"Hammered the inside of the landings down with a gullet you could put your finger in. Too much energy's your mate's complaint. n.o.body could tell what that man would do when he gets steam up. Understand, we're boiler-making specialists, sent out on awkward jobs; and he'd put in work that would disgrace a farmer! For all that, it was Bill's fault for speaking his mind too free--he got thrown behind the tank."

"I wasn't," contradicted the other. "He jumped at me unexpected when the spanner hit him, and I fell."

Prescott laughed. Remembering how Jernyngham had driven a truculent rabble out of Sebastian, he could imagine the scene in the shed; but it was evident that the boiler-makers bore him no malice.

"After all," said the first one, "when we cooled off and got talking quiet, he said he'd better go, and we parted friendly."

"Do you know where he went?"

"I don't; we didn't care. We'd had enough of him. First thing was to put that caulking right, and we spent three or four days driving the landings down--you can do a lot with good soft steel. Anyhow, when we filled up the time-sheet showing how far we'd got on with the job, there was a nasty letter from the engineer. Wanted to know what we'd been playing at and said he'd have us sent home if we couldn't do better."

While Prescott thanked them for the information a bell began to toll and there was a rattle of wheels. Hurrying out, he saw a locomotive approaching the tank and men clambering on to the cars in which he had traveled. Soon after he joined them, the train rolled out of the side-track and sped west, clattering and jolting toward the lurid sunset that burned upon the edge of the plain. Jack-pines and scattered birches stood out hard and black against the glare, the rails blazed with crimson fire and faded as the ruddy light changed to cold green, and there was a sting of frost in the breeze.

They dropped a few men at places where work was going on, stopped for water, and crawled at slow speed over half-finished bridges and lengths of roughly graded line. After nightfall it grew bitterly cold and Prescott, lying on the boards with his blanket over him, shivered, half asleep. For the most part, darkness shut them in, but every now and then lights blazed beside the line and voices hailed the engineer as the pace decreased. Then, while the whistle shrieked, ballast cars on a side-track and tall iron frameworks slipped by, and they ran out again into the silent waste. Prescott was conscious of a continuous jolting which shook him to and fro; he thought he heard a confused altercation among his companions at the end of the car, and the clang of wheels and the shaking rails rang in measured cadence in his ears. Then the sounds died away and he fell into a heavy sleep.

It was noon the next day when he alighted, aching all over, where the line ran into a deep hollow between fir-clad hills. A stream came flashing through the gorge and at the mouth of it shacks and tents and small frame houses straggled up a rise, with a wooden church behind them.

Farther up, the hollow was filled with somber conifers, and the hills above it ran back, ridge beyond ridge, into the distance. Then, looking very high and far away, a vast chain of snowy summits was etched against a sky of softest blue. Those that caught the light gleamed with silvery brightness, but part of the great range lay in shadow, steeped in varying hues of ethereal gray. From north to south, as far as the eye could follow, the serrated line of crag and peak swept on majestically.

Tired as he was, Prescott felt the impressiveness of the spectacle; but he had other things to think about, and slipping away from the railroad hands, he turned toward a rude frame hotel which stood among the firs beside the river. Rows of tall stumps spread about it, farther back lay rows of logs, diffusing a sweet resinous fragrance. Through a gap between the towering trunks one looked up the wild, forest-shrouded gorge, and the litter of old provision cans, general refuse, and discarded boots could not spoil the beauty of the scene. Prescott asked for a room; and sitting outside after dinner, he gathered from some men, who were not working, the story of Kermode's next exploit. Their accounts of it were terse and somewhat disconnected, but Prescott was afterward able to amplify them from the narrative of a more cultured person.

Kermode had been unloading rails all day, and he was standing on the veranda one evening when a supply train from the east was due. It appeared that he had renewed his wardrobe at the local store and invariably changed his clothes when his work was finished. This was looked upon as a very unusual thing, and his companions thought it even more curious that he had not been known to enter the bar of the hotel; its proprietor was emphatic on the point. A number of railroad hands lounged about, attired as usual in their working clothes.

At length the tolling of a bell broke through the silence of the woods and the train ran in. The rutted street became crowded with unkempt, thirsty men, and in a few minutes the hotel was filled with their harsh voices. Last of all appeared a girl, with a very untidy man carrying a bag beside her. She walked with a limp, and looked jaded and rather frightened. Her light cloak was thick with dust and locomotive cinders which clung to the woolly material; her face was hot and anxious, but attractive.

"Thank you," she said to her companion, opening her purse when they reached the veranda.

"Shucks! You can put that back," returned the man with an awkward gesture and then, lifting the bag, carefully replaced the end of a garment that projected through the bottom. "I'll carry the grip in for you, but you want to be careful with the thing. Seems to have got busted when the rails fell on it."

The girl pa.s.sed through a wire-net door that he opened, and Kermode, following, waited for several minutes after her companion had rung a bell. Then a man in a white shirt and smart clothes appeared.

"Can I send a telegram from here to Drummond?" she asked him.

"No; the wires won't run into that district until next year."

"How can I get there?"

"I guess you'll have to hire a team at the livery-stable; take you about three days to get through."

The girl looked dismayed.

"Then can you give me a room to-night?" she asked.

"Sorry," said the man, "we're full up with the railroad boys; the waitresses have to camp in the kitchen. Don't know if anybody can take you in; the track bosses have got all the rooms in town."

He disappeared and the girl sat down, looking very forlorn and disconsolate. Her voice was English and she had obviously traveled a long distance in an open car on the supply train. Kermode felt sorry for her.

He took off his hat as he approached.

"If you don't mind waiting a few minutes, I'll see if I can find you quarters," he said.

She glanced at him suspiciously, with a heightened color, which he thought a favorable sign, but her eyes grew more confident and when she agreed he withdrew. As a man of experience who had been a favorite with women, he was, however, guilty of an error of judgment during his search.

A smart young woman with whom he was on friendly terms managed a cigar store, and it is possible that she would have taken some trouble to oblige him; but his request that she should offer shelter to another girl whose acquaintance he seemed to have made in a most casual manner was received with marked coldness. Kermode, indeed, felt sorry he had suggested it when he left the store and set out for a shack belonging to the widow of a man killed on the line. She was elderly and grim, a strict Methodist from the east, who earned a pittance by mending the workmen's clothes. After catechizing Kermode severely, she gave a very qualified a.s.sent; and returning to the hotel, he found the girl anxiously waiting for him. She looked relieved when he reported his success.

"I had better go at once," she said. "You think Mrs. Jasper will take me in?"

Kermode picked up the bag.

"To tell the truth, she only promised to have a look at you." Then he smiled rea.s.suringly. "I've no doubt there'll be no difficulty when she has done so."

The girl followed him and, as they went slowly up the street, while all the loungers watched them, she gave Kermode a confused explanation. Her name was Helen Foster, and she had come from England to join a brother who had taken up a farm near Drummond, which Prescott had heard was a remote settlement. Her brother had told her to notify him on her arrival at Winnipeg and await instructions, but on board the steamer she had met the wife of a railroad man engaged on the new line who had offered her company to a point in the west from which Helen could reach her destination. On arriving at the railroad man's station, he had sent her on by the supply train.

A little distance up the street, Kermode stopped outside a shed in which a fellow of unprepossessing appearance was rubbing down a horse. His character, as Kermode knew, was no better than his looks.

"I must see the liveryman," he told the girl, and when he had sent the hostler for him the proprietor came out.

"The round-trip to Drummond will take six days, and you'd want a team,"

he said. "I'd have to charge you thirty dollars."

Kermode looked dubious, his companion dismayed. She had three dollars and a few cents.

"Can you drive this lady there?" Kermode asked.

"I can't. Jim would have to go."

"I think not," said Kermode firmly. "I'll see you about a saddle-horse in the morning." He turned to the girl: "We'll go along again."

A few minutes later they reached the widow's shack and Kermode waited some time after his companion was admitted. As she did not come out, he concluded that Mrs. Jasper was satisfied and returned to the hotel, where he was freely bantered by the loungers.

"That will do, boys," he said at length. "If there's any more of this kind of talk, the man who keeps it up will get badly hurt."

They saw that he meant it and, as he was popular, they left him in peace.

CHAPTER XV

MISS FOSTER'S ESCORT

On the morning after he met Helen Foster, Kermode sought a foreman with whom he was on good terms.

"I want to quit work for a week," he said abruptly.

"Sorry; I can't give you leave, and the boss went down the line yesterday. If you let up before you see him, it's quite likely he won't take you back."

"If he doesn't I won't be very grieved. Throwing forty-foot rails about all day palls on one. But what about my wages up to date?"