Chapter 15

"You think so? Listen! Since all the high-grade coal of the Pacific coast must come from the East, who, then, would discourage the opening of local fields but those very interests? Every ton we burn means a profit to the Eastern miner and the railroad man. Yes, and twenty per cent. of the heat units of every ton hauled are consumed in transportation. Isn't that waste? Every two years it costs our navy the price of a battle-ship to bring coal to the Pacific fleet, while we have plenty of better fuel right here on the ground. Our coal is twenty-five hundred miles nearer to the Philippines than San Francisco, and twelve thousand miles nearer than its present source. If Alaskan coal-beds were opened up, we wouldn't have this yearly fight for battle-ship appropriations; we'd make ourselves a present of a first-class navy for nothing. No, our claims were disputed, and the dispute was thrown into politics to keep us out of competition with our Eastern cousins. We Alaskans sat in a game with high stakes, but after the cards were dealt the rules were changed."

"You argue very well," said Eliza, who was a bit dazed at this unexpected, forceful counter-attack, "but you haven't convinced me that this coal should be thrown open to the first person who comes along."

"I didn't expect to convince you. It's hard to convince a woman whose mind is made up. It would take hours to cover the subject; but I want to open your eyes to the effect of this new-fangled national policy. Any great principle may work evil if it isn't properly directed, and in Kyak you'll see the results of conservation ignorantly applied. You'll see how it has bound and gagged a wonderful country, and made loyal Americans into ragged, bitter traitors who would spit upon the flag they used to cherish."

"Is that the only reason why you came along--just to make sure that I saw all this?"

"No. I want to look at the Heidlemann breakwater. My fortune hangs upon it."

"It's as serious as that?"

O'Neil shrugged. "I'm waiting for the wind. My coal is in the hands of the bureaucracy at Washington, my railroad is in the hands of the wind god. Incidentally, I'd much rather trust the god than the Government."

Natalie, who had listened so far without the least sign of interest, now spoke up.

"If the storm doesn't come to your help, will you be ruined?" she asked.

Murray smiled cheerfully. "No man is ruined as long as he keeps his dreams. Money isn't much, after all, and failure is merely a schooling. But--I won't fail. Autumn is here: the tempest is my friend; and he won't be long in coming now. He'll arrive with the equinox, and when he does he'll hold my fortune in his hand."

"Why, the equinoctial storm is due," said Eliza.

"Exactly! That's why I'm going to meet it and to bid it welcome."

The village of Kyak lay near the mouth of the most easterly outlet of the Salmon, and it was similar in most respects to Hope and to Omar, save that it looked out across a shallow, unprotected bay to the open reaches of the north Pacific. The shores were low; a pair of rocky islets afforded the only shelter to its shipping, and it was from these as a starting-point that the Copper Trust had built its break-water. A trestle across the tide-flats connected the work with the mainland, and along this rock-trains crawled, adding their burdens to the strength of the barrier. Protected by this arm of steel and stone and timber lay the terminal buildings of the Alaska Northern, as the Heidlemann line was called, and there also lay the terminus of the old McDermott enterprise into which Curtis Gordon had infused new life. Both places showed plenty of activity when O'Neil and his two companions arrived, late one afternoon.

Kyak, they found, was inferior to Omar in its public accommodations, and Murray was at a loss to find shelter for the girls until his arrival was made known to the agents of the Alaska Northern. Then Mr. Trevor, the engineer in charge, looked him up and insisted upon sharing his quarters with the visitors. In Trevor's bearing was no suggestion of an enmity like Gordon's. He welcomed his rival warmly--and indeed the Trust had never been small in its opposition. O'Neil accepted the invitation gratefully.

After dinner he took Natalie with him to see the sights, while Eliza profited by the opportunity to interview Trevor. In her numerous tilts with O'Neil she had not been over-successful from the point of view of her magazine articles, but here at her hand was the representative of the power best known and best hated for its activities in the north-land, and he seemed perfectly willing to talk. Surely from him she would get information that would count.

"Understand, I'm on the side of your enemies," she warned him.

"So is everybody else," Mr. Trevor laughed; "but that's because we're misunderstood."

"The intentions of any Trust warrant suspicion."

He shrugged. "The Heidlemanns are just ordinary business men, like O'Neil, looking for investment. They heard of a great big copper-field hidden away back yonder in the mountains, and they bought what they considered to be the best group of claims. They knew the region was difficult of access, but they figured that a railroad from tide-water would open up not only their own properties, but the rest of the copper-belt and the whole interior country. They began to build a road from Cortez, when some 'shoe-stringer' raised the cry that they had monopolized the world's greatest copper supply, and had double-cinched it by monopolizing transportation also. That started the fuss. They needed cheap coal, of course, just as everybody else needs it; but somebody discovered the danger of a monopoly of that and set up another shout. Ever since then the yellow press has been screaming. The Government withdrew all coal-lands from entry, and it now refuses to grant patents to that which had been properly located. We don't own a foot of Alaskan coal-land, Miss Appleton. On the contrary, we haul our fuel from British Columbia, just like O'Neil and Gordon. Those who would like to sell local coal to us are prevented from doing so."

"It sounds well to hear you tell it," said Eliza. "But the minute the coal patents are issued you will buy what you want, then freeze out the other people. You expect to control the mines, the railroads, and the steamship lines, but public necessities like coal and oil and timber and water-power should belong to the people. There has been an awakening of the public conscience, and the day of monopolized necessities is passing."

"As long as men own coal-mines they will sell them. Here we are faced not by a question of what may happen, but of what has happened. If you agreed to buy a city lot from a real-estate dealer, and after you paid him his price he refused to give you a deed, you'd at least expect your money back, wouldn't you? Well, that's the case of Uncle Sam and the Alaskan miners. He not only refuses to deliver the lot, but keeps the money, and forces them to pay more every year. I represent a body of rich men who, because of their power, are regarded with suspicion; but if they did anything so dishonest as what our Government has done to its own people they would be jailed."

"No doubt there has been some injustice, but the great truth remains that the nation should own its natural resources, and should not allow favored individuals to profit by the public need."

"You mean railroads and coal-fields and such things?"

"I do."

Trevor shook his head. "If the people of Alaska waited for a Government railroad, they'd die of old age and be buried where they died, for lack of transportation. The Government owns telegraph-lines here, but it charges us five times the rates of the Western Union. No, Miss Appleton, we're not ready for Government ownership, and even if we were it wouldn't affect the legality of what has been done. Through fear that the Heidlemanns might profit this whole country has been made to stagnate. Alaska is being depopulated; houses and stores are closed; people are leaving despondent. Alaskans are denied self-government in any form; theories are tried at their expense, but they are never consulted. Not only does Congress fail to enact new laws to meet their needs, but it refuses to proceed under the laws that already exist. If the same policy had been pursued in the settlement of the Middle West that applies to this country, the buffalo would still be king of the plains and Chicago would be a frontier town. You seem to think that coal is the most important issue up here, but it isn't. Transportation is what the country needs, for the main riches of Alaska are as useless to-day as if hidden away in the chasms of the moon. O'Neil had the right idea when he selected the Salmon River route, but he made an error of judgment, and he lost."

"He hasn't lost!" cried Eliza, in quick defense of her friend. "Your breakwater hasn't been tested yet."

"Oh, it will hold," Trevor smiled. "It has cost too much money not to hold."

"Wait until the storms come," the girl persisted.

"That's what we're doing, and from present indications we won't have much longer to wait. Weather has been breeding for several days, and the equinox is here. Of course I'm anxious, but--I built that breakwater, and it can't go out."

When O'Neil and Natalie returned they found the two still arguing. "Haven't you finished your tiresome discussions?" asked Natalie.

"Mr. Trevor has almost convinced me that the octopus is a noble creature, filled with high ideals and writhing at the thrusts of the muck-rakers," Eliza told them.

But at that the engineer protested. "No, no!" he said. "I haven't half done justice to the subject. There are a dozen men in Kyak to-night who could put up a much stronger case than I. There's McCann, for instance. He was a prospector back in the States until he made a strike which netted him a hundred thousand dollars. He put nearly all of it into Kyak coal claims and borrowed seventy thousand more. He got tired of the interminable delay and finally mined a few tons which he sent out for a test in the navy. It had better steaming qualities than the Eastern coal now being used, but six weeks later an agent of the Land Office ordered him to cease work until his title had been passed upon. That was two years ago, and nothing has been done since. No charges of irregularity of any sort have ever been filed against McCann or his property. The Government has had his money for five years, and still he can't get a ruling. He's broke now and too old to make a living. He's selling pies on the street--"

"He borrowed a dollar from me just now," said O'Neil, who was staring out of a window. Suddenly he turned and addressed his host. "Trevor, it's going to storm." His voice was harsh, his eyes were eager; his tone brought the engineer to his side. Together they looked out across the bay.

The southern sky was leaden, the evening had been shortened by a rack of clouds which came hurrying in from the sea.

"Let it storm," said Trevor, after a moment. "I'm ready."

"Have you ever seen it blow here?"

"The old-timers tell me I haven't, but--I've seen some terrible storms. Of course the place is unusual--"

"In what way?" Eliza inquired.

"The whole country back of here is ice-capped. This coast for a hundred miles to the east is glacial. The cold air inland and the warm air from the Japanese Current are always at war."

"There is a peculiar difference in air-pressures, too," O'Neil explained. "Over the warm interior it is high, and over the coast range it is low; so every valley becomes a pathway for the wind. But that isn't where the hurricanes come from. They're born out yonder." He pointed out beyond the islands from which the breakwater flung its slender arm. "This may be only a little storm, Trevor, but some day the sea and the air will come together and wipe out all your work. Then you'll see that I was right."

"You told me that more than a year ago, but I backed my skill against your prophecy."

O'Neil answered him gravely: "Men like you and me become over-confident of our powers; we grow arrogant, but after all we're only pygmies."

"If Nature beats me here, I'm a ruined man," said the engineer.

"And if you defeat her, I'm ruined." O'Neil smiled at him.

"Let's make medicine, the way the Indians did, and call upon the Spirit of the Wind to settle the question," Eliza suggested, with a woman's quick instinct for relieving a situation that threatened to become constrained. She and Natalie ran to Trevor's sideboard, and, seizing bottle and shaker, brewed a magic broth, while the two men looked on. They murmured incantations, they made mystic passes, then bore the glasses to their companions.

As the men faced each other Natalie cried:

"To the Wind!"

"Yes! More power to it!" Eliza echoed.

Trevor smiled. "I drink defiance."

"In my glass I see hope and confidence," said O'Neil. "May the storm profit him who most deserves help."

Despite their lightness, there was a certain gravity among the four, and as the night became more threatening they felt a growing suspense. The men's restlessness communicated itself to the girls, who found themselves listening with almost painful intentness to the voice of the wind and the rumble of the surf, which grew louder with every hour. By bed-time a torrent of rain was sweeping past, the roof strained, the windows were sheeted with water. Now and then the clamor ceased, only to begin with redoubled force. Trevor's guests were glad indeed of their snug shelter.

As Natalie prepared for bed she said: "It was fine of Mr. Trevor to treat Murray O'Neil so nicely. No one would dream that they were rivals, or that one's success means the other's ruin. Now Gordon--" She turned to see her friend kneeling at the bedside, and apologized quickly.

Eliza lifted her face and said simply, "I'm praying for the Wind."

Natalie slipped down beside her and bowed her dark head close to the light one. They remained there for a long time, while outside the rain pelted, the surf roared, and the wind came shrieking in from the sea.

XVI

THE FRUIT OF THE TEMPEST

Neither O'Neil nor his host was in sight when the girls came to breakfast. The men had risen early, it seemed, and were somewhere out in the storm. A wilder day would be hard to imagine; a hurricane was raging, the rain was whirled ahead of it like charges of shot. The mountains behind Kyak were invisible, and to seaward was nothing but a dimly discernible smother of foam and spray, for the crests of the breakers were snatched up and carried by the wind. The town was sodden; the streets were running mud. Stove-pipes were down, tents lay flattened in the mire, and the board houses were shaking as if they might fly to pieces at any moment. The darkness was uncanny, and the tempest seemed to be steadily growing in violence.

When an hour or two had passed with no word from the men Eliza announced her intention of looking them up. She had spent the time at a window, straining her eyes through the welter, while Natalie had curled up cozily with a book in one of Trevor's arm-chairs.

"But, dearie, you'll be drenched." Natalie looked up in surprise. "Mr. O'Neil is all right."

"Of course he is. I'm not going out to spank him and bring him in. I want to look at the storm."

"So do I, but it won't do any good. I can't make it blow any harder by getting my feet wet."

"You read your novel and talk to Mr. Trevor when he comes back. He knows we're to blame for this storm, so you must be nice to him. I can't." She clad herself in rain-coat, sou'wester, and boots, and hurried out. Walking was difficult enough, even in the shelter of the village, but not until she had emerged upon the beach did she meet the full strength of the gale. Here it wrapped her garments about her limbs until she could scarcely move. The rain came horizontally and blinded her; the wind fairly snatched her breath away and oppressed her lungs like a heavy weight. She shielded herself as best she could, and by clinging to stationary objects and watching her chance she managed to work her way onward. At last she caught sight of O'Neil, standing high above the surf, facing the wind defiantly, as if daring it to unfoot him. He saw her and came in answer to her signal; but to breast that wind was like stemming a rushing torrent, and when he reached her side he was panting.

"Child! What are you doing here?" he demanded.

"I couldn't wait any longer," she shouted back. "You've been out since daylight. You must be wet through."

He nodded. "I lay awake all night listening. So did Trevor. He's beginning to worry already."

"Already? If the breakwater stands this--"

"The storm hasn't half started! Come! We'll watch it together." He took her hand, and they lunged into the gale, battling their way back to his point of vantage. He paused at length, and with his arm about her pointed to the milk-white chaos which marked Trevor's handiwork. The rain pelted against their faces and streamed from their slickers.

The breakwater lay like a reef, and over it the sea was pounding in mighty wrath. High into the air the waters rose, only to disappear upon the bosom of the gale. They engulfed the structure bodily, they raced along it with thunderous detonations, bursting in a lather of rage. Out beyond, the billows appeared to be sheared flat by the force of the wind, yet that ceaseless upheaval of spume showed that the ocean was in furious tumult. For moments at a time the whole scene was blotted out by the scud, then the curtain would tear asunder and the wild scene would leap up again before their eyes.

Eliza screamed a question at her companion, but he did not seem to hear; his eyes roved back and forth along that lace-white ridge of rock on the weakness of which depended his salvation. She had never seen him so fierce, so hawklike, so impassive. The gusts shook him, his garments slatted viciously, every rag beneath his outer covering was sodden, yet he continued to face the tempest as indifferently as he had faced it since the dawn. The girl thrilled at thought of the issue these mighty forces were fighting out before her eyes, and of what it meant to the man beside her. His interests became hers; she shared his painful excitement. Her warm flesh chilled as the moisture embraced her limbs; but her heart was light, for O'Neil's strong arm encircled her, and her body lay against his.

After a long time he spoke. "See! It's coming up!" he said.

She felt no increase in the wind, but she noted that particles of sand and tiny pebbles from the beach were flying with the salt raindrops. Her muscles began to tremble from the constant effort at resistance, and she was relieved when Murray looked about for a place of refuge. She pointed to a pile of bridge timbers, but he shook his head.

"They'll go flying if this keeps up." He dragged her into the shelter of a little knoll. Here the blasts struck them with diminished force, the roaring in their ears grew less, and the labor of breathing was easier.

Rousing himself from his thoughts, the man said, gently:

"Poor kid! You must be cold."

"I'm freezing. But--please don't send me back." The face that met his was supplicating; the eyes were bluer than a spring day. He patted her dripping shoulder.

"Not until you're ready."

"This is grander than our trip past the glacier. That was merely dangerous, but this--means something."

"There may be danger here if we expose ourselves. Look at that!"

High up beyond reach of the surf a dory had been dragged and left bottom up. Under this the wind found a fingerhold and sent it flying. Over and over it rolled, until a stronger gust caught it and sent it in huge leaps, end over end. It brought up against the timber pile with a crash, and was held there as if by a mighty suction. Then the beams began to tremble and lift. The pile was disintegrated bit by bit, although it would have required many hands to move any one of its parts.

Even where the man and the woman crouched the wind harried them like a hound pack, but by clinging to the branches of a gnarled juniper bush they held their position and let the spray whine over their heads.

"Farther west I've seen houses chained to the earth with ships' cables," he shouted in her ear. "To think of building a harbor in a place like this!"

"I prayed for you last night. I prayed for the wind to come," said the girl, after a time.

O'Neil looked at her, curiously startled, then he looked out at the sea once more. All in a moment he realized that Eliza was beautiful and that she had a heart. It seemed wonderful that she should be interested in his fortunes. He was a lonely man; beneath his open friendliness lay a deep reserve. A curiously warm feeling of gratitude flamed through him now, and he silently blessed her for bearing him company in the deciding hour of his life.

Noon came, and still the two crouched in their half-shelter, drenched, chilled, stiff with exposure, watching Kyak Bay lash itself into a boiling smother. The light grew dim, night was settling; the air seemed full of screaming furies. Then O'Neil noticed bits of driftwood racing in upon the billows, and he rose with a loud cry.

"It's breaking up!" he shouted. "It's breaking up!"

Eliza lifted herself and clung to him, but she could see nothing except a misty confusion. In a few moments the flotsam came thicker. Splintered piling, huge square-hewn timbers with fragments of twisted iron or broken bolts came floating into sight. A confusion of wreckage began to clutter the shore, and into it the sea churned.

The spindrift tore asunder at length, and the watchers caught a brief glimpse of the tumbling ocean. The breakwater was gone. Over the place where it had stood the billows raced unhindered.

"Poor Trevor!" said O'Neil. "Poor Trevor! He did his best, but he didn't know." He looked down to find Eliza crying. "What's this? I've kept you here too long!"

"No, no! I'm just glad--so glad. Don't you understand?"

"I'll take you back. I must get ready to leave."

"Leave? Where--"

"For New York! I've made my fight, and I've won." His eyes kindled feverishly. "I've won in spite of them all. I hold the key to a kingdom. It's mine--mine! I hold the gateway to an empire, and those who pass through must pay." The girl had never seen such fierce triumph in a face. "I saw it in a dream, only it was more than a dream." The wind snatched O'Neil's words from his lips, but he ran on: "I saw a deserted fishing-village become a thriving city. I saw the glaciers part to let pass a great traffic in men and merchandise. I saw the unpeopled north grow into a land of homes, of farms, of mining-camps, where people lived and bred children. I heard the mountain passes echo to steam whistles and the whir of flying wheels. It was a wonderful vision that I saw, but my eyes were true. They called me a fool, and it took the sea and the hurricane to show them I was right." He paused, ashamed of his outburst, and, taking the girl's hand in his, went stumbling ahead of the storm.

Their limbs were cramped, their teeth chattered, they wallowed through mire, and more than once they fell. Nearing Trevor's house, they saw what the storm had done. Kyak was nearly razed. Roofs had been ripped off, chimneys were down, glass was out. None but the most substantial log cabins had withstood the assault, and men were busied in various quarters trying to repair the damage.

They found Natalie beside herself with anxiety for their safety, and an hour later Trevor came in, soaked to the skin. He was very tired, and his face was haggard.

"Well! She went out!" he said. "I saw a million dollars swallowed up in that sea."

They tried to comfort him, but the collapse of his work had left him dazed.

"God! I didn't think it could blow like this--and it isn't over yet. The town is flat."

"I'm sorry. You understand I sympathize?" said Murray; and the engineer nodded.