Chapter XXVI: Once More Unto the Work

The Martlet Bridge Company had finally weathered the storm, although it was, of course, not intrusted with the new International Bridge which was about to be commenced. When Bertram Meade read of the new undertaking, it cut him to the heart. This time there would be no mistake. In the necessity of recouping its fortunes, the Martlet Bridge Company entered upon an even wider career. The directors took contracts which they had hitherto disdained because they were comparatively unimportant, and they bid on operations which they had hitherto left to competitors. They cut the prices down to the lowest limit to get work, to demonstrate that the company was still a force to be reckoned with, a power to be considered in the engineering problems of the world.

They were building the great steel viaduct by the town of Coronado below the dam, and they had already built the splendid steel arch that spanned the ravine, here almost a gorge, in the valley of the Kicking Horse to the eastward of the big mesa.

After Christmas, Colonel Illingworth decided to make another of his tours of inspection, and as Helen was not looking particularly well from the strain under which she was laboring, he offered to take her with him, especially as he was going to the far Southwest, where the weather would be mild and pleasant, to inspect the growing viaduct and the completed arch. She gladly availed herself of the permission. There was always a possibility, albeit a most remote one, that she might hear of Meade if she got in touch with engineering works, and here was not one project but three! Accordingly, feeling the value of his presence, she suggested to her father, in view of the wide extent of the trip and the important interest of engineering circles in the viaduct and dam and irrigation project, that it might be well to invite a representative of _The Engineering News_, to wit, Rodney, to accompany them, so that the really splendid work the Martlet Company was doing to regain its former high position might be made widely known. The party consisted of the father and daughter, Curtiss, the chief engineer, Dr. Severance, the vice-president and financial man, and Rodney.

Now Helen Illingworth had not the least reason in the world to suspect that Bertram Meade was in any way connected with this engineering project, but Rodney had pointed out and had imbued her with his own belief that sooner or later when Meade was found, he would be found engaged in engineering in some capacity.

"It's in his blood," said Rodney. "He can no more keep away from it than he can stop breathing. He can't do anything else. Somewhere he's at the old job. It might be in America, and it might be out there at Coronado, or it might be in South America, Europe, Asia, or----"

"I wonder if we can't find out all the engineering work that is being done in the world and send representatives to seek him," said Helen Illingworth.

Rodney laughed.

"To hunt that way would be like hunting a needle in a haystack. I cannot bid you hope that he is there; in fact I think it is most unlikely that he would be any place near where the Martlet people are operating, but there's a chance, even if only the faintest one."

Well, women's hearts can build a great deal on a faint chance. They are calculated for the forlorn hope. And so Helen Illingworth stood on the steps of the private car as it rolled across the mile-long temporary bridge at Coronado, and scanned the workmen grouped on one side of the track, their work suspended for a moment that the train might pass on the wooden trestling, in hope that she could see in one of them the man she loved and sought. And Rodney stood by her side, equally interested, searching the crowd with his glance, also.

There was nothing in the town to attract Helen Illingworth out of the car. She had visited West and Southwest many times. Colonel Illingworth, with Rodney and Severence, there left the train. They had, of course, business connected with the bridge which Rodney wanted to see and report upon. Miss Illingworth decided to go into the hills and get away from the arid and heated plains. A siding had been built near the steel arch under the slope of the hill from which the huge mesa arose. It would be pleasanter and quieter to side-track the car there. The siding was within two miles of the dam and the mesa was something to look at and something to climb. The Kicking Horse ravine and the Picket Wire valley presented rather attractive possibilities for exploration and adventure in their pine-clad hills and the car was to be placed there. The men left behind would use the private car of the division superintendent of the railroad when they had ended their several tasks.

It had been raining dismally during the afternoon and when the car was detached and switched to the siding and left up in the hills some twenty miles from the town, it was too wet and uncomfortable to leave it. Disregarding the downpour, however, Curtiss, who had come up with it, made a very careful investigation of the completed steel arch bridge, which more than surpassed his expectations in its appearance of sturdy grace, as well as in the evidences of careful workmanship in its erection.

That evening the special engine pushed the other private car up from the valley, bringing the people who had inspected the bridge. A few more weeks would complete the great viaduct. Everything was proceeding in the most satisfactory way and Colonel Illingworth was very much elated over the situation.

"Who would have thought," he said as they sat down to dinner in the brightly lighted observation room, "that it would rain in this country at this season of the year?"

"It will probably be over by tomorrow morning," observed Rodney.

"If it continued long enough and rained hard enough that dam would have to be looked after. We'll go over and see it tomorrow," said the Colonel cheerfully.

"What would happen if it gave way?" asked his daughter.

"It would flood the valley, sweep away the town, and----" he paused.

"Well, father?"

"Ruin the bridge."

"We can't afford to have another failure after the International," said Severence.

Now there was a newcomer at the table, a big rancher named Winters, whom Rodney had met in the town and had introduced to Colonel Illingworth. The latter had invited him to dinner and to stay the night in the extra sleeper, and Winters, who had particular reasons for wanting to talk with Rodney and to meet Miss Illingworth, had accepted.

"You can count on its stopping," he said at last. "My ranch is a hundred miles to the north of here. I heard Rodney was with your party and as he was an old classmate of mine, in fact my best friend at Harvard along with Bert Meade"--and the mention of the forbidden name caused quick glances to be passed around the table, but raised no comment--"the chance of seeing him brought me down here. I know the weather along this whole section of the country, it's the driest place on earth, and I would almost offer to swallow all the rain that will fall after this storm spends itself."

"Well, that's good," said Curtiss, "because I've heard that the dam lacks a very little of completion but that the spill-way has been delayed."

"You'll find that the storm has broken in the morning," said Winters confidently.

After dinner Colonel Illingworth, desirous of talking business, called the men of the party, except Rodney and Winters, back into the observation room of the other car, leaving the two men with Helen.

"Mr. Shurtliff," said Helen, as the men stepped out on the platform, the secretary following, since his employer had intimated his services might be needed, "if you can, I wish you would come back here as soon as possible."

"Certainly, Miss Illingworth," said the secretary, "immediately, if your father finds that he does not need me."

"Rod," said Winters when they were alone, "I'd go a long way to see you, but I might as well be frank. I did not come down these hundred miles, leaving my ranch in the dead of winter with all its possibilities of mishap to the cattle, simply to see you, or even Miss Illingworth here, although she's worth it," he went on with the frank bluntness of a Western man.

"Of course, you didn't," said Rodney, smiling. "I know I'm not a sufficient attraction."

"I came to talk about Meade."

"Mr. Winters," said Helen, clasping her hands over her knees and leaning forward, "if you know anything about him, where he is, what he is doing, how he fares, is he well, does he think of--I beg you to tell me."

"Miss Illingworth, there is nothing I would refuse to tell you if it rested with me."

"I don't mind confessing to you, you are such old friends, you and Mr. Rodney, and so devoted to Bert, that I am worrying----"

"You need say nothing more, Miss Illingworth. I know all about the situation. Rodney wrote me and----"

"Well then, you understand my anxiety, my reason for asking?"

"I do."

"And you will tell us?"

"I wish to God I could."

"Can't you tell us anything?"

"Well, yes, I can."

"What?"

"It may be a breach of confidence."

"I'd take the risk," said the girl, her bosom heaving. Was she at last about to hear from her lover?

"Know where he is, old man?" asked Rodney.

"I think so, not sure, but----"

"Where?" from the woman, breathlessly.

"I didn't agree to tell you that."

"What then?"

"All I can say is that after the death of his father he turned up at my ranch one day some five months ago and told me his story."

"What!" exclaimed Rodney. "Did he tell you he was innocent?"

"Not at first. He told me he was guilty."

"But you didn't believe him, did you?" asked the woman impulsively.

"I certainly did not."

"Why not?"

"Well, I don't know why. I just didn't, that's all. I know Meade. I know him well. I know his makeup. We get accustomed to sizing up a man's actions out West here and it didn't take me longer than it took him to tell the story to know that it wasn't true."

"Oh, thank you for that," said the woman.

"But our beliefs are not evidence, Dick," interposed Rodney.

"We can't prove it and that's the point, I told him," continued Winters, "that it was a da--darned lie--I beg your pardon, Miss Illingworth. I mean I told him that it was not true and that he was a fool for sticking to it, and--er--he--admitted--I--er," floundered Winters, suddenly realizing that he was on the eve of a breach of confidence and checking himself just in time. "In fact the subject was painful to him and I let him alone, which is what we generally do to a man who doesn't want his affairs inquired into too closely," Winters ended lamely, realizing how near he had come to betraying his friend's confidence and telling of Meade's own admission that he had said what he had to save the fame and honor of the father.

"Well, what next?" asked Rodney, understanding as did Helen Illingworth herself the ranchman's hesitation and respecting it, although the unavoidable inference gave her great joy.

"He hung around the ranch for a month or six weeks to get his balance. He was pretty badly broken up. I'm a bachelor myself and don't know much about those things, but I can say that he loved you, Miss Illingworth, more than life itself."

"But not more than the reputation of his father," she said with a little tinge of bitterness.

"Well, I take it he looked at that as a matter of honor. You know a man's got to keep his ideals of honor."

"Even at the expense of a woman's heart?" said the girl.

"It sounds hard, but I guess we've got to admit that. But that's neither here nor there," he continued, gliding over the subject, "the point is I found that he had to fight it out himself and I mainly let him alone. I gave him a horse and gun and turned him loose in the wilds. Best place on earth for a man in his condition, Miss Illingworth. You can go out into the wilderness and get nearer to God there than any place I know of. He came back finally, turned in his gun, borrowed the horse, bade me good-bye and said he was going out to make a new start."

"Where did he go? Which way?"

"He was headed south when I saw him last, and all this lay in his way."

"You mean----?" cried the woman.

"He may be here?" said Rodney.

Winters nodded.

"I have thought so. It's only a guess, of course, and probably a poor one. But when I read in the papers that Colonel Illingworth was coming out here and that you were along, and Miss Illingworth, I thought I'd just take a run down here and see what could be done."

"Oh, I'm so glad you have come."

"He's not working on the bridge," said Rodney.

"How do you know, Rod?"

"I examined all the payrolls and none of them bears his name."

"He wouldn't work under his own name in the Martlet Bridge Company," said the woman.

"Certainly not. That was only my first step. I went around among the workmen, too, and I got a look at every one of them. I'm sure he's not there."

"He wouldn't be a common workman, would he?" asked the girl, more disappointed than she could express.

"Certainly not. He'd be keeping track of material, or running a transit, or acting as a gang foreman. Most of the workmen are foreigners, although the bridge erectors are Americans."

"You're sure that he's not there?"

"Absolutely."

"There's the dam," said Winters. "We'll try that in the morning."

"What good is it going to do us, Dick?" asked Rodney a little irritably. "Even if we do find him, we can't make him speak."

"I don't know," answered the woman slowly. "But if I could just see him once again, Mr. Rodney"--she spoke without hesitation or reserve and both men felt deeply for her--"if I could just speak to him, if he would only----"

"I believe you can persuade him," said Winters.

"Yes, perhaps, but I want Shurtliff to speak first, then we can approach our friend himself with more confidence," said Rodney.