22. Harborage
Less than a mile down the track, Prince came to the tiny signal house for which he had been looking. The door was locked, and so numb and clumsy were his fingers that he found it hard to force it open. Once on the inside, he felt that the struggle was nearly over. This was the end. Using the railway's private phone, he astonished the telegraph operator in Fort Morgan by cutting in on him and asking him to run across to the nearest garage with a call for a service car.
For a long moment the operator was speechless. Did you ever hear of insolence like that? He told Prince to get off that wire and keep his hands away from railway property or he would land in the pen. Then he went back to his work. But Prince cut in on him again. Finally the operator referred him to the station master and gave him the connection. But the station master refused to meddle with any such irregular business. This was against the law, and station masters are strong for law and order. But Prince was persistent. At last, in despair, they connected him with the district superintendent.
"Who in thunder are you, and what do you want?" asked the superintendent in no gentle voice.
"I want some of those sap-heads of yours in Fort Morgan to take a message to the garage, and they won't do it," yelled Prince.
"Say, what do you think this is? A philanthropic messenger service?" ejaculated the superintendent.
"I haven't got time to talk," cried Prince. "I've got to get at a garage, and quickly."
"Well, we don't run a garage."
"Shut up a minute and listen, will you? There is a woman out here on the track, half frozen. We are twenty miles from a house. Will you send that message or not? The woman can't live two hours."
"Well, why didn't you tell what was the matter? I will connect you with the operator at Fort Morgan and tell him to do whatever you say. You stay on the wire until he reports they have a car started."
So Prince was flung back to the operator at Fort Morgan, and that high-souled scion of the railway was sent out like a common delivery boy to take a message. Prince waited in an agony of suspense for the report from the garage. It was not favorable. No man in town would go out on a wild goose chase into the plains on a night like that. Awfully sorry, nothing doing.
"Take a gun and make them come," said Prince, between set teeth.
"I'm not looking for trouble. Your woman would freeze before they got there anyhow."
"Send the sheriff," begged Prince.
"He couldn't get out there a night like this in time to do you any good."
This was literally true. For a second Prince was silent.
"Anything else?" asked the operator. "Want me to run out and get you a cigar, or a bottle of perfume, or anything?"
"Then there is just one thing to do," said Prince abruptly. "I'll have to flag the first train and get her aboard."
"What! You can't do it. You don't dare do it. It is against the law to flag a train on private business."
"I know it. So I am asking you to make it the railroad's business. I am warning you in advance. Where are the fuses?"
The operator helplessly called up the superintendent once more.
"What the dickens do you want now?"
"It's that nut on the line," explained the operator. "He wants something else."
"Yes, I want to know where the fuses are so I can flag the first train that comes. Or I will just set the tool house afire; that will stop them."
"The fuses are in the lock box under the phone. Break the lock, or pick it. Let us know if you get in all right. How the dickens did you get a woman out there a night like this?"
But Prince had no time to explain. "Thanks, old man, you're pretty white," he said, and clasped the receiver on to the hook. A little later, with the precious fuses in his pocket, he was fighting his way through the snow back to Connie, lying unconscious in the white blankets which no longer chilled her.
The waiting seemed endlessly weary. Prince dared not sit down, but must needs keep staggering up and down the track, praying as he had never prayed in all his life, that God would send a train before Connie should freeze to death. Stooping over her, he chafed her hands and ankles, shaking her roughly, but never succeeding in restoring her to consciousness though doubtless he did much toward keeping the blood in feeble circulation.
Then, thank God! No heavenly star ever shone half so gloriously bright as that wide sweep of light that circled around the ragged rocks. Prince hastily fired the fuse, and a few minutes later a lumbering freight train pulled up beside him, anxious voices calling inquiry.
With rough but willing hands they pulled the girl on board, and piled heavy coats on a bench beside the fire where she might lie, and brought out some hot coffee which Prince swallowed in deep gulps. They even forced a few drops of it down Connie's throat. Prince was soon himself again, and sat silently beside Connie as she slept the heavy sleep.
A long lumbering ride it was, the cars creaking and rocking, reeling from side to side as if they too were drunk with weariness and cold.
At last Connie moved a little and lifted her lashes. She lay very still a while, looking with puzzled eyes at her strange surroundings, enjoying the huge fire, wondering at that curious rocking. Then, glancing at the big brown head beside her, where Prince sat on an overturned bucket with her hand in his, she closed her eyes again, still puzzled, but content.
Long minutes afterward she spoke.
"Are you cold, Prince?"
He tightened his clasp on her hand.
"No."
"How did you ever make it?"
"The train came along and we got on. Now we are thawing out," he explained, smiling reassurance.
"I do not remember it. I only remember that I was stuck in the snow, and that you did not leave me."
"Here comes some more coffee, lady," said the brakeman, coming up. Connie drank it gratefully and sat up.
"Where are we going?"
"To Fort Morgan."
"Want any more blankets or anything?" asked the brakeman kindly. "Are you getting warm?"
"Too warm, I will have to move a little."
Prince helped her gently farther from the roaring flames, and again pulled his bucket close to her side. He placed his hand in her lap and Connie wriggled her fingers into his.
Suddenly she leaned forward and looked into his face, noting the steady steely eyes, the square strong chin, the boyish mouth. Not a handsome face, like Jerry's, not fine and pure, like David's,--but strong and kind, a face that somehow spoke wistfully of deep needs and secret longings. Suddenly Connie felt that she was very happy, and in the same instant discovered that her eyes were wet. She smiled.
"Connie," whispered the big brown man, "are we going to get married, sometime?"
"Yes," she whispered promptly, "sometime. If you want me."
His hands closed convulsively over hers.
"Make it soon," he begged. "It is terribly lonesome."
"Two years," she suggested, wrinkling her brows. "But if it is too lonesome, we will make it one."
"You won't go away." Prince was aghast at the thought.
"I have to," she told him, caressing his hand with her fingers. "You know I believe I have a talent, and it says in the Bible if you do not use what is given you, all the other nice things you have may be taken away. So if I don't use that talent, I may lose it and you into the bargain."
Prince did not understand that, but it sounded reasonable. Whatever Connie said, of course. She had a talent, all right, a dozen,--a hundred of them. He thought she had a monopoly on talents.
"I will go back a while and study and work and get ready to use the talent. I have to finish getting ready first. Then I will come and live with you and you can help me use it. You won't mind, will you?"
"I want you to use it," he said. "I'm proud of it. I will take you wherever you wish to go, I will do whatever you want. I'll get a home in Denver, and just manage the business from the outside. I can live the way you like to live and do the things you like to have done; Connie, I know I can."
Connie reached slowly for her hand-bag. From it she took a tiny note-book and tossed it in the fire.
"Literary material," she explained, smiting at him. "I can not write what I have learned in Fort Morgan. I can only live it."