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Daughter of a Magnate

<h3> CHAPTER XVII </h3> <h3> STORM </h3> Muffled in wraps Gertrude stood at the front door waiting to leave the car. It had been set in on the siding, and the engine, uncoupled, had disappeared, but she could see shifting lights moving near. One, the bright, green-hooded light, her eyes followed. She watched the furious snow drive and sting hornet-like at its rays as it rose or swung or circled from a long arm. Her straining eyes had watched its coming and going every moment since he left her. When his figure vanished her breath followed it, and when the green light flickered again her breath returned. The men were endeavoring to reset the switch for the main line contact. Three lights were grouped close about the stand, and after the rod had been thrown, Glover went down on his knee feeling for the points under the snow with his hands before he could signal the engine back; one thing he could not afford, a derail. She saw him rise again and saw, dimly, both his arms spread upward and outward. She saw the tiny lantern swing a cautious incantation, and presently, like a monster apparition, called out of the storm the frosted outlines of the tender loomed from the darkness. The engine was being brought to where this dainty girl passenger could step with least exposure from her vestibule to its cab gangway. With exquisite skill the unwieldy monster, forced in spite of night and stress to do its master's bidding, was being placed for its extraordinary guest. Picking like a trained beast its backward steps, with cautious strength the throbbing machine, storm-crusted and storm-beaten, hissing its steady defiance at its enemy, halted, and Gertrude was lighted and handed across the short path, passed up inside the canvas door by Glover and helped to the fireman's box. Out in the storm she heard from the conductor and flagman rough shouts of good luck. Glover nodded to the engineer, the fireman yelled good-by, slammed back the furnace door, and a blinding flash of white heat, for an instant, took Gertrude's senses; when the fireman slammed the door to they were moving softly, the wind was singing at the footboard sash, and the injectors were loading the boiler for the work ahead. A berth blanket fastened between Gertrude and the side window and a cushion on the box made her comfortable. Under her feet lay a second blanket. She had come in with a smile, but the gloom of the cab gave no light to a smile. Only the gauge faces high above her showed the flash of the bull's-eyes, and the multitude of sounds overawed her. On the opposite side she could see the engineer, padded snug in a blouse, his head bullet-tight under a cap, the long visor hanging beak-like over his nose. His chin was swathed in a roll of neck-cloth, and his eyes, whether he hooked the long lever at his side or stretched both his arms to latch the throttle, she could never see. Then, or when his hand fell back to the handle of the air, as it always fell, his profile was silent. If she tried to catch his face he was looking always, statue-like, ahead. Standing behind him, Glover, with a hand on a roof-brace, steadied himself. In spite of the comforts he had arranged for her, Gertrude, in her corner, felt a lonely sense of being in the way. In her father's car there was never lacking the waiting deference of trainmen; in the cab the men did not even see her. In the seclusion of the car a storm hardly made itself felt; in the cab she seemed under the open sky. The wind buffeted the glass at her side, rattled in its teeth the door in front of her, drank the steaming flame from the stack monstrously, and dashed the cinders upon the thin roof above her head with terrifying force. With the gathering speed of the engine the cracking exhaust ran into a confusing din that deafened her, and she was shaken and jolted. The plunging of the cab grew violent, and with every lurch her cushion shifted alarmingly. She resented Glover's placing himself so far away, and could not see that he even looked toward her. The furnace door slammed until she thought the fireman must have thrown in coal enough to last till morning, but unable to realize the danger of overloading the fire he stopped only long enough to turn various valve-wheels about her feet, and with his back bent resumed his hammering and shovelling as if his very salvation were at stake: so, indeed, that night it was. Gertrude watched his unremitting toil; his shifty balancing on his footing with ever-growing amazement, but the others gave it not the slightest heed. The engineer looked only ahead, and Glover's face behind him never turned. Then Gertrude for the first time looked through her own sash out into the storm. Strain as she would, her vision could pierce to nothing beyond the ceaseless sweep of the thin, wild snow across the brilliant flow of the headlight. She looked into the white whirl until her eyes tired, then back to the cab, at the flying shovel of the fireman, the peaked cap of the muffled engineer—at Glover behind him, his hand resting now on the reverse lever hooked high at his elbow. But some fascination drew her eyes always back to that bright circle in the front—to the sinister snow retreating always and always advancing; flowing always into the headlight and out, and above it darkening into the fire that streamed from the dripping stack. A sudden lurch nearly threw her from her seat, and she gave a little scream as the engine righted. Glover beside her like thought caught her outstretched hand. "A curve," he said, bending apologetically toward her ear as she reseated herself. "Is it very trying?" "No, except that I am in continual fear of falling from my seat—or having to embrace the unfortunate fireman. Oh!" she exclaimed, putting her wrist on Glover's arm as the cab jerked. "If I could keep out of the fireman's way, I should stand here," he said. "There is room on the seat here, I think, if you have not wholly deserted me. Oh!" "I didn't mean to desert you. It is because the snow is packing harder that you are rocked more; the cab has really been riding very smoothly." She moved forward on the box. "Are you going to sit down?" "Thank you." "Oh, don't thank me. I shall feel ever so much safer if you will." He tried to edge up into the corner behind her, pushing the heavy cushion up to support her back. As he did so she turned impatiently, but he could not catch what she said. "Throw it away," she repeated. He chucked the cushion forward below her feet and was about to sit up where she had made room for him when the engineer put both hands to the throttle-bar and shut off. For the first time since they had started Gertrude saw him look around. "Where's Point of Rocks?" he called to Glover as they slowed, and he looked at his watch. "I'm afraid we're by." "By?" echoed Glover. "It looks so." The fireman opened his furnace with a bang. The engineer got stiffly down and straightened his legs while he consulted with Glover. Both knew they had been running past small stations without seeing them, but to lose Point of Rocks with its freight houses, coal chutes, and water tanks! They talked for a minute, the engineer climbed up to his seat, the reverse lever was thrown over and they started cautiously back on a hunt for the lost station, both straining their eyes for a glimpse of a light or a building. For twenty minutes they ran back without finding a solitary landmark. When they stopped, afraid to retreat farther, Glover got out into the storm, walked back and forth, and, chilled to the bone, plunged through the shallow drifts from side to side of the right of way in a vain search for reckoning. Railroad men on the rotary, the second day after, exploded Glover's torpedoes eleven miles west of Point of Rocks, where he had fastened them that night to the rails to warn the ploughs asked for when leaving Sleepy Cat. With his clothing frozen he swung up into the cab. They were lost. She could see his eyes now. She could see his face. Their perilous state she could not understand, nor know; but she knew and understood what she saw in his face and eyes—the resource and the daring. She saw her lover then, master of the elements, of the night and the danger, and her heart went out to his strength. The three men talked together and the fireman asked the question that none dared answer, "What about the ploughs?" Would Giddings hold them at Point of Rocks till the Special reported? Would he send them out to keep the track open regardless of the Special's reaching Point of Rocks? Had they themselves reached Point of Rocks at all? If past it, had they been seen? Were the ploughs ahead or behind? And the fireman asked another question; if they were by the Point tank, would the water hold till they got to Medicine Bend? No one could answer. There was but one thing to do; to keep in motion. They started slowly. The alternatives were discussed. Glover, pondering, cast them all up, his awful responsibility, unconscious of her peril, watching him from the fireman's box. The engineer looked to Glover instinctively for instructions and, hesitating no longer, he ordered a dash for Medicine Bend regardless of everything. Without a qualm the engineer opened his throttle and hooked up his bar and the engine leaped blindly ahead into the storm. Glover, in a few words, told Gertrude their situation. He made no effort to disguise it, and to his astonishment she heard him quietly. He cramped himself down at her feet and muffled his head in his cap and collar to look ahead. They had hardly more than recovered their lost distance, and were running very hard when a shower of heavy blows struck the cab and the engine gave a frantic plunge. Forgetting that he pulled no train McGraw's eyes flew to the air gauge with the thought his train had broken, but the pointer stood steady at the high pressure. Again the monster machine strained, and again the cab rose and plunged terrifically. The engineer leaped at the throttle like a cat; Gertrude, jolted first backward, was thrown rudely forward on Glover's shoulder, and the fireman slid head first into the oil cans. Worst of all, Glover, in saving Gertrude, put his elbow through the lower glass of the running-board door. The engine stopped and a blast of powdered ice streamed in on them; their eyes met. She tried to get her breath. "Don't be frightened," he said; "you are all right. Sit perfectly still. What have you got, Paddy?" he called to the engineer. The engineer did not attempt to answer; taking lanterns, the two men climbed out of the cab to investigate. The wind swept through the broken pane and Gertrude slipped down from her seat with relief, while the fireman caught up a big double handful of waste from his box and stuffed it into the broken pane. So intense had the strain of silence become that she would have spoken to him, but the sudden stop sprung the safety-valve, and overwhelmed with its roar she could only watch him in wretched suspense shake the grate, restore his drip can, start his injector, and hammer like one pursued by a fury at the coal. Since she had entered the cab this man had never for one minute rested. McGraw, followed by Glover, climbed back under the canvas from the gangway. Their clothing, moist with the steam of the cab, had stiffened the instant the wind struck it. McGraw hastening to the furnace seized the chain, jerked open the door and motioned to Glover to come to the fire, but Glover shook his head behind McGraw, his hands on the little man's shoulders, and forced him down in front of the fearful blaze to thaw the gloves from his aching fingers. All the horror of the storm they were facing had passed Gertrude unfelt until she saw the silent writhing of the crouching man. This was three minutes of the wind that Glover had asked her not to tempt; this was the wind she had tempted. She was glad that Glover, bending over the engineer, holding one hand to the fire as he gazed into it, did not look toward her. From cap to boots he was frozen in snow and ice. The two men, without speaking, left the cab again. They were gone longer. Gertrude felt chills running over her. "This is a terrible night," she said to the fireman. "Yes, ma'am, it's pretty bad. I don't know why they'd send white men out into this. I wouldn't send a coyote out." "They are staying out so long this time," she murmured. "Could they possibly freeze while they are out, do you think?" "Sure, they could; but them boys know too much for that. Mr. Glover stays out a week at a time in this kind; he don't care. That man Paddy McGraw is his head engineer in the bucking gang; he don't care—them fellows don't care. But I've got a wife at the Cat and two babies, that's my fix. I never cared neither when I was single, but if I'm carried home now it's seven hundred and fifty relief and a thousand dollars in the A. O. U. W., and that's the end of it for the woman. That's why I don't like to freeze to death, ma'am. But what can you do if you're ordered out? Suppose your woman is a-hangin' to your neck like mine hung to me to-night and cryin'—whatever can you do? You've got to go or lose your job; and if you lose your job who'll feed your kids then?" McGraw's head appeared under the canvas doorway. Glover did not follow him and Gertrude grew alarmed: but when the canvas rattled and she saw his cap she was waiting for him at the doorway and she put her hands happily on his frozen sleeve: "I'm so glad." He looked at her with humor in his big eyes. "I was afraid without you," she added, confusedly. He laughed. "There's nothing to be afraid of." "Oh, you are so cold. Come to the fire." "What do you think about the ploughs now?" he asked of McGraw, who had climbed up to his seat. "How many is there?" returned the engineer as Glover shivered before the fire. "There may be a thousand." "What do you want me to do?" "There's only one thing, Paddy. Go through them," answered Glover, slamming shut the furnace door. McGraw laid his bar over, and, like one putting his house in order, looked at his gauges and tried his valves. "What is it?" whispered Gertrude, at Glover's side. He turned. "We've struck a bunch of sheep." "Sheep?" "In a storm they drift to keep from freezing out in the open. These sheep have bunched in a little cut out of the wind," he explained, as the fireman sprinkled the roaring furnace. "You had better get up on your seat, Miss Brock." "But what are you going to do?" "Run through them." "Run through them? Do you mean to kill them?" "We shall have to kill a few; there isn't much danger." "But oh, must you mangle those poor creatures huddling in the cut out of the storm? Oh, don't do that." "We can't help it." "Oh, yes, yes, you can if you will, I am sure." She looked at him imploringly. "Indeed I cannot. Listen a moment." He spoke steadily. The wheels were turning under her, the engine was backing for the dash. "We know now the ploughs are not ahead of us, for the cut is full of sheep and snow. If they are behind us we are in grave danger. They may strike us at any moment—that means, do you understand? death. We can't go back now; there's too much snow even if the track were clear. To stay here means to freeze to death." She turned restively from him. "Could you have thought it a joke," he asked, slowly, "to run a hundred and seventy miles through a blizzard?" She looked away and her sob cut him to the heart. "I did not mean to wound you," he murmured. "It's only that you don't realize what self-preservation means. I wouldn't kill a fly unnecessarily, but do you think I could stand it to see anyone in this cab mangled by a plough behind us—or to see you freeze to death if the engine should die and we're caught here twelve hours? It is our lives or theirs, that's all, and they will freeze anyway. We are only putting them out of their misery. Come; we are starting." He helped her to her seat. "Don't leave me," she faltered. The cylinder cocks were drumming wildly. "Which ever way we turn there's danger," he admitted, reluctantly, "a steam pipe might burst. You must cover your face." She drew the high collar of her coat around her neck and buried her face in her muff, but he caught up a blanket and dropped it completely over her head; then locking her arm in his own he put one heavy boot against the furnace door, and, braced between the woman he loved and the fire-box, nodded to the engineer—McGraw gave head. Furred with snow, and bearded fearfully with ice; creeping like a mountain-cat on her prey; quivering under the last pound of steam she could carry, and hissing wildly as McGraw stung her heels again and again from the throttle, the great engine moved down on the blocked cut. Unable to reckon distance or resistance but by instinct, and forced to risk everything for headway, McGraw pricked the cylinders till the smarting engine roared. Then, crouching like a jockey for a final cruel spur he goaded the monster for the last time and rose in his stirrups for the crash. With never a slip or a stumble, hardly reeling in her ponderous frame, the straining engine plunged headlong into the curve. Only once, she staggered and rolled; once only, three reckless men rose to answer death as it knocked at their hearts; but their hour was not come, and the engine struggled, righted, and parted the living drift from end to end. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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