The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, November 15, 1903, Page 7

THE EUNDAY CALL. Spearman s a section fore- was a kid he > 2 graduates he shall made engineer by & drunk- er, far, far bet- better than Bro- me the time to knew, e, eating, living, e big river had out Hall was bridge. It was to be e as Brodie's bridge with the ft out ctors jumped he figures. We our salaries, and cut our maintens y talked economy Halley demanded a thousa er W, ng else; an a bridge to bar th Spider's It lasted really better than the rage bridge But the dream of Halley’s life—this we all knew, and the x would bave sald the Bpider knew—was to bufld & final dge over the Spider Water—a bridge (> rottle it for all time. would talk Spider bridge to a His bridge foreman, Ed big one-eyed French had but two ideas in the other the Spider When the management changed and & great and public-spirited ntrol of the system. Ed Pee- kicked his little water spaniel in of t. *“Ne old boy, get the Halley there were many long conferences at a 1 headquarters between Buck llahan, assistant, and the bridges, once more to ging all his es- his plans refig- president, ceived Halley with considera- as befitted & very g He listened to the tatement of the necessities at River. The amount looked argument, supported by a " was convincing, 'S called, too, for a new ce River—and a good d over to await the de- 4 the general offices un- told him he could have 1e wire flashed the word to rybody at the Wick- perin- i Jer the bridge material came n £ the summer Halley, very profane, struction headquarters at first airlock ever the Missouri closed over Halley and big Ed Peeto. never slept; night and day ed from below, and Hai- 1k foot by foot toward e middie of September eunk e blowy west the masonry was crowding high-water mark, and the following Saturday Halley and Peeto ran back to Medicine Bend to rest up & bit and get acquainted with thelr families. Hailey looked ragged and tr appy Sunday was a day to get your feet on the tables up In Buck's office and smoke Callahan’s Cavendish. Bucks would open the BE. BE. B. mall and read the news like the old depot, but immensely aloud for the benefit of Callahan and Hailey and such hangers-on as Peeto and fonal stray dispatcher. " exclaimed Bucks; “here’s a 2l order—number fourteen—'' The bove drew their briers like one. Bucks read out a lot of stuff that didn't touch our end, and then he reached this paragrap * “The Mountain and the Intermountain divisions are hereby consolidated under the name of the Mountain division, with J. F. Bucks as superintendent, headquar- ters st Medicine Bend. C. T. Callahan is appointed assistant superintendent of the new division.’ " “Well, well, well,” said Halley, open- ing his eyes. ‘‘Here's promotions right and left.” H. P. Agnew is appointed superin- tendent of bridges of the new division, with headquarters at Omaha, vice P Halley, Bucks read on. Then he read fast, looking for some further mention of Halley. Halley promoted, transferred, assigned—but there was no further men- tion of Hafley. Bucks threw down the order in a silence, Ed Peeto broke out first. “Who's H. P. Cance?’ “Agne’ > “Who the hell is he?” roared Ed. No- body answered; nobody knew. Bucks at- tempted to talk. Callahan lit his lighted pipe, but Ed Peeto stared at Halley like a drunken man “Did you hear that?” he snorted at his superior. Halley nodded “You're out!" stormed Peeto. Hafley nodded. The bridge foreman took pipe from his mouth and dashed it o the stove. Halley spoke. “I'm glad we're up to-high water at the Spider, Bucks,” sald he at last. ‘““When they get it in the Peace River work, the division will run for itself for a year.” *“Ha Bucks spoke slowly, “I don't need to tell you what I think of it, do I? It's a damned shame.” Halley rose to his feet. going, Phil?” asked Bucks. “Going back to the Spider on Number Two.” “Not going back this morning—why don’t you walt for Four, to-night,” sug- gested Bucks. “E4,” Halley raised his voice at the foreman, “will you get those stay bolts and chuck them into the baggage car for me on Number Two? I'm golng over to the house for a minute.” He forgot to an- swer Bucks; they knew what it meant. He was bracing himself to tell the folk before he left them. Preparing to tell the wife—and the old man—that he was out. Out of the rallroad system he had given his life to help bulld up. Out of the position he bad climbed to by studying like & hermit and working like a hobo. Out—without criticism, or allegation, or reason—simply like a dog, out. Callahen, with Bucks, tried to figure what it meant. “I think I know why they did it,” Bucks said slowly, “but I couldn’t tell Hailey." “Why “I think I know why. Last time I was down the president brought his name up and asked a lot of questions about where he was educated, and so on. I gave him the facts—told him that Brodie had given him his education as an engineer. The minute he found out he wasn’t regularly graduated he froze up. Very polite, but he froze up. BSee? Experience, actual acquirements—nothing — nothing — noth- ing.” As be concluded Halley was climbing behind his father into the smoker. Num- ber Two pulled down the yard and out. One thing Halley meant to make sure of ~that they shouldn’t beat him out of the finish of the Spider bridge as he had planned it; one monument Halley meant to have—one he has. The new Superintendent of Bridges took hold promptly. He was a good enough h 1 ‘““Where you fellow, 1 guess, Bucks did the civil, Agnew down to the Spider in a special to inspect the new work and introduce him to the man whose bread and opportunity but we all hated him. though, and took he was taking. There wasn't a mean drop anywhere in Halley’s blood, and he made no trouble whatever for his successor. After he let go on the West End Halley talked as if he would look up something farther east, but Bucks told him frankly he would find difficulty without a regular degree. Halley himself realized that. Moreover, he seemed reluctant to quit the mountains. He acted around the cottage and the Wickiup like a man who has lost something and who looks for it abstract- ly. But there were lusty little alleys over at the cottage to be looked after, and Bucks, losing & roadmaster about that time, asked Halley (after chewing it & long time with Callahan) to take the place himself and stay on the staff. “I know It doesn’t seem just right,” Bucks put it, “but, Halley, you must re- member this thing at Omaha isn’t going to last. They can't run a road like this with Harvard graduates and Boston type- writers. There'll be an entire new deal down there some fine day. Stay here with me, and I'll say this, Halley, if I go ever you go with nfe,” O you mind me,” 1 sald, in open ‘wonder at Alfcia’s calico gown and rural hat, “what you are wearing that get-up for?” “Doesn’t it seem suit- able to a farmhouse in the country?”’ she inquired, with obvious satisfaction in her costume. “I can't see why white lawny stuff, with embroldery and things, the kind you usually wear, wouldn’t be quite as unos- tentatious,” I said, discontentedly. Alicia leaned near to me. Really she ought not to put that kissable mouth of hers so close to even a married man. Then she whispered dramatically: “I'm poor—I've lost every cent!" “What!" I cried, aghast. Alicla is not fitted for poverty. “Sh! Not truly, you know. I'm making belfeve. I want tb meet a few men and know they are not fortune hunters.” “Humanity is more decent than you usually suppose it.” I sald, dryly. “There are a few ripping good poor fellows in our own set, untainted by self-seeking, though that guardian aunt of yours won't let you believe it.” “Well, but here,” sald Alicia, with such satisfaction that I knew at once some one was on the tapis. ‘“Here one can be ab- solutely sure.” “Whom have sternly. “No one,” sald Alicia, obstinately. But the next moment she blushed rosily as a tall, sun-browned young man came slowly up the wide steps of the piasza. A red handkerchief knotted around his col- umnar throat and a wide hat set slightly a-tilt gave a picturesque finish to him. I am bound to admit he looked attractive. “‘Mr, Roberts,” sald Alicia, “I want to have you meet my friend, Mr. Hamlin Johnson. His wife comes out to board here pext week.” ““You are down to have a look at the lay of our country?’ suggested Roberts, holding out a strong, tanned hand and nearly smashing mine in it. As he spoke Alicla vanished. She re- turned immediately with & huge pan of green peas, and seating herself on the step began shelling them as industriously as though her future depended upon it. Roberts promptly joined her, while I dis- contentedly dropped into Alicia’s ham- mock. Alicla was too utterly unlike her bored and ennuied self. She laughed now, in low ripples, and then lifted the shining eyes of a child to Roberts’ earnest and altogether too handsome face. It would never do, I told myself, to permit Alicla to throw herself away on an uncongenial rustic. the next two days I criticized telling looking you met?’ I asked For Roberts fiercely to myself. I could not but admit that he was manly, that he seemed capable of taking on polish, and that his grammar, while not of the best (he made breaks occasionally) was THE FORTUNE By Clinton Dan- gerfield. * reasonably good. He openly and frankly adored Aliela, who proudly afred her poverty and exulted in her captivation of a man who must indeed love her for herself alone. But I eould not bear the thought of It all. At Jast—for I saw matters were ap- proaching & climax—I determined to ap- peal to Roberts’ generosity, I got him off on a day's. fishing, and as we¢ came homeward I prepared my eppeal. I led the conversation up to mar- riage by beginning to talk of home. ““Yes, his father and mother were living,” he sald. “Yes, the old folks did mids him, but he got an extra good chance to get a job with Farmer Ketterer and he guessed they could stand it a while longer.” “I suppose,” I said bravely, “that some day you will be thinking of marriage, just as they did once.” He shot a pecullar glance at me. “And when you do marry,” I pursued, “of course, you want everything fair and above board. You want no chance for ili- feeling or mischief-makers to creep be- tween you and your wife because there was any misapprehensions at the begin- ning.” He turned red under his tan. “Misapprehension—how could there be— ‘what do you mean, anyway?”’ The gullty loock on his face gave me a sudden insight into the matter. Alas, poor Alicia! This innocent rustic belonged to the very class of men she most abhorred! He knew who she was, and he had deliberately let her play her poor lit- tle play before him. “You know who Miss Alicla Gordon 137" “Yes, I do,” he answered doggedly. “She is Alicla Van Anderson, the heiress and society woman.” “And knowing this as you do,” I sald, bursting with natural indignation, “you dare to let yourself make love to her, to let her believe you honest—" “I hold myself honest,” he returned quietly, “A man cannot be considered honest,” I sald sternly, “who courts a woman un- der false pretenses. You are letting Miss Van Anderson think that you love her for herself alone.” “And you would argue that I love her for her money!"” he saild in a tone of bit- ter sarcasm. “It looks that way,” I retorted angrily. “I mean to let her know the whole truth unless you have good sense and ‘man- hood enough to quietly withdraw. You don’t want that ugly name ‘fortune-hunt- er applied to you, do you?" “No, I don’t want that applied to me,” sald Roberts, punching holes in the moss with his rod, for we had got so near the house that by mutual consent we had seated ourselves on a log for our dis- cussion, “especially as I have asked Ali- And Hilley, sitting with his head be- tween his hands, listening to his wife and to Bucks, said one day, “Enough,” and the first of the month reported for duty as roadmaster. Agnew, meantime, had stopped all con- struction work not too far along to dis- continue. The bridge at the Spider for- tunately was beyond his mandate; it was finished to a rivet as Halley had planned it. Three spans, two plers and & pair of abutments—solid as the Tetons. But the Peace River canyon was caught in the air. Halley's calssons gave way to piles which pulled the cost down from $100,000 to $75,- 000, and incidentally it was breathed that the day for extravagant expenditures on the West End was past, and Bucks dlwe’d & bit deeper than usual into Callaban's box of cross-cut and rammed the splinter- ed leaf into his brier & bit harder and sald no word. 3 “But if we lose just one more bridge it's HUNTER | cla to marry me, and she said she would give me her answer to-night.” “She will give it to you now!” cried a clear voice, and Alicla’s own hand parted the bushes near us. “Oh, I know it's con- temptible to listen, but when your whole happiness depends on it—" A little sob choked her sentence. We both sprang up and stood staring at her— Roberts with a yearning intentness of gaze, I hopefully. “I certainly trust,” he said slowly, tak- ing off his hat and standing bareheaded in the sunset rays, “that nothing I have dope, Miss—" “Miss Van Anderson henceforth,” she sald significantly and scornfully. “That nothing I have done, Miss Van Anderson—" “It is nothing,” cried the girl, “to find that you have been decelving me all along. That you wanted the heiress, not me? If you only had come to me and sald, ‘Alicia, I know about your wretched money, but I mean to marry you in spite of it then I would have respected you. But you preferred to have me think you took me for a simple country girl."” To my intense surprise Roberts coolly and audaciously caught both her hands in his, fixing a magnetic gaze full on her face. “Alicia,” he sald slowly, “God pity you! All your life you have proved how sus- picion is born of wealth. That horrible taint, suspiclon, blackens your whole world. And yet, God pity me, too, I can understand how your soul has been soiled by this. I can pity, forgive and love you!” “Love mel” ecried the girl. “Why weren't you honest? You lived a lle with me!! my pose much worse than yours?” sald her lover coolly. “I am Robert Castleton, and my fortune, dear child, is double all you can count.” We both cried out in amazement. Loosing Alicla he drew out from an inner pocket a locket set round with rubles, and, pressing the spring, showed us an exquisite face, which I recognized at once. “My mother,” he sald simply. “And here are letters—and, of course, I can offer you all the proofs you want by telegraph or—" “But how on earth—" I stammered. “To be frank,” sald Robert Castleton, composedly, “I was sick of being hunted down by designing women who wanted me for their ugly daughters, or for them- selves. If I hadn't seen Alicia once at the opera she would have decelved me as completely as I did her.” His simple, straightforward manner, the casting off of every shred of the rustic as he talked convinced me wholly. I burst into a fit of ringing laughter. “Lord, this is good,” I choked; ‘‘you two flying from the fortune-hunters, and then making what will prove the match of the season!” I turned away, laughing still. A turn of the showed me, on glancing side- wise, Alicia’s pretty head reposing on the fortune-hunter's breast. . 5 goodby and gone to the California fast freight business,” muttered Callaban. ‘We had no winter that year till spring, and no spring till summer; and it was & spring of snow and a summer of water. Down beélow the plains were lost in snow even after Easter. After that the snow let up; it was then no longer a matter of keeping the line clear; it was a mat- ter of lashing the track to the right of way to keep it from swimming clear. Haliley caught it worse than anybody, but he worked like two men, for in a pinch that was his way. Bucks leaned on the wiry roadmaster as he did on Callahan or Neighbor. Halley knew Bucks looked to him for the track, and he strained every nerve making ready for the time the mountain snows should go out Now, the Spider wakes regularly twice; at all other times irregularly. Once in April, that is the foothills water; once in June, that is the mountain water. Now came an April without any rise; that April nothing rose—except the snow, ““We shall get it all together,” Bucks one night. “Or will it get us altogether?’ asked Halley. “Elther way,” said Callaban, “it will be mostly at once.” May opened bleaker than April. Even the trackmen walked with set faces; the dirtiest half-breed on the line knew now what the mountains held. At last, while we looked and wondered, came a very late chinook; July in May: them the water. Bection gangs were doubled and track~ walkers put on, bridge crews strength- ened, everything buckled for grief. Gul- les began to race, creeks to tumbl the Muddy to courses swelled and boiled—all but the Spider; the big river slept. Through May and into June the Spider slept; but Halley was there at the Wickiup, always, and with one eye running over all the line, one eye turned always to the Spider. On the 30th there was trouble beyond ‘Wild Hat, and all our extra men, put out there under Halley, were fighting to hold the Rat Valley leveis. Bucks sent Halley over there because he sent Halley wherever the Emperor sent Ney, Sunday while Halley was at Wild Hat it began raining. Sunday it rained. Monday it rained all through the mountains; Tues- day it was raining from Omahs to Eagle Pass—and the Spider woke. Trackmen at the bridge Tuesday night flagged No. 1 and reported the river wild, and sheet ice running. A wire from Bucks brought Hailey out of the West and into the East to reckon for the last time with his ancient enemy. He was against it Wednesday morning with dynamite. All the day, the night and the next day the sullen roar of the gilant powder shook the ice jams. Two more days he spent there watching; then he wired, ‘“Ice out,” and set back dragged and silent for home and for sleep. Sat- urday night he slept and Sunday all day and Sunday night. Monday about noon Bucks sent up to ask, but Hailey was asleep; they asked back whether they should wake him. Bucks sent word, “No.” Tuesday morning the tall roadmaster came down fresh as sunshine. The Spider raced like the Missour!t and the men at the bridge sent in panic messages, but Halley lit his pipe with their alarms. “That bridge will go when the mountains §0,” was all he sald. It was 9 o'clock Tuesday night and ev- ery star blinking when Halley looked in at the office for the trackwalkers’ report and the railway weather bulletins. Bucks, Callahan and Peeto sat about Duffy, who, in his shirt sleeves, threw the stuff out off the sounder as it trickled in over the wires. The West wire was good, but East everything below Peace River was down. ‘We had to get the Eastern reports around by Omaha and the South—a good thousand miles of a loop. ‘Wild Hat came first from the West with a stationary river and the Loup Creek falling—clear—good night. Then from the East came Prairie Portage, all the way round, with a northwest rain, a rising river and anchor ice pounding the plers badly, track In fair shape—and— and— The wire went wrong, and stuff that no man could get tumbled in like a dic- tionary upside down. Bucks and Calla- han and Halley and Peeto smoked, silent, and listened to the deepening drum of the rain on the roof. Then Duffy wrestled mightily yet once more, and the long way came word of trouble in the Omaha yards. “Hell to pay on the Missouri, of course.” growled the foreman. “Well, she don't run our way; let her hoil, damn her.” “Keep still’”” exclaimed Duffy, leaning heavily on the key. ‘Here's something— from—the Spider.” . ¥ | | FRANIC 1 SPEARAN Only the hum of the rain and the nerv ous break of the sounder cut the smoke that curled from their pipes. Duffy en and ran it across a clip, leaning over, read aloud from bis shoulder: “Omaba. “J. ¥. Bucks—Trainmen from No. T stalled west of Rapid City: track afloat in Simpsons Cut; report Spider bridge out; send—"" And the current broke. Callahan’s hand closed rigidly over his pipe; Peeto sat speechiess; Bucks read again at the broken message, but H sprang like & man wounded and the clip from his super He stared at the r 1 they burned his eyes, an . with an oath frightful as the thunder that broke down the mountains, he dashed the clip to the floor. His eyes snapped greenish with fury and he cursed Omaha. cursed fts messages and everything that came out of it. Out it came—all the rage—al the heartburning—all the bitterness— he dropped, bent, into & chalr and cov- ered his face with his hands. They watched him slowly knot his fingers and loosen them, and saw his rise dry and hard and old out of his hand “Get up an engine “Not—you're not going down there to- night?” stammered Bucks. Peeto! “Yes. Now. Right off. Get out your crew In twenty running twenty w: Sl gh the storm and a live engine boo.r;\ed under the Wickiup windows. “Phil, I want you to be careful!” It was Bucks standing by the roadmaster’s side ‘s a bad night.” Hafl- ey made no r wicked night." muttered Bucks as the lightning shot the yards in a blaze and a crash rolled down the gorge. But wicked as it was he could not bring himself to countermand; some- thing forbade it. Bvans, the conductor of the speclal, ran in. “Here’s your orders!” exclaimed Duf- fy. Evans nodded as he took the tissue. Halley buttoned his leather jacket and turned to Bucks. “Good-by." “Mind your tracks,” sald Bucks warn- ingly to Evans as he took Halley’s band. “What's your permit?™ “Forty miles an hour.” “Don’t stretch it. “Good-by, Phil” he @added, speak! to Halle “T'll see you in the morning. “In the morning,” repeated Halley. “Good-by. Nothing more in, Dufty?™ *“Nothing more.” “Come on!” With the words he pushed the conductor through the door and was gone. The switch engine puffed up with the caboose. Ahead of it Ed Peeto had coupled in the pile driver. At the last minute Callahan asked te go, and as the bridge gang tumbled into the caboose the assistant superintendent, Ed Peeto and Halley climbed into the engine. Denis Mullenix sat on the right, and with Wil- lam Durden, fireman, they pulled out, five in the cab, for the Spider Water. From Medicine Bend to the Spider Wa- ter is & ninety-mile run; down the gorge, through the foothills and into the Painted Desert that fills the jaw of the spur we intersect again west of Peace River. From the Peace to the Spider the crow files twenty miles, but we take thirty for it; there is hardly s tangent between. Their orders set a speed limit, but from the beginning they crowded it. Halley, moody at first, began joking and laughing the minute they got away. He sat behind Denis Mullenix on the right and poked at his ridbs and taunted him with his heavy heels. After a bit he got down and threw coal for Durden mile after mile and crowded the bofler till the safety screamed. Then going around to the right, the roadmaster coversd Denis Mullenix’'s fingers en the throttle latch and the alir with his big hands and good-naturedly coaxed them loose, pushed the engineer back and got the whip and the reins into his own keeping. It was what he want- o4, for he smiled as he drew out the bar & notch and settled himself for the run across the flat country. They wera leav- ing the foothills, and when the lightalag opened the night they could see behind through the blasting rain the great hulk- ing pile driver nod and reel out into the Painted Desert llke a drunken man. The Peace River hills loomed ints the headlight like moving pictures; befors they could think it the desert was behind. Callaban, white faced, climbed down and passed from hand to hand by Durden and Mullenix got his hands on Halley’s shoul~ ders and his lips to his ear. “For God’s sake, Phil, let upl” Halley nodded and choked the steam a lttle. Threw a hatful of air en the shoes and slewed into the hills with a speed un- slackened. From the rocks it is a down grade all the way to the canyon, and the wind blew them and the track ed them and a frenzied man sat at the throttls. Just where the line crosses Peace River the track bends sharply in through the Needles to take the bridge. The curve is a ten-degree. As they struck it the headlight shot far out upom the river—and they in the cab knew they were dead men. Instead of lighting the box of the truss the lamp lit a black and snaky flood sweeping over the abutment with yellow foam. The Peace had licked up Agnew’s thirty-foot piles and his bridge was not. Whatever could be done—and Halley knew all—meant death to the cab. Denls Mullenix never moved:; no man that knew Halley would think of trying to supplant him even with death under the ponies. He did what a man could do. There was no chance anyway for the cab, but the ca- boose held twenty of his faithful men. He checked—and with a scream from the flanges the special, shaking in the clutches of the airbrake, swung the curve. Again the roadmaster checked heavily. The leads of the plledriver swaying high above gravity center careened for an in- stant wildly to the tangent, then the mon- ster machine, parting from the tenfder, took the elevation like a hurdle and shot into the trees, dragging the caboose after it. But the engine and tender and five in the cab plunged head-on into the Peace. Not a man In the caboose was killed. They scrambled out of the splinters and on their feet, men and ready to do. One voice from below came to them through the storm, and they answered its calling. It was Callahan. But Durden, Mullenix, Peeto and Halley never called again. At daybreak wreckers of the West End, swarming from mountain and plain, wers heading for the Peace, and the MeCloud gang—up—crossed the Spider on Hatley's bridge—on the bridge the coward train- men had, reported out, quaking as they dié» in the storm at the Spider foaming over its approaches. But Hailey's bridge stood—stands to-day. Yet three days the Spider raged, and knew then Its master, while he thres ‘whole days sat at the bottom of the Peace clutching the engine levers in the ruins of Agnew’s mistake. And when the divers got them up Cal- lahan and Bucks tore big Peeto’'s arms from his master’s body and shut his star. ing eye and laid him at his master’s side. And only the Spider ravening at Hailey's caissons raged. But Halley slept.