Chapter V: Adverse Fortune

A year passed, and Charley, who grew into a tall young man, had grown to love the prairie. He had also learned to mend his own clothes with pieces of cotton flour-bags, cook, and sweep out their rooms when his sister Alice was busy, besides many other things he used foolishly to think beneath him; and there was but one check to his contentment--they had lost another crop. Again autumn frost followed a dry season, and all that was left of the wheat was not worth thrashing. But they sowed another, which promised well, and so one summer day Arthur and he rode home from Barholm Grange with lighter hearts than they had known for some time. Lilian had gone to England, but her father asked them to come and see him occasionally.

It was a clear bright day, though by-and-by a dimness spread across the sky and the wind grew colder, while the bleached buffalo bones, which are still sprinkled across the prairie, seemed to shine out curiously white among the grasses. Only a little while ago the huge beasts traversed the great plains in countless thousands, but there is not a single wild one left to-day.

"I'm afraid there's a hailstorm not far away," said Arthur. "We'll ride into yonder bluff for shelter."

They went on at a gallop, and it grew nearly dark before they reached the little wood while the horses trembled when Charley tied them to a tree.

Then for some minutes there was a deep and very solemn stillness, during which Charley fancied that the air was filled with sulphur, while the skin of his head prickled. This lasted until a blaze of blue fire seemed to fall from the heavens, and flood all the prairie. It was followed by a deafening peal of thunder. Next moment the birches swayed suddenly sideways and some, tough as they were, snapped short off. Charley was forced to drive his heels into the mould to hold his place while the wood was filling with falling leaves, and the scream of the blast. Hailstones the size of marbles, and some of them even larger, came hurtling like grape-shot between the trees, and rattled upon the waggon, into which they bounced in bucketsful. The horses reared upright as the bending branches lashed them, and when, fearing that they would bolt and smash the waggon, he tried to hold them, Charley's hands bled under the thrashing of the ragged ice. It is fortunate that we never see such hail in this country.

Then the storm ceased as suddenly as it came, the wind grew still, the sun shone out hot and bright again, and when they rode out from the bluff the grasses were steaming. Only a cloud arch travelling south to spread ruin before it, and the wrecked branches in the wood told what had happened. The brothers were, however, very silent during the rest of the journey, and when they reached their farm towards the close of the afternoon they found Alice waiting for them with tears upon her cheeks, and her eyelids reddened. She had not been crying needlessly, for Alice was a light-hearted girl, and Arthur's face changed colour as he looked at the corn. Nothing remained of the tall wheat which was to feed them that winter but shattered blades, beaten into ribands and half-buried in the muddy ground.

"Is it quite ruined?" asked Charley huskily; and Arthur sighed as making a strong effort he answered calmly--"Quite! We must shut up the house, give up the farm, and look for work with the horses and oxen on the new railway. Still, we won't despair while we have health and strength left. We are not beaten yet, and if we can earn the money, must try again next year."

Then there was a world of sympathy in Charley's voice, though all he could find to say was--"Poor old Arthur!"

No one spoke much that evening, for their hearts were heavy, and Charley, who realised he might never live in it again, thought how snug and homely the little log-building was, and with what hopes he had helped to raise it. But he forgot his troubles in sleep, and though Arthur wandered about the prairie the whole night through, they rode out early next morning to the new railway some forty miles distant. There a fresh disappointment awaited them, for the engineer in charge said--

"We have got all the teams we want here, but I like the look of you, and I could send you timber-hewing on another branch line we are building in British Columbia. Our silly men have all started in to make their fortune gold mining there. I'll give you a note to the road surveyor, and free passes, and I dare say he'll let you a contract you can make something out of."

Arthur thought hard for several minutes, for British Columbia was several hundred miles away, before he answered--

"It's not what I hoped for, but as I have lost my crop, and can't sit here and wait until we're ruined we will thankfully accept your offer."

The engineer gave them a letter, and when they rode home again it was arranged that Alice should stay with Colonel Armadale, while, after dividing the cattle among their neighbours, the three brothers started, with their working beasts on board a big freight train for the mountains of British Columbia. It was a sorrowful parting, but Arthur said--"Poor people must expect unpleasant things, and can't afford to be particular. We must make an effort to help ourselves, and look forward to meeting again."

So in due time they reached the new railway, which led from the main line to a rich mining district among the mountains, and the surveyor in charge of it looked at them with approval. He thought he could tell good men when he saw them.

"Yes, you can have a contract to cut timber and haul it in for building snow-sheds," he said. "But we don't pay until the work's finished, and you take all risks. We haven't any use for the men who when they strike a run of bad luck just grumble and lie down, or throw up their contract."

"What I start I'll finish," said Arthur grimly; and the surveyor nodded as he answered--

"Glad to hear it; I hope you will. You'll find us treat you fairly if you do. We keep our dollars for good men and a big club for loafers."

So Arthur made a bargain with the railroad officials, and, pitching tents on the hillside, the brothers commenced their work. The line ran through a deep valley among majestic snow-crested mountains, with forests of stately pine trees rolling down their sides, and a river thundering in a gorge below. This was an awful chasm with sheer walls of rock which shut off each ray of sunlight from the foaming water in the dim abyss, and the railway was partly scooped out and partly built against the side of the tremendous precipice in a way which engineers call underpinning. Several men had lost their lives in doing it, for it was dangerous work. Now in that country great masses of sun-softened snow come rushing down the mountain sides every now and then, smashing the forests before them, and in order to prevent the railway from being swept away it was necessary to roof that portion in with a heavy timber building called a snow-shed, so that any avalanche might slide over the top of it. And it was the brothers' work to hew the great redwood logs into shape for this.

They were giant trees. There are few in the world bigger, and it was hard work felling them, and even harder to drag them along on rollers with oxen until they rushed crashing down a slide paved with timber to the railway. This slide took the brothers nearly three weeks to build. But they worked from dawn until after sunset, swinging the heavy axe, or pulling a seven-foot saw through the trunks, until they could hardly straighten their backs, though as the weeks went by Arthur grew more cheerful, for he hoped they would earn enough by the time the work was finished to sow another crop next year. Then one day part of the hillside slipped away, as it sometimes did, and there was only a great hollow where their log-side had been, while much of the hewn timber was buried under hundreds of tons of earth. Some men would have abandoned the task in despair, but Arthur had taught his brothers to believe that patient determination generally wins in the end. So when the surveyor came to inspect the ruin he met him calmly.

"I am sorry for you; you'll have to build a new slide, and hauling your logs round to it will cost you double. What are you going to do?" asked the railway builder, and Arthur answered--

"Cut a new road through the forest. Go on, and finish my contract, whatever it costs me. I'll hire more men and oxen if my own are not enough. You need not be afraid that I will fail you."

The surveyer said no more just then, though he wrote a letter to the railway offices, in which, after telling the story, he said--"The timber cutter for this section is a very honest man, and on opportunity I'll give him a better contract. He doesn't know when he is beaten, though he has had the worst kind of luck."

So Arthur sold the last of his cattle, hired some of his neighbours whose crops had also been destroyed by hail, and worked even harder than before, while he bade Charley, who managed the cooking, cut down their grocery bill. Yet, though they had to drag the logs twice as far, they had always the particular hewn timber they had contracted to deliver ready for the snow-sheds and trestle bridges, and the railway lengthened rapidly, while the inhabitants of the mining town sometimes rode out to inspect the new road which would bring them prosperity, and having heard the story, said that the brothers had "real hard grit" in them. Then it happened that one hot night when Arthur and Charley had ridden up on a locomotive to the blacksmith's shop near another construction camp some distance away, where they slept in a tent, they were awakened by a low rumbling. It sounded like thunder rolling high up among the stars, and then was answered by a deeper reverberation lower down along the shoulder of the hills Charley sat up shivering in the cold wind which whistled past the tent, and looking out across the deep dark valley could see the moonlight glimmering on the white line of eternal snow far above, and wreaths of silver mist slowly drifting across the pines. There was no sign of any danger, and yet that deep rumbling which ceased again seemed awe-inspiring and made him anxious. Then, as following Arthur's example he scrambled into his clothes, a grizzled hunter they sometimes bought venison from strode hurriedly out of the shadows.

"I guess there's somethin' coming which will badly bust your railroad up," he said. "The big ice rib which holds back the snow-field has been meltin' fast. Now she's busted bad, an' before morning the snow's comin' down. You heard the beginning of it, but there's lots more where that come from. I was up on the peaks after cinnamon bears when I seen the warnin,' an' just lit out just as quick as I could. It will be a snow-slide of the biggest, baddest kind, and I didn't think it would be healthy to get in its way."

"Where will the worst come?" asked Arthur; and the man answered--

"Right down the hollow where you're buildin' the long snow-shed I should figure. Anyhow, it's goin' to be dangerous at that end of the valley, an' I'm stoppin' right up here. You can't run up against a snow slide without getting hurt by it."

"Charley," said Arthur, with hoarse anxiety in his voice, "the lower end of the snow shed is waiting ready framed for the roof, and the logs we hewed for it are cut and loaded on the cars. If the snow-slide destroyed them we should have to cut others instead, which would ruin us altogether, and, as it is, we shall hardly make anything on the contract. Besides that, this part of the railway on which so many lives and so much money has been spent would be swept down over the precipice into the river."

"We must try to save it," broke in Charley, and Arthur continued--

"We are going to, or at least do our very utmost. Remember, it's our farm and home we are fighting for. Come on; we'll find some men to help us in the construction camp, and perhaps before the snow reaches it the shed will be finished. You have got to work as you never worked before, to-night."

They started, running their hardest, and sometimes stumbling over the loose ballast among the sleepers. It rolled and slipped away beneath their feet. Charley felt as though his lungs would burst, while the perspiration which ran into his eyes nearly blinded him, for here the line, curving, wound up a long ascent. But, remembering what depended upon their success, he clenched his hands, and held on stubbornly, passing his brother on the way, until at last, panting and breathless, they reached the tents beside a new bridge, to which most of the workmen had been sent from the snow-sheds. A great American locomotive, built to climb steep mountain lines, was waiting with banked fires before a row of ballast trucks, and when they had wakened the sleepers, there was a murmur of excited questions as Arthur told his story. Some of the men held small contracts on the railway, and if the line were destroyed would lose their work; the rest had been unfortunate miners and cattle raisers, but all alike were fearless, staunch, and sturdy, so when Arthur Gordon had finished speaking, one of them said--

"The engineer has gone down to the settlement, and the surveyor's busy at the other end of the track. Guess we'll have to get there, and see this through without him ourselves. Hold on a few minutes; we're all coming along to do what we can."

Arthur climbed on to the big locomotive--he had learned how to drive one--and Charley, at his bidding, thrust pine logs into the furnace. Then several men crowded into the glass-windowed shelter called the cab, and there was a hail from the trucks--"We're all aboard, and ready. Let her go her hardest."

Arthur shoved down the lever, Charley crammed still more fuel into the twinkling furnace, and with a blast from her funnel and a whirr of wheels slipping on dew-wet metals, the great mountain locomotive, which was, perhaps, twice the size of an English express engine, started on a grim race to beat the avalanche. The line led winding down from the snow-barred pass into the valley most of the way, and when Arthur, who felt the machinery warm up beneath him and knew he had no time to lose, turned full steam on, the ballast cars commenced to swing and bounce behind.

A few shouts rose up from them, through the eddying dust, as the men who filled them were flung against each other before they could find hold for feet or hands to steady themselves with.

"You'll be spilling those fellows all over the track," said one of the men in the cab.

The footplates rocked under his feet, and Charley, who held on by a guard-rail, could see through the rattling glasses, the great pines come reeling towards them, an endless maze of flying trees, as the glare from the head-lamp--which is a huge lantern these engines carry--beat across them. They ceased to be separate trunks, for at that speed the eye could not grasp the spaces between them, and the whole forest wavered when, because the line was not well ballasted yet, the big locomotive swung to and fro.

Then bare rocks hung above their heads, and the roar of wheels, clash and clang of couplings, and beat of the great connecting-rods came back in one deafening din, while at times it seemed as if they were jumping clear of the metals, for Arthur, whose face grew set and grim, was racing the engine at a break-neck speed down the incline. Faster still grew the pace. There were more half-heard cries from the men in the lurching trucks behind, while Charley could see nothing at all now except the blaze of the head-lamp flickering through black darkness like a comet. But as they rushed with a crash and a rattle, vapour whirling about them, out of a snowshed, Arthur only said, "More steam!"--and a man helped Charley to throw fresh pinewood through the firebox door, from which a long red flame licked forth, so that before he could shut it his clothes were smouldering. Then someone said,

"We'll be on the trestle bridge in a minute. Say, did you forget? It's not finished yet, and they're mighty careful of it. Only run the cars over it slowly one or two at a time."

"Yes," said Arthur hoarsely, though he did not look round. "I forgot it. Hold tight; we would smash up everything if I tried to stop her now. We'll hope she carries speed enough to cross before the bridge can yield. There's nothing we can do but chance it. Raise more steam!"

Flying fragments of ballast whirled about the engine like driven hail, thick dust mixed with steam rushed past, and staring out beneath the massive branches that were blurred altogether in the head-lamp's glare, Charley saw the hillside fall apart into a great black hollow, and, clear in the moonlight that shone down here, the slender shape of a wooden bridge stretching across it. The structure looked very frail, a gossamer fabric giddily spanning the gloomy abyss. Then a great trembling commenced under the wheels, there was pitchy blackness with the roar of water below, and for a moment they seemed flying through mid air, while the rails heaved beneath them, and the men beside Charley held their breath. A strange coldness came upon him, and he wondered what it would feel like to plunge down into the river. Then someone shouted hoarsely, "We're over!"

Charley gasped with relief as he felt there was solid ground under them once more, while Arthur wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.

"We're almost there," said the latter, a few minutes later, as he shut off steam. The roar of wheels grew slacker, and presently, with a grinding of brakes, the engine drew up beside the cars loaded with hewn timber, in the partly-finished shed.

The Gordons had felled and squared most of that timber, and had not so far been paid for doing it; while Arthur knew that although the avalanche might smash to pieces a roofless shed, it would slide without causing much damage over the top of a completed one. He was, however, horribly afraid that the snow would come down on them before the work was done.

The logs were all sawn and notched to pattern, and numbered ready to be bolted to the frames, and as the men leapt down from the trucks, the foreman builder said--

"We've got to break up the record for quick erection to-night, boys, an' you'll show them folks in Crescent what you can do. Start in as if you meant it, an' we'll either break our backs or put this contract through."

Somebody lighted a roaring lucigen, which is a big air-blast lamp, and when a column of dazzling flame shot up, men swarmed like bees about the partly-finished shed. But there was little confusion, and less wild language, while no one got in his fellow's way. Each knew exactly where his duty lay, and did it thoroughly, which is the advantage of system and discipline, so while some raised the heavy beams, others fitted them, and as each slipped into place a man was ready to drive a bolt or holdfast through them. Arthur and Reggie drove the ox-teams which, by dragging a chain over a pulley, helped to raise the heavy weights, while Charley ran to and fro with his arms full of spikes or iron bolts, wherever the men called him. It was not a prominent part he took, but it was useful, and he had learned now, what he did not realise at school, that it did not matter whether people saw or heard of him, so long as he helped forward any necessary work he was interested in.

Then, amid a rattle of wheels, the surveyor came flying up the line on a hand trolley, and when Arthur had spoken with him, said--

"I saw your working light across the valley, and came in to see what was happening. I guess the Company is much indebted to you for your prompt measures. No, I don't think I can improve upon the programme. You are doing well. Let us hope the snow won't come, but if it does we'll be right there ready for it, and with good luck will have got on so far that it can't hurt us much."

That surveyor was a wise man, so he let well alone, instead of confusing the men and ordering things differently, merely because he had not arranged what they were doing all himself.

Charley had one narrow escape. He was standing on a box of spikes, which rested on a plank hung outside the shed, holding a long iron bolt, while a man who sat on a beam above him drove it into a hole, when there was a rattle beneath him and the box slipped away from his feet.

The precipice dropped steeply from the edge of the shed, but instead of feeling for the plank with his toes, he twined his knees round a log and still held the bolt, even before the workman said, "Stick tight to the iron, and don't let it go until I tell you."

It was not a comfortable perch, and the jar of the heavy hammer, which swung faster and faster, nearly shook his fingers from the bolt, but he held on stubbornly until the man, leaning down, grasped his shoulder saying, "Swing yourself up here beside me, sonny."

Charley did so, and when he sat on the beam in safety, felt himself turn cold and dizzy, for there was no sign of the plank, and he knew only the grip of his knees had saved him from following it into the awful chasm below.

"You're a level-headed youngster," said the workman, approvingly. "I said nothing for fear of scaring you, but if you'd thought more of taking care of yourself than you did of your job, an' had tried to drop on to that scaffold, you'd have been smashed flatter than a flapjack, way down in the caƱon now."