The Iron Trail

by Rex Beach

  VII

  THE DREAM

  The clerk of the leading hotel in Seattle whirled his register about asa man deposited a weather-beaten war-bag on the marble floor and leanedover the counter to inquire:

  "Is Murray O'Neil here?"

  This question had been asked repeatedly within the last two hours, butheretofore by people totally different in appearance from the one whospoke now. The man behind the desk measured the stranger with asuspicious eye before answering. He saw a ragged, loose-hung, fatperson of melancholy countenance, who was booted to the knee andchewing gum.

  "Mr. O'Neil keeps a room here by the year," he replied, guardedly.

  "Show me up!" said the new-comer as if advancing a challenge.

  A smart reply was on the lips of the clerk, but something in theother's manner discouraged flippancy.

  "You are a friend of Mr. O'Neil's?" he asked, politely.

  "Friend? Um-m, no! I'm just him when he ain't around." In a loud tonehe inquired of the girl at the news-stand, "Have you got anywintergreen gum?"

  "Mr. O'Neil is not here."

  The fat man stared at his informant accusingly, "Ain't this thefifteenth?" he asked.

  "It is."

  "Then he's here, all right!"

  "Mr. O'Neil is not in," the clerk repeated, gazing fixedly over Mr.Slater's left shoulder.

  "Well, I guess his room will do for me. I ain't particular."

  "His room is occupied at present. If you care to wait you will find--"

  Precisely what it was that he was to find Tom never learned, for atthat moment the breath was driven out of his lungs by a tremendouswhack, and he turned to behold Dr. Stanley Gray towering over him, anexpansive smile upon his face.

  "Look out!" Slater coughed, and seized his Adam's apple. "You made meswallow my cud." The two shook hands warmly.

  "We've been expecting you, Tom," said the Doctor. "We're all hereexcept Parker, and he wired he'd arrive to-morrow."

  "Where's Murray?"

  "He's around somewhere."

  Slater turned a resentful, smoldering gaze upon the hotel clerk, andlooked about him for a chair with a detachable leg, but the object ofhis regard disappeared abruptly behind the key-rack.

  "This rat-brained party said he hadn't come."

  "He arrived this morning, but we've barely seen him."

  "I left Appleton in Juneau. He'll be down on the next boat."

  "Appleton? Who's he?" Dr. Gray inquired.

  "Oh, he's a new member of the order--initiated last month. He'slearning to be a sleep-hater, like the rest of us. He's recording theright-of-way."

  "What's in the air? None of us know. We didn't even know Murray'swhereabouts--thought he was in Kyak, until he sounded the tocsin fromNew York. The other boys have quit their jobs and I've sold mypractice."

  "It's a railroad!"

  Dr. Gray grinned. "Well! That's the tone I use when I break the newsthat it's a girl instead of a boy."

  "It's a railroad," Slater repeated, "up the Salmon River!"

  "Good Lord! What about those glaciers?"

  "Oh, it ain't so much the glaciers and the floating icebergs and theraging chasms and the quaking tundra--Murray thinks he can overcomethem--it's the mosquitoes and the Copper Trust that are going to figurein this enterprise. One of 'em will be the death of me, and the otherwill bust Murray, if he don't look out. Say, my neck is covered withbumps till it feels like a dog-collar of seed pearls."

  "Do you think we'll have a fight?" asked the doctor, hopefully.

  "A fight! It'll be the worst massacre since the Little Big Horn. We'resurrounded already, and no help in sight."

  O'Neil found his "boys" awaiting him when he returned to his room.There was Mellen, lean, gaunt and serious-minded, with the dust ofChihuahua still upon his shoes; there were McKay, the superintendent,who had arrived from California that morning; Sheldon, the commissaryman; Elkins; "Doc" Gray; and "Happy Tom" Slater. Parker, the chiefengineer, alone was absent.

  "I sent Appleton in from Cortez," he told them, "to come down the riverand make the preliminary survey into Omar. He cables me that he hasfiled his locations and everything is O. K. On my way East I stoppedhere long enough to buy the Omar cannery, docks, buildings, and townsite. It's all mine, and it will save us ninety days' work in gettingstarted."

  "What do you make of that tundra between Omar and the canon?" queriedMcKay, who had crossed the Salmon River delta and knew its character."It's like calf's-foot jelly--a man bogs down to his waist in it."

  "We'll fill and trestle," said O'Neil.

  "We couldn't move a pile-driver twenty feet."

  "It's frozen solid in winter."

  McKay nodded. "We'll have to drive steam points ahead of every pile, Isuppose, and we'll need Eskimos to work in that cold, but I guess wecan manage somehow."

  "That country is like an apple pie," said Tom Slater--"it's better coldthan hot. There's a hundred inches of rainfall at Omar in summer. We'llall have web feet when we get out."

  Sheldon, the light-hearted commissary man, spoke up. "If it's as wet asall that, well need Finns--instead of Eskimos." He was promptly hootedinto silence.

  "I understand those glaciers come down to the edge of the river," thesuperintendent ventured.

  "They do!" O'Neil acknowledged, "and they're the liveliest ones I eversaw. Tom can answer for that. One of them is fully four hundred feethigh at the face and four miles across. They're constantly breaking,too."

  "Lumps bigger than this hotel," supplemented Slater. "It's quite asight--equal to anything in the state of Maine."

  O'Neil laughed with the others at this display of sectional pride, andthen explained: "The problem of passing them sounds difficult, but inreality it isn't. If those other engineers had looked over the groundas I did, instead of relying entirely upon hearsay, we wouldn't bemeeting here to-day. Of course I realized that we couldn't build a roadover a moving river of ice, nor in front of one, for that matter, but Idiscovered that Nature had made us one concession. She placed herglaciers on opposite sides of the valley, to be sure, but she placedthe one that comes in from the east bank slightly higher upstream thanthe one that comes in from the west. They don't really face each other,although from the sea they appear to do so. You see the answer?" Hishearers nodded vigorously. "If we cross the river, low down, by atrestle, and run up the east bank past Jackson glacier until we arestopped by Garfield--the upper one--then throw a bridge directlyacross, and back to the side we started from, we miss them both andhave the river always between them and us. Above the upper crossingthere will be a lot of heavy rock work to do, but nothing unusual, and,once through the gorge, we come out into the valley, where the otherroads run in from Cortez. They cross three divides, while we runthrough on a one-per-cent grade. That will give us a downhill pull onall heavy freight."

  "Sounds as simple as a pair of suspenders, doesn't it?" inquiredSlater. "But wait till you see it. The gorge below Niagara is stagnantwater compared with the cataract above those glaciers. It takes twolooks to see the top of the mountains. And those glaciersthemselves--Well! Language just gums up and sticks when it comes todescribing them."

  Mellen, the bridge-builder, spoke for the first time, and the otherslistened.

  "As I understand it we will cross the river between the glaciers andimmediately below the upper one."

  "Exactly!"

  He shook his head. "We can't build piers to withstand those heavy bergswhich you tell me are always breaking off."

  "I'll explain how we can," said O'Neil. "You've hit the bull's-eye--thetender spot in the whole enterprise. While the river is narrow andrapid in front of Jackson--the lower glacier--opposite Garfield thereis a kind of lake, formed, I suppose, when the glacier receded from itsoriginal position. Now then, here lies the joker, the secret of thewhole proposition. This lake is deep, but there is a shallow bar acrossits outlet which serves to hold back all but the small bergs. Thisgives us a chance to cross in safety. At first I was puzzled todiscover why only th
e ice from the lower glacier came down-river; then,when I realized the truth, I knew I had the key to Alaska in my hands.We'll cross just below this bar. Understand? Of course it all dependsupon Parker's verdict, but I'm so sure his will agree with mine thatI've made my preparations, bought Omar and gathered you fellowstogether. We're going to spring the biggest coup in railroad history."

  "Where's the money coming from?" Slater inquired, bluntly.

  "I'm putting in my own fortune."

  "How much is that? I'm dead to all sense of modesty, you see."

  "About a million dollars," said O'Neil.

  "Humph! That won't get us started."

  "I've raised another million in New York." The chief was smiling anddid not seem to resent this inquisitiveness in the least.

  "Nothing but a shoe-string!"

  "My dear 'Happy,'" laughed the builder, "I don't intend to complete theroad."

  "Then--why in blazes are you starting it?" demanded Slater in abewilderment which the others evidently shared. "It's one thing tobuild a railroad on a contractor's commission, but it's another thingto build it and pay your own way as you go along. Half a railroad ain'tany good."

  "Once my right-of-way is filed it will put those projects from Cortezout of business. No one but an imbecile would think of building in fromthere with the Omar route made possible. Before we come to that SalmonRiver bridge the Copper Trust will have to buy us out!"

  "That's language!" said "Happy Tom" in sudden admiration. "Those arewords I understand. I withdraw my objections and give my consent to thedeal."

  "You are staking your whole fortune on your judgment, as I understandit," McKay ventured.

  "Every dollar of it," Murray answered.

  "Say, chief, that's gambling some!" young Sheldon remarked with awondering look.

  They were deep in their discussion when the telephone broke in noisily.Sheldon, being nearest to the instrument, answered it. "There's anewspaper reporter downstairs to interview you," he announced, after aninstant.

  "I don't grant interviews," O'Neil said, sharply. He could not guess bywhat evil chance the news of his plans had leaked out.

  "Nothing doing!" Sheldon spoke into the transmitter. He turned again tohis employer. "Operator says the party doesn't mind waiting."

  O'Neil frowned impatiently.

  "Throw him out!" Sheldon directed, brusquely, then suddenly dropped thereceiver as if it had burnt his fingers. "Hell! It's a woman, Murray!She's on the wire. She thanks you sweetly and says she'll wait."

  "A woman! A newspaper woman!" O'Neil rose and seized the instrumentroughly. His voice was freezing as he said: "Hello! I refuse to beinterviewed. Yes! There's no use--" His tone suddenly altered. "MissAppleton! I beg your pardon. I'll be right down." Turning to hissubordinates, he announced with a wry smile: "This seems to terminateour interview. She's Dan Appleton's sister, and therefore--" Heshrugged resignedly. "Now run along. I'll see you in the morning."

  His "boys" made their way down to the street, talking guardedly as theywent. All were optimistic save Slater, whose face remained shrouded inits customary gloom.

  "Cheer up, 'Happy'!" Dr. Gray exhorted him. "It's the biggest thing weever tackled."

  "Wait! Just wait till you've seen the place," Tom said.

  "Don't you think it can be done?"

  "Nope!"

  "Come, come!"

  "It's impossible! Of course WE'LL do it, but it's impossible, just thesame. It will mean a scrap, too, like none of us ever saw, and I wasraised in a logging-camp where fighting is the general recreation. If Iwas young, like the rest of you, I wouldn't mind; but I'm old--and mydigestion's gone. I can't hardly take care of myself any more, Doc. I'mtoo feeble to fight or--" He signaled a passing car; it failed to stopand he rushed after it, dodging vehicles with the agility of a rabbitand swinging his heavy war-bag as if it weighed no more than a goodresolution.

  O'Neil entered the ladies' parlor with a feeling of extreme annoyance,expecting to meet an inquisitive, bold young woman bent upon exploitinghis plans and his personality in the usual inane journalistic fashion.He was surprised and offended that Dan Appleton, in whom he had reposedthe utmost faith, should have betrayed his secret. Publicity was athing he detested at all times, and at present he particularly dreadedits effect. But he was agreeably surprised in the girl who came towardhim briskly with hand outstretched.

  Miss Appleton was her brother's double; she had his frank blue eyes,his straw-gold hair, his humorous smile and wide-awake look. She wasnot by any means beautiful!--her features were too irregular, her nosetoo tip-tilted, her mouth too generous for that--but she seemed crisp,clean-cut, and wholesome What first struck O'Neil was her effect ofboyishness. From the crown of her plain straw "sailor" to the soles ofher sensible walking-boots there was no suggestion of femininefrippery. She wore a plain shirtwaist and a tailored skirt, and herhair was arranged simply. The wave in its pale gold was the onlyconcession to mere prettiness. Yet she gave no impression of deliberatemasculinity. She struck one as merely not interested in clothes,instinctively expressing in her dress her own boyish directness and herbusinesslike absorption in her work.

  "You're furious, of course; anybody would be," she began, then laughedso frankly that his eyes softened and the wrinkles at their cornersdeepened.

  "I fear I was rude before I learned you were Dan's sister," heapologized. "But you see I'm a bit afraid of newspaper people."

  "I knew you'd struggle--although Dan described you as a perfectlyangelic person."

  "Indeed!"

  "But I'm a real reporter, so I won't detain you long. I don't carewhere you were born or where you went to school, or what patentbreakfast-food you eat. Tell me, are you going to build anotherrailroad?"

  "I hope so. I'm always building roads when my bids are low enough tosecure the contracts; that's my business."

  "Are you going to build one in Alaska?"

  "Possibly! There seems to be an opportunity there--but Dan has probablytold you as much about that as I am at liberty to tell. He's been overthe ground."

  She pursed her lips at him. "You know very well, or you ought to know,that Dan wouldn't tell me a thing while he's working for you. He hasn'tsaid a word, but--Is that why you came in frowning like athunder-cloud? Did you think he set me on your trail?"

  "I think I do know that he wouldn't do anything really indiscreet."Murray regarded her with growing favor. There was something about thisboyish girl which awakened the same spontaneous liking he had felt uponhis first meeting with her brother. He surprised her by confessingboldly:

  "I AM building a railroad--to the interior of Alaska. I've been eastand raised the money, my men are here; we'll begin operations at once."

  "That's what Mr. Gordon told me about his scheme, but he hasn't donemuch, so far."

  "My line will put his out of business, also that of the Trust, and thevarious wildcat promoters."

  "Where does your road start from?"

  "The town of Omar, on King Phillip Sound, near Hope and Cortez. It willrun up the Salmon River and past the glaciers which those other menrefused to tackle."

  "If I weep, it is for joy," said the girl. "I don't like Curtis Gordon.I call him Simon Legree."

  "Why?"

  "Well, he impresses me as a real old-time villain--with theriding-boots and the whip and all that. 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' is myfavorite play, it's so funny. This is a big story you've given me, Mr.O'Neil."

  "I realize that."

  "It has the biggest news value of anything Alaskan which has 'broken'for some time. I think you are a very nice person to interview, afterall."

  "Wait! I don't want you to use a word of what I've told you."

  Miss Appleton's clearly penciled brows rose inquiringly. "Then whydidn't you keep still?"

  "You asked me. I told you because you are Dan Appleton's sister.Nevertheless, I don't want it made public."

  "Let's sit down," said the girl with a laugh. "To tell you the truth, Ididn't come here to interview you for my p
aper. I'm afraid I've triedyour patience awfully." A faint flush tinged her clear complexion. "Ijust came, really, to get some news of Dan."

  "He's perfectly well and happy, and you'll see him in a few days." MissAppleton nodded. "So he wrote, but I couldn't wait! Now won't you tellme all about him--not anything about his looks and his health, butlittle unimportant things that will mean something. You see, I'm hismother and his sister and his sweetheart."

  O'Neil did as he was directed and before long found himself recitingthe details of that trying trip up the Salmon River. He told her how hehad sent the young engineer out to run the preliminary survey for thenew railroad, and added: "He is in a fair way to realize his ambitionof having you with him all the time. I'm sure that will please you."

  "And it is my ambition to make enough money to have him with me," sheannounced. With an air of some importance she continued: "I'll tell youa secret: I'm writing for the magazines--stories!" She sat backawaiting his enthusiasm. When she saw that it was not forthcoming sheexclaimed: "My! How you do rave over the idea!"

  "I congratulate you, of course, but--"

  "Now don't tell me that you tried it once. Of course you did. I knowit's a harmless disease, like the measles, and that everybody has itwhen they're young. Above all, don't volunteer the information thatyour own life is full of romance and would make a splendid novel. Theyall say that."

  Murray O'Neil felt the glow of personal interest that results from thediscovery in another of a congenial sense of humor.

  "I didn't suppose you had to write," he said. "Dan told me you hadinvested your fortune and were on Easy Street."

  "That was poetic license. I fictionized slightly in my report to himbecause I knew he was doing so well."

  "Then your investment didn't turn out fortunately?"

  Miss Appleton hesitated. "You seem to be a kindly, trusting person. I'mtempted to destroy your faith in human nature."

  "Please don't."

  "Yes, I shall. My experience may help you to avoid the pitfalls of highfinance. Well, then, it was a very sad little fortune, to begin with,like a boy in grammar-school--just big enough to be of no assistance.But even a boy's-size fortune looked big to me. I wanted to invest itin something sure--no national-bank stock, subject to the danger of anabsconding cashier, mind you; no government bonds with the possibilityof war to depreciate them; but something stable and agricultural, withthe inexhaustible resources of nature back of it. This isn't my ownlanguage. I cribbed it from the apple-man."

  "Apple-man?"

  "Yes. He had brown eyes, and a silky mustache, and a big irrigationplan over east of the mountains. You gave him your money and he gaveyou a perfectly good receipt. Then he planted little apple trees. Henursed them tenderly for five years, after which he turned them over toyou with his blessing, and you lived happily for evermore. At leastthat was the idea. You couldn't fail to grow rich, for the water alwaysbubbled through his little ditch and it never froze nor rained to spoilthings, I used to love apples. And then there was my name, which seemeda good omen. But lately I've considered changing 'Appleton' to 'Berry'or 'Plummer' or some other kind of fruit."

  "I infer that the scheme failed." O'Neil's eyes were half closed withamusement.

  "Yes. It was a good scheme, too, except for the fact that theirrigation ditch ran uphill, and that there wasn't any water where itstarted from, and that apples never had been made to grow in thatlocality because of something in the soil, and that Brown-eyed Betty'stitle to the land wouldn't hold water any more than the ditch.Otherwise I'm sure he'd have made a success and I'd have spent mydeclining years in a rocking-chair under the falling apple blossoms,eating Pippins and Jonathans and Northern Spies. I can't bear to touchthem now. Life at my boarding-house is one long battle against applepies, apple puddings, apple tapioca. Ugh! I hate the very word."

  "I can understand your aversion," laughed O'Neil. "I wonder if youwould let me order dinner for both of us, provided I taboo fruit.Perhaps I'll think of something more to tell you about Dan. I'm sure hewouldn't object--"

  "Oh, my card is all the chaperon I need; it takes me everywhere andrenders me superior to the smaller conventionalities." She handed himone, and he read:

  ELIZA V. APPLETON

  THE REVIEW

  "May I ask what the 'V' stands for?" He held up the card between histhumb and finger.

  Miss Appleton blushed, for all the world like a boy, then answered,stiffly:

  "It stands for Violet. But that isn't my fault, and I'm doing my bestto live it down."