by Zane Grey
At the breakfast table and at the dinner table the talk was of the snow. The evening paper contained a column of despatches concerning the blockade, now serious, in the eighth district. Half the first page was given to alarming reports from the cattle ranges. Two mail-carriers were reported lost in the Sweetgrass country, and a ski runner from Fort Steadman, which had been cut off for eight days, told of thirty-five feet of snow in the Whitewater hills.
Sleepy Cat reported eighteen inches of fresh snow, and a second delayed despatch under the same date-line reported that a bucking special from Medicine Bend, composed of a rotary, a flanger, and five locomotives had passed that point at 9 A.M. for the eighth district.
Gertrude found no interest in the news or the discussion. She could only wonder why she did not see Glover during the day, and when he made no appearance at dinner she grew sick with uncertainty. Leaving the dining-room ahead of the party in some vague hope of seeing him, Solomon hurried up with the note that Glover had left to be given her in the morning. The boy had gone off duty before she left her room and had over-slept, but instead of waiting for his apologies she hastened to her room and locked her door to devour her lover’s words. She saw that he had written her in the dead of night to explain his going, and to say good-by. Bucks’ message he had enclosed. “But I shall work very hard every hour I am gone to get back the sooner,” he promised, “and if you hear of the snow flying over the peaks on the West End you will know that I am behind it and headed straight for you.”
When Marie and Mrs. Whitney came up, Gertrude sat calmly before the grate fire, but the note lay hidden over her heart, for in it he had whispered that while he was away every night at eight o’clock and every morning, no matter where she should be, or what doing, he should kiss her lips and her eyes as he had kissed them that first morning in the dark, warm office. When eight o’clock came her aunt and her sister sat with her; but Gertrude at eight o’clock, musing, was with her lover and her lips and eyes again were his to do with what he would. Later Doctor Lanning came in and she roused to hear the news about the snow. Between Sleepy Cat and Bear Dance two passenger trains were stalled, and on Blackbird hill the snow was reported four feet deep on the level.
When the doctor had gone and Marie had retired, Gertrude’s aunt talked to her seriously about her father, whose almost frantic condition over what he called Gertrude’s infatuation was alarming.
Her aunt explained how her final refusal of Allen Harrison, a connection on which her father had set his heart, might result in the total disruption of the plans which held so mighty interests together; and how impossible it was that he should ever consent to her throwing herself away on an obscure Western man.
Only occasionally would Gertrude interrupt. “Don’t strip the poor man of everything, auntie. If it must come to family—the De Gallons and Cirodes and Glovers were lords of the Mississippi when our Hessian forefathers were hiding from Washington in the Trenton hazelbushes.”
She could meet her aunt’s fears with jests and her tears with smiles until the worried lady chancing on a deeper chord disarmed her. “You know you are my pet, Gertrude. I am your foster-mother, dear, and I have tried to be mother to you and Marie, and sister to my brother every day of my life since your mother died. And if you—”
Then Gertrude’s arms would enfold her and her head hide on her aunt’s shoulder, and they would part utterly miserable.
One morning when Gertrude woke it was snowing and Medicine Bend was cut completely off from the western end of the division. The cold in the desert districts had made it impossible to move freights. During the night they had been snowed in on sidings all the way from Sleepy Cat east. By night every wire was down; the last message in was a private one from Glover, with the ploughs, dated at Nine Mile.
Solomon brought the telegram up to Gertrude with the intimation that, confidentially, Mr. Blood’s assistant, in charge of the Wickiup, would be glad to hear any news it might contain about the blockade, as communication was now cut entirely off.
Gertrude told the messenger only that she understood the blockade in the eighth district had been lifted and that the ploughs were headed east. Then as the lad looked wonderingly at her, she started. Have I, she asked herself, already become a part of this life, that they come to me for information? But she did not add that the signer of the message had promised to be with her in twenty-four hours.
That day for the first time in eighteen years, no trains ran in or out of Medicine Bend, and an entire regiment of cavalry bound for the Philippines was known to be buried in a snowdrift near San Pete. The big hotel swarmed with snow-bound travellers. The snow fell all day, but to Gertrude’s relief her father and the men of the party were at the Wickiup with Bucks, who had come in during the night with reinforcements from McCloud. Unfortunately, the batteries that followed him were compelled to double about next morning to open the line back across the plains.
The gravity of the situation about her, the spectacle of the struggle, now vast and all absorbing, made by the operating department to cope with the storm and cold, and the anxieties of her own position plunged Gertrude into a gloom she had never before conceived of. Her aunt’s forebodings and tears, her father’s unbending silence and aloofness, made escape from her depression impossible. When Solomon appeared she besought him surreptitiously for news, but though Solomon fairly staggered with the responsibilities of his position he could supply nothing beyond rumors—rumors all tending to magnify the reliance placed on Glover’s capabilities in stress of this sort, but not at the moment definitely locating him.
Next morning the creeping eastern light had not yet entered her room when a timid rap aroused her. Solomon was outside the door with news. “The ploughs will be here in an hour,” he whispered.
“The ploughs?”
Solomon couldn’t resist the low appeal for more definite word. He had no information more than he had given, but he bravely journalized, “Mr. Glover and everybody, ma’am.”
“Oh, thank you, Solomon.”
She rose, with wings beating love across the miles that separated him from her. Day with its perplexities may beset, the stars bring sometimes only grief; but to lovers morning brings always joy, because it brings hope. She detained Solomon a moment. A resolve fixed itself at once in her heart; to greet her lover the instant he arrived. She could dress and slip down to the station and back before the others awoke even. It was hazardous, but what venture is less attractive for a hazard if it bring a lover? She made her rapid toilet with affection in her supple fingers, and welcome glowing in her quick eyes, and she left her room with the utmost care. Enveloped in the Newmarket, because he loved it, her hands in her big muff, and her cheeks closely veiled, she joined Solomon in the reception room downstairs.
The morning was gray with a snow fog hanging low, and feathery flakes were sinking upon the whitened street. “Listen!” cried the boy, excitedly, as they neared the Wickiup. From somewhere in the sky came the faint scream of a locomotive whistle. “That’s them, all right. Gee! I’d like to buck snow.”
“Would you?”
“Would I? Wouldn’t you?”
A hundred men were strung along the platform, and a sharper blast echoed across the upper flat. “There they are!” cried Solomon, pressing forward. Gertrude saw a huge snow-covered monster swing heavily around the yard hill. The ploughs were at hand. The head engine whistled again, those in the battery took up the signal, and heeled in snow they bore down on the Wickiup whistling a chorus. Before the long battery had halted, the men about Gertrude were running toward the cabs, cheering. Many men poured out of the battered ice-bound cars at the end of the string. While Gertrude’s eyes strained with expectation a collie dog shot headlong to the platform from the steps of the hind caboose, and wheeling about, barked madly until, last of three men together, Glover, carrying his little bag, swung down, and listening to his companions
, walked leisurely forward.
Swayed by the excitement which she did not fully understand all about her, Gertrude, with swimming eyes, saw Solomon dash toward Glover and catch his bag. As the boy spoke to him she saw Glover’s head lift in the deliberate surprise she knew so well. She felt his wandering eyes bend upon her, and his hand rose in suppressed joyfulness.
Doubt, care, anxiety, fled before that gesture. Stumah, wild with delight, bounded at her, and before she could greet him, Glover, a giant in his wrappings, was bending over her, his eyes burning through the veil that hid her own. She heard without comprehending his words; she asked questions without knowing she asked, because his hand so tightly clasped hers.
They walked up the platform and he stopped but once; to speak to the snugly clad man that got down from the head engine. Gertrude recognized the good-natured profile under the long cap; Paddy McGraw lifted his visor as she advanced and with a happy laugh greeted him.
Smiling at her welcome he drew off his glove and took from an inner pocket her ring and held it out on his hand. “I am taking good care of my souvenir.”
“I hope you are taking good care of yourself,” Gertrude responded, “because every time I ride in the mountains, Mr. McGraw, I want you for engineer.”
Glover was saying something to her as they turned away together, but she gave no heed to his meaning. She caught only the low, pretty uncertainty in his utterance, the unfailing little break that she loved in his tone.
He was saying, “Yes—some of it thirty feet. Morris Blood is tunnelling on the Pilot branch this morning; it’s bad up there, but the main line is clear from end to end. Surely, you never looked so sweet in your life. Gertrude, Gertrude, you’re a beautiful girl. Do you know that? What are those fellows shouting about? Me? Not at all. They’re cheering you.”
CHAPTER XX
DEEPENING WATERS
The stolen interview of the early morning was the consolation of the day. Gertrude confided a resolve to Glover. She had thought it all out and he must, she said, talk to her father. Nothing would ever ever come of a situation in which the two never met. The terrible problem was how to arrange the interview. Her father had already declined to meet Glover at all. Moreover, Mr. Brock had a fund of silence that approximated absolute zero, and Gertrude dreaded the result if Glover, in presenting his case, should stop at any point and succumb to the chill.
During such intervals as they managed to meet, the lovers could discuss nothing but the crisis that confronted them. The definite clearing of the line meant perhaps an early separation and something must be done, if ever, at once.
In the evening Gertrude made a long appeal to her aunt to intercede for her, and another to Marie, who, softening somewhat, had spent half an hour before dinner in discussing the situation calmly with Glover; but over the proposed interview Marie shook her head. She had great influence with her father, but candidly owned she should dread facing him on a matter he had definitely declined to discuss.
They parted at night without light on their difficulties. In the morning Glover made several ineffectual efforts to see Gertrude early. He had an idea that they had forgotten the one who could advise and help them better than any other—his friend and patron, Bucks.
The second vice-president was now closer in a business way to Mr. Brock than anyone else in the world. They were friends of very early days, of days when they were laying together the foundations of their careers. It was Bucks who had shown Mr. Brock the stupendous possibilities in reorganizing the system, who was responsible for his enormous investment, and each reposed in the other entire confidence. Gertrude constantly contended that it was only a question of her father’s really knowing Glover, and that if her lover could be put, as she knew him, before her father, he must certainly give way. Why not, then, take Bucks into their confidence?
It seemed like light from heaven to Glover, and he was talking to Gertrude when there came a rap at the door of the parlor and a messenger entered with a long despatch from Callahan at Sleepy Cat.
The message was marked delayed in transmission. Glover walked with it to the window and read:
“Doubleday’s outfit wrecked early this morning on Pilot Hill while bucking. Head engine, the 927, McGraw, partly off track. Tender crushed the cab. Doubleday instantly killed and McGraw badly hurt. Morris Blood is reported to have been in the cab also, but cannot be found. Have sent Doubleday and McGraw to Medicine Bend in my car and am starting with wrecking crew for the Hill.”
“What is it?” murmured Gertrude, watching her lover’s face. He studied the telegram a long time and she came to his side. He raised his eyes from the paper in his hand and looked out of the window. “What is it?” she whispered.
“Pilot Hill.”
“I do not understand, dearest.”
“A wreck.”
“Oh, is it serious?”
His eyes fell again on the death message. “Morris Blood was in it and they can’t find him.”
“Oh, oh.”
“A bad place; a bad, bad place.” He spoke, absently, then his eyes turned upon her with inexpressible tenderness.
“But why can’t they find him, dearest?”
“The track is blasted out of the mountain side for half a mile. Bucks said it would be a graveyard, but I couldn’t get to the mines in any other way. Gertrude, I must go to the Wickiup at once to get further news. This message has been delayed, the wires are not right yet.”
“Will you come back soon?”
“Just the minute I can get definite news about Morris. In half an hour, probably.”
She tried to comfort him when he left her. She knew of the deep attachment between the two men, and she encouraged her lover to hope for the best. Not until he had gone did she fully realize how deeply he was moved. At the window she watched him walk hurriedly down the street, and as he disappeared, reflected that she had never seen such an expression on his face as when he read the telegram.
The half hour went while she reflected. Going downstairs she found the news of the wreck had spread about the hotel, and widely exaggerated accounts of the disaster were being discussed. Mrs. Whitney and Marie were out sleighriding, and by the time the half hour had passed without word from Glover, Gertrude gave way to her restlessness. She had a telegram to send to New York—an order for bonbons—and she determined to walk down to the Wickiup to send it; she might, she thought, see Glover and hear his news sooner.
When she approached the headquarters building unusual numbers of railroad men were grouped on the platform, talking. Messengers hurried to and from the roundhouse. A blown engine attached to a day coach was standing near and men were passing in and out of the car. Gertrude made her way to the stairs unobserved, walked leisurely up to the telegraph office and sent her message. The long corridors of the building, gloomy even on bright days, were quite dark as she left the operators’ room and walked slowly toward the quarters of the construction department.
The door of the large anteroom was open and the room empty. Gertrude entered hesitatingly and looked toward Glover’s office. His door also was ajar, but no one was within. The sound of voices came from a connecting room and she at once distinguished Glover’s tones. It was justification: with her coin purse she tapped lightly on the door casing, and getting no response stepped inside the office and slipped into a chair beside his desk to await him. The voices came from a room leading to Callahan’s apartments.
Glover was asking questions, and a man whose voice she could now hear breaking with sobs, was answering. “Are you sure your signals were right?” she heard Glover ask slowly and earnestly; and again, patiently, “how could you be doubled up without the flanger’s leaving the track?” Then the man would repeat his story.
“You must have had too much behind you,” Glover said once.
“Too much?” echoed the man, fra
ntically. “Seven engines behind us all day yesterday. Paddy told him the minute he got in the cab she wouldn’t never stand it. He told him it as plain as a man could tell a man. Then because we went through a thousand feet in the gap like cheese he ordered us up the hill. When we struck the big drift it was slicing rock, Mr. Glover. Paddy told him she wouldn’t never stand it. The very first push we let go in a hundred feet with the engine churning her damned drivers off. We went into it twice that way. I could see it was shoving the tender up in the air every time and told Doubleday—oh, if you’d been there! The next time we sent the plough through the first crust and drove a wind-pocket maybe forty or fifty yards and hit the ice with the seven engines jamming into us. My God! she doubled up like a jack-knife—Pat, Pat, Pat.”
“Can you recollect where Blood was standing when you buckled?”
“In the right gangway.” There was a pause. “He must have dropped,” she heard Glover say.
“Then he’ll never drop again, Mr. Glover, for if he slipped off the ties he’d drop a thousand feet.”
“The heaviest snow is right at the top of the hill?”
“Yes, sir.”
“If we can cross the hill we can find him anyway.”
“Don’t try to get across that hill till you put in five hundred shovellers, Mr. Glover.”
“That would take a week. If he’s alive we must get him within twenty-four hours. He may freeze to death to-night.”
“Don’t try to cross that hill with a plough, Mr. Glover. Mind my words. It’s no use. I’ve bucked with you many a time—you know that.”
“Yes.”
“You’re going to your death when you try that.”