looked about him for a chair with a detachable leg, but the object of
his regard disappeared abruptly behind the key-rack.
"This rat-brained party said he hadn't come."
"He arrived this morning, but we've barely seen him."
"I left Appleton in Juneau. He'll be down on the next boat."
"Appleton? Who's he?" Dr. Gray inquired.
"Oh, he's a new member of the order--initiated last month. He's
learning to be a sleep-hater, like the rest of us. He's recording the
right-of-way."
"What's in the air? None of us know. We didn't even know Murray's
whereabouts--thought he was in Kyak, until he sounded the tocsin from
New York. The other boys have quit their jobs and I've sold my
practice."
"It's a railroad!"
Dr. Gray grinned. "Well! That's the tone I use when I break the news
that it's a girl instead of a boy."
"It's a railroad," Slater repeated, "up the Salmon River!"
"Good Lord! What about those glaciers?"
"Oh, it ain't so much the glaciers and the floating icebergs and the
raging chasms and the quaking tundra--Murray thinks he can overcome
them--it's the mosquitoes and the Copper Trust that are going to figure
in this enterprise. One of 'em will be the death of me, and the other
will bust Murray, if he don't look out. Say, my neck is covered with
bumps till it feels like a dog-collar of seed pearls."
"Do you think we'll have a fight?" asked the doctor, hopefully.
"A fight! It'll be the worst massacre since the Little Big Horn. We're
surrounded already, and no help in sight."
O'Neil found his "boys" awaiting him when he returned to his room.
There was Mellen, lean, gaunt and serious-minded, with the dust of
Chihuahua still upon his shoes; there were McKay, the superintendent,
who had arrived from California that morning; Sheldon, the commissary
man; Elkins; "Doc" Gray; and "Happy Tom" Slater. Parker, the chief
engineer, alone was absent.
"I sent Appleton in from Cortez," he told them, "to come down the river
and make the preliminary survey into Omar. He cables me that he has
filed his locations and everything is O. K. On my way East I stopped
here long enough to buy the Omar cannery, docks, buildings, and town
site. It's all mine, and it will save us ninety days' work in getting
started."
"What do you make of that tundra between Omar and the canon?" queried
McKay, who had crossed the Salmon River delta and knew its character.
"It's like calf's-foot jelly--a man bogs down to his waist in it."
"We'll fill and trestle," said O'Neil.
"We couldn't move a pile-driver twenty feet."
"It's frozen solid in winter."
McKay nodded. "We'll have to drive steam points ahead of every pile, I
suppose, and we'll need Eskimos to work in that cold, but I guess we
can manage somehow."
"That country is like an apple pie," said Tom Slater--"it's better cold
than hot. There's a hundred inches of rainfall at Omar in summer. We'll
all have web feet when we get out."
Sheldon, the light-hearted commissary man, spoke up. "If it's as wet as
all that, well need Finns--instead of Eskimos." He was promptly hooted
into silence.
"I understand those glaciers come down to the edge of the river," the
superintendent ventured.
"They do!" O'Neil acknowledged, "and they're the liveliest ones I ever
saw. Tom can answer for that. One of them is fully four hundred feet
high at the face and four miles across. They're constantly breaking,
too."
"Lumps bigger than this hotel," supplemented Slater. "It's quite a
sight--equal to anything in the state of Maine."
O'Neil laughed with the others at this display of sectional pride, and
then explained: "The problem of passing them sounds difficult, but in
reality it isn't. If those other engineers had looked over the ground
as I did, instead of relying entirely upon hearsay, we wouldn't be
meeting here to-day. Of course I realized that we couldn't build a road
over a moving river of ice, nor in front of one, for that matter, but I
discovered that Nature had made us one concession. She placed her
glaciers on opposite sides of the valley, to be sure, but she placed
the one that comes in from the east bank slightly higher upstream than
the one that comes in from the west. They don't really face each other,
although from the sea they appear to do so. You see the answer?" His
hearers nodded vigorously. "If we cross the river, low down, by a
trestle, and run up the east bank past Jackson glacier until we are
stopped by Garfield--the upper one--then throw a bridge directly
across, and back to the side we started from, we miss them both and
have the river always between them and us. Above the upper crossing
there will be a lot of heavy rock work to do, but nothing unusual, and,
once through the gorge, we come out into the valley, where the other
roads run in from Cortez. They cross three divides, while we run
through on a one-per-cent grade. That will give us a downhill pull on
all heavy freight."
"Sounds as simple as a pair of suspenders, doesn't it?" inquired
Slater. "But wait till you see it. The gorge below Niagara is stagnant
water compared with the cataract above those glaciers. It takes two
looks to see the top of the mountains. And those glaciers
themselves--Well! Language just gums up and sticks when it comes to
describing them."
Mellen, the bridge-builder, spoke for the first time, and the others
listened.
"As I understand it we will cross the river between the glaciers and
immediately below the upper one."
"Exactly!"
He shook his head. "We can't build piers to withstand those heavy bergs
which you tell me are always breaking off."
"I'll explain how we can," said O'Neil. "You've hit the bull's-eye--the
tender spot in the whole enterprise. While the river is narrow and
rapid in front of Jackson--the lower glacier--opposite Garfield there
is a kind of lake, formed, I suppose, when the glacier receded from its
original position. Now then, here lies the joker, the secret of the
whole proposition. This lake is deep, but there is a shallow bar across
its outlet which serves to hold back all but the small bergs. This
gives us a chance to cross in safety. At first I was puzzled to
discover why only the ice from the lower glacier came down-river; then,
when I realized the truth, I knew I had the key to Alaska in my hands.
We'll cross just below this bar. Understand? Of course it all depends
upon Parker's verdict, but I'm so sure his will agree with mine that
I've made my preparations, bought Omar and gathered you fellows
together. We're going to spring the biggest coup in railroad history."
"Where's the money coming from?" Slater inquired, bluntly.
"I'm putting in my own fortune."
"How much is that? I'm dead to all sense of modesty, you see."
"About a million dollars," said O'Neil.
"Humph! That won't get us started."
"I've raised another million in New York." The chief was smiling and
did not seem to resent this inquisitiveness in the least.
"Nothing but a shoe-string!"
"My dear 'Happy,'" laughed the builder, "I don't intend to complete the
road."
"Then--why in blazes are you starting it?" demanded Slater in a
bewilderment which the others evidently shared. "It's one thing to
build a railroad on a contractor's commission, but it's another thing
to build it and pay your own way as you go along. Half a railroad ain't
any good."
"Once my right-of-way is filed it will put those projects from Cortez
out of business. No one but an imbecile would think of building in from
there with the Omar route made possible. Before we come to that Salmon
River bridge the Copper Trust will have to buy us out!"
"That's language!" said "Happy Tom" in sudden admiration. "Those are
words I understand. I withdraw my objections and give my consent to the
deal."
"You are staking your whole fortune on your judgment, as I understand
it," McKay ventured.
"Every dollar of it," Murray answered.
"Say, chief, that's gambling some!" young Sheldon remarked with a
wondering look.
They were deep in their discussion when the telephone broke in noisily.
Sheldon, being nearest to the instrument, answered it. "There's a
newspaper reporter downstairs to interview you," he announced, after an
instant.
"I don't grant interviews," O'Neil said, sharply. He could not guess by
what evil chance the news of his plans had leaked out.
"Nothing doing!" Sheldon spoke into the transmitter. He turned again to
his employer. "Operator says the party doesn't mind waiting."
O'Neil frowned impatiently.
"Throw him out!" Sheldon directed, brusquely, then suddenly dropped the
receiver as if it had burnt his fingers. "Hell! It's a woman, Murray!
She's on the wire. She thanks you sweetly and says she'll wait."
"A woman! A newspaper woman!" O'Neil rose and seized the instrument
roughly. His voice was freezing as he said: "Hello! I refuse to be
interviewed. Yes! There's no use--" His tone suddenly altered. "Miss
Appleton! I beg your pardon. I'll be right down." Turning to his
subordinates, he announced with a wry smile: "This seems to terminate
our interview. She's Dan Appleton's sister, and therefore--" He
shrugged resignedly. "Now run along. I'll see you in the morning."
His "boys" made their way down to the street, talking guardedly as they
went. All were optimistic save Slater, whose face remained shrouded in
its customary gloom.
"Cheer up, 'Happy'!" Dr. Gray exhorted him. "It's the biggest thing we
ever tackled."
"Wait! Just wait till you've seen the place," Tom said.
"Don't you think it can be done?"
"Nope!"
"Come, come!"
"It's impossible! Of course WE'LL do it, but it's impossible, just the
same. It will mean a scrap, too, like none of us ever saw, and I was
raised in a logging-camp where fighting is the general recreation. If I
was young, like the rest of you, I wouldn't mind; but I'm old--and my
digestion's gone. I can't hardly take care of myself any more, Doc. I'm
too feeble to fight or--" He signaled a passing car; it failed to stop
and he rushed after it, dodging vehicles with the agility of a rabbit
and swinging his heavy war-bag as if it weighed no more than a good
resolution.
O'Neil entered the ladies' parlor with a feeling of extreme annoyance,
expecting to meet an inquisitive, bold young woman bent upon exploiting
his plans and his personality in the usual inane journalistic fashion.
He was surprised and offended that Dan Appleton, in whom he had reposed
the utmost faith, should have betrayed his secret. Publicity was a
thing he detested at all times, and at present he particularly dreaded
its effect. But he was agreeably surprised in the girl who came toward
him briskly with hand outstretched.
Miss Appleton was her brother's double; she had his frank blue eyes,
his straw-gold hair, his humorous smile and wide-awake look. She was
not by any means beautiful!--her features were too irregular, her nose
too tip-tilted, her mouth too generous for that--but she seemed crisp,
clean-cut, and wholesome What first struck O'Neil was her effect of
boyishness. From the crown of her plain straw "sailor" to the soles of
her sensible walking-boots there was no suggestion of feminine
frippery. She wore a plain shirtwaist and a tailored skirt, and her
hair was arranged simply. The wave in its pale gold was the only
concession to mere prettiness. Yet she gave no impression of deliberate
masculinity. She struck one as merely not interested in clothes,
instinctively expressing in her dress her own boyish directness and her
businesslike absorption in her work.
"You're furious, of course; anybody would be," she began, then laughed
so frankly that his eyes softened and the wrinkles at their corners
deepened.
"I fear I was rude before I learned you were Dan's sister," he
apologized. "But you see I'm a bit afraid of newspaper people."
"I knew you'd struggle--although Dan described you as a perfectly
angelic person."
"Indeed!"
"But I'm a real reporter, so I won't detain you long. I don't care
where you were born or where you went to school, or what patent
breakfast-food you eat. Tell me, are you going to build another
railroad?"
"I hope so. I'm always building roads when my bids are low enough to
secure the contracts; that's my business."
"Are you going to build one in Alaska?"
"Possibly! There seems to be an opportunity there--but Dan has probably
told you as much about that as I am at liberty to tell. He's been over
the ground."
She pursed her lips at him. "You know very well, or you ought to know,
that Dan wouldn't tell me a thing while he's working for you. He hasn't
said a word, but--Is that why you came in frowning like a
thunder-cloud? Did you think he set me on your trail?"
"I think I do know that he wouldn't do anything really indiscreet."
Murray regarded her with growing favor. There was something about this
boyish girl which awakened the same spontaneous liking he had felt upon
his first meeting with her brother. He surprised her by confessing
boldly:
"I AM building a railroad--to the interior of Alaska. I've been east
and raised the money, my men are here; we'll begin operations at once."
"That's what Mr. Gordon told me about his scheme, but he hasn't done
much, so far."
"My line will put his out of business, also that of the Trust, and the
various wildcat promoters."
"Where does your road start from?"
"The town of Omar, on King Phillip Sound, near Hope and Cortez. It will
run up the Salmon River and past the glaciers which those other men
refused to tackle."
"If I weep, it is for joy," said the girl. "I don't like Curtis Gordon.
I call him Simon Legree."
"Why?"
"Well, he impresses me as a real old-time villain--with the
riding-boots and the whip and all that. 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' is my
favorite play, it's so funny. This is a big story you've given me, Mr.
O'Neil."
"I realize that."
"It has the biggest news value of anything Alaskan which has 'broken'
for some time. I think you are a very nice person to interview, after
all."
"Wait! I don't want you to use a word of what I've told you."
Miss Appleton's clearly penciled brows rose inquiringly. "Then why
didn't you keep still?"
"You asked me. I told you because you are Dan Appleton's sister.
Nevertheless, I don't want it made public."
"Let's sit down," said the girl with a laugh. "To tell you the truth, I
didn't come here to interview you for my paper. I'm afraid I've tried
your patience awfully." A faint flush tinged her clear complexion. "I
just came, really, to get some news of Dan."
"He's perfectly well and happy, and you'll see him in a few days." Miss
Appleton nodded. "So he wrote, but I couldn't wait! Now won't you tell
me all about him--not anything about his looks and his health, but
little unimportant things that will mean something. You see, I'm his
mother and his sister and his sweetheart."
O'Neil did as he was directed and before long found himself reciting
the details of that trying trip up the Salmon River. He told her how he
had sent the young engineer out to run the preliminary survey for the
new railroad, and added: "He is in a fair way to realize his ambition
of having you with him all the time. I'm sure that will please you."
"And it is my ambition to make enough money to have him with me," she
announced. With an air of some importance she continued: "I'll tell you
a secret: I'm writing for the magazines--stories!" She sat back
awaiting his enthusiasm. When she saw that it was not forthcoming she
exclaimed: "My! How you do rave over the idea!"
"I congratulate you, of course, but--"
"Now don't tell me that you tried it once. Of course you did. I know
it's a harmless disease, like the measles, and that everybody has it
when they're young. Above all, don't volunteer the information that
your own life is full of romance and would make a splendid novel. They
all say that."
Murray O'Neil felt the glow of personal interest that results from the
discovery in another of a congenial sense of humor.
"I didn't suppose you had to write," he said. "Dan told me you had
invested your fortune and were on Easy Street."
"That was poetic license. I fictionized slightly in my report to him
because I knew he was doing so well."
"Then your investment didn't turn out fortunately?"
Miss Appleton hesitated. "You seem to be a kindly, trusting person. I'm
tempted to destroy your faith in human nature."
"Please don't."
"Yes, I shall. My experience may help you to avoid the pitfalls of high
finance. Well, then, it was a very sad little fortune, to begin with,
like a boy in grammar-school--just big enough to be of no assistance.
But even a boy's-size fortune looked big to me. I wanted to invest it
in something sure--no national-bank stock, subject to the danger of an
absconding cashier, mind you; no government bonds with the possibility
of war to depreciate them; but something stable and agricultural, with
the inexhaustible resources of nature back of it. This isn't my own
language. I cribbed it from the apple-man."
"Apple-man?"
"Yes. He had brown eyes, and a silky mustache, and a big irrigation
plan over east of the mountains. You gave him your money and he gave
you a perfectly good receipt. Then he planted little apple trees. He
nursed them tenderly for five years, after which he turned them over to
you with his blessing, and you lived happily for evermore. At least
that was the idea. You couldn't fail to grow rich, for the water always
bubbled through his little ditch and it never froze nor rained to spoil
things, I used to love apples. And then there was my name, which seemed
a good omen. But lately I've considered changing 'Appleton' to 'Berry'
or 'Plummer' or some other kind of fruit."
"I infer that the scheme failed." O'Neil's eyes were half closed with
amusement.
"Yes. It was a good scheme, too, except for the fact that the
irrigation ditch ran uphill, and that there wasn't any water where it
started from, and that apples never had been made to grow in that
locality because of something in the soil, and that Brown-eyed Betty's
title to the land wouldn't hold water any more than the ditch.
Otherwise I'm sure he'd have made a success and I'd have spent my
declining years in a rocking-chair under the falling apple blossoms,
eating Pippins and Jonathans and Northern Spies. I can't bear to touch
them now. Life at my boarding-house is one long battle against apple
pies, apple puddings, apple tapioca. Ugh! I hate the very word."
"I can understand your aversion," laughed O'Neil. "I wonder if you
would let me order dinner for both of us, provided I taboo fruit.
Perhaps I'll think of something more to tell you about Dan. I'm sure he
wouldn't object--"
"Oh, my card is all the chaperon I need; it takes me everywhere and
renders me superior to the smaller conventionalities." She handed him
one, and he read:
ELIZA V. APPLETON
THE REVIEW
"May I ask what the 'V' stands for?" He held up the card between his
thumb and finger.
Miss Appleton blushed, for all the world like a boy, then answered,
stiffly:
"It stands for Violet. But that isn't my fault, and I'm doing my best
to live it down."
VIII
IN WHICH WE COME TO OMAR
"Miss Appleton," said the editor of The Review, "would you like to take
a vacation?"
"Is that your delicate way of telling me I'm discharged?" inquired
Eliza.
"You know very well we wouldn't fire you. But you haven't had a
vacation for three years, and you need a rest."
"I thought I was looking extremely well, for me."
"We're going to send you on an assignment--to Alaska--if you'll go."
"I'm thinking of quitting newspaper-work for good. The magazines pay
better, and I'm writing a book."
"I know. Perhaps this will just fit in with your plans, for it has to
do with your pet topic of conservation. Those forestry stories of yours
and the article on the Water Power Combination made a hit, didn't they?"
"I judge so. Anyhow the magazine people want more."
"Good! Here's your chance to do something big for yourself and for us.
Those Alaskan coal claimants have been making a great effort in
Washington to rush their patents through, and there seems to be some
possibility of their succeeding unless the public wakes up. We want to
show up the whole fraudulent affair, show how the entries were illegal,
and how the agents of the Trust are trying to put over the greatest
steal of the century. It's the Heidlemanns that are back of it--and a
few fellows like Murray O'Neil."
"O'Neil!"
"You know him, don't you?"
"Yes. I interviewed him a year ago last spring, when he started his
railroad."
"He's fighting for one of the biggest and richest groups of claims.
He's backed by some Eastern people. It's the psychological moment to
expose both the railroad and the coal situation, for the thieves are
fighting among themselves--Gordon, O'Neil, and the Heidlemanns."
"Mr. O'Neil is no thief," said the girl, shortly.
"Of course not. He's merely trying to snatch control of an empire, and
to grab ten million dollars' worth of coal, for nothing. That's not
theft, it's financial genius! Fortunately, however, the public is
rousing itself--coming to regard its natural resources as its own and
not the property of the first financier who lays hold of them. Call it
what you will, but give us the true story of the Kyak coal and, above
all, the story of the railroad battle. Things are growing bitter up
there already, and they're bound to get rapidly worse. Give us the news
and we'll play it up big through our Eastern syndicate. You can handle
the magazine articles in a more dignified way, if you choose. A few
good vigorous, fearless, newspaper stories, written by some one on the
ground, will give Congress such a jolt that no coal patents will be
issued this season and no Government aid will be given to the
railroads. You get the idea?"
"Certainly! But it will take time to do all that."
"Spend a year at it if necessary. The Review is fighting for a
principle; it will back you to any extent. Isn't it worth a year, two
years, of hard labor, to awaken the American people to the knowledge
that they are being robbed of their birthright? I have several men whom
I could send, but I chose you because your work along this line has
given you a standing. This is your chance, Eliza--to make a big
reputation and to perform a real service to the country. It's a chance
that may never come your way again. Will you go?"
"Of course I'll go."
"I knew you would. You're all business, and that's what makes a hit in
this office. You're up against a tough proposition, but I can trust you
to make good on it. You can't fail if you play one interest against the
other, for they're all fighting like Kilkenny cats. The Heidlemanns are
a bunch of bandits; Gordon is a brilliant, unscrupulous promoter;
O'Neil is a cold, shrewd schemer with more brains and daring than any
of the others--he showed that when he walked in there and seized the
Salmon River canon. He broke up all their plans and set the Copper
Trust by the ears, but I understand they've got him bottled up at last.
Here's your transportation--on Saturday's steamer." The editor shook
Miss Appleton's hand warmly as she rose. "Good luck, Eliza! Remember,
we won't balk, no matter how lively your stuff is. The hotter the
better--and that's what the magazines want, too. If I were you, I'd
gum-shoe it. They're a rotten crowd and they might send you back if
they got wise."
"I think not," said Eliza, quietly.
The town of Omar lay drenched in mist as the steamer bearing the
representative of The Review drew in at the dock. The whole region was
sodden and rain-soaked, verdant with a lush growth. No summer sun shone
here, to bake sprouting leaves or sear tender grasses. Beneath the
sheltering firs a blanket of moss extended over hill and vale,
knee-deep and treacherous to the foot. The mountain crests were white,
and down every gully streamed water from the melting snows. The country
itself lay on end, as if crumpled by some giant hand, and presented a
tropical blend of colors. There was the gray of fog and low-swept
clouds, the dense, dark green of the spruces, underlaid with the
richer, lighter shades where the summer vegetation rioted. And running
through it all were the shimmering, silent reaches of the sound.