The Iron Trail Part 52

"I walloped him, Sis!" he told her. "I got even for the whole family, and I believe his eyes are closed even to the beauties of nature. He won't be able to read the wedding-notice."

Eliza hugged his arm and looked at him adoringly.

"It must have been perfectly splendid!"

Natalie nodded. "I was asleep," she said, "but Dan shocked me wide awake. Can you imagine it? I didn't know my own feelings until he went for--that brute. Then I knew all at once that I had loved him all the time. Isn't it funny? It came over me--so suddenly! I--I can't realize that he's mine." She turned her eyes upon him with an expression that made his chest swell proudly.

"Gee!" he exclaimed. "If I'd known how she felt I'd have pitched into the first fellow I met. A man's an awful fool till he gets married."

There followed a recital of the day's incidents, zestful, full of happy digressions, endless; for the couple, after the manner of lovers, took it for granted that Eliza was caught up into the seventh heaven along with them. Dan was drunk with delight, and his bride seemed dizzied by the change which had overtaken her. She looked upon it as miraculous, almost unbelievable, and under the spell of her happiness her real self a.s.serted itself. Those cares and humiliations which had reacted to make her cold and self-contained disappeared, giving place to an impetuous girlishness that distracted her newly made husband and delighted Eliza.

The last lingering doubts that Dan's sister had cherished were cleared away.

It was not until the bride had been banished to prepare for dinner that Eliza thought to ask her brother:

"Have you told Mr. O'Neil?"

The triumph faded suddenly out of his face.

"Gee, no! I haven't told anybody."

They stared at each other, reading the thoughts they had no need to voice. "Well, I've done it! It's too late now," said Dan, defiantly.

"Maybe he'll fire us again. I would if I were he. You must tell him this very minute."

"I--suppose so," he agreed, reluctantly, and picked up his hat. "And yet--I--I wonder if I'd better, after all. Don't you think it would sound nicer coming from some one else?"

"Why?"

"Wouldn't it seem like crowing for me to--to--For instance, now, if you--"

"Coward!" exclaimed the girl.

He nodded. "But, Sis, you DO have a nicer way of putting things than I have."

"Why, I wouldn't tell him for worlds. I couldn't. Poor man! We've brought him nothing but sorrow and bad luck."

"It's fierce!"

"Well, don't hesitate. That's what Gordon did, and he got licked."

Dan scowled and set his features in a brave show of moral courage.

"She's mine, and he can't take her away," he vowed, "so-- I don't care what happens. But I'd just as soon slap a baby in the face." He left the house like a man under sentence.

When he returned, a half-hour later, Eliza was awaiting him on the porch. She had been standing there with chattering teeth and limbs shaking from the cold while the minutes dragged.

"What did he say?" she asked, breathlessly.

"It went off finely. Thank Heaven, he was out at the front, so I could break it to him over the 'phone!"

"Did he--curse you?"

"No; I opened right up by saying I had bad news for him--"

"Oh, Dan!"

"Yes! I dare say I wasn't very tactful, now that I think it over, but, you see, I was rattled. I spilled out the whole story at once. 'Bad news?' said he. 'My dear boy, I'm delighted. G.o.d bless you both.' Then he made me tell him how it all happened, and listened without a word. I thought I'd faint. He pulled some gag about Daniel and the lion; then his voice got far away and the blamed wire began to buzz, so I hung up and beat it back here. I'm glad it's over."

"He'll probably send you a solid-silver dinner-set or raise your pay.

That's the kind of man he is." Eliza's voice broke. "Oh, Danny," she cried, "he's the dearest, sweetest thing--" She turned away, and he kissed her sympathetically before going inside to the waiting Natalie.

Instead of following, Eliza remained on the porch, gazing down at the lights of the little city. An engine with its row of empty flats rolled into the yard, panting from its exertions; the notes of a piano came to her faintly from the street below. The lights of an incoming steamer showed far down the sound. O'Neil had made all this, she reflected: the busy town, the hopeful thousands who came and went daily owed their prosperity to him. He had made the wilderness fruitful, but what of his own life? She suspected that it was as bleak and barren as the mountain slopes above Omar. He, too, looked down upon this thriving intimate little community, but from a distance. Beneath his unfailing cheerfulness she felt sure there lurked a hunger which the mere affection of his 'boys' could never satisfy. And now the thought that Dan had come between him and his heart's desire filled her with pity.

He seemed suddenly a very lonely figure of a man, despite his material success. When his enemies were doing, had already done, so much to defeat him, it seemed unfair that his trusted friend should step between him and the fulfilment of his dearest ambition--that ambition common to all men, failure in which brings a sense of failure to a man's whole life, no matter what other ends are achieved. Of course, he would smile and swallow his bitterness--that was his nature--but she would know the truth.

"Poor Omar Khayyam," she thought, wistfully, "I wish there were love enough in the world for you. I wish there were two Natalies, or that--"

Then she shook the dream from her mind and went into the house, for the night was cold and she was shaking wretchedly.

O'Neil behaved more handsomely even than Eliza had antic.i.p.ated. He hurried into town on the following morning, and his congratulations were so sincere, his manner so hearty that Dan forgot his embarra.s.sment and took a shameless delight in advertising his happiness. Nor did Murray stop with mere words: he summoned all his lieutenants, and Omar rang that night with a celebration such as it had never before known.

The company chef had been busy all day, the commissary had been ransacked, and the wedding-supper was of a nature to interfere with office duties for many days thereafter. Tom Slater made a congratulatory speech--in reality, a mournful adjuration to avoid the pitfalls of matrimonial inharmony--and openly confessed that his digestion was now impaired beyond relief. Others followed him; there was music, laughter, a riotous popping of corks; and over it all O'Neil presided with grace and mellowness. Then, after the two young people had been made thoroughly to feel his good will, he went back to the front, and Omar saw him but seldom in the weeks that followed.

To romantic Eliza, this self-sought seclusion had but one meaning--the man was broken-hearted. She did not consider that there might be other reasons for his constant presence at the glaciers.

Of course, since the unwelcome publication of the North Pa.s.s & Yukon story O'Neil had been in close touch with Illis, and by dint of strong argument had convinced the Englishman of his own innocence in the affair. A vigorous investigation might have proved disastrous, but, fortunately, Curtis Gordon lacked leisure in which to follow the matter up. The truth was that after his public exposure at Eliza's hands he was far too busy mending his own fences to spare time for attempts upon his rival. Consequently, the story was allowed to die out, and O'Neil was finally relieved to learn that its effect had been killed.

Precisely how Illis had effected this he did not know, nor did he care to inquire. Illis had been forced into an iniquitous bargain; and, since he had taken the first chance to free himself from it, the question of abstract right or wrong was not a subject for squeamish consideration.

It was at about this time that the sanguinary affray at Beaver Canon began to bear fruit. One day a keen-faced, quiet stranger presented a card at Murray's office, with the name:

HENRY T. BLAINE.

Beneath was the address of the Heidlemann building in New York, but otherwise the card told nothing. Something in Mr. Blaine's bearing, however, led Murray to treat him with more than ordinary consideration.

"I should like to go over your work," the stranger announced; and O'Neil himself acted as guide. Together they inspected the huge concrete abutments, then were lowered into the heart of the giant caissons which protruded from the frozen stream. The Salmon lay locked in its winter slumber now, the glaciers stood as silent and inactive as the snow-mantled mountains that hemmed them in. Down into the very bowels of the river the men descended, while O'Neil described the nature of the bottom, the depth and character of his foundations, and the measure of his progress. He explained the character of that bar which lay above the bridge site, and pointed out the heavy layers of railroad iron with which his cement work was reinforced.

"I spent nearly two seasons studying this spot before I began the bridge," he continued. "I had men here, night and day, observing the currents and the action of the ice. Then I laid my piers accordingly.

They are armored and reinforced to withstand any shock."

"The river is subject to quick rises, I believe?" suggested Blaine.

"Twenty feet in a few hours."

"The volley of ice must be almost irresistible."

"Almost," Murray smiled. "Not quite. Our ice-breakers were especially designed by Parker to withstand any weight. There's nothing like them anywhere. In fact, there will be nothing like this bridge when it's completed." Blaine offered no comment, but his questions searched to the depths of the builder's knowledge. When they were back in camp he said:

"Of course you know why I'm here?"

"Your card told me that, but I don't need the Heidlemanns now."

"We are prepared to reopen negotiations."