The King of Arcadia

by Francis Lynde

  XVII

  THE DERRICK FUMBLES

  Bromley had been a week in hospital at the great house in the uppervalley, and was recovering as rapidly as a clean-living, well-ancestoredman should, when Ballard was surprised one morning by a descent of theentire Castle 'Cadia garrison, lacking only the colonel and MissCauffrey, upon the scene of activities at the dam.

  The chief of construction had to flog himself sharply into thehospitable line before he could make the invaders welcome. He had aworkingman's shrewd impatience of interruptions; and since the accidentwhich had deprived him of his assistant, he had been doing double duty.On this particular morning he was about to leave for a flying round ofthe camps on the railroad extension; but he reluctantly countermandedthe order for the locomotive when he saw Elsa picking the way for herguests among the obstructions in the stone yard.

  "Please--oh, please don't look so inhospitable!" she begged, inwell-simulated dismay, when the irruption of sight-seers had fairlysurrounded him. "We have driven and fished and climbed mountains andplayed children's games at home until there was positively nothing elseto do. Pacify him, Cousin Janet--he's going to warn us off!"

  Ballard laughingly disclaimed any such ungracious intention, andproceeded to prove his words by deeds. Young Blacklock and Bigelow wereeasily interested in the building details; the women were given anopportunity to see the inside workings of the men's housekeeping in theshacks, the mess-tent and the camp kitchen; the major was permitted andencouraged to be loftily critical of everything; and Wingfield--butBallard kept the playwright carefully tethered in a sort of moralhitching-rope, holding the end of the rope in his own hands.

  Once openly committed as entertainer, the young Kentuckian did all thatcould be expected of him--and more. When the visitors had surfeitedthemselves on concrete-mixing and stone-laying and camp housekeeping,the chief engineer had plank seats placed on a flat car, and theinvaders were whisked away on an impromptu and personally conductedrailway excursion to some of the nearer ditch camps.

  Before leaving the headquarters, Ballard gave Fitzpatrick an Irish hint;and when the excursionists returned from the railway jaunt, there was amiraculous luncheon served in the big mess-tent. Garou, theFrench-Canadian camp cook, had a soul above the bare necessities whenthe occasion demanded; and he had Ballard's private commissary to drawupon.

  After the luncheon Ballard let his guests scatter as they pleased,charging himself, as before, particularly with the oversight andwardenship of Mr. Lester Wingfield. There was only one chance in ahundred that the playwright, left to his own devices, might stumble uponthe skeleton in the camp closet. But the Kentuckian was determined tomake that one chance ineffective.

  Several things came of the hour spent as Wingfield's keeper while theothers were visiting the wing dam and the quarry, the spillway, and thecut-off tunnel, under Fitzpatrick as megaphonist. One of them was ajuster appreciation of the playwright as a man and a brother. Ballardsmiled mentally when he realised that his point of view had been that ofthe elemental lover, jealous of a possible rival. Wingfield was not halfa bad sort, he admitted; a little inclined to pose, since it was his artto epitomise a world of _poseurs_; an enthusiast in his calling; but atbottom a workable companion and the shrewdest of observers.

  In deference to the changed point of view, the Kentuckian did penancefor the preconceived prejudice and tried to make the playwright'sinsulation painless. The sun shone hot on the stone yard, and there wasa jar of passable tobacco in the office adobe: would Wingfield care togo indoors and lounge until the others came to a proper sense of thedesirability of shade and quietude on a hot afternoon?

  Wingfield would, gladly. He confessed shamelessly to a habit of smokinghis after-luncheon pipe on his back. There was a home-made divan in theoffice quarters, with cushions and blanket coverings, and Ballard foundthe tobacco-jar and a clean pipe; a long-stemmed "churchwarden," dear tothe heart of a lazy man.

  "Now this is what I call solid comfort," said the playwright, stretchinghis long legs luxuriously on the divan. "A man's den that is a den, andnot a bric-a-brac shop masquerading under the name, a good pipe, goodtobacco, and good company. You fellows have us world-people faded to ashadow when it comes to the real thing. I've felt it in my bones allalong that I was missing the best part of this trip by not getting inwith you down here. But every time I've tried to break away, somethingelse has turned up."

  Ballard was ready with his bucket of cold water.

  "You haven't missed anything. There isn't much in a construction camp toinvite the literary mind, I should say." And he tried to make the sayingsound not too inhospitable.

  "Oh, you're off wrong, there," argued the playwright, with cheerfularrogance. "You probably haven't a sense of the literary values; a goodmany people haven't--born blind on that side, you know. Now, Miss VanBryck has the seeing eye, to an educated finish. She tells me you have adramatic situation down here every little so-while. She told me thatstory of yours about the stone smashing into your office in the middleof the night. That's simply ripping good stuff--worlds of possibilitiesin a thing like that, don't you know? By the way, this is the room,isn't it? Does that patch in the ceiling cover the hole?"

  Ballard admitted the fact, and strove manfully to throw the switch aheadof the querist to the end that the talk might be shunted to some lessdangerous topic.

  "Hang the tobacco!" snapped the guest irritably, retorting uponBallard's remark about the quality of his pet smoking mixture. "You andMiss Craigmiles seem to be bitten with the same exasperating mania forsubject-changing. I'd like to hear that rock-throwing story at firsthands, if you don't mind."

  Having no good reason for refusing point-blank, Ballard told the story,carefully divesting it of all the little mystery thrills which he hadincluded for Miss Dosia's benefit.

  "Um!" commented Wingfield, at the close of the bald narration. "It wouldseem to have lost a good bit in the way of human interest since Miss VanBryck repeated it to me. Did you embroider it for her? or did she put inthe little hemstitchings for me?"

  Ballard laughed.

  "I am sorry if I have spoiled it for you. But you couldn't make adramatic situation out of a careless quarryman's overloading of ashot-hole."

  "Oh, no," said the playwright, apparently giving it up. And he smokedhis pipe out in silence.

  Ballard thought the incident was comfortably dead and buried, but he didnot know his man. Long after Wingfield might be supposed to haveforgotten all about the stone catapulting, he sat up suddenly and brokeout again.

  "Say! you explained to Miss Dosia that the stone couldn't possibly havecome from the quarry without knocking the science of artillery into acocked hat. She made a point of that."

  "Oh, hold on!" protested the Kentuckian. "You mustn't hold meresponsible for a bit of dinner-table talk with a very charming youngwoman. Perhaps Miss Dosia wished to be mystified. I put it to you as manto man; would you have disappointed her?"

  The playwright's laugh showed his fine teeth.

  "They tell me you are at the top of the heap in your profession, Mr.Ballard, and I can easily believe it. But I have a specialty, too, andI'm no slouch in it. My little stunt is prying into the innerconsciousness of things. Obviously, there is a mystery--a realmystery--about this stone-throwing episode, and for some reason you aretrying to keep me from dipping into it. Conversely, I'd like to get tothe bottom of it. Tell me frankly, is there any good reason why Ishouldn't?"

  Ballard's salvation for this time personified itself in the figure ofContractor Fitzpatrick darkening the door of the office to ask a"question of information," as he phrased it. Hence there was an excusefor a break and a return to the sun-kissed stone yard.

  The engineer purposefully prolonged the talk with Fitzpatrick until thescattered sight-seers had gathered for a descent, under JerryBlacklock's lead, to the great ravine below the dam where the riverthundered out of the cut-off tunnel. But when he saw that MissCraigmiles had elected to stay behind, and that Wingfield had attachedhimself to t
he younger Miss Cantrell, he gave the contractor hisinformation boiled down into a curt sentence or two, and hastened tojoin the stay-behind.

  "You'll melt, out here in the sun," he said, overtaking her as she stoodlooking down into the whirling vortex made by the torrent's plunge intothe entrance of the cut-off tunnel.

  She ignored the care-taking phrase as if she had not heard it.

  "Mr. Wingfield?--you have kept him from getting interested in the--inthe----"

  Ballard nodded.

  "He is interested, beyond doubt. But for the present moment I have kepthim from adding anything to Miss Dosia's artless gossip. Will you permitme to suggest that it was taking rather a long chance?--your bringinghim down here?"

  "I know; but I couldn't help it. Dosia would have brought him on yourinvitation. I did everything I could think of to obstruct; and when theyhad beaten me, I made a party affair of it. You'll have to forgive mefor spoiling an entire working day for you."

  "Since it has given me a chance to be with you, I'm only too happy inlosing the day," he said; and he meant it. But he let her know the worstin the other matter in an added sentence. "I'm afraid the mischief isdone in Wingfield's affair, in spite of everything."

  "How?" she asked, and the keen anxiety in the grey eyes cut him to theheart.

  He told her briefly of the chance arousing of Wingfield's curiosity, andof the playwright's expressed determination to fathom the mystery of thetable-smashing stone. Her dismay was pathetic.

  "You should never have taken him into your office," she protestedreproachfully. "He was sure to be reminded of Dosia's story there."

  "I didn't foresee that, and he was beginning to gossip with the workmen.I knew it wouldn't be long before he would get the story of thehappenings out of the men--with all the garnishings."

  "You _must_ find a way to stop him," she insisted. "If you could onlyknow what terrible consequences are wrapped up in it!"

  He waited until a stone block, dangling in the clutch of thederrick-fall above its appointed resting-place on the growing wall ofmasonry, had been lowered into the cement bed prepared for it before hesaid, soberly: "That is the trouble--I _don't_ know. And, short ofquarrelling outright with Wingfield, I don't think of any effective wayof muzzling him."

  "No; you mustn't do that. There is misery enough and enmity enough,without making any more. I'll try to keep him away."

  "You will fail," he prophesied, with conviction. "Mr. Wingfield callshimself a builder of plots; but I can assure you from this one day'sobservation of him that he would much rather unravel a plot than buildone."

  She was silent while the workmen were swinging another great stone outover the canyon chasm. The shadow of the huge derrick-boom swept aroundand across them, and she shuddered as if the intangible thing had beenan icy finger to touch her.

  "You must help me," she pleaded. "I cannot see the way a single stepahead."

  "And I am in still deeper darkness," he reminded her gently. "You forgetthat I do not know what threatens you, or how it threatens."

  "I can't tell you; I can't tell any one," she said; and he made surethere was a sob at the catching of her breath.

  As once before, he grew suddenly masterful.

  "You are wronging yourself and me, Elsa, dear. You forget that yourtrouble is mine; that in the end we two shall be one in spite of all theobstacles that a crazy fate can invent."

  She shook her head. "I told you once that you must not forget yourselfagain; and you are forgetting. There is one obstacle which can never beovercome this side of the grave. You must always remember that."

  "I remember only that I love you," he dared; adding: "And you are afraidto tell me what this obstacle is. You know it would vanish in thetelling."

  She did not answer.

  "You won't tell me that you are in love with Wingfield?" he persisted.

  Still no reply.

  "Elsa, dearest, can you look me in the eyes and tell me that you do notlove _me_?"

  She neither looked nor denied.

  "Then that is all I need to know at present," he went on doggedly. "Ishall absolutely and positively refuse to recognise any other obstacle."

  She broke silence so swiftly that the words seemed to leap to her lips.

  "There is one, dear friend," she said, with a warm upflash of strongemotion; "one that neither you nor I, nor any one can overcome!" Shepointed down at the boulder-riven flood churning itself into spray inthe canyon pot at their feet. "I will measure it for you--and formyself, God help us! Rather than be your wife--the mother of yourchildren--I should gladly, joyfully, fling myself into that."

  The motion he made to catch her, to draw her back from the brink of thechasm, was purely mechanical, but it served to break the strain of asituation that had become suddenly impossible.

  "That was almost tragic, wasn't it?" she asked, with a swift retreatbehind the barricades of mockery. "In another minute we should havetumbled headlong into melodrama, with poor Mr. Wingfield hopelessly outof reach for the note-taking process."

  "Then you didn't mean what you were saying?" he demanded, trying hard toovertake the fleeing realities.

  "I did, indeed; don't make me say it again. The lights are up, and theaudience might be looking. See how manfully Mr. Bigelow is trying not tolet Cousin Janet discover how she is crushing him!"

  Out of the lower ravine the other members of the party were straggling,with Bigelow giving first aid to a breathless and panting Mrs. VanBryck, and Wingfield and young Blacklock helping first one and thenanother of the four younger women. The workmen in the cutting yard werepreparing to swing a third massive face-block into place on the dam; andMiss Craigmiles, quite her serene self again, was asking to be shown howthe grappling hooks were made fast in the process of "toggling."

  Ballard accepted his defeat with what philosophy he could muster, andexplained the technical detail. Then the others came up, and thebuckboards sent down from Castle 'Cadia to take the party home were seenwheeling into line at the upper end of the short foothill canyon.

  "There is our recall at last, Mr. Ballard," gasped the breathlesschaperon, "and I daresay you are immensely relieved. But you mustn't betoo sorry for your lost day. We have had a perfectly lovely time."

  "Such a delightful day!" echoed the two sharers of the common Christianname in unison; and the king's daughter added demurely: "Don't you seewe are all waiting for you to ask us to come again, Mr. Ballard?"

  "Oh, certainly; any time," said Ballard, coming to the surface.Notwithstanding, on the short walk up to the waiting buckboards he sankinto the sea of perplexity again. Elsa's moods had always puzzled him.If they were not real, as he often suspected, they were artisticallyperfect imitations; and he was never quite sure that he coulddistinguish between the real and the simulated.

  As at the present moment: the light-hearted young woman walking besidehim up the steep canyon path was the very opposite of the sorely triedand anxious one who had twice let him see the effects of the anxiety,however carefully she concealed the cause.

  The perplexed wonder was still making him half abstracted when he puthimself in the way to help her into one of the homeward-headed vehicles.They were a little in advance of the others, and when she faced him tosay good-bye, he saw her eyes. Behind the smile in them the troubledshadows were still lurking; and when the heartening word was on his lipsthey looked past him, dilating suddenly with a great horror.

  "Look!" she cried, pointing back to the dam; and when he wheeled he sawthat they were all looking; standing agape as if they had been shown theMedusa's head. The third great stone had been swung out over the dam,and, little by little, with jerkings that made the wire cables snap andsing, the grappling-hooks were losing their hold in mid-air. The yellsof the workmen imperilled rose sharply above the thunder of the river,and the man at the winding-drums seemed to have lost his nerve and hishead.

  Young Blacklock, who was taking an engineering course in college, turnedand ran back down the path, shouting like a madman. Ball
ard made amegaphone of his hands and bellowed an order to the unnerved hoisterengineer. "Lower away! Drop it, you blockhead!" he shouted; but thecommand came too late. With a final jerk the slipping hooks gave way,and the three-ton cube of granite dropped like a huge projectile,striking the stonework of the dam with a crash like an explosion ofdynamite.

  Dosia Van Bryck's shriek was ringing in Ballard's ears, and the look offrozen horror on Elsa's face was before his eyes, when he dashed downthe steep trail at Blacklock's heels. Happily, there was no one killed;no one seriously hurt. On the dam-head Fitzpatrick was climbing to apoint of vantage to shout the news to the yard men clustering thickly onthe edge of the cliff above, and Ballard went only far enough to makesure that there had been no loss of life. Then he turned and hastenedback to the halted buckboards.

  "Thank God, it's only a money loss, this time!" he announced. "The hooksheld long enough to give the men time to get out of the way."

  "There was no one hurt? Are you sure there was no one hurt?" panted Mrs.Van Bryck, fanning herself vigorously.

  "No one at all. I'm awfully sorry we had to give you such a shock foryour leave-taking, but accidents will happen, now and then. You willexcuse me if I go at once? There is work to be done."

  "H'm--ha! One moment, Mr. Ballard," rasped the major, swelling up like aman on the verge of apoplexy. But Mrs. Van Bryck was not to be setaside.

  "Oh, certainly, we will excuse you. Please don't waste a moment on us.You shouldn't have troubled to come back. So sorry--it was verydreadful--terrible!"

  While the chaperon was groping for her misplaced self-composure,Wingfield said a word or two to Dosia, who was his seat-mate, and sprangto the ground.

  "Hold on a second, Ballard!" he called. "I'm going with you. What youneed right now is a trained investigator, and I'm your man. Great Scott!to think that a thing like that should happen, and I should be here tosee it!" And then to Miss Craigmiles, who appeared to be trying veryearnestly to dissuade him: "Oh, no, Miss Elsa; I sha'n't get underfootor be in Mr. Ballard's way; and you needn't trouble to send down for me.I can pad home on my two feet, later on."