SURRENDER
Tisdale had not seen Beatriz Weatherbee since she had been brought
semi-conscious from the foot of the mountain, but he learned from the hotel
physician the following morning that she was able to travel on the special
train which was coming from Seattle to transport the Morganstein party
home. The first inquiry, after news of the disaster reached the outside
world, was from Joey's grandfather, a lumberman on Puget Sound. Put in
communication with Tisdale, he telephoned he would arrive at the Springs
on the special. So, leaving the child in charge of the housekeeper, Hollis
returned to the west portal, to join the little force of rescuers. It was
then no longer a question of life-saving, but of identification. The Swiss
chalet, which had ceased to be the mecca of pleasure-seekers, had become a
morgue.
But Lucky Banks, who went with him, had received a message from Mrs.
Weatherbee, and in the interval that Tisdale was busy with long-distance
and disposing of Joey, the prospector went up to her room. She was pale
and very weak, but she smiled as he approached her couch and held out her
hand. "No, the right one," she said, and added, taking it with a gentle
pressure, "I know, now, what it is--to be cold."
The little man nodded. His face worked, and he hurried to conceal the
maimed hand in his pocket. "But the doctor says you'll pull through good
as new," he commented. "I am proud to know that; my, yes."
"And I am proud of you, Mr. Banks. It seems incredible, but Miss
Morganstein told me you rescued her brother, too. I've tried and tried to
remember, but I am not able. You must have carried me, at least, all of
the way."
Banks glanced at Elizabeth, who was seated beyond the couch. She had laid
a warning finger to her lips and shook her head. "That was dead easy
coming downgrade," he answered. "And that little blow up there on the
mountain top wasn't anything to speak of, alongside a regular Alaska
blizzard. If I'd had to weight my pockets with rocks, that would have been
something doing. I might have felt then that I was squaring myself with
Dave Weatherbee."
"I understand," she said slowly, "but," and she smiled again, "I am
grateful, Mr. Banks, just the same. Perhaps, since you loved David so
much, you will regard it as a kind of compensation that I am going on with
the project."
"Is that so?" The little man beamed. "Well, the house is all done and
waiting, my, yes, whenever you are ready to move over."
"Why, Beatriz," said Elizabeth in alarm, "I am going to take that desert
tract off your hands. I've been interested in reclamation work for
months." And looking at Banks, she added significantly: "I am afraid she
is talking too much."
"Likely," replied the prospector, rising, "and I am due to take a little
hike up the canyon with Hollis Tisdale."
"Mr. Tisdale?" she asked, with a quick brightening of her face. "Then he
is quite well again. Miss Morganstein told me he was saved--from that
unfortunate train," and she added, shivering and closing her eyes, "I
remember--that."
"I couldn't have got there in time," Banks hurried to explain, "even if
you had given up making the summit. Likely I'd have got caught by the
slide, and Hollis was half-way to the Springs and 'feeling fit as a moose'
when it started. Well, good-by, ma'am; take care of yourself."
"Good-by, Mr. Banks," and she smiled once more. "You may expect me at
Hesperides Vale in a few days; as soon as my things at Vivian Court are
packed." And she added, with the color softly warming her cheek, "Mr.
Tisdale might like to know that. He always wished to see David's project
carried through."
And the little man replied from the door: "I'll tell him, ma'am, my, yes."
The special, which brought other seekers besides Joey's grandfather, also
conveyed Jimmie Daniels. It was his last assignment with the _Press_; he
and Geraldine were to be married within the week and assume the editorial
position at Weatherbee. And he pushed up over Tisdale's trail, now become
well broken, eager to make a final scoop and his best one. Hours later,
when he should have been back at Scenic Hot Springs, rushing his copy
through to his paper, he still remained on the slope below the west portal
to carry out the brief and forceful instructions of the man who directed
and dominated everybody; who knew in each emergency the one thing to do.
Once Jimmie found himself aiding Banks to wrap a woman's body in a blanket
to be lowered by tackle down the mountainside. She was young, not older
than Geraldine, and the sight of her--rounded cheek, dimpled chin, arm so
beautifully molded--all with the life snuffed out without a moment's
warning--gave him a sensation of being smothered. He was seized with a
compelling desire to get away, and to conquer his panic, he asked the
prospector whether this man was not the superintendent of the mountain
division.
The mining man replied: "No, that's the railroad boss over there with the
gang handling the derrick; this is Tisdale, Hollis Tisdale of Alaska and
Washington, D.C. You ought to have heard of him in your line of business
if you never happened to see him before."
Then Jimmie, turning to look more directly at the stranger, hastily
dropped his face. "You are right," he said softly, "I've known him by
sight some time."
Afterwards, while they were having coffee with the station master, Daniels
asked Banks how he and Tisdale happened to be at Cascade Tunnel. "I was
putting in a little time at the Springs," Banks responded, "but Hollis was
a passenger on the stalled train. He took a notion to hike down to the
hotel just ahead of the slide."
"You mean that man who has taken charge out there," exclaimed the
operator. "I had a talk with him before he started; he was rigging up some
snowshoes. He said he was from Alaska, and I put him down for one of those
bonanza kings."
"He is," said Banks in his high key. "What he don't know about minerals
ain't worth knowing, and he owns one of the finest layouts in the north,
Dave Weatherbee's bore."
"The Aurora mine," confirmed Daniels. "And I presume there isn't a man
better known, or as well liked, in Alaska."
Banks nodded. "Dave and him was a team. The best known and the best liked
in the whole country. And likely there's men on the top seats in
Washington, D.C., would be glad of a chance to shake hands with Hollis
Tisdale."
"I knew he was somewhere near the top," commented the operator. "He can
handle men. I never saw such a fellow. Why, he must have got half-way to
the Springs when the slide started, but he was back, climbing up along the
edge of it to the wreck, almost before it quit thundering. And he took out
a live baby, without a damage mark, and all its folks lying right there
dead, before the rest of us got in earshot."
Daniels put down his sandwich and took out his neglected notebook. He
gathered all the detail the ready operator could supply: how Tisdale had
wrapped the child in a blanket and carried him from place to place,
talking to him in his nice, friendly way, amusing him, keeping him quiet,
while he worked with the strength of two men to liberate other survivors.
And how, when none was left to save, he had taken the baby in his arms and
gone to break trail to the Springs to send out news of the disaster. All
that the station master and Banks could not tell him, with the name and
prominence of Joey's family, Jimmie added later at the chalet, and he
finished with a skilful reference to the papoose, killed by accident so
many years before. It was a great story. It went into the paper as it
stood. And when the day came to leave the _Press_ office, the chief,
shaking hands with his "novelist," said it was a fine scoop, and he had
always known Jimmie had it in him to make good; he was sorry to lose him.
But the Society Editor, reading between the lines, told him it was the
greatest apology he could have made. She was proud of him.
At Vivian Court late that afternoon, Elizabeth read the story to Beatriz
Weatherbee. Her couch was drawn into the sunny alcove, where, from her
pillows, she might watch the changing light on Mount Rainier. Finally,
when Elizabeth finished, Beatriz broke the silence. "He must have passed
down the canyon while we were there."
"Yes, he did. He carried one end of your stretcher all the way to the
Springs." Then Elizabeth asked: "Don't you remember the baby, either? He
had brown eyes."
"I seem to remember a child," she answered slowly, "a baby sitting in the
firelight, but"--and she shook her head, "I've dreamed so many dreams."
"He was a fact; a perfect dear. I should have adopted him, if his
relatives hadn't been so prominent and rich. And you, too, fell instantly
in love with him. You wanted him in your arms the moment you opened your
eyes."
Elizabeth paused with a straight look from under her heavy brows and while
she hesitated there was a knock at the door. She threw it open and a
porter brought in one of those showy Japanese shrubs in an ornate
jardinière, such as Frederic Morganstein so often used as an expression of
his regard. His card hung by a ribbon from a branch, like a present on a
Christmas tree, and when the boy had gone, she untied it and carried it to
Mrs. Weatherbee. "I wish you could marry Frederic and settle it all," she
said. "Japan is lovely in the spring."
Beatriz, who had taken the card indifferently, allowed it to drop without
reading it. Her glance rested again on the shining dome.
"I told him I would ask you to see him a few moments to-night," Elizabeth
resumed. "He is feeling miserably. He says he was ill when we made the
ascent that day and never should have left the hotel; his high temperature
and the altitude affected his head. He believes he must have said things
that offended or frightened you--things he wasn't responsible for." She
paused, then, for a woman who had been so schooled to hold herself in hand
as Elizabeth Morganstein, went on uncertainly: "He is just a plain
business man, used to going straight to a point, but not many men care so
much for a woman as he does for you. You could mold him like wax. He says
all he wants now--if he did make a mistake--is a chance to wipe it out;
start with a clean slate."
Mrs. Weatherbee rose from the couch. She stood a moment meeting
Elizabeth's earnest look. The shadow of a smile touched her mouth, but
well-springs of affection brimmed her eyes. "We cannot wipe out our
mistakes, dear," she said. "They are indelible. We have to accept them,
study them, use them as a rule from which to work out the problems of our
lives. There is no going back, no starting over, if we have missed an
easier way. Elizabeth, in one hour on that mountain I saw more of the true
Frederic Morganstein than in all the years I had known him before. In the
great moments of life, I should have no influence with him. Even for your
sake, dear, I could not marry him. I do not want to see him any more."
There was a silence, then Elizabeth said: "In that case, I am going to
ease things for you. I am going to buy that desert land. Now, don't say a
word. I am going to pay you Lucky Banks' price, and, of course, for the
improvements whatever is right."
"But it is not on the market," replied Beatriz. "I told you I had decided
to live there. I hoped--you would like to go with me. For awhile, at
least, you might find it interesting."
Elizabeth tried to dissuade her. It was ridiculous. It was monstrous. She
was not strong enough. It would be throwing her life away, as surely as to
transplant a tender orchid to that burning sage-brush country. But in the
end she said: "Well, Bee, then I'll go with you."