Chapter 10

Should she answer the letter? How should she not answer it? Delay, then, lest he think her too eager with her reply? Why?--when she knew as well as he, and he as well as she, that the thing was already done, that the mutual attraction had been of the sort which holds steadily to the end. Yet, being a woman, she could not fling herself into his arms at the first invitation. And indeed he had not invited. He had counted on her wish to begin at the beginning and play the beautiful, thrilling play through to the end, as if it were not already decided how it was to come out. The fact that she knew how it was to come out would not make it less the interesting play--in a world where, after all, strange things happen, so that no man may see the end from the beginning, nor count upon as inevitable an outcome which all the fates may combine to threaten and to thwart.

So she delayed a little before she wrote. She let one ship, two ships, sail without her message, so that it would not be at the first tramping of the trail into Puerto Andes that he should find the letter. When it finally left her hands it was a very little letter after all, and one which it could not be imagined would take three days to write--as it had!

"DEAR MR. WALDRON: I think I know quite well that the little girl of the curly black hair, red ribbons, and blue sailor dress was a very audacious, pugnacious little person, and I wonder that you were willing to help her through the tangle of fractions as you did so cleverly. I well remember thinking you a very wonderful scholar, but you were so much older than I that I admit not thinking about you very much. It was like that small girl to stamp her ridiculous foot; she has gone on stamping it, more or less, all her life. But I believe she has done some smiling, too.

"It will be very interesting to hear from the depths of Colombia; school days are so far gone by I had to look it up on the map. Is it very hot there, and do you live on bananas and breadfruit? I don't mind showing how little I know, because then you may tell me about it. I am really going to read up concerning South America at once, so that I may be an intelligent if not a "gentle" reader.

"Very good luck to you there,

"Wished you by

"DOROTHY BROUGHTON."

As promptly as the return mails could bring her a reply one came, although it was, of course, a matter of weeks. During those weeks Dorothy had not only "read up" on the subject of South America with especial reference to Colombia; she had also posted herself, so far as a general reader may, concerning the rather comprehensive subject of mining engineering. This knowledge helped her to an understanding of Waldron's next letter. He gave her a brief but graphic description of his surroundings in a camp upon the mountains, reached by a trail of nearly thirty miles from Puerto Andes. Certain long-delayed and badly needed machinery had arrived at ten o'clock of the previous evening, packed over the trail by mules. This had been unloaded by three in the morning, and the engineers had been so glad to see the stuff at last that they had been unwilling to go at once to bed, tired as they were. The mail had come in by the same route, and it had been by the smouldering campfire of the early morning that Waldron had read his letter from Dorothy. "Such a very short letter!" he said of it, and continued:

"Yet it was more welcome than you can guess. I had done a lot of speculating as to what it would look like when it came--if it came--and it looked not unlike what I had fancied. I was sure you wouldn't write one of those tall, angular hands, ten words to a page, which remind one of linked telegraph poles. Neither would you be guilty of that commonplace little round script which school-children are taught now, and which goes on influencing their handwriting all their days. There would be character in it, thought I--and there was!

"It made me long for more--that letter! I wonder if you have the least idea what it feels like to be off in a country like this, your only real companion another engineer. Splendid fellow, Hackett, and I couldn't ask a better; and the work is great. But there comes an hour now and then when there seems more beauty in one small letter postmarked "home" than in all the gorgeous sunsets of this wonderful country.

"May I write often and at length? I can think of no happier way to spend the hour before we turn in than in writing to you. And if you will answer my letters, as you have been so good as to do with my first one, I shall have the most compelling reason of my life to watch the mails.

"I want--as I wanted when a schoolboy--"to know you." I want you to know me. There is no way in which this can be accomplished for a long time to come except by letters. Won't you agree to this regular interchange? I don't mean that which I presume you mean when you say it will be "interesting to hear from Colombia." You mean, I suppose, a letter now and then, at the intervals which conventionality imposes at the beginning of a correspondence, possibly shortening as time goes on, but taking at least half a year to get under way. I want it to get under way at once! We can receive mail but once a fortnight at the best up here, and there are often delays. So if you answer my letters as soon as you get them I shall not hear from you too often. Please!

"I am an engineer, you know; that means a fellow who is trained to action--all the time. If he can't get results fast enough by working his men by day he works them by night also--day-and-night shifts--and works with them, too, much of the time. In that way--well, samples taken from our south drift assay more than we had dared to hope a ton, but not till we got well in. The vein may pinch out, of course, but there are no signs of it. I expect it to widen instead, and grow richer in quality. So--if you'll forgive the miner's analogy--with another vein I know of--the finest sort of gold!"

So the correspondence began. It was easy for a young woman of Dorothy's discernment to see that here was no case for a long-distance flirtation, if she had wanted one. From the moment when she had flung her left hand into Waldron's right, and that other moment when she had told him with absolute truth that she was not afraid with him beside her, he had taken her at her word. She could not play with him, even if he had been near her; far less now that thousands of miles separated them. She answered with a letter of twice the length of her first one, a gay little letter, full of incident and her comments thereon. The reply came promptly, and this time it was a long one. He told her many details of the situation as it was developing in these new, extraordinarily promising mines; and she found it as fascinating as a fairy tale. But, of course, although she read these pages many times over, she read more often certain opening and closing passages. One ran like this:

"Now to bed--and to work again with the dawn. While I am writing to you I forget everything about me. Natives may chatter near me; I don't hear them. My friend Hackett may come and fire a string of questions at me; he tells me afterward my answers wouldn't do credit to a monkey on a stick. I am lost in the attempt to put your face before me--your face as I saw it last. There was not much light in the car, but what there was fell on your face. I see rose colour always; what was it--the bonnet?--if they call those things bonnets! I see more rose colour--reflection? I see a pair of eyes which were not afraid to look into mine--for a minute; only for a minute--but I can see them.

"The night grows cold. Even in the tropics the nights may be cold in the mountains. My fire has burned down to a few coals. My bunk awaits me; I thought I was tired when I sat down to write. I'm not tired now--refreshed!

"Good-night! Sleep well--up there somewhere in the North!"

After this letter Dorothy Broughton went about like a girl in a dream.

Yet she was so practical a girl, had been so thoroughly trained to fill her days with things worth while, that she was able to keep up a very realistic appearance of being absorbed in the old round of duties and pleasures. She was leading a life by no means idle or useless. As for the happiness of it, she carried about with her a constant sense that something wonderful had happened, was happening--and was yet to happen--which made no task too hard for her newly vitalized spirit.

The day before Thanksgiving the arrival of a particularly thick letter from Colombia gave her a more than ordinarily delightful sense of anticipation. Her brother Julius, at home for the annual festival, saw it upon the hall table three seconds before she did, and captured it. He withdrew from his breast pocket another letter in a similar handwriting addressed to himself. With an expression of great gravity he compared the two while Dorothy held out her hand in vain.

"Don't be in a hurry," he advised her. "There is a curious likeness between these two addresses--not to mention the envelopes--which interests but baffles me. The word 'Broughton' in both cases begins with an almost precisely identical B. The small t is crossed in almost exactly the same manner--with a black bar of ink which indicates a lavish disposition. The whole address upon your letter seems to me to bear a close and remarkable resemblance to the address upon mine. Another point which should not be overlooked: both are postmarked with a South American stamp, a Colombian stamp, with--yes--with the same stamp. What can this mean? I--"

"When you are through with your nonsense--" Dorothy still extended her hand for her letter.

Julius sat down upon the third step of the staircase, his countenance indicating entire absorption in the comparison before him. He held the letters in one hand; with his other he made it clear to his sister that her nearer approach would be resisted. "There is one point where the likeness fails," he mused. "My letter is an ordinary one as to thickness; it consists of two meagre sheets of rather light-weight paper. Your letter, on the other hand, strikes me as extraordinarily bulky. Now there--"

"Jule, I'm busy. Will you please--"

"Just as I get on the trail of this thing you insist on diverting my mind," her brother complained bitterly. He held the two letters at arm's length, continuing to study them while his extended hand kept his sister away. But she now turned and walked off down the hall.

He looked after her with a sparkle in his black eyes. "Sis," he entreated, "don't go. I need your help. Have you by any chance an inkling as to the sender of these curiously similar epistles?"

She turned. Her eyes were sparkling, too. She shook her head.

"I'll tell you what," cried the inspired Julius, "let's read 'em together, paragraph by paragraph. Look here, I dare you to!" he suddenly challenged her. "Mine first." Stuffing his sister's letter into his pocket he spread forth his own. "I suppose you always read the last page first," said he, "I've understood women do. So we'll begin at the last page. Listen!"

She would have left him but he had walked over to her and now held her by the wrist while he began to read. It was impossible for her eyes to resist the drawing power of that now familiar penmanship.

"In this way forty-two miles of trail were cleared from ten to fourteen feet wide, most of our efforts being concentrated on the grading, bridges, and corduroying. Four pastures were cleaned out, of about seven, six, and four cabullos each, or about twenty-three to twenty-six acres in all. These pastures were burned and grass has started in most of them. We built palm houses or shacks at each stopping-place. We feel pretty well satisfied with the trail. You must not get the idea that we have an automobile road, for we haven't, but we are now much better prepared to handle supplies and machinery." Julius looked up. "Suppose yours is as thrilling as that? Now for a paragraph of yours. Shall I open it for you?"

But by a quick motion she escaped him and had the letter. She was laughing as she slipped it into some unknown place about her dress.

"Now see here," Julius persisted, following her up the stairs. "I have to look into this, as a brother. Judging by the bulk of that letter it is not the first one from the same person. How long have you two been corresponding in my absence and without my permission?"

Dorothy turned and faced him. Her face was full of vivid colour, but her eyes were daring. "Since August."

"Hm! Does he write entertaining letters?"

"Very."

"Gives you a full report of his operations, I suppose, with a dip into the early history of the country and the result of his researches into the Spanish settlement."

"Yes, indeed."

"Ever touch on anything personal?--mutually personal, I mean, of course."

"Never."

Julius scanned her face. "He writes me," said he, "that instead of staying only six months it's likely to be a year before he can come North. The Company who picked him to go down and put this thing through has decided to make a much bigger thing of it than was at first intended. Too bad, eh? Fine for him; but a year's quite a stretch for a chap who, as I recall it, went away with some reluctance--just at the last."

Dorothy met his intent eyes without flinching. "He is so interested in his work I should say it was not too bad at all," she responded.

She then was allowed to make her escape, while Julius went back downstairs, smiling to himself. "That shot told," he exulted.

In her room Dorothy opened her letter. If Julius's news were true she would soon know it. Out of the envelope fell a small packet of photographs, but it was not their presence alone which had made it so bulky. The letter itself was three times as long as her brother's.

Dorothy eagerly examined the photographs which had fallen out of Kirke Waldron's letter. They had been taken all about his camp in Colombia and the surrounding country, picturing the progress that had been made in the development of the mines. In one or two of the pictures, showing groups of native workmen, she made out Waldron's figure, usually presenting him engaged in conversation, his back turned to the lens. But one picture had been taken in front of his own shack with its palm-leaf thatching. He was standing by the door, leaning against the lintel, dressed in his working clothes, pipe in hand, looking straightforwardly out of the picture at her and smiling a little. The figure was that of a strong, well-built, outdoors man, the face full of character and purpose, lighted by humour. The steady eyes seemed very intent upon her, and it was a little difficult for her to remind herself that it was undoubtedly his fellow engineer and friend, Hackett, at whom he was gazing with so much friendliness of aspect rather than at her far-away self.

The letter, however, toward its close set her right upon this point. He had told her of his decision to stay and see the full development of the mine through, in spite of the wrench it cost him to think of remaining a year without a break. Then, going on to describe the taking of the photograph, he had written:

"The Company is very glad to get as much as we can send it of actual illustration of our labours, so we make it a point to snap these scenes from time to tune. There is one picture, however, which was not taken for the Company. Hackett asked me to hold the lens on him for a shot to send to somebody up North there, so he went inside and freshened up a bit and came out grinning. I grinned back as I took the picture, and said I was glad to see him so cheerful. He replied that the smile was not for me--that though he had apparently looked at me he had really been looking through me at a person about as different from myself as I could well imagine.

"It's a poor rule that doesn't work both ways, so I then took my place by the door of our palatial residence, and gazed--apparently--at Hackett's Indian-red visage. I found it entirely possible to forget, as he had done, the chap before me, and see instead--well--look at the picture! And please don't let those lashes drop too soon. When I imagine them they always do!"

It was thus that the correspondence went on. Dorothy never replied directly to such paragraphs as these, but she did send him, a few weeks after the arrival of the Colombian photographs, a little snapshot of herself taken in winter costume as she was coming down the steps of her home. It was an exquisite bit of portraiture, even though of small proportions, and it called forth the most daring response he had yet made:

"I know you wouldn't want it pinned up in the shack, and it's much too valuable to risk leaving it among my other possessions there. So I carry it about in an old leather letter case in my pocket. I hope you don't mind. I'm a little afraid of wearing it out, so I've constructed a sort of a frame for it, out of a heavy linen envelope, which will bear handling better than the little picture.... You are looking straight out at me--at _me_? I wish I knew it! Won't you tell me--Dorothy? You can trust me--can't you? There are some things which can't be said at long distance; they must wait. I get to feeling like a storage battery sometimes--overcharged! Meanwhile, trust me--Dorothy!"

But she would send him only this:

"Of course I was looking at you. Why not? It's only courtesy to recognize the salutation of a gentleman disguised in working clothes, standing in the door of a queer-looking South American residence. Besides--he looks rather well, I think!"

One April evening Mr. Julius Broughton, sitting comfortably in his room in a certain well-known building at a well-known university, was summoned to telephone. Bringing his feet to the floor with a thump, flinging aside his book and puffing away at his pipe, he lounged unwillingly to the telephone box. The following conversation ensued, causing a sudden and distinct change in the appearance of the young man.

"Broughton," he acknowledged the call. "Broughton? This is Waldron--Kirke Waldron."

"Who?"

"Waldron; up from Colombia, South America. Forgotten me?"

"What! Forgotten you! I say--when did you come? Where are you? Will you--"

The distant voice cut in sharply: "Hold on. I've just about one minute to spend talking. Can you come downtown to the Warrington Street Station? If you'll be there at ten, sharp, under the south-side clock, I can see you for ten minutes before I leave for the train. I want to see you very much. Explain everything then."

"Of course I'll come; delighted! Be right down. But aren't you going to--"

"I'll explain later," said Waldron's decisive voice again. "Sorry to ring off now. Good-bye."

"Well, great George Washington!" murmured Julius to himself as he replaced the receiver on the hook and reinserted his pipe in his mouth, to emit immediately thereafter a mighty puff of smoke. "I knew the fellow was a hustler, but I should suppose that when he comes up from South America to telephone he might spend sixty or seventy seconds at it. Must be a sudden move; no hint of it in his last letter."

He consulted his watch. He would have to emulate Waldron's haste if he reached the Warrington Street Station by ten o'clock. He made a number of rapid moves, resulting in his catching a through car which bore him downtown at express speed and landed him in the big station at a minute before ten. Hurrying through the crowd he came suddenly face to face with the man he sought.

Tanned to a seasoned brown, and looking as vigorous as a lusty pine tree, Waldron shook hands warmly.

But before Julius had more than begun his expressions of pleasure at seeing his friend again so unexpectedly Waldron turned and indicated a young man's figure in a wheelchair. "That's my friend and associate engineer, Hackett, over there. He's had a very bad illness and I'm taking him home. We'll go over and speak to him in a minute. Meanwhile, I shall have to talk fast. First--is your sister Dorothy well?" The direct gaze had in it no apology for speaking thus abruptly.

"Fine," Julius assured him. "Haven't you heard from her lately?"

"Not since I sailed--naturally--nor for a fortnight before that. I came away very unexpectedly, sooner than I should have done but for Hackett, who needed to get home. But the trip combines that errand with a lot of business--seeing the Company directors, consulting with the firm, looking up machinery and getting it shipped back with me on the next boat. I haven't an hour to spare anywhere but on this flying trip to Hackett's home, which will take twenty-four hours, and I shall have to work night and day. And--I want to see your sister."

Again the direct look, accompanied this time, by a smile which was like a sudden flash of sunshine, as Julius well remembered. Waldron did not smile too often, but when he did smile--well, one wanted to do what he asked.

"Does she know?" Julius demanded.

"Not a word; there was no way to let her know except to cable, and I--have no right to send her cable orders--or requests. Broughton, as I figure it out, I have just one chance to see her, and that only with your cooperation--and hers. I don't believe I need explain to you that it seems to me I must see her; going back without it is unthinkable. I don't know when I may be North again. Yet I can't neglect Hackett or my duty to the Company."

"Then--how the dickens--"

"I shall be coming back on the train that reaches this station at two o'clock Saturday morning. It will go through your home city at midnight. Would it be possible for you and Miss Dorothy to take that train when it leaves Boston Friday night, and so give me the time between there and your station?"

Julius Broughton, born plotter and situation maker as he was, rose to the occasion gallantly. It tickled him immensely, the whole idea. He spent five seconds in consideration, his eye fixed on the lapel of Waldron's coat; then he spoke:

"Leave it to me. I'll have to figure it out how to get around Dot. You mustn't think she's going to jump at the chance of going to meet a man instead of having him come to meet her. She's used to having the men do the travelling, you know, while she stays at home and forgets they're coming."

"I know. And you know--and I think she knows also--that only necessity would make me venture to ask such a favour."

"I may have to scheme a bit--"

"No, please don't. I prefer not to spend the time between stations explaining the scheming and apologizing for it. Put it to her frankly, letting her understand the situation--"

Julius shook his head. "She's not used to it. She'll find it hard to understand why you couldn't stop off and get out to our place, if only for an hour."

"Then show her this."

Waldron took from his breast pocket a card, on which, in very small, close writing and figures, was a concise schedule of his engagements for the coming five days, and, as he had said, nights.

Julius scanned it, and whistled softly a bar from a popular song, "Now Do You See?" "Do eating and sleeping happen to come in on this anywhere?" he queried gently.

"On the run. It's this trip up into New Hampshire that's crowding things; otherwise, I might have managed it very well."

"Couldn't anybody else have seen Mr.--Hackett home?" asked Julius.

"No." Waldron's tone settled that and left no room for dispute. "There are some things that can't be done, you know, and that's one of them." He glanced at the great clock over his head. "Come over and meet him."

Julius went.

A long, thin figure, wrapped in an ulster, reached out a hand, and a determinedly cheerful voice said, with an evident effort not to show the severe fatigue the journey was costing the convalescent: "Think of me as Sackett or Jackett or something. I'm no Hackett; they're a huskier lot."

"As you will be soon, of course," Julius broke in confidently.