The Rim of the Desert

by Ada Woodruff Anderson

CHAPTER XXVIII

SURRENDER

Tisdale had not seen Beatriz Weatherbee since she had been brought semi-conscious from the foot of the mountain, but he learned from the hotel physician the following morning that she was able to travel on the special train which was coming from Seattle to transport the Morganstein party home. The first inquiry, after news of the disaster reached the outside world, was from Joey's grandfather, a lumberman on Puget Sound. Put in communication with Tisdale, he telephoned he would arrive at the Springs on the special. So, leaving the child in charge of the housekeeper, Hollis returned to the west portal, to join the little force of rescuers. It was then no longer a question of life-saving, but of identification. The Swiss chalet, which had ceased to be the mecca of pleasure-seekers, had become a morgue.

But Lucky Banks, who went with him, had received a message from Mrs. Weatherbee, and in the interval that Tisdale was busy with long-distance and disposing of Joey, the prospector went up to her room. She was pale and very weak, but she smiled as he approached her couch and held out her hand. "No, the right one," she said, and added, taking it with a gentle pressure, "I know, now, what it is—to be cold."

The little man nodded. His face worked, and he hurried to conceal the maimed hand in his pocket. "But the doctor says you'll pull through good as new," he commented. "I am proud to know that; my, yes."

"And I am proud of you, Mr. Banks. It seems incredible, but Miss Morganstein told me you rescued her brother, too. I've tried and tried to remember, but I am not able. You must have carried me, at least, all of the way."

Banks glanced at Elizabeth, who was seated beyond the couch. She had laid a warning finger to her lips and shook her head. "That was dead easy coming downgrade," he answered. "And that little blow up there on the mountain top wasn't anything to speak of, alongside a regular Alaska blizzard. If I'd had to weight my pockets with rocks, that would have been something doing. I might have felt then that I was squaring myself with Dave Weatherbee."

"I understand," she said slowly, "but," and she smiled again, "I am grateful, Mr. Banks, just the same. Perhaps, since you loved David so much, you will regard it as a kind of compensation that I am going on with the project."

"Is that so?" The little man beamed. "Well, the house is all done and waiting, my, yes, whenever you are ready to move over."

"Why, Beatriz," said Elizabeth in alarm, "I am going to take that desert tract off your hands. I've been interested in reclamation work for months." And looking at Banks, she added significantly: "I am afraid she is talking too much."

"Likely," replied the prospector, rising, "and I am due to take a little hike up the canyon with Hollis Tisdale."

"Mr. Tisdale?" she asked, with a quick brightening of her face. "Then he is quite well again. Miss Morganstein told me he was saved—from that unfortunate train," and she added, shivering and closing her eyes, "I remember—that."

"I couldn't have got there in time," Banks hurried to explain, "even if you had given up making the summit. Likely I'd have got caught by the slide, and Hollis was half-way to the Springs and 'feeling fit as a moose' when it started. Well, good-by, ma'am; take care of yourself."

"Good-by, Mr. Banks," and she smiled once more. "You may expect me at Hesperides Vale in a few days; as soon as my things at Vivian Court are packed." And she added, with the color softly warming her cheek, "Mr. Tisdale might like to know that. He always wished to see David's project carried through."

And the little man replied from the door: "I'll tell him, ma'am, my, yes."

The special, which brought other seekers besides Joey's grandfather, also conveyed Jimmie Daniels. It was his last assignment with the Press; he and Geraldine were to be married within the week and assume the editorial position at Weatherbee. And he pushed up over Tisdale's trail, now become well broken, eager to make a final scoop and his best one. Hours later, when he should have been back at Scenic Hot Springs, rushing his copy through to his paper, he still remained on the slope below the west portal to carry out the brief and forceful instructions of the man who directed and dominated everybody; who knew in each emergency the one thing to do. Once Jimmie found himself aiding Banks to wrap a woman's body in a blanket to be lowered by tackle down the mountainside. She was young, not older than Geraldine, and the sight of her—rounded cheek, dimpled chin, arm so beautifully molded—all with the life snuffed out without a moment's warning—gave him a sensation of being smothered. He was seized with a compelling desire to get away, and to conquer his panic, he asked the prospector whether this man was not the superintendent of the mountain division.

The mining man replied: "No, that's the railroad boss over there with the gang handling the derrick; this is Tisdale, Hollis Tisdale of Alaska and Washington, D.C. You ought to have heard of him in your line of business if you never happened to see him before."

Then Jimmie, turning to look more directly at the stranger, hastily dropped his face. "You are right," he said softly, "I've known him by sight some time."

Afterwards, while they were having coffee with the station master, Daniels asked Banks how he and Tisdale happened to be at Cascade Tunnel. "I was putting in a little time at the Springs," Banks responded, "but Hollis was a passenger on the stalled train. He took a notion to hike down to the hotel just ahead of the slide."

"You mean that man who has taken charge out there," exclaimed the operator. "I had a talk with him before he started; he was rigging up some snowshoes. He said he was from Alaska, and I put him down for one of those bonanza kings."

"He is," said Banks in his high key. "What he don't know about minerals ain't worth knowing, and he owns one of the finest layouts in the north, Dave Weatherbee's bore."

"The Aurora mine," confirmed Daniels. "And I presume there isn't a man better known, or as well liked, in Alaska."

Banks nodded. "Dave and him was a team. The best known and the best liked
in the whole country. And likely there's men on the top seats in
Washington, D.C., would be glad of a chance to shake hands with Hollis
Tisdale."

"I knew he was somewhere near the top," commented the operator. "He can handle men. I never saw such a fellow. Why, he must have got half-way to the Springs when the slide started, but he was back, climbing up along the edge of it to the wreck, almost before it quit thundering. And he took out a live baby, without a damage mark, and all its folks lying right there dead, before the rest of us got in earshot."

Daniels put down his sandwich and took out his neglected notebook. He gathered all the detail the ready operator could supply: how Tisdale had wrapped the child in a blanket and carried him from place to place, talking to him in his nice, friendly way, amusing him, keeping him quiet, while he worked with the strength of two men to liberate other survivors. And how, when none was left to save, he had taken the baby in his arms and gone to break trail to the Springs to send out news of the disaster. All that the station master and Banks could not tell him, with the name and prominence of Joey's family, Jimmie added later at the chalet, and he finished with a skilful reference to the papoose, killed by accident so many years before. It was a great story. It went into the paper as it stood. And when the day came to leave the Press office, the chief, shaking hands with his "novelist," said it was a fine scoop, and he had always known Jimmie had it in him to make good; he was sorry to lose him. But the Society Editor, reading between the lines, told him it was the greatest apology he could have made. She was proud of him.

At Vivian Court late that afternoon, Elizabeth read the story to Beatriz Weatherbee. Her couch was drawn into the sunny alcove, where, from her pillows, she might watch the changing light on Mount Rainier. Finally, when Elizabeth finished, Beatriz broke the silence. "He must have passed down the canyon while we were there."

"Yes, he did. He carried one end of your stretcher all the way to the Springs." Then Elizabeth asked: "Don't you remember the baby, either? He had brown eyes."

"I seem to remember a child," she answered slowly, "a baby sitting in the firelight, but"—and she shook her head, "I've dreamed so many dreams."

"He was a fact; a perfect dear. I should have adopted him, if his relatives hadn't been so prominent and rich. And you, too, fell instantly in love with him. You wanted him in your arms the moment you opened your eyes."

Elizabeth paused with a straight look from under her heavy brows and while she hesitated there was a knock at the door. She threw it open and a porter brought in one of those showy Japanese shrubs in an ornate jardinière, such as Frederic Morganstein so often used as an expression of his regard. His card hung by a ribbon from a branch, like a present on a Christmas tree, and when the boy had gone, she untied it and carried it to Mrs. Weatherbee. "I wish you could marry Frederic and settle it all," she said. "Japan is lovely in the spring."

Beatriz, who had taken the card indifferently, allowed it to drop without reading it. Her glance rested again on the shining dome.

"I told him I would ask you to see him a few moments to-night," Elizabeth resumed. "He is feeling miserably. He says he was ill when we made the ascent that day and never should have left the hotel; his high temperature and the altitude affected his head. He believes he must have said things that offended or frightened you—things he wasn't responsible for." She paused, then, for a woman who had been so schooled to hold herself in hand as Elizabeth Morganstein, went on uncertainly: "He is just a plain business man, used to going straight to a point, but not many men care so much for a woman as he does for you. You could mold him like wax. He says all he wants now—if he did make a mistake—is a chance to wipe it out; start with a clean slate."

Mrs. Weatherbee rose from the couch. She stood a moment meeting Elizabeth's earnest look. The shadow of a smile touched her mouth, but well-springs of affection brimmed her eyes. "We cannot wipe out our mistakes, dear," she said. "They are indelible. We have to accept them, study them, use them as a rule from which to work out the problems of our lives. There is no going back, no starting over, if we have missed an easier way. Elizabeth, in one hour on that mountain I saw more of the true Frederic Morganstein than in all the years I had known him before. In the great moments of life, I should have no influence with him. Even for your sake, dear, I could not marry him. I do not want to see him any more."

There was a silence, then Elizabeth said: "In that case, I am going to ease things for you. I am going to buy that desert land. Now, don't say a word. I am going to pay you Lucky Banks' price, and, of course, for the improvements whatever is right."

"But it is not on the market," replied Beatriz. "I told you I had decided to live there. I hoped—you would like to go with me. For awhile, at least, you might find it interesting."

Elizabeth tried to dissuade her. It was ridiculous. It was monstrous. She was not strong enough. It would be throwing her life away, as surely as to transplant a tender orchid to that burning sage-brush country. But in the end she said: "Well, Bee, then I'll go with you."