Thurston of Orchard Valley

"If you're bent on making a fool of yourself, and I guess you can't help it, go on your own way," interposed Shackleby, with ironical contempt.

"I have no intention of telling you where Mrs. Leslie is," asserted Geoffrey. "You will hear from her when she considers it advisable to write."

A whir of driver wheels slipping on the rails came down the track, followed by a shock of couplings tightening and the snorting of a heavy locomotive, but none of the party noticed it.

"She was here; you can't deny it," shouted Leslie, who had yielded to a fit of rabid fury. He was not a courageous man, and had been held in check by fear of Shackleby, but there was some spirit in him, and, perhaps because he had injured Thurston, had always hated him. Now when his case seemed desperate, with the boldness of a rat driven into a corner, he determined to tear the hand that crushed him.

"I'll take action against you. I'll blazon it in the press. I'll close every decent house in the province against you," he continued, working himself up into a frenzy. "Where have you hidden my wife? By Heaven, I'll make you tell me."

"Take care!" warned Geoffrey, straightening himself and thrusting one big hand behind his back. "It is desperately hard for me to keep my fingers off you now, but if you say another word against Mrs. Leslie, look to yourself. Shackleby, you have heard him; now for the woman's sake listen to me. I have never wronged your wife by thought or word, Leslie, and the greatest indiscretion she was ever guilty of was marrying you."

"You have hidden her!" almost screamed the desperate man. "I'll have satisfaction one way if you're too strong for me another. Liar, traitor, sed – "

Geoffrey strode forward before the last word was completed, Leslie flung up one hand, but Shackleby struck it aside in time, and something that fell from it clinked with a metallic sound. Exactly how what followed really happened was never quite certain. Leslie, blind with rage, either tripped over his confederate's outstretched foot, or lost his balance, for just as a blaze of light beat upon the group, he staggered, clutched at Thurston, and missing him, stepped over the edge of the platform and fell full length between the rails.

There was a yell from a man with a lantern and a sudden hoot from the whistle of the big locomotive. Savine's face turned white under the glare of the headlight. With a reckless leap Geoffrey followed his enemy. Only conscious of the man's peril, he acted upon impulse without reflection.

"Good God! They'll both be killed!" exclaimed Shackleby.

Thurston was strong of limb and every muscle in him had been toughened by strenuous toil, but Leslie had struck his head on the rails and lay still, stunned and helpless. The lift was heavy for the man who strove to raise him, and though the brakes screamed along the line of cars the locomotive was almost upon them. Standing horrified, and, without power to move, the two spectators saw Geoffrey still gripping his enemy's shoulders, heave himself erect in a supreme effort, then the cow-catcher on the engine's front struck them both, and Savine felt, rather than heard, a sickening sound as the huge machine swept resistlessly on. Afterward he declared that the suspense which followed while the long box-cars rolled by was horrible, for nothing could be seen, and the two men shivered with the uncertainty as to what might be happening beneath the grinding wheels.

When the last car passed both leapt down upon the track, and a man joined them holding a lantern aloft. Savine stooped over Thurston, who lay just clear of the rails, looking strangely limp.

"Another second would have done it – did I heave him clear?" he gasped. He tried to raise himself by one hand but fell back with a groan.

"I guess not," answered a railroad employé, holding the lantern higher, and while two others ran up the tracks, the light fell upon a shapeless, huddled heap. "That one has passed his checks in, certain," the holder of the lantern announced.

Within ten minutes willing assistants from the tiny settlement were on the spot and stretchers were improvised. Savine had bidden the agent telegraph for a doctor, and the two victims were slowly carried towards the New Eldorado saloon. When they were gently laid down an elderly miner, familiar with accidents, pointing to Thurston after making a hasty examination said:

"This one has got his arm broken, collar-bone gone, too, but if there's nothing busted inside he'll come round. The other one has been stone dead since the engine hit him."

There were further proffers of help from several of his comrades, who, as usual with their kind, possessed some knowledge of rude surgery. When all that was possible had been done for the living, Savine was drawn aside by Shackleby.

"This is what he dropped on the platform – I picked it up quietly," he said, holding out an ivory-handled revolver. "No use letting any ugly tales get round or raking up that other story, is it? I don't know whether Thurston induced Leslie's wife to run off or not – from what I have heard of him I hardly think he did – but one may as well let things simmer down gracefully."

"I am grateful for your thoughtfulness," replied Savine. "Probably it is more than he would have done for you. This is hardly the time to discuss such questions, but what has happened can't affect our position. Still, personally, I may not feel inclined to push merely vindictive measures against you."

"I didn't think it would change matters," said Shackleby, with a shrug. "If I should be wanted I'm open to describe the – accident – and let other details slide. The railroad fellows suspect nothing. Thurston has made your side a strong one, and in a way I don't blame him. If he had stood in with me, we'd have smashed up your brother completely."

CHAPTER XXIX

A REVELATION

Two persons were strangely affected and stirred to unexpected action by the news of Thurston's injury, and the first of these was Julius Savine. It was late next night when his brother's messenger arrived at the ranch, for Thomas had thought of nothing but the sufferer's welfare at first, and Savine lay, a very frail, wasted figure, dozing by the stove. His sister-in-law sat busy over some netting close at hand. Both were startled when a man, who held out a soiled envelope, came in abruptly. Savine read the message and tossed the paper across to Mrs. Savine before he rose shakily to his feet.

"I would sooner have heard anything than that Geoffrey was badly hurt," he exclaimed with a quaver in his voice. To the Chinaman, who brought the stranger in, he gave the order, "Get him some supper and tell Fontaine I want him at once."

"Poor Geoffrey! We must hope it is not serious," cried Mrs. Savine with visible distress. "But sit down. You can't help him, and may bring on a seizure by exciting yourself, Julius."

Savine, who did not answer her, remained standing until the hired hand whom he had summoned, entered. "Ride your hardest to the camp and tell Foreman Tom I'm coming over to take charge until Mr. Thurston, who has met with an accident, recovers," he said. "He's to send a spare horse and a couple of men to help the sleigh over the washed-out trail. Come back at your best pace. I must reach the cañon before morning."

"Are you mad, Julius?" asked his sister-in-law when the men retired. "It's even chances the excitement or the journey will kill you."

"Then I must take the chances," declared Savine. "While there was a man I could trust to handle things, I let this weakness master me. Now the poor fellow's helpless, somebody must take hold before chaos ensues, and I haven't quite forgotten everything. You'll have to nurse Geoffrey, and it's no use trying to scare me. Fill my big flask with the old brandy and get my furs out."

Mrs. Savine saw further remonstrance would be useless. She considered her brother-in-law more fit for his grave than to complete a great undertaking, but he was clearly bent on having his way. When she hinted something of her thoughts, he answered that even so he would rather die at work in the cañon than tamely in his bed. So shivering under a load of furs he departed in the sleigh, and after several narrow escapes of an upset, reached the camp in the dusk of a nipping morning.

"Help me out. Mr. Thurston, I am sorry to say, has met with a bad accident, and you and I have got to finish this work without him," he said to the anxious foreman. "From what he told me I can count upon your doing the best that's in you, Tom."

"I won't go back on nothing Mr. Thurston said," was the quiet answer; but when Tom from Mattawa left Savine, whose nerveless fingers spilled half the contents of the silver cup he strove to fill, gasping beside the stove in Thurston's quarters, he gravely shook his head.

Several days elapsed after Helen's departure for Vancouver before Mrs. Savine, who had gone at once to the scene of the accident, considered it judicious to inform her of Geoffrey's condition, and so it happened that one evening Helen accompanied her hostess to witness the performance of a Western dramatic company. Despite second-rate acting the play was a pretty one, and each time the curtain went down Helen found the combination of bright light, pretty dresses, laughter and merry voices strangely pleasant after her isolation. At times her thoughts would wander back to the ice-bound cañon and the man who had pitted himself against the thundering river in its gloomy depths. Perhaps the very contrast between this scene of brightness and luxury and the savage wilderness emphasized the self-abnegation he had shown. She knew now that he had toiled beyond most men's strength, when he might have rested, and casting away what would have insured him a life of ease, had voluntarily chosen an almost hopeless struggle for her sake. Few women had been wooed so, she reflected, and then she endeavored to confine her attention to the play, for as yet, though both proud and grateful, she could not admit that she had been won.

Presently the son of her hostess, who joined the party between the acts, handed her a note. "I am sorry I could not get here before, but found this waiting, and thought I'd better bring it along. I hope it's not a summons of recall," he said.

Helen opened the envelope, and the hurriedly-written lines grew blurred before her eyes as she read, "I am grieved to say that Geoffrey has been seriously injured by an accident. The doctor has, however, some hopes of his recovery, though he won't speak definitely yet. If you can find an intelligent woman in Vancouver you could trust to help me nurse him, send her along. Didn't write before because – "

"What is it? No bad news of your father, I hope," her hostess asked, and the son, a fine type of the young Western citizen, noticed the dismay in Helen's face as she answered:

"Nothing has happened to my father. His partner has been badly hurt. I must return to-morrow, and, as it is a tiresome journey, if you will excuse me, I would rather not sit out the play."

The young man noticed that Helen seemed to shiver, while her voice was strained. He discreetly turned away his head, though he had seen sufficient to show him that certain lately-renewed hopes were vain.

"Miss Savine has not been used to gayety of late, and I warned her she must take it quietly, especially with that ride through the ranges before her. This place is unsufferably hot, and you can trust me to see her safe home, mother," he said.

Helen's grateful, "Thank you!" was reward enough, but it was in an unenviable humor that the young man returned to the theater when she sought refuge in her own room.

Solitude appeared a vital necessity, for at last Helen understood. Ever since Thurston first limped, footsore and hungry, into her life she had been alternately attracted and repelled by him. His steadfast patience and generosity had almost melted her at times, but from the beginning, circumstances had seemed to conspire against the man, shadowing him with suspicion, and forcing him into opposition to her will. Mrs. Savine's story had made his unswerving loyalty plain, and Helen had begun to see that she would with all confidence trust her life to him; but she was proud, and knowing how she had misjudged him, hesitated still. As long as a word or a smile could bring him to her feet she could postpone the day of reckoning at least until his task was finished, and thus allow him to prove his devotion to the uttermost test.

Now, however, fate had intervened, tearing away all disguise, and her eyes were opened. She knew that without him the future would be empty, and the revelation stirred every fiber of her being. Growing suddenly cold with a shock of fear she remembered that she had perhaps already lost him forever. It might be that another more solemn summons had preceded her own, and that she might call and Geoffrey Thurston would not hear! He had won his right to rest by work well done, but she – it now seemed that a lifetime would be too short to mourn him. Helen shivered at the thought, then she felt as if she were suffocating. Turning the light low, she flung the long window open. Beyond the electric glare of the city, with its shapeless pile of roofs and towering poles, the mountains rose, serenely majestic, in robes of awful purity. They were beckoning her she felt. The man whom she had learned to love too late lay among them, perhaps with the strong hands that had toiled for her folded in peace at last, and, living or dead, she must go to him. She remembered that the message said, – "Hire a capable woman in Vancouver," and it brought her a ray of comfort. If the time was not already past she would ask nothing better than to wait on him herself. Presently, when there was a hum of voices below, Helen, white of face but steady in nerves, descended to meet her hostess.

"I must go back to-morrow, and as it is a fatiguing journey you will not mind my retiring early," she said to excuse her absence from the supper party that was assembled after the play.

On reaching the railroad settlement Helen found the doctor in charge of Thurston willing to avail himself of her assistance. The physician had barely held his own in several encounters with her aunt, whom he suspected of endeavoring to administer unauthorized preparations to his patient, while on her part Mrs. Savine freely admitted that at her age she could not sit up all night forever. So Helen was installed, and it was midnight when she commenced her first watch.

"You will call me at once if the patient wakes complaining of any pain," said the surgeon. "Do I think he is out of danger? Well, he is very weak yet, my dear young lady, but if you will carry out my orders, I fancy we may hope for the best. But you must remember that a nurse's chief qualifications are presence of mind and a perfect serenity."

"I will not fail you," promised Helen, choking back a sob of relief; and, trusting that the doctor did not see her quivering face, she added softly, "Heaven is merciful!"

She had been prepared for a change, but she was startled at the sight of Thurston. He lay with blanched patches in the paling bronze on his face, which had grown hollow and lined by pain. Still he was sleeping soundly, and did not move when she bent over him. She stooped further and touched his forehead with her lips, rose with the hot blood pulsing upwards from her neck, and stood trembling, while, either dreaming or stirred by some influence beyond man's knowledge, the sleeper smiled, murmuring, "Helen!"

It was daylight when Thurston awakened, and stared as if doubtful of his senses at his new nurse, until, approaching the frame of canvas whereon he lay, Helen, with a gentle touch, caressingly brushed the hair from his forehead.

"I have come to help you to get better. We cannot spare you, Geoffrey," she said simply.

The sick man asked no question nor betrayed further astonishment. He looked up gratefully into the eyes which met his own for a moment and grew downcast again. "Then I shall certainly cheat the doctors yet," he declared.

Under the circumstances his words were distinctly commonplace, but speech is not the sole means of communion between mind and mind, and for the present both were satisfied. Helen laughed and blushed happily when, as by an after thought, Geoffrey added, "It is really very kind of you."

"You must not talk," she admonished with a half-shy assumption of authority, strangely at variance with her former demeanor. "I shall call in my aunt with the elixir if you do."

Geoffrey smiled, but the brightness of his countenance was not accounted for by his answer: "I believe she has treated me with it once or twice already, and I still survive. In fact, I am inclined to think the doctor caught her red-handed on one occasion, and there was trouble."

After that Geoffrey recovered vigor rapidly, and the days passed quickly for Helen as she watched over him in the dilapidated frame house to which he had been removed after the accident. No word of love passed between them, nor was any word necessary. The man, still weak and languid, appeared blissfully contented to enjoy the present, and Helen, who was glad to see him do so, abided her time.

Meanwhile, supported by sheer force of will and a nervous exaltation, that would vanish utterly when the need for it ceased, Julius Savine, leaning on his foreman's arm, or sitting propped up in a rude jumper sleigh, directed operations in the cañon. He knew he was consuming the vitality that might purchase another few years' life in as many weeks of effort, but he desired only to see the work finished, and was satisfied to pay the price. He slept little and scarcely ate, holding on to his work with desperate purpose and living on cordials. Though progress was much slower than it would have been under Geoffrey's direction, he accomplished that purpose.

One afternoon Thomas Savine entered the sick man's room in a state of complacent satisfaction.

"Glad to see you getting ahead so fast, and you must hurry, for we'll want you soon," he said. "The great charge is to be fired the day after to-morrow. Shackleby, who was at the bottom of the whole opposition, has cleared out with considerable expedition. Sold all his stock in the Company, and if his colleagues knew much about his doings, which is quite possible, they emphatically disown them. As a result I've made one or two good provisional deals with them, and expect no more trouble. In short, everything points to a great success."

When Savine went out Geoffrey beckoned Helen to him.

"I am getting so well that you must leave me to your aunt to-morrow," he said. "You remember your promise to fire the decisive charge for me, and I hope when you see it you will approve of the electric firing key. Tell your father I owe more to him than the doctor, for I should have worried myself beyond the reach of physic if he had not been there to take charge instead of me – that is to say, before you came to cure me."

"I will go," agreed Helen, with signs of suppressed agitation that puzzled Geoffrey. She knew that after that charge had been fired their present relations, pleasant as they were, could not continue. It appeared to her the climax to which all he had dared and suffered, and with a humility that was yet akin to pride she had determined, in reparation, voluntarily to offer him that which, whether victorious or defeated otherwise, he had with infinite patience and loyal service won.

It was early one clear cold morning when Helen Savine stood on a little plank platform perched high in a hollow of the rock walls overhanging the river opposite Thurston's camp. Each detail of the scene burned itself into her memory as she gazed about her under a tense expectancy – the rift of blue sky between the filigree of dark pines high above, the rush of white-streaked water thundering down the gorge below and frothing high about the massive boulders, and one huge fang of promontory which a touch of her finger would, if all went well, reduce to chaotic débris. Groups of workmen waited on the opposite side of the flood, all staring towards her expectantly, and Thomas Savine stood close by holding an insignificant box with wires attached to it, in a hand that was not quite steady. Tom from Mattawa sat perched upon a spire of rock holding up a furled flag, and her father leaned heavily upon the rails of the staging. No one spoke or stirred, and in spite of the roar of hurrying water a deep oppressive silence seemed to brood over cañon and camp.

"This is the key," said Thomas Savine. "It is some notion of Geoffrey's, and he had it made especially in Toronto. You fit it in here."

Helen glanced at the diminutive object before she took the box. The finger grip had been fashioned out of a dollar cut clean across bearing two dates engraved upon it. The first, it flashed upon her, was the one on which she had given the worn-out man that very coin, while the other had evidently been added more recently, with less skill, by some camp artificer.

"It's to-day," said Thomas Savine following her eyes, and Helen noticed that his voice was strained. "Geoffrey told me to get it done. Quaint idea; don't know what it means. But put us out of suspense. We're all waiting."

Helen knew what the dates meant, and appreciated the delicate compliment. It was she who had started the daring contractor on his career who was to complete his triumph, and she drew a deep breath as she looked down into the thundering gorge realizing it was a great fight he had won. Human courage and dogged endurance, inspired by him, had mocked at the might of the river, and, blasting a new pathway for it through the adamantine heart of the hills, would roll back the barren waters from a good land that the stout of heart and arm might enter in. Swamps would give place to wheat fields, orchards blossom where willow swale had been, herds of cattle fatten on the levels of the lake, and the smoke of prosperous homesteads drift across dark forests where, for centuries, the wolf and deer had roamed undisturbed. That was one aspect only, but she knew the man who loved her had won a greater triumph over his own nature and others' passions and infirmities.

It was with a thrill of pride that the girl realized all that he had done for her, and yet for a few seconds she almost shrank from the responsibility as high above the waiting men the stood with slender fingers tightening upon the key. The issues of what must follow its turning would be momentous, for it flashed upon her that the tiny combination of copper and silver might, with equal chance, open the way to a golden future or let in overwhelming disaster upon all she loved. Then the doubt appeared an injustice to Geoffrey Thurston and those who had followed him through frost and flood and whirling snow, and, with a color on her forehead, and a light in her eyes, she pressed home the key.

Then there was bustle and hurry. Julius Savine raised his hand, and Tom from Mattawa whirled high the unfurled flag. Somebody beat upon an iron sheet invisible below and the strip of beach in the depths of the cañon became alive with running men. Next followed a deep stillness intensified by the clamor of the river which would never raise the same wild harmonies again, for the slender hand of a woman had bound it fast henceforward under man's dominion. The hush was ended suddenly. For a second the great hollow seemed filled with tongues of flame; then, while thick smoke quenched them and crag and boulder crumbled to fragments, a stunning detonation rang from rock to rock and rolled upwards into the frozen silence of untrodden hills. Huge masses which eddied and whirled, filling the gorge with the crash of their descent leaped out of the vapor; there was a ceaseless shock and patter of smaller fragments, and then, while long reverberations rolled among the hills, the roar of the tortured river drowned the mingled din. Rising, tremendous in its last revolt, its majestic diapason was deepened by the boom of grinding rock and the detonation of boulders reduced to powder. The draught caused by the water's passage fanned the smoke away, and the blue vapor, curling higher, drifted past the staging, so that Helen could only dimly see a great muddy wave foam down the cañon, bursting here and there into gigantic upheavals of spray. She watched it, held silent, awe-stricken, by the sound and sight.

At last Mattawa Tom appeared again, and his voice was faintly audible through the dying clamors as he waved his hands: "Juss gorgeous. Gone way better than the best we hoped," he hailed.