and thirty feet deep. Through it boils a ten-mile current; in other
words, the waters race by with the speed of a running man. Over this
O'Neil expected to suspend a structure capable of withstanding the
mightiest strains to which any bridge had ever been subjected. Parker's
plans called for seventeen thousand yards of cement work and nine
million pounds of steel, every part of which must be fabricated to a
careful pattern. It was a man-sized job, and O'Neil was thankful that
he had prepared so systematically for the work; that he had gathered
his materials with such extraordinary care. Supplies were arriving now
in car-loads, in train-loads, in ship-loads: from Seattle, from
Vancouver, from far Pittsburg they came in a thin continuous stream,
any interruption of which meant confusion and serious loss of time. The
movement of this vast tonnage required the ceaseless attention of a
corps of skilled men.
He had personally directed affairs up to this point, but he now
obliterated himself, and the leadership devolved upon two
others--Parker, small, smiling, gentle-mannered; Mellen, tall, angular,
saturnine. Upon them, engineer and bridge-builder, O'Neil rested his
confidence, serene in the knowledge that of all men they were the
ablest in their lines. As for himself, he had all he could do to bring
materials to them and to keep the long supply-trail open. Long it was,
indeed; for the shortest haul was from Seattle, twelve hundred miles
away, and the steel bridge members came from Pennsylvania.
The piers at Omar groaned beneath the cargoes that were belched from
the big freighters--incidentally, "Happy Tom" Slater likewise groaned
beneath his burdens as superintendent of transportation. At the
glaciers a city as large as Omar sprang up, a city with electric
lights, power-houses, machine shops, freight yards, and long rows of
winter quarters. It lay behind ramparts of coal, of grillage timbers
and piling, of shedded cement barrels, and tons of steel. Over it the
winter snows sifted, the north winds howled, and the arctic cold
deepened.
Here, locked in a mountain fastness more than a thousand miles from his
base of supplies, O'Neil began the decisive struggle of his life. Here,
at the focusing point of his enterprise, in the white heat of the
battle, he spent his time, heedless of every other interest or
consideration. The shifts were lengthened, wages were increased, a
system of bonuses was adopted. Only picked men were given places, but
of these there were hundreds: over them the grim-faced Mellen brooded,
with the fevered eye of a fanatic and a tongue of flame. Wherever
possible the men were sheltered, and steam-pipes were run to guard
against the cold; but most of the labor was, of necessity, performed in
the open and under trying conditions. At times the wind blew a
hurricane; always there was the bitter cold. Men toiled until their
flesh froze and their tools slipped from their fingers, then dragged
themselves stiffly into huts and warmed themselves for further effort.
They worked amid a boiling snow-smother that hid them from view, while
gravel and fine ice cut their faces like knives; or again, on still,
sharp days, when the touch of metal was like the bite of fangs and
echoes filled the valley to the brim with an empty clanging. But they
were no ordinary fellows--no chaff, to drift with the wind: they were
men toughened by exposure to the breath of the north, men winnowed out
from many thousands of their kind. Nor were they driven: they were led.
Mellen was among them constantly; so was the soft-voiced smiling
Parker, not to mention O'Neil with his cheery laugh and his words of
praise. Yet often it was hard to keep the work moving at all; for steam
condensed in the cylinders, valves froze unless constantly operated,
pipes were kept open only by the use of hot cloths: then, too, the snow
crept upward steadily, stealthily, until it lay in heavy drifts which
nearly hid the little town and changed the streets to miniature canons.
Out of this snow-smothered, frost-bound valley there was but one trail.
The army lay encamped in a cul de sac; all that connected it with the
outside world were two slender threads of steel. To keep them clear of
snow was in itself a giant's task; for as yet there were no snow-sheds,
and in many places the construction-trains passed through deep cuts
between solid walls of white. Every wind filled these level and
threatened to seal the place fast; but furiously the "rotaries"
attacked the choking mass, slowly it was whirled aside, and onward
flowed that steady stream of supplies. No army of investment was ever
in such constant peril of being cut off. For every man engaged in the
attack there was another behind him fighting back the allied forces
which swept down from either hand.
Only those who know that far land in her sterner moods can form any
conception of the stupefying effect of continuous, unbroken cold. There
is a point beyond which the power of reaction ceases: where the human
mind and body recoils uncontrollably from exposure, and where the most
robust effort results in a spiritless inactivity. It is then that
efficiency is cut in half, then cut again. And of all the terrors of
the Arctic there is none so compelling as the wind. It is a monstrous,
deathly thing, a creature that has life and preys upon the agony of
men. There are regions sheltered from it, of course; but in the gutters
which penetrate the mountain ranges it lurks with constant menace, and
of all the coast from Sitka westward the valley of the Salmon is the
most evil.
In the throat of this mighty-mouthed funnel, joining the still, abysmal
cold of the interior with the widely varying temperatures of the open
sea, O'Neil's band was camped, and there the great hazard was played.
Under such conditions it was fortunate indeed that he had
field-marshals like Parker and Mellen, for no single man could have
triumphed. Parker was cautious, brilliant, far-sighted; he reduced the
battle to paper, he blue-printed it; with sliding-rule he analyzed it
into inches and pounds and stresses and strains: Mellen was like a grim
Hannibal, tireless, cunning, cold, and he wove steel in his fingers as
a woman weaves her thread.
It was a remarkable alliance, a triumvirate of its kind unsurpassed. As
the weeks crept into months it worked an engineering marvel.
XXIII
A NEW CRISIS
With the completion of the railroad to the glacier crossing there came
to it a certain amount of travel, consisting mainly of prospectors
bound to and from the interior. The Cortez winter trail was open, and
over it passed most of the traffic from the northward mining-camps, but
now and then a frost-rimed stranger emerged from the canon above
O'Neil's terminus with tales of the gold country, or a venturesome
sledge party snow-shoed its way inland from the end of the track.
Murray made a point of hauling these trailers on his
construction-trains and of feeding them in his camps as freely as he
did his own men. In time the wavering line of sled-tracks became fairly
well broken, and scarcely a week passed without bringing several
"mushers."
One day, as O'Neil was picking his way through the outskirts of the
camp, he encountered one of his night foremen, and was surprised to see
that the fellow was leading a trail-dog by a chain. Now these malamutes
are as much a part of the northland as the winter snows, and they are a
common sight in every community; but the man's patent embarrassment
challenged Murray's attention: he acted as if he had been detected in a
theft or a breach of duty.
"Hello, Walsh. Been buying some live stock?" O'Neil inquired.
"Yes, sir. I picked up this dog cheap."
"Harness too, eh?" Murray noted that Walsh's arms were full of
gear--enough, indeed, for a full team. Knowing that the foreman owned
no dogs, he asked, half banteringly:
"You're not getting ready for a trip, I hope?"
"No, sir. Not exactly, sir. The dog was cheap, so I--I just bought him."
As a matter of fact, dogs were not cheap, and Walsh should have been in
bed at this hour. Murray walked on wondering what the fellow could be
up to.
Later he came upon a laborer dickering with a Kyak Indian over the
price of a fur robe, and in front of a bunk-house he found other
members of the night crew talking earnestly with two lately arrived
strangers. They fell silent as he approached, and responded to his
greeting with a peculiar nervous eagerness, staring after him curiously
as he passed on.
He expected Dr. Gray out from Omar, but as he neared the track he met
Mellen. The bridge superintendent engaged him briefly upon some detail,
then said:
"I don't know what's the matter with the men this morning. They're
loafing."
"Loafing? Nonsense! You expect too much."
Mellen shook his head. "The minute my back is turned they begin to
gossip. I've had to call them down."
"Perhaps they want a holiday."
"They're not that kind. There's something in the air."
While they were speaking the morning train pulled in, and O'Neil was
surprised to see at least a dozen townspeople descending from it. They
were loafers, saloon-frequenters, for the most part, and oddly enough,
they had with them dogs and sleds and all the equipment for travel. He
was prevented from making inquiry, however, by a shout from Dr. Gray,
who cried:
"Hey, Chief! Look who's here!"
O'Neil hastened forward with a greeting upon his lips, for Stanley was
helping Eliza and Natalie down from the caboose which served as a
passenger-coach.
The young women, becomingly clad in their warm winter furs, made a
picture good to look upon. Natalie had ripened wonderfully since her
marriage, and added to her rich dark beauty there was now an elusive
sweetness, a warmth and womanliness which had been lacking before. As
for Eliza, she had never appeared more sparkling, more freshly
wholesome and saucy than on this morning.
"We came to take pictures," she announced. "We want to see if the
bridge suits us."
"Don't you believe her, Mr. O'Neil," said Natalie. "Dan told us you
were working too hard, so Eliza insisted on taking you in hand. I'm
here merely in the office of chaperon and common scold. You HAVE been
overdoing. You're positively haggard."
Gray nodded. "He won't mind me. I hope you'll abuse him well. Go at him
hammer and tongs."
Ignoring Murray's smiling assertion that he was the only man in camp
who really suffered from idleness, the girls pulled him about and
examined him critically, then fell to discussing him as if he were not
present.
"He's worn to the bone," said Eliza.
"Did you ever see anything like his wrinkles? He looks like a dried
apple," Natalie declared.
"Dan says he doesn't eat."
"Probably he's too busy to chew his food. We'll make him Fletcherize--"
"And eat soup. Then we'll mend his underclothes. I'll warrant he
doesn't dress properly."
"How much sleep does he get?" Natalie queried of the physician.
"About half as much as he needs."
"Leave him to us," said Eliza, grimly. "Now where does he live? We'll
start in there."
O'Neil protested faintly. "Please don't! I hate soup, and I can't allow
anybody to pry into my wardrobe. It won't stand inspection."
Miss Appleton pointed to his feet and asked, crisply:
"How many pairs of socks do you wear?"
"One."
"Any holes?"
"Sometimes."
Natalie was shocked. "One pair of socks in this cold! It's time we took
a hand. Now lead us to this rabbit-hole where you live."
Reluctantly, yet with an unaccustomed warmth about his heart, O'Neil
escorted them to his headquarters. It was a sharp, clear morning; the
sky was as empty and bright as an upturned saucepan; against it the
soaring mountain peaks stood out as if carved from new ivory. The
glaciers to right and left were mute and motionless in the grip of that
force which alone had power to check them; the turbulent river was
hidden beneath a case-hardened armor; the lake, with its weird flotilla
of revolving bergs, was matted with a broad expanse of white, across
which meandered dim sled and snow-shoe trails. Underfoot the paths gave
out a crisp complaint, the sunlight slanting up the valley held no
warmth whatever, and their breath hung about their heads like vapor,
crystallizing upon the fur of their caps and hoods.
O'Neil's living-quarters consisted of a good-sized room adjoining the
office-building. Pausing at the door, he told his visitors:
"I'm sorry to disappoint you, but your zeal is utterly misplaced. I
live like a pasha, in the midst of debilitating luxuries, as you will
see for yourselves." He waved them proudly inside.
The room was bare, damp, and chill; it was furnished plentifully, but
it was in characteristically masculine disorder. The bed was tumbled,
the stove was half filled with cold ashes, the water pitcher on the
washstand had frozen. In one corner was a heap of damp clothing, now
stiff with frost.
"Of course, it's a little upset," he apologized. "I wasn't expecting
callers, you know."
"When was it made up last?" Eliza inquired, a little weakly.
"Yesterday, of course."
"Are you sure?"
"Now, see here," he said, firmly; "I haven't time to make beds, and
everybody else is busier than I am. I'm not in here enough to make it
worth while--I go to bed late, and I tumble out before dawn."
The girls exchanged meaning glances. Eliza began to lay off her furs.
"Not bad, is it?" he said, hopefully.
Natalie picked up the discarded clothing, which crackled stiffly under
her touch and parted from the bare boards with a tearing sound.
"Frozen! The idea!" said she.
Eliza poked among the other garments which hung against the wall and
found them also rigid. The nail-heads behind them were coated with ice.
Turning to the table, with its litter of papers and the various
unclassified accumulation of a bachelor's house, she said:
"I suppose we'll have to leave this as it is."
"Just leave everything. I'll get a man to clean up while you take
pictures of the bridge." As Natalie began preparing for action he
queried, in surprise, "Don't you like my little home?"
"It's awful," the bride answered, feelingly.
"A perfect bear's den," Eliza agreed. "It will take us all day."
"It's just the way I like it," he told them; but they resolutely
banished him and locked the door in his face.
"Hey! I don't want my things all mussed up," he called, pounding for
re-admittance; "I know right where everything is, and--" The door
opened, out came an armful of papers, a shower of burnt matches, and a
litter of trash from his work-table. He groaned. Eliza showed her
countenance for a moment to say:
"Now, run away, little boy. You're going to have your face washed, no
matter how you cry. When we've finished in here we'll attend to you."
The door slammed once more, and he went away shaking his head.
At lunch-time they grudgingly admitted him, and, although they
protested that they were not half through, he was naively astonished at
the change they had brought to pass. For the first time in many days
the place was thoroughly warm and dry; it likewise displayed an
orderliness and comfort to which it had been a stranger. From some
obscure source the girls had gathered pictures for the bare walls; they
had hung figured curtains at the windows; there were fresh white covers
for bed, bureau, and washstand. His clothes had been rearranged, and
posted in conspicuous places were written directions telling him of
their whereabouts. One of the cards bore these words: "Your soup! Take
one in cup of hot brandy and water before retiring." Beneath were a
bottle and a box of bouillon tablets. A shining tea-kettle was humming
on the stove.
"This is splendid," he agreed, when they had completed a tour of
inspection. "But where are my blue-prints?"
"In the drafting-room, where they belong. This room is for rest and
sleep. We want to see it in this condition when we come back."
"Where did you find the fur rug?" He indicated a thick bearskin beside
the bed.
"We stole it from Mr. Parker," they confessed, shamelessly. "He had
two."
Eliza continued complacently: "We nearly came to blows with the chef
when we kidnapped his best boy. We've ordered him to keep this place
warm and look after your clothes and clean up every morning. He's to be
your valet and take care of you."
"But--we're dreadfully short-handed in the mess-house," O'Neil
protested.
"We've given the chef your bill of fare, and your man Ben will see that
you eat it."
"I won't stand for soup. It--"
"Hush! Do you want us to come again?" Natalie demanded.
"Yes! Again and again!" He nodded vigorously. "I dare say I was getting
careless. I pay more attention to the men's quarters than to my own. Do
you know--this is the first hint of home I've had since I was a boy?
And--it's mighty agreeable." He stared wistfully at the feminine
touches on all sides.
The bride settled herself with needle and thread, saying:
"Now take Eliza to the bridge while the light is good; she wants to
snap-shoot it. I'm going to sew on buttons and enjoy myself."
O'Neil read agreement in Eliza's eyes, and obeyed. As they neared the
river-bank the girl exclaimed in surprise; for up out of the frozen
Salmon two giant towers of concrete thrust themselves, on each bank
were massive abutments, and connecting them were the beginnings of a
complicated "false-work" structure by means of which the steel was to
be laid in place. It consisted of rows upon rows of piling, laced
together with an intricate pattern of squared timbers. Tracks were
being laid upon it, and along the rails ran a towering movable crane,
or "traveler," somewhat like a tremendous cradle. This too was nearing
completion. Pile-drivers were piercing the ice with long slender
needles of spruce; across the whole river was weaving a gigantic
fretwork of wood which appeared to be geometrically regular in design.
The air was noisy with the cries of men, and a rhythmic thudding,
through which came the rattle of winches and the hiss of steam. Over
the whole vast structure swarmed an army of human ants, feeble pygmy
figures that crept slowly here and there, regardless of their dizzy
height.
"Isn't it beautiful?" said the builder, gazing at the scene with
kindling eyes. "We're breaking records every day in spite of the
weather. Those fellows are heroes. I feel guilty and mean when I see
them risking life and limb while I just walk about and look on."
"Will it--really stand the break-up?" asked the girl. "When that ice
goes out it will be as if the solid earth were sliding down the
channel. It frightens me to think of it."
"We've built solid rock; in fact, those piers are stronger than rock,
for they're laced with veins of steel and anchored beneath the
river-bed."
But Eliza doubted. "I've seen rivers break, and it's frightful; but of
course I've never seen anything to compare with the Salmon.
Suppose--just suppose there should be some weak spot--"
O'Neil settled his shoulders a little under his coat. "It would nearly
kill Mellen--and Parker, too, for that matter."
"And you?"
He hesitated. "It means a great deal to me. Sometimes I think I could
pull myself together and begin again, but--I'm getting old, and I'm not
sure I'd care to try." After a pause he added a little stiffly, as if
not quite sure of the effect of his words: "That's the penalty of being
alone in life, I suppose. We men are grand-stand players: we need an
audience, some one person who really cares whether we succeed or fail.
Your brother, for instance, has won more in the building of the S. R. &
N. than I can ever hope to win."
Eliza felt a trifle conscious, too, and she did not look at him when
she said: "Poor, lonely old Omar Khayyam! You deserve all Dan has. I
think I understand why you haven't been to see us."
"I've been too busy; this thing has kept me here every hour. It's my
child, and one can't neglect his own child, you know--even if it isn't
a real one." He laughed apologetically. "See! there's where we took the
skiff that day we ran Jackson Glacier. He's harmless enough now. You
annoyed me dreadfully that morning, Eliza, and--I've never quite
understood why you were so reckless."
"I wanted the sensation. Writers have to live before they can write.
I've worked the experience into my novel."
"Indeed? What is your book about?"
"Well--it's the story of a railroad-builder, of a fellow who risked
everything he had on his own judgment. It's--you!"
"Why, my dear!" cried O'Neil, turning upon her a look of almost comic
surprise. "I'm flattered, of course, but there's nothing romantic or
uncommon about me."
"You don't mind?"
"Of course not. But there ought to be a hero, and love, and--such
things--in a novel. You must have a tremendous imagination."
"Perhaps. I'm not writing a biography, you know. However, you needn't
be alarmed; it will never be accepted."
"It should be, for you write well. Your magazine articles are bully."
Eliza smiled. "If the novel would only go as well as those stories I'd
be happy. They put Gordon on the defensive."
"I knew they would."
"Yes. I built a nice fire under him, and now he's squirming. I think I
helped you a little bit, too."
"Indeed you did--a great deal! When you came to Omar I never thought
you'd turn out to be my champion. I--" He turned as Dr. Gray came
hurrying toward them, panting in his haste.
The doctor began abruptly:
"I've been looking for you, Murray. The men are all quitting."
O'Neil started. "All quitting? What are you talking about?"
"There's a stampede--a gold stampede!"
Murray stared at the speaker as if doubting his own senses.
"There's no gold around here," he said, at last.
"Two men came in last night. They've been prospecting over in the White
River and report rich quartz. They've got samples with 'em and say
there are placer indications everywhere. They were on their way to Omar
to tell their friends, and telephoned in from here. Somebody overheard
and--it leaked. The whole camp is up in the air. That's what brought
out that gang from town this morning."
The significance of the incidents which had troubled him earlier in the
day flashed upon O'Neil; it was plain enough now why his men had been
gossiping and buying dogs and fur robes. He understood only too well
what a general stampede would mean to his plans, for it would take
months to replace these skilled iron-workers.
"Who are these prospectors?" he inquired, curtly.
"Nobody seems to know. Their names are Thorn and Baker. That gang from
Omar has gone on, and our people will follow in the morning. Those who
can't scrape up an outfit here are going into town to equip. We won't
have fifty men on the job by to-morrow night."
"What made Baker and Thorn stop here?"
Gray shrugged. "Tired out, perhaps. We've got to do something quick,
Murray. Thank God, we don't have to sell 'em grub or haul 'em to Omar.
That will check things for a day or two. If they ever start for the
interior we're lost, but the cataract isn't frozen over, and there's
only one sled trail past it. We don't need more than six good men to do
the trick."
"We can't stop a stampede that way."
Dr. Gray's face fell into harsh lines. "I'll bend a Winchester over the
first man who tries to pass. Appleton held the place last summer; I'll
guarantee to do it now."
"No. The men have a right to quit, Stanley. We can't force them to
work. We can't build this bridge with a chain-gang."
"Humph! I can beat up these two prospectors and ship 'em in to the
hospital until things cool down."
"That won't do, either. I'll talk with them, and if their story is
right--well, I'll throw open the commissary and outfit every one."
Eliza gasped; Gray stammered.
"You're crazy!" exclaimed the doctor.
"If it's a real stampede they'll go anyhow, so we may as well take our
medicine with a good grace. The loss of even a hundred men would
cripple us."
"The camp is seething. It's all Mellen can do to keep the day shift at
work. If you talk to 'em maybe they'll listen to you."
"Argument won't sway them. This isn't a strike; it's a gold rush." He
turned toward the town.
Eliza was speechless with dismay as she hurried along beside him; Gray
was scowling darkly and muttering anathemas; O'Neil himself was lost in
thought. The gravity of this final catastrophe left nothing to be said.