The Silent Barrier

In all London at that moment there was not a more level headed man of his years. He was twenty-eight, an expert mining engineer, and the successful pioneer of a new method of hauling ore. Even in Western America, “God’s own country,” as it is held to be by those who live there, few men “arrive” so early in life. Some, it is true, amass wealth by lucky speculation before they are fitted by experience to earn the price of a suit of clothes. But they are of the freak order. They are not to be classed with one who by hard work wrests a fortune out of the grim Colorado granite. Spencer had been called on to endure long years of rebuff and scorn. Though scoffed at by many who thought he was wrong, he persisted because he knew he was right.

Ofttimes Fate will test such a man almost to breaking point. Then she yields, and, being feminine, her obduracy is the measure of her favors, for she will bestow on her dogged suitor all, and more than all, that he desired.

The draft from Leadville, crammed so carelessly into a pocket when he followed the three to the door, was a fair instance of this trick of hers. A tunnel, projected and constructed in the teeth of ridicule and financial opposition, had linked up the underground workings of several mines, and proved conclusively that it was far cheaper to bring minerals to the rail in that manner than to sink expensive shafts, raise the ore to the top of a mountain, and cart it to its old level in the valley.

Once the thing was indisputable, the young engineer found himself rich and famous. To increase the feeders of the main bore, he drove another short gallery through a mining claim acquired for a few dollars, – a claim deemed worthless owing to a geological fault that traversed its whole length. That was Fate’s opportunity. Doubtless she smiled mischievously when she gave him a vein of rich quartz through which to quarry his way. The mere delving of the rock had produced two thousand dollars’ worth of ore, of which sum he took a moiety by agreement with the company that purchased his rights.

People in Leadville soon discovered that Spencer was a bright man, – “yes, sir, a citizen of whom the chief mining city of the Rocky Mountains has every reason to be proud,” – and the railway magnate who had nearly ruined him by years of hostility buried the past grandiloquently with a mot.

“Charles K. Spencer can’t be sidetracked,” he said. “That K isn’t in his name by accident. Look at it, – a regular buffer of a letter! Tell you what, you may monkey with Charles; but when you hit the K look out for trouble.”

Whereupon the miners laughed, and said that the president was a mighty smart man too, and Spencer, who knew he was a thief, but was unwilling to quarrel with him for the sake of the company, thought that a six months’ vacation in Europe would make for peace and general content.

He had no plans. He was free to wander whithersoever chance led him. Arriving in London from Plymouth late on a Thursday evening, he took a bus-driver’s holiday on Friday. Finding a tunnel under the Thames in full progress near the hotel, he sought the resident engineer, spoke to him in the lingua franca of the craft, and spent several dangerous and enjoyable hours in crawling through all manner of uncomfortable passages bored by human worms beneath the bed of the river.

And this was Saturday, and here he was, at three o’clock in the afternoon, turning over in his mind the best way of sending on an expensive trip abroad a girl who had not the remotest notion of his existence. It was a whim, and a harmless one, and he excused it to his practical mind by the reflection that he was entitled to one day of extravagance after seven years of hard labor. For his own part, he was weary of mountains. He had wrought against one, frowning and stubborn as any Alp, and had not desisted until he reached its very heart with a four thousand foot lance. Switzerland was the last place in Europe he would visit. He wanted to see old cities and dim cathedrals, to lounge in pleasant lands where rivers murmured past lush meadows. Though an American born and bred, there was a tradition in his home that the Spencers were once people of note on the border. When tired of London, he meant to go north, and ramble through Liddesdale in search of family records. But the business presently on hand was to arrange that Swiss excursion for “Helen,” and he set about it with characteristic energy.

In the first instance, he noted her name and address on the back of the Leadville envelop. Then he sought the manager.

“I guess you know Switzerland pretty well,” he said, when a polite man was produced by a boy.

The assumption was well founded. In fact, the first really important looking object the manager remembered seeing in this world was the giant Matterhorn, because his mother told him that if he was a bad boy he would be carried off by the demons that dwelt on its summit.

“What sort of places are Evian-les-Bains and Champèry?” went on Spencer.

“Evian is a fashionable lakeside town. Champèry is in the hills behind it. When Evian becomes too hot in August, one goes to Champèry to cool down.”

“Are they anywhere near the Engadine?”

“Good gracious, no! They are as different as chalk and cheese.”

“Is the Engadine the cheese? Does it take the biscuit?”

The manager laughed. Like all Londoners, he regarded every American as a humorist. “It all depends,” he said. “For my part, I think the Upper Engadine is far and away the most charming section of Switzerland; but there are ladies of my acquaintance who would unhesitatingly vote for Evian, and for a score of other places where there are promenades and casinos. Are you thinking of making a tour there?”

“There’s no telling where I may bring up when I cross the Channel,” said Spencer. “I have heard some talk of the two districts, and it occurred to me that you were just the man to give me a few useful pointers.”

“Well, the average tourist rushes from one valley to another, tramps over a pass each morning, and spends the afternoon in a train or on board a lake steamer. But if I wanted a real rest, and wished at the same time to be in a center from which pleasant walks, or stiff climbs for that matter, could be obtained, I should go by the Engadine Express to St. Moritz, and drive from there to the Maloja-Kulm, where there is an excellent hotel and usually a number of nice people.”

“English?”

“Yes, English and Americans. They select the best as a rule, you know.”

“It sounds attractive,” said Spencer.

“And it is, believe me. Don’t forget the name, Maloja-Kulm. It is twelve miles from everywhere, and practically consists of the one big hotel.”

Spencer procured his hat, gloves, and stick, and called a cab. “Take me to ‘The Firefly’ office,” he said.

“Beg pawdon, sir, but where’s that?” asked the driver.

“It’s up to you to find out.”

“Then w’at is it, guv’nor? I’ve heerd of the ’Orse an’ ’Ound, the Chicken’s Friend, the Cat, an’ the Bee; but the Firefly leaves me thinkin’. Is it a noospaper?”

“Something of the sort.”

“All right, sir. Jump in. We’ll soon be on its track.”

The hansom scampered off to Fleet-st. As the result of inquiries Spencer was deposited at the entrance to a dingy court, the depths of which, he was assured, were illumined by “The Firefly.” There is nothing that so mystifies the citizen of the New World as the hole-and-corner aspect of some of the business establishments of London. He soon learns, however, to differentiate between the spidery dens where money is amassed and the soot laden tenements in which the struggle for existence is keen. A comprehensive glance at the exterior of the premises occupied by “The Firefly” at once explained to Spencer why the cabman did not know its whereabouts. Three small rooms sufficed for its literary and commercial staff, and “To let” notices stared from several windows in the same building.

“Appearances are deceptive ever,” murmured he, as he scanned the legends on three doors in a narrow lobby; “but I think I’m beginning to catch on to the limited extent of Miss Helen’s earnings from her scientific paragraphs.”

He knocked at each door; but received no answer. Then, having sharp ears, he tried the handle of one marked “Private.” It yielded, and he entered, to be accosted angrily by a pallid, elderly, bewhiskered man, standing in front of a much littered table.

“Confound it, sir!” came the growl, “don’t you know it is Saturday afternoon? And what do you mean by coming in unannounced?”

“Guess you’re the editor?” said Spencer.

“What if I am?”

“I’ve just happened along to have a few quiet words with you. If there’s no callers Saturdays, why, that’s exactly what I want, and I came right in because you didn’t answer my knock.”

“I tell you I’m not supposed to be here.”

“Then you shouldn’t draw corks while anybody is damaging the paint outside.”

Spencer smiled so agreeably that the editor of “The Firefly” softened. At first, he had taken his visitor for an unpaid contributor; but the American accent banished this phantom of the imagination. He continued to pour into a tumbler the contents of a bottle of beer.

“Well,” he said, “now that you are here, what can I do for you, Mr. – ”

“Spencer – Charles K. Spencer.”

Instantly it struck the younger man that little more than an hour had elapsed since he gave his name to the letter clerk in the hotel. The singularity of his proceedings during that hour was thereby brought home to him. He knew nothing of newspapers, daily or weekly; but commonsense suggested that “The Firefly’s” radiance was not over-powering. His native shrewdness advised caution, though he felt sure that he could, in homely phrase, twist this faded journalist round his little finger.

“Before I open the ball,” he said, “may I see a copy of your magazine?”

Meanwhile the other was trying to sum him up. He came to the conclusion that his visitor meant to introduce some new advertising scheme, and, as “The Firefly” was sorely in need of advertisements, he decided to listen.

“Here is last week’s issue,” he said, handing to Spencer a small sixteen-page publication. The American glanced through it rapidly, while the editor sampled the beer.

“I see,” said Spencer, after he had found a column signed “H. W.,” which consisted of paragraphs translated from a German article on airships, – “I see that ‘The Firefly’ scintillates around the Tree of Knowledge.”

The editor relaxed sufficiently to smile. “That is a good description of its weekly flights,” he said.

“You don’t use many cuts?”

“N-no. They are expensive and hard to obtain for such subjects as we favor.”