below zero, but the men, in sheltered places, kept pounding. Sometimes
they would work all day cleaning the snow from the grade made the day
before, and the next day it would probably be drifted full again. At
times the task seemed hopeless; but Heney had promised to build to the
summit of White Pass without a stop, and Foy had given Heney his hand
across a table at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in Skagway.
At times the wind blew so frightfully that the men had to hold hands;
but they kept pegging away between blasts, and in a little while were
ready to begin bridging the gulches and deep side-cañons. One day--or
one night, rather, for there were no days then--a camp cook, crazed by
the cold and the endless night, wandered off to die. Hislop and Heney
found him, but he refused to be comforted. He wanted to quit, but Heney
said he could not be spared. He begged to be left alone to sleep in the
warm, soft snow, but Heney brought him back to consciousness and to
camp.
A premature blast blew a man into eternity. The wind moaned still more
drearily. The snow drifted deeper and deeper, and one day they found
that, for days and days, they had been blasting ice and snow when they
thought they were drilling the rock. Heney and Foy faced each other in
the dim light of a tent lamp that night. "Must we give up?" asked the
contractor.
"No," said Foy, slowly, speaking in a whisper; "we'll build on snow, for
it's hard and safe; and in the spring we'll ease it down and make a
road-bed."
They did so. They built and bedded the cross-ties on the snow, ballasted
with snow, and ran over that track until spring without an accident.
They were making mileage slowly, but the awful strain was telling on the
men and on the bank account. The president of the company was almost
constantly travelling between Washington and Ottawa, pausing now and
again to reach over to London for another bag of gold, for they were
melting it up there in the arctic night--literally burning it up, were
these dynamiters of Foy's.
To conceive this great project, to put it into shape, present it in
London, secure the funds and the necessary concessions from two
governments, survey and build, and have a locomotive running in Alaska
a year from the first whoop of the happy Klondiker, had been a mighty
achievement; but it was what Heney would call "dead easy" compared with
the work that confronted the President at this time. On July 20, 1897,
the first pick was driven into the ground at White Pass; just a year
later the pioneer locomotive was run over the road. More than once had
the financial backers allowed their faith in the enterprise and in the
future of the country beyond to slip away; but the President of the
company had always succeeded in building it up again, for they had never
lost faith in him, or in his ability to see things that were to most men
invisible. In summer, when the weekly reports showed a mile or more or
less of track laid, it was not so hard; but when days were spent in
placing a single bent in a bridge, and weeks were consumed on a switch
back in a pinched-out cañon, it was hard to persuade sane men that
business sense demanded that they pile on more fuel. But they did it;
and, as the work went on, it became apparent to those interested in such
undertakings that all the heroes of the White Pass were not in the
hills.
In addition to the elements, ever at war with the builders, they had
other worries that winter. Hawkins had a fire that burned all the
company's offices and all his maps and notes and records of surveys. Foy
had a strike, incited largely by jealous packers and freighters; and
there was hand-to-hand fighting between the strikers and their abettors
and the real builders, who sympathized with the company.
Brydone-Jack, a fine young fellow, who had been sent out as consulting
engineer to look after the interests of the shareholders, clapped his
hands to his forehead and fell, face down, in the snow. His comrades
carried him to his tent. He had been silent, had suffered, perhaps for a
day or two, but had said nothing. The next night he passed away. His
wife was waiting at Vancouver until he could finish his work in Alaska
and go home to her.
With sad and heavy hearts Hawkins and Hislop and Heney climbed back to
where Foy and his men were keeping up the fight. Like so many big
lightning-bugs they seemed, with their dim white lamps rattling around
in the storm. It was nearly all night then. God and his sunlight seemed
to have forsaken Alaska. Once every twenty-four hours a little ball of
fire, red, round, and remote, swung across the cañon, dimly lighted
their lunch-tables, and then disappeared behind the great glacier that
guards the gateway to the Klondike.
As the road neared the summit, Heney observed that Foy was growing
nervous, and that he coughed a great deal. He watched the old fellow,
and found that he was not eating well, and that he slept very little.
Heney asked Foy to rest, but the latter shook his head. Hawkins and
Hislop and Heney talked the matter over in Hislop's tent, called Foy in,
and demanded that he go down and out. Foy was coughing constantly, but
he choked it back long enough to tell the three men what he thought of
them. He had worked hard and faithfully to complete the job, and now
that only one level mile remained to be railed, would they send the old
man down the hill? "I will not budge," said Foy, facing his friends;
"an' when you gentlemen ar-re silibratin' th' vict'ry at the top o' the
hill ahn Chuesday nixt, Hugh Foy'll be wood ye. Do you moind that,
now?"
Foy steadied himself by a tent-pole and coughed violently. His eyes were
glassy, and his face flushed with the purplish flush that fever gives.
"Enough of this!" said the chief engineer, trying to look severe. "Take
this message, sign it, and send it at once."
Foy caught the bit of white clip and read:--
"CAPTAIN O'BRIEN,
SKAGWAY.
"Save a berth for me on the 'Rosalie.'"
They thought, as they watched him, that the old road-maker was about to
crush the paper in his rough right hand; but suddenly his face
brightened, he reached for a pencil, saying, "I'll do it," and when he
had added "next trip" to the message, he signed it, folded it, and took
it over to the operator.
So it happened that, when the last spike was driven at the summit, on
February 20, 1899, the old foreman, who had driven the first, drove the
last, and it was _his_ last spike as well. Doctor Whiting guessed it was
pneumonia.
When the road had been completed to Lake Bennett, the owners came over
to see it; and when they saw what had been done, despite the prediction
that Dawson was dead and that the Cape Nome boom would equal that of the
Klondike, they authorized the construction of another hundred miles of
road which would connect with the Yukon below the dreaded White Horse
Rapids. Jack and Foy and Hislop are gone; and when John Hislop passed
away, the West lost one of the most modest and unpretentious, yet one of
the best and bravest, one of the purest minded men that ever saw the sun
go down behind a snowy range.
NUMBER THREE
One winter night, as the west-bound express was pulling out of Omaha, a
drunken man climbed aboard. The young Superintendent, who stood on the
rear platform, caught the man by the collar and hauled him up the steps.
The train, from the tank to the tail-lights, was crammed full of
passenger-people going home or away to spend Christmas. Over in front
the express and baggage cars were piled full of baggage, bundles, boxes,
trinkets, and toys, each intended to make some heart happier on the
morrow, for it was Christmas Eve. It was to see that these passengers
and their precious freight, already a day late, got through that the
Superintendent was leaving his own fireside to go over the road.
The snow came swirling across the plain, cold and wet, pasting the
window and blurring the headlight on the black locomotive that was
climbing laboriously over the kinks and curves of a new track. Here and
there, in sheltered wimples, bands of buffalo were bunched to shield
them from the storm. Now and then an antelope left the rail or a lone
coyote crouched in the shadow of a telegraph-pole as the dim headlight
swept the right of way. At each stop the Superintendent would jump down,
look about, and swing onto the rear car as the train pulled out again.
At one time he found that his seat had been taken, also his overcoat,
which had been left hanging over the back. The thief was discovered on
the blind baggage and turned over to the "city marshal" at the next
stop.
Upon entering the train again, the Superintendent went forward to find a
seat in the express car. It was near midnight now. They were coming into
a settlement and passing through prosperous new towns that were building
up near the end of the division. Near the door the messenger had set a
little green Christmas tree, and grouped about it were a red sled, a
doll-carriage, some toys, and a few parcels. If the blond doll in the
little toy carriage toppled over, the messenger would set it up again;
and when passing freight out he was careful not to knock a twig from
the tree. So intent was he upon the task of taking care of this
particular shipment that he had forgotten the Superintendent, and
started and almost stared at him when he shouted the observation that
the messenger was a little late with his tree.
"'Tain't mine," he said sadly, shaking his head. "B'longs to the fellow
't swiped your coat."
"No!" exclaimed the Superintendent, as he went over to look at the toys.
"If he'd only asked me," said the messenger, more to himself than to the
Superintendent, "he could 'a' had mine and welcome."
"Do you know the man?"
"Oh, yes--he lives next door to me, and I'll have to face his wife and
lie to her, and then face my own; but I can't lie to her. I'll tell her
the truth and get roasted for letting Downs get away. I'll go to sleep
by the sound of her sobs and wake to find her crying in her
coffee--that's the kind of a Christmas I'll have. When he's drunk he's
disgusting, of course; but when he's sober he's sorry. And Charley Downs
is honest."
"Honest!" shouted the Superintendent.
"Yes, I know he took your coat, but that wasn't Charley Downs; it was
the tarantula-juice he'd been imbibing in Omaha. Left alone he's as
honest as I am; and here's a run that would trip up a missionary. For
instance, leaving Loneville the other night, a man came running
alongside the car and threw in a bundle of bills that looked like a bale
of hay. Not a scrap of paper or pencil-mark, just a wad o' winnings with
a wang around the middle. 'A Christmas gift for my wife,' he yelled.
'How much?' I shouted. 'Oh, I dunno--whole lot, but it's tied good'; and
then a cloud of steam from the cylinder-cocks came between us, and I
haven't seen him since.
"For the past six months Downs has tried hard to be decent, and has
succeeded some; and this was to be the supreme test. For six months his
wife has been saving up to send him to Omaha to buy things for
Christmas. If he could do that, she argued, and come back sober, he'd be
stronger to begin the New Year. Of course they looked to me to keep him
on the rail, and I did. I shadowed him from shop to shop until he
bought all the toys and some little trinkets for his wife. Always I
found he had paid and ordered the things to be sent to the express
office marked to me.
"Well, finally I followed him to a clothing store, where, according to a
promise made to his wife, he bought an overcoat, the first he had felt
on his back for years. This he put on, of course, for it is cold in
Omaha to-day; and I left him and slipped away to grab a few hours'
sleep.
"When I woke I went out to look for him, but could not find him, though
I tried hard, and came to my car without supper. I found his coat,
however, hung up in a saloon, and redeemed it, hoping still to find
Charley before train time. I watched for him until we were signalled
out, and then went back and looked through the train, but failed to find
him.
"Of course I am sorry for Charley," the messenger went on after a pause,
"but more so for the poor little woman. She's worked and worked, and
saved and saved, and hoped and dreamed, until she actually believed he'd
been cured and that the sun would shine in her life again. Why, the
neighbors have been talking across the back fence about how well Mrs.
Downs was looking. My wife declared she heard her laugh the other day
clear over to our house. Half the town knew about her dream. The women
folks have been carrying work to her and then going over and helping her
do it as a sort of surprise party. And now it's all off. To-morrow will
be Christmas; and he'll be in jail, his wife in despair, and I in
disgrace. Charley Downs a thief--in jail! It'll just break her heart!"
The whistle proclaimed a stop, and the Superintendent swung out with a
lump in his throat. This was an important station, and the last one
before Loneville. Without looking to the right or left, the
Superintendent walked straight to the telegraph office and sent the
following message to the agent at the place where Downs had been
ditched:--
"Turn that fellow loose and send him to Loneville on three--all
a joke.
"W.C.V., Superintendent."
In a little while the train was rattling over the road again; and when
the engine screamed for Loneville, the Superintendent stood up and
looked at the messenger.
"What'll I tell her?" the latter asked.
"Well, he got left at Cactus sure enough, didn't he? If that doesn't
satisfy her, tell her that he may get over on No. 3."
When the messenger had turned his freight over to the driver of the
Fargo wagon, he gathered up the Christmas tree and the toys and trudged
homeward, looking like Santa Claus, so completely hidden was he by the
tree and the trinkets. As he neared the Downs' home, the door swung
open, the lamplight shone out upon him, and he saw two women smiling
from the open door. It took but one glance at the messenger's face to
show them that something was wrong, and the smiles faded. Mrs. Downs
received the shock without a murmur, leaning on her friend and leaving
the marks of her fingers on her friend's arm.
The messenger put the toys down suddenly, silently; and feeling that the
unhappy woman would be better alone, the neighbors departed, leaving her
seated by the window, peering into the night, the lamp turned very low.
The little clock on the shelf above the stove ticked off the seconds,
measured the minutes, and marked the melancholy hours. The storm ceased,
the stars came out and showed the quiet town asleep beneath its robe of
white. The clock was now striking four, and she had scarcely stirred.
She was thinking of the watchers of Bethlehem, when suddenly a great
light shone on the eastern horizon. At last the freight was coming. She
had scarcely noticed the messenger's suggestion that Charley might come
in on three. Now she waited, with just the faintest ray of hope; and
after a long while the deep voice of the locomotive came to her, the
long black train crept past and stopped. Now her heart beat wildly.
Somebody was coming up the road. A moment later she recognized her
erring husband, dressed exactly as he had been when he left home, his
short coat buttoned close up under his chin. When she saw him
approaching slowly but steadily, she knew he was sober and doubtless
cold. She was about to fling the door open to admit him when he stopped
and stood still. She watched him. He seemed to be wringing his hands. An
awful thought chilled her,--the thought that the cold and exposure had
unbalanced his mind. Suddenly he knelt in the snow and turned his sad
face up to the quiet sky. He was praying, and with a sudden impulse she
fell upon her knees and they prayed together with only the window-glass
between them.
When the prodigal got to his feet, the door stood open and his wife was
waiting to receive him. At sight of her, dressed as she had been when he
left her, a sudden flame of guilt and shame burned through him; but it
served only to clear his brain and strengthen his will-power, which all
his life had been so weak, and lately made weaker for want of exercise.
He walked almost hurriedly to the chair she set for him near the stove,
and sank into it with the weary air of one who has been long in bed. She
felt of his hands and they were not cold. She touched his face and found
it warm. She pushed the dark hair from his pale forehead and kissed it.
She knelt and prayed again, her head upon his knee. He bowed above her
while she prayed, and stroked her hair. She felt his tears falling upon
her head. She stood up, and when he lifted his face to hers, looked
into his wide weeping eyes,--aye, into his very soul. She liked to see
the tears and the look of agony on his face, for she knew by these signs
how he suffered, and she knew why.
When he had grown calm she brought a cup of coffee to him. He drank it,
and then she led him to the little dining-room, where a midnight supper
had been set for four, but, because of his absence, had not been
touched. He saw the tree and the toys that the messenger had left, and
spoke for the first time. "Oh, wife dear, have they all come? Are they
all here? The toys and all?" and then, seeing the overcoat that the
messenger had left on a chair near by, and which his wife had not yet
seen, he cried excitedly, "Take that away--it isn't mine!"
"Why, yes, dear," said his wife, "it must be yours."
"No, no," he said; "I bought a coat like that, but I sold it. I drank a
lot and only climbed on the train as it was pulling out of Omaha. In the
warm car I fell asleep and dreamed the sweetest dream I ever knew. I had
come home sober with all the things, you had kissed me, we had a great
dinner here, and there stood the Christmas tree, the children were here,
the messenger and his wife, and their children. We were all so happy! I
saw the shadow fade from your face, saw you smile and heard you laugh;
saw the old love-light in your eyes and the rose coming into your cheek.
And then--'Oh, bitterness of things too sweet!'--I woke to find my own
old trembling self again. It was all a dream. Looking across the aisle,
I saw that coat on the back of an empty seat. I knew it was not mine,
for I had sold mine for two miserable dollars. I knew, too, that the man
who gave them to me got them back again before they were warm in my
pocket. This thought embittered me, and, picking up the coat, I walked
out and stood on the platform of the baggage car. At the next stop they
took me off and turned me over to the city marshal,--for the coat
belonged to the Superintendent.
"It is like mine, except that it is real, and mine, of course, was only
a good imitation. Take it away, wife--do take it away--it haunts me!"
Pitying him, the wife put the coat out of his sight; and immediately he
grew calm, drank freely of the strong coffee, but he could not eat.
Presently he went over and began to arrange the little Christmas tree in
the box his wife had prepared for it during his absence. She began
opening the parcels, and when she could trust herself, began to talk
about the surprise they would have for the children, and now and again
to express her appreciation of some dainty trifle he had selected for
her. She watched him closely, noting that his hand was unsteady, and
that he was inclined to stagger after stooping for a little while.
Finally, when the tree had been trimmed, and the sled for the boy and
the doll-carriage for the girl were placed beneath it, she got him to
lie down. When she had made him comfortable she kissed him again, knelt
by his bed and prayed, or rather offered thanks, and he was asleep.
Two hours later the subdued shouts of her babies, the exclamations of
glad surprise that came in stage whispers from the dining-room, woke
her, and she rose from the little couch where she had fallen asleep,
already dressed to begin the day.
It was four o'clock in the afternoon when she called the prodigal. When
he had bathed his feverish face and put on the fresh clothes she had
brought in for him and come into the dining-room, he saw his rosy dreams
of the previous night fulfilled. The messenger and his wife shook hands
with him and wished him a Merry Christmas. His children, all the
children, came and kissed him. His wife was smiling, and the warm blood
leaping from her happy heart actually put color in her cheeks.
As Downs took the chair at the head of the table he bowed his head, the
rest did likewise, and he gave thanks, fervently and without
embarrassment.
THE STUFF THAT STANDS
It was very late in the fifties, and Lincoln and Douglas were engaged in
animated discussion of the burning questions of the time, when Melvin
Jewett journeyed to Bloomington, Illinois, to learn telegraphy.
It was then a new, weird business, and his father advised him not to
fool with it. His college chum said to him, as they chatted together for
the last time before leaving school, that it would be grewsomely lonely
to sit in a dimly lighted flag-station and have that inanimate machine
tick off its talk to him in the sable hush of night; but Jewett was
ambitious. Being earnest, brave, and industrious, he learned rapidly,
and in a few months found himself in charge of a little wooden
way-station as agent, operator, yard-master, and everything else. It was
lonely, but there was no night work. When the shadows came and hung on
the bare walls of his office the spook pictures that had been painted
by his school chum, the young operator went over to the little tavern
for the night.
True, Springdale at that time was not much of a town; but the telegraph
boy had the satisfaction of feeling that he was, by common consent, the
biggest man in the place.
Out in a hayfield, he could see from his window a farmer gazing up at
the humming wire, and the farmer's boy holding his ear to the pole,
trying to understand. All this business that so blinded and bewildered
with its mystery, not only the farmer, but the village folks as well,
was to him as simple as sunshine.
In a little while he had learned to read a newspaper with one eye and
keep the other on the narrow window that looked out along the line; to
mark with one ear the "down brakes" signal of the north-bound freight,
clear in the siding, and with the other to catch the whistle of the
oncoming "cannon ball," faint and far away.
When Jewett had been at Springdale some six or eight months, another
young man dropped from the local one morning, and said, "_Wie gehts_,"
and handed him a letter. The letter was from the Superintendent, calling
him back to Bloomington to despatch trains. Being the youngest of the
despatchers, he had to take the "death trick." The day man used to work
from eight o'clock in the morning until four o'clock in the afternoon,
the "split trick" man from four until midnight, and the "death trick"
man from midnight until morning.
We called it the "death trick" because, in the early days of
railroading, we had a lot of wrecks about four o'clock in the morning.
That was before double tracks and safety inventions had made travelling
by rail safer than sleeping at home, and before trainmen off duty had
learned to look not on liquor that was red. Jewett, however, was not
long on the night shift. He was a good despatcher,--a bit risky at
times, the chief thought, but that was only when he knew his man. He was
a rusher and ran trains close, but he was ever watchful and wide awake.
In two years' time he had become chief despatcher. During these years
the country, so quiet when he first went to Bloomington, had been torn
by the tumult of civil strife.