Thurston of Orchard Valley

"I don't know that I can condense what I have to say," he answered airily, addressing Thurston. "Fact is, in the first place, and before Mr. Leslie asks a question, I want to know whether we – that is I – can still come to terms with you. It's tolerably well-known that my colleagues are, so to speak, men of straw, and individually I figure it might be better for both of us if we patched up a compromise. I can't sketch out the rest of my programme in the open air, but, as a general idea, what do you think, Mr. Savine?"

"That your suggestion comes rather late in the day," was the answer.

Shackleby was silent for a moment, though, for it was quite dark now that the train had gone. Savine could not be quite certain whether he moved against Leslie by accident or deliberately hustled him a few paces away. Geoffrey, however, felt certain that neither had seen Millicent, nor, thanks to Savine, suspected that she was on board the departing cars. Just then a deep-toned whistle vibrated across the pines, somebody waved a lantern between the rails, and the panting of the freight locomotive's pump became silent. The track led down grade past the station towards the coast.

"Better late than never," said Shackleby. "My hand's a good one still. I'm not sure I won't call you."

"To save time I'll show you mine a little sooner than I meant to do, and you'll see the game's up," replied Geoffrey, grimly. "It may prevent you from worrying me during the next week or two, and you can't well profit by it. I've got Black, who is quite ready to go into court at any time, where you can't get at him. I've got the nearest magistrate's warrant executed on the person of your other rascal, and Black will testify as to his record, which implies the throwing of a sidelight upon your own. No doubt, to save himself, the other man will turn against you. In addition, if it's necessary, which I hardly think possible, I have even more damaging testimony. I have sworn a statement before the said magistrate for the Crown-lands authorities, and purpose sending a copy to each of your directors individually. That ought to be sufficient, and I have no more time to waste with you."

"But you have me to settle with, or I'll blast your name throughout the province if I drag my own in the mud. Where's my wife?" snarled Leslie, wrenching himself free from his confederate's restraining grasp.

"If you're bent on making a fool of yourself, and I guess you can't help it, go on your own way," interposed Shackleby, with ironical contempt.

"I have no intention of telling you where Mrs. Leslie is," asserted Geoffrey. "You will hear from her when she considers it advisable to write."

A whir of driver wheels slipping on the rails came down the track, followed by a shock of couplings tightening and the snorting of a heavy locomotive, but none of the party noticed it.

"She was here; you can't deny it," shouted Leslie, who had yielded to a fit of rabid fury. He was not a courageous man, and had been held in check by fear of Shackleby, but there was some spirit in him, and, perhaps because he had injured Thurston, had always hated him. Now when his case seemed desperate, with the boldness of a rat driven into a corner, he determined to tear the hand that crushed him.

"I'll take action against you. I'll blazon it in the press. I'll close every decent house in the province against you," he continued, working himself up into a frenzy. "Where have you hidden my wife? By Heaven, I'll make you tell me."

"Take care!" warned Geoffrey, straightening himself and thrusting one big hand behind his back. "It is desperately hard for me to keep my fingers off you now, but if you say another word against Mrs. Leslie, look to yourself. Shackleby, you have heard him; now for the woman's sake listen to me. I have never wronged your wife by thought or word, Leslie, and the greatest indiscretion she was ever guilty of was marrying you."

"You have hidden her!" almost screamed the desperate man. "I'll have satisfaction one way if you're too strong for me another. Liar, traitor, sed – "

Geoffrey strode forward before the last word was completed, Leslie flung up one hand, but Shackleby struck it aside in time, and something that fell from it clinked with a metallic sound. Exactly how what followed really happened was never quite certain. Leslie, blind with rage, either tripped over his confederate's outstretched foot, or lost his balance, for just as a blaze of light beat upon the group, he staggered, clutched at Thurston, and missing him, stepped over the edge of the platform and fell full length between the rails.

There was a yell from a man with a lantern and a sudden hoot from the whistle of the big locomotive. Savine's face turned white under the glare of the headlight. With a reckless leap Geoffrey followed his enemy. Only conscious of the man's peril, he acted upon impulse without reflection.

"Good God! They'll both be killed!" exclaimed Shackleby.

Thurston was strong of limb and every muscle in him had been toughened by strenuous toil, but Leslie had struck his head on the rails and lay still, stunned and helpless. The lift was heavy for the man who strove to raise him, and though the brakes screamed along the line of cars the locomotive was almost upon them. Standing horrified, and, without power to move, the two spectators saw Geoffrey still gripping his enemy's shoulders, heave himself erect in a supreme effort, then the cow-catcher on the engine's front struck them both, and Savine felt, rather than heard, a sickening sound as the huge machine swept resistlessly on. Afterward he declared that the suspense which followed while the long box-cars rolled by was horrible, for nothing could be seen, and the two men shivered with the uncertainty as to what might be happening beneath the grinding wheels.

When the last car passed both leapt down upon the track, and a man joined them holding a lantern aloft. Savine stooped over Thurston, who lay just clear of the rails, looking strangely limp.

"Another second would have done it – did I heave him clear?" he gasped. He tried to raise himself by one hand but fell back with a groan.

"I guess not," answered a railroad employé, holding the lantern higher, and while two others ran up the tracks, the light fell upon a shapeless, huddled heap. "That one has passed his checks in, certain," the holder of the lantern announced.

Within ten minutes willing assistants from the tiny settlement were on the spot and stretchers were improvised. Savine had bidden the agent telegraph for a doctor, and the two victims were slowly carried towards the New Eldorado saloon. When they were gently laid down an elderly miner, familiar with accidents, pointing to Thurston after making a hasty examination said:

"This one has got his arm broken, collar-bone gone, too, but if there's nothing busted inside he'll come round. The other one has been stone dead since the engine hit him."

There were further proffers of help from several of his comrades, who, as usual with their kind, possessed some knowledge of rude surgery. When all that was possible had been done for the living, Savine was drawn aside by Shackleby.

"This is what he dropped on the platform – I picked it up quietly," he said, holding out an ivory-handled revolver. "No use letting any ugly tales get round or raking up that other story, is it? I don't know whether Thurston induced Leslie's wife to run off or not – from what I have heard of him I hardly think he did – but one may as well let things simmer down gracefully."

"I am grateful for your thoughtfulness," replied Savine. "Probably it is more than he would have done for you. This is hardly the time to discuss such questions, but what has happened can't affect our position. Still, personally, I may not feel inclined to push merely vindictive measures against you."

"I didn't think it would change matters," said Shackleby, with a shrug. "If I should be wanted I'm open to describe the – accident – and let other details slide. The railroad fellows suspect nothing. Thurston has made your side a strong one, and in a way I don't blame him. If he had stood in with me, we'd have smashed up your brother completely."

CHAPTER XXIX

A REVELATION

Two persons were strangely affected and stirred to unexpected action by the news of Thurston's injury, and the first of these was Julius Savine. It was late next night when his brother's messenger arrived at the ranch, for Thomas had thought of nothing but the sufferer's welfare at first, and Savine lay, a very frail, wasted figure, dozing by the stove. His sister-in-law sat busy over some netting close at hand. Both were startled when a man, who held out a soiled envelope, came in abruptly. Savine read the message and tossed the paper across to Mrs. Savine before he rose shakily to his feet.

"I would sooner have heard anything than that Geoffrey was badly hurt," he exclaimed with a quaver in his voice. To the Chinaman, who brought the stranger in, he gave the order, "Get him some supper and tell Fontaine I want him at once."

"Poor Geoffrey! We must hope it is not serious," cried Mrs. Savine with visible distress. "But sit down. You can't help him, and may bring on a seizure by exciting yourself, Julius."

Savine, who did not answer her, remained standing until the hired hand whom he had summoned, entered. "Ride your hardest to the camp and tell Foreman Tom I'm coming over to take charge until Mr. Thurston, who has met with an accident, recovers," he said. "He's to send a spare horse and a couple of men to help the sleigh over the washed-out trail. Come back at your best pace. I must reach the cañon before morning."

"Are you mad, Julius?" asked his sister-in-law when the men retired. "It's even chances the excitement or the journey will kill you."

"Then I must take the chances," declared Savine. "While there was a man I could trust to handle things, I let this weakness master me. Now the poor fellow's helpless, somebody must take hold before chaos ensues, and I haven't quite forgotten everything. You'll have to nurse Geoffrey, and it's no use trying to scare me. Fill my big flask with the old brandy and get my furs out."

Mrs. Savine saw further remonstrance would be useless. She considered her brother-in-law more fit for his grave than to complete a great undertaking, but he was clearly bent on having his way. When she hinted something of her thoughts, he answered that even so he would rather die at work in the cañon than tamely in his bed. So shivering under a load of furs he departed in the sleigh, and after several narrow escapes of an upset, reached the camp in the dusk of a nipping morning.

"Help me out. Mr. Thurston, I am sorry to say, has met with a bad accident, and you and I have got to finish this work without him," he said to the anxious foreman. "From what he told me I can count upon your doing the best that's in you, Tom."

"I won't go back on nothing Mr. Thurston said," was the quiet answer; but when Tom from Mattawa left Savine, whose nerveless fingers spilled half the contents of the silver cup he strove to fill, gasping beside the stove in Thurston's quarters, he gravely shook his head.

Several days elapsed after Helen's departure for Vancouver before Mrs. Savine, who had gone at once to the scene of the accident, considered it judicious to inform her of Geoffrey's condition, and so it happened that one evening Helen accompanied her hostess to witness the performance of a Western dramatic company. Despite second-rate acting the play was a pretty one, and each time the curtain went down Helen found the combination of bright light, pretty dresses, laughter and merry voices strangely pleasant after her isolation. At times her thoughts would wander back to the ice-bound cañon and the man who had pitted himself against the thundering river in its gloomy depths. Perhaps the very contrast between this scene of brightness and luxury and the savage wilderness emphasized the self-abnegation he had shown. She knew now that he had toiled beyond most men's strength, when he might have rested, and casting away what would have insured him a life of ease, had voluntarily chosen an almost hopeless struggle for her sake. Few women had been wooed so, she reflected, and then she endeavored to confine her attention to the play, for as yet, though both proud and grateful, she could not admit that she had been won.

Presently the son of her hostess, who joined the party between the acts, handed her a note. "I am sorry I could not get here before, but found this waiting, and thought I'd better bring it along. I hope it's not a summons of recall," he said.

Helen opened the envelope, and the hurriedly-written lines grew blurred before her eyes as she read, "I am grieved to say that Geoffrey has been seriously injured by an accident. The doctor has, however, some hopes of his recovery, though he won't speak definitely yet. If you can find an intelligent woman in Vancouver you could trust to help me nurse him, send her along. Didn't write before because – "

"What is it? No bad news of your father, I hope," her hostess asked, and the son, a fine type of the young Western citizen, noticed the dismay in Helen's face as she answered:

"Nothing has happened to my father. His partner has been badly hurt. I must return to-morrow, and, as it is a tiresome journey, if you will excuse me, I would rather not sit out the play."

The young man noticed that Helen seemed to shiver, while her voice was strained. He discreetly turned away his head, though he had seen sufficient to show him that certain lately-renewed hopes were vain.

"Miss Savine has not been used to gayety of late, and I warned her she must take it quietly, especially with that ride through the ranges before her. This place is unsufferably hot, and you can trust me to see her safe home, mother," he said.

Helen's grateful, "Thank you!" was reward enough, but it was in an unenviable humor that the young man returned to the theater when she sought refuge in her own room.

Solitude appeared a vital necessity, for at last Helen understood. Ever since Thurston first limped, footsore and hungry, into her life she had been alternately attracted and repelled by him. His steadfast patience and generosity had almost melted her at times, but from the beginning, circumstances had seemed to conspire against the man, shadowing him with suspicion, and forcing him into opposition to her will. Mrs. Savine's story had made his unswerving loyalty plain, and Helen had begun to see that she would with all confidence trust her life to him; but she was proud, and knowing how she had misjudged him, hesitated still. As long as a word or a smile could bring him to her feet she could postpone the day of reckoning at least until his task was finished, and thus allow him to prove his devotion to the uttermost test.

Now, however, fate had intervened, tearing away all disguise, and her eyes were opened. She knew that without him the future would be empty, and the revelation stirred every fiber of her being. Growing suddenly cold with a shock of fear she remembered that she had perhaps already lost him forever. It might be that another more solemn summons had preceded her own, and that she might call and Geoffrey Thurston would not hear! He had won his right to rest by work well done, but she – it now seemed that a lifetime would be too short to mourn him. Helen shivered at the thought, then she felt as if she were suffocating. Turning the light low, she flung the long window open. Beyond the electric glare of the city, with its shapeless pile of roofs and towering poles, the mountains rose, serenely majestic, in robes of awful purity. They were beckoning her she felt. The man whom she had learned to love too late lay among them, perhaps with the strong hands that had toiled for her folded in peace at last, and, living or dead, she must go to him. She remembered that the message said, – "Hire a capable woman in Vancouver," and it brought her a ray of comfort. If the time was not already past she would ask nothing better than to wait on him herself. Presently, when there was a hum of voices below, Helen, white of face but steady in nerves, descended to meet her hostess.

"I must go back to-morrow, and as it is a fatiguing journey you will not mind my retiring early," she said to excuse her absence from the supper party that was assembled after the play.

On reaching the railroad settlement Helen found the doctor in charge of Thurston willing to avail himself of her assistance. The physician had barely held his own in several encounters with her aunt, whom he suspected of endeavoring to administer unauthorized preparations to his patient, while on her part Mrs. Savine freely admitted that at her age she could not sit up all night forever. So Helen was installed, and it was midnight when she commenced her first watch.

"You will call me at once if the patient wakes complaining of any pain," said the surgeon. "Do I think he is out of danger? Well, he is very weak yet, my dear young lady, but if you will carry out my orders, I fancy we may hope for the best. But you must remember that a nurse's chief qualifications are presence of mind and a perfect serenity."