by Rex Beach
XXVII
HOW A DREAM CAME TRUE
Early on the following morning Eliza was awakened by a sound ofshouting outside her window. She lay half dazed for a moment or two,until the significance of the uproar made itself apparent; then sheleaped from her bed.
Men were crying:
"There she goes!"
"She's going out!"
Doors were slamming, there was the rustle and scuff of flying feet, andin the next room Dan was evidently throwing himself into his clotheslike a fireman. Eliza called to him, but he did not answer; and thenext moment he had fled, upsetting some article of furniture in hishaste. Drawing her curtains aside, the girl saw in the brightening dawnmen pouring down the street, dressing as they went. They seemed halfdemented; they were yelling at one another, but she could not gatherfrom their words whether it was the ice which was moving or--thebridge. The bridge! That possibility set her to dressing with tremulousfingers, her heart sick with fear. She called to Natalie, but scarcelyrecognized her own voice.
"I--don't know," came the muffled reply to her question. "It soundslike something--terrible. I'm afraid Dan will fall in or--get hurt."The confusion in the street was growing. "ELIZA!" Natalie's voice wastragic.
"What is it, dear?"
"H--help me, quick!"
"How?"
"I can't find my other shoe."
But Eliza was sitting on the floor, lacing up her own stout boots, andan instant later she followed her brother, pursued by a wail of dismayfrom the adjoining chamber. Through the chill morning light shehurried, asking many questions, but receiving no coherent reply fromthe racing men; then after endless moments of suspense she saw withrelief that the massive superstructure of the bridge was stillstanding. Above the shouting she heard another sound, indistinct butinsistent. It filled the air with a whispering movement; it waspunctuated at intervals by a dull rumbling and grinding. She found theriver-bank black with forms, but like a cat she wormed her way throughthe crowd until the whole panorama lay before her.
The bridge stood as she had seen it on the yesterday--slender, strong,superb in the simplicity of its splendid outline; but beneath it and asfar as her eyes could follow the river she saw, not the solid spread ofwhite to which she had become accustomed, but a moving expanse offloes. At first the winter burden slipped past in huge masses, acres inextent, but soon these began to be rent apart; irregular black seamsran through them, opened, closed, and threw up ridges of ice-shavingsas they ground together. The floes were rubbing against the banks, theycame sliding out over the dry shore like tremendous sheets of cardboardmanipulated by unseen hands, and not until their nine-foot edges wereexposed to view did the mind grasp the appalling significance of theirmovement. They swept down in phalanxes upon the wedge-like ice-breakerswhich stood guard above the bridge-piers, then they halted, separated,and the armored cutting-edges sheared through them like blades.
A half-mile below, where the Salmon flung itself headlong against theupper wing of Jackson Glacier, the floating ice was checked by thenarrowed passageway. There a jam was forming, and as the river heavedand tore at its growing burden a spectacular struggle went on. Thesound of it came faintly but impressively to the watchers--a grindingand crushing of bergs, a roar of escaping waters. Fragments wereup-ended, masses were rearing themselves edgewise into the air, wereoverturning and collapsing. They were wedging themselves into everyconceivable angle, and the crowding procession from above was adding tothe barrier momentarily. As the passageway became blocked the watersrose; the river piled itself up so swiftly that the eye could note itsrise along the banks.
But the attention of the crowd was divided between the jam andsomething far out on the bridge itself. At first glance Eliza did notcomprehend; then she heard a man explaining:
"He was going out when we got here, and now he won't come back."
The girl gasped, for she recognized the distant figure of a man,dwarfed to puny proportions by the bulk of the structure in the mazesof which he stood. The man was O'Neil; he was perched upon one of thegirders near the center of the longest span, where he could watch theattack upon the pyramidal ice-breakers beneath him.
"He's a fool," said some one at Eliza's back. "That jam is gettingbigger."
"He'd better let the damned bridge take care of itself."
She turned and began to force her way through the press of peoplebetween her and the south abutment. She arrived there, disheveled andpanting, to find Slater, Mellen, and Parker standing in the approach.In front of them extended the long skeleton tunnel into which Murrayhad gone.
"Mr. O'Neil is out there!" she cried to Tom.
Slater turned and, reading the tragic appeal in her face, saidreassuringly:
"Sure! But he's all right."
"They say--there's danger."
"Happy Tom's" round visage puckered into a doubtful smile. "Oh, he'lltake care of himself."
Mellen turned to the girl and said briefly:
"There's no danger whatever."
But Eliza's fear was not to be so easily quieted.
"Then why did he go out alone? What are you men doing here?"
"It's his orders," Tom told her.
Mellen was staring at the jam below, over which the Salmon was hurlinga flood of ice and foaming waters. The stream was swelling and risingsteadily; already it had nearly reached the level of the timberline onthe left bank; the blockade was extending up-stream almost to thebridge itself. Mellen said something to Parker, who shook his headsilently.
Dan Appleton shouldered his way out of the crowd, with Natalie at hisheels. She had dressed herself in haste: her hair was loose, her jacketwas buttoned awry; on one foot was a shoe, on the other a bedroomslipper muddy and sodden. Her dark eyes were big with excitement.
"Why don't you make Murray come in?" Dan demanded sharply.
"He won't do it," muttered Slater.
"The jam is growing. Nobody knows what'll happen if it holds muchlonger. If the bridge should go--"
Mellen whirled, crying savagely: "It won't go! All hell couldn't takeit out."
From the ranks of the workmen came a bellow of triumph, as an unusuallyheavy ice-floe was swept against the breakers and rent asunder. Thetumult of the imprisoned waters below was growing louder every moment:across the lake came a stentorian rumble as a huge mass was loosenedfrom the front of Garfield. The channel of the Salmon where theonlookers stood was a heaving, churning caldron over which the slimbridge flung itself defiantly.
Eliza plucked at her brother's sleeve imploringly, and he saw her forthe first time.
"Hello, Sis," he cried. "How did you get here?"
"Is he in--danger, Danny?"
"Yes--no! Mellen says it's all right, so it must be, but--that dam--"
At that moment Natalie began to sob hysterically, and Dan turned hisattention to her.
But his sister was not of the hysterical kind. Seizing Tom Slater bythe arm, she tried to shake him, demanding fiercely:
"Suppose the jam doesn't give way! What will happen?" "Happy Tom"stared at her uncomprehendingly. Her voice was shrill and insistent."Suppose the water rises higher. Won't the ice sweep down on the bridgeitself? Won't it wreck everything if it goes out suddenly? Tell me--"
"It can't hold. Mellen says so." Slater, like the others, found itimpossible to keep his eyes from the river where those immeasurableforces were at play; then in his peculiar irascible manner hecomplained: "I told 'em we was crazy to try this. It ain't a whiteman's country; it ain't a safe place for a bridge. There's just oneGod-awful thing after another--" He broke into a shout, for Eliza hadslipped past him and was speeding like a shadow out across theirregularly spaced ties upon which the bridge track was laid.
Mellen whirled at the cry and made after her, but he might as well havetried to catch the wind. As she ran she heard her brother shout insudden alarm and Natalie's voice raised in entreaty, but she sped onunder an impulse as irresistible as panic fear. Down through theopenings beneath her feet she saw, as in a night
mare, the sweepingflood, burdened with plunging ice chunks and flecked with foam. Sheseemed to be suspended above it; yet she was running at reckless speed,dimly aware of the consequences of a misjudged footstep, but fearfulonly of being overtaken. Suddenly she hated her companions; her mindwas in a furious revolt at their cowardice, their indecision, orwhatever it was that held them like a group of wooden figures safe onshore while the man whose life was worth all theirs put togetherexposed himself to needless peril. That he was really in danger shefelt sure. She knew that Murray was apt to lose himself in his dreams;perhaps some visionary mood had blinded him to the menace of thatmounting ice-ridge it front of the glacier, or had he madly chosen tostand or fall with this structure that meant so much to him? She wouldmake him yield to her own terror, drag him ashore, if necessary, withher own hands.
She stumbled, but saved herself from a fall, then gathered her skirtsmore closely and rushed on, measuring with instinctive nicety thelength of every stride. It was not an easy path over which she dashed,for the ties were unevenly spaced; gaping apertures gave terribleglimpses of the river below, and across these ghastly abysses she hadto leap.
The hoarse bursts of shouting from the shore ceased as the workmenbeheld her flitting out along the steel causeway. They watched her indumb amazement.
All at once O'Neil saw her and hurried to meet her.
"Eliza!" he cried. "Be careful! What possessed you to do this?"
"Come away," she gasped. "It's dangerous. The jam--Look!" She pointeddown the channel.
He shook his head impatiently.
"Yes!" she pleaded. "Yes! Please! They wouldn't come to warn you--theytried to stop me. You must go ashore." The frightened entreaty in herclear, wide-open eyes, the disorder that her haste had made affectedO'Neil strangely. He stared at her, bewildered, doubtful, then steadiedher and groped with his free hand for support. He could feel hertrembling wretchedly.
"There's no danger, none whatever," he said, soothingly. "Nothing canhappen."
"You don't know. The bridge has never been tried. The ice is batteringat it, and that jam--if it doesn't burst--"
"But it will. It can't last much longer."
"It's rising--"
"To be sure, but the river will overflow the bank."
"Please!" she urged. "You can do no good here. I'm afraid."
He stared at her in the same incredulous bewilderment; some impulsedeep within him was struggling for expression, but he could not findwords to frame it. His eyes were oddly bright as he smiled at her.
"Won't you go ashore?" she begged.
"I'll take you back, of course, but I want to stay and see--"
"Then--I'll stay."
"Eliza!" Her name burst from his lips in a tone that thrilled her, butwith it came a sudden uproar from the distant crowd, and the nextinstant they saw that the ice-barrier was giving way. The pressure hadbecome irresistible. As the Salmon had risen the ice had risen also,and now the narrow throat was belching its contents forth. The chaos ofup-ended bergs was being torn apart; over it and through it burst adeluge which filled the valley with the roar of a mighty cataract.Clouds of spray were in the air; broken masses were leaping andsomersaulting; high up on the shore were stranded floes and fragments,left in the wake of the moving body. Onward it coursed, clashing andgrinding along the brittle face of the glacier; over the alder topsbeyond the bend they could see it moving faster and faster, like thecrest of a tidal wave. The surface of the river lowered swiftly beneaththe bridge; the huge white pans ground and milled, shouldered aside bythe iron-sheathed pillars of concrete.
"See! It's gone already. Once it clears a passageway we'll have no moregorges, for the freshets are coming. The bridge didn't eventremble--there wasn't a tremor, not a scratch!" Eliza looked up to findO'Neil regarding her with an expression that set her heart throbbingand her thoughts scattering. She clasped a huge, cold bolt-head andclung to it desperately, for the upheaval in her soul rivaled thatwhich had just passed before her eyes. The bridge, the river, thevalley itself were gyrating slowly, dizzily.
"Eliza!" She did not answer. "Child!" O'Neil's voice was shaking. "Whydid you come to me? Why did you do this mad thing? I saw something inyour face that I can't believe--that I--can't think possible. It--itgives me courage. If I don't speak quickly I'll never dare. Isit--true? Dear girl, can it be? I'm so old--such a poor thing--youcouldn't possibly care, and yet, WHY DID YOU COME?" The words were tornfrom him; he was gripped and shaken by a powerful emotion.
She tried to answer, but her lips were soundless. She closed her eyes,and Murray saw that she was whiter than the foam far beneath. He staredinto the colorless face upturned to his until her eyelids flutteredopen and she managed to voice the words that clung in her throat.
"I've always--loved you like this."
He gave a cry, like that of a starving man; she felt herself drawnagainst him. But now he, too, was speechless; he could only press herclose while his mind went groping for words to express that joy whichwas as yet unbelievable and stunning.
"Couldn't you see?" she asked, breathlessly.
He shook his head. "I'm such a dreamer. I'm afraid it--can't be true.I'm afraid you'll go away and--leave me. You won't ever--will you,Eliza? I couldn't stand that." Then fresh realization of the truthswept over him; they clung to each other, drunk with ecstasy, senselessof their surroundings.
"I thought you cared for Natalie," she said, softly, after a while.
"It was always you."
"Always?"
"Always!"
She turned her lips to his, and lifted her entwining arms.
The breakfast-gong had called the men away before the two figures farout upon the bridge picked their way slowly to the shore. The Salmonwas still flooded with hurrying masses of ice, as it would continue tobe for several days, but it was running free; the channel in front ofthe glacier was open.
Blaine was the first to shake O'Neil's hand, for the members ofMurray's crew held aloof in some embarrassment.
"It's a perfect piece of work," said he. "I congratulate you."
The others echoed his sentiments faintly, hesitatingly, for they wereabashed at what they saw in their chief's face and realized that wordswere weak and meaningless.
Dan dared not trust himself to speak. He had many things to say to hissister, but his throat ached miserably. Natalie restrained herself onlyby the greatest effort.
It was Tom Slater who ended the awkward pause by grumbling,sarcastically:
"If all the young lovers are safely ashore, maybe us old men who builtthe bridge can go and get something to eat."
Murray smiled at the girl beside him.
"I'm afraid they've guessed our secret, dear."
"Secret!" Slater rolled his eyes. "There ain't over a couple thousandpeople beside us that saw you pop the question. I s'pose she was out ofbreath and couldn't say no."
Eliza gasped and fled to her brother's arms.
"Sis! Poor--little Sis!" Dan cried, and two tears stole down his browncheeks. "Isn't this--just great?" Then the others burst into a noisyexpression of their gladness.
"Happy Tom" regarded them all pessimistically. "I feel bound to warnyou," he said at length, "that marriage is an awful gamble. It ain'twhat it seems."
"It is!" Natalie declared. "It's better, and you know it."
"It turned out all right for me," Tom acknowledged, "because I got thebest woman in the world. But"--he eyed his chief accusingly--"I wentabout it in a modest way; I didn't humiliate her in public."
He turned impatiently upon his companions, still pouring out theirbabble of congratulations.
"Come along, can't you," he cried, "and leave 'em alone. I'm adyspeptic old married man, but I used to be young and affectionate,like Murray. After breakfast I'm going to cable Mrs. Slater to come andbring the kids with her and watch her bed-ridden, invalid husband buildthe rest of this railroad. I'm getting chuck full of romance."
"It has been a miraculous morning for me," said Murray, after a time,"an
d the greatest miracle is--you, dear."
"This is just the way the story ended in my book," Eliza told himhappily--"our book."
He pressed her closer. "Yes! Our book--our bridge--our everything,Eliza."
She hid her blushing face against his shoulder, then with thumb andfinger drew his ear down to her lips. Summoning her courage, shewhispered:
"Murray dear, won't you call me--Violet?"
THE END