The Iron Trail Part 62

But his sister was not of the hysterical kind. Seizing Tom Slater by the arm, she tried to shake him, demanding fiercely:

"Suppose the jam doesn't give way! What will happen?" "Happy Tom"

stared at her uncomprehendingly. Her voice was shrill and insistent.

"Suppose the water rises higher. Won't the ice sweep down on the bridge itself? Won't it wreck everything if it goes out suddenly? Tell me--"

"It can't hold. Mellen says so." Slater, like the others, found it impossible to keep his eyes from the river where those immeasurable forces were at play; then in his peculiar irascible manner he complained: "I told 'em we was crazy to try this. It ain't a white man's country; it ain't a safe place for a bridge. There's just one G.o.d-awful thing after another--" He broke into a shout, for Eliza had slipped past him and was speeding like a shadow out across the irregularly s.p.a.ced ties upon which the bridge track was laid.

Mellen whirled at the cry and made after her, but he might as well have tried to catch the wind. As she ran she heard her brother shout in sudden alarm and Natalie's voice raised in entreaty, but she sped on under an impulse as irresistible as panic fear. Down through the openings beneath her feet she saw, as in a nightmare, the sweeping flood, burdened with plunging ice chunks and flecked with foam. She seemed to be suspended above it; yet she was running at reckless speed, dimly aware of the consequences of a misjudged footstep, but fearful only of being overtaken. Suddenly she hated her companions; her mind was in a furious revolt at their cowardice, their indecision, or whatever it was that held them like a group of wooden figures safe on sh.o.r.e while the man whose life was worth all theirs put together exposed himself to needless peril. That he was really in danger she felt sure. She knew that Murray was apt to lose himself in his dreams; perhaps some visionary mood had blinded him to the menace of that mounting ice-ridge it front of the glacier, or had he madly chosen to stand or fall with this structure that meant so much to him? She would make him yield to her own terror, drag him ash.o.r.e, if necessary, with her own hands.

She stumbled, but saved herself from a fall, then gathered her skirts more closely and rushed on, measuring with instinctive nicety the length of every stride. It was not an easy path over which she dashed, for the ties were unevenly s.p.a.ced; gaping apertures gave terrible glimpses of the river below, and across these ghastly abysses she had to leap.

The hoa.r.s.e bursts of shouting from the sh.o.r.e ceased as the workmen beheld her flitting out along the steel causeway. They watched her in dumb amazement.

All at once O'Neil saw her and hurried to meet her.

"Eliza!" he cried. "Be careful! What possessed you to do this?"

"Come away," she gasped. "It's dangerous. The jam--Look!" She pointed down the channel.

He shook his head impatiently.

"Yes!" she pleaded. "Yes! Please! They wouldn't come to warn you--they tried to stop me. You must go ash.o.r.e." The frightened entreaty in her clear, wide-open eyes, the disorder that her haste had made affected O'Neil strangely. He stared at her, bewildered, doubtful, then steadied her and groped with his free hand for support. He could feel her trembling wretchedly.

"There's no danger, none whatever," he said, soothingly. "Nothing can happen."

"You don't know. The bridge has never been tried. The ice is battering at it, and that jam--if it doesn't burst--"

"But it will. It can't last much longer."

"It's rising--"

"To be sure, but the river will overflow the bank."

"Please!" she urged. "You can do no good here. I'm afraid."

He stared at her in the same incredulous bewilderment; some impulse deep within him was struggling for expression, but he could not find words to frame it. His eyes were oddly bright as he smiled at her.

"Won't you go ash.o.r.e?" she begged.

"I'll take you back, of course, but I want to stay and see--"

"Then--I'll stay."

"Eliza!" Her name burst from his lips in a tone that thrilled her, but with it came a sudden uproar from the distant crowd, and the next instant they saw that the ice-barrier was giving way. The pressure had become irresistible. As the Salmon had risen the ice had risen also, and now the narrow throat was belching its contents forth. The chaos of up-ended bergs was being torn apart; over it and through it burst a deluge which filled the valley with the roar of a mighty cataract.

Clouds of spray were in the air; broken ma.s.ses were leaping and somersaulting; high up on the sh.o.r.e were stranded floes and fragments, left in the wake of the moving body. Onward it coursed, clas.h.i.+ng and grinding along the brittle face of the glacier; over the alder tops beyond the bend they could see it moving faster and faster, like the crest of a tidal wave. The surface of the river lowered swiftly beneath the bridge; the huge white pans ground and milled, shouldered aside by the iron-sheathed pillars of concrete.

"See! It's gone already. Once it clears a pa.s.sageway we'll have no more gorges, for the freshets are coming. The bridge didn't even tremble--there wasn't a tremor, not a scratch!" Eliza looked up to find O'Neil regarding her with an expression that set her heart throbbing and her thoughts scattering. She clasped a huge, cold bolt-head and clung to it desperately, for the upheaval in her soul rivaled that which had just pa.s.sed before her eyes. The bridge, the river, the valley itself were gyrating slowly, dizzily.

"Eliza!" She did not answer. "Child!" O'Neil's voice was shaking. "Why did you come to me? Why did you do this mad thing? I saw something in your face that I can't believe--that I--can't think possible. It--it gives me courage. If I don't speak quickly I'll never dare. Is it--true? Dear girl, can it be? I'm so old--such a poor thing--you couldn't possibly care, and yet, WHY DID YOU COME?" The words were torn from him; he was gripped and shaken by a powerful emotion.

She tried to answer, but her lips were soundless. She closed her eyes, and Murray saw that she was whiter than the foam far beneath. He stared into the colorless face upturned to his until her eyelids fluttered open and she managed to voice the words that clung in her throat.

"I've always--loved you like this."

He gave a cry, like that of a starving man; she felt herself drawn against him. But now he, too, was speechless; he could only press her close while his mind went groping for words to express that joy which was as yet unbelievable and stunning.

"Couldn't you see?" she asked, breathlessly.

He shook his head. "I'm such a dreamer. I'm afraid it--can't be true.

I'm afraid you'll go away and--leave me. You won't ever--will you, Eliza? I couldn't stand that." Then fresh realization of the truth swept over him; they clung to each other, drunk with ecstasy, senseless of their surroundings.

"I thought you cared for Natalie," she said, softly, after a while.

"It was always you."

"Always?"

"Always!"

She turned her lips to his, and lifted her entwining arms.

The breakfast-gong had called the men away before the two figures far out upon the bridge picked their way slowly to the sh.o.r.e. The Salmon was still flooded with hurrying ma.s.ses of ice, as it would continue to be for several days, but it was running free; the channel in front of the glacier was open.

Blaine was the first to shake O'Neil's hand, for the members of Murray's crew held aloof in some embarra.s.sment.

"It's a perfect piece of work," said he. "I congratulate you."

The others echoed his sentiments faintly, hesitatingly, for they were abashed at what they saw in their chief's face and realized that words were weak and meaningless.

Dan dared not trust himself to speak. He had many things to say to his sister, but his throat ached miserably. Natalie restrained herself only by the greatest effort.

It was Tom Slater who ended the awkward pause by grumbling, sarcastically:

"If all the young lovers are safely ash.o.r.e, maybe us old men who built the bridge can go and get something to eat."

Murray smiled at the girl beside him.

"I'm afraid they've guessed our secret, dear."

"Secret!" Slater rolled his eyes. "There ain't over a couple thousand people beside us that saw you pop the question. I s'pose she was out of breath and couldn't say no."

Eliza gasped and fled to her brother's arms.

"Sis! Poor--little Sis!" Dan cried, and two tears stole down his brown cheeks. "Isn't this--just great?" Then the others burst into a noisy expression of their gladness.

"Happy Tom" regarded them all pessimistically. "I feel bound to warn you," he said at length, "that marriage is an awful gamble. It ain't what it seems."

"It is!" Natalie declared. "It's better, and you know it."