DAYBREAK
Crouching under the mountains in the grip of the storm Medicine Bend
slept battened in blankets and beds. All night at the Wickiup, O'Neill
and Giddings, gray with anxiety, were trying to keep track of Glover's
Special. It was the only train out that night on the mountain
division. For the first hour or two they kept tab on her with little
trouble, but soon reports began to falter or fail, and the despatchers
were reduced at last to mere rumors. They dropped boards ahead of
Special 1018, only to find to their consternation that she was passing
them unheeded.
Once, at least, they knew that she herself had slipped by a night
station unseen. Oftener, with blanched faces they would hear of her
dashing like an apparition past a frightened operator, huddled over his
lonely stove, a spectral flame shot across the fury of the sky--as if
the dread night breathing on the scrap-pile and the grave had called
from other nights and other storms a wraith of riven engines and
slaughtered men to one last phantom race with death and the wind.
Within two hours of division headquarters a train ran lost--lost as
completely as if she were crossing the Sweetgrass plains on pony trails
instead of steel rails. Not once but a dozen times McGraw and Glover,
pawning their lives, left the cab with their lanterns in a vain
endeavor to locate a station, a siding, a rock. Numbed and bitten at
last with useless exposure they cast effort to the wind, gave the
engine like a lost horse her head, and ran through everything for
headquarters and life. Consultation was abandoned, worry put away, one
good chance set against every other chance and taken in silence.
At five o'clock that morning despatchers and night men under the
Wickiup gables, sitting moodily around the big stove, sprang to their
feet together. From up the distant gorge, dying far on the gale, came
the long chime blast of an engine whistle; it was the lost Special.
They crowded to the windows to dispute and listen. Again the heavy
chime was sprung and a second blast, lasting and defiant, reached the
Wickiup--McGraw was whistling for the upper yard and the long night of
anxiety was ended. Unable to see a car length into the storm howling
down the yard, save where the big arc-lights of the platform glared
above the semaphores, the men swarmed to the windows to catch a glimpse
of the belated engine. When the rays of its electric headlight pierced
the Western night they shouted like boys, ran to the telephones, and
while the roundhouse, the superintendent, and the master-mechanic were
getting the news the Special engine steamed slowly into sight through
the whirling snow and stopped at the semaphore. So a liner shaken in
the teeth of a winter storm, battered by heading seas, and swept by
stiffening spray, rides at last, ice-bound, staggering, majestic, into
port.
The moment they struck the mountain-path into the Bend, McGraw and
Glover caught their bearings by the curves, and Glover, standing at
Gertrude's elbow, told her they were safe.
Not until he had laughed into her ear something that the silent McGraw,
lying on his back under the engine with a wrench, when he confessed he
never expected to see Medicine Bend again, had said of her own splendid
courage did the flood spring from her eyes.
When Glover added that they were entering the gorge, and laughingly
asked if she would not like to sound the whistle for the yard limits,
she smiled through tears and gave him her hand to be helped down,
cramped and chilled, from her corner.
At the moment that she left the cab she faltered again. McGraw
stripped his cap from his head as she turned to speak. She took from
the breast of her blouse her watch, dainty as a jewel, and begged him
to take it, but he would not.
She drew her glove and stripped from her finger a ring.
"This is for your wife," she said, pressing it into his hand.
"I have no wife."
"Your sister."
"Nor sister."
"Keep it for your bride," she whispered, retreating. "It is yours.
Good-by, good-by!"
She sprang from the gangway to Glover's arms and the snow. The storm
drove pitilessly down the bare street as she clung to his side and
tried to walk the half block to the hotel. The wind, even for a single
minute, was deadly to face. No light, no life was anywhere visible.
He led her along the lee of the low street buildings, and mindful of
the struggle it was to make headway at all turned half between her and
the wind to give her the shelter of his shoulders, halting as she
stumbled to encourage her anew. He saw then that she was struggling in
the darkness for breath, and without a word he bent over her, took her
up like a child and started on, carrying her in his arms.
If he frightened her she gave no sign. She held herself for an instant
uncertain and aloof, though she could not but feel the heavy draught
she made on his strength. The wind stung her cheeks; her breath caught
again in her throat and she heard him implore her to turn her face, to
turn it from the wind. He stumbled as he spoke, and as she shielded
her face from the deadly cold, one hand slipped from her muff.
Reaching around his head she drew his storm-cap more closely down with
her fingers. When he thanked her she tried to speak and could not, but
her glove rested an instant where the wind struck his cheek; then her
head hid upon his shoulder and her arms wound slowly and tightly around
his neck.
He kicked open the door of the hotel with one blow of his foot and set
her down inside.
In the warm dark office, breathing unsteadily, they faced each other.
"Can you, Gertrude, marry that man and break my heart?" He caught up
her two hands with his words.
"No," she answered, brokenly. "Are you sure you are not frozen--ears
or cheeks or hands?"
"You won't marry him, Gertrude, and break my heart? Tell me you won't
marry him."
"No, I won't."
"Tell me again."
"Shall I tell you everything?"
"If you have mercy for me as I have love for you."
"I ran away from him to-night. He came out with the directors and
telegraphed he would be at the Springs in the afternoon for his answer,
and--I ran away. He has his answer long ago and I would not see him."
"Brave girl!"
"Oh, I wasn't brave, I was a dreadful coward. But I thought----"
"What?"
"--I could be brave, if I found as brave a man--as you."
"Gertrude, if I kiss you I never can give you up. Do you understand
what that means? I never in life or death can give you up, Gertrude,
do you understand me?"
She was crying on his shoulder. "Oh, yes, I understand," and he heard
from her lips the maddening sweetness of his boy name. "I understand,"
she sobbed. "I don't care, Ab--if only--, you will be kind to me."
It was only a moment later--her head had not yet escaped from his arm,
for Glover found for the first time that it is one thing to get leave
to kiss a lovely woman and wholly another to get the necessary action
on the conscience-stricken creature--she had not yet, I say, escaped,
when a locomotive whistle was borne from the storm faintly in on their
ears. To her it meant nothing, but she felt him start. "What is it?"
she whispered.
"The ploughs!"
"The ploughs?"
"The snow-ploughs that followed us. Twenty minutes behind--twenty
minutes between us and death, Gertrude, in that blizzard, think of it.
That must mean we are to live."
The solemn thought naturally suggested, to Glover at least, a
resumption of the status quo, but as he was locating, in the dark,
there came from behind the stove a mild cough. The effect on the
construction engineer of the whole blizzard was to that cough as
nothing. Inly raging he seated Gertrude--indeed, she sunk quite
faintly into a chair, and starting for the stove Glover dragged from
behind it Solomon Battershawl. "What are you doing here?" demanded
Glover, savagely.
"I'm night clerk, Mr. Glover--ow----"
"Night clerk? Very well, Solomon," muttered Glover, grimly, "take this
young lady to the warmest room in the house at once."
"Every room's full, Mr. Glover. Trains were all tied up last night."
"Then show her to my room."
"Your room's occupied."
"My room occupied, you villain? What do you mean? Throw out whoever's
in it instantly."
"Mr. Brock is in your room."
Gertrude had come over to the stove.
"Mr. Brock!"
"My father!"
"Yes, sir; yes, ma'am."
Gertrude and Glover looked at one another.
"Mr. Blood brought him up last night," said Solomon.
"Where's Mr. Blood?"
"He hasn't come up from the Wickiup. They said he was worried over a
special from the Cat that was caught in the blizzard. Your laundry
came in all right last night, Mr. Glover----"
"Hang the laundry."
"I paid for it."
"Will you cease your gabble? If Mr. Blood's room is empty take Miss
Block up there and rouse a chambermaid instantly to attend her. Do you
hear?"
"Shall I throw out Mr. Brock?"
"Let him alone, stupid. What's the matter with the lights?"
"The wires are down."
"Get a candle for Miss Brock. Now, will you make haste?" Solomon,
when he heard the name, stared at Miss Brock--but when he recognized
her he started without argument and was gone an unconscionably long
time.
They sat down where they could feast on each other's eyes in the glow
of the coal-stove.
"You have looked so worried all night," said Gertrude, in love's
solicitude; "were you afraid we should be lost?"
"No, I didn't intend we should be lost."
"What was it? What is it that makes you so careworn?"
"Nothing special."
"But you mustn't have any secrets from me now. What is it?"
"Do you want to know?"
"Yes."
"I couldn't find time to get shaved before we left Sleepy Cat----"
She rose with both hands uplifted: "Shades of vain heroes! Have I
wasted my sympathy all night on a man who has been saving my life with
perfect calmness and worrying because he couldn't get shaved?"
"Can you dispassionately say that I don't need barbering?"
"No. But this is what I will say, silly fellow--you don't know much
about a woman's heart, do you, Ab? When I first looked at you I
thought you were the homeliest man I had ever seen, do you know that?"
Glover fingered his offending chin and looked at her somewhat
pathetically.
"But last night"--her quick mouth was so eloquent--"last night I
watched you. I saw your face lighted by the anger of the storm. I
knew then what those heavy, homely lines below your eyes were
for--strength. And I saw your eyes, to me so dull at first, wake and
fill with such a light and burn so steadily hour after hour that I knew
I had never seen eyes like yours. I knew you would save me--that is
what made me so brave, goosie. Sit right where you are, please."
She slipped out of her chair; he pursued. "If you will say such things
and then run into the dark corners," he muttered. But when Solomon
appeared with a water-pitcher they were ready for him.
"Now what has kept you all this time?" glared Glover, insincerely.
"I couldn't find any ice-water."
"Ice-water!"
"Every pipe is froze solid, but I chopped up some ice and brought that."
"Ice-water, you double-dyed idiot! Go get your candle."
"Yes, sir."
"Don't be so cross," whispered Gertrude. "You were so short with that
poor fireman to-night, and he told me such a pitiful story about being
ordered out and having to go or lose his position----"
"Did Foley tell you that?"
"Yes."
"Surely, nerve runs in his family as well as his cousin's. The rascal
came because I hung up a little purse for a fireman at the roundhouse,
and he nearly had a fight with another fellow that wanted to cut him
out of the job."
"Such a cheat! How much did you offer him?"
"Not very much."
"But how much?"
"Twenty-five dollars, and, by heavens, he dunned me for it just after
we started."
"But his poor wife hung to his neck when he left----"
"No doubt. She has pulled all the hair out of his head twice that I
know of----"
"And I gave him my purse with all the money I had in it."
"How much?"
"About three hundred dollars."
"Three hundred dollars! Foley will lay off two months and take the
whole family back to Pittsburg. Now, here's your candle and chopped
ice and Mr. Battershawl."
Gertrude turned for a last whisper--"What should you say if papa came
down?"
"What should I say? He would probably say, 'Mr. Glover, I have your
room.' 'Don't mention it,' I should reply, 'I have your daughter.'"
But Mr. Brock did not come down.
Barely half an hour later, while Glover waited with anxiety at the foot
of the stairs, Gertrude reappeared, and with her loveliness all new,
walked shyly and haltingly down each step toward him.
Not a soul about the hotel office had stirred, and Glover led her to
the retired little parlor, which was warm and dim, to reassure himself
that the fluttering girl was all his own. Unable to credit the fulness
of their own happiness they sat confiding to each other all the sweet
trifles, now made doubly sweet, of their strange acquaintance. Before
six o'clock, and while their seclusion was still their own, a hot
breakfast was served to them where they sat, and day broke on storm
without and lovers within.