greatest interest was Eliza Appleton. Since Dan's departure for the
front she had done her modest best to act the part he had forced upon
her, and in furtherance of their conspiracy she had urged O'Neil to
fulfil his promise of taking her over the work. She felt an
ever-growing curiosity to see those glaciers, about which she had heard
so much; and she reflected, though not without a degree of
self-contempt, that nothing could be more favorable to her design than
the intimacy of several days together on the trail. Nothing breeds a
closer relationship than the open life, nothing brings people more
quickly into accord or hopeless disagreement. Although she had no
faintest idea that Murray could or would ever care seriously for her,
she felt that there was a bare possibility of winning his transient
interest and in that way, perhaps, affording her brother time in which
to attain his heart's desire. Of course, it was all utterly absurd, yet
it was serious enough to Dan; and her own feelings--well, they didn't
matter.
She was greatly excited when O'Neil announced one evening:
"I'm ready to make that trip to the front, if you are. I have business
at Kyak; so after we've seen the glaciers we will go down there and you
can take in the coal-fields."
"How long shall we be gone?"
"Ten days, perhaps. We'll start in the morning."
"I'm ready to leave at a moment's notice."
"Then perhaps you'd better help Natalie."
"Natalie!" exclaimed Eliza, seeing all her well-laid plans tottering.
"Is she going?"
"Oh yes! It's an opportunity she shouldn't miss, and I thought it would
be pleasanter for you if she went with us."
Eliza was forced to acknowledge his thoughtfulness, although it angered
her to be sacrificed to the proprieties. Her newspaper training had
made her feel superior to such things, and this of all occasions was
one upon which she would have liked to be free of mere conventions. But
of course she professed the greatest delight.
O'Neil had puzzled her greatly of late; for at times he seemed wrapped
up in Natalie, and at other times he actually showed a preference for
Eliza's own company. He was so impartial in his attentions that at one
moment the girl would waver in her determination and in the next would
believe herself succeeding beyond her hope. The game confused her
emotions curiously. She accused herself of being overbold, and then she
noted with horror that she was growing as sensitive to his apparent
coldness as if she were really in earnest. She had not supposed that
the mere acting of a sentimental role could so obsess her.
To counteract this tendency she assumed a very professional air when
they set out on the following morning. She was once more Eliza Appleton
the reporter, and O'Neil, in recognition of this fact, explained
rapidly the difficulties of construction which he had met and overcome.
As she began to understand there came to her a fuller appreciation of
the man and the work he was doing. Natalie, however, could not seem to
grasp the significance of the enterprise. She saw nothing beyond the
even gravel road-bed, the uninteresting trestles and bridges and cuts
and fills, the like of which she had seen many times before, and her
comment was childlike. O'Neil, however, appeared to find her naivete
charming, and Eliza reflected bitterly:
"If my nose was perfectly chiseled and my eyebrows nice, he wouldn't
care if my brain was the size of a rabbit's. Here am I, talking like a
human being and really understanding him, while she sits like a Greek
goddess, wondering if her hat is on straight. If ever I find a girl
uglier than I am I'll make her my bosom friend." She jabbed her pencil
viciously at her notebook.
The track by this time had been extended considerably beyond the lower
crossing--a circumstance which rendered their boat journey to the
glaciers considerably shorter than the one Dan had taken with his cargo
of dynamite. When the engine finally stopped it was in the midst of a
tent village beside which flowed one of the smaller branches of the
Salmon. In the distance the grade stretched out across the level swamps
like a thin, lately healed scar, and along its crest gravel-trains were
slowly creeping. An army of men like a row of ants were toiling upon
it, and still farther away shone the white sides of another encampment.
"Oh! That's Gordon's track," Eliza cried, quickly. "Why, you're nearly
up to him. How do you intend to get across?"
O'Neil nodded at the long thin line of moiling men in the distance.
"There's a loose handle in each one of those picks," he said.
"Somebody will be killed in that kind of a racket."
"That rests with Gordon. I'm going through."
"Suppose he had said that when Dan stopped him at the canon?"
"If he'd said it and meant it he'd probably have done it. He bluffs; I
don't! I have to go on; he didn't. Now lunch is served; and since this
is our last glimpse of civilization, I advise you to fortify
yourselves. From here on we shall see nothing but the wilderness."
He led them to a spotless tent which had been newly erected at the edge
of the spruce. It was smoothly stretched upon a framework of timber,
its walls and floor were of dressed lumber, and within were two cots
all in clean linen. There were twin washstands also, and dressers and
rocking-chairs, a table and a stove. On the floor beside the beds lay a
number of deep, soft bear-rugs. A meal was spread amid glass and
figured china and fresh new napery.
"How cozy! Why, it's a perfect dear of a house!" exclaimed Natalie.
"You will leave everything but your necessaries here, for we are going
light," Murray told them. "You will stop here on our way back to Kyak,
and I'll warrant you'll be glad to see the place by that time."
"You built this just for us," Eliza said, accusingly.
"Yes. But it didn't take long. I 'phoned this morning that you were
coming." He ran a critical eye over the place to see that its equipment
was complete, then drew out their chairs for them.
A white-coated cook-boy served a luncheon in courses, the quality of
which astonished the visitors, for there was soup, a roast, delicious
vegetables, crisp salad, a camembert which O'Neil had imported for his
private use, and his own particular blend of coffee.
The girls ate with appetites that rivaled those of the men in the
mess-tent near by. Their presence in the heart of a great activity, the
anticipation of adventure to come, the electric atmosphere of haste and
straining effort on every hand excited them. Eliza began to be less
conscious of her secret intention, and Natalie showed a gaiety rare in
her since the shadow of her mother's shame had fallen upon her life.
The boat crews were waiting when they had finished, and they were soon
under way. A mile of comparatively slack water brought them out into
one of the larger estuaries of the river, and there the long, uphill
pull began. O'Neil had equipped his two companions with high rubber
boots, which they were only too eager to try. As soon as they got
ashore they began to romp and play and splash through the shallows
quite like unruly children. They spattered him mischievously, they
tugged at the towing-ropes with a great show of assistance, they
scampered ahead of the party, keeping him in a constant panic lest they
meet with serious accident.
It was with no little relief that he gave the order to pitch camp some
hours later. After sending them off to pick wild currants, with a grave
warning to beware of bears, he saw to the preparations for the night.
They returned shortly with their hats filled and their lips stained;
then, much to his disgust, they insisted upon straightening out his
tent with their own hands. Once inside its low shelter, they gleefully
sifted sand between his blankets and replaced his pillow with a rock;
then they induced the cook to coil a wet string in his flapjack. When
supper was over and the camp-fires of driftwood were crackling merrily,
they fixed themselves comfortably where their feet would toast, and
made him tell them stories until his eyes drooped with weariness.
It was late summer, and O'Neil had expected to find the glaciers less
active than usual, but heavy rains in the interior and hot thawing
weather along the coast had swelled the Salmon until many bergs clogged
it, while the reverberations which rolled down the valley told him that
both Garfield and Jackson were caving badly. It was not the safest time
at which to approach the place, he reflected, but the girls had shown
themselves nimble of foot, and he put aside his uneasiness.
Short though the miles had been and easy as the trip had proved, Eliza
soon found herself wondering that it should be possible to penetrate
this region at all. The snarling river, the charging icebergs, the
caving banks, and the growing menace of that noisy gap ahead began to
have their effect upon her and Natalie; and when the party finally
rounded the point where Murray and Dan had caught their first glimpse
of the lower glacier they paused with exclamations of amazement. They
stood at the upper end of a gorge between low bluffs, and just across
the hurrying flood lay the lower limit of the giant ice-field. The
edge, perhaps six hundred feet distant, was sloping and mud-stained,
for in its slow advance it had plowed a huge furrow, lifting boulders,
trees, acres of soil upon its back. The very bluff through which the
river had cut its bed was formed of the debris it had thrown off, and
constituted a bulwark protecting its flank. Farther up-stream the
slope, became steeper, then changed to a rugged perpendicular face
showing marks of recent cleavage. This palisade extended on and on,
around the nearest bend, following the contour of the Salmon as far as
they could see. The sun was reflected from its myriad angles and facets
in splendid iridescence. Mammoth caves and caverns gaped. In spots the
ice was white, opaque; in other places it was a light cerulean blue
which shaded into purple. Ribbons and faint striations meandered
through it like the streaks in an agate. But what struck the beholders
with overwhelming force was the tremendous, the unbelievable bulk of
the whole slowly moving mass. It reared itself sheerly three hundred
feet high, and along its foot the river hurried, dwarfed to an
insignificant trickle. Here and there it leaned outward threateningly,
bulging from the terrific weight behind; at other points the muddy
flood recoiled from vast heaps which had slid downward and half dammed
its current. Back of these piles the fresh cleavage showed dazzlingly.
On, upward, back into the untracked mountains it ran through mile upon
mile of undulations, until at last it joined the ice-cap which weighted
the plateau. As far as the eye could follow the river ahead it stood
solidly. Across its entire face it was dripping; a thousand little
rills and waterfalls ate into it, and over it swept a cool, dank breath.
The effect of the first view was overwhelming. Nothing upon the earth
compares in majesty and menace to these dull-eyed monsters of bygone
ages; nothing save the roots of mountains can serve to check them;
nothing less than the ceaseless energy of mighty rivers can sweep away
their shattered fragments.
Murray O'Neil had seen Jackson Glacier many times, but always he
experienced the same feeling of awe, of personal insignificance, as
when he first came stumbling up that gorge more than a year before.
For a long time the girls stood gazing without a word. They seemed to
have forgotten his presence.
"Well?" he said at last.
"Isn't it BIG?" Natalie faltered, with round eyes. "Will it fall over
on us?"
He shook his head. "The river is too wide for that, but when a
particularly big mass drops it makes waves large enough to sweep
everything before them. This bank on our right is sixty feet high, but
I've seen it inundated."
Turning to Eliza, he inquired:
"What do you think of it?"
Her face as she met his was strangely glorified, her eyes were shining,
her fingers tightly interlocked.
"I--I'd like to cry or--or swear," she said, uncertainly,
"Why, Eliza!" Natalie regarded her friend in shocked amazement, but
Murray laughed.
"It affects people differently," he said. "I have men who refuse to
make this trip. There's something about Jackson that frightens
them--perhaps it is its nearness. You see, there's no other place on
the globe where we pygmies dare come so close to a live glacier of this
size."
"How can we go on?" Natalie asked. "We must work our boats along this
bank. If the ice begins to crack anywhere near us I want you both to
scamper up into the alders as fast as your rubber boots will carry you."
"What will you do?" Eliza eyed him curiously.
"Oh, I'll follow; never fear! If it's not too bad, I'll stay with the
boats, of course. But we're not likely to have much difficulty at this
season."
Eliza noted the intensity with which the boatmen were scanning the
passage ahead, and something in O'Neil's tone told her he was speaking
with an assurance he did not wholly feel.
"You have lost some men here, haven't you?" she asked.
"Yes. But the greater danger is in coming down. Then we have to get out
in the current and take our chances."
"I'd like to do that!" Her lips were parted, her eyes were glowing, but
Natalie gave a little cry of dismay.
"It's an utterly new sensation," O'Neil admitted. "I've been thinking
of sending you up across the moraine, but the trail is bad, and you
might get lost among the alders--"
"And miss any part of this! I wouldn't do it for worlds." Eliza's
enthusiasm was irresistible, and the expedition was soon under way
again.
Progress was more difficult now, for the river-shore was paved with
smooth, round stones which rolled under foot, and the boats required
extreme attention in the swift current. The farther they proceeded, the
more the ice wall opposite increased in height, until at last it shut
off the mountains behind. Then as they rounded the first bend a new
prospect unfolded itself. The size of Jackson became even more
apparent; the gravel bank under which they crept was steeper and higher
also. In places it was undercut by the action of the waves which
periodically surged across. At such points Murray sent his charges
hurrying on ahead, while he and his men tracked the boats after them.
In time they found themselves opposite the backbone of the glacier,
where the Salmon gnawed at the foot of a frozen cliff of prodigious
height. And now, although there had been no cause for apprehension
beyond an occasional rumble far back or a splitting crack from near at
hand, the men assumed an attitude of strained watchfulness and kept
their faces turned to the left. They walked quietly, as if they felt
themselves in some appalling presence.
At last there came a sound like that of a cannon-shot, and far ahead of
them a fragment loosened itself and went plunging downward. Although it
appeared small, a ridge promptly leaped out from beneath the splash and
came racing down the river's bosom toward them.
"Better go up a bit," O'Neil called to his charges.
The men at the ends of the tow-lines scrambled part way up the shelving
beach and braced themselves, then wrapped the ropes about their waists,
like anchormen on a tug-of-war team. Their companions waded into the
flood and fended the boats off the rocks.
The wave came swiftly, lifting the skiffs high upon the bank, then it
sucked them back amid a tangle of arms and legs. A portion of the
river-bottom suddenly bared itself and as suddenly was submerged again.
The boats plunged and rolled and beat themselves upon the shore,
wrenching the anchormen from their posts. They were half filled with
water too, but the wave had passed and was scudding away down-stream.
Eliza Appleton came stumbling back over the rock-strewn bank, for
during that first mad plunge she had seen O'Neil go down beneath one of
the rearing craft. A man was helping him out.
"Nothing but my ankle!" he reassured her when she reached his side. "I
was dragged a bit and jammed among the boulders." He sank down, and his
lips were white with pain, but his gray eyes smiled bravely. The
boatman removed his chief's boot and fell to rubbing the injury, while
the girls looked on helplessly.
"Come, come! We can't stay here," Murray told them. He drew on the boot
again to check the swelling.
"Can you walk?" they asked him, anxiously.
"Certainly! Two feet are really unnecessary. A man can get along nearly
as well on one." He hurried his men back to their tasks, and managed to
limp after them, although the effort brought beads of sweat to his lips
and brow.
It was well that he insisted upon haste, for they had not gone far when
the glacier broke abreast of the spot they had just left. There came a
rending crack, terrifying in its loudness; a tremendous tower of ice
separated itself from the main body, leaned slowly outward, then roared
downward, falling in a solid piece like a sky-scraper undermined. Not
until the arc described by its summit had reached the river's surface
did it shiver itself. Then there was a burst as of an exploded mine.
The saffron waters of the Salmon shot upward until they topped the main
rampart, and there separated into a cloud of spray which rained down in
a deluge. Out from the fallen mass rushed a billow which gushed across
the channel, thrashed against the high bank, then inundated it until
the alder thickets on its crest whipped their tips madly. A giant
charge of fragments of every size flew far out across the flats or
lashed the waters to further anger in its fall.
The prostrate column lay like a wing-dam, half across the stream, and
over it the Salmon piled itself. Disintegration followed; bergs heaved
themselves into sight and went rolling and lunging after the billow
which was rushing down-stream with the speed of a locomotive. They
ground and clashed together in furious confusion as the river spun
them; the greater ones up-ended themselves, casting off muddy cascades.
From the depths of the flood came a grinding and crunching as ice met
rock.
Spellbound, the girls watched that first wave go tearing out of sight,
filling the river bank-full. With exclamations of wonder, they saw the
imprisoned waters break the huge dam to pieces. Finally the last
shattered fragment was hurried out of sight, the flood poured past
unhampered, and overhead the glacier towered silent, unchanged, staring
at them balefully like a blind man with filmed eyes. There remained
nothing but a gleaming scar to show where the cataclysm had originated.
"If I'd known the river was so high I'd never have brought you," O'Neil
told them. "It's fortunate we happened to be above that break. You see,
the waves can't run up against the current." He turned to his men and
spurred them on.
It was not until the travelers had reached the camp at the bridge site
that all the wonders of this region became apparent. Then the two
girls, in spite of their fatigue, spent the late afternoon
sight-seeing. At this point they were able to gain a comprehensive
view; for at their backs lay Jackson Glacier, which they had just
passed, and directly fronting them, across a placid lake, was Garfield,
even larger and more impressive than its mate. Thirty, forty miles it
ran back, broadening into a frozen sea out of which scarred mountain
peaks rose like bleak islands, and on beyond the range of vision was
still more ice.
They were surrounded by ragged ramparts. The Salmon River ran through a
broken chalice formed by the encircling hills, and over the rim of the
bowl or through its cracks peered other and smaller ice bodies. The
lake at its bottom was filled by as strange a navy as ever sailed the
sea; for the ships were bergs, and they followed each other in
senseless, ceaseless manoeuvers, towed by the currents which swept
through from the cataract at its upper end. They formed long
battle-lines, they assembled into flotillas, they filed about the
circumference of a devil's whirlpool at the foot of the rapids,
gyrating, bobbing, bowing until crowded out by the pressure of their
rivals. Some of them were grounded, like hulks defeated in previous
encounters, and along the guardian bar which imprisoned them at the
outlet of the lake others were huddled, a mass of slowly dissolving
wreckage.
O'Neil was helped into camp, and when his boot had been cut away he
sent news of his arrival to Dan, who came like an eager bridegroom.
XIV
HOW THE TRUTH CAME TO ELIZA
Appleton found his employer with one foot in a tub of hot water and his
lap full of blueprints. O'Neil explained briefly the condition of
affairs down the river.
"I want some one to make that crossing," he said.
"A volunteer?" asked Dan, with quickened pulses.
"Yes."
"Will I do?"
"I sent for you to give you the first chance--you've been chafing so at
your idleness. We must have steel laid to this point before snow flies.
Every hour counts. I daren't risk Mellen or McKay, for they might be
disabled. I intended to take charge myself, but I won't be able to walk
now for some time." He swore a little, and Dan nodded sympathetically.
"I wouldn't send anybody where I'd refuse to go myself. You understand?"
"Of course."
"If either McKay or Mellen were hurt I couldn't build the bridge, and
the bridge must be built."
"If Gordon stands pat somebody may be--hurt."
"I don't look for anything worse than a few broken heads, but of course
I can't tell. I'll stand behind you with my last dollar, no matter what
happens."
Dan laughed. "As I understand the situation you won't have a dollar
unless we make the crossing."
"Right!" O'Neil smiled cheerfully. "The life of the S. R. & N. depends
upon it. I'd give ten thousand dollars for your right ankle."
"You can have it for nothing, Chief. I'd amputate the whole leg and
present it to you," Dan declared earnestly.
Murray took his hand in a hearty grip. "Perhaps I'll be able to serve
you some time," he said, simply. "Anyhow, I'll look out for the chance.
Now spend the evening with the girls, and leave in the morning. I'll be
down as soon as I can travel, to watch the fight from the side-lines."
O'Neil's voice was level, but his teeth were shut and his fingers were
clenched with rage at his disability.
Dan hurried away highly elated, but when he told Eliza of the part he
had undertaken she stormed indignantly.
"Why, the brute! He has no right to send you into danger. This isn't
war."
"Sis, dear, it's my chance. He can't stand, and he daren't risk his
right-hand men."
"So he sacrifices you! I won't permit it. Your life and safety are
worth more than all his dollars. Let his old railroad go to smash!"
"Wait! More than my safety depends on this. He said he'd wait for a
chance to pay me back. If I do this he'll owe me more than any man on
the job, and when he learns that I love Natalie--"
"Dan!" exclaimed his sister.
"Oh, he'll make good!"
"Why, you're worse than he! The idea of suggesting such a thing!"
"Don't preach! I've had nothing to do lately but think of her; she's
always in my mind. The loneliness up here has made me feel more than
ever that I can't exist without her. The river whispers her name; her
face looks at me from the campfire; the wind brings me her messages--"
"Fiddlesticks! She saves her messages for him. When a man reaches the
poetical stage he's positively sickening. You'll be writing verses
next."
"I've written 'em," Dan confessed, sheepishly; "oceans of mush."
"Fancy! Thank Heaven one of us is sane."
"Our dispositions were mixed when we were born, Eliza. You're
unsentimental and hard-headed: I'm romantic. You'll never know what
love means."
"If you are a sample, I hope not." Eliza's nose assumed an even higher
tilt than usual.
"Well, if I knew I had no chance with Natalie I'd let Gordon's men put
an end to me--that's how serious it is. But I have a chance--I know I
have."
"Bosh! You've lived in railroad camps too long. I know a dozen girls
prettier than she." Eying him with more concern, she asked, seriously,
"You wouldn't really take advantage of a service to Murray O'Neil
to--to tell him the nature of your insanity?"
"I might not actually tell him, but I'd manage it so he'd find out."
"Don't you think Natalie has something to say? Don't you think she is
more than a piece of baggage waiting to be claimed by the first man who
comes along?" sputtered Miss Appleton in fine disgust at this attitude.
"She has more sense and determination than any girl, any pretty girl, I
ever saw. That's one reason why I hate her so. There's no use trying to
select a husband for her. When the time comes she'll do the selecting
herself. She'll knock over all our plans and walk blushingly up to the
altar with O'Neil, leaving us out on the sidewalk to cheer. I'm sorry I
ever tried to help you! I'm going to quit and get back my self-respect."
"You'll do no such thing. You'll continue to help your poor red-headed
brother to the finish. Say! When I'm alone I'm just bursting with
optimism; when I'm with you I wither with despair; when I'm with
Natalie I become as heavy and stupid as a frog full of buckshot--I just
sit and blink and bask and revel in a sort of speechless bliss. If she
ever saw how really bright and engaging I am--"
"You!" Eliza sniffed. "You're as uninteresting as I am."