The Iron Trail

by Rex Beach

  VI

  THE DREAMER

  Unobserved the two friends watched the poker game, which for a timeproceeded quietly. But suddenly they saw Appleton lean over the tableand address the man with the derby hat; then, thrusting back his chair,he rose, declaring, in a louder tone:

  "I tell you I saw it. I thought I was mistaken at first." His face waswhite, and he disregarded the efforts of his right-hand neighbor toquiet him.

  "Don't squeal," smiled the dealer. "I'll leave it to the boys if I didanything wrong."

  "You pulled that king from the bottom. It may not be wrong, but it'sdamned peculiar."

  "Forget it!" one of the others exclaimed. "Denny wouldn't double-crossyou."

  "Hardly!" agreed Mr. Denny, evenly. "You're 'in' a hundred and eightydollars, but if you're sore you can have it back."

  Appleton flung his cards into the middle of the table and turned awaydisgustedly. "It's a hard thing to prove, and I'm not absolutely sure Isaw straight, or--I'd take it back, fast enough."

  Denny shrugged and gathered in the discarded hand. "You've beendrinking too much, that's all. Your eyesight is scattered."

  Appleton's face flushed as he beheld the gaze of the company upon himand heard the laughter which greeted this remark. He turned to leavewhen O'Neil, who had continued to watch the proceedings with interest,crossed to the group and touched Denny on the shoulder, saying, quietly:

  "Give him his money."

  "Eh?" The smile faded from the fellow's face; he looked up withstartled inquiry. "What?"

  "Give him his money."

  In the momentary hush which followed, "Happy Tom" Slater, who hadfrequently seen his employer in action and understood storm signals,sighed deeply and reached for the nearest chair. With a wrench of hispowerful hands he loosened a leg. Although Mr. Slater abhorred trouble,he was accustomed to meet it philosophically. A lifetime spent inconstruction camps had taught him that, of all weapons, the one bestsuited to his use was a pick-handle; second to that he had come tovalue the hardwood leg of a chair. But in the present case hisprecaution proved needless, for the dispute was over before he hadfairly prepared himself.

  Without waiting for O'Neil to put his accusation into words Denny hadrisen swiftly, and in doing so he had either purposely or by accidentmade a movement which produced a prompt and instinctive reaction.Murray's fist met him as he rose, met him so squarely and with suchforce that he lost all interest in what followed. The othercard-players silently gathered Mr. Denny in their arms and stretchedhim upon a disused roulette table; the bartender appeared with a wettowel and began to bathe his temples.

  Appleton, dazed by the suddenness of it all, found a stack of goldpieces in his hand and heard O'Neil saying in an every-day tone:

  "Come to my room, please. I'd like to talk to you." Somethingcommanding in the speaker's face made the engineer follow against hiswill. He longed to loiter here until Denny had regained his senses--butO'Neil had him by the arm and a moment later he was being led down thehall away from the lobby and the barroom. As Slater, who had followed,closed the door behind them, Dan burst forth:

  "By Jove! Why didn't you tell me? I knew he was crooked--but I couldn'tbelieve--"

  "Sit down!" said O'Neil. "He won't pull himself together for a while,and I want to get to bed. Are you looking for a job?"

  The engineer's eyes opened wide.

  "Yes."

  "Do you know the Kyak country?"

  "Pretty well."

  "I need a surveyor. Your wages will be the same that Gordon paid andthey begin now, if it's agreeable."

  "It certainly is!"

  "Good! We'll leave at six o'clock, sharp. Bring your bedding andinstruments."

  "Thanks! I--This is a bit of a surprise. Who are you?"

  "I'm O'Neil."

  "Oh!" Mr. Appleton's expression changed quickly. "You're Murray--" Hestammered an instant. "It was very good of you to take my part, afterI'd been fool enough to--"

  "Well--I didn't want to see you make a total idiot of yourself."

  The young man flushed slightly, then in a quieter voice, he asked:

  "How did you know I was out of work?"

  "Mr. Gordon told me. He recommended you highly."

  "He did?"

  "He said you were unreliable, disloyal, and dishonest. Coming from himI took that as high praise."

  There was a moment's pause, then Appleton laughed boyishly.

  "That's funny! I'm very glad to know you, Mr. O'Neil."

  "You don't, and you won't for a long time. Tom tells me you didn'tthink well of Gordon's enterprise and so he fired you."

  "That's right! I suppose I ought to have kept my mouth shut, but it hasa way of flying open when it shouldn't. He is either a fool or a crook,and his mine is nothing but a prospect. I couldn't resist telling himso."

  "And his railroad?"

  Appleton hesitated. "Oh, it's as good a route as the Trust's. I workedon the two surveys. Personally I think both outfits are crazy to try tobuild in from here. I had to tell Gordon that, too. You see I'm avolunteer talker. I should have been born with a stutter--it would havesaved me a lot of trouble."

  O'Neil smiled. "You may talk all you please in my employ, so long asyou do your work. Now get some sleep, for we have a hard trip. And bythe way"--the youth paused with a hand on the doorknob--"don't golooking for Denny."

  Appleton's face hardened stubbornly.

  "I can't promise that, sir."

  "Oh yes you can! You must! Remember, you're working for me, and you'reunder orders. I can't have the expedition held up on your account."

  The engineer's voice was heavy with disappointment, but a vagueadmiration was growing in his eyes as he agreed:

  "Very well, sir. I suppose my time is yours. Good night."

  When he had gone "Happy Tom" inquired:

  "Now, why in blazes did you hire him? We don't need a high-pricedsurveyor on this job."

  "Of course not, but don't you see? He'd have been arrested, sure.Besides--he's Irish, and I like him."

  "Humph! Then I s'pose he's got a job for life," said Tom, morosely."You make friends and enemies quicker than anybody I ever saw. You'vegot Curtis Gordon on your neck now."

  "On account of this boy? Nonsense!"

  "Not altogether. Denny is Gordon's right bower. I think he calls himhis secretary; anyhow, he does Gordon's dirty work and they're thickerthan fleas. First you come along and steal me, underhanded, then yougrab his pet engineer before he has a chance to hire him back again.Just to top off the evening you publicly brand his confidentialunderstrapper as a card cheat and thump him on the medulla oblongata--"

  "Are you sure it wasn't the duodenum?"

  "Well, you hit him in a vital spot, and Gordon won't forget it."

  Late on the following morning O'Neil's expedition was landed at thedeserted fishing-station of Omar, thirty miles down the sound fromCortez. From this point its route lay down the bay to open water andthence eastward along the coast in front of the Salmon River delta someforty miles to Kyak. This latter stretch would have been well-nighimpossible for open boats but for the fact that the numerous mud barsand islands thrown out by the river afforded a sheltered course. Theseinside channels, though shallow, were of sufficient depth to allowsmall craft to navigate and had long been used as a route to thecoal-fields.

  Appleton, smiling and cheerful, was the first member of the party toappear at the dock that morning, and when the landing had been effectedat Omar he showed his knowledge of the country by suggesting a shortcut which would save the long row down to the mouth of the sound andaround into the delta. Immediately back of the old cannery, whichoccupied a gap in the mountain rim, lay a narrow lake, and this, hedeclared, held an outlet which led into the Salmon River flats. Byhauling the boats over into this body of water--a task made easy by thepresence of a tiny tramway with one dilapidated push-car which had beena part of the cannery equipment--it would be possible to save much timeand labor.

  "I've heard there was a way thr
ough," O'Neil confessed, "but nobodyseemed to know just where it was."

  "I know," the young man assured him. "We can gain a day at least, and Ijudge every day is valuable."

  "So valuable that we can't afford to lose one by making a mistake,"said his employer, meaningly.

  "Leave it to me. I never forget a country once I've been through it."

  Accordingly the boats were loaded upon the hand-car and transferred oneat a time. In the interval O'Neil examined his surroundings casually.He was surprised to find the dock and buildings in excellent condition,notwithstanding the fact that the station had lain idle for severalyears. A solitary Norwegian, with but a slight suspicion of English,was watching the premises and managed to make known his impression thatpoor fishing had led the owners to abandon operations at this point.He, too, had heard that Omar Lake had an outlet into the delta, but hewas not sure of its existence; he was sure of nothing, in fact exceptthat it was very lonesome here, and that he had run out of tobacco fivedays before.

  But Dan Appleton was not mistaken. A two hours' row across themirror-like surface of Omar Lake brought the party out through a hiddengap in the mountains and afforded them a view across the level delta.To their left the range they had just penetrated retreated toward thecanon where the Salmon River burst its way out from the interior, andbeyond that point it continued in a coastward swing to Kyak, theirdestination. Between lay a flat, trackless tundra, cut by sloughs andglacial streams, with here and there long tongues of timber reachingdown from the high ground and dwindling away toward the seawardmarshes. It was a desolate region, the breeding-place of sea fowl, thehunting-ground for the great brown bear.

  O'Neil had never before been so near the canon as this, and the wildstories he had heard of it recurred to him with interest. He surveyedthe place curiously as the boats glided along, but could see nothingmore than a jumble of small hills and buttes, and beyond them thedead-gray backs of the twin glaciers coming down from the slopes toeast and west. Beyond the foot-hills and the glaciers themselves themain range was gashed by a deep valley, through which he judged theriver must come, and beyond that he knew was a country of agriculturalpromise, extending clear to the fabulous copper belt whither therailroads from Cortez were headed. Still farther inland lay the Tanana,and then the Yukon, with their riches untouched.

  What a pity, what a mockery, it was that this obvious entrance to thecountry had been blocked by nature! Just at his back was Omar, with itsdeep and sheltered harbor; the lake he had crossed gave a passagethrough the guardian range, and this tundra--O'Neil estimated that hecould lay a mile of track a day over it--led right up to the glaciers.Once through the Coast Range, building would be easy, for the upperSalmon was navigable, and its banks presented no difficulties totrack-laying.

  He turned abruptly to Appleton, who was pulling an oar.

  "What do you know about that canyon?" he asked.

  "Not much. Nobody knows much, for those fellows who went through in thegold rush have all left the country. Gordon's right-of-way comes inabove, and so does the Trust's. From there on I know every foot of theground."

  "I suppose if either of them gets through to the Salmon the rest willbe easy."

  "Dead easy!"

  "It would be shorter and very much cheaper to build from Omar, throughthis way."

  "Of course, but neither outfit knew anything about the outlet to OmarLake until I told them--and they knew there was the canon to bereckoned with."

  "Well?"

  Appleton shook his head. "Look at it! Does it look like a place tobuild a railroad?"

  "I can't tell anything about it, from here."

  "I suppose a road could be built if the glaciers were on the same sideof the river, but--they're not. They face each other, and they'realive, too. Listen!" The oarsmen ceased rowing at Dan's signal, and outof the northward silence came a low rumble like the sound of distantcannonading. "We must be at least twenty miles away, in an air line.The ice stands up alongside the river, hundreds of feet high, and itbreaks off in chunks as big as a New York office-building."

  "You've been up there?"

  "No. But everybody says so, and I've seen glacier ice clear out here inthe delta. They're always moving, too--the glaciers themselves--andthey're filled with crevasses, so that it's dangerous to cross them onfoot even if one keeps back from the river."

  "How did those men get their outfits through in '98?" O'Neil queried.

  "I'm blessed if I know--maybe they flew." After a moment Dan added,"Perhaps they dodged the pieces as they fell."

  O'Neil smiled. He opened his lips to speak, then closed them, and for along time kept his eyes fixed speculatively in the direction of thecanyon. When he had first spoken of a route from Omar he had thrown outthe suggestion with only a casual interest. Now, suddenly, the ideatook strong possession of his mind; it fascinated him with its daring,its bigness. He had begun to dream.

  The world owes all great achievements to dreamers, for men who lackvivid imaginations are incapable of conceiving big enterprises. Nomatter how practical the thing accomplished, it requires this faculty,no less than a poem or a picture. Every bridge, every skyscraper, everymechanical invention, every great work which man has wrought in steeland stone and concrete, was once a dream.

  O'Neil had no small measure of the imaginative power that makes greatleaders, great inventors, great builders. He was capable of tremendousenthusiasm; his temperament forever led him to dare what others fearedto undertake. And here he glimpsed a tremendous opportunity. Thetraffic of a budding nation was waiting to be seized. To him who gainedcontrol of Alaskan transportation would come the domination of herresources. Many were striving for the prize, but if there should proveto be a means of threading that Salmon River canon with steel rails,the man who first found it would have those other railroad enterprisesat his mercy. The Trust would have to sue for terms or abandon furthereffort; for this route was shorter, it was level, it was infinitelycheaper to improve. The stakes in the game were staggering. The merethought of them made his heart leap. The only obstacle, of course, layin those glaciers, and he began to wonder if they could not be made toopen. Why not? No one knew positively that they were impregnable, forno one knew anything certainly about them. Until the contrary had beenproven there was at least a possibility that they were less formidablethan rumor had painted them.

  Camp was pitched late that night far out on the flats. During thepreparation of supper Murray sat staring fixedly before him, deaf toall sounds and insensible to the activities of his companions. He hadlost his customary breeziness and his good nature; he was curt,saturnine, unsmiling. Appleton undertook to arouse him from thisabstraction, but Slater drew the young man aside hurriedly with awarning,

  "Don't do that, son, or you'll wear splints for the rest of the trip."

  "What's the matter with him, anyhow?" Dan inquired. "He was boilingover with enthusiasm all day, but now--Why, he's asleep sitting up! Hehasn't moved for twenty minutes."

  Tom shook his head, dislodging a swarm of mosquitoes.

  "Walk on your toes, my boy! Walk on your toes! I smell somethingcooking--and it ain't supper."

  When food was served O'Neil made a pretense of eating, but rosesuddenly in the midst of it, with the words:

  "I'll stretch my legs a bit." His voice was strangely listless; in hiseyes was the same abstraction which had troubled Appleton during theafternoon. He left the camp and disappeared up the bank of the stream.

  "Nice place to take a walk!" the engineer observed. "He'll bog down inhalf a mile or get lost among the sloughs."

  "Not him!" said Slater. Nevertheless, his worried eyes followed thefigure of his chief as long as it was in sight. After a time heannounced: "Something is coming, but what it is or where it's going tohit us I don't know."

  Their meal over, the boatmen made down their beds, rolled up in theirblankets, and were soon asleep. Appleton and Tom sat in the smoke of asmudge, gossiping idly as the twilight approached. From the south camethe distant voice of
the sea, out of the north rolled the intermittentthunder of those falling bergs, from every side sounded a harsh chorusof water-fowl. Ducks whirred past in bullet-like flight, honkersflapped heavily overhead, a pair of magnificent snow-white swans soaredwithin easy gunshot of the camp. An hour passed, another, and another;the arctic night descended. And through it all the mosquitoes sangtheir blood song and stabbed the watchers with tongues of flame.

  "Happy Tom" sang his song, too, for it was not often that he obtained alistener, and it proved to be a song of infinite hard luck. Mr. Slater,it seemed, was a creature of many ills, the wretched abiding-place ofaches and pains, of colics, cramps, and rheumatism. He was the targetof misfortune and the sport of fate. His body was the galloping-groundof strange disorders which baffled diagnosis; his financial affairswere dominated by an evil genius which betrayed him at every turn. Totop it all, he suffered at the moment a violent attack of indigestion.

  "Ain't that just my luck?" he lamented. "Old 'Indy's got me good, andthere ain't a bit of soda in the outfit."

  Appleton, who was growing more and more uneasy at the absence of hisleader, replied with some asperity:

  "Instead of dramatizing your own discomforts you'd better be thinkingof the boss. I'm going out to look for him."

  "Now don't be a dam' fool," Slater advised. "It would be worth a brokenleg to annoy him when he's in one of these fits. You'd make yourself aspopular as a smallpox patient at a picnic. When he's dreamed his dreamhe'll be back."

  "When will that be?"

  "No telling--maybe to-night, maybe to-morrow night."

  "And what are we going to do in the mean time?"

  "Sit tight." Mr. Slater chewed steadily and sighed. "No soda in camp,and this gum don't seem to lay hold of me! That's luck!"

  Darkness had settled when O'Neil reappeared. He came plunging out ofthe brush, drenched, muddy, stained by contact with the thickets; buthis former mood had disappeared and in its place was a harsh, explosiveenergy.

  "Tom!" he cried. "You and Appleton and I will leave at daylight. Themen will wait here until we get back." His voice was incisive, its toneforbade question.

  The youthful engineer stared at him in dismay, for only his anxiety hadtriumphed over his fatigue, and daylight was but four hours away.O'Neil noted the expression, and said, more gently:

  "You're tired, Appleton, I know, but in working for me you'll be calledupon for extraordinary effort now and then. I may not demand more thanan extra hour from you; then again I may demand a week straight withoutsleep. I'll never ask it unless it's necessary and unless I'm ready todo my share."

  "Yes, sir."

  "The sacrifice is big, but the pay is bigger. Loyalty is all I require."

  "I'm ready now, sir."

  "We can't see to travel before dawn. Help Tom load the lightest boatwith rations for five days. If we run short we'll 'Siwash' it." Hekicked off his rubber boots, up-ended them to drain the water out, thenflung himself upon his bed of boughs and was asleep almost before thetwo had recovered from their surprise.

  "Five days--or longer!" Slater said, gloomily, as he and Dan begantheir preparations. "And me with indigestion!"

  "What does it mean?" queried Appleton.

  "It means I'll probably succumb."

  "No, no! What's the meaning of this change of plan? I can't understandit."

  "You don't need to," "Happy Tom" informed him, curtly. There was a lookof solicitude in his face as he added, "I wish I'd made him take offhis wet clothes before he went to sleep."

  "Let's wake him up."

  But Slater shook his head. "I'd sooner wake a rattlesnake," said he.

  O'Neil roused the members of his expedition while the sky was reddeningfaintly, for he had a mind which worked like an alarm-clock. All exceptAppleton had worked for him before, and the men accepted his orders toawait his return with no appearance of surprise.

  With the first clear light he and his two companions set out, rowing upthe estuary of the Salmon until the current became too swift to stem inthat manner. Then landing, they rigged a "bridle" for the skiff, fittedtheir shoulders to loops in a ninety-foot tow rope, and began to"track" their craft up against the stream. It was heartbreaking work.Frequently they were waist-deep in the cold water. Long "sweepers" withtips awash in the flood interfered with their efforts. The manybranches of the stream forced them to make repeated crossings, for thedelta was no more than an endless series of islands through which thecurrent swirled. When dusk overtook them they were wet, weary, and weakfrom hunger. With the dawn they were up and at it again, but their taskbecame constantly more difficult because of the floating glacier ice,which increased with every mile. They were obliged to exercise theextremest caution. Hour after hour they strained against the current,until the ropes bit into their aching flesh, bringing raw places out onneck and palm. Hour after hour the ice, went churning past, and throughit all came the intermittent echo of the caving glaciers ahead of them.

  Dan Appleton realized very soon whither the journey was leading, and atthought of actually facing those terrors which loomed so large inconjecture his pulses began to leap. He had a suspicion of O'Neil'sintent, but dared not voice it. Though the scheme seemed mad enough,its very audacity fascinated him. It would be worth while to take partin such an undertaking, even if it ended in failure. And somehow,against his judgment, he felt that his leader would find a way.

  For the most part, O'Neil was as silent as a man of stone, and only onthose rare occasions when he craved relief from his thoughts did heencourage Dan to talk. Then he sometimes listened, but more frequentlyhe did not. Slater had long since become a dumb draught animal,senseless to discomfort except in the hour of relaxation when hemonotonously catalogued his ills.

  "Are you a married man?" O'Neil inquired once of Dan.

  "Not yet, sir."

  "Family?"

  "Sure! A great big, fine one, consisting of a sister. But she's morethan a family--she's a religion." Receiving encouragement from hisemployer's look of interest, he continued: "We were wiped out by theSan Francisco earthquake, and stood in the bread line for a while. Wemanaged to save four thousand dollars from the wreck, which we dividedequally. Then we started out to make our fortunes. It was her idea."

  "You came to Cortez?"

  "Yes. Money was so easy for me that I lost all respect for it. The townrang with my mirth for a while. I was an awful fool."

  "Education!"

  "Now it's my ambition to get settled and have her with me. I haven'thad a good laugh, a hearty meal, or a Christian impulse since I lefther."

  "What did she do with her half of the fortune?"

  "Invested it wisely and went to work. I bought little round celluloiddisks with mine; she bought land of some sort with hers. She's anewspaper woman, and the best in the world--or at least the best inSeattle. She wrote that big snow-slide story for The Review last fall.She tells 'em how to raise eight babies on seven dollars a week, or howto make a full set of library furniture out of three beer kegs, apacking-case, and an epileptic icebox. She runs the 'Domestic Economy'column; and she's the sweetest, the cleverest, the most stunning--"

  Appleton's enthusiastic tribute ceased suddenly, for he saw that O'Neilwas once more deaf and that his eyes were fixed dreamily upon the canonfar ahead.

  As the current quickened the progress of the little party became slowerand more exhausting. Their destination seemed to retreat before them;the river wound back and forth in a maddening series of detours. Someof the float ice was large now, and these pieces rushed down upon themlike charging horses, keeping them constantly on the alert to preventdisaster. It seemed impossible that such a flat country could afford somuch fall. "Happy Tom" at length suggested that they tie up and packthe remaining miles overland, but O'Neil would not hear to this.

  They had slept so little, their labors had been so heavy, that theywere dumb and dull with fatigue when they finally reached the firstbluffs and worked their boat through a low gorge where all the watersof the Salmon thrashed an
d icebergs galloped past like a pallid host inflight. Here they paused and stared with wondering eyes at what laybefore; a chill, damp breath swept over them, and a mighty awe laidhold of their hearts.

  "Come on!" said O'Neil. "Other men have gone through; we'll do thesame."

  On the evening of the sixth day a splintered, battered poling-boat withits seams open swung in to the bank where O'Neil's men were encamped,and its three occupants staggered out. They were gaunt and stiff andheavy-eyed. Even Tom Slater's full cheeks hung loose and flabby. Butthe leader was alert and buoyant; his face was calm, his eyes weresmiling humorously.

  "You'll take the men on to the coal-fields and finish the work," hetold his boss packer later that night. "Appleton and I will start backto Cortez in the morning. When you have finished go to Juneau and seeto the recording."

  "Ain't that my luck?" murmured the dyspeptic. "Me for Kyak where thereain't a store, and my gum all wet."

  "Chew it, paper and all," advised Appleton, cheerfully.

  "Oh, the good has all gone out of it now," Slater explained.

  "Meet me in Seattle on the fifteenth of next month," his employerdirected.

  "I'll be there if old 'Indy' spares me. But dyspepsia, with nothing toeat except beans and pork bosom, will probably lay me in my grave longbefore the fifteenth. However, I'll do my best. Now, do you want toknow what I think of this proposition of yours?" He eyed his superiorsomberly.

  "Sure; I want all the encouragement I can get, and your views arealways inspiriting."

  "Well, I think it's nothing more nor less than hydrophobia. Thesemosquitoes have given you the rabies and you need medical attention.You need it bad."

  "Still, you'll help me, won't you?"

  "Oh yes," said Tom, "I'll help you. But it's a pity to see a man gomad."