Chapter 10

LISTER'S DISSATISFACTION

Soon after his return from Winnipeg, Lister stood one evening by a length of track planned to cut out an awkward curve. The new line ran into a muskeg that sucked down brush and logs and the loads of numerous gravel trains. Angry foremen declared one could not fill up the bog, and Lister knew the heads of the construction office grumbled about the delay. He was tired, for he had been strenuously occupied since morning, but could not persuade himself that the work had made much progress.

Small trees lay in tangled rows about the fresh gravel; farther back, the standing bush ran in a broken line against the fading light. In front, thin mist drifted across the muskeg where slender trunks rose from the quaking mud. Not far off a high, wooden trestle carried the rails across a ravine. The bridge would presently be rebuilt with steel, but in the meantime the frame was open and the gaps between the ties were wide.

It was getting dark and noisy blast-lamps threw up pillars of white fire. The line had sunk in the afternoon and it was necessary to lift the rails and fill up the subsidence before the next gravel train arrived. Lister was angry and puzzled, for he had pushed the road-bed across to near the other side, but the rails had not sunk in the new belt but in ground over which the trains had run.

By and by a man joined him and remarked: "The boys have got the ties up, but I reckon they won't fix the track for three or four hours. Looks as if the blamed muskeg was going to beat us."

"She can't beat us," Lister rejoined impatiently. "The trouble is, hauling the stuff she swallows runs up construction costs, and that counts against us. Did you leave Willis with the gang?"

The other laughed. "I did not. He was tired. Wanted something at the office and allowed he'd stop and take a smoke."

"Hustle him out when you go along, Kemp. I'd sooner our chiefs down East had kept that young man. The job's not soft enough for him. However, I s'pose he lighted the lamp across the bridge?"

"Willis has friends," Kemp remarked meaningly, and indicated a reflection behind the trees. "The lamp's burning."

Lister glanced at the trembling light. "I expect it's good enough for the engineer, but the flame's not steady. Willis hasn't bothered to get the pressure right. It's possible he didn't wait until she warmed the oil."

The powerful lamp had been carried across the bridge in order to warn the engineer of the gravel train, who on his last journey had run to the end of the line. The light could be seen for some distance up the track.

"I got after Hardie about making good time. We must dump his load in the soft spot before we stop," Lister resumed.

"He's coming now; climbing the height of land," said Kemp. "He'll let her go all out when he makes the top."

A measured throb rolled across the woods, and as the noise got louder the beat of the exhaust marked the progress of the train. The explosive snorts indicated that the locomotive labored up the last steep pitch, and Lister sat down by the rails. He was tired and would not be needed until the gravel plough threw the rattling ballast off the cars. After a few moments he looked up, for a man came out of the gloom.

"Hello, Willis! I s'pose you've been taking a quiet smoke?"

"That's so," said the other. "I've hustled round since sun-up and imagined the gang could get along for half an hour without my watching. You want to leave something to your foremen."

Lister said nothing. He did not choose his helpers, but tried to make the best use of those the bosses sent. Willis had some useful qualities, but he was slack, and got sulky if one drove him hard. The young man had come from the drawing-office of a famous bridge-building works.

In the meantime, the rumble of the gravel train grew to a pulsating roar. The locomotive had crossed the divide and was running furiously down grade. The roughly-ballasted track was uneven, but the engineer had been on board since daybreak and no doubt wanted to finish his job.

"She's in the rock cut now," Kemp remarked. "Hardie ought to throttle down when he runs out and sees the light."

Lister listened. The swelling note indicated that the train had left the cut, but it did not look as if the engineer was pulling up.

"She's coming along pretty fast," said Willis. "If he doesn't snub her soon, she'll jump the steel and take the muskeg."

Next moment Lister was on his feet. Hardie was driving too fast; Lister doubted if he could stop before the heavy train plunged through the broken track. The unsteady white flicker behind the trees had sunk and changed to smoky red. If looked as if the oil was not vaporizing properly and the lamp was going out. When the engineer saw the light it would be too late.

"Get the boys off the track. I'll try to fix the lamp," Lister shouted, and started for the bridge.

The errand was not his. Willis had lighted the lamp: moreover, one might have sent a workman, but when a job was urgent Lister went himself. The job was urgent and dangerous. Unless he made good speed, he would meet the train on the bridge and the cylinders of the locomotive projected beyond the edge.

The track was rough and fresh gravel rolled under his feet. Now and then he struck a cross-tie and nearly fell. It had got dark and among the trees the gloom was deep; one could not see the ties. Yet he must run, and his breath got labored and his heart thumped. He did not know where the train was, only that it was near. The woods throbbed with a savage din; the big cars, loaded with rattling gravel, clanged and roared as they plunged down grade.

Lister hardly thought he could stop the train. It looked as if he would be caught on the trestle, but he meant to go on. He did not argue about it; he was rather moved by instinctive stubbornness. At moments of strain one does not argue and logic has no appeal. Character counts for all, and Lister followed his bent. His job was urgent and must be carried out.

When he reached the bridge he saw white threads of water between the timbers of the open frame. The spacing of the ties was not regular, and if he stepped short, or too far, he would go through. Then, if he did not strike a brace, he would fall upon the rocks in the stream. All the same, he saw the blaze of the head-lamp pick out the trees across the ravine and sprang on to the bridge.

Somehow he hit the ties; perhaps by subconscious judgment, and perhaps by good luck. Then he felt loose gravel under his feet and thrilled with a strange fierce satisfaction. His breath was labored and his body wet by sweat, but the moving beam had not reached the lamp. He was going to make it.

When the black front of a gravel car leaped out of the gloom he jumped off the track. The locomotive pushed the cars, the train was long, and the lamp was but a few yards off. It had not gone out, although the flame had sunk to a faint red jet that would not be seen in the dust. His hands shook, but he gave the pump a few strokes and turned the valve wheel. The red jet got white and leaped higher and Lister, pumping hard, looked up the track. Big cars, rocking and banging, rushed past in a cloud of dust. Bits of gravel struck him and rattled against the lamp. The blurred, dark figures of men who sat upon the load cut against the fan-shaped beam, and in the background he saw a shower of leaping sparks.

But the other light was growing and Lister turned the wheel. Burning oil splashed around him, a pillar of fire rushed up, and when a whistle screamed he let go the valve and turned from the blinding dust. He was shaking, but the heavy snorting stopped. The engineer had seen the light and cut off steam.

When Lister looked round the train was gone. He had done what he had undertaken, and after waiting for a few moments he started back. Now he could go cautiously, he stopped and tried to brace himself at the end of the bridge. Although he had run across not long since, he shrank from the dark, forbidding gaps. For all that, he must get back, and feeling carefully for the ties, he reached the other side and was for some time engaged at the muskeg where two cars had overrun the broken rails. At length he went to the log shack he used for his office and sleeping-room, and soon after he lighted his pipe Kemp came in.

"You made it," Kemp remarked. "When you stopped me at the bridge I saw you'd get there."

Lister laughed. "Now you talk about it, I believe I did shout you to go back. Anyhow, you were some way behind. Did Willis come?"

"He did not. Willis was badly rattled and started for the muskeg. Thought he might get the track thrown across the hole, perhaps! I'm rather sorry for the kid. But what are you going to do about it?"

"Report we had two cars bogged and state the cost of labor. That's all, I think."

Kemp nodded. "Well, perhaps there's no use in talking about the lamp. Our business is to make good, using the tools we've got. All the same, if they want a man somewhere else, I guess I'd recommend Willis."

He smoked quietly for a time, and then resumed: "We don't get forward much. In fact, if the new Western irrigation company would take me on, I think I'd quit."

Lister pondered. Since his short stop at Winnipeg he had been conscious of a strange restlessness. He wanted something the woods could not give, and had begun to think life had more to offer than he had known. Besides, he was not making much progress.

"Since the double track is to be pushed on across the plains, the department will need a bigger staff and there ought to be a chance for some of us," he said. "Then there's the new work with the long bridges on the lake section that will carry higher pay. We're next on turn and have some claim. They ought to move us up."

"I doubt. We didn't come from a famous office, and it's not always enough to know your job."

"Somebody will get a better post, and if I'm lucky I'll stay. If not, I think I'll try the irrigation works."

"I feel like that," Kemp declared. "But suppose the irrigation people turn our application down?"

"Then I'll lie off for a time. Except when I went, to McGill with money I earned on a wheat barge, I haven't stopped work since I was a boy. Now I'm getting tired and think I'll pull out and go across to look at the Old Country. My father was an Englishman, and I have some money to burn."

"A good plan," Kemp agreed. "After a change you come back fresh with a stronger punch. Well, if we're not put on to the lake section, we'll try the irrigation scheme."

He got up and went off, but Lister sat on his bunk and smoked. The bunk was packed with swamp-grass on which his coarse Hudson's Bay blankets were laid, and the shack was bare. Ragged slickers and old overalls occupied the wall, long gum-boots a corner. A big box carried an iron wash-basin, and a small table some drawing instruments. Lister was not fastidious, and, as a rule, did not stop long enough at one spot to justify his making his shack comfortable. Besides, he found it necessary to concentrate on his work, and had not much time to think about refinements.

All the same, he felt the shack was dreary and his life was bleak. He had not felt this until he went to Winnipeg. On the whole, he had liked the struggle against physical obstacles. It was his proper job, but the struggle was stern and sometimes exhausting, and his reward was small. Now he wanted something different, and gave himself to vague and brooding discontent.

Ruth Duveen had broken his former tranquillity. In a sense, she had awakened him, and he imagined she had meant to do so. All the same, to think she loved him was ridiculous; she was rather experimenting with fresh material. Yet she was accountable for his discontent. She had helped him to see that while he labored in the woods he had missed much. He wanted the society of cultivated women and men with power and influence; to use control instead of carrying out orders; and to know something of refinement and beauty. After all, his father was a cultivated Englishman, although Lister imagined he had inherited qualities that helped him most from his Canadian mother. It was all he had inherited, except some debts he had laboriously paid.

He admitted that to realize his ambitions might be hard, but he meant to try. Canada was for the young and stubborn. If his chiefs did not promote him, he would make a plunge, and if his new plan did not work, he would go over and see the Old Country. Then he would come back, braced and refreshed, and try his luck again.

Putting down his pipe, he got into bed. He was tired and in the morning the gravel cars must be pulled out of the muskeg. The job was awkward, and while he thought about it he went to sleep.