George helped the girl down, antic.i.p.ating Edgar, who seemed anxious to offer his a.s.sistance, and they walked forward until they could see into the pit. It was nearly forty feet in depth, for the embankment, softened by heavy rain, had slipped into the lake. In the bottom a huge locomotive lay shattered and overturned, with half a dozen men toiling about it. The girl stopped with a little gasp, for there was something strangely impressive in the sight of the wreck.
"It"s dreadful, isn"t it?" she exclaimed.
Then the men who had come with them gathered round.
"Where"s the fireman?" one of them asked. "He was too late when he jumped. Have they got him out?"
"Guess not," said another. "See, they"re trying to jack up the front of her."
"Aren"t you mistaken about the man?" George asked, looking at the first speaker meaningly.
"Why, no," replied the other. "He"s certainly pinned down among the wreck. They"ll find him before long. Isn"t that a jacket sleeve?"
He broke off with an exclamation, as Edgar drove an elbow hard into his ribs; but it was too late. The girl looked around at George, white in face.
"Is there a man beneath the engine? Don"t try to put me off."
"I"m afraid it"s the case."
"Then why did you bring me?" she cried with a shudder. "Take me away at once!"
George explained that he had forgotten the serious nature of the accident. He hastily helped her up and turned away with her, but when they had gone a little distance she sat down on a boulder.
"I feel badly startled and ashamed," she exclaimed. "I was enjoying it, as a spectacle, and all the time there was a man crushed to death."
Then she recovered her composure. "Go back and help. Besides, I think your friend is getting into trouble."
She was right. The man Edgar tried to silence had turned upon him, savage and rather breathless.
"Now," he said, "I"ll fix you mighty quick. Think I"m going to have a blamed Percy sticking his elbow into me?"
Edgar glanced at the big and brawny man, with a twinge of somewhat natural uneasiness; but he was not greatly daunted.
"Oh, well," he retorted coolly, "if that"s the way you look at it! But if you"re not in a desperate hurry, I"ll take off my jacket."
"What did you prod him for, anyway?" another asked.
"I"m sorry I didn"t jab him twice as hard; though I"d have wasted my energy," Edgar explained. "The fellow has no sense, but that"s no reason why he should be allowed to frighten a pretty girl."
His antagonist looked as if a light had suddenly dawned on him.
"Is that why you did it?"
"Of course! Do you think I"d attack a man of nearly twice my weight without some reason?"
The fellow laughed.
"We"ll let it go at that. You"re all right, Percy. We like you."
"Thanks," said Edgar; "but my name isn"t Percy. Couldn"t you think of something more stylish for a change?"
They greeted this with hoa.r.s.e laughter; and George, arriving on the scene, scrambled down into the pit with them to help the men below. It was some time later when he rejoined the girl, who was then gathering berries in the wood. She saw that his face and hands were grimy and his clothes were soiled.
"I heard that you found the unfortunate man. It was very sad," she said. "But what have you been doing since?"
"Shoveling a ton or two of gravel. Then I a.s.sisted in jacking up one side of the engine."
"Why? Did you enjoy it?"
George laughed; he had, as it happened, experienced a curious pleasure in the work. He was accustomed to the more vigorous sports; but, after all, they led to no tangible results, and in this respect his recent task was different--one, as he thought of it, could see what one had done. He had been endowed with some ability of strictly practical description, though it had so far escaped development.
"Yes," he responded. "I enjoyed it very much."
The girl regarded him with a trace of curiosity.
"Was that because work of the kind is new to you?"
"No," George answered. "It isn"t altogether a novelty. I once spent three years in manual labor; and now when I look back at them, I believe I was happy then."
She nodded as if she understood.
"Shall we walk back?" she suggested.
They went on together, and though the sun was now fiercely hot and the distance long, George enjoyed the walk. Once they met a ballast train, with a steam plow mounted at one end of it, and a crowd of men riding on the open cars; but when it had pa.s.sed there was nothing to break the deep silence of the woods. The dark firs shut in the narrow track except when here and there a winding lake or frothing river filled a sunny opening.
Soon after George and his companion reached the train, the engine came back with a row of freightcars, and during the afternoon the western express pulled out again, and sped furiously through the shadowy bush.
CHAPTER IV
GEORGE MAKES FRIENDS
It was nearing midnight when George walked impatiently up and down the waiting-room in Winnipeg station, for the western express was very late, and n.o.body seemed to know when it would start. George was nevertheless interested in his surroundings, and with some reason. The great room was built in palatial style, with domed roof, tessellated marble floor, and stately pillars: it was brilliantly lighted; and ma.s.sively-framed paintings of snow-capped peaks and river gorges adorned the walls. An excursion-train from Winnipeg Beach had just come in, and streams of young men and women in summer attire were pa.s.sing through the room. They all looked happy and prosperous: he thought the girls" light dresses were gayer and smarter than those usually seen among a crowd of English pa.s.sengers; but there was another side to the picture.
Rows of artistic seats ran here and there, and each was occupied by jaded immigrants, worn out by their journey in the sweltering Colonist cars. Piles of dilapidated baggage surrounded them, and among it exhausted children lay asleep. Drowsy, dusty women, with careworn faces, were huddled beside them; men bearing the stamp of ill-paid toil sat in dejected apathy; and all about each group the floor, which was wet with drippings from the roof, was strewn with banana skins, crumbs, and sc.r.a.ps of food. There had been heavy rains, and the atmosphere was hot and humid. It was, however, the silence of these newcomers that struck George most. There was no grumbling among them--they scarcely seemed vigorous enough for that--but as he pa.s.sed one row he heard a woman"s low sobbing and the wail of a fretful child.
After a while the girl he had met on the train appeared and intimated by a smile that he might join her. They found an unoccupied seat, and a smartly-attired young man who was approaching it stopped when he saw them.
"Well," he said coolly, "I guess I won"t intrude."
George felt seriously annoyed with him, but he was rea.s.sured when his companion laughed with candid amus.e.m.e.nt. Though there was no doubt of her prettiness, he had already noticed that she did not impress one most forcibly with the fact that she was an attractive young woman. It seemed to sink into the background when one spoke to her.
"It was rather tedious waiting in the hotel," she explained. "There was n.o.body I could talk to; my father is busy with a grain broker."
"Then he is a farmer?"
"Yes," said the girl, "he has a farm."