I took that as high praise."
There was a moment's pause, then Appleton laughed boyishly.
"That's funny! I'm very glad to know you, Mr. O'Neil."
"You don't, and you won't for a long time. Tom tells me you didn't
think well of Gordon's enterprise and so he fired you."
"That's right! I suppose I ought to have kept my mouth shut, but it has
a way of flying open when it shouldn't. He is either a fool or a crook,
and his mine is nothing but a prospect. I couldn't resist telling him
so."
"And his railroad?"
Appleton hesitated. "Oh, it's as good a route as the Trust's. I worked
on the two surveys. Personally I think both outfits are crazy to try to
build in from here. I had to tell Gordon that, too. You see I'm a
volunteer talker. I should have been born with a stutter--it would have
saved me a lot of trouble."
O'Neil smiled. "You may talk all you please in my employ, so long as
you do your work. Now get some sleep, for we have a hard trip. And by
the way"--the youth paused with a hand on the doorknob--"don't go
looking for Denny."
Appleton's face hardened stubbornly.
"I can't promise that, sir."
"Oh yes you can! You must! Remember, you're working for me, and you're
under orders. I can't have the expedition held up on your account."
The engineer's voice was heavy with disappointment, but a vague
admiration was growing in his eyes as he agreed:
"Very well, sir. I suppose my time is yours. Good night."
When he had gone "Happy Tom" inquired:
"Now, why in blazes did you hire him? We don't need a high-priced
surveyor on this job."
"Of course not, but don't you see? He'd have been arrested, sure.
Besides--he's Irish, and I like him."
"Humph! Then I s'pose he's got a job for life," said Tom, morosely.
"You make friends and enemies quicker than anybody I ever saw. You've
got Curtis Gordon on your neck now."
"On account of this boy? Nonsense!"
"Not altogether. Denny is Gordon's right bower. I think he calls him
his secretary; anyhow, he does Gordon's dirty work and they're thicker
than fleas. First you come along and steal me, underhanded, then you
grab his pet engineer before he has a chance to hire him back again.
Just to top off the evening you publicly brand his confidential
understrapper as a card cheat and thump him on the medulla oblongata--"
"Are you sure it wasn't the duodenum?"
"Well, you hit him in a vital spot, and Gordon won't forget it."
Late on the following morning O'Neil's expedition was landed at the
deserted fishing-station of Omar, thirty miles down the sound from
Cortez. From this point its route lay down the bay to open water and
thence eastward along the coast in front of the Salmon River delta some
forty miles to Kyak. This latter stretch would have been well-nigh
impossible for open boats but for the fact that the numerous mud bars
and islands thrown out by the river afforded a sheltered course. These
inside channels, though shallow, were of sufficient depth to allow
small craft to navigate and had long been used as a route to the
coal-fields.
Appleton, smiling and cheerful, was the first member of the party to
appear at the dock that morning, and when the landing had been effected
at Omar he showed his knowledge of the country by suggesting a short
cut which would save the long row down to the mouth of the sound and
around into the delta. Immediately back of the old cannery, which
occupied a gap in the mountain rim, lay a narrow lake, and this, he
declared, held an outlet which led into the Salmon River flats. By
hauling the boats over into this body of water--a task made easy by the
presence of a tiny tramway with one dilapidated push-car which had been
a part of the cannery equipment--it would be possible to save much time
and labor.
"I've heard there was a way through," O'Neil confessed, "but nobody
seemed to know just where it was."
"I know," the young man assured him. "We can gain a day at least, and I
judge every day is valuable."
"So valuable that we can't afford to lose one by making a mistake,"
said his employer, meaningly.
"Leave it to me. I never forget a country once I've been through it."
Accordingly the boats were loaded upon the hand-car and transferred one
at a time. In the interval O'Neil examined his surroundings casually.
He was surprised to find the dock and buildings in excellent condition,
notwithstanding the fact that the station had lain idle for several
years. A solitary Norwegian, with but a slight suspicion of English,
was watching the premises and managed to make known his impression that
poor fishing had led the owners to abandon operations at this point.
He, too, had heard that Omar Lake had an outlet into the delta, but he
was not sure of its existence; he was sure of nothing, in fact except
that it was very lonesome here, and that he had run out of tobacco five
days before.
But Dan Appleton was not mistaken. A two hours' row across the
mirror-like surface of Omar Lake brought the party out through a hidden
gap in the mountains and afforded them a view across the level delta.
To their left the range they had just penetrated retreated toward the
canon where the Salmon River burst its way out from the interior, and
beyond that point it continued in a coastward swing to Kyak, their
destination. Between lay a flat, trackless tundra, cut by sloughs and
glacial streams, with here and there long tongues of timber reaching
down from the high ground and dwindling away toward the seaward
marshes. It was a desolate region, the breeding-place of sea fowl, the
hunting-ground for the great brown bear.
O'Neil had never before been so near the canon as this, and the wild
stories he had heard of it recurred to him with interest. He surveyed
the place curiously as the boats glided along, but could see nothing
more than a jumble of small hills and buttes, and beyond them the
dead-gray backs of the twin glaciers coming down from the slopes to
east and west. Beyond the foot-hills and the glaciers themselves the
main range was gashed by a deep valley, through which he judged the
river must come, and beyond that he knew was a country of agricultural
promise, extending clear to the fabulous copper belt whither the
railroads from Cortez were headed. Still farther inland lay the Tanana,
and then the Yukon, with their riches untouched.
What a pity, what a mockery, it was that this obvious entrance to the
country had been blocked by nature! Just at his back was Omar, with its
deep and sheltered harbor; the lake he had crossed gave a passage
through the guardian range, and this tundra--O'Neil estimated that he
could lay a mile of track a day over it--led right up to the glaciers.
Once through the Coast Range, building would be easy, for the upper
Salmon was navigable, and its banks presented no difficulties to
track-laying.
He turned abruptly to Appleton, who was pulling an oar.
"What do you know about that canyon?" he asked.
"Not much. Nobody knows much, for those fellows who went through in the
gold rush have all left the country. Gordon's right-of-way comes in
above, and so does the Trust's. From there on I know every foot of the
ground."
"I suppose if either of them gets through to the Salmon the rest will
be easy."
"Dead easy!"
"It would be shorter and very much cheaper to build from Omar, through
this way."
"Of course, but neither outfit knew anything about the outlet to Omar
Lake until I told them--and they knew there was the canon to be
reckoned with."
"Well?"
Appleton shook his head. "Look at it! Does it look like a place to
build a railroad?"
"I can't tell anything about it, from here."
"I suppose a road could be built if the glaciers were on the same side
of the river, but--they're not. They face each other, and they're
alive, too. Listen!" The oarsmen ceased rowing at Dan's signal, and out
of the northward silence came a low rumble like the sound of distant
cannonading. "We must be at least twenty miles away, in an air line.
The ice stands up alongside the river, hundreds of feet high, and it
breaks off in chunks as big as a New York office-building."
"You've been up there?"
"No. But everybody says so, and I've seen glacier ice clear out here in
the delta. They're always moving, too--the glaciers themselves--and
they're filled with crevasses, so that it's dangerous to cross them on
foot even if one keeps back from the river."
"How did those men get their outfits through in '98?" O'Neil queried.
"I'm blessed if I know--maybe they flew." After a moment Dan added,
"Perhaps they dodged the pieces as they fell."
O'Neil smiled. He opened his lips to speak, then closed them, and for a
long time kept his eyes fixed speculatively in the direction of the
canyon. When he had first spoken of a route from Omar he had thrown out
the suggestion with only a casual interest. Now, suddenly, the idea
took strong possession of his mind; it fascinated him with its daring,
its bigness. He had begun to dream.
The world owes all great achievements to dreamers, for men who lack
vivid imaginations are incapable of conceiving big enterprises. No
matter how practical the thing accomplished, it requires this faculty,
no less than a poem or a picture. Every bridge, every skyscraper, every
mechanical invention, every great work which man has wrought in steel
and stone and concrete, was once a dream.
O'Neil had no small measure of the imaginative power that makes great
leaders, great inventors, great builders. He was capable of tremendous
enthusiasm; his temperament forever led him to dare what others feared
to undertake. And here he glimpsed a tremendous opportunity. The
traffic of a budding nation was waiting to be seized. To him who gained
control of Alaskan transportation would come the domination of her
resources. Many were striving for the prize, but if there should prove
to be a means of threading that Salmon River canon with steel rails,
the man who first found it would have those other railroad enterprises
at his mercy. The Trust would have to sue for terms or abandon further
effort; for this route was shorter, it was level, it was infinitely
cheaper to improve. The stakes in the game were staggering. The mere
thought of them made his heart leap. The only obstacle, of course, lay
in those glaciers, and he began to wonder if they could not be made to
open. Why not? No one knew positively that they were impregnable, for
no one knew anything certainly about them. Until the contrary had been
proven there was at least a possibility that they were less formidable
than rumor had painted them.
Camp was pitched late that night far out on the flats. During the
preparation of supper Murray sat staring fixedly before him, deaf to
all sounds and insensible to the activities of his companions. He had
lost his customary breeziness and his good nature; he was curt,
saturnine, unsmiling. Appleton undertook to arouse him from this
abstraction, but Slater drew the young man aside hurriedly with a
warning,
"Don't do that, son, or you'll wear splints for the rest of the trip."
"What's the matter with him, anyhow?" Dan inquired. "He was boiling
over with enthusiasm all day, but now--Why, he's asleep sitting up! He
hasn't moved for twenty minutes."
Tom shook his head, dislodging a swarm of mosquitoes.
"Walk on your toes, my boy! Walk on your toes! I smell something
cooking--and it ain't supper."
When food was served O'Neil made a pretense of eating, but rose
suddenly in the midst of it, with the words:
"I'll stretch my legs a bit." His voice was strangely listless; in his
eyes was the same abstraction which had troubled Appleton during the
afternoon. He left the camp and disappeared up the bank of the stream.
"Nice place to take a walk!" the engineer observed. "He'll bog down in
half a mile or get lost among the sloughs."
"Not him!" said Slater. Nevertheless, his worried eyes followed the
figure of his chief as long as it was in sight. After a time he
announced: "Something is coming, but what it is or where it's going to
hit us I don't know."
Their meal over, the boatmen made down their beds, rolled up in their
blankets, and were soon asleep. Appleton and Tom sat in the smoke of a
smudge, gossiping idly as the twilight approached. From the south came
the distant voice of the sea, out of the north rolled the intermittent
thunder of those falling bergs, from every side sounded a harsh chorus
of water-fowl. Ducks whirred past in bullet-like flight, honkers
flapped heavily overhead, a pair of magnificent snow-white swans soared
within easy gunshot of the camp. An hour passed, another, and another;
the arctic night descended. And through it all the mosquitoes sang
their blood song and stabbed the watchers with tongues of flame.
"Happy Tom" sang his song, too, for it was not often that he obtained a
listener, and it proved to be a song of infinite hard luck. Mr. Slater,
it seemed, was a creature of many ills, the wretched abiding-place of
aches and pains, of colics, cramps, and rheumatism. He was the target
of misfortune and the sport of fate. His body was the galloping-ground
of strange disorders which baffled diagnosis; his financial affairs
were dominated by an evil genius which betrayed him at every turn. To
top it all, he suffered at the moment a violent attack of indigestion.
"Ain't that just my luck?" he lamented. "Old 'Indy's got me good, and
there ain't a bit of soda in the outfit."
Appleton, who was growing more and more uneasy at the absence of his
leader, replied with some asperity:
"Instead of dramatizing your own discomforts you'd better be thinking
of the boss. I'm going out to look for him."
"Now don't be a dam' fool," Slater advised. "It would be worth a broken
leg to annoy him when he's in one of these fits. You'd make yourself as
popular as a smallpox patient at a picnic. When he's dreamed his dream
he'll be back."
"When will that be?"
"No telling--maybe to-night, maybe to-morrow night."
"And what are we going to do in the mean time?"
"Sit tight." Mr. Slater chewed steadily and sighed. "No soda in camp,
and this gum don't seem to lay hold of me! That's luck!"
Darkness had settled when O'Neil reappeared. He came plunging out of
the brush, drenched, muddy, stained by contact with the thickets; but
his former mood had disappeared and in its place was a harsh, explosive
energy.
"Tom!" he cried. "You and Appleton and I will leave at daylight. The
men will wait here until we get back." His voice was incisive, its tone
forbade question.
The youthful engineer stared at him in dismay, for only his anxiety had
triumphed over his fatigue, and daylight was but four hours away.
O'Neil noted the expression, and said, more gently:
"You're tired, Appleton, I know, but in working for me you'll be called
upon for extraordinary effort now and then. I may not demand more than
an extra hour from you; then again I may demand a week straight without
sleep. I'll never ask it unless it's necessary and unless I'm ready to
do my share."
"Yes, sir."
"The sacrifice is big, but the pay is bigger. Loyalty is all I require."
"I'm ready now, sir."
"We can't see to travel before dawn. Help Tom load the lightest boat
with rations for five days. If we run short we'll 'Siwash' it." He
kicked off his rubber boots, up-ended them to drain the water out, then
flung himself upon his bed of boughs and was asleep almost before the
two had recovered from their surprise.
"Five days--or longer!" Slater said, gloomily, as he and Dan began
their preparations. "And me with indigestion!"
"What does it mean?" queried Appleton.
"It means I'll probably succumb."
"No, no! What's the meaning of this change of plan? I can't understand
it."
"You don't need to," "Happy Tom" informed him, curtly. There was a look
of solicitude in his face as he added, "I wish I'd made him take off
his wet clothes before he went to sleep."
"Let's wake him up."
But Slater shook his head. "I'd sooner wake a rattlesnake," said he.
O'Neil roused the members of his expedition while the sky was reddening
faintly, for he had a mind which worked like an alarm-clock. All except
Appleton had worked for him before, and the men accepted his orders to
await his return with no appearance of surprise.
With the first clear light he and his two companions set out, rowing up
the estuary of the Salmon until the current became too swift to stem in
that manner. Then landing, they rigged a "bridle" for the skiff, fitted
their shoulders to loops in a ninety-foot tow rope, and began to
"track" their craft up against the stream. It was heartbreaking work.
Frequently they were waist-deep in the cold water. Long "sweepers" with
tips awash in the flood interfered with their efforts. The many
branches of the stream forced them to make repeated crossings, for the
delta was no more than an endless series of islands through which the
current swirled. When dusk overtook them they were wet, weary, and weak
from hunger. With the dawn they were up and at it again, but their task
became constantly more difficult because of the floating glacier ice,
which increased with every mile. They were obliged to exercise the
extremest caution. Hour after hour they strained against the current,
until the ropes bit into their aching flesh, bringing raw places out on
neck and palm. Hour after hour the ice, went churning past, and through
it all came the intermittent echo of the caving glaciers ahead of them.
Dan Appleton realized very soon whither the journey was leading, and at
thought of actually facing those terrors which loomed so large in
conjecture his pulses began to leap. He had a suspicion of O'Neil's
intent, but dared not voice it. Though the scheme seemed mad enough,
its very audacity fascinated him. It would be worth while to take part
in such an undertaking, even if it ended in failure. And somehow,
against his judgment, he felt that his leader would find a way.
For the most part, O'Neil was as silent as a man of stone, and only on
those rare occasions when he craved relief from his thoughts did he
encourage Dan to talk. Then he sometimes listened, but more frequently
he did not. Slater had long since become a dumb draught animal,
senseless to discomfort except in the hour of relaxation when he
monotonously catalogued his ills.
"Are you a married man?" O'Neil inquired once of Dan.
"Not yet, sir."
"Family?"
"Sure! A great big, fine one, consisting of a sister. But she's more
than a family--she's a religion." Receiving encouragement from his
employer's look of interest, he continued: "We were wiped out by the
San Francisco earthquake, and stood in the bread line for a while. We
managed to save four thousand dollars from the wreck, which we divided
equally. Then we started out to make our fortunes. It was her idea."
"You came to Cortez?"
"Yes. Money was so easy for me that I lost all respect for it. The town
rang with my mirth for a while. I was an awful fool."
"Education!"
"Now it's my ambition to get settled and have her with me. I haven't
had a good laugh, a hearty meal, or a Christian impulse since I left
her."
"What did she do with her half of the fortune?"
"Invested it wisely and went to work. I bought little round celluloid
disks with mine; she bought land of some sort with hers. She's a
newspaper woman, and the best in the world--or at least the best in
Seattle. She wrote that big snow-slide story for The Review last fall.
She tells 'em how to raise eight babies on seven dollars a week, or how
to make a full set of library furniture out of three beer kegs, a
packing-case, and an epileptic icebox. She runs the 'Domestic Economy'
column; and she's the sweetest, the cleverest, the most stunning--"
Appleton's enthusiastic tribute ceased suddenly, for he saw that O'Neil
was once more deaf and that his eyes were fixed dreamily upon the canon
far ahead.
As the current quickened the progress of the little party became slower
and more exhausting. Their destination seemed to retreat before them;
the river wound back and forth in a maddening series of detours. Some
of the float ice was large now, and these pieces rushed down upon them
like charging horses, keeping them constantly on the alert to prevent
disaster. It seemed impossible that such a flat country could afford so
much fall. "Happy Tom" at length suggested that they tie up and pack
the remaining miles overland, but O'Neil would not hear to this.
They had slept so little, their labors had been so heavy, that they
were dumb and dull with fatigue when they finally reached the first
bluffs and worked their boat through a low gorge where all the waters
of the Salmon thrashed and icebergs galloped past like a pallid host in
flight. Here they paused and stared with wondering eyes at what lay
before; a chill, damp breath swept over them, and a mighty awe laid
hold of their hearts.
"Come on!" said O'Neil. "Other men have gone through; we'll do the
same."
On the evening of the sixth day a splintered, battered poling-boat with
its seams open swung in to the bank where O'Neil's men were encamped,
and its three occupants staggered out. They were gaunt and stiff and
heavy-eyed. Even Tom Slater's full cheeks hung loose and flabby. But
the leader was alert and buoyant; his face was calm, his eyes were
smiling humorously.
"You'll take the men on to the coal-fields and finish the work," he
told his boss packer later that night. "Appleton and I will start back
to Cortez in the morning. When you have finished go to Juneau and see
to the recording."
"Ain't that my luck?" murmured the dyspeptic. "Me for Kyak where there
ain't a store, and my gum all wet."
"Chew it, paper and all," advised Appleton, cheerfully.
"Oh, the good has all gone out of it now," Slater explained.
"Meet me in Seattle on the fifteenth of next month," his employer
directed.
"I'll be there if old 'Indy' spares me. But dyspepsia, with nothing to
eat except beans and pork bosom, will probably lay me in my grave long
before the fifteenth. However, I'll do my best. Now, do you want to
know what I think of this proposition of yours?" He eyed his superior
somberly.
"Sure; I want all the encouragement I can get, and your views are
always inspiriting."
"Well, I think it's nothing more nor less than hydrophobia. These
mosquitoes have given you the rabies and you need medical attention.
You need it bad."
"Still, you'll help me, won't you?"
"Oh yes," said Tom, "I'll help you. But it's a pity to see a man go
mad."
VII
THE DREAM
The clerk of the leading hotel in Seattle whirled his register about as
a man deposited a weather-beaten war-bag on the marble floor and leaned
over the counter to inquire:
"Is Murray O'Neil here?"
This question had been asked repeatedly within the last two hours, but
heretofore by people totally different in appearance from the one who
spoke now. The man behind the desk measured the stranger with a
suspicious eye before answering. He saw a ragged, loose-hung, fat
person of melancholy countenance, who was booted to the knee and
chewing gum.
"Mr. O'Neil keeps a room here by the year," he replied, guardedly.
"Show me up!" said the new-comer as if advancing a challenge.
A smart reply was on the lips of the clerk, but something in the
other's manner discouraged flippancy.
"You are a friend of Mr. O'Neil's?" he asked, politely.
"Friend? Um-m, no! I'm just him when he ain't around." In a loud tone
he inquired of the girl at the news-stand, "Have you got any
wintergreen gum?"
"Mr. O'Neil is not here."
The fat man stared at his informant accusingly, "Ain't this the
fifteenth?" he asked.
"It is."
"Then he's here, all right!"
"Mr. O'Neil is not in," the clerk repeated, gazing fixedly over Mr.
Slater's left shoulder.
"Well, I guess his room will do for me. I ain't particular."
"His room is occupied at present. If you care to wait you will find--"
Precisely what it was that he was to find Tom never learned, for at
that moment the breath was driven out of his lungs by a tremendous
whack, and he turned to behold Dr. Stanley Gray towering over him, an
expansive smile upon his face.
"Look out!" Slater coughed, and seized his Adam's apple. "You made me
swallow my cud." The two shook hands warmly.
"We've been expecting you, Tom," said the Doctor. "We're all here
except Parker, and he wired he'd arrive to-morrow."
"Where's Murray?"
"He's around somewhere."