The Silent Barrier Part 39

Already a grand panorama of glaciers and peaks was unfolding itself. A cloudless sky promised a lovely August day, and what that means in the high Alps the mountaineer alone can tell. But Spencer turned his back on the outer glory. He had eyes only for Helen, while she, looking mistily at the giant rock across the valley, saw it not at all, for she was peering into her own soul, and found the prospect dazzling in its pure delight.

So they sat down to a fresh brew of coffee, and Spencer horrified Helen by a confession that he had eaten nothing since the previous evening. Her tender solicitude for his needs, her hasty unpacking of rolls and sandwiches, her anxiety that he should endeavor to consume the whole of the provisions intended for the day's march, were all sufficing guerdon for the sufferings of those miserable days since the hour when Mrs. de la Vere told him that Helen had gone. It was a new experience for Spencer to have a gracious and smiling woman so greatly concerned for his welfare; but it was decidedly agreeable. These little attentions admitted so much that she dared not tell--as yet.

And he had such a budget of news for her! Though he found it difficult to eat and talk at the same time, he boldly made the attempt.

"Stampa was the genius who really unraveled the mystery," he said.

"Certainly, I managed to discover, in the first instance, that you had deposited your baggage in your own name. Had all else failed, I should have converted myself into a label and stuck to your boxes till you claimed them at Basle; but once we ascertained that you had not quitted St. Moritz by train, Stampa did the rest. He knows St. Moritz like a book, and it occurred to him that you had changed your name----"

"Why, I wonder?" she broke in.

"That is rather hard to say." He wrestled valiantly with the leg of a tough chicken, and thus was able to evade the question.

Poor Stampa! clinging tenaciously to the belief that Helen bore some resemblance to his lost daughter, remembered that when Etta made her sorrowful journey from Zermatt she gave another name at the little hostelry in Maloja where she ended her life.

"Anyhow," went on Spencer, having dexterously severed the joint, "he tracked you from St. Moritz to the Roseg. He even hit on the shop in which you bought your rucksack and alpenstock. Then he put me on to the telephone, and the remainder of the chase was up to me."

"I am sorry now that the dear old man did not come with you," cried Helen. "I look on him as the first of my friends in Switzerland, and shall be more than pleased to see him again."

"I pressed him to come along; but he refused. I don't wish to pain you, dearest, but I guess he wants to keep track of Bower."

Helen, who had no inkling of the tragedy that linked those two, blushed to her ears at the recollection of her parting from the millionaire.

"Do you--do you know that Mr. Bower proposed to me?" she stammered.

"He told me that, and a lot more."

"Did you quarrel?"

"We--said things. But I couldn't treat Bower as I handled Georgie. I was forced to admit his good taste, you see."

"Well, dear, promise me----"

"That I sha'n't slay him! Why, Helen, if he is half the man I take him for, he will come to our wedding. I told Mrs. de la Vere I should bring you back, and she agreed that there was nothing else to be done."

The color ebbed and flowed on Helen's face at an alarming rate. "What in the world are you talking about?" she asked, with a calm severity that her fluttering heart denied.

Spencer laughed so happily that Pietro, who understood no word of what his voyageurs were saying, gave Bartelommeo a sapient wink.

"Well, now," he cried, "wouldn't we be the queerest pair of zanies to go all that long way to London to get married when a parson, and a church, and all the needful consular offices are right here under our noses, so to speak. Why, we have a ready-made honeymoon staring us in the face. We'll just skate round Switzerland after your baggage and then drop down the map into Italy. I figured it all out last night, together with 'steen methods of making the preliminary declaration.

I'll tell you the whole scheme while we--Oh, well, if you're in a real hurry to cross the glacier, I must defer details and talk in headlines."

For Helen, absolutely scarlet now, had risen with a tragic air and bade the guides prepare for instant departure.

The snow lay deep on the Roseg, and roping was essential, though Pietro undertook to avoid any difficult creva.s.ses. He led, Spencer followed, with Helen next, and Bartelommeo last. They reached the opposite moraine in half an hour, and began to climb steadily. The rock which looked so forbidding from the hut was by no means steep and not at all dangerous. They had plenty of time, and often stopped to admire the magnificent vistas of the Val Roseg and the Bernina range that were gradually unfolding before their eyes. Soon they were on a level with the hut, the Alpine palace that had permitted their first embrace.

"When we make our next trip to St. Moritz, Helen, we must seek out the finest and biggest photograph of the Mortel that money can buy,"

said Spencer.

Helen was standing a little above him on a broad ledge. Her hand was resting on his shoulder.

"Oh, look!" she cried suddenly, pointing with her alpenstock to the ma.s.sive mountain wall that rose above the _cabane_. A few stones had fallen above a widespread snow slope. The stones started an avalanche, and the roar of the tremendous cascade of snow and rock was distinctly audible.

Pietro uttered an exclamation, and hastily unslung a telescope. He said something in a low tone to Bartelommeo; but Spencer and Helen grasped its meaning.

The girl's eyes dilated with terror. "There has been an accident!" she whispered. Bartelommeo took the telescope in his turn and evidently agreed with the leading guide.

"A party has fallen on Corvatsch," said Pietro gravely. "Two men are clinging to a ledge. It is not a bad place; but they cannot move. They must be injured, and there may be others--below."

"Let us go to their a.s.sistance," said Spencer instantly.

"_Per certo, signor._ That is the law of the hills. But the _signora_?

What of her?"

"She will remain at the hut."

"I will do anything you wish," said Helen sorrowfully, for her gladness had been changed to mourning by the fearsome tidings that two, if not more, human beings were in imminent danger on the slopes of the very hill that had witnessed the avowal of her love. They raced back over the glacier, doubling on their own track, and were thus enabled to travel without precaution.

Leaving Helen at the hut, the men lost no time in beginning the ascent. They were gone so long that she was almost frantic with dread in their behalf; but at last they came, slowly, with the tread of care, for they were carrying the body of a man.

While they were yet a couple of hundred feet above the hut, Spencer intrusted the burden to the Italians alone. He advanced with rapid strides, and Helen knew that he brought bad news.

"Come, dear one," he said gently. "We must go to the inn and send help. Our guides are bringing an injured man to the hut, and there is one other whom we left on the mountain."

"Dead?"

"Yes, killed instantly by a stone. That was all. Just a mishap--one of the things that can never be avoided in climbing. But come, dear. More men are needed, and a doctor. This poor fellow is badly hurt."

"Can I do nothing for him?" she pleaded.

A species of fright twitched his grave face for an instant. "No, no, that is not to be thought of," he urged. "Pietro says he has some little skill in these matters. He can do all that is needed until a doctor arrives. Believe me, Helen, it is imperative that we should reach the hotel without delay."

She went with him at once. "Who is it?" she asked. He steeled himself to answer according to his intent. Though he had vowed that never again would he utter a syllable to his love that was not transparently true, how could he tell her then that Stampa was stretched lifeless on the broad bosom of Corvatsch, and that the Italians were carrying Bower, crushed and raving in delirium, to the hut.

"An Englishman and his guide, I am sorry to say," was his prepared reply. "The guide is dead; but his employer can be saved, I am sure, if only we rush things a bit. Now, Helen, let us go at top speed. No talking, dear. We must make the hotel under the hour."

They did it, and help was soon forthcoming. Then Spencer ordered a carriage, and insisted that Helen should drive to Maloja forthwith. He would stay at Roseg, he said, to make certain that everything possible was done for the unfortunate climber. Indeed, when his beloved was lost to sight down the winding road that leads to the main valley of the Engadine, he accompanied the men who went to the Mortel. Halfway they met Pietro and Bartelommeo carrying Bower on an improvised stretcher, ice axes and a blanket.

By this time, under the stimulus of wine and warmth, Bower had regained his senses. He recognized Spencer, and tried to speak; but the American told him that even the least excitement must be avoided.

Once the hotel was reached, and they were waiting for the doctor, Bower could not be restrained.

"It was you who rescued me?" he said feebly.

"I, and two Italian guides. We saw the accident from the other side of the Roseg glacier."

"Yes. Stampa pointed you out to me. I could not believe my eyes. I watched you till the thought came that Stampa had befooled me. Then he pushed me off the rock where we were standing. I broke my leg in the fall; but he held me there on the rope and taunted me. Great G.o.d! how I suffered!"

"You really ought not to talk about it," said Spencer soothingly.