The Iron Trail. Rex Beach
"I don't think so. You give people food and clothes with a careless wave of the hand; you give me my life with a shrug and a smile; you offer to give up your own to a boatful of strangers without a moment's hesitation. I—I think you are a remarkable person."
"You'll turn my head with such flattery if you aren't careful," he said with a slight flush. "Please talk of something sensible now, for an antidote—your plans, for instance."
"My plans are never sensible, and what few I have are as empty as my pockets. To tell the truth, I have neither plans nor pockets," she laughed, "since this is a borrowed gown."
"Pockets in gowns are entirely matters of hearsay, anyhow; I doubt if they exist. You are going back to Seattle?"
"Oh, I suppose so. It seems to be my fate, but I'm not a bit resigned. I'm one of those unfortunate people who can't bear to be disappointed."
"You can return on the next ship, at the company's expense."
"No. Mother would never allow it. In fact, when she learns that I'm out here she'll probably send me back to New York as fast as I can go."
"Doesn't she know where you are?"
"Indeed no! She thinks I'm safely and tamely at home. Uncle Curtis wouldn't object to my visit, I fancy; at any rate, I've been counting on his good offices with mother, but it's too late now."
"I'm like you," he said; "I can't brook disappointment. I'm going on."
In answer to her questioning look he explained his plan of intercepting the freight-steamer that night, whereupon her face brightened with sudden hope.
"Can't I go, too?" she implored, eagerly. She was no longer the haughty young lady he had met upon entering the room, but a very wistful child.
"I'm afraid that's hardly—"
"Oh! If only you knew how much it means! If only you knew how badly I want to! I'm not afraid of discomforts."
"It's not that—"
"Please! Please! Be a real prince and grant me this boon. Won't you? My heart is set upon it."
It was hard to resist her imploring eyes—eyes which showed they had never been denied. It was hard for O'Neil to refuse anything to a woman.
"If your uncle is willing," he began, hesitatingly.
"He isn't my really uncle—I just call him that."
"Well, if Mr. Gordon wouldn't object, perhaps I can manage it, provided, of course, you promise to explain to your mother."
Miss Gerard's frank delight showed that she was indeed no more than a child. Her changed demeanor awakened a doubt in the man's mind.
"It will mean that you'll have to sit up all night in an open launch," he cautioned her.
"I'll sit up for a week."
"With the creepy water all about, and big black mountains frowning at you!"
"Oh, fiddle!" she exclaimed. "You'll be there if I get frightened." Rising impulsively she laid her hand on his arm and thanked him with an odd mingling of frankness and shyness, as if there could be no further doubt of his acquiescence. He saw that her eyes were the color of shaded woodland springs and that her hair was not black, but of a deep, rich brown where the sun played upon it, the hue of very old mahogany, with the same blood-red flame running through it. He allowed himself to admire her in silence, until suddenly she drew back with a startled exclamation.
"What is it?"
"I forgot—I have no clothes." Her words came with a doleful cadence.
"The universal complaint of your sex," he said, smiling. "Allow me to talk with your hostess. I'm sure she will let you walk out with your borrowed finery, just like Cinderella. You'll need a nice thick coat, too."
"But this is her very, very best dress."
"She shall receive, on the next ship, a big box all lined with tissue-paper, with the imprint of the most fashionable dressmaker in Seattle. I'll arrange all that by cable."
"You don't know how she loves it," the girl said, doubtfully.
"Come! Call her in. If I'm to be a prince you mustn't doubt my power."
Nor did the event prove him over-confident. Before he had fairly made known his request the good lady of the house was ready to surrender not only her best Sunday gown, but her fluttering heart as well. Murray O'Neil had a way of making people do what he wanted, and women invariably yielded to him.
IV
HOW A JOURNEY ENDED AT HOPE
To Natalie Gerard the trip down the bay and into the sound that night was a wonderful adventure. She remembered it afterward far more vividly than the shipwreck, which became blurred in retrospect, so that she soon began to think of it as of some half-forgotten nightmare. To begin with, the personality of Murray O'Neil intrigued her more and more. The man was so strong, so sympathetic, and he had such a resistless way of doing things. The stories she had heard of him were romantic, and the superintendent's wife had not allowed them to suffer in the telling. Natalie felt elated that such a remarkable person should exert himself on her behalf. And the journey itself impressed her imagination deeply.
Although it was nine o'clock when they boarded the launch, it was still light. The evening was yellow with the peculiar diffused radiance of high latitudes, lending a certain somberness to their surroundings.
The rushing tide, the ragged rock-teeth which showed through it, the trackless, unending forests that clothed the hills in every direction, awed her a little, yet gave her an unaccustomed feeling of freedom and contentment. The long wait out between the lonely islands, where the tiny cockle-shell rolled strangely, although the sea seemed as level as a floor, held a subtle excitement. Darkness crept down out of the unpeopled gorges and swallowed them up, thrilling her with a sense of mystery.
When midnight came she found that she was ravenously hungry, and she was agreeably surprised when O'Neil produced an elaborate lunch. There were even thermos bottles filled with steaming hot coffee, more delicious, she thought, than anything she had ever before tasted. He called the meal their after-theater party, pretending that they had just come from a Broadway melodrama of shipwreck and peril. The subject led them naturally to talk of New York, and she found he was more familiar with the city than she.
"I usually spend my winters there," he explained.
"Then you have an office in the city?"
"Oh yes. I've maintained a place of business there for years."
"Where is it? On Wall Street?"
"No!" he smiled. "On upper Fifth Avenue. It's situated in the extreme southwest corner of the men's cafe at the Holland House. It consists of a round mahogany table and a leather settee."
"Really!"
"That's where I'm to be found at least four months out of every twelve."
"They told me you built railroads."
"I do—when I'm lucky enough to underbid my competitors. But that isn't always, and railroads aren't built every day."
"Mr. Gordon is building one."
"So I'm told." O'Neil marveled at the trick of fortune which had entangled this girl and her mother in the web of that brilliant and unscrupulous adventurer.
"Perhaps it will be a great success like your famous North Pass & Yukon Railway."
"Let us hope so." He was tempted to inquire what use Gordon had made of that widely advertised enterprise in floating his own undertaking,