The Girl from Keller's Part 52

About six o'clock next evening Helen and Festing walked up and down beside the track at the railroad settlement. There was no platform, but the agent's office stood near the rails, with a baggage shed, and a big tank for filtering saline water near the locomotive pipe. Behind these, three tall grain-elevators, which had not been finished when Festing saw them last, rose against the sky, dwarfing the skeleton frame of a new hotel. The ugly wooden houses had extended some distance across the snow, and Festing knew the significance of this. It was not dark yet, but the headlamp of a locomotive in the side-track flung a glittering beam a quarter of a mile down the line. In the west, a belt of saffron light, cut by the black smear of a bluff, glimmered on the horizon.

Festing indicated the settlement.

"It has grown fast, but if things go as some of us expect, the change will soon be magical. In a year or two you'll see a post-office like a palace, and probably an opera-house, besides street cars running north and south from the track."

"I think I should like that," Helen remarked. "When it comes, you will have an office and a telephone, and be satisfied to superintend."

Festing laughed. "It's possible, but there's much to be done first, and I'm not getting on very fast just now. Still I don't feel knocked out and I've walked half a mile."

Glancing at the elevator towers and blocks of square-fronted houses that rose abruptly from the snow, Helen mused. The settlement jarred her fastidious taste, but she had seen Western towns that had, in a few years, grown out of their raw ugliness and blossomed in an efflorescence of ambitious architecture. Such beauty as they then possessed was not refined or subdued, but it was somehow characteristic of the country and harmonized with the builders' optimism. There was no permanence on the prairie; everything was in a fluid state of change and marked by a bold, but sometime misguided, striving for something better. Then she turned to her husband. His face was thin and she noted lines that came from mental strain and physical suffering, but his eyes were calm. She liked his look of quiet resolution.

"You are getting stronger fast," she said. "The days are lengthening, spring is near, and you will soon be able to work again. Well, I will not try to stop you. When the prairie is plowed and covered with wheat I want you to feel that you have done your part. The change that is coming will bring the things women like; comfort, amus.e.m.e.nts, society. But what about you and the others, the pioneers, when there is no more ground to be broken and the way is cleared?"

Festing smiled. "As a rule, the pioneer sells his homestead and goes on into the wilds to blaze another trail, but I imagine I shall be glad to rest. If not, we're an adaptable people and there are different ways of helping things along. One can learn to use other tools than the ax and plow."

"Ah," said Helen, "You are getting broader. You see clearly, Stephen, and your views are often long, but I sometimes thought you focused them too narrowly on the object in front. Perhaps I shall have done something if I have taught you to look all round. But here's Sadie and the train."

A light sprang out from the distant bluff and grew into a dazzling fan-shaped beam. Then the roar of wheels slackened, and Sadie joined the others as a bell began to toll, and with smoke streaming back along the cars the train rolled into the station. Somebody leaned out from the rails of a vestibule, and Sadie began to run beside the track.

"Come along!" she cried. "It's Bob!"

Festing and Helen followed, and when they reached the vestibule Charnock pushed a door open and took them inside. The car was brightly lighted, but not furnished on the usual plan. A table stood in the middle, the curtained berths were at one end, and there were cases holding books and surveying instruments. It was obviously meant for the use of railroad managers and engineers, and three or four gentlemen stood near the table, as if they had just got up. Festing saw that one was Dalton, who advanced eagerly as Helen came in. He presented his companions to her and Sadie, and a gentleman who was well known on Canadian railroads gave Festing his hand. Another was Norton's employer, a famous contractor.

"Sit down," said the first. "The engineer wants to fill his tank, and they won't pull out until we are ready." Then he turned to Festing. "We have examined a piece of tract you helped build and I must compliment you on a first-cla.s.s job. As a rule, we are glad to get our contract work up to specification, but you have done better."

"My partner is really responsible for that," Festing replied. "I got knocked out soon after we made a good start and had to leave him to carry on."

The contractor smiled as he interposed: "A good beginning counts for much, and I'm glad to state that Mr. Charnock has kept to your lines.

When you were forced to leave it seemed prudent to make some inquiries, but we found that your partner was doing high-grade work, and now we have inspected it, I must admit that Norton's favorable reports were deserved." He paused and turned to Sadie. "If your husband's as good a farmer as an engineer, he'll make progress."

Sadie flushed with pride. "Looks as if he'd made some already, but you didn't run much risk when you trusted him."

"My wife's the farmer and my partner the engineer," Charnock remarked.

"I know my limits, but try to keep going when somebody starts me well."

"You have gone farther than our bargain demanded, which doesn't often happen," said the contractor, who turned to Festing. "Mr. Charnock has my cheque for the main job, but there are some accounts to make up and you won't find my cas.h.i.+er disputes the extras. Perhaps that's all I need say, except that you have satisfied me, and, I gather, satisfied your men. In fact, you and Mr. Charnock leave us with general good feeling."

Then they talked about something else until a man came in to say that the locomotive tank was filled, and the engineer and contractor went to the vestibule with their guests. For a minute or two the group stood on the platform, exchanging farewell compliments, while the station agent waited in the snow. Then the engineer said:

"I wanted to meet your husband, Mrs. Festing, and if we have any more difficult work, hope you will let me have him again."

"He came back the worse last time," Helen answered smiling. "I'm not sure I would have the courage to let him go. Besides, he has other work at home. A farm makes many demands on one."

"I have no doubt it does," agreed the engineer. "One imagines that on the Festing farm all demands will be met."

He signed to the agent, the others went down the steps, and the bell began to toll as the lighted cars rolled by. The rattle of wheels got louder, and a plume of smoke trailed back and spread in a dingy cloud, but Helen and Festing stood, a little way from the others, watching the receding train. They felt that something was finished; satisfactorily finished amidst well-earned praise, but done with for good. Festing looked at Helen with a comprehending smile.

"You answered right; I'm not going back! Our work is waiting, here on the plains."

"Ah," said Helen softly, "how much easier you make it when you call it ours!"

They went to the hotel where they had left the team, and as the others followed Sadie turned to her husband with a glow of happy pride. He had come back, so to speak, triumphant, the guest of famous men who had said flattering things about him, and for his sake the train had been held up while the great contractor talked to her.

"Bob," she said, "you have made good! I can't tell you all I feel about it. Some day you'll be a famous man."