The Iron Trail

by Rex Beach

  XIII

  WE JOURNEY TO A PLACE OF MANY WONDERS

  Curtis Gordon's men broke camp upon his return from Omar, and by takingthe east bank of the Salmon River pressed through to the upper valley.Here they recrossed to the west side and completed their survey, withthe exception of the three-mile gap which Dan Appleton held.

  Gordon continued to smart under the sting of his defeat, however.O'Neil had gotten the better of him in argument, and Natalie'ssimplicity had proved more than a match for his powers of persuasion.At no time had he seriously considered making Mrs. Gerard his wife, buthe had thought to entice the two women back under his own roof, inorder to humble both them and their self-appointed protector. He feltsure that Natalie's return to Hope and her residence there would injureher seriously in the eyes of the community, and this would be a stab toO'Neil. Although he had failed for the moment, he did not abandon theidea. His display of anger upon leaving the hotel had been due mainlyto disappointment at the checkmate. But knowing well the hold hepossessed upon the older woman, he laid it away for later use when thefight grew hot, and meanwhile devoted himself to devising furthermeasures by which to harass his enemy and incidentally advance his ownfortunes.

  Gordon's business career had consisted of a series of brilliantmanipulations whereby, with little to go upon, he had forced financialrecognition for himself. No one knew better than he the unstablefoundation beneath his Alaskan enterprises; yet more than once he hadturned as desperate ventures into the semblance of success. By hispresent operations he sought not only to hamper O'Neil, but to createan appearance of opposition to both him and the Trust that could becoined into dollars and cents. There are in the commercial world moneywolves who prey upon the weak and depend upon the spirit of compromisein their adversaries. Gordon was one of these. He had the faculty ofsnatching at least half a victory from apparent defeat, and for thisreason he had been able to show a record sufficiently impressive toconvince the average investor of his ability.

  By purchasing for a song the McDermott rights at Kyak he had placedhimself in position to share in the benefits of the Heidlemannbreakwater, and by rapidly pushing his tracks ahead he made his rivalryseem formidable. As a means of attack upon O'Neil he adopted aprocedure common in railroad-building. He amended his original surveyso that it crossed that of the S. R. & N. midway between the lowerbridge over the Salmon River and the glaciers, and at that point beganthe hasty erection of a grade.

  It was at the cost of no little inconvenience that he rushed forward alarge body of men and supplies, and began to lay track across the S. R.& N. right-of-way. If Appleton could hold a hillside, he reasoned, hehimself could hold a crossing, if not permanently, at least for asufficient length of time to serve his purpose.

  His action came as a disagreeable surprise to Omar. These battles forcrossings have been common in the history of railroading, and they havenot infrequently resulted in sanguinary affrays. Long after the tiesare spiked and the heads are healed, the legal rights involved havebeen determined, but usually amid such a tangle of conflictingtestimony and such a confusion of technicalities as to leave thejustice of the final decision in doubt. In the unsettled conditionsthat prevailed in the Salmon River valley physical possession of aright-of-way was at least nine-tenths of the law, and O'Neil realizedthat he must choose between violence and a compromise. Not being givento compromise, he continued his construction work, and drew closer, dayby day, to the point of contact.

  Reports came from the front of his opponent's preparations forresistance. Gordon had laid several hundred yards of light rails uponhis grade, and on these he had mounted a device in the nature of a"go-devil" or skip, which he shunted back and forth by means of adonkey-engine and steel cable. With this in operation across the pointof intersection like a shuttle, interference would be extremelydangerous. In addition, he had built blockhouses and breast-works ofties, and in these, it was reported, he had stationed the pick of hishired helpers, armed and well provisioned.

  Toward this stronghold Murray O'Neil's men worked, laying his road-bedas straight as an arrow, and as the intervening distance decreasedanxiety and speculation at Omar increased.

  Among those who hung upon the rumors of the approaching clash withgreatest interest was Eliza Appleton. Since Dan's departure for thefront she had done her modest best to act the part he had forced uponher, and in furtherance of their conspiracy she had urged O'Neil tofulfil his promise of taking her over the work. She felt anever-growing curiosity to see those glaciers, about which she had heardso much; and she reflected, though not without a degree ofself-contempt, that nothing could be more favorable to her design thanthe intimacy of several days together on the trail. Nothing breeds acloser relationship than the open life, nothing brings people morequickly into accord or hopeless disagreement. Although she had nofaintest idea that Murray could or would ever care seriously for her,she felt that there was a bare possibility of winning his transientinterest and in that way, perhaps, affording her brother time in whichto attain his heart's desire. Of course, it was all utterly absurd, yetit was serious enough to Dan; and her own feelings--well, they didn'tmatter.

  She was greatly excited when O'Neil announced one evening:

  "I'm ready to make that trip to the front, if you are. I have businessat Kyak; so after we've seen the glaciers we will go down there and youcan take in the coal-fields."

  "How long shall we be gone?"

  "Ten days, perhaps. We'll start in the morning."

  "I'm ready to leave at a moment's notice."

  "Then perhaps you'd better help Natalie."

  "Natalie!" exclaimed Eliza, seeing all her well-laid plans tottering."Is she going?"

  "Oh yes! It's an opportunity she shouldn't miss, and I thought it wouldbe pleasanter for you if she went with us."

  Eliza was forced to acknowledge his thoughtfulness, although it angeredher to be sacrificed to the proprieties. Her newspaper training hadmade her feel superior to such things, and this of all occasions wasone upon which she would have liked to be free of mere conventions. Butof course she professed the greatest delight.

  O'Neil had puzzled her greatly of late; for at times he seemed wrappedup in Natalie, and at other times he actually showed a preference forEliza's own company. He was so impartial in his attentions that at onemoment the girl would waver in her determination and in the next wouldbelieve herself succeeding beyond her hope. The game confused heremotions curiously. She accused herself of being overbold, and then shenoted with horror that she was growing as sensitive to his apparentcoldness as if she were really in earnest. She had not supposed thatthe mere acting of a sentimental role could so obsess her.

  To counteract this tendency she assumed a very professional air whenthey set out on the following morning. She was once more Eliza Appletonthe reporter, and O'Neil, in recognition of this fact, explainedrapidly the difficulties of construction which he had met and overcome.As she began to understand there came to her a fuller appreciation ofthe man and the work he was doing. Natalie, however, could not seem tograsp the significance of the enterprise. She saw nothing beyond theeven gravel road-bed, the uninteresting trestles and bridges and cutsand fills, the like of which she had seen many times before, and hercomment was childlike. O'Neil, however, appeared to find her naivetecharming, and Eliza reflected bitterly:

  "If my nose was perfectly chiseled and my eyebrows nice, he wouldn'tcare if my brain was the size of a rabbit's. Here am I, talking like ahuman being and really understanding him, while she sits like a Greekgoddess, wondering if her hat is on straight. If ever I find a girluglier than I am I'll make her my bosom friend." She jabbed her pencilviciously at her notebook.

  The track by this time had been extended considerably beyond the lowercrossing--a circumstance which rendered their boat journey to theglaciers considerably shorter than the one Dan had taken with his cargoof dynamite. When the engine finally stopped it was in the midst of atent village beside which flowed one of the smaller branches of theSalmon. In the
distance the grade stretched out across the level swampslike a thin, lately healed scar, and along its crest gravel-trains wereslowly creeping. An army of men like a row of ants were toiling uponit, and still farther away shone the white sides of another encampment.

  "Oh! That's Gordon's track," Eliza cried, quickly. "Why, you're nearlyup to him. How do you intend to get across?"

  O'Neil nodded at the long thin line of moiling men in the distance.

  "There's a loose handle in each one of those picks," he said.

  "Somebody will be killed in that kind of a racket."

  "That rests with Gordon. I'm going through."

  "Suppose he had said that when Dan stopped him at the canon?"

  "If he'd said it and meant it he'd probably have done it. He bluffs; Idon't! I have to go on; he didn't. Now lunch is served; and since thisis our last glimpse of civilization, I advise you to fortifyyourselves. From here on we shall see nothing but the wilderness."

  He led them to a spotless tent which had been newly erected at the edgeof the spruce. It was smoothly stretched upon a framework of timber,its walls and floor were of dressed lumber, and within were two cotsall in clean linen. There were twin washstands also, and dressers androcking-chairs, a table and a stove. On the floor beside the beds lay anumber of deep, soft bear-rugs. A meal was spread amid glass andfigured china and fresh new napery.

  "How cozy! Why, it's a perfect dear of a house!" exclaimed Natalie.

  "You will leave everything but your necessaries here, for we are goinglight," Murray told them. "You will stop here on our way back to Kyak,and I'll warrant you'll be glad to see the place by that time."

  "You built this just for us," Eliza said, accusingly.

  "Yes. But it didn't take long. I 'phoned this morning that you werecoming." He ran a critical eye over the place to see that its equipmentwas complete, then drew out their chairs for them.

  A white-coated cook-boy served a luncheon in courses, the quality ofwhich astonished the visitors, for there was soup, a roast, deliciousvegetables, crisp salad, a camembert which O'Neil had imported for hisprivate use, and his own particular blend of coffee.

  The girls ate with appetites that rivaled those of the men in themess-tent near by. Their presence in the heart of a great activity, theanticipation of adventure to come, the electric atmosphere of haste andstraining effort on every hand excited them. Eliza began to be lessconscious of her secret intention, and Natalie showed a gaiety rare inher since the shadow of her mother's shame had fallen upon her life.

  The boat crews were waiting when they had finished, and they were soonunder way. A mile of comparatively slack water brought them out intoone of the larger estuaries of the river, and there the long, uphillpull began. O'Neil had equipped his two companions with high rubberboots, which they were only too eager to try. As soon as they gotashore they began to romp and play and splash through the shallowsquite like unruly children. They spattered him mischievously, theytugged at the towing-ropes with a great show of assistance, theyscampered ahead of the party, keeping him in a constant panic lest theymeet with serious accident.

  It was with no little relief that he gave the order to pitch camp somehours later. After sending them off to pick wild currants, with a gravewarning to beware of bears, he saw to the preparations for the night.They returned shortly with their hats filled and their lips stained;then, much to his disgust, they insisted upon straightening out histent with their own hands. Once inside its low shelter, they gleefullysifted sand between his blankets and replaced his pillow with a rock;then they induced the cook to coil a wet string in his flapjack. Whensupper was over and the camp-fires of driftwood were crackling merrily,they fixed themselves comfortably where their feet would toast, andmade him tell them stories until his eyes drooped with weariness.

  It was late summer, and O'Neil had expected to find the glaciers lessactive than usual, but heavy rains in the interior and hot thawingweather along the coast had swelled the Salmon until many bergs cloggedit, while the reverberations which rolled down the valley told him thatboth Garfield and Jackson were caving badly. It was not the safest timeat which to approach the place, he reflected, but the girls had shownthemselves nimble of foot, and he put aside his uneasiness.

  Short though the miles had been and easy as the trip had proved, Elizasoon found herself wondering that it should be possible to penetratethis region at all. The snarling river, the charging icebergs, thecaving banks, and the growing menace of that noisy gap ahead began tohave their effect upon her and Natalie; and when the party finallyrounded the point where Murray and Dan had caught their first glimpseof the lower glacier they paused with exclamations of amazement. Theystood at the upper end of a gorge between low bluffs, and just acrossthe hurrying flood lay the lower limit of the giant ice-field. Theedge, perhaps six hundred feet distant, was sloping and mud-stained,for in its slow advance it had plowed a huge furrow, lifting boulders,trees, acres of soil upon its back. The very bluff through which theriver had cut its bed was formed of the debris it had thrown off, andconstituted a bulwark protecting its flank. Farther up-stream theslope, became steeper, then changed to a rugged perpendicular faceshowing marks of recent cleavage. This palisade extended on and on,around the nearest bend, following the contour of the Salmon as far asthey could see. The sun was reflected from its myriad angles and facetsin splendid iridescence. Mammoth caves and caverns gaped. In spots theice was white, opaque; in other places it was a light cerulean bluewhich shaded into purple. Ribbons and faint striations meanderedthrough it like the streaks in an agate. But what struck the beholderswith overwhelming force was the tremendous, the unbelievable bulk ofthe whole slowly moving mass. It reared itself sheerly three hundredfeet high, and along its foot the river hurried, dwarfed to aninsignificant trickle. Here and there it leaned outward threateningly,bulging from the terrific weight behind; at other points the muddyflood recoiled from vast heaps which had slid downward and half dammedits current. Back of these piles the fresh cleavage showed dazzlingly.On, upward, back into the untracked mountains it ran through mile uponmile of undulations, until at last it joined the ice-cap which weightedthe plateau. As far as the eye could follow the river ahead it stoodsolidly. Across its entire face it was dripping; a thousand littlerills and waterfalls ate into it, and over it swept a cool, dank breath.

  The effect of the first view was overwhelming. Nothing upon the earthcompares in majesty and menace to these dull-eyed monsters of bygoneages; nothing save the roots of mountains can serve to check them;nothing less than the ceaseless energy of mighty rivers can sweep awaytheir shattered fragments.

  Murray O'Neil had seen Jackson Glacier many times, but always heexperienced the same feeling of awe, of personal insignificance, aswhen he first came stumbling up that gorge more than a year before.

  For a long time the girls stood gazing without a word. They seemed tohave forgotten his presence.

  "Well?" he said at last.

  "Isn't it BIG?" Natalie faltered, with round eyes. "Will it fall overon us?"

  He shook his head. "The river is too wide for that, but when aparticularly big mass drops it makes waves large enough to sweepeverything before them. This bank on our right is sixty feet high, butI've seen it inundated."

  Turning to Eliza, he inquired:

  "What do you think of it?"

  Her face as she met his was strangely glorified, her eyes were shining,her fingers tightly interlocked.

  "I--I'd like to cry or--or swear," she said, uncertainly,

  "Why, Eliza!" Natalie regarded her friend in shocked amazement, butMurray laughed.

  "It affects people differently," he said. "I have men who refuse tomake this trip. There's something about Jackson that frightensthem--perhaps it is its nearness. You see, there's no other place onthe globe where we pygmies dare come so close to a live glacier of thissize."

  "How can we go on?" Natalie asked. "We must work our boats along thisbank. If the ice begins to crack anywhere near us I want you both toscamper up into t
he alders as fast as your rubber boots will carry you."

  "What will you do?" Eliza eyed him curiously.

  "Oh, I'll follow; never fear! If it's not too bad, I'll stay with theboats, of course. But we're not likely to have much difficulty at thisseason."

  Eliza noted the intensity with which the boatmen were scanning thepassage ahead, and something in O'Neil's tone told her he was speakingwith an assurance he did not wholly feel.

  "You have lost some men here, haven't you?" she asked.

  "Yes. But the greater danger is in coming down. Then we have to get outin the current and take our chances."

  "I'd like to do that!" Her lips were parted, her eyes were glowing, butNatalie gave a little cry of dismay.

  "It's an utterly new sensation," O'Neil admitted. "I've been thinkingof sending you up across the moraine, but the trail is bad, and youmight get lost among the alders--"

  "And miss any part of this! I wouldn't do it for worlds." Eliza'senthusiasm was irresistible, and the expedition was soon under wayagain.

  Progress was more difficult now, for the river-shore was paved withsmooth, round stones which rolled under foot, and the boats requiredextreme attention in the swift current. The farther they proceeded, themore the ice wall opposite increased in height, until at last it shutoff the mountains behind. Then as they rounded the first bend a newprospect unfolded itself. The size of Jackson became even moreapparent; the gravel bank under which they crept was steeper and higheralso. In places it was undercut by the action of the waves whichperiodically surged across. At such points Murray sent his chargeshurrying on ahead, while he and his men tracked the boats after them.In time they found themselves opposite the backbone of the glacier,where the Salmon gnawed at the foot of a frozen cliff of prodigiousheight. And now, although there had been no cause for apprehensionbeyond an occasional rumble far back or a splitting crack from near athand, the men assumed an attitude of strained watchfulness and kepttheir faces turned to the left. They walked quietly, as if they feltthemselves in some appalling presence.

  At last there came a sound like that of a cannon-shot, and far ahead ofthem a fragment loosened itself and went plunging downward. Although itappeared small, a ridge promptly leaped out from beneath the splash andcame racing down the river's bosom toward them.

  "Better go up a bit," O'Neil called to his charges.

  The men at the ends of the tow-lines scrambled part way up the shelvingbeach and braced themselves, then wrapped the ropes about their waists,like anchormen on a tug-of-war team. Their companions waded into theflood and fended the boats off the rocks.

  The wave came swiftly, lifting the skiffs high upon the bank, then itsucked them back amid a tangle of arms and legs. A portion of theriver-bottom suddenly bared itself and as suddenly was submerged again.The boats plunged and rolled and beat themselves upon the shore,wrenching the anchormen from their posts. They were half filled withwater too, but the wave had passed and was scudding away down-stream.

  Eliza Appleton came stumbling back over the rock-strewn bank, forduring that first mad plunge she had seen O'Neil go down beneath one ofthe rearing craft. A man was helping him out.

  "Nothing but my ankle!" he reassured her when she reached his side. "Iwas dragged a bit and jammed among the boulders." He sank down, and hislips were white with pain, but his gray eyes smiled bravely. Theboatman removed his chief's boot and fell to rubbing the injury, whilethe girls looked on helplessly.

  "Come, come! We can't stay here," Murray told them. He drew on the bootagain to check the swelling.

  "Can you walk?" they asked him, anxiously.

  "Certainly! Two feet are really unnecessary. A man can get along nearlyas well on one." He hurried his men back to their tasks, and managed tolimp after them, although the effort brought beads of sweat to his lipsand brow.

  It was well that he insisted upon haste, for they had not gone far whenthe glacier broke abreast of the spot they had just left. There came arending crack, terrifying in its loudness; a tremendous tower of iceseparated itself from the main body, leaned slowly outward, then roareddownward, falling in a solid piece like a sky-scraper undermined. Notuntil the arc described by its summit had reached the river's surfacedid it shiver itself. Then there was a burst as of an exploded mine.The saffron waters of the Salmon shot upward until they topped the mainrampart, and there separated into a cloud of spray which rained down ina deluge. Out from the fallen mass rushed a billow which gushed acrossthe channel, thrashed against the high bank, then inundated it untilthe alder thickets on its crest whipped their tips madly. A giantcharge of fragments of every size flew far out across the flats orlashed the waters to further anger in its fall.

  The prostrate column lay like a wing-dam, half across the stream, andover it the Salmon piled itself. Disintegration followed; bergs heavedthemselves into sight and went rolling and lunging after the billowwhich was rushing down-stream with the speed of a locomotive. Theyground and clashed together in furious confusion as the river spunthem; the greater ones up-ended themselves, casting off muddy cascades.From the depths of the flood came a grinding and crunching as ice metrock.

  Spellbound, the girls watched that first wave go tearing out of sight,filling the river bank-full. With exclamations of wonder, they saw theimprisoned waters break the huge dam to pieces. Finally the lastshattered fragment was hurried out of sight, the flood poured pastunhampered, and overhead the glacier towered silent, unchanged, staringat them balefully like a blind man with filmed eyes. There remainednothing but a gleaming scar to show where the cataclysm had originated.

  "If I'd known the river was so high I'd never have brought you," O'Neiltold them. "It's fortunate we happened to be above that break. You see,the waves can't run up against the current." He turned to his men andspurred them on.

  It was not until the travelers had reached the camp at the bridge sitethat all the wonders of this region became apparent. Then the twogirls, in spite of their fatigue, spent the late afternoonsight-seeing. At this point they were able to gain a comprehensiveview; for at their backs lay Jackson Glacier, which they had justpassed, and directly fronting them, across a placid lake, was Garfield,even larger and more impressive than its mate. Thirty, forty miles itran back, broadening into a frozen sea out of which scarred mountainpeaks rose like bleak islands, and on beyond the range of vision wasstill more ice.

  They were surrounded by ragged ramparts. The Salmon River ran through abroken chalice formed by the encircling hills, and over the rim of thebowl or through its cracks peered other and smaller ice bodies. Thelake at its bottom was filled by as strange a navy as ever sailed thesea; for the ships were bergs, and they followed each other insenseless, ceaseless manoeuvers, towed by the currents which sweptthrough from the cataract at its upper end. They formed longbattle-lines, they assembled into flotillas, they filed about thecircumference of a devil's whirlpool at the foot of the rapids,gyrating, bobbing, bowing until crowded out by the pressure of theirrivals. Some of them were grounded, like hulks defeated in previousencounters, and along the guardian bar which imprisoned them at theoutlet of the lake others were huddled, a mass of slowly dissolvingwreckage.

  O'Neil was helped into camp, and when his boot had been cut away hesent news of his arrival to Dan, who came like an eager bridegroom.