CHAPTER XVIII
From Leadville to the point in the sky-line of the Continental Divide where the southern shoulder of Mount Massive dips to Hagerman's Pass, the railway grade climbs with the old Glenwood trail; and when Malta was left behind and the ascent fairly begun, Jeffard had fleeting glimpses of the road over which he and Garvin and the patient burro had toiled eastward the day before. From outer curves and promontories doubled at storming speed the hoof-beaten trail flicked into view and disappeared; and at times the brief vistas framed a reminiscent picture of two foot-weary pilgrims plodding doggedly in the wake of a pack-laden ass.
It was impossible to conceive that these phantoms belonged to to-day's yesterday. The crowding events of a few hours had already pushed them into a far-away past; their entities were lost in the kaleidoscopic whirl which had transformed the two men no less than their prefigurings. What had the foolish witling raving yonder on his way to despoilment and death with the two plunderers in common with the self-contained son of the wilderness, who had but yesterday been his brother's keeper in a world of disheartenment? And this other; steam-hurrying on his way to the same goal, with set jaw and tight lips and resolute purpose in his eyes; by how much or little could he be identified with the undeterminate one, whose leaden-footed trudgings the storming locomotive was taking in reverse?
Through some such cycle the wheel of reflection rolled around to its starting point in things present, and Jeffard awoke to the moving realities of steep grades and breath-cutting curves, yawning abysses and hurtling cliffs, flitting backward to the cacophone obbligato of the exhaust and the clangorous cries of racking machinery. The engineer braced on his box was a muscular giant, with the jaw of a prizefighter, and steel-gray eyes that had long since looked death out of countenance. Jeffard took his measure in an appraisive glance. "If your engineer is good for anything," Bartrow had said; and the glance slew the conditional doubt. What a fearless driver of fast locomotives might do toward reversing the fate of the besotted one would be done.
In the mean time the race was to the judicious rather than to the swift. The interminable succession of grades and curves clogged the wheels, and the great engine snorted and wallowed on its upward way, slowing down at times until the throbbing puffs of the escaping steam seemed to beat no more than leisurely minuet-time. But the climbing miles to the summit of the pass were measured doggedly, if not with speed. No trifling advantage of tangent or "let-up" was passed without fresh spurrings of the throttle; and when the engine swept around the long curve which is the approach to the telegraph station at the summit tunnel, the engineer glanced at his watch and nodded across to his passenger.
"We're goin' to make it," he said, in answer to Jeffard's shouted inquiry. "It'll be a close call, but the old Ninety-seven's a bird."
At the station the operator tossed a telegram through the cab window. It was from Bartrow, and its major purpose was to give the figures of the assay, which he had obtained from the little German. They were sufficiently significant, and Bartrow's added urgings were unnecessary. "I'm standing over the train dispatcher here with a club," he wired. "Don't make any economical mistake at your end of the string."
The engineer had finished oiling around and had clambered back to his box. The water supply was replenished, and the fireman was uprearing the tank-spout. Jeffard crossed the footboard and thrust a little roll of bank notes between the fingers of the brawny hand on the throttle lever. The engineer smoothed the bills on his knee and wagged his head as one doubtful.
"That's pretty well up to a month's pay."
"Well, you are going to earn it."