CHAPTER XIX

To the Rescue

GERTRUDE LORIMER was in her office, waiting rather impatiently for the hour of her release from duty. There were so many reasons why she wanted to be free on this particular night.

For one thing, Mrs. Nichols had arrived home earlier in the evening, after a long stay on American territory, and Gertrude was anxious to hear the story of her adventures—so far, at least, as it could be told over an early supper. Afterwards Dr. Russell had suggested that a walk up to Skwail Point in the moonlight would be a pleasant way of passing the autumn evening.

The schoolmistress was going, and Neal Peters, the baggage-clerk’s younger brother; Tom Smithers, his wife and her sister would be pretty sure to go also, for moonlight walks when the day’s work was done were becoming quite a favourite recreation among the young people.

Skwail Point was always worth seeing, whether by moonlight or daylight, because of the Indian legend attaching to it.

The Point or Peak was the highest ground in all that hilly district, and the Squamish tribe held the belief that from Skwail Point the blessing of daylight had first been let loose upon the world. Previously it had been shut up in a box and jealously guarded by the sea-gull. But one very severe winter when the Chinook did not blow, the sea-gull was driven inland from the coast in search of shelter from the bitter cold, and, pausing to rest for a few minutes on the Point, found his feet frozen to the ground. While the sea-gull, with the precious box of daylight under his wing, was making frantic efforts to free himself, a raven came along and offered to assist.

But the raven’s attempts only hurt the sea-gull, who cried to him to desist.

“I should not hurt you if I could see better,” said the wily raven. “Why don’t you open your daylight box, and let me see to get you out of this fix? For if you stay here much longer, you will certainly be frozen to death.”

At this the sea-gull opened the box just a little way, being in terror of letting the imprisoned daylight escape, and in still greater terror of being frozen to death.

But the raven, who meant that the daylight should be set free, kept hurting more and more, declaring all the time that he must have more light for his work, or the sea-gull would die. Presently the sea-gull, which had been endeavouring to have as much light for himself as was necessary, but to keep all the rest shut up, dropped the box by accident, and the daylight rushed out, spreading itself all over the world so that it could never be gathered again. The sea-gull wept bitterly on discovering what had happened, and that is why the sea-gulls still utter such a plaintive cry as they skim the waters in search of food.

Gertrude had told the legend to a good many people, at different times when she had gone up the Point, and she meant on this evening to tell it to Dr. Russell. She told stories exceedingly well; her manners were easy, and her language simple and direct. It was her one great accomplishment, and she was secretly very proud of it.

Dr. Russell had quite revolutionized Bratley; he was always pointing out some improvements, or suggesting alterations which would be for the benefit of the place. He was getting patients now, and there seemed every probability that in time he would be able to build up a lucrative practice. He had been to Lytton that day to consult a doctor there, regarding the case of a Roseneath miner who was then just occupying a spare bed in Miss Gibson’s house, in order to be under the care of the doctor.

Twenty minutes to eight o’clock, a quarter, then ten minutes. How long that last half-hour was, to be sure!

The cars had gone, and the only remaining sign of activity on the depot was an engine and one freight car waiting to take some miners to Roseneath; it would be gone in a few minutes, and then Gertrude would be free for her supper and the pleasure which was to come after.

Just then she heard a piercing shriek, many shouts, and much trampling of feet.

Running out to see what was the matter, she saw a group gathered about the engine; but before she could reach the place, a man detached himself from the group and ran at the top of his speed in the direction of Miss Gibson’s house.

“An accident; some one is hurt, and they have gone for the doctor!” she murmured, turning pale.

Just then Sam Peters saw her coming, and moved to intercept her.

“Don’t come here, Miss Lorimer; it ain’t a sight for girls. Driver Tompkins has just been and got scalded awful about the hands and face, and they’re gone to fetch the doctor to him. Go back to your office, and wait to see if you are needed to wire anywhere for help, for we haven’t got another driver on the place to-night.”

Gertrude fled back to her office, shutting the door with a bang. She had a nervous horror of accidents, of sickness, and of unpleasant sights generally, and she sat for what seemed to be an interminable time waiting to be of use, in case it was necessary to telegraph anywhere for help.

Suddenly the sounder began to call, while a great clicking ensued, as if the telegraph-instrument had suddenly gone crazy.

Gertrude sprang to the table, glancing at the clock as she passed, being surprised to find that it was twenty minutes past eight, when in an ordinary way she would have been off duty, and the office locked up.

What a funny message it was, too!

“Help me quick, robbery, Camp’s Gulch, alone, shed threatened, valuables—NELL.”

It took Gertrude two minutes to gather the sense of it all; then, dashing to the door, she seized the depot bell standing outside and rang it vigorously. The noise would rouse the place, she knew, but she dared not leave the office, as more messages might come, and she must be ready to take them down.

In a moment there came a rush of hurrying feet, Sam Peters, the station-master, and half a dozen miners coming at a run, to know what was the matter, their first and most natural idea being that she had set the office on fire.

“There is trouble at Camp’s Gulch; a robbery threatened. Miss Hamblyn says she is alone, and wants help. What can you do?” jerked out Gertrude, who was very white in the face, and trembling from head to foot.

“Send the engine that’s waiting for Roseneath, to Camp’s Gulch instead,” said Sam Peters, whose eyes appeared ready to bolt out of his head, as he turned his gaze on the station-master.

“That would be easy enough if there was any one here who could drive an engine, which there isn’t now that Tompkins has gone and got himself in such a plight,” snarled that official, angrily. “It is downright tempting Providence to have that doddering old stupid, Joey Trip, at a place like Camp’s Gulch, and that with only a bit of a girl-operator to help him. It is a couple of strong men that are wanted there, and so I’ve said often and often, and may say it again and again, until my breath gives out before any one will take notice of what is wanted.”

“What is the use of talking; it’s doing we’ve got to look after,” snapped out Peters, angrily. “Here’s an engine standing in the depot with steam up; we could be at Camp’s Gulch in twenty minutes or half an hour at the outside, if only we’d got a driver.”

“Ah, that’s where we are beaten,” growled the station-master.

“Can’t the stoker drive?” demanded Gertrude, impatiently.

“He ain’t fit for anything only to look at,” the station-master answered, in extreme wrathfulness. “He was a dry goods clerk, or something of the kind, in England; came out here, got within sight of starvation, then was taken on as stoker this morning to fill a gap, and he only just about knows a chunk of coal from a fire-shovel. He’s run away now, I believe, because he was frightened.”

“Oh, can’t something be done? Won’t somebody go to help poor Nell? Just think how good she was to you all. If only I were a man I’d take that engine safely up to Camp’s Gulch, whether I knew how to drive or not,” cried Gertrude, in hysterical breakdown, standing with clasped hands, while the tears streamed down her face.

“I can fire, but I can’t drive,” began Sam Peters; but just then there came an interruption. A brisk voice called out to know what was the matter, and, elbowing the group of miners aside, Dr. Russell strode into the office.

Some one began to tell him of their dilemma, but Gertrude had turned to the instrument table, for the sounder was calling again, and another message was coming through.

“Listen!” she cried imperatively. “They have sent me word from Lytton that there is trouble at Camp’s Gulch, and are asking if the Roseneath engine has gone; if not, I am to send it to Camp’s Gulch at once. Now what is to be done?”

“I can drive an engine a little—that is, I can start her and stop her, and all that kind of thing, but I don’t understand firing,” said Dr. Russell, slowly.

“I can fire, so I guess we shall do. Come along, let’s get off. We ought to have a crowd of ten or fifteen with us. Who’ll help?” asked Sam Peters, moving now towards the engine, and gripping the doctor by the arm as if fearing he might run away.

It was not so much a question of who would go as who would consent to be left behind. However, it was settled in a very few minutes, and then the engine and the freight wagon slid away from the depot until it seemed to shoot through the darkness, a flare of red light which dashed like a lurid streak across the pale moon-lit spaces.

Sam Peters fired as if he had been used to that sort of thing for the last five or six years, doing it with a regularity that suggested clockwork; while the doctor stood hanging on to the levers, peering ahead into the night, with the corner of his eye always on the indicator, for he and Peters both knew that the engine was an old one, and not over safe for such a speed as they were making.

“Open her throttle; we’ve passed the half!” yelled Peters. With a nod the doctor pushed down another lever. A hideous screech sprang out, keeping up its terrifying blast as the remaining miles sped by. In the freight-car there was silence save for an occasional ejaculation as some unwary one was dashed from his place by the violent rocking and jerking of the flying engine.

Suddenly Sam Peters ceased his firing, and, peering over the side, seemed to be looking for landmarks.

“Shut her down, quick!” he yelled, and at the same moment, dashing open the furnace-door, began raking out the firing, which only a little while before he had been shovelling in with such painstaking energy.

The doctor dragged down the lever, applied the brakes, then hung on for dear life, expecting nothing less than an awful crash, for, in the absence of signals, and with but the scantiest knowledge of the track over which they had been travelling, what was more likely than that he had not pulled up in time? It was a space of awful suspense, measured by seconds, but in point of strain seeming like hours; then, with a grinding and groaning of brakes, the engine came to a stand a little distance from the depot.

“Shall I drive her right in?” the doctor asked, conscious that there was an odd sense of strain in his tone, while he panted for breath.

“Better leave well alone, I should say. My word! it was a near shave. If I hadn’t reckernized the Gulch brook shimmering in the moonlight a mile back, we should never have pulled up in time, and then there would have been an awful smash,” said Sam Peters, in a jerky tone, as he wiped his streaming face with a handkerchief which had been clean once, but was certainly not so now.

“Thank God we came safely through!” the doctor said reverently, thinking of the lives of the men in the freight-car.

Then they all tumbled off the train and ran towards the depot, which looked so quiet and deserted in the bright moonlight.

“Why, there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong. Has it been a hoax after all?” said the doctor, wonderingly, as they reached and passed the depot building and arrived at the big shed, which appeared to be safely shut up and secure.

“Looks like it!” exclaimed Sam Peters, blankly.

“What’s that?” said one of the volunteers, suddenly darting across the railway track to where something dark showed, lying on the ground near to the derelict freight-wagon.

The something was Nell, who moaned when they lifted her up, and appeared to be bleeding from a wound on her cheek or her ear.

“Doctor, where are you? Here’s something in your line,” shouted the man who had first found Nell, but who feared to lift her up lest he might hurt her more.

Dr. Russell came up at the run. “There’s more on hand than we thought for. Some one is shut up in that shed, and making a fine row, but he will have to wait until we are ready to let him out,” the doctor said grimly. He then sent four of the men to watch the doors of the big shed, asked another to carry Nell across the track to the telegraph office, while he went in front to open the door.

Nell was not unconscious, but she seemed unable to speak, or was, perhaps, too dazed from the blow she had received.

The other men, at the doctor’s suggestion, spread out to have a look round, but nothing could be done or settled until Nell was able to explain the situation.

“There is certainly some one in yonder who is pretty anxious to get out,” remarked one of the volunteers. “Just hark at him, whining and crying like a whipped schoolboy. It’s a rum go this; we come tearing up here fit to break our necks to catch the robbers, only to find when we get here that one seems pretty securely caught.”

“Luckily for Miss Hamblyn the doctor stopped wide of the depot, for she was lying too near to the track for safety,” said one of the miners.

“I thought we were going to be smashed up every minute; never had such a ride in my life, and I can’t say I want another,” remarked his companion, with a shudder.

“Doctor wants to know if any one has seen Joey Trip, or his wife?” called another man, coming up at a run.

“I haven’t seen any one except Miss Hamblyn. Perhaps it is Joey that is making all the row in yonder,” suggested one of the watchers.

“Not likely,” said the other.

“Well, I’m going to inspect his house; funny if there shouldn’t be any one at home,” remarked the man, who had come up with the inquiry.

“It is a funny business altogether,” replied the watchers. And they propped their backs against the wall, smoking in stolid patience, thinking, perhaps, of the supper they had missed, or listening to the thumping and shouting which was going on inside the shed.

Meanwhile Nell was lying on the floor of the telegraph office, her head resting on the doctor’s jacket, which he had rolled up to make a pillow for her, while he knelt beside her, trying to investigate her hurts.

Her right hand hung helpless at the wrist, her right cheek had a disfiguring weal from chin to ear, from the broken skin of which the blood was slowly oozing. But it was the look in her eyes, and her inability to speak beyond an inarticulate gurgle, which bothered the doctor most.

“Some dislocation of the jaw, I’m afraid. Ah!” and a sympathetic shudder went through the doctor’s frame, because of the anguish which leaped into Nell’s eyes.

“I wish we’d got a woman here to help,” he muttered irritably, as his assistant, a burly miner six feet high, and broad in proportion, shook and shivered, nearly dropping the lamp in his agitation. “Hold that light steady, will you. If you are not careful you’ll be setting the poor girl ablaze with her clothes soaked in kerosene, and she has got quite enough to bear already.”

“Can’t help it, doctor. I never could stand seeing any one suffer; it sort of turns me sick,” said the sturdy giant, collapsing into a nerveless heap, to the imminent danger of the lamp.

“You great baby, I mean you lubberly idiot, get out, and send in one of the other fellows!” said the doctor, wrathfully, springing up and seizing the lamp, which he put on the floor for safety, then hustled the quaking miner out of the office. “Go along to the engine, and send Sam Peters to me; but you must stand by the engine while he’s away, for there is too much mystery in this business for us to take risks anywhere.”

“I’ll stay by the engine; I’ll do anything, only I can’t stand that,” said the man, his voice breaking in a great gasping sob, as, with a jerk of his head in the direction of the girl on the floor, he fairly bolted from the office.

The doctor sent an uncomplimentary ejaculation after him, then was relieved to see the dim ghost of a smile about Nell’s white lips.

“I’m glad you can smile; I feel more like heaving a book or a boot at his head,” grumbled the doctor. Then kneeling down again, he said quietly, “Shut your eyes once for ‘yes,’ and twice for ‘no.’ Are you in very great pain?”

Slowly Nell’s eyes closed—once, a great tear forcing itself from under her dark lashes and rolling down her cheek.

“Is your jaw worse than your wrist?” he asked, stroking his own right jaw to show what he meant.

Nell’s eyes closed twice; but before the doctor could frame another question, the door was pushed open, and Mrs. Trip was thrust hurriedly into the office.