The White Desert

C >> Courtney Ryley Cooper >> The White Desert

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Then with his snowshoes and his pack of death, he went out the door, to
plunge through another drift, to force his way into a cabin, and there,
a plodding, dumb figure, go soddenly about the duties of comfort. And
more than once in the howling, blustery night which followed, Houston
shivered, shook himself into action and rose to rebuild a fire that had
died while he had sat hunched in the hard, uncomfortable chair beside
it, trying to fathom what the day had meant, striving to hope for the
keeping of the promises that an hysterical woman had made, struggling
for the strength to go on,--on with this cheery, brave little bit of
humanity in the next cabin, without a word in self-extenuation, without
a hint to break the lack of estimation in which she held him, without a
plea in his own defense. And some way, Houston felt that such a plea
now would be cheap and tawdry; they were in a world where there were
bigger things than human aims and human frailties. Besides, he had
locked his lips at the command of a grief-ridden woman. To open them
in self-extenuation would mean that she must be brought into it; for
she had been the one who had clinched the points of suspicion in the
mind of Medaine Robinette. Were he now to speak of proof that she had
lied--

It was impossible. The wind-swept night became wind-swept dawn, to
find him still huddled there, still thinking, still grim and drawn and
haggard with sleeplessness and fatigue. Then he rose at a call from
without:

"Are you ready?"

He affixed the pack. Together they went on again, graceless figures in
frozen clothing, she pointing the way, he aiding her with his strength,
in the final battle toward the summit of the range,--and Crestline.

Hours they plodded and climbed, climbed and plodded, the blood again
dripping from his lips, her features again shielded by the heavy folds
of the bandanna; the moisture of their breath at times swirling about
them like angry steam, at others invisible in the areas of sudden
dryness, where the atmosphere lapped up even the vapors of laboring
lungs before it could visualize. Snow and cloud and rising walls of
granite: this was their world, and they crawling pigmies within it.
Once she brushed against the pack on his back and drew away with a
sudden recoil. Houston dully realized the reason. The selfish,
gripping hands of Winter, holding nothing sacred, had invaded even
there.

Noon. And a half-cry from both of them, a burst of energy which soon
faded. For above was Crestline--even as the little Croatian settlement
had been--smokeless, lifeless. They had gone from here also, hurrying
humans fleeing with the last snowplow before the tempest, beings afraid
to remain, once the lines of communication were broken. But there was
nothing to do but go on.

Roofless houses met them, stacks of crumpled snow, where the beams had
cracked beneath the weight of high piled drifts; staring, glassless
windows and rooms filled with white; stoves that no longer fought the
clasp of winter but huddled instead amid piles of snow; that was all.
Crestline had fled; there was no life, no sound, only the angry,
wailing cry of the wind through half-frozen roof spouts, the slap of
clattering boards, loosened by the storm. Gloomily Houston surveyed
the desolate picture, at last to turn to the girl.

"I must go on. I gave my promise."

She nodded.

"It means Tollifer now. The descent is more dangerous."

"Do you know it?"

"Not as well as the other. If I only had something to guide me."

And as if in answer, the storm lifted for a moment. Gradually the wind
stilled, in one of those stretches of calm which seem to be only the
breeding spots of more terror, more bitterness. But they gave no heed
to that, nor to the red ball of the sun, faintly visible through the
clouds. Far below, miles in reality, straight jets of steam rose high
above black, curling smoke; faintly, distantly, whistles sounded. The
snowplows!

He gripped her arm with the sight of it, nor did she resist. Thrilled,
enthralled, they watched it: the whirling smoke, the shooting steam,
the white spray which indicated the grinding, churning progress of the
plows, propelled by the heavy engines behind. Words came from the
swollen lips of Houston, but the voice was hoarse, strained, unnatural:

"They've started the fight! They've--"

"It's on the second grade, up from Tollifer. It's fairly easy there,
you know, for ten or twelve miles. They're making that without
difficulty--their work won't come until they strike the snowsheds at
Crystal Lake. Oh--" and there was in the voice all the yearning, the
anxiety that a pent-up soul could know--"I wish I were a man now! I
wish I were a man--to help!"

"I hope--" and Houston said it without thought of bravado--"that I may
have the strength for both of us. I'm a man--after a sort. I'm going
to work with them."

"But--"

He knew what she meant and shook his head.

"No--she does not need me. My presence would mean nothing to her. I
can't tell you why. My place--is down there."

For an instant Medaine Robinette looked at him with frankly questioning
eyes, eyes which told that a thought was beginning to form somewhere
back in her brain, a question arising as to his guilt in at least one
of the things which circumstances had arrayed against him. Some way
Barry felt that she knew that a man willing to encounter the dangers of
a snowy range would hurry again to the side of the woman for whom he
had dared them, unless-- But suddenly she was speaking, as though to
divert her thoughts.

"We'll have about three hours--from the looks of the sky. Unless
conditions change quickly, there'll not be another blow before night.
It's our chance. We'd better cut this cord--the one in the lead may
fall and pull the other one over. We had better make haste."

Houston stepped before her. A moment later they were edging their way
down the declivity of what once had been a railroad track, at last to
veer. The drifts from the mountain side had become too sharp; it was
easier to accept the more precipitous and shorter journey, straight
downward, the nearest cut toward those welcome spires of smoke.

Gradually the snow shook or was melted from their clothing, through
sheer bodily warmth. Black dots they became,--dots which appeared late
in the afternoon to the laboring crews of the snow-fighters far below;
dots which appeared and disappeared, edging their way about beetling
precipices, plunging forward, then stopping; pulling themselves out of
the heavier drifts, where drops of ten and even twenty feet had thrown
them; swinging and tacking; scrambling downward in long, almost running
descents, then crawling slowly along the ice walls, while the jutting
peaks about them seemed to close them in, seemed to threaten and seek
to engulf them in their pitfalls, only to break from them at last and
allow them once more to resume their journey.

Breaks and stops, falls and plunges into drift after drift; through the
glasses the workers below could see that a man was in the lead, with
something strapped to his back, which the woman in the rear adjusted
now and then, when it became partially displaced by the plunging
journey. Banks of snow cut them off; snowshoes sank in air
pockets--holes made by protruding limbs of the short, gnarled trees of
timber line,--and through these the man fought in short, spasmodic
lunges, breaking the way for the woman who came behind, never stopping
except to gather strength for a fresh attack, never ceasing for
obstacle or for danger. Once, at the edge of an overhanging ledge, he
scrambled furiously, failed and fell,--to drop in a drift far below, to
crawl painfully back to the waiting dot above, and to guide her, by
safer paths, on downward. Hours! The dots grew larger. The glasses
no longer were needed. On they came, stumbling, reeling, at last to
stagger across the frozen, wind-swept surface of a small lake and
toward the bunk cars of the snow crews. The woman wavered and fell; he
caught her. Then double-weighted, a pack on his back, a form in his
arms, he came on, his blood-red eyes searching almost sightlessly the
faces of the waiting, stolid, grease-smeared men, his thick voice
drooling over bloody lips:

"Somebody take her--get her into the bunk cars. She's given out.
I'm-- I'm all right. Take care of her. I've got to go on--to
Tollifer!"

CHAPTER XXII

It was night when Barry Houston limped, muscles cramped and
frost-numbed, into the little undertaking shop at Tollifer and
deposited his tiny burden. Medaine Robinette had remained behind in
the rough care of the snow crews, while he, revived by steaming coffee
and hot food, had been brought down on a smaller snowplow, running
constantly, and without extra power, between Tollifer and "the front",
that the lines of communication be kept open.

"Nameless," he said with an effort, when the lengthy details of
certification were asked. "The mother--" and a necessary lie came to
his lips--"became unconscious before she could tell me anything except
that the baby had been baptized and called Helena. She wanted a
priest."

"I'll look after it. There's clothing?"

"Yes. In the pack. But wait--where does the Father live?"

The man pointed the way. Houston went on--to a repetition of his story
and a fulfillment of his duties. Then, from far up the mountain side,
there came the churning, grinding sound of the snowplow, and he hurried
toward the station house to greet it. There on a spur, in the faint
glow of an electric light, a short train was side-tracked, engineless,
waiting until the time should come when the road again would be
open, and the way over the Pass free. One glance told him what
it was: the tarpaulin-covered, snow-shielded, bulky forms of his
machinery,--machinery that he now felt he could personally aid to its
destination. For there was work ahead. Midnight found him in a shack
buried in snow and reached only by a circuitous tunnel, a shack where
men--no longer Americans, but black-smeared, red-eyed, doddering,
stumbling human machines--came and went, their frost-caked Mackinaws
steaming as they clustered about the red-hot stove, their faces smudged
with engine grease to form a coating against the stinging blast of the
ice-laden wind, their cheeks raw and bleeding, their mouths swollen
orifices which parted only for mumblings; vikings of another age, the
fighters of the ice gangs, of which Houston had become a part.

The floor was their bed; silently, speaking only for the purpose of
curses, they gulped the food that was passed out to them, taking the
steaming coffee straight down in spite of its burning clutch at tender
membranes, gnawing and tearing at their meal like beasts at the kill,
then, still wadded in their clothing, sinking to the floor--and to
sleep. The air was rancid with the odor of wet, steaming clothing.
Men crawled over one another, then dropped to the first open spot, to
flounder there a moment, then roar in snoring sleep. Against the wall
a bearded giant half leaned, half lay, one tooth touching the ragged
lips and breaking the filmy skin, while the blood dripped, slow drop
after slow drop, upon his black, tousled beard. But he did not wake.

Of them all, only Houston, tired even as they were tired, yet with
something that they had forgotten, a brain, remained open-eyed. What
had become of Medaine? Had she recovered? Had she too gone to
Tollifer, perhaps on a later trip of the plow? The thoughts ran
through his head like the repetition of some weird refrain. He sought
sleep in vain. From far away came the whistles of locomotives,
answering the signals of the snowplows ahead. Outside some one
shouted, as though calling to him; again he remembered the bulky cars
of machinery at Tollifer. It was partially, at least, his battle they
were fighting out there, while he remained inactive. He rose and
sought the door, fumbling aimlessly in his pockets for his gloves.
Something tinkled on the floor as he brought them forth, and he bent to
pick up the little crucifix with its twisted, tangled chain, forgotten
at Tollifer. Dully, hazily, he stared at it with his red eyes, with
the faint feeling of a duty neglected. Then:

"She only said they might want it," he mumbled. "I'm sorry--I should
have remembered. I'm always failing--at something."

Then, dully anxious to do his part, to take his place in the fighting
line, he replaced the tiny bit of gold in his pocket, and threading his
way through the circuitous tunnel of snow, stepped forth into the night.

It was one of those brief spaces of starlight between storms, and the
crews were making the most of it. The wind had ceased temporarily,
allowing every possible workman to be pulled from the ordinary task of
keeping the tracks clear of the "pick-ups" of the wind, blowing the
snow down from the drifts of the hill, and to be concentrated upon the
primary task of many,--the clearing of the packed sittings which filled
the first snowshed.

Atop the oblong shed, swept clear by the wind, a light was signalling,
telling the progress of the plow, and its consequent engines, within.
Even from the distance, Barry could hear the surge of the terrific
impact, as the rotary, pushed by the four tremendous "compounds" and
Malletts which formed its additional motive power, smashed against the
tight-jammed contents of the shed, snarled and tore at its enemy, then,
beaten at last by the crusted ice of the rails, came grudgingly back,
that the ice crews, with their axes and bars, might break the
crystallization from the rails and give traction for another assault.
Houston started forward, only to stop. A figure in the dim light of
the cook car had caught his eye. Medaine Robinette.

She was helping with the preparation of the midnight meal for the
laborers, hurrying from the steaming cauldrons to the benches and
baskets, filling the big pots with coffee, arranging the tin cups in
their stacks for the various crews, and doing something that Houston
knew was of more value than anything else,--bringing a smile to the
tired men who labored beside her. And this in spite of the fact that
the black rings of fatigue were about her eyes, that the pretty,
smoothly rounded features had the suggestion of drawnness, that the
lips, when they ceased to move, settled into the slightest bit of a
droop. Now and then she stopped by one of the tables and clung to it,
as though for support,--only to perk her head with a sudden little
motion of determination, to turn, and then with a laugh go on with her
work. Presently he heard her singing above the clatter of kitchenware
and the scuffling of the men with their heavy, hobnailed shoes. And he
knew that it was a song of the lips, not of the heart, that she might
lighten the burden of others in forgetfulness of self.

And as he watched her, Houston knew for all time that he loved her,
that he wanted her above all things, in spite of what she had been led
to believe of him, in spite of everything. His hands extended, as
though to reach toward her,--the aching appeal of a lonely, harassed
man, striving for a thing he could not touch. Then hope surged in his
heart.

If the woman back there in the west country only would tell! If she
would only keep the promise which she had given him in her
half-delirium! It meant the world to Barry Houston now,--something far
greater even than the success for which he had struggled; she could
tell so much!

For Houston felt that Agnes Jierdon knew the details of practically
every conspiracy that had been fashioned against him; the substitution
of the lease and contract in the pile of technical papers which he had
signed, the false story which she had told to Medaine,--suddenly Barry
wondered if she really had passed the scene of his struggle with Tom
Langdon, if she had seen anything at all; if her whole testimony had
not been a manufactured thing, built merely for the purpose of
obtaining his utmost confidence. If she only would tell! If she only
would stay by her promise to a man who had kept his promise to her!
If--

But a call had come from up the line. The whistles no longer were
tooting; instead, they were blowing with long foghorn blasts, an eerie
sound in the cold, crisp night,--a sound of foreboding, of danger. A
dim figure made its appearance, running along the box cars, at last to
sight Houston and come toward him.

"Which car does the engine crews sleep in?" came sharply.

Houston shook his head.

"I don't know. Has something gone wrong?"

"Plenty. Both the firemen on Number Six have went out from gas--in the
snowshed. We've picked up a guy out of an ice gang that's willin' to
stand th' gaff, but we need another one. Guess there ain't nothin' to
do but wake up one of th' day crew. Hate t' do it, though--they're all
in."

"Don't, then. I'll make a try at it."

"Know anything about firin' an engine?"

"I know enough to shovel coal--and I've got a strong pair of shoulders."

"Come on, then."

Houston followed the figure toward the snowshed on the hill. Ten
minutes later he stood beside a great Mallet engine, a sleek,
glistening grayhound of the mountains, taking from the superintendent
the instructions that would enable him to assist, at least, in the
propulsion of the motive power. At the narrow areaway between the
track and the high wall of the straightaway drifts through which the
plow had cut, four men were lifting a limp figure, to carry it to the
cars. The superintendent growled.

"You payin' attention to me--or that guy they're cartin' off? When you
get in them gas pockets, stick your nose in the hollow of your elbow
and keep it there 'till you've got your breath again. There ain't no
fresh air in that there shed; the minute these engines get inside and
start throwin' on the juice, it fills up with smoke. That's what gets
you. Hold your nose in your arm while you take your breath. Then, if
you've got to shovel, keep your mouth and your lungs shut. Got me?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then go to it. Hey, Andy!"

"Yeh." A voice had come from the engine cab.

"Here's a guy that'll swing a shovel. I've told him about the gas."

Barry climbed to his place on the engine. A whistle sounded, to be
echoed and reechoed by the answering blasts of the snowplow train--four
engines and the big auger itself--ready now for a fresh sally into the
shed. Headlights, extinguished momentarily, were thrown on again,
lighting up the dirty, ragged edges of the snow walls, with their black
marks of engine soot; throwing into sharp relief the smudge-faced
figures of the pick-and-axe crews just emerging from the black maw of
the tunnel; playing upon the smooth, white outlines of the forbidding
mountains yet beyond, mountains which still must be conquered ere the
top of the world was reached. Ahead came the "high-ball" signal from
the plow; two sharp blasts, to be repeated by the first, the second,
the third and fourth of the engines. Then, throttles open, fire boxes
throwing their red, spluttering glare against the black sky as firemen
leaped to their task, the great mass of machinery moved forward.

Faster--faster--then the impact, like crashing into a stone wall. They
were within the snowshed now, the auger boring and tearing and snarling
like some savage, vengeful thing against the solid mass of frigidity
which faced it. Inch by inch for eight feet it progressed; the offal
of the big blades flying past in the glare of the headlights like
swirling rainbows; then progress ceased, while the plow ahead, answered
by the engines which backed it, shrilled the triple signal to back up,
out into the air again, that the ice crews might hurry to their tasks.
The engineer opened the cab window and gratefully sucked in the fresh,
clean air.

"Eight feet--that's all," he mused. "Eight feet at a time." Then,
noticing Houston's attention, he went on:

"It's all the big screw can make. Got a hood on the front, you know,
protecting the blades. It's eight feet from the front of that hood to
the first trucks. When it's scooped that out, it's the finish. The
wheels hit ice, and it's either back out or get derailed. So we back.
Huh! There she goes again. Keep your nose in your elbow, youngster,
this time. We're goin' back pretty sudden. We'll get gas."

The screaming of the whistles faded, giving way to the lurching of
steel monsters as they once more crawled within the blackness of the
smoke-filled, snow-choked shed. Deeper they went and deeper, the
shouts from without fading away, the hot, penetrating sulphur smoke
seeping in even through the closed cab, blackening it until the
electric lights were nothing more than faint pinpoints, sending the
faces of the men to their arms, while the two crouched, waiting
anxiously until the signal should come from ahead.

A long, long moment, while the smoke cut deeper into protesting lungs,
in spite of every effort to evade it, while Old Andy on the engine seat
twisted and writhed with the agony of fading breath, at last to reel
from his position and stumble about in the throes of suffocation. At
last, from ahead, came the welcome signal, the three long-drawn-out
blasts, and the engineer waved an arm.

"Pull that rope!" he gasped toward the first fireman. "For God's sake,
pull that rope! I'm about gone."

A fumbling hand reached up and missed; the light was nearly gone now,
in a swirling cloud of venomous smoke. Again the old engineer
stumbled, and Houston, leaping to his side, supported him.

"Find that rope--"

"I can't see! The smoke--"

Desperately Houston released the engineer and climbed upward, groping.
Something touched his hand, and he jerked at it. A blast
sounded--repeated twice more. In the rear the signal was answered.
Out ground the train to freedom again. It was the beginning of a night
of an Arctic hell.

Back and forth--back and forth--fresh air and foul air--gleaming
lights, then dense blackness--so the hours passed. Sally after sally
the snowplow made, only to withdraw to give way to the pick crews, and
they in turn, gasping and reeling, hurried out for the attack of the
plow again. Men fell grovelling, only to be dragged into the open air
and resuscitated, then sent once more into the cruelty of the fight.
The hours dragged by like stricken things. Then--with dawn--the plow
churned with lesser impact. It surged forward. Gray light broke
through at the end of the tunnel. The grip of at least one snowshed
was broken; but there remained twenty more--and the Death Trail--beyond!

"That's the baby I'm afraid of!" Old Andy was talking as they went
toward the cars, the relief day crew passing them on the way. "We can
whip these sheds. But that there Death Trail--there's a million tons
of snow above it! Once that there vibration loosens it up--we'd better
not be underneath it."

Houston did not answer. The clutch of forty-eight hours of wakeful
activity was upon him. The words of Old Andy were only so much of a
meaningless jumble to him. Into the car he stumbled, a doddering,
red-eyed thing, to drink his coffee as the rest drank it, to shamble to
the stove, forgetful of the steaming, rancid air, then like some tired
beast, sink to the floor in exhausted, dreamless sleep.

Hours he remained there, while the day crew carried the fight on
upward, through three of the smaller snowsheds, at last to halt at the
long, curved affair which shielded the jutting edge of Mount Taluchen.
Then Houston stirred; some one had caught him by the shoulder and was
shaking him gently. A voice was calling, and Houston stirred, dazedly
obedient to its command.

"I hate to awaken you--" It was a woman; her tones compassionate,
gentle. "But they're whistling for the night crew. They've still got
you on the list for firing."

Houston opened his eyes and forced a smile.

"That's all right. Thanks--thanks for waking me."

Then he rose and went forth into the agonies of the night,--willing,
eager, almost happy. A few words from a woman had given him strength,
had wiped out fatigue and aching muscles, and cramped, lifeless
limbs,--a few words from a woman he loved, Medaine Robinette.

CHAPTER XXIII

It was a repetition of the first night,--the same churning of the
plows, the same smaller machines working along the right of way to keep
the rails clear of drifting snow and ice particles, the wind howling
again and carrying the offal of the plows in gigantic spouts of dirty
white high into the air, to lash and pulverize it, then swish it away
to the icy valleys beneath, where drifts could do no harm, where there
were no struggling crews and dogged, half-dead men.

A repetition of the foul-smelling wooden tunnels, the sulphur fumes,
the gasping of stricken men. The same long, horrible hours, the same
staggering release from labor and the welcome hardness of a sleeping
spot on a wooden floor. Night after night it was the same--starlight
and snow, fair weather and storm. Barry Houston had become a
rough-bearded, tattered piece of human machinery like all the rest.
Then, at last--

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