The Last Spike by Cy Warman (red white and royal blue hardcover .TXT) 📕

a year previous to his banishment, but he had never lost faith in the one woman he had loved, and he had loved her all his life, for they had been playmates. Now all this fuss about driving the last spike was of no importance to him. The one thing he longed for, lived for, was to get back to "God's country." He heard the speeches by Governor Stanford for the Central, and General Dodge for the Union Pacific; heard the prayer offered up by the Rev. Dr. Todd, of Pittsfield; heard the General dictate to the operator:

"All ready," and presently the operator sang out the reply from the far East:

"All ready here!" and then the silver hammer began beating the golden spike into the laurel tie, which bore a silver plate, upon which was engraved:

"The Last Tie Laid in the Completion of the Pacific
Railroads.
May 10, 1869."

After the ceremony there was handshaking among the men and some kissing among the women, as the two parties--one from either coast--mingled, and then the General's tent boy came under the blanket to call Bradford, for the General wanted him at once. Somehow Bradford's mind flew back to his first meeting with this boy. He caught the boy by the arms, held him off, and looked at him. "Say, boy," he asked, "have I changed as much as you have? Why, only the other day you were a freckled beauty in high-water trousers. You're a man now, with whiskers and a busted lip. Say, have I changed, too?"

"Naw; you're just the same," said the boy. "Come now, the Gen's waitin'."

"Judge Manning," said General Dodge, in his strong, clear voice, "you have been calling us 'heroes'; now I want to introduce the one hero of all this heroic band--the man who has given of muscle and brain all that a magnificent and brilliant young man could give, and who deserves the first place on the roll of honor among the great engineers of our time."

As the General pronounced the Judge's name Bradford involuntarily clenched his fists and stepped back. The Judge turned slowly, looking all the while at the General, thrilled by his eloquent earnestness, and catching something of the General's admiration for so eminent a man.

"Mr. Bradford," the General concluded, "this is Judge Manning, of Boston, who came to our rescue financially and helped us to complete this great work to which you have so bravely and loyally contributed."

"Mr. _Bradford_, did you say?"

"Well, yes. He's only Jim Bradford out here, where we are in a hurry, but he'll be Mr. Bradford in Boston, and the biggest man in town when he gets back."

All nervousness had gone from Bradford, and he looked steadily into the strong face before him.

"Jim Bradford," the millionnaire repeated, still holding the engineer's hand.

"Yes, Judge Manning, I'm Jim Bradford," said the bearded pathfinder, trying to smile and appear natural.

Suddenly realizing that some explanation was due the General, the Judge turned and said, but without releasing the engineer's hand: "Why, I know this young man--knew his father. We were friends from boyhood."

Slowly he returned his glance to Bradford. "Will you come into my car in an hour from now?" he asked.

"Thank you," said Bradford, nodding, and with a quick, simultaneous pressure of hands, the two men parted.

VI

Bradford has often since felt grateful to the Judge for that five years' sentence, but never has he forgotten the happy thought that prompted the capitalist to give him this last hour, in which to get into a fresh suit and have his beard trimmed. Bradford wore a beard always now, not because a handsome beard makes a handsome man handsomer, but because it covered and hid the hideous scar in his chin that had been carved there by the Sioux chief.

When the black porter bowed and showed Bradford into Mr. Manning's private car, the pleasure of their late meeting and the Judge's kindly greeting vanished instantly. It was all submerged and swept away, obliterated and forgotten in the great wave of inexpressible joy that now filled and thrilled his throbbing heart, for it was Mary Manning who came forward to greet him. For nearly an hour she and her father had been listening to the wonderful story of the last five years of the engineer's life. When the wily General caught the drift of the young lady's mind, and had been informed of the conditional engagement of the young people, he left nothing unsaid that would add to the fame and glory of the trail-maker. With radiant face she heard of his heroism, tireless industry, and wonderful engineering feats; but when the narrator came to tell how he had been captured and held and tortured by the Indians, she slipped her trembling hand into the hand of her father, and when he saw her hot tears falling he lifted the hand and kissed it, leaving upon it tears of his own.

The Judge now produced his cigar case, and the General, bowing to the young lady, followed the great financier to the other end of the car, leaving Mary alone, for they had seen Bradford coming up the track.

The dew of her sweet sorrow was still upon her face when Bradford entered, but the sunshine of her smile soon dried it up. The hands he reached for escaped him. They were about his face; then their great joy and the tears it brought blinded them, and the wild beating of their happy hearts drowned their voices so that they could neither see nor hear, and neither has ever been able to say just what happened.

On the day following this happy meeting, when the consolidated special was rolling east-ward, while the Judge and the General smoked in the latter's car, the tent boy brought a telegram back to the happy pair. It was delivered to Miss Manning, and she read it aloud:

"WASHINGTON, May 11, 1869.

"GENERAL G.M. DODGE:

"In common with millions I sat yesterday and heard the mystic taps of the telegraph battery announce the nailing of the last spike in the Great Pacific Road. All honor to you, to Durant, to Jack and Dan Casement, to Reed and the thousands of brave followers who have wrought out this glorious problem, spite of changes, storms, and even doubts of the incredulous, and all the obstacles you have now happily surmounted!

"W.T. SHERMAN,

"_General_."

"Well!" she exclaimed, letting her hands and the telegram fall in her lap, "he doesn't even mention my hero."

"Oh, yes, he does, my dear," said Bradford, laughing. "I'm one of the 'thousands of brave followers.'"

Then they both laughed and forgot it, for they were too happy to bother with trifles.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: The subsidy from the Government was $16,000 a mile on the plains, and $48,000 a mile in the mountains.]


THE BELLE OF ATHABASCA

Athabasca Belle did not burst upon Smith the Silent all at once, like a rainbow or a sunrise in the desert. He would never say she had been thrust upon him. She was acquired, he said, in an unguarded moment.

The trouble began when Smith was pathfinding on the upper Athabasca for the new transcontinental. Among his other assets Smith had two camp kettles. One was marked with the three initials of the new line, which, at that time, existed only on writing material, empty pots, and equally empty parliamentary perorations. The other was not marked at all. It was the personal property of Jaquis, who cooked for Smith and his outfit. The Belle was a fine looking Cree--tall, strong, _magnifique_. Jaquis warmed to her from the start, but the Belle was not for Jaquis, himself a Siwash three to one. She scarcely looked at him, and answered him only when he asked if she'd _encore_ the pork and beans. But she looked at Smith. She would sit by the hour, her elbow on her knee and her chin in her hand, watching him wistfully, while he drew crazy, crooked lines or pictured mountains with rivers running between them--all of which, from the Belle's point of view, was not only a waste of time, but had absolutely nothing to do with the case.

The Belle and her brown mother came to the camp of the Silent first one glorious morn in the moon of August, with a basket of wild berries and a pair of beaded moccasins. Smith bought both--the berries for Jaquis, out of which he built strange pies, and the moccasins for himself. He called them his night slippers, but as a matter of fact there was no night on the Athabasca at that time. The day was divided into three shifts, one long and two short ones,--daylight, dusk, and dawn. So it was daylight when the Belle first fixed her large dark eyes upon the strong, handsome face of Smith the Silent, as he sat on his camp stool, bent above a map he was making. Belle's mother, being old in years and unafraid, came close, looked at the picture for a moment, and exclaimed: "Him Jasper Lake," pointing up the Athabasca.

"You know Jasper Lake?" asked the engineer, glancing up for the first time.

"_Oui_," said the old woman (Belle's step-father was half French); "know 'im ver' well."

Smith looked her over as a matter of habit, for he allowed no man or woman to get by him with the least bit of information concerning the country through which his imaginary line lay. Then he glanced at Belle for fully five seconds, then back to his blue print. Nobody but a he-nun, or a man already wedded to the woods, could do that, but to the credit of the camp it will go down that the chief was the only man in the outfit who failed to feel her presence. As for Jaquis, the alloyed Siwash, he carried the scar of that first meeting for six months, and may, for aught I know, take it with him to his little swinging grave. Even Smith remembers to this day how she looked, standing there on her two trim ankles, that disappeared into her hand-turned sandals or faded in the flute and fringe of her fawn skin skirt. Her full bosom rose and fell, and you could count the beat of her wild heart in the throb of her throat. Her cheeks showed a faint flush of red through the dark olive,--the flush of health and youth,--her nostrils dilated, like those of an Ontario high-jumper, as she drank life from the dewy morn, while her eye danced with the joy of being alive. Jaquis sized and summed her up in the one word "magnific." But in that moment, when she caught the keen, piercing eye of the engineer, the Belle had a stroke that comes sooner or later to all these wild creatures of the wilderness, but