The White Desert Part 35

A repet.i.tion of the foul-smelling wooden tunnels, the sulphur fumes, the gasping of stricken men. The same long, horrible hours, the same staggering release from labor and the welcome hardness of a sleeping spot on a wooden floor. Night after night it was the same--starlight and snow, fair weather and storm. Barry Houston had become a rough-bearded, tattered piece of human machinery like all the rest.

Then, at last--

The sun! s.h.i.+ning faintly through the windows of the bunk car, it caused him to stir in his sleep. Dropping in a flood of ruby red, it still reflected faint streaks of color across the sky, when at last he started forth to what men had mentioned but seldom, and then with fear.

For to-night was the last night, the last either in the struggle or in the lives of those who had fought their way upward to the final barricade which yet separated them from the top of the world,--the Death Trail.

Smooth and sleek it showed before Houston in the early moonlight, an icy Niagara, the snow piled high above the railroad tracks, extending upward against an almost sheer wall of granite, in stacks and drifts, banked in places to a depth of a hundred feet. Already the plows were a.s.sembled,--four heavy steel monsters, with tremendous beams lashed in place and jutting upward, that they might break the overcasts and knock down the snow roofings that otherwise might form tunnels, breaking the way above as the tremendous fan of the plow would break it below. This was to be the fight of fights, there in the moonlight. Houston could see the engines breathing lazily behind their plows, sixteen great, steel contrivances, their burdens graduated in size from the tremendous auger at the fore to the lesser, almost diminutive one, by comparison, at the rear, designed to take the last of the offal from the track.

For there would be no ice here; the drippings of the snowsheds, with their accompanying stalact.i.tes and stalagmites, were absent. A quick shoot and a lucky one. Otherwise,--the men who went forward to their engines would not speak of it. But there was one who did.

She was standing beside the cook car as Houston pa.s.sed, and she looked toward him with a glance that caused Barry to stop and to wait, as though she had called to him. Hesitatingly she came forward, and Houston's dulled mentality at last took cognizance that a hand was extended slightly.

"You're still working on the engine?"

"Yes."

"Then you'll be with them?"

"On the Death Trail? I expect to."

"They talk of it as something terrible. Why?"

Houston pointed to the forbidding wall of snow. His thick, broken lips mumbled in the longest speech he had known in days.

"It's all granite up there. The cut of the roadbed forms a base for the remainder of the snow. It's practically all resting on the tracks; above, there's nothing for the snow to cling to. When we cut out the foundation--they're afraid that the vibration will loosen the rest and start an avalanche. It all depends whether it comes before--or after we've pa.s.sed through."

"And you are not afraid?" She asked it almost childishly. He shook his head.

"I--don't know. I guess every one is--a bit afraid, when they're going into trouble. I know what I'm doing, if that's what you mean."

She was silent for a long moment, looking up at the packed drifts, at the ragged outlines of the mountains against the moonlit sky, then into the valleys and the s.h.i.+mmering form of the round, icy lake, far below.

Her lips moved, and Barry went closer.

"Beg pardon?"

"Nothing--only there are some things I can't understand. It doesn't seem quite natural--"

"What?"

"That things could--" Then she straightened and looked at him with clear, frank eyes. "Mr. Houston," came quietly, "I've been thinking about something all day. I have felt that I haven't been quite fair--that a man who has acted as you have acted since--since I met you this last time--that he deserves more of a chance than I have given him. That--"

"I'm asking nothing of you, Miss Robinette."

"I know. I am asking something of you. I want to tell you that I have been hoping that you can some day furnish me the proof--that you spoke of once. I--that's what I wanted to tell you," she ended quickly and extended her hand. "Good-by. I'll be praying for all of you up there."

Houston answered only with a pressure of his hand. His throat had closed suddenly. His breath jerked into his lungs; his burning, wind-torn lips ached to touch the hand that had lingered for a moment in his. He looked at her with eyes that spoke what his tongue could not say, then he went on,--a shambling, dead-tired man, even on awaking from sleep, but a man whose heart was beating with a new fervor. She would be praying for all of them up there at the Trail. And all of them included him.

At the cab of the engine, he listened to the final instructions of the cursing, anxious superintendent, then went to his black work of the shovel. Higher and higher mounted the steam on the gauge; theirs was the first plow, theirs the greatest task. For if they did not go through, the others could not follow; if their attack were not swift enough, staunch enough, the slide that was sure to come sooner or later would carry with it mangled machinery and the torn forms of men into a chasm of death. One by one the final orders came,--crisp, shouted, cursing commands, answered in kind. Then the last query:

"If there's a d.a.m.n man of you who's a coward, step out! Hear that? If you're afraid--come on--there's no stopping once you start!"

Engine after engine answered, in jeering, sarcastic tones, the belligerent cries of men hiding what pounded in their hearts, driving down by sheer will-power the primitive desires of self-preservation.

Again was the call repeated. Again was it answered by men who snarled, men who cursed that they might not pray. And with it:

"A-w-w-w-w--right! Let 'er go!"

The whistles screamed. Up the grade, four engines to a plow, the jets of steam shrilling upward, coughing columns of smoke leaping blackly up the mountain side, the start was made, as the great, roaring ma.s.s of machinery gathered speed for the impact.

A jarring crash that all but threw the men of the first crews from their feet, and the Death Trail had been met. Then churning, snarling, roaring, the snow flying in cloud-like ma.s.ses past them, the first plow bit its way deep into the tremendous ma.s.s, while sweating men, Barry Houston among them, crammed coal into the open, angry fire boxes, the sand streamed on greasy tracks,--and the cavalcade went on.

A hundred yards,--the beams knocking down the snow above and all but covering the engines which forced their way through, only to leave as high a ma.s.s behind; while the whole mountain seemed to tremble; while the peaks above sent back roar for roar, and grim, determined men pulled harder than ever at the throttles and waited,--for the breath of night again, or the crash of the avalanche.

A shout from Old Andy. A pull at the whistle, screeching forth its note of victory. From in front was it answered, then from the rear, and on and on, seemingly through an interminable distance, as moonlit night came again, as the lesser plows in the rear swept their way clear of the Death Trail and ground onward and upward. But only for a moment. Then, the blare of the whistles was drowned in a greater sound, a roar that reverberated through the hills like the bellow of a thousand thunders, the cracking and cras.h.i.+ng of trees, the splintering of great rocks as the snows of the granite spires above the Death Trail loosed at last and crashed downward in an all-consuming rush of destruction. Trees gave way before the constantly gathering ma.s.s of white, and joined in the downfall. Great boulders, ab.u.t.ting rocks, slides of shale! On it went, thundering toward the valley and the gleaming lake, at last to crash there; to send the ten-foot thicknesses of ice splintering like broken gla.s.s; to pyramid, to spray the whole nether world with ice and snow and scattering rock; then to settle, a jumbled conglomerate ma.s.s of destructiveness, robbed of its prey.

And the men shouted, and screamed and beat at one another in their frenzy of happiness, in spite of the fact that the track had been torn away from behind them as though it never had existed, and that they now were cut off entirely from the rest of the world. Only one snowshed remained, with but a feeble bulwark of drifts before it. Already lights were gleaming down the back-stretch, engines were puffing upward, bearing ties and rails and ballast and ab.u.t.tment materials, on toward the expected, with men ready to repair the damage as soon as it was done. There were cries also from there below, the shouts of men who were glad even as the crews of the engines and plows were glad, and the engineers and firemen leaned from their cabs to answer.

Still the whistles screamed; all through the night they screamed, as drift after drift yielded, as the eight-foot bite of the first giant auger gnawed and tore at the packed contents of the last shed atop Crestline; then roared and sang, while the hills sent back their outbursts with echoes that rolled, one into another, until at last the whole world was one terrific out-pouring of explosive sounds and shrill, shrieking blasts, as though the mountains were bellowing their anger, their remonstrance at defeat. Eight feet, then eight feet more; steadily eight feet onward. Nor did the men curse at the sulphur fumes, nor rail at the steel-blue ice. It was the final fight; on the downgrade were lesser drifts, puny in comparison to what they had gone through, simple, easily defeated obstacles to the giant machinery, which would work then with gravity instead of against it. Eight feet more--eight feet after that; they marked it off on the windows of the engine cabs with greasy fingers and counted the hours until success.

Night faded. Dawn came and then,--the sun! Clear and brilliant with the promise of spring again and of melting snows. The fight was the same as over.

Sleep,--and men who laughed, even as they snored, laughed with the subconscious knowledge of success, while the bunk cars which sheltered them moved onward, up to the peak, then started down the range. Night again,--and Houston once more in the engine cab. But this time, the red glare of the fire-box did not show as often against the sky; the stops were less frequent for the ice packs; once the men even sang!

Morning of the second day,--and again the suns.h.i.+ne, causing dripping streams from the long, laden branches of the pines and spruce, filling the streams bank-full, here and there cutting through the blanket of white to the dun-brown earth again. Work over, Houston leaned out the door of the bunk car, drinking in the suns.h.i.+ne, warm for the first time in weeks, it seemed,--and warm in heart and spirit. If she would only keep her promise! If she would allow Medaine to see her! If she would tell her the truth,--about the contract, the lease, and most of all that accusation. If--

The whistles again,--and crowded forms at the doors of the cars.

Tabernacle was in the distance, while men and women waded through the soggy snows to be the first to reach the train. Happiness gleamed on the features of the inhabitants of a beleagured land shut away from the world for weeks, men and women who saw no shame in the tears which streamed down their cheeks, and who sought not to hide them. Eagerly Barry searched the thronging crowd, at last to catch sight of a gigantic figure, his wolf-dog beside him. He leaped from the car even before it had ceased to move.

"Ba'tiste!" he called. "Ba'tiste!"

Great arms opened wide. A sob came from the throat of a giant.

"_Mon_ Baree! _Mon_ Baree!" It was all he could say for a moment.

Then, "_Mon_ Baree, he have come back to Ba'teese. Ah, Golemar! _Mon_ Baree, he have come back, he have come back!"

"We've won, Ba'tiste! The line's open--they'll be running trains through before night. And if she keeps her promise--"

"She?" Ba'tiste stared down at him. They had drawn away from the rest of the excited, noisy throng. "She? You mean--"

"Agnes. You've been taking care of her, haven't you? I found her--she promised that she would tell the truth for me when I got back, that she would explain the lease and contract and tell Medaine that it was all a lie. She--"

But Ba'tiste Renaud shook his head.

"No, Baree. Eet is the too late. I have jus' come--from there. I have close her eyes."

CHAPTER XXIV

Dead! Houston saw Medaine Robinette pa.s.s in the distance, and his eyes followed her until she had rounded the curve by the dead aspens,--the eyes of lost hope. For it was upon life that he had planned and dreamed; that the woman of the lonely cabin would stand by her promise made in a time of stress and right at least some of the wrongs which had been his burden. But now--

"She--she didn't tell you anything before she went?"