And as they ran down the long ravine from Field to Golden, beside a river which all the way seems to threaten the gliding train by the savage force of its descent, he played the showman. The epic of the C.P.R.--no one knew it better, and no one could recite it more vividly than he.
So also, as they left the Rockies behind; as they sped along the Columbia between the Rockies to their right and the Selkirks to their left; or as they turned away from the Columbia, and, on the flanks of the Selkirks, began to mount that forest valley which leads to Roger's Pass, he talked freely and well, exerting himself to the utmost. The hopes and despairs, the endurances and ambitions of the first explorers who ever broke into that fierce solitude, he could reproduce them; for, though himself of a younger generation, yet by sympathy he had lived them. And if he had not been one of the builders of the line, in the incessant guardianship which preserves it from day to day, he had at one time played a prominent part, battling with Nature for it, summer and winter.
Delaine, at last, came out to listen. Philip in the grip of his first hero-worship, lay silent and absorbed, watching the face and gestures of the speaker. Elizabeth sat with her eyes turned away from Anderson towards the wild valley, as they rose and rose above it. She listened; but her heart was full of new anxieties. What had happened to him? She felt him changed. He was talking for their pleasure, by a strong effort of will; that she realised. When could she get him alone?--her friend!--who was clearly in distress.
They approached the famous bridges on the long ascent. Yerkes came running through the car to point out with pride the place where the Grand Duchess had fainted beneath the terrors of the line. With only the railing of their little platform between them and the abyss, they ran over ravines hundreds of feet deep--the valley, a thousand feet sheer, below. And in that valley, not a sign of house, of path; only black impenetrable forest--huge cedars and Douglas pines, filling up the bottoms, choking the river with their débris, climbing up the further sides, towards the gleaming line of peaks.
"It is a nightmare!" said Delaine involuntarily, looking round him.
Elizabeth laughed, a bright colour in her cheeks. Again the wilderness ran through her blood, answering the challenge of Nature. Faint!--she was more inclined to sing or shout. And with the exhilaration, physical and mental, that stole upon her, there mingled secretly, the first thrill of passion she had ever known. Anderson sat beside her, once more silent after his burst of talk. She was vividly conscious of him--of his bare curly head--of certain lines of fatigue and suffering in the bronzed face. And it was conveyed to her that, although he was clearly preoccupied and sad, he was yet conscious of her in the same way. Once, as they were passing the highest bridge of all, where, carried on a great steel arch, that has replaced the older trestles, the rails run naked and gleaming, without the smallest shred of wall or parapet, across a gash in the mountain up which they were creeping, and at a terrific height above the valley, Elizabeth, who was sitting with her back to the engine, bent suddenly to one side, leaning over the little railing and looking ahead--that she might if possible get a clearer sight of Mount Macdonald, the giant at whose feet lies Roger's Pass. Suddenly, as her weight pressed against the ironwork where only that morning a fastening had been mended, she felt a grip on her arm. She drew back, startled.
"I beg your pardon!" said Anderson, smiling, but a trifle paler than before. "I'm not troubled with nerves for myself, but--"
He did not complete the sentence, and Elizabeth, could find nothing to say.
"Why, Elizabeth's not afraid!" cried Philip, scornfully.
"This is Roger's Pass, and here we are at the top of the Selkirks," said Anderson, rising. "The train will wait here some twenty minutes. Perhaps you would like to walk about."