The Rim of the Desert Part 32

Banks' eyes gleamed appreciation, but the capitalist missed his inadvertent pun. After a moment, the mining man said: "I guess the millinery investment won't break us; but there's no question about Weatherbee's being a live town, and Lucile can sell goods."

"I presume next," said Mrs. Feversham with veiled irony, "we shall be hearing of you as the first mayor of Weatherbee."

Banks shook his head gravely. "They shouldered that on to Henderson Bailey."

"I remember," said Frederic. "Man who started the orchard excitement, wasn't he? Got in on the ground floor and platted some of his land in city lots. Naturally, he's running for mayor."

"He's it," responded the mining man. "The election came off Tuesday, and he led his ticket, my, yes, clear out of sight."

"Bet you ran for something, though," responded Morganstein. "Bet they had you up for treasurer."

Banks laughed. "There was some talk of it--my wife said they were looking for somebody that could make good if the city money fell short--but most of the bunch thought my lay was the Board of Control. You see, I got to looking after things to help Bailey out, while he was busy moving his apples or maybe his city lots. My, it got so's when Mrs. Banks couldn't find me down to the city park, watching the men grub out sage-brush for the new trees, she could count on my being up-stream to the water-works, or hiking out to the lighting-plant. It's kept me rushed, all right. It takes time to start a first-cla.s.s town. It has to be done straight from bedrock. But now that Annabel's house up Hesperides Vale is built, and the flumes are in, she thinks likely she can run her ranch, and I think likely,"--the prospector paused, and his eyes, with their gleam of blue glacier ice, sought Mrs. Weatherbee's. Hers clouded a little, and she leaned slightly towards him, waiting with hushed breath--"I think likely,"

he repeated in a higher key, "seeing's the Alameda has to be finished up, and the fountain got in shape at the park, with the statue about due from New York, I may as well drop Dave's project and call the deal off."

There was a silence, during which the eyes of every one rested on Beatriz.

She straightened with a great sigh; the color rushed coral-pink to her face.

"I am--sorry--about your loss, Mr. Banks," she said, then, and her voice fluctuated softly, "but I shall do my best--I shall make it a point of honor--to sometime reimburse you." Her glance fell to the violets at her belt; she singled one from the rest and, inhaling its perfume, held it lightly to her lips.

"You thoroughbred!" said Frederic thickly.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE EVERLASTING DOOR

Sometime during the night of the fifteenth, the belated Chinook wind began to flute through the canyon, and towards dawn the guests at Scenic Hot Springs were wakened by the near thunder of an avalanche. After a while, word was brought that the Great Northern track was buried under forty feet of snow and rock and fallen trees for a distance of nearly a mile. Later a rotary steamed around the high curve on the mountain and stopped, like a toy engine on an upper shelf, while the Spokane local, upon which Banks had expected to return to Weatherbee, forged a few miles beyond the hotel to leave a hundred laborers from Seattle. Thin wreaths of vapor commenced to rise and, gathering volume with incredible swiftness, blotted out the plow and the snow-sheds, and meeting, broke in a storm of hail. The cloud lifted, but in a short interval was followed by another that burst in a deluge of rain, and while the slope was still obscured, a report was telegraphed from the summit that a second avalanche had closed the east portal of Cascade tunnel, through which the Oriental Limited had just pa.s.sed. At nightfall, when the work of clearing away the first ma.s.s of debris was not yet completed, a third slide swept down seven laborers and demolished a snow-shed. The unfortunate train that had been delayed so long in the Rockies was indefinitely stalled.

The situation was unprecedented. Never before in the history of the Great Northern had there been so heavy a snowfall in the Cascades; the sudden thaw following an ordinary precipitation must have looked serious, but the moving of this vast acc.u.mulation became appalling. All through that day, the second night the cannonading of avalanches continued, distant and near. At last came an interlude. The warm wind died out; at evening there was a promise of frost; and only the voice of the river disturbed the gorge. Dawn broke still and crisp and clear. The mountain tops shone in splendor, purple cliffs stood sharply defined against snow-covered slopes, and whole companies in the lower ranks of the trees had thrown off their white cloaks. It was a day to delight the soul, to rouse the heart, invite to deeds of emulation. Even Frederic was responsive, and when after breakfast Marcia broached a plan to scale the peak that loomed southeast of the pa.s.s, he grasped at the diversion. "We're pretty high up already, here at Scenic," he commented, surveying the dome from his chair on the hotel veranda. "Three or four thousand feet ought to put us on the summit.

Have the chance, anyhow, to see that stalled train."

"Of course it wouldn't be an achievement like the ascent of Rainier," she tempered, "but we should have chances enough to use our alpenstocks before we're through; and it should be a magnificent view; all the great peaks from Oregon to British Columbia rising around."

"With the Columbia River below us," said Elizabeth, "and all those miles of desert. We might even catch a glimpse of your new Eden over there, Beatriz."

Mrs. Weatherbee nodded, with the sparkles breaking in her eyes. "I know this is the peak we watched the day I drove from Wenatchee. It rose white and s.h.i.+ning at the top of Hesperides Vale, and it may have another name, but I called it the Everlasting Door."

Once since their arrival at Scenic Hot Springs they had followed, skeeing, an old abandoned railroad track, used by the Great Northern during the construction of the big tunnel, to the edge of the desired peak, and, at Marcia's suggestion, Frederic invited Lucky Banks to join the expedition in the capacity of captain and guide. The prospector admitted he felt "the need of a little exercise" and, having studied the mountain with field-gla.s.ses and consulted with the hotel proprietor, he consented to see them through. No doubt the opportunity to learn the situation of the Oriental Limited and the possibilities of getting in touch with Tisdale, should the train fail to move before his return from the summit, had influenced the little man's decision. A few spikes in his shoes, some hardtack and cheese with an emergency flask in his pockets, a coil of rope and a small hatchet that might serve equally well as an ice-ax or to clear undergrowth on the lower slopes, was ample equipment, and he was off to reconnoiter the mountainside fully an hour in advance of the packer whom Morganstein engaged for the first stage of the journey.

When the man arrived at the foot of the sharp ascent where he was to be relieved, Banks was finis.h.i.+ng the piece of trail he had blazed and mushed diagonally up the slope to a rocky cleaver that stretched like a causeway from the timber to firm snow, but he returned with time to spare between the departure of the packer and the appearance of his party, to open the unwieldy load; from this he discarded two bottles of claret and another of port, with their wrappings of straw, a steamer-rug, some tins of pate de foie gras and other sundries that made for weight, but which the capitalist had considered essential to the comfort and success of the expedition. There still remained a well-stocked hamper, including thermos bottles of coffee and tea, and a second rug, which he rolled snugly in the oilskin cover and secured with shoulder-straps. The eliminated articles, that he cached under a log, were not missed until luncheon, which was served on a high, spur below the summit while Banks was absent making a last reconnaissance, and Frederic blamed the packer.

The spur was flanked above by a craggy b.u.t.tress and broke below to an abyss which was divided by a narrow, tongue-like ridge, and over this, on a lower level of the opposite peak, appeared the steep roofs of the mountain station at the entrance to Cascade tunnel, where, on the tracks outside the portal, stood the stalled train. It seemed within speaking distance in that rare atmosphere, though several miles intervened.

After a while sounds of metal striking ice came from a point around the b.u.t.tress; Banks was cutting steps. Then, following a silence, he appeared.

But, on coming into the sunny westward exposure, he stopped, and with two fingers raised like a weather-vane, stood gazing down the canyon. His eyes began to scintillate like chippings of blue glacier.

Involuntarily every one turned in that direction, and Frederic reached to take his field-gla.s.ses from the shelf of the b.u.t.tress they had converted into a table. But he saw nothing new to hold the attention except three or four gauzy streamers of smoke or vapor that floated in the lower gorge.

"Looks like a train starting up," he commented, "but the Limited gets the right of way as soon as there's a clear track."

Banks dropped his hand and moved a few steps to take the gla.s.ses from Morganstein. "You're right," he replied in his high, strained key. "It ain't any train moving; it's the Chinook waking up." He focussed on the Oriental Limited, then slowly swept the peak that overtopped the cars.

"Likely they dasn't back her into the tunnel," he said. "The bore is long enough to take in the whole bunch, but if a slide toppled off that shoulder, it would pen 'em in and cut off the air. It looks better outside, my, yes."

"Here is your coffee, Mr. Banks," said Elizabeth, who had filled a cup from the thermos bottle, "and please take anything else you wish while I repack the basket. We are all waiting, you see, to go on."

The prospector paused to take the cup, then said: "I guess likely we won't make the summit this trip. We've got to hustle to get down before it turns soft."

"Oh, but we must make the summit," exclaimed Marcia, taking up her alpenstock. "Why, we are all but there."

"How does it look ahead?" inquired Frederic, walking along the b.u.t.tress.

"Heard you chopping ice."

"I was cutting steps across the tail end of a little glacier. It's a gliddery place, but the going looks all right once you get past. Well, likely you can make it," he added shrilly, "but you've got to be quick."

The life of the trail that sharpens a man's perceptives teaches him to read individuality swiftly, and this Alaskan who, the first day out on a long stampede, could have told the dominant trait of each husky in his team, knew his party as well as the risk. Golf and tennis, added to a naturally strong physique, had given the two sisters nerves of steel.

Marcia, who had visited some of the great glaciers in the north, possessed the insight and coolness of a mountain explorer; and all the third woman lacked in physical endurance was more than made up in courage. The man, though enervated by over-indulgence, had the brute force, the animal instinct of self-preservation, to carry him through. So presently, when the b.u.t.tress was pa.s.sed, and the prospector uncoiled his rope, it was to Mrs. Feversham he gave the other end, placing Morganstein next, with Elizabeth at the center and Mrs. Weatherbee second. Once, twice, Banks felt her stumble, a sinking weight on the line, but in the instant he caught a twist in the slack and fixed his heels in the crust to turn, she had, in each case, recovered and come steadily on. It was only when the gliddery pa.s.sage was made, the peril behind, that she sank down in momentary collapse.

Banks stopped to unfold his pocket-cup and take out his flask. "You look about done for," he said briskly. "My, yes, that little taste of glacier was your limit. But you ain't the kind to back out. No, ma'am, all you need is a little bracer to put you on your feet again, good as new."

"I never can go back," she said, and met his concerned look with wide and luminous eyes. "Unless--I'm carried. Never in the world."

Morganstein forced a laugh. It had a frosty sound; his lips were blue.

"Excuse me," he responded. "Anywhere else I wouldn't hesitate, but here, I draw the line."

The prospector was holding the draught to her lips, and she took a swallow and pushed away the cup. It was brandy, raw, scalding, and it brought the color back to her face. "Thank you," she said, and forced a smile. "It is bracing; my tensions are all screwed. I feel like climbing on to--Mars."

Frederic laughed again. "You go on, Banks," he said, relieving him of the cup; "she's all right. You hurry ahead before one of those girls walks over a precipice."

He could not persuade her to take more of the liquor, so he himself drank the bracer, after which he put the cup and the flask, which Banks had left, away in his own pockets. She was up, whipping down her fear. "Come,"

she said, "we must hurry to overtake them."

Her steps, unsteady at first, grew sure and determined; she drew longer, deeper breaths; the pink of a wild rose flushed her cheeks. But Frederic, plodding abreast, laid his hand on her arm.

"See here," he said, "you can't keep this up; stop a minute. They've got to wait for us. George, that ambition of yours can spur you to the pace.

Never saw so much spirit done up in a small package. Go off, sometime, like Fourth o' July fireworks." He chuckled, looking down at her with admiration in his round eyes. "Like you for it, though. George, it's just that has made you worth waiting for."

She gave him a quick glance and, setting her alpenstock, sprang from his detaining hand.

"See, they have reached the summit," she called. "They are waiting already for us. And see!" she exclaimed tensely, as he struggled after her. "It is going to be grand."

A vast company of peaks began to lift, tier on tier like an amphitheater, above the rim of the dome, while far eastward, as they cross-cut the rounding incline, stretched those tawny mountains that had the appearance of strange and watchful beasts, guarding the levels of the desert, bare of snow. Glimpses there were of the blue Columbia, the racy Wenatchee, but Weatherbee's pocket was closed. Then, presently, as they gained the summit, it was no longer an amphitheater into which they looked, but a billowing sea of cloud, out of which rose steep and inhospitable sh.o.r.es.

Then, everywhere, far and away, shone opal-shaded islands of mystery.

"Oh," she said, with a little, sighing breath, "these are the Isles of the Blest. We have come through the Everlasting Door into the better country."

She stood looking off in rapture, but the man saw only the changing lights in her face. He turned a little, taking in the charm of pose, the lift of chin, parted lips, hand shading softly s.h.i.+ning eyes. After a moment he answered: "Wish we had. Wish every other man you knew was left out, on the other side of the door."