Читать книгу The Rim of the Desert - Ada Woodruff Anderson - Страница 11

Tisdale leaned forward in his seat in the observation car. His rugged features worked a little, and his eyes had their far-sighted gaze. Scarred buttes crowded the track; great firs, clinging with exposed roots to the bluffs, leaned in menace, and above the timber belt granite pyramids and fingers shone amethyst against the sky; then a giant door closed on this vestibule of the Pass, and he was in an amphitheatre of lofty peaks. The eastbound began to wind and lift like a leviathan seeking a way through. It crept along a tilting shelf, rounded a sheer spur, and ran shrieking over a succession of trestles, while the noise of the exhausts rang a continuous challenge from shoulder and crag. Then suddenly a mighty summit built like a pulpit of the gods closed behind, and a company of still higher mountains encircled the gorge. Everywhere above the wooded slopes towered castellated heights and spires.

Presently a near cliff came between him and the higher view and, with a lift and drop of his square shoulders, he settled back in his chair. He drew his hand across his eyes, the humorous lines deepened and, like one admitting a weakness, he shook his head. It was always so; the sight of any mountains, a patch of snow on a far blue ridge, set his pulses singing; wakened the wanderlust for the big spaces in God's out-of-doors. And this canyon of the Snoqualmie was old, familiar ground. He had served his surveyor's apprenticeship on these western slopes of the Cascades. He had triangulated most of these peaks, named some of them, and he had carried a transit to these headwaters, following his axman often over a new trail. Now, far, far down between the columns of hemlock and fir, he caught glimpses of the State road on the opposite bank of the stream that, like a lost river, went forever seeking a way out, and finally, for an instant he saw a cabin set like a toy house at the wooden bridge where the thoroughfare crossed. Then the eastbound, having made a great loop, found another hidden gateway and moved up to the levels above Lake Keechelus. The whistle signalled a mountain station, and Tisdale rose and went out to the platform; when the trucks jolted to a standstill, he swung himself down to the ground to enjoy a breath of the fine air.

The next moment he found himself almost upon a wrecked automobile. He saw in a flash that the road, coming through a cut, crossed the railroad track, and that in making a quick turn to avoid the end of the slowing train, the chauffeur had forced the car into the bank. The machine was still upright, but it listed forward on a broken axle. A young woman who had kept her seat in the tonneau was nursing a painful wrist, while two girls, who evidently had come through the accident unscathed, were trying to help the only man of the party up from the ground. Tisdale bent to give him the support of his shoulder, and, groaning, the stranger settled against the side of his car and into a sitting position on the edge of the floor, easing an injured leg. He had also received an ugly hurt above his brows, which were heavy and black and met in an angle over a prominent nose.

The lady in the tonneau and one of the girls had the same marked features and the same brilliant dark eyes, though the retreating chin, which in the man amounted to almost a blemish, in them was modified. But the last one in the party, whom Tisdale had noticed first, was not like the rest. She was not like any one in the world he had seen before. From the hem of her light gray motoring coat to the crown of her big hat, she was a delight to the eyes. The veil that tied the hat down framed a face full of a piquant yet delicate charm. She was watching the man huddled against the machine, and her mouth, parted a little, showed the upper lip short with the upward curves of a bow. It was as though words were arrested, half spoken, and her eyes, shadowy under curling dark lashes, held their expression, uncertain whether to sparkle out or to cloud.

After a moment the man lifted his head and, meeting her look, smiled. "I'm all right," he said, "only I've wrenched this knee; sprained it, I guess. And my head feels like a drum."

"Oh, I am—glad"—her voice fluctuated softly, but the sparkle broke in her eyes—"that it isn't worse. Would you like a glass of ice-water from the train? A porter is coming and the conductor, too. I will ask for anything."

He smiled again. "You'll get it, if you do. But what I want most just now is a glass of that port. Elizabeth," and his glance moved to the other girl, "where did you put that hamper?"

Elizabeth, followed by the porter, hurried around to the other side of the automobile to find the basket, and Tisdale moved a few steps away, waiting to see if he could be of further service.

A passenger with a camera and an alert, inquiring face had come down from the day coach. He wound the film key and focussed for a closer exposure, but no one noticed him. At that moment all interest centered on the man who was hurt. "Well," said the conductor at last, having looked the group and the situation over, "what's the trouble?"

"Looks like a broken axle, doesn't it? And possibly a broken leg." He groaned and repeated aggressively: "A broken axle. With the worst of Snoqualmie Pass before us, and not a garage or a repair shop within fifty miles."

"You are in a fix, sure. But this train will take you through the Pass to Ellensburg, and there ought to be a hospital and a garage there. Or—the westbound passenger, due at this siding in seven minutes"—the conductor looked at his watch—"could put you back in Seattle at eight-fifteen."

"Make it the westbound; no hospital for me. Telegraph for a drawing-room, conductor, and notify this station agent to ship the machine on the same train. And, Elizabeth," he paused to take the drinking-cup she had filled, "you look up a telephone, or if there isn't a long distance, telegraph James. Tell him to have a couple of doctors, Hillis and Norton, to meet the eight-fifteen; and to bring the limousine down with plenty of pillows and comforters." He drained the cup and dropped it into the open hamper. "Now, porter," he added, "if you hurry up a cocktail, the right sort, before that westbound gets here, it means a five to you."

As these various messengers scurried away, the girl who remained picked up the cup and poured a draught of wine for the lady in the tonneau. "I am so sorry, but it was the only way. Do you think it is a sprain?" she asked.

"Yes." The older woman took the cup in her left hand. She had a deep, carrying voice, and she added, looking at the injured wrist: "It's swelling frightfully, but it saved my face; I might have had just such a hideous wound as Frederic's. Isn't it a relief to hear him talking so rationally?"

The girl nodded. "He seems quite himself," she said gravely. But she turned to cover the mirth in her eyes; it suffused her face, her whole charming personality. Then suddenly, at the moment the flow was highest, came the ebb. Her glance met Tisdale's clear, appraising look, and she stood silent and aloof.

He looked away and, after a moment, seeing nothing further to do, started back to his train. She turned to take the empty cup, and as she closed the hamper the whistle of the westbound sounded through the gorge.

Tisdale walked on through the observation car to the rear platform and stood looking absently off through an aisle of Alpine firs that, parklike, bordered the track. It was a long time since the sight of a pretty woman had so quickened his blood. He had believed that for him this sort of thing was over, and he laughed at himself a little.

The westbound rumbled to a stop on the parallel track, he felt the trucks under him start, and an unaccountable depression came over him; the next moment he heard a soft voice directing the porter behind him, and as unaccountably his heart rose. The girl came on through the open door and stopped beside him, bracing herself with one hand on the railing, while she waved her handkerchief to the group she had left. He caught a faint, clean perfume suggesting violets, the wind lifted the end of her veil across his shoulder, and something of her exhilaration was transmitted to the currents in his veins. "Good-by, Elizabeth," she called. "Good-by. Good-by."

Some trainmen were getting the injured man aboard the westbound passenger, and the lady who had left the wrecked automobile to go with him sent back a sonorous "Au revoir." But Elizabeth, who was hurrying down from the station where she had accomplished her errand, turned in astonishment to look after the speeding eastbound. Then a rocky knob closed all this from sight.

The girl on the platform turned, and Tisdale moved a little to let her pass. At the same time the lurching of the car, as it swung to the curve, threw her against him. It all happened very quickly; he steadied her with his arm, and she drew back in confusion; he raised his hand to his head and, remembering he had left his hat in his seat, a flush shaded through his tan. Then, "I beg your pardon," she said and hurried by him through the door.

Tisdale stood smoothing his wind-ruffled hair and watching the receding cliff. "Her eyes are hazel," he thought, "with turquoise lights. I never heard of such a combination, but—it's fine."

A little later, when he went in to take his seat, he found her in the chair across the aisle. The train was skirting the bluffs of Keechelus then, and she had taken off her coat and hat and sat watching the unfolding lake. His side glance swept her slender, gray-clad figure to the toe of one trim shoe, braced lightly on her footstool, and returned to her face. In profile it was a new delight. One caught the upward curl of her black lashes; the suggestion of a fault in the tip of her high, yet delicately chiseled nose; the piquant curve of her short upper lip; the full contour of the lifted chin. Her hair, roughened some, was soft and fine and black with bluish tones.

The temptation to watch her was very great, and Tisdale squared his shoulders resolutely and swung his chair more towards his own window, which did not afford a view of the lake. He wanted to see this new railroad route through the Cascades. This Pass of Snoqualmie had always been his choice of a transcontinental line. And he was approaching new territory; he never had pushed down the eastern side from the divide. He had chosen this roundabout way purposely, with thirty miles of horseback at the end, when the Great Northern would have put him directly into the Wenatchee Valley and within a few miles of that tract of Weatherbee's he was going to see.

There were few travelers in the observation car, and for a while nothing broke the silence but the clamp and rush of the wheels on the down-grade, then the man with a camera entered and came down the aisle as far as the new passenger's chair. "I hope you'll excuse me," he said, "I'm Daniels, representing the Seattle Press, and I thought you would like to see this story go in straight."

Tisdale swung his chair a little towards the open rear door, so that he was able to watch without seeming to see the progress of the comedy. He was quick enough to catch the sweeping look she gave the intruder, aloof yet fearless, as though she saw him across an invisible barrier. "You mean you are a reporter," she asked quietly, "and are writing an account of the accident for your newspaper?"

"Yes." Daniels dropped his cap into the next chair and seated himself airily on the arm. The camera swung by a carrying strap from his shoulder, and he opened a notebook, which he supported on his knee while he felt in his pocket for a pencil. "Of course I recognized young Morganstein; everybody knows him and that chocolate car; he's been run in so often for speeding about town. And I suppose he was touring through Snoqualmie Pass to the races at North Yakima fair. There should be some horses there worth going to see."

"We meant to spend a day or two at the fair," she admitted, "but we expected to motor on, exploring a little in the neighborhood."

"I see. Up the valley to have a look at the big irrigation dam the Government is putting in and maybe on to see the great Tieton bore. That would have been a fine trip; sorry you missed it." Daniels paused to place several dots and hooks on his page. "I recognized Miss Morganstein, too," he went on, "though she was too busy to notice me. I met her when I was taking my course in journalism at the State University; danced with her at the Junior Prom. And the other lady, whose wrist was sprained, must have been her sister, Mrs. Feversham. I was detailed to interview the new Alaska delegate when he passed through Seattle, and I understood his wife was to join him later. She was stopping over for a visit, and the society editor called my attention to a mighty good picture of her in last Sunday's issue. Do you know?—" he paused, looking into the girl's face with a curious scrutiny, "there was another fine reproduction on that page that you might have posed for. The lady served tea or punch or did something at the same affair. But I can't remember her name—I've tried ever since we left that station—though seems to me it was a married one."

"I remember the picture you mean; I remember. And I was there. It was a bridge-luncheon at the Country Club in honor of Mrs. Feversham. And she—the lady you were reminded of—won the prize. So you think I resemble that photograph?" She tipped her head back a little, holding his glance with her half-veiled eyes. "What an imagination!"

"Of course if you did pose for that picture, it doesn't do you half justice; I admit that. But"—regarding her with a wavering doubt—"I guess I've been jumping at conclusions again. They call me the 'Novelist' at the office." He paused, laughing off a momentary embarrassment. "That's why I didn't want to depend on getting your name from the society editor."

"I am glad you did not. It would have been very annoying, I'm sure—to the lady. I suppose," she went on slowly, while the glamour grew in her eyes, "I suppose nothing could induce you to keep this story out of the Press."

He pursed his lips and shook his head decidedly. "I don't see how I can. I'd do 'most anything to oblige you, but this is the biggest scoop I ever fell into. The fellows detailed by the other papers to report the fair went straight through by way of the Northern Pacific. I was the only reporter at the wreck."

"I understand, but," her voice fluctuated softly, "I dislike publicity so intensely. Of course it's different with Mrs. Feversham. She is accustomed to newspaper notice; her husband and brother are so completely in the public eye. But since you must use the story, couldn't you suppress my name?"

"Oh, but how could I? The whole story hinges on you. You were driving the machine. I saw you from the train window as you came through the cut. You handled the gear like an imported chauffeur, but it was steep there on the approach, and the car began to skid. I saw in a flash what was going to happen; it made me limp as a rag. But there was a chance—the merest hairbreadth, and you took it." He waited a moment, then said, smiling: "That was a picture worth snapping, but I was too batty to think of it in time. You see," he went on seriously, "the leading character in this story is you. And it means a lot to me. I was going to be fired; honest I was. The old man told me he wasn't looking for any Treasure Island genius; what his paper needed was plain facts. Then his big heart got the upper hand, and he called me back. 'Jimmie,' he said, 'there's good stuff in you, and I am going to give you one more trial. Go over to North Yakima and tell us about the fair. Take the new Milwaukee line as far as Ellensburg and pick up something about the automobile road through Snoqualmie Pass. But remember, cut out the fiction; keep to facts!'"

"I understand," she repeated gravely, "I understand. The accident came opportunely. It was life and color to your setting and demonstrates the need of a better road. The most I can hope is that you will not exaggerate or—or put us in a ridiculous light."

"I swear to that." He settled his notebook again on his knee and lifted his pencil. "Nothing sensational," he added, "nothing annoying; now please give me your name."

"Well, then, write Miss Armitage."

"Miss Armitage. Thank you. Miss Armitage of?"

"San Francisco."

"Of San Francisco; and visiting the Morgansteins, of course. But going on now alone to meet the friends who are expecting you—am I right?—at North Yakima."

There was a brief silence, and she moved a little in her chair. "Where I am going now," she said, and looked at him once more across the invisible barrier, "is another story."

"I beg your pardon." Daniels laughed and, rising from his perch on the chair arm, put his notebook in his pocket. "And I'm awfully grateful. If ever I can be of service to you, I hope you'll let me know." He started up the car, then paused to say over his shoulder: "The light for photography was fine; the old man will double column every illustration."

"Illustrations?" She started up in dismay. "Oh, no. Please—I couldn't endure—"

But Jimmie Daniels, with the camera swinging to his quick step, hurried on to the vestibule.

She settled back in her seat, and for a moment her consternation grew; then the humor of the situation must have dawned on her, for suddenly the sparkles danced in her eyes. Her glance met Tisdale's briefly and, suppress it as he tried, his own smile broke at the corners of his mouth. He rose and walked out again to the platform.

This was the rarest woman on earth. She was able to appreciate a joke at her own expense. Clearly she had finessed, then, in the instant she had been sure of the game, she had met and accepted defeat with a smile. But he would like to discipline that fellow Daniels;—here he frowned—those films should be destroyed. Still, the boy would hardly give them up peaceably and to take them otherwise would not spare her the publicity she so desired to avoid; such a scene must simply furnish fresh material, a new chapter to the story. After all, not one newspaper cut in a hundred could be recognized. It was certain she was in no need of a champion; he never had seen a woman so well equipped, so sure of herself and her weapons, and yet so altogether feminine. If Foster had but known her.

Instantly, in sharp contrast to this delightful stranger, rose the woman of his imagination; the idle spendthrift who had cast her spell over level-headed Foster; who had wrecked David Weatherbee; and his face hardened. A personal interview, he told himself presently, would be worse than useless. There was no way to reach a woman like her; she was past appeal. But he would take that tract of desert off her hands at her price, and perhaps, while the money lasted, she would let Foster alone.

The train had left Lake Keechelus and was racing easily down the banks of the Yakima. He was entering the country he had desired to see, and soon his interest wakened. He seated himself to watch the heights that seemed to move in quick succession like the endlessly closing gates of the Pass. The track still ran shelf-wise along precipitous knobs and ridges; sometimes it bored through. The forests of fir and hemlock were replaced by thinning groves of pine; then appeared the first bare, sage-mottled dune. The trucks rumbled over a bit of trestle, and for an instant he saw the intake of an irrigating canal, and finally, after a last tunnel, the eastbound steamed out of the canyon into a broad, mountain-locked plateau. Everywhere, watered by the brimming ditch, stretched fields of vivid alfalfa or ripe grain. Where the harvesting was over, herds of fine horses and cattle or great flocks of sheep were turned in to browse on the stubble. At rare intervals a sage-grown breadth of unreclaimed land, like a ragged blemish, divided these farms. Then, when the arid slopes began to crowd again, the train whistled Ellensburg on the lower rim of the plain.

Tisdale left his seat to lean over the railing and look ahead. He was in time to catch a fleeting glimpse of Jimmie Daniels as he hurried out of the telegraph office and sprang on the step of a starting bus. It was here the young newspaper man was to transfer to the Northern Pacific, and doubtless the girl too was changing trains. The Milwaukee, beyond Ellensburg, passed through new, unbroken country for many miles; the stations were all in embryo, and even though she may not have resumed her journey at the Pass with the intention of stopping off at the fair, the same bus was probably taking her over to the old, main traveled route down the Yakima to the Columbia.

Again that unaccountable depression came over him. He tried to throw it off, laughing at himself a little and lighting a cigar. This pretty woman had happened in his path like a flower; she had pleased his eyes for a few hours and was gone. But what possible difference could her coming and going make to him?

The train started, and he settled back in his seat. The fertile fields were left behind, then presently the eastbound steamed through a gap in a sun-baked ridge and entered a great arid level. Sage-brush stretched limitless, and the dull green of each bush, powdered with dust, made a grayer blotch on the pale shifting soil, that every chance zephyr lifted in swirls and scattered like ashes. Sometimes a whiter patch showed where alkali streaked through. It was like coming into an old, worn-out world. The sun burned pitilessly, and when finally the train had crossed this plain and began to wind through lofty dunes, the heat pent between the slopes became stifling. The rear platform was growing intolerable, and he knew his station could not be far off. He rose to go in, but the eastbound suddenly plunged into the coolness of a tunnel, and he waited while it bored through to daylight and moved on along a shelf overlooking a dry run. Then, as he turned to the open door, he saw the girl had not taken the Northern Pacific at Ellensburg. She was still there in the observation car.

Her eyes were closed, and he noticed as he went forward that her breast rose and fell gently; the shorter, loose hair formed damp, cool little rings on her forehead and about her ears. She was sleeping in her chair. But a turn in the track brought the sun streaming through her window; the polished ceiling reflected the glare, and he stopped to reach carefully and draw the blind. A moment later the whistle shrieked, and the conductor called his station. He hurried on up the aisle and, finding his satchel in the vestibule, stood waiting until the car jolted to a stop, then swung himself off. But the porter followed with a suitcase and placed his stool, and the next instant the girl appeared. She carried her hat in her hands, her coat was tucked under her arm, and as she stepped down beside Tisdale, the bell began to ring, the porter sprang aboard, and the train went speeding ahead.

The station was only a telegraph office, flanked by a water-tank on a siding. There was no waiting hotel bus, no cab, no vehicle of any kind. The small building rose like an islet out of a gray sea. Far off through billowing swells one other islet appeared, but these two passengers the eastbound had left were like a man and woman marooned.