Chapter XXX: The Testimony of the Dead

Just as Helen Illingworth and Winters reached the lower level at the foot of the mesa they were joined by Rodney.

"What has happened?" cried the engineer.

Winters answered as the three hurried along without stopping:

"Meade blew up the hog-back."

"Was that he?"

"Yes."

"I thought there was something familiar about him, but I did not dare----"

"I recognized him instantly," said Helen Illingworth.

"That atones for the International," continued Rodney.

"What does?" asked his friend.

"The dam is safe; the water has stopped rising. I believe it's beginning to fall a little. I saw someone jump up on the palisade and wave his hand and then I saw them all gather around, evidently cheering."

"I should think the water would be lowered," said Winters; "it's pouring out of a hole in the hog-back as big as a church."

"It was a fine thing in Meade. Let's hurry and tell him so," answered Rodney.

"I'm afraid it's too late," said Winters.

"Oh, don't say that," cried the girl.

"Why, what's happened?"

"The second blast was slow in going off," said Winters; "he went back to look at it and got knocked over. It looked pretty bad from the top of the mesa."

Rodney would not have been human if he had not felt a leap in his breast at the possibility, but he was too loyal a friend and too genuinely fond of Meade for more than a passing emotion, for which he was more than a little ashamed.

"Let us press on," he urged.

In a few moments they stopped by the three men. Meade was still unconscious. The big Irishman sat on the grass with the engineer's head on his knee. The deft-fingered little Italian was trying to wash the blood away from the unconscious man's forehead with a sodden, ragged piece of cloth. Meade was unconscious, he was breathing heavily. There was a catch in his respiration. His breath came at irregular intervals and was labored as if painful.

A huge rock had struck him in the breast. The two men had torn open his shirt and undershirt. The engineer's chest was bruised and bloody. Evidently bones had been broken and probably serious internal injuries had resulted. Every breath was an apparent agony and that the exquisite pain did not arouse him to consciousness was evidence of the terrible nature of the injury. A smaller, sharper rock had cut him across the forehead and cheek, just missing his right eye, and they found out afterward that he had been struck by several other pieces dislodged by the explosion, and that his body was covered with bruises.

But there was nothing, not even in the cut on the forehead, to cause any great alarm had it not been for the crushed chest. Winters and Rodney were both men of action, accustomed to quick thinking and prompt decision in emergencies; while Helen Illingworth could only stand with clenched hands staring in mental anguish that paralleled the physical suffering of the man she loved, the engineer and the rancher immediately made preparations to get the wounded man to the car.

Murphy wore in his belt a short woodman's axe. With it they cut down two young saplings, trimmed them and thrusting them through the sleeves of their raincoats they made a fairly practicable litter. Using the utmost care, they laid the unconscious man upon it and Winters and Murphy, the two biggest men, took the handles at either end. Helen Illingworth, praying as she had never prayed before, sought to support the unconscious man's head. The Italian gathered up the tools and went ahead to open up the path. Rodney followed after.

Their progress was slow of necessity. They had to handle Meade with great care. Winters and Rodney, after the brief inspection they had made, could not see a chance on earth for him. Neither could Helen Illingworth. They went along without conversation, naturally, except for an outburst of admiration from Winters.

"I tell you," he said, "it was a magnificent thing for him to do. He risked his life a hundred times in that mad rush with the dynamite in his hands and the detonators in his pocket. Yet if he had only stayed back he would have been safe."

"It was his anxiety for the dam and the people that brought him down," said Helen Illingworth. "He can't die," she murmured. "God surely will not let him die. I love him so. And yet if he does and I have lost him, innocent or guilty, he has redeemed his fame."

"He saved others," quoted Rodney under his breath, "himself he could not save."

It was a work of great difficulty to get the wounded engineer into the car, but they finally managed it. By the woman's direction they laid him on her bed in her own private stateroom.

"One of us must go for a doctor at once," said Rodney, "and that will be my job."

"It's twenty miles to the town," said the conductor, who had helped to receive them. "If one of you could telegraph we could tap a wire."

None of them could.

"It's all down-grade and there's a good roadbed and I was some sprinter in my college days," said Rodney.

"And there was never greater need for haste than now," said Winters. "I wish I had a horse here."

"Don't give up, Miss Illingworth," continued Rodney, as he started toward the door. "He's alive yet."

Just then, opportunely enough, rounding the last curve before the arch bridge, they saw the end of the other car rapidly approaching them. Had they not been so excited they could have heard the furious puffing of the engine as it drove the car at great speed up the heavy grade.

"Wait," said the conductor, "we can send the engine down for the doctor. That'll be the Colonel's car."

In a few minutes the car stopped on the siding. Out of it came Colonel Illingworth, Dr. Severence, Curtiss, and some of the officials of the Bridge Company in town. They were all greatly excited. The Colonel did not stop to put on his hat. He ran to the other car and climbed aboard.

"The dam's going," he shouted. "The bridge and the town will be flooded. We got word an hour ago by a messenger galloping down. The telephone wires are down. I ran the car up here as the quickest way to get over to the reservoir and the dam. Some of you who know the way come with me."

By this time the observation room of the car was filled with men.

"You need not worry about the dam," said Rodney.

"What do you mean?"

"A man blew up the hog-back, made a spill-way, the water rushed out through it into this ravine, you can see it below there, relieving the pressure on the dam at once. Since it has held up till now it will hold for good."

"Thank God!" cried the Colonel, sinking down into a chair and wiping the sweat off his brow. "The bridge will be safe then. By George," he gasped, "the Martlet Company could hardly have stood another loss like that. Who's the man who blew it up?"

"His name is Meade," said Rodney quietly.

"Not----?"

"Yes."

There was a long pause. Every man there knew of the failure of the International and in what estimation the old Colonel held the name of Meade because of that.

"Well, it was a fine thing," said the Colonel; "it makes up for his blundering work on the bridge."

"Beg pardon, sir," said Shurtliff, who had stood wide-eyed and white and suffering in silence ever since the engineer had been brought to the car, "it was not his blunder."

"Why, you said so yourself," cried the Colonel.

"I lied," admitted the secretary.

Quick as a flash Rodney had his notebook out. Here was the proof at last.

"Why?"

"To save the reputation of the man I loved."

"And how do I know you are not lying for this man now?" asked the Colonel harshly.

"These will prove it," said Shurtliff, extending some papers he drew out of his pocket, where he had placed them that morning half intending to tell Helen Illingworth the truth at last.

"What are these?" the Colonel asked, staring at Shurtliff, who stood erect before them, sustained more by his will than anything else, for his knees were shaking and his body quivering; yet he was glad after all, more happy than he had thought he could be, in making the revelation, in vindicating the innocent, in giving that satisfaction to Helen Illingworth, tardy, even too late, though it might be.

"Letters, sir. You will find there a blueprint of the design of the compression members," answered Shurtliff monotonously as if he had forced his mind to a certain action and it was working automatically. "With it is a letter from Bertram Meade to his father suggesting that the lacings were too light and calling attention to the empiric formulæ of Schmidt-Chemnitz in proof of his argument. On the back of that letter Mr. Bertram Meade, Senior, made an indorsement--you know his handwriting and can identify it--'_Hold until bridge is finished and then give back to the boy. We'll show him that even Schmidt-Chemnitz doesn't know everything_.'"

Colonel Illingworth turned the paper over. There was the indorsement.

"Well, by heaven!" he began.

"There's another paper in an envelope addressed to the editor of _The New York Gazette_. Will you read it aloud, sir?"

Almost as if he had been hypnotized Colonel Illingworth took from the envelope the brief note. He read it:

"_I alone am responsible for the error in the design of the International Bridge, which has resulted in this terrible disaster. I know that my son, in an effort to shield me, will assume the responsibility. As a matter of fact, he had previously pointed out what he believed to be a structural weakness, but I refused to heed his representations and overbore his objections. The fault is entirely chargeable to me. There is no possible expiation for my blunder. The least I can do is to assume all the responsibility. The blame is mine._

"BERTRAM MEADE."

He laid it down with the other papers.

"The demonstration is complete and absolute," he began spontaneously, amid a breathless silence. "The proofs are adequate. They would establish young Meade's innocence in any court in the land. Where is he? I have done him an injustice. I am ready to make amends," continued the Colonel.

"And while you are talking," said Helen Illingworth, who had been standing in the doorway too absorbed by the dramatic recital to interrupt it, "he's dying."

"Dying! Where?"

"He was battered to pieces by the last dynamite explosion. We brought him here."

"Were you there?"

"We saw it from the top of the mesa. Oh, don't talk any longer."

"Severence," said Illingworth, with prompt decision, "you haven't forgotten all your old medical skill. This is your job. One of you jump on the engine and bring a physician up and----"

"I'm going," said Rodney. "Who's the best doctor in town?"

"Dr. Fraser. He's a young man, but very skillful," answered one of the local bridge men.

"Bring our own Dr. Bailey up here from our hospital with him, and tell that engine driver to get down to the town and back just as quickly as he can go. Cheer up, Helen," said the Colonel. "I know that a man is not going to rehabilitate himself by such an action and have the evidence of his innocence brought out at such a moment just to die."

"Will you give me those papers, Colonel?" said Rodney. "You'll want this written up and----"

"Take them," said the Colonel.

"Will you come along with me, Mr. Shurtliff? After I see the doctors I'll want your affidavit."

"Yes, sir, anything," said Shurtliff.

"It was fine of you, Shurtliff," said Winters, "to try to shield your employer and the man you loved, but, thank God, you spoke out before it was too late. I'm sorry I pulled that gun on you; you're a man, all right, even if you don't look it," he added to himself as Shurtliff bowed and followed Rodney.

Winters stood at the door of the passageway leading to the stateroom while Helen Illingworth and Severence, who had been educated as a physician, and the old Colonel, who knew a great deal about wounds and accidents from his war experience, entered the stateroom. A new spirit had come into the relations between father and daughter and both were glad. There was no question now about the future. There would be no opposition from Colonel Illingworth. Within an hour the papers would have the story of how one man had saved a great dam, the viaduct, the town, and its people, and they would have at the same time the story of who was responsible for the fall of the International Bridge. They would have the story of the attempted self-sacrifice of the son to save the father. They would have the story of the old man's splendid and magnanimous avowal of responsibility before he died. The United States, the world, would ring with the dramatic tale.

It was as much to tell that story in his own way as to summon medical aid that Rodney had gone for the doctor. And so the father held the daughter clasped to his side while both bent over the still unconscious man, whom Dr. Severence quickly and carefully and with wonderful skill, considering his long withdrawal from practice, examined.

"What is it?" asked the Colonel as the vice-president looked up presently. "My daughter is engaged to be married to him"--and he was rewarded by the thrill and quiver that shot through his daughter's being which he felt as he pressed her to his side--"we can't let him die now."

"He's in God's hands," answered Severence gravely. "He's been terribly pounded everywhere. His breastbone is shattered, some of his ribs are broken. I don't know."

"That awful cut on his forehead?"

"That's nothing."

"And the other bruises?"

"They count but little, but the blow on the chest"--he shook his gray head sadly, ominously.

"Do you think anything has penetrated his lungs?" asked Helen Illingworth, as she pointed to her lover's lips, to a little bloody froth that came therefrom.

The old man nodded.

"Perhaps," he said.

"Oh, he can't die, he can't, he can't!" wailed the woman, sinking down on her knees by the bed.

"Not if any power on earth can keep him from it, my dear child," said the old Colonel tenderly, bending over her.

"Send me the porter of the car," said Severence, "and take Miss Illingworth away. I want to get him undressed and----"

"You will call me back the minute I can come?"

"Certainly, my dear girl," said the vice-president, who had known the young woman from childhood.