CHAPTER XXIV

SNOWBOUND IN THE ROCKIES AND “FIT AS A MOOSE”

Tisdale, who was expected to furnish important testimony in the Alaska coal cases, had been served official notice at the hospital during Banks’ visit.  The trial was set for the twenty-fourth of March and in Seattle.

The prospector had found him braced up in bed, and going over the final proof of his Matanuska report, with the aid of a secretary.  “You better go slow, Hollis,” he said.  “You are looking about as reliable as your shadow.  Likely the first puff of a wind would lift you out of sight.  My, yes.  But I just ran over to say hello, and let you know if it’s the expense that’s hurrying you, there’s a couple of thousand in the Wenatchee bank I can’t find any use for, now the water-works are done and the house.  You can have it well’s not.  It ain’t drawing any interest.”  And Tisdale had taken the little man’s hand between both his own and called him “true gold.”  But he was in no pressing need of money, though it was possible he might delay in refunding those sums Banks had advanced on the project.  He was able enough to be on his feet, but these doctors were cautious; it might be another month before he would be doing a man’s work.

He started west, allowing himself ample time to reach Seattle by the fifteenth of March, when Banks’ option expired, but the fourteenth found him, after three days of delay by floods, snowbound in the Rockies.  The morning of the fifteenth, while the rotaries were still clearing track ahead, he made his way back a few miles to the nearest telegraph station and got into communication with the mining man.

“How are you?” came the response from Weatherbee.  “Done for?  Drop off at Scenic Hot Springs, if your train comes through.  She wrote she was there.  Came up with a little crowd for the coasting.  Take care of yourself, and here is to you.

“Lucky.”

And Tisdale, with the genial wrinkles deepening at the corners of his eyes once more, wired:  “Fit as a moose.  Go fifteenth.  Close business.”

A judge may pronounce a sentence yet, at the same time, feel ungovernable springs of sympathy welling from the depths of his heart, and while Tisdale pushed his way back to the stalled train, he went over the situation from Beatriz Weatherbee’s side.  He knew what the sale of that desert tract must mean to her; how high her hopes had flown since the payment of the bonus.  Looking forward to that final interview when, notwithstanding his improvements, Banks should relinquish his option, he weighed her disappointment.  In imagination he saw the light go out of her eyes; her lip, that short upper lip with its curves of a bow, would quiver a little, and the delicate nostril; then, instantly, before she had spoken a word, her indomitable pride would be up like a lifted whip, to sting her into self-control.  Oh, she had the courage; she would brave it out.  Still, still, he had intended to be there, not only to press the ultimate purpose, but to—­ease her through.  Banks might be abrupt.  He was sorry.  He was so sorry that though he had tramped, mushed a mile, he faced about, and, in the teeth of a bitter wind, returned to the station.