with the dark and
wooded bluffs of Vashon Island flanking the deep foreground of opal sea,
the dome lifted like a phantom peak. "It doesn't seem to belong to our
world," she said, and her voice held its soft minor note, "but a vision of
some higher, better country."
She turned to give him her rare, grave look, and instantly his eyes
telegraphed appreciation. Then he remembered. The swift revulsion came
over him. He swung on his heel to go back to his chair, and the unexpected
movement brought him in conjunction with the punch tray. The boy righted
it dexterously, and she took the offered glass and settled again in her
seat. But from his place across the deck, Tisdale noticed a drop had
fallen, spreading, above the hem of her white skirt. The red stain held
his austere gaze. It became a symbol of blood; on the garment of the
vestal the defilement of sacrifice.
She was responsible for Weatherbee's death. He must not forget that. And
he saw through her. Now he saw. Had she not known at the beginning he was
an out-of-doors man? That he lived his best in the high spaces close to
Nature's heart? And so determined to win him in this way? She had meant to
win him. Even yet, she could not trust alone to his desire to see David's
project through, but threw in the charm of her own personality to swing
the balance. Oh, she understood him. At the start she had read him,
measured him, sounded him through. That supreme moment, at the crisis of
the storm, had she not lent herself to the situation, counting the price?
At this thought, the heat surged to his face. He wished in that instant to
punish her, break her, but deeper than his anger with her burned a fury
against himself. That he should have allowed her to use him, make a fool
of him. He who had blamed Weatherbee, censured Foster, for less.
Then Marcia Feversham took advantage of the silence and, at her first
statement, Jimmie Daniels sat erect; he forgot his thirst, the discomfort
of his position, and opened his notebook on his knee. "I understand your
work this season was in the Matanuska coal region, Mr. Tisdale; you must
be able to guess a little nearer than the rest of us as to the outcome of
the Naval tests. Is it the Copper River Northwestern or the Prince William
Development Company that is to have the open door?"
Tisdale's glance moved from the opal sea to the lady's face; the genial
lines crinkled faintly at the corners of his eyes. "I believe the Bering
and Matanuska coal will prove equally good for steaming purposes," he
replied.
Frederic Morganstein grasped the arms of his chair and moved a little,
risking a twinge of pain, to look squarely at Tisdale. "You mean the
Government may conserve both?" His voice was habitually thick and
deliberate, as though the words had difficulty to escape his heavy lips.
"That, sir, would lock the shackles on every resource in Alaska. Guess
you've seen how construction and development are forced to a standstill,
pending the coal decision. Guess you know our few finished miles of
railroad, built at immense expense and burdened with an outrageous tax,
are operating under imported coal. Placed an order with Japan in the
spring for three thousand tons."
"Think of it!" exclaimed Marcia. "Coal from the Orient, the lowest grade,
when we should be exporting the best. Think of the handicap, the injustice
put upon those pioneer Alaskans who fought tremendous obstacles to open
the interior; who paved the way for civilization."
Tisdale's face clouded. "I am thinking of those pioneers, madam, and I
believe the Government is going to. Present laws can be easily amended and
enforced to fit nearly every situation until better ones are framed. The
settler and prospector should have privileges, but at the same time the
Government must put some restriction on speculation and monopoly."
Behind the awning Jimmie's pencil was racing down the page, and
Morganstein dropped his head back on the pillow; a purplish flush rose in
his face.
"The trouble is," Hollis went on evenly, "each senator has been so
over-burdened with the bills of his own State that Alaska has been
side-tracked. But I know the President's interest is waking; he wants to
see the situation intelligently; in fact, he favors a Government-built
railroad from the coast to the upper Yukon. And I believe as soon as a
selection is made for naval use, some of those old disputed coal claims--
some, not all--will be allowed. Or else--Congress must pass a bill to
lease Alaska coal lands."
"Lease Alaska coal lands?" Frederic started up again so recklessly he was
forced to sink back with a groan. "Do you mean we won't be allowed to mine
any coal in Alaska, in that case, except by lease?" And he added, turning
his cheek to the pillow, "Oh, damn!"
Tisdale seemed not to have heard the question. His glance moved slowly
again over the opal sea and rested on the shining ramparts of the
Olympics, off the port bow. "Constance!" he exclaimed mellowly. "The
Brothers! Eleanor!" Then he said whimsically: "Thank God they can't set
steam-shovels to work there and level those peaks and fill the canyons. Do
you know?"--his look returned briefly and the genial lines deepened--
"those mountains were my playground when I was a boy. My last hunting
trip, the year I finished college, came to an untimely end up there in the
gorge of the Dosewallups. You see it? That shaded contour cross-cutting
the front of Constance."
Elizabeth, who had opened her workbag, looked up with sudden interest.
"Was there an accident?" she asked. "Something desperate and thrilling?"
"It seemed so to me," he said.
Then Mrs. Weatherbee rose and came over to the port rail. "I see," she
said, and shaded her eyes with her hand. "You mean where that gold mist
rises between that snow slope and the blue rim of that lower, nearer
mountain. And you had camped in that gorge"--her hand dropped; she turned
to him expectantly--"with friends, on a hunting trip?"
He paused a moment then answered slowly: "Yes, madam, with one of them.
Sandy, our old camp cook, made a third in the party."