stumbled into sight of the camp. Appleton halted his command and stole
forward, approaching the place through the tangled alders which flanked
it. He had anticipated that the rival party would be up to this point
by now, if not even farther advanced, and he was both angered and
relieved to sight the tops of other tents pitched a few hundred yards
beyond Mellen's outfit. So they were here! He had arrived in time,
after all! A feeling of exultation conquered the deathly fatigue that
slowed his limbs. Although he still had to pass the invader's camp and
establish himself at the canon, the certainty that he had made good
thus far was ample reward for his effort.
A dog broke into furious barking as he emerged from cover, and he had a
moment's anxiety lest it serve as warning to the enemy; but a few quick
strides brought him to the tent of Mellen's foreman. Going in, he
roused the man, who was sleeping soundly.
"Hello!" cried the foreman, jumping up and rubbing his eyes, "I thought
Curtis Gordon had taken possession."
"Hush! Don't wake them up," Dan cautioned.
"Oh, there's no danger of disturbing them with this infernal
cannonading going on all the time." The night resounded to a rumbling
crash as some huge mass of ice split off, perhaps two miles away.
"When did they arrive?"
"Night before last. They've located right alongside of us. Gee! we were
surprised when they showed up. They expect to break camp in the
morning." He yawned widely.
"Hm-m! They're making tracks, aren't they? Were they friendly?"
"Oh, sure! So were we. There was nothing else to do, was there? We had
no orders."
"I have two dozen men and four boatloads of dynamite with me. I'm going
to hold that mountainside."
"Then you're going to fight!" All vestige of drowsiness had fled from
the man's face.
"Not if we can help it. Who is in charge of this crew?"
"Gordon himself."
"Gordon!"
"Yes! And he's got a tough gang with him."
"Armed?"
"Sure! This is a bear country, you know."
"Listen! I want you to tell him, as innocently as you can, that we're
on the job ahead of him. Tell him we've been there for a week and have
loaded that first rock shoulder and expect to shoot it off as soon as
possible. You can tell him, too, that I'm up there and he'd better see
me before trying to pass through."
"I've got you! But that won't stop him."
"Perhaps! Now have you any grub in camp?"
"No."
"We threw ours overboard, to make time. Send up anything you can spare;
we're played out."
"It'll be nothing but beans, and they're moldy."
"We can fight on beans, and we'll eat the paper off those giant
cartridges if we have to. Don't fail to warn Gordon that the hillside
is mined, and warn him loud enough for his swampers to hear."
Appleton hastened back to his boats, where he found his men sprawled
among the boulders sleeping the sleep of complete exhaustion. They were
drenched, half numbed by the chill air of the glacier, and it was well
that he roused them.
"Gordon's men are camped just above," he told them. "But we must get
through without waking them. No talking, now, until we're safe."
Silently the crew resumed their tow-lines, fitting them to their aching
shoulders; gingerly the boats were edged out into the current.
It was fortunate that the place was noisy, and that the voice of the
river and the periodic bombardment from the glaciers drowned the rattle
of loose stones dislodged by their footsteps. But it was a trying
half-hour that followed. Dan did not breathe easily until his party had
crossed the bar and were safely out upon the placid waters of the lake,
with the last stage of the journey ahead of them.
About mid-forenoon of the following day Curtis Gordon halted his party
at the lower end of the rapids and went on alone. To his right lay the
cataract and along the steep slope against which it chafed wound a
faint footpath scarcely wide enough in places for a man to pass. This
trail dipped in and out, wound back and forth around frowning
promontories. It dodged through alder thickets or spanned slides of
loose rock, until, three miles above, it emerged into the more open
country back of the parent range. It had been worn by the feet of wild
animals and it followed closely the right-of-way of the S. R. & N. To
the left the hills rose swiftly in great leaps to the sky; to the
right, so close that a false step meant disaster, roared the cataract,
muddy and foam-flecked.
As Gordon neared the first bluff he heard, above the clamor of the
flood, a faint metallic "tap-tap-tap," as of hammer and drill, and,
drawing closer, he saw Dan Appleton perched upon a rock which commanded
a view in both directions. Just around the shoulder, in a tiny gulch,
or gutter from the slopes above, were pitched several tents, from one
of which curled the smoke of a cook-stove. Close at hand were moored
four battered poling-boats.
"Look out!" Appleton shouted from on high.
Gordon flushed angrily and kept on, scanning the surroundings with
practised eye.
"Hey, you!" Dan called, for a second time. "Keep back! We're going to
shoot."
Still heedless of the warning, Gordon held stubbornly to his stride. He
noted the heads of several men projecting from behind boulders, and his
anger rose. How dared this whipper-snapper shout at him! He felt
inclined to toss the insolent young scoundrel into the rapids. Then
suddenly his resentment gave place to a totally different emotion. The
slanting bank midway between him and Appleton lifted itself bodily in a
chocolate-colored upheaval, and the roar of a dynamite blast rolled out
across the river. It was but a feeble echo of the majestic
reverberations from the glacier across the lake, but it was impressive
enough to send Curtis Gordon scurrying to a place of safety. He wheeled
in his tracks, doubling himself over, and his long legs began to thresh
wildly. Reaching the shelter of a rock crevice, he hurled himself into
it, while over his place of refuge descended a shower of dirt and rocks
and debris. When the rain of missiles had subsided he stepped forth,
his face white with fury, his big hands twitching. His voice was hoarse
as he shouted his protest.
Appleton scrambled carefully down from his perch in the warm sunshine
and approached with insolent leisure.
"Say! Do you want to get your fool self killed?" he cried; then in an
altered tone: "Oh! Is it you, Gordon?"
"You knew very well it was I." Gordon swallowed hard and partially
controlled his wrath. "What do you mean by such carelessness?" he
demanded. "You ought to be hung for a thing like that." He brushed the
dirt from his expensive hunting-suit.
"I yelled my head off! You must be deaf."
"You saw me coming! Don't say you didn't. Fortunately I wasn't hurt."
In a tone of command he added, "You'll have to stop blasting until I go
through with my party."
"Sorry! Every day counts with us." Appleton grinned. "You know how it
is--short season, and all that."
"Come, come! Don't be an idiot. I have no time to waste,"
"Then you'll have to go around," said Dan. "This isn't a public road,
you know."
Gordon had come to argue, to pacify, to gain his ends by lying, if
necessary, but this impudent jackanapes infuriated him. His plans had
gone smoothly so far, and the unexpected threat of resistance
momentarily provoked him beyond restraint.
"You scoundrel," he cried. "You'd have blown me into the river if you
could. But I'll go through this canon--"
"Go as far and as fast as you like," Dan interrupted with equal heat,
"only take your own chances, and have a net spread at the lower end of
the rapids to catch the remains."
They eyed each other angrily; then Gordon said, more quietly:
"This is ridiculous. You can't stop me."
"Maybe I can't and maybe I can, I'm under orders to rush this work and
I don't intend to knock off to please you. I've planted shots at
various places along our right-of-way and I'll set 'em off when it
suits me. If you're so anxious to go up-river, why don't you cross over
to the moraine? There's a much better trail on that side. You'll find
better walking a few miles farther up, and you'll run no danger of
being hurt."
"I intend to run a survey along this hillside."
"There isn't room; we beat you to it."
"The law provides--"
"Law? Jove! I'd forgotten there is such a thing. Why don't you go to
law and settle the question that way? We'll have our track laid by the
time you get action, and I'm sure Mr. O'Neil wouldn't place any
obstacles in the way of your free passage back and forth. He's awfully
obliging about such things."
Gordon ground his fine, white, even teeth. "Don't you understand that
I'm entitled to a right-of-way through here under the law of common
user?" he asked, with what patience he could command.
"If you're trying to get a legal opinion on the matter why don't you
see a lawyer? I'm not a lawyer, neither am I a public speaker nor a
piano-tuner, nor anything like that--I'm an engineer."
"Don't get funny. I can't send my men in here if you continue blasting."
"So it seems to me, but you appear to be hell bent on trying it."
Dan was enjoying himself and he deliberately added to the other's anger
by inquiring, as if in the blinding light of a new idea:
"Why don't you bridge over and go up the other side?" He pointed to the
forbidding, broken country which faced them across the rapids.
Gordon snorted. "How long do you intend to maintain this preposterous
attitude?" he asked.
"As long as the powder lasts--and there's a good deal of it."
The promoter chewed his lip for a moment in perplexity, then said with
a geniality he was far from feeling:
"Appleton, you're all right! I admire your loyalty, even though it
happens to be for a mistaken cause. I always liked you. I admire
loyalty--It's something I need in my business. What I need I pay for,
and I pay well."
"So your man Linn told us."
"I never really discharged you. In fact, I intended to re-employ you,
for I need you badly. You can name your own salary and go to work any
time."
"In other words, you mean you'll pay me well to let you through."
"Fix your own price and I'll double it."
"Will you come with me up this trail a little way?" Dan inquired.
"Certainly."
"There's a spot where I'd like to have you stand. I'll save you the
trouble of walking back to your men--you'll beat the echo."
There was a pause while Gordon digested this. "Better think it over,"
he said at length. "I'll never let O'Neil build his road, not if it
breaks me, and you're merely laying yourself open to arrest by
threatening me."
"Please come with me!" urged Appleton. "You'll never know what hit you."
With a curse the promoter wheeled and walked swiftly down the trail by
which he had come.
"Get ready to shoot," Dan ordered when he had returned to his
vantage-point. A few moments later he saw the invading party approach,
but he withheld his warning shout until it was close at hand. Evidently
Gordon did not believe he would have the reckless courage to carry out
his threat, and had determined to put him to the test.
The engineer gauged his distance nicely, and when the new-comers had
fairly passed within the danger zone he gave the signal to fire.
A blast heavier than the one which had discouraged Gordon's advance
followed his command, and down upon the new-comers rained a deluge
which sent them scurrying to cover. Fortunately no one was injured.
An hour later the invaders had pitched camp a mile below, and after
placing a trusted man on guard Appleton sent his weary men to bed.
It was Curtis Gordon himself who brought O'Neil the first tidings of
this encounter, for, seeing the uselessness of an immediate attempt to
overcome Dan's party by force, he determined to make formal protest. He
secured a boat, and a few hours later the swift current swept him down
to the lower crossing, where McKay put a locomotive at his disposal for
the trip to Omar. By the time he arrived there he was quite himself
again, suave, self-possessed, and magnificently outraged at the
treatment he had received. O'Neil met him with courtesy.
"Your man Appleton has lost his head," Gordon began. "I've come to ask
you to call him off."
"He is following instructions to the letter."
"Do you mean that you refuse to allow me to run my right-of-way along
that hillside? Impossible!" His voice betokened shocked surprise.
"I am merely holding my own survey. I can't quit work to accommodate
you."
"But, my dear sir, I must insist that you do."
O'Neil shrugged.
"Then there is but one way to construe your refusal--it means that you
declare war."
"You saved me that necessity when you sent Linn to hire my men away."
Gordon ignored this reference. "You must realize, O'Neil," said he,
"that I am merely asking what is mine. I have the right to use that
canonside--the right to use your track at that point, in fact, if it
proves impracticable to parallel it--under the law of common user. You
are an experienced contractor; you must be familiar with that law."
"Yes. I looked it up before beginning operations, and I found it has
never been applied to Alaska."
Gordon started. "That's a ridiculous statement."
"Perhaps, but it's true. Alaska is not a territory, it's a district,
and it has its own code. Until the law of common user has been applied
here you'll have to use the other side of the river."
"That would force me to bridge twice in passing the upper glacier. We
shall see what the courts have to say."
"Thanks! I shall be grateful for the delay."
Gordon rose with a bow. The interview had been short and to the point.
O'Neil put an engine at his service for the return trip, and after a
stiff adieu the visitor departed, inwardly raging.
It was his first visit to Omar, and now that he was here he determined
to see it all. But first another matter demanded his attention--a
matter much in his mind of late, concerning which he had reached a more
or less satisfactory decision during his journey.
He went directly to the new hotel and inquired for Gloria Gerard.
Beneath the widow's coldness when she came to meet him he detected an
uncertainty, a frightened indecision which assured him of success, and
he set himself to his task with the zest he always felt in bending
another to his will.
"It has been the greatest regret of my life that we quarreled," he told
her when their strained greeting was over. "I felt that I had to come
and see with my own eyes that you are well."
"I am quite well."
"Two people who have been to each other as much as we have been cannot
lightly separate; their lives cannot be divided without a painful
readjustment." He paused, then reflecting that he could afford a little
sentimental extravagance, added, "Flowers cannot easily be
transplanted, and love, after all, is the frailest of blooms."
"I--think it is perennial. Have you--missed me?" Her dark eyes were
strained and curious.
"My dear, you can never know how much, nor how deeply distressing this
whole affair has been to me." He managed to put an affecting pathos
into words sufficiently banal, for he was an excellent actor. "I find
that I am all sentiment. Under the shell of the hard-headed business
man beats the heart of a school-boy. The memory of the hours we have
spent together, the places we have seen, the joys and discouragements
we have shared, haunts me constantly. Memory can glean but never renew:
'joy's recollection is no longer joy while sorrow's memory is sorrow
still.'"
The spell of his personality worked strongly upon her. "Recollection is
the only paradise from which we cannot be turned out," she said. "You
read that to me once, but I didn't dream that my own happiness would
some day consist of recollection."
"Why should it, Gloria? Hope is ready to welcome you. Your home stands
open; my arms are outstretched."
"No!" she exclaimed, with a shake of her dark head. "There is some one
besides myself to consider. Natalie is happy here; no one seems to know
or to care what I have done."
"But surely you are not satisfied with this."
He ran his eye critically over the garish newness of the little hotel
parlor. It was flimsy, cheap, fresh with paint, very different from the
surroundings he had given her at Hope. "I wonder that he presumed to
offer you this after what you have had. A hotel-keeper! A landlady!"
"I was glad to get even this, for I have no pride now," she returned,
coldly. "At least the house is honest, and the men who come here are
the same. Mr. O'Neil is especially kind to Natalie, and she thinks a
great deal of him."
"I presume he wants to marry her."
"I pray that he will. I don't intend her to make the mistake I did."
Gordon received this announcement with grim satisfaction. It was what
he had suspected, and it fitted perfectly into his plans.
"I sha'n't allow this to continue, Gloria," he said. "Our difference
has gone far enough, and I sha'n't permit O'Neil to put me in his debt.
We have come to a final understanding, he and I. While my views on the
holiness of the marriage relation have not changed in the least, still
I am ready to follow your wishes."
"You--mean it?" she queried, breathlessly.
"I do. Come home, Gloria."
"Wait! I must tell Natalie." She rose unsteadily and left the room,
while he reflected with mingled scorn and amusement upon the weakness
of human nature and the gullibility of women.
A moment later mother and daughter appeared, arm in arm, both very pale.
"Is this true?" Natalie demanded.
"Quite true. You and Gloria seem to think I owe something; I never
shirk a debt." Mrs. Gerard's fingers tightened painfully upon her
daughter's arm as he continued: "There is only one condition upon which
I insist: you must both return to Hope at once and have done with
this--this man."
Natalie hesitated, but the look in her mother's eyes decided her. With
some difficulty she forced herself to acquiesce, and felt the grip upon
her arm suddenly relax. "When will the wedding take place?" she asked.
"At the earliest possible moment," Gordon declared, with well-feigned
seriousness. "Once we return to God's country--"
"No!" cried Natalie. "We can't go back to Hope until she is married; it
would be scandalous."
"Why more scandalous to accept my protection than that of a stranger?
Do you care what these people think?" he demanded, with an air of fine
scorn.
"Yes! I care very much."
"Is there any--reason for waiting?" Mrs. Gerard inquired.
"Many! Too many to enumerate. It is my condition that you both leave
Omar at once."
Gloria Gerard looked at her daughter in troubled indecision, but
Natalie answered firmly:
"We can't do that."
"So! You have your own plans, no doubt, and it doesn't trouble you that
you are standing in the way of your mother's respectability!" His voice
was harsh, his sneer open. "Bless my soul! Is the generosity to be all
on my side? Or has this man O'Neil forbidden you to associate with me?"
"I don't trust you." Natalie flared up. "I'm afraid you are trying--"
"It is my condition, and I am adamant. Believe me, O'Neil knows of your
disgrace, or will learn of it in time. It would be well to protect your
name while you can." Turning to the other woman, he said loudly:
"Gloria, the girl is ready to sacrifice you to her own ends."
"Wait!" Natalie's nerves were tingling with dislike of the man, but she
said steadily: "I shall do exactly as mother wishes."
Be it said to the credit of Gloria Gerard that she did not hesitate.
"I shall be here when you are ready," she told him.
With an exclamation of rage Gordon rose and strode out of the room.
XIII
WE JOURNEY TO A PLACE OF MANY WONDERS
Curtis Gordon's men broke camp upon his return from Omar, and by taking
the east bank of the Salmon River pressed through to the upper valley.
Here they recrossed to the west side and completed their survey, with
the exception of the three-mile gap which Dan Appleton held.
Gordon continued to smart under the sting of his defeat, however.
O'Neil had gotten the better of him in argument, and Natalie's
simplicity had proved more than a match for his powers of persuasion.
At no time had he seriously considered making Mrs. Gerard his wife, but
he had thought to entice the two women back under his own roof, in
order to humble both them and their self-appointed protector. He felt
sure that Natalie's return to Hope and her residence there would injure
her seriously in the eyes of the community, and this would be a stab to
O'Neil. Although he had failed for the moment, he did not abandon the
idea. His display of anger upon leaving the hotel had been due mainly
to disappointment at the checkmate. But knowing well the hold he
possessed upon the older woman, he laid it away for later use when the
fight grew hot, and meanwhile devoted himself to devising further
measures by which to harass his enemy and incidentally advance his own
fortunes.
Gordon's business career had consisted of a series of brilliant
manipulations whereby, with little to go upon, he had forced financial
recognition for himself. No one knew better than he the unstable
foundation beneath his Alaskan enterprises; yet more than once he had
turned as desperate ventures into the semblance of success. By his
present operations he sought not only to hamper O'Neil, but to create
an appearance of opposition to both him and the Trust that could be
coined into dollars and cents. There are in the commercial world money
wolves who prey upon the weak and depend upon the spirit of compromise
in their adversaries. Gordon was one of these. He had the faculty of
snatching at least half a victory from apparent defeat, and for this
reason he had been able to show a record sufficiently impressive to
convince the average investor of his ability.
By purchasing for a song the McDermott rights at Kyak he had placed
himself in position to share in the benefits of the Heidlemann
breakwater, and by rapidly pushing his tracks ahead he made his rivalry
seem formidable. As a means of attack upon O'Neil he adopted a
procedure common in railroad-building. He amended his original survey
so that it crossed that of the S. R. & N. midway between the lower
bridge over the Salmon River and the glaciers, and at that point began
the hasty erection of a grade.
It was at the cost of no little inconvenience that he rushed forward a
large body of men and supplies, and began to lay track across the S. R.
& N. right-of-way. If Appleton could hold a hillside, he reasoned, he
himself could hold a crossing, if not permanently, at least for a
sufficient length of time to serve his purpose.
His action came as a disagreeable surprise to Omar. These battles for
crossings have been common in the history of railroading, and they have
not infrequently resulted in sanguinary affrays. Long after the ties
are spiked and the heads are healed, the legal rights involved have
been determined, but usually amid such a tangle of conflicting
testimony and such a confusion of technicalities as to leave the
justice of the final decision in doubt. In the unsettled conditions
that prevailed in the Salmon River valley physical possession of a
right-of-way was at least nine-tenths of the law, and O'Neil realized
that he must choose between violence and a compromise. Not being given
to compromise, he continued his construction work, and drew closer, day
by day, to the point of contact.
Reports came from the front of his opponent's preparations for
resistance. Gordon had laid several hundred yards of light rails upon
his grade, and on these he had mounted a device in the nature of a
"go-devil" or skip, which he shunted back and forth by means of a
donkey-engine and steel cable. With this in operation across the point
of intersection like a shuttle, interference would be extremely
dangerous. In addition, he had built blockhouses and breast-works of
ties, and in these, it was reported, he had stationed the pick of his
hired helpers, armed and well provisioned.
Toward this stronghold Murray O'Neil's men worked, laying his road-bed
as straight as an arrow, and as the intervening distance decreased
anxiety and speculation at Omar increased.