Carmen's Messenger Part 28

"In one way, it did not. But why did you send the British police after me?"

"As a matter of fact, I let them know you were all right, but my agent had to go to them, and thought it might be better if they kept a watch on you. You'd got busy about some mysterious business. What was it?"

"I can't tell you," said Foster bluntly. "It only concerns me and Featherstone, but it led to something else; I'll come to that later.

What about the man I helped on the train? If he got through all right, why didn't he send me word?"

"As the fellows who attacked you had got on the wrong track, we thought we'd let them follow it, but they were smarter than we reckoned and we lost them."

"Then you made use of me, at my risk, as the Scottish police did afterwards?" Foster rejoined. "I don't know that I've much to thank you for, since it led to my being thrown off the Montreal express and chased across the Border bogs."

"I must allow that we did something of the kind," Hulton owned with a smile. "But we'll let that go. What have you found out?"

Foster handed him Graham's letter and the check on the American bank, but not the circular check for Daly. Hulton's face showed stern satisfaction and he gave Foster a very grateful look.

"I owe you much for this and am not going to forget the service. These papers prove conspiracy and robbery, and clear my boy. But how did you get them?"

Foster supplied a garbled account of his interview with Graham, and Hulton looked at him thoughtfully.

"Its plain that you're keeping something back, but if it's your or your partner's business, I suppose I can't object. I believe you mean to do the square thing."

"Thank you," said Foster. "What have you found out about Daly?"

"Enough to show he wasn't at the factory the night Fred was killed,"

Hulton answered with stern self-control. "But he was in the plot and is being watched in Scotland."

"Then you don't know that he's in Canada?"

Hulton stretched out his hand to a bell, but Foster stopped him.

"Wait a moment! You have got to leave Daly to me. Anyhow, you're not to send your agents or the police after him until I telegraph you. I'm going to look for him by to-night's train."

"The train goes west," Hulton answered meaningly.

"It does, but if I think I'm followed, I'll spoil the trail."

Hulton's eyes flashed and his face set very hard. "The man belongs to the gang that killed my son and tried to blacken his name. I don't quit until I've run the last rogue down."

"I mean to see Daly first," Foster answered doggedly.

After a moment or two, Hulton made a gesture of agreement. "Very well; I allow you have a claim. But I won't interfere if my agents have already got on his track."

"I must take the risk of that," Foster replied and left the factory a few minutes afterwards.

XXIII

AN UNEXPECTED MEETING

Daly was not at Banff, and Foster, who made cautious inquiries, found nothing to indicate that he had been there. Indeed, he began to weigh the possibility of Carmen's having deceived him, but rejected this explanation. The girl was clever at intrigue, but he did not think she had acted a part. She had really lost her self-control and told him the truth in a fit of rage. On the other hand, it was possible that Daly had deceived her, but there was no obvious reason for his doing so.

The fellow, however, was not in Banff, which is a small place, frequented mostly by tourists and invalids who come there in summer, and Foster took a west-bound train. He was once more at a loss and felt dispirited. For one thing, he had no time to lose, because it would spoil his plans if Hulton's agents got on Daly's track before him.

He left Banff late at night, with a ticket for Vancouver, which he had bought on speculation, partly because the seaboard city is a clearing-house for travelers to all parts of the Pacific coast, but did not sleep much as the heavy train rumbled through the mountains. The jolting of the cars and the roar of wheels that echoed among the rocks disturbed him, and he was troubled by gloomy thoughts. He had promised Alice Featherstone that he would clear her brother; but he had also to clear himself, and in order to do so must find Lawrence as well as Daly. Just now he had not much hope of finding either, but he cherished a vague belief in his luck, and it was unthinkable that he should neglect any chance of justifying the girl's confidence. He was ready to follow Daly round the world, sooner than lose that. The trouble was that he could not tell if he was following the fellow or not.

He went to sleep at last, and getting up rather late, spent an hour or two trying to knit up broken clews and looking for a light. It was a profitless but absorbing occupation and he vacantly glanced at the majestic panorama of snowy peaks and climbing forest that rolled past the windows of the car. When his thoughts wandered from their groove, he saw Alice Featherstone moving with stately calm about the Garth, or standing in the orchard with the sunset s.h.i.+ning on her face. He recalled the grace of her tall figure and how her dress harmonized with the mossy trunks, but he loved to dwell upon the look of trust in her steady eyes. Then the memories were suddenly banished, for a whistle rang up the track and there was a jar of brakes.

Foster hurried out to the platform when the long train stopped, and saw the conductor talking to the engineer and pa.s.sengers jumping down into the snow. Pete joined him as he followed them, but he stopped for some moments and looked about. There was no station near. The track, which was marked by cinders and stains on the snow, ran along a desolate mountainside. Dark pines that looked as if they had been dusted with icing-sugar rolled in curiously rigid ranks up the slope, getting smaller until they dwindled to a fine saw-edge that bit into a vast sweep of white. This ended in a row of jagged peaks whose summits gleamed with dazzling brightness against the blue sky. Below the track, the ground fell away to a tremendous gorge, where dark-colored mist hung about a green river dotted with drifting ice. The sun struck warm upon his face, though the snow was dry.

"We'll find out why they've stopped," he said to Pete and walked forward past the cars.

The engineer stood on the step of the huge locomotive and had not much information to give.

"Track's gone down not far ahead; snow-slide, I guess."

He shrugged when Foster asked if it would be a long job. "You can see for yourself, if you like," he remarked, indicating a plume of smoke that rose above the pines. "There's a construction gang at work round the bend. It's a sure thing we won't pull out before you're back."

Foster set off with Pete and several pa.s.sengers, and the Scot gazed about with wonder.

"I was born among the hills, but never have I seen ought like this!" he exclaimed. "Man, it pa.s.ses dreamin' o'; it's just stupenjious! But I wouldna' say they'll mak' much o' farming here."

"They have some bench tablelands and pretty rich alluvial valleys,"

Foster answered with a smile. "The province depends largely on its minerals."

Pete glanced back up the track that wound down between rock and forest from a distant notch in the high, white rampart.

"I'm thinking the men who built yon line had stout hearts."

"It wasn't an easy job," Foster agreed. "They were up against savage Nature, and she's still too strong for the engineer now and then, as I expect you'll shortly see."

They walked through a gap in the pines and stopped with a sense of awe on the edge of a great red furrow in the mountain. The gash was fringed by shattered trees, and here and there a giant splintered trunk rested precariously among stones ground to fragments. Far beneath, a vast pile of earth and snow dammed the river, and half-way up an overturned locomotive, with boiler crushed like an eggsh.e.l.l, lay among the wreckage. The end of a smashed box-car rose out of the boiling flood. For a hundred yards the track had vanished, but gangs of men were hurrying to and fro about the gap. Farther back, there was clang of flung-down rails and a ringing of hammers.

"If they open the road again by to-morrow morning, they'll be lucky,"

Foster remarked, and stopped a big fellow who was going past with an ax on his shoulder. "Is there any settlement not too far ahead?"

"There's a smart new hotel at the flag station about six miles off,"

said the man. "You can make it all right walking if you keep to the track and watch out you don't meet the construction train in the snowshed."

Foster, who knew he would find waiting tedious, went back to the car for his small bag, after which he and Pete set off for the hotel. They had some trouble to cross the path of the avalanche and then spent some time getting past the men who were unloading a row of flat cars. The single-line track was cut out of the rock and one ran a risk of glissading down to the river by venturing outside its edge. Once, indeed, a heavy beam, thrown too far, plunged down like a toboggan, and leaping from a rock's crest splashed into the flood. The men on the cars worked in furious haste, and it was difficult to avoid the clanging rails they threw off.

Foster got past, but did not find walking easy when he had done so.

The track wound among the folds of the hills, and where the sun had struck the snow there was a slippery crust, through which he broke.

Where it ran past tall crags and between the trees, the snow was dry and loose as dust. They made something over two miles in the first hour and soon afterwards came to the mouth of a snowshed. The opening made a dark blotch on the glittering slope, for the roof was pitched at a very small angle to the declivity and the snow pa.s.sed down hill over it with scarcely a wrinkle.

It was only when they entered they saw signs of man's work in the ma.s.sive beams and stringers that braced the structure. These were presently lost in the gloom and Foster stumbled among the ties.

s.h.i.+ngle ballast rolled under his feet; where he found a tie to step on it was generally by stubbing his toe, and once or twice he struck the side of the shed.