Chapter XI: The Death Message on the Wire

"I can't understand why we don't hear," said the young engineer, walking up and down the room in his agitation. "Two telegrams and now we can't get a telephone connection, or at least any answer after our repeated calls."

"It's a holiday there as well as here," said the older man. "There is no one in the office at Martlet."

"I'll try the telephone again. Someone may come in at any time."

He sat down at the desk, and after five minutes of feverish and excited waiting he finally did get the office of the Martlet Bridge Company. By a happy fortune it appeared that someone happened to come into the office just at that moment.

"This is Meade," began the young man, "the consulting engineer of the International Bridge. Understand? Yes. Well, at ten-thirty this morning I sent a telegram to Colonel Illingworth and an hour later I sent another. I've had no reply. I've been trying hard to get the office on the telephone ever since. What's that?" Young Meade turned to his father. "He says there's been no one in the office on account of the holiday. Both telegrams are on the desk. He just chanced to come in or I couldn't have got the message through."

"It's too late, too late," said the father, wringing his hands.

"Wait," said the son. He turned to the telephone again. "Give me your name--Johnson--you're one of the clerks there? Well, telephone Colonel Illingworth at his home and tell him to call me at this office at once. I'll hold this connection with you until I hear you've got him. It's most important. We're on the right track now, father," continued the young man reassuringly. "The bridge must be all right yet. We would have heard at once if it weren't. Keep up your courage. We're going to pull through, somehow."

In such talk a few anxious minutes passed.

"Yes," suddenly broke out the younger Meade, who had kept the receiver to his ear. "What! You can't find him? He isn't at home? He has gone away? Is the vice-president there--the superintendent--anybody? The men are having a jollification in the mountains, you say, and everybody has gone? How far away are they? Twenty miles! On the railroad? They went in wagons? There's no telephone? Now, listen, Johnson, this is what you must do. Get a car, the strongest and fastest you can rent and the boldest chauffeur, and a couple of men on horses too, and send up to that place wherever they are, and tell Colonel Illingworth that he must telephone me and come to his office at once. There are telegrams there that mean life and death and the safety of the bridge. You understand? Good. He says he'll do it, father. We've done all we can," he added. He hung up the receiver, sprang to his feet, looked at his watch. "It's so important that I'll go down there myself. I can catch the two-o'clock train, and that will get me there in two hours. You stay quietly here in the office and wait until I get in touch with those people. I mean, I want to know where I can reach you instantly."

"I'll stay right here, my boy. Go, and God bless you."

As usual when in a great hurry there were unexpected delays and the clock on the tower above the big structural shop was striking five when a rickety station wagon, drawn by an exhausted horse, which had been driven unsparingly, drew up before the office door. Flinging the money at the driver, Meade sprang down from his seat and dashed up the steps. He threw open the door and confronted Johnson.

"Did you get him?" he cried.

"He isn't here yet. I sent an automobile and two men on horseback and----"

The next minute the faint note of an automobile horn sounded far down the valley.

"I hope to God that is he," cried the young engineer, running to the window.

"That's the car I sent," said Johnson, peering over his shoulder. "And there are people in it. It's coming this way."

"Johnson," said Meade, "you have acted well in this crisis and I will see that the Bridge Company remembers it."

"Would you mind telling me what the matter is, Mr. Meade?"

"Matter! The International----"

"Bert," exclaimed a joyous voice, as Helen Illingworth, smiling in delighted surprise, stepped through the open door and stood expectant with outstretched hands.

Young Johnson was as discreet as he was prompt and ready. He walked to the window out of which he stared, with his back ostentatiously turned toward them. Most considerately he even whistled a little tune and drummed noisily upon the panes. After a quick glance at the other man, Meade swept the girl to his heart and held her there a moment. He did not kiss her before he released her. The woman's passionate look at him was caress enough and his own adoring glance fairly enveloped her with emotion. She looked at Johnson and her brow wrinkled in slight annoyance, but, though he felt unwelcome, that young man could not go and he had sense enough to know that he would be needed and that no more time could be wasted by the lovers. He coughed and turned as the two separated. It was the woman who recovered her poise quicker. To be sure she did not have the burden upon her shoulders that Meade had to support.

"What were you saying about our bridge when I came into the room?" she began, and Meade fully understood the slight but unmistakable emphasis in the pronoun--our bridge, indeed--"I was lying down this afternoon, but when I awakened my maid told me about your urgent calls for father," she ran on, realizing that some trouble portended and seeking to help her lover by giving him time. "I knew something must be wrong, so I came here. I didn't expect to see you. Oh, what is it?" she broke off, suddenly realizing from the mental strain in her lover's face, which the sudden sight of her had caused him to conceal for a moment, that something terribly serious had happened, and she turned a little pale herself as she asked the question, not dreaming what the answer would be.

"Helen," said the young man, stepping toward her and taking her hands again, "we're in awful trouble."

"If it is any trouble I can share, Bert," said the girl, flashing at him a look which set his pulses bounding--at least she was to be depended on--"you know you can count on me."

"I know I can," he exclaimed gratefully.

"Now tell me."

"The International Bridge is about to fail."

The color came to her face again. Was that all? came into her mind. That was serious enough, of course, but it would not matter in the long run. Through its structural weakness the bridge might fail; through Abbott's obstinacy and pig-headedness those men might die on it, his father's reputation might go and his own, but as he looked into the eyes of the woman he knew that all these things would make no difference to her. Heart once given, love once proffered, they were his to the end. Her father! Well, Colonel Illingworth was not the deciding voice, so she had said before. That thought flashed into Meade's mind. Yet the glad consciousness was accompanied by a firm resolution to abide by the conditions as set forth by Colonel Illingworth. Bridge and woman, they went together for him. Indeed he intended to save his father, even if his own life and happiness, interwoven with the bridge, were the price of his endeavor. No one should ever know. It would be his fault. It was. He should have insisted on his contentions.

He would never involve in his own ruin this glorious woman, whatever her trust, her affection, her willingness. That bright youthful life at least should not go down with the bridge. The awful Web of Steel should not catch her in its meshes. He would tear the rigid bars apart with his own bleeding hands before that should happen.

Yet he would not have been the man she loved, the man who loved her, if he had not thrilled to her splendid ardent devotion, her whole-hearted trust in him. He did not quite realize that, as it takes two to make a quarrel, no man, however determined upon a course, can absolutely settle a woman's relationship to him without her consent, especially when he loves her and has told her so and received her love in return.

How much of all this Helen Illingworth realized, what her thoughts were, what resolutions she came to, what determinations were her own, her lover could not tell. She recognized the awful gravity, the terrible seriousness, of the situation of course. The bridge meant much to her even if in quite a different way. It was there he had saved her from the awful fall. It was there that he had told her that he loved her. If she had been given the choice she would have embraced the risk for the avowal if it could not have been brought about otherwise. The bridge might fall, but it was as eternal as her affection in her memory. Their engagement, or their marriage, had been made dependent upon the successful completion of the bridge. What of that? The proviso meant nothing to her when she looked at the white-faced agonized man to whom she had given herself.

Who dared condition love? What parental injunction could bind the free movement of human hearts? Age? What did age know about it? Here were youth, sorrow, love, life. While they had being they belonged to each other. Not the trusses and stringers of the great bridge were stronger than the intangible ties that bound heart to heart, and the steel was not half so real. Bridges might come and bridges might go, reputations fail and disappear, property be lost in ruin and disaster--it would make no difference. She was his and he was hers. The senses of possession and possessed alike would and should have the mastery.

"It is terrible, of course," she said quietly.

"Appalling."

"But you can do nothing?"

"If I could do you think I'd let the bridge, and you, go without----"

"I'm not going with the bridge," was her quick and decisive interruption.

They had both forgotten the presence of young Johnson, who was not only decidedly uncomfortable, but desperately anxious. He was about to speak when, into this already broken scene, came another interruption.

There was a rush of wheels on the driveway outside, the roar of a motor. Before Meade could answer the statement, into the room burst Colonel Illingworth. He was covered with dust, his face was white, his eyes filled with anxiety. The character of the summons had disquieted him beyond measure. Back of him came Severence, the vice-president, and Curtiss, the chief engineer.

"Meade, what of the bridge?" he burst out, with a quick nod to his daughter, knowing that nothing else could have brought the engineer there, especially in the light of the messages received.

Colonel Illingworth had not stopped to hunt for a wayside telephone. The automobile driven madly, recklessly through the hills and over the rough roads, had brought him directly to the office in the shortest possible time.

"There is a deflection one inch and three-quarters deep in one of the compression members, C-10-R," was the prompt and terrible answer.

Colonel Illingworth had not been president of the Martlet Bridge Company for so long without learning something of practical construction. He was easily enough of an engineer to realize instantly what that statement meant.

"When did you discover it?" he snapped out.

"Last night."

"Is the bridge gone?"

"Not yet."

"Why didn't you let us know?"

"I telegraphed father and, not hearing from him, I came down on the midnight train. It is a holiday in New York as well as here. I just happened to meet father in the office. He sent a telegram to you and not hearing from you, duplicated it an hour later. I tried half a dozen times to get you on the telephone and finally, by a happy chance, got hold of young Johnson."

"Where are your father's telegrams?"

"Here."

Colonel Illingworth tore the first open with trembling fingers?

"Why didn't you tell Abbott?" asked the chief engineer.

"You know Abbott. He said the bridge would stand until the world caved in. Said he could jack the member into line. He wouldn't do a thing except on direct orders from here."

"Your father wires, 'put no more weight on the bridge.' What shall we do?" interposed Colonel Illingworth.

"Telegraph Abbott at once."

"If the bridge goes it means ruin to the company," said the agitated vice-president, who was the financial member of the firm and who could easily be pardoned for a natural exaggeration under the terrible circumstances.

"Yes, but if it goes with the men on, it means--Johnson, are you a telegraph operator?"

"Yes, sir."

"Take the key," said the Colonel, who, having been a soldier, thought first of the men.

Johnson sat down at the table where the direct wire ran from the Bridge Company to the Western Union office. He reached his hand out and laid his fingers on the key. Before he could give the faintest pressure to the instrument, it suddenly clicked of its own motion. Everybody in the room stood silent.

"They are calling us, sir," said Johnson.

Colonel Illingworth nodded.

"It is a message from Wilchings, the chief of construction foremen of," Johnson paused a moment, listening to the rapid click--"The International----" he said in an awestruck whisper.

It had come!

"Read it, man! Read it, for God's sake!" cried the chief engineer.

"_The bridge is in the river,_" faltered Johnson slowly, word by word, translating the fearful message on the wire. "_Abbott and one hundred and fifty men with it._"