The Rapids

by Alan Sullivan

There followed a little hesitation, then an indefinite movement, and the crowd began to shuffle toward the shattered gates. As it dwindled Clark glanced over his shoulder and saw a man within twenty feet, both hands thrust eloquently into his bulging coat pockets.

"Thanks very much, Belding, I'm glad it wasn't necessary," he said crisply, and vanished inside the big doors.

The engineer knew better than to follow, but was bitterly disappointed. He had hoped for some word of comfort, but to not a single employee had Clark said anything of explanation. It was not his habit, and he looked to the intelligence of each man to carry him through. And this was typical of his invariable attitude toward those with whom he came in contact. He gauged them by the degree to which they contributed to the work on hand, and just now the only work on hand was that which none but himself could carry out. In personalities Clark was not interested, but identified them only by some very definite achievement he was able to hang round their necks like a label.

Belding saw to it that his own offices were guarded and walked to the head of the rapids. He felt numbed. If Clark had conceived the works, he himself had built them, and, as they grew under his hand, he felt that something of his own existence went forth with every stroke of a drill, and that a fragment of his brain lay in every course of masonry. Like all true engineers, he delighted in the physical expression of his ability, and here had been such an opportunity as few engineers ever realized. He felt not so much dejected as dumbfounded that so much skill and labor could be brought to a full stop just as it reached its permanent stride. In his eyes the figure of Clark had long achieved titanic proportions. Innumerable things had been demonstrated to be possible, and to be chief engineer of such an enterprise had been, thought Belding, all that any man could ask. It was true that in the fatigue of work he had often imagined that Clark was going too fast, but always the thing had been done. Now it seemed the ironical jest of the gods that a shade too much carbon in a steel rail should wreck the whole endeavor.

And there was Elsie. He had never been able to give her up. Against the glamour of his chief's personality he had nothing to put forward except a whole souled worship, and Elsie, it appeared, preferred the invitation of the older man's romantic career. Subconsciously, Belding decided that the thing was wrong and against nature, for he was marked by a certain simple belief in the general fairness of life. He clung to the doctrine of compensation, and held himself trustingly open to whatever good influences might reach him. Elsie was the highest influence of all. In Clark he had found a stimulus that nerved his brain to great accomplishments. But Elsie and Clark had together wounded his very spirit.

Clark, in the quiet of his private office, was thinking not of Belding or Elsie, but of the mob that had trailed so uncertainly out of the big gates. He had played for time and he had won—but that was all. Sooner or later, driven by the impossibility of living without pay, the mob would return, and in a less placable mood. He turned to the telephone. "I want Mr. Filmer." In a moment he was speaking to the mayor.

"What happened up here to-day is but a taste of what's coming. You'd better get out the militia, if Manson can't handle it. Bowers tells me I can do very little from a point of law, and we look to you for protection."

"The militia won't help you much." Filmer's voice was a little shaky. His son was in the militia, but he himself had never taken that body very seriously. It was a matter of uniform, a band and a field day or two in the year—that was all.

"Well, Bowers tells me that if we kill any one in protecting the place we'll have a nasty time of it, so it's up to you. If the local militia are no good, get some up from Toronto. I warn you they'll be needed. Ask Belding if you like, he saw it all."

He leaned back and began a cold blooded survey of the situation. He was not in any way desperate, but he turned involuntarily to the resources of his own brain for some solution. It was certain that no immediate help could be expected from Philadelphia. He was left quite officially and deliberately to stem the tide as best he could, and, in spite of the gravity of the moment, smiled at the thought that his directors leaned on him in their extremity. They did not know what to do, therefore he must know. Then suddenly his mind reverted to Semple, and he spent the next few moments in profound thought. "Get hold of Mr. Semple," he said to his secretary, "and bring him here."