The Blue Goose Part 36

"I am going up on the tram. Now you must listen carefully." She unbuckled her belt and placed her revolver in Miss Hartwell's listless hands. "Keep away from the windows. If there is any firing lie down on the floor close to the wall. Nothing will get through the logs." She turned toward the door. "You must come and lock up after me."

At the door Miss Hartwell stood for a moment, irresolute. She offered no further objections to elise's going. That it cost a struggle was plainly shown in the working lines of her face. Only for a moment she stood, then, yielding to an overmastering impulse, she laid her hands on the shoulders of elise.

"Good-bye," she whispered. "You are a brave girl."

elise bent her lips to those of Miss Hartwell.

"Yours is the hardest part. But it isn't good-bye."

The door closed behind her, and she heard the click of the bolt shot home.

There were a few resolute men in the mill. It was short-handed; but the beating stamps pounded out defiance. In the tram tower elise spoke to the attendant.

"Stop the tram."

The swarthy Italian touched his hat.

"Yes, miss."

The grinding brake was applied and an empty bucket swung gently to and fro.

"Now, Joe, do just as I tell you. I am going up in this bucket." She glanced at the number. "When three-twenty comes in stop. Don't start up again for a half hour at least."

The man looked at her in dumb surprise.

"You go in the tram?" he asked. "What for?"

"To warn Mr. Firmstone."

For reply, the man brushed her aside and began clambering into the empty bucket.

"Me go," he said, grimly.

elise laid a detaining hand upon him.

"No. You must run the tram. I can't."

"Me go," he insisted. "Cable jump sheave? What matter? One d.a.m.n dago gone. Plenty more. No more elise."

elise pulled at him violently. He was ill-balanced. The pull brought him to the floor, but elise did not loose her hold. Her eyes were flas.h.i.+ng.

"Do as I told you."

The man brought a ladder and elise sprang lightly up the rounds.

"All right," she said. "Go ahead."

The man unloosed the brake. There was a tremor along the cable; the next instant the bucket shot from the door of the tower and glided swiftly up the line.

"Don't forget. Three-twenty." Already the voice was faint with distance.

In spite of injunctions to the contrary, Miss Hartwell was looking out of the window. She saw, below the shafts of sunlight already streaming over the mountain, the line of buckets stop, swing back and forth, saw the cable tremble, and again the long line of buckets sway gently as the cable grew taut and the buckets again slid up and down. Her heart was beating wildly as she lifted her eyes to the dizzy height. She knew well what the stopping and the starting meant. Sharp drawn against the lofty sky, the great cable seemed a slender thread to hold a human life in trust. What if the clutch should slip that held the bucket in place?

What if other clutches should slip and let the heavy ma.s.ses of steel slide down the cable to dash into the one that held the girl who had grown so dear to her? In vain she pushed these possibilities aside. They returned with increased momentum and hurled themselves into her shrinking soul. There were these dangers. "All employees of the Rainbow Company are forbidden to ride on the tram. ANY EMPLOYEE VIOLATING THIS RULE WILL BE INSTANTLY DISCHARGED." These words burned themselves on her vision in characters of fire. elise had explained all of these things to her, and now! She buried her face in her trembling hands. Not for long.

Again her face, pale and drawn, was turned upward. She moaned aloud. A black ma.s.s clinging to the cable was rising and sinking, swaying from side to side, a slender figure poised in the swinging bucket, steadied by a white hand that grasped the rim of steel. She turned from the window resolved to see no more. Her resolution fled. She was again at the window with upturned face and straining eyes, white lips whispering prayers that G.o.d might be good to the girl who was risking her life for another. The slender threads even then had vanished. There was only a fleck of black floating high above the rambling town, above the rocks mercilessly waiting below. She did not see all. At the mine two stealthy men were even then stuffing ma.s.ses of powder under the foundations that held the cables to their work. Even as she looked and prayed a flickering candle flame licked into fiery life a hissing, spitting fuse and two men scrambled and clambered to safety from the awful wreck that was to come. A smoking fuse eating its way to death and "320" not yet in the mill! She saw another sight.

From out the shadow of the eastern mountain, a band of uncouth men emerged, swung into line and bunched on the level terrace beyond the boarding-house. Simultaneously every neighbouring boulder blossomed forth in tufts of creamy white that writhed and widened till they melted in thin air like noisome, dark-grown fungi that wilt in the light of day. Beyond and at the feet of the cl.u.s.tered men spiteful spurts of dust leaped high in air, then drifted and sank, to be replaced by others.

Faint, meaningless cries wove through the drifting crash of rifles, blossoming tufts sprang up again and again from boulders near and far.

Answering cries flew back from the opening cl.u.s.ter of men, other tufts tongued with yellow flame sprang out from their levelled guns. Now and then a man spun around and dropped, a huddled grey on the spurting sand.

It was not in man long to endure the sheltered fire. Dragging their wounded, Jack Haskins's gang again converged, and headed in wild retreat for the office. The opposing tufts came nearer, and now and then a dark form straightened and advanced to another shelter, or was hidden from sight by a bubble of fleecy white that burst from his shoulder. Close at the heels of the fleeing men the spiteful spurts followed fast, till they died out in the thud of smitten logs and the cras.h.i.+ng gla.s.s of the office.

The answering fire of the beleaguered men died to silence. The dark, distant forms grew daring, ran from shelter and cl.u.s.tered at the foot of the slide, across the trail from the Blue Goose. Rambling shots, yells of defiance and triumph, broke from the gathering strikers. The shafts of sunlight had swept down the mountain, smiting hard the polished windows of the Blue Goose that blazed and flamed in their fierce glory.

Suddenly the cl.u.s.tered throng of strikers broke and fled. Cries of terror pierced the air.

"The cables! The cables!"

Overhead the black webs were sinking and rising with spiteful snaps that whirled the buckets in wild confusion and sent their heavy loads of ore cras.h.i.+ng to the earth, five hundred feet below. Then, with a rus.h.i.+ng, dragging sweep, buckets and cables whirled downward. Full on the Blue Goose the tearing cables fell, dragging it to earth, a crushed and broken ma.s.s.

Morrison's emissaries had done their work well. The tram-house at the mine had been blown up. They had accomplished more than he had hoped for. Pierre was in the bar-room when the cables fell. He had no time to escape, even had he seen or known.

Momentarily forgetful, the strikers swarmed around the fallen building, tearing aside crushed timbers, tugging at the snarled cable, if perchance some of their own were within the ruins. There came the spiteful spat of a solitary bullet, then a volley. With a yell of terror, the strikers broke and fled to the talus behind the saloon. They were now the pursued. They paused to fire no return shots. Stumbling, scrambling, dodging, through tangled scrub and sheltering thicket, down by the mill, down through the canon, spurred by zipping bullets that clipped twigs and spat on stones around them; down by the Devil's Elbow they fled, till sheltering scrub made pursuit dangerous; then, unmolested, they scattered, one by one, in pairs, in groups, never to return.

Even yet the startled echoes were repeating to the peaceful mountains the tale of riot and death, but they bent not from their calm to the calm below that was looking up to them with the eyes of death. Set in its frame of splintered timbers, the body of Pierre rested, a ruined life in a ruined structure, and both still in death. Wide-open eyes stared from the swarthy face, the strained lips parted in a sardonic smile, showing for the last time the gleaming teeth. Morrison had triumphed, but the wide open eyes saw the triumph that was yet defeat.

Far up on the mountain-side they looked and saw death pursuing death.

They saw Morrison climbing higher and higher, saw him strain his eyes ever ahead, never behind, saw them rest on two figures, saw Morrison crouch behind a rock and a s.h.i.+mmer of light creep along the barrel of his levelled rifle. The eyes seemed eager as they rested on another figure above him that stretched forth a steady hand; saw jets of flame spring from two guns. Then they gleamed with a brighter light as they saw the rifle fall from Morrison's hand; saw Morrison straighten out, even as he lay, his face upturned and silent. That was all in life that Pierre cared to know. Perhaps the sun had changed, but the gleam of triumph in the staring eyes faded to the glaze of death.

elise knew well the danger that went with her up the line. It laid strong hold upon her, as the loosened brake shot the bucket up the dizzy cable. As she was swept up higher and higher she could only hope and pray that the catastrophe which she knew was coming might be delayed until the level stretch above the Falls was reached, where the cables ran so near the ground she might descend in safety. She had given Joe the right number, and she knew that nothing short of death would keep him from heeding her words. She turned her thoughts to other things.

Cautiously she raised her eyes above the rim of the bucket and scanned the winding trail. She saw men crouching behind boulders, but Firmstone was not in sight, and strength and courage returned. Her bucket swept up over the crest of the Falls, and her heart stood still, as it glided along swiftly, eating up the level distance to another rise. The saddle clipped over the sheave, swung for an instant, then stood still. She clambered out, down the low tower, then sped to the trail and waited.

She rose to her feet, as from behind a sheltered cliff Firmstone emerged, stern, erect, determined. He caught sight of elise.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, fiercely.

"To keep you from going to the mill." There was an answering fierceness in her eyes.

"Well, you are not going to." He brushed her aside.

"I am." She was again in his path.

He took hold of her almost harshly.

"Don't be a fool."

"Am I? Listen." There was the glint of steel on steel in the meeting eyes. Echoing shots dulled by distance yet smote plainly on their ears.

"Morrison's men are guarding the trail. They are in the canon. You can't get through."

Firmstone's eyes softened as he looked into hers. The set line broke for an instant, then he looked down the trail. Suddenly he spun around on his heel, wavered, then sank to the ground.