CHAPTER XXVI
_The Day of Reckoning_
If Miss Hartwell was a debtor she was a creditor as well. In spite of acalm exterior, the hand that so tightly clasped Elise's throbbed andpulsed with every tumultuous beat of the heart that was stirred with astrange excitement born of mortal terror. Gradually the rapid strokesslowed down till, with the restful calm that comes to strained nerves inthe presence of a stronger, unquestioning will, the even ebb and flow ofpulsing blood resumed its normal tenor.
The bread that Elise had cast upon the waters returned to her in amanifold measure. The vague sense of oppression which she had felt onleaving the doors of the Blue Goose gave way to an equally vague senseof restful assurance. She could dissect neither emotion, nor could shegive either a name. The sense of comfort was vague; other emotions stoodout clearly. These demanded immediate attention. She rose gently, butdecidedly. The calm beat of the clasping hand again quickened with hermotion.
"I must leave you now." Her voice was even, but full of sympathy.
"Don't. Please don't. I can't bear it."
"I must; and you must." She was gently freeing the clasping hand.
"Where are you going?"
"To the mine, to warn Mr. Firmstone."
"Don't go! Why not telephone?" The last was spoken with eagerness bornof the inspiration of despair.
"The wires are cut." Her hand was free now and Miss Hartwell was alsostanding. There was a deathly pallor on the quiet face, only the rapidbeat of the veins on her temples showed the violence of the emotion shewas mastering so well.
"But my brother?"
"Your brother is perfectly safe." Elise told briefly the circumstancesof Hartwell's capture and detention. "They have men posted in the canon;they have men between here and the mine. Mr. Firmstone does not know it.He will try to come down. They will kill him. He must not try to comedown."
"How can you get up there?" Miss Hartwell clutched eagerly at thisstraw.
Elise smiled resolutely.
"I am going up on the tram. Now you must listen carefully." Sheunbuckled her belt and placed her revolver in Miss Hartwell's listlesshands. "Keep away from the windows. If there is any firing lie down onthe floor close to the wall. Nothing will get through the logs." Sheturned toward the door. "You must come and lock up after me."
At the door Miss Hartwell stood for a moment, irresolute. She offered nofurther objections to Elise's going. That it cost a struggle was plainlyshown in the working lines of her face. Only for a moment she stood,then, yielding to an overmastering impulse, she laid her hands on theshoulders of Elise.
"Good-bye," she whispered. "You are a brave girl."
Elise bent her lips to those of Miss Hartwell.
"Yours is the hardest part. But it isn't good-bye."
The door closed behind her, and she heard the click of the bolt shothome.
There were a few resolute men in the mill. It was short-handed; but thebeating stamps pounded out defiance. In the tram tower Elise spoke tothe attendant.
"Stop the tram."
The swarthy Italian touched his hat.
"Yes, miss."
The grinding brake was applied and an empty bucket swung gently to andfro.
"Now, Joe, do just as I tell you. I am going up in this bucket." Sheglanced at the number. "When three-twenty comes in stop. Don't start upagain for a half hour at least."
The man looked at her in dumb surprise.
"You go in the tram?" he asked. "What for?"
"To warn Mr. Firmstone."
For reply, the man brushed her aside and began clambering into the emptybucket.
"Me go," he said, grimly.
Elise laid a detaining hand upon him.
"No. You must run the tram. I can't."
"Me go," he insisted. "Cable jump sheave? What matter? One damn dagogone. Plenty more. No more Elise."
Elise pulled at him violently. He was ill-balanced. The pull brought himto the floor, but Elise did not loose her hold. Her eyes were flashing.
"Do as I told you."
The man brought a ladder and Elise sprang lightly up the rounds.
"All right," she said. "Go ahead."
The man unloosed the brake. There was a tremor along the cable; the nextinstant the bucket shot from the door of the tower and glided swiftly upthe line.
"Don't forget. Three-twenty." Already the voice was faint with distance.
In spite of injunctions to the contrary, Miss Hartwell was looking outof the window. She saw, below the shafts of sunlight already streamingover the mountain, the line of buckets stop, swing back and forth, sawthe cable tremble, and again the long line of buckets sway gently as thecable grew taut and the buckets again slid up and down. Her heart wasbeating wildly as she lifted her eyes to the dizzy height. She knew wellwhat the stopping and the starting meant. Sharp drawn against the loftysky, the great cable seemed a slender thread to hold a human life intrust. What if the clutch should slip that held the bucket in place?What if other clutches should slip and let the heavy masses of steelslide down the cable to dash into the one that held the girl who hadgrown so dear to her? In vain she pushed these possibilities aside. Theyreturned with increased momentum and hurled themselves into hershrinking soul. There were these dangers. "All employees of the RainbowCompany are forbidden to ride on the tram. ANY EMPLOYEE VIOLATING THISRULE WILL BE INSTANTLY DISCHARGED." These words burned themselves on hervision in characters of fire. Elise had explained all of these things toher, and now! She buried her face in her trembling hands. Not for long.Again her face, pale and drawn, was turned upward. She moaned aloud. Ablack mass clinging to the cable was rising and sinking, swaying fromside to side, a slender figure poised in the swinging bucket, steadiedby a white hand that grasped the rim of steel. She turned from thewindow resolved to see no more. Her resolution fled. She was again atthe window with upturned face and straining eyes, white lips whisperingprayers that God might be good to the girl who was risking her life foranother. The slender threads even then had vanished. There was only afleck of black floating high above the rambling town, above the rocksmercilessly waiting below. She did not see all. At the mine two stealthymen were even then stuffing masses of powder under the foundations thatheld the cables to their work. Even as she looked and prayed aflickering candle flame licked into fiery life a hissing, spitting fuseand two men scrambled and clambered to safety from the awful wreck thatwas to come. A smoking fuse eating its way to death and "320" not yet inthe mill! She saw another sight.
From out the shadow of the eastern mountain, a band of uncouth menemerged, swung into line and bunched on the level terrace beyond theboarding-house. Simultaneously every neighbouring boulder blossomedforth in tufts of creamy white that writhed and widened till they meltedin thin air like noisome, dark-grown fungi that wilt in the light ofday. Beyond and at the feet of the clustered men spiteful spurts of dustleaped high in air, then drifted and sank, to be replaced by others.Faint, meaningless cries wove through the drifting crash of rifles,blossoming tufts sprang up again and again from boulders near and far.Answering cries flew back from the opening cluster of men, other tuftstongued with yellow flame sprang out from their levelled guns. Now andthen a man spun around and dropped, a huddled grey on the spurting sand.
It was not in man long to endure the sheltered fire. Dragging theirwounded, Jack Haskins's gang again converged, and headed in wild retreatfor the office. The opposing tufts came nearer, and now and then a darkform straightened and advanced to another shelter, or was hidden fromsight by a bubble of fleecy white that burst from his shoulder. Close atthe heels of the fleeing men the spiteful spurts followed fast, tillthey died out in the thud of smitten logs and the crashing glass of theoffice.
The answering fire of the beleaguered men died to silence. The dark,distant forms grew daring, ran from shelter and clustered at the foot ofthe slide, across the trail from the Blue Goose. Rambling shots, yellsof defiance and triumph, broke from the gathering strikers. The shaftsof sunlight had swept dow
n the mountain, smiting hard the polishedwindows of the Blue Goose that blazed and flamed in their fierce glory.
Suddenly the clustered throng of strikers broke and fled. Cries ofterror pierced the air.
"The cables! The cables!"
Overhead the black webs were sinking and rising with spiteful snaps thatwhirled the buckets in wild confusion and sent their heavy loads of orecrashing to the earth, five hundred feet below. Then, with a rushing,dragging sweep, buckets and cables whirled downward. Full on the BlueGoose the tearing cables fell, dragging it to earth, a crushed andbroken mass.
Morrison's emissaries had done their work well. The tram-house at themine had been blown up. They had accomplished more than he had hopedfor. Pierre was in the bar-room when the cables fell. He had no time toescape, even had he seen or known.
Momentarily forgetful, the strikers swarmed around the fallen building,tearing aside crushed timbers, tugging at the snarled cable, ifperchance some of their own were within the ruins. There came thespiteful spat of a solitary bullet, then a volley. With a yell ofterror, the strikers broke and fled to the talus behind the saloon. Theywere now the pursued. They paused to fire no return shots. Stumbling,scrambling, dodging, through tangled scrub and sheltering thicket, downby the mill, down through the canon, spurred by zipping bullets thatclipped twigs and spat on stones around them; down by the Devil's Elbowthey fled, till sheltering scrub made pursuit dangerous; then,unmolested, they scattered, one by one, in pairs, in groups, never toreturn.
Even yet the startled echoes were repeating to the peaceful mountainsthe tale of riot and death, but they bent not from their calm to thecalm below that was looking up to them with the eyes of death. Set inits frame of splintered timbers, the body of Pierre rested, a ruinedlife in a ruined structure, and both still in death. Wide-open eyesstared from the swarthy face, the strained lips parted in a sardonicsmile, showing for the last time the gleaming teeth. Morrison hadtriumphed, but the wide open eyes saw the triumph that was yet defeat.Far up on the mountain-side they looked and saw death pursuing death.They saw Morrison climbing higher and higher, saw him strain his eyesever ahead, never behind, saw them rest on two figures, saw Morrisoncrouch behind a rock and a shimmer of light creep along the barrel ofhis levelled rifle. The eyes seemed eager as they rested on anotherfigure above him that stretched forth a steady hand; saw jets of flamespring from two guns. Then they gleamed with a brighter light as theysaw the rifle fall from Morrison's hand; saw Morrison straighten out,even as he lay, his face upturned and silent. That was all in life thatPierre cared to know. Perhaps the sun had changed, but the gleam oftriumph in the staring eyes faded to the glaze of death.
Elise knew well the danger that went with her up the line. It laidstrong hold upon her, as the loosened brake shot the bucket up the dizzycable. As she was swept up higher and higher she could only hope andpray that the catastrophe which she knew was coming might be delayeduntil the level stretch above the Falls was reached, where the cablesran so near the ground she might descend in safety. She had given Joethe right number, and she knew that nothing short of death would keephim from heeding her words. She turned her thoughts to other things.Cautiously she raised her eyes above the rim of the bucket and scannedthe winding trail. She saw men crouching behind boulders, but Firmstonewas not in sight, and strength and courage returned. Her bucket swept upover the crest of the Falls, and her heart stood still, as it glidedalong swiftly, eating up the level distance to another rise. The saddleclipped over the sheave, swung for an instant, then stood still. Sheclambered out, down the low tower, then sped to the trail and waited.
She rose to her feet, as from behind a sheltered cliff Firmstoneemerged, stern, erect, determined. He caught sight of Elise.
"What are you doing here?" he asked, fiercely.
"To keep you from going to the mill." There was an answering fiercenessin her eyes.
"Well, you are not going to." He brushed her aside.
"I am." She was again in his path.
He took hold of her almost harshly.
"Don't be a fool."
"Am I? Listen." There was the glint of steel on steel in the meetingeyes. Echoing shots dulled by distance yet smote plainly on their ears."Morrison's men are guarding the trail. They are in the canon. You can'tget through."
Firmstone's eyes softened as he looked into hers. The set line broke foran instant, then he looked down the trail. Suddenly he spun around onhis heel, wavered, then sank to the ground.
Elise dropped on her knees beside him, mumbling inaudible words withhusky voice. The hands that loosened the reddening collar of his shirtwere firm and decided. She did not hear the grate of Zephyr's shoes. Shewas only conscious of other hands putting hers aside. His knife cut theclothes that hid the wound. Zephyr took his hat from his head.
"Water," he said, holding out the hat.
Elise returned from the brook with the brimming hat. The closed eyesopened at the cooling drops.
"It's not so bad." He tried to rise, but Zephyr restrained him.
"Not yet."
Elise was looking anxiously above the trail. Zephyr noted the direction.
"No danger. 'Twas Morrison. He's done for."
Three or four miners were coming down the trail. They paused at thelittle group. Zephyr looked up.
"You're wanted. The old man's hit."
A litter was improvised and slowly and carefully they bore the woundedman down the trail. Zephyr was far in advance. He returned.
"It's all right. The gang's on the run."
The little procession headed straight for the office, and laid theirburden on the floor.
The company surgeon looked grave, as he carefully exposed the wound. ToElise it seemed ages.
Finally he spoke.
"It's a nasty wound; but he'll pull through."