ashort, thick old man, grey-bearded and puff-eyed and loaded with enormous jewels, met gail, lucile and arly, ted teasdale and the reverend smith boyd, at the foot of the subway stairs, and introduced himself with smiling ease as tim corman, beaming with much pride in his wide-spread fame.
“mr. allison sent me to meet you,” he stated, with a bow on which he justly prided himself. “allison played a low trick on me, ladies,” and he gazed on them in turns with a jovial familiarity, which, in another, they might have resented. “from the description he gave me, i was looking for the most beautiful young lady in the world, and here there’s three of you.” his eyes swelled completely shut when he laughed. “so you’ll have to help me out. which one of you is miss sargent?”
“the young lady who answers the description,” smiled arly, delighted with tim corman, and she indicated gail.
“mr. allison couldn’t be here,” explained tim, leading the way to the brightly lighted private car. “we’re to pick him up at hoadley park. miss sargent, as hostess of the party, is to have charge of everything.”
the side doors slid open as they approached, and they entered the carpeted and draped car, furnished with wicker chairs and a well-stocked buffet. in the forward 136compartment were three responsible looking men and a motorman, and one of the responsibles, a fat gentleman who did not seem to care how his clothes looked, leaned into the parlour.
“all ready?” he inquired, with an air of concealing a secret impression that women had no business here.
tim corman, who had carefully seen to it that he had a seat between gail and arly, touched gail on the glove.
“ready, thank you,” she replied, glancing brightly at the loosely arrayed fat man, and she could see that immediately a portion of that secret impression was removed.
with an easy glide, which increased with surprising rapidity into express speed, the car slid into the long, glistening tunnel, still moist with the odours of building.
“this is the most stunningly exclusive thing in the world!” exclaimed lucile teasdale. “a private subway!”
the reverend smith boyd bent forward. all the way down to the subway entrance he had enjoyed the reversal to that golden age where no one says anything and everybody laughs at it.
“to my mind that is not the greatest novelty,” he observed. “the most enjoyable part of the journey so far has been getting into the subway without paying a nickel.” he glanced over at gail as he spoke, but only arly, lucile and ted laughed. tim corman had adroitly blocked gail into a corner, and was holding her attention.
“ed allison’s one of the smartest boys in new york,” he enthusiastically declared. “did you ever see anybody as busy as he is?”
137“he seems to be a very energetic man,” gail assented, with a sudden remembrance of how busy allison had always been.
“gets anything he goes after,” tim informed her, and screwed one of his many-puffed eyes into a wink; at which significant action gail looked out at the motorman. “never tells his plans to anybody, nor what he wants. just goes and gets it.”
“that’s a successful way, i should judge,” she responded, now able to see the humour of tim corman’s volunteer mission, but a red spot beginning to dawn, nevertheless, in either cheek.
“well, he’s square,” asserted tim judicially. “understand, he don’t care how he gets a thing just so he gets it, but if he makes you a promise he’ll keep it. that’s what i call square.”
gail nodded. she had discerned that quality in allison.
“what i like about him is that he always wins,” went on tim. “nobody in this town has ever passed him the prunes. do you know what he did? he started with two miles of rust and four horse cars, and now he owns the whole works.”
gail knitted her brows. she had heard something of this marvellous tale before, and it had interested her. she had been groping for an explanation of allison’s tremendous force.
“that was a wonderful achievement. how did he accomplish it?”
“made ’em get off and walk!” boasted tim, with vast pride in the fact. “any time eddie run across a man that had a street car line, he choked it out of him. he’s a wizard.”
tim’s statement seemed to be somewhat clouded in 138metaphor, but gail managed to gather that allison had possibly used first-principle methods on his royal pathway to success.
“you mean that he drove them out of business.”
“pushed ’em off!” and tim’s voice was exultant.
“i don’t think i understand business,” worried gail. “it seems so cruel.”
“so is baseball, if you want to figure that it’s a shame the losers have to take a licking,” chuckled tim. “anybody allison likes is lucky,” and with the friendly familiarity of an old man, tim corman patted gail on the glove.
“it occurs to me that i’m neglecting my opportunities,” observed gail, rising. “i’m supposed to be running this car,” and going to the glass door she looked into the motorman’s compartment, which was large, and had seats in it, and all sorts of mysterious tools and appliances in the middle of the floor.
tim corman, as allison’s personal representative, was right on the spot.
“come on out,” he invited, and opened the door, whereupon the three responsible looking men immediately arose.
gail hesitated, then smiled. she turned to look at the others, half wondering if she should invite them to come, and whether a crowd would be welcomed, but the quartette were gathered on the observation platform, watching the tunnel swallowing itself in a faraway point.
“mr. greggory, general manager of the municipal transportation company, miss sargent,” introduced tim, and the fat man bowed, with still another portion of that secret opinion removed. “mr. lincoln, general engineer of the transportation company, miss 139sargent,” and the thin-faced man with the high forehead and the little french moustache, bowed, smiling his decided approval. “mr. mccarthy, general construction manager of the transportation company, miss sargent,” and the red-faced man with the big red moustache, bowed, grinning. tim corman led gail forward to the motorman, and tapped him on the shoulder. “show her how it works, tom,” he directed.
so it was that edward e. allison, standing quite alone on the platform of the hoadley park station, saw the approaching trial trip car stop, and run slowly, and run backwards, and dart forwards, and perform all sorts of experimental movements, before it rushed down to his platform, with a rosy-cheeked girl standing at the wheel, her brown eyes sparkling, her red lips parted in a smile of ecstatic happiness, her hat off and her waving brown hair flowing behind her in the sweep of the wind. to one side stood a highly pleased motorman, while a short, thick old man, and a careless fat man, and a man with a high forehead and one with a red moustache, all smiling indulgently, clogged the space in the rear.
allison boarded the car, and greeted his guests, and came straight through to the motorman’s cage, as gail, in response to the clang of the bell, pulled the lever. she was just getting that easy starting glide, and she was filled with pride in the fact.
“you should not stand bare-headed in front of that window,” greeted allison, almost roughly; and he closed it.
gail turned very sweetly to the motorman.
“thank you,” she said, and gave him the lever, then she walked back into the car. it had required some repression to avoid recognising that dictatorial attitude, 140and allison felt that she was rather distant, and wondered what was the matter; but he was a practical minded person, and he felt that it would soon blow over.
“this is the deepest line in the city,” he informed her, as she led the way back to the group in the parlour division. “every subway we build presents more difficult problems of construction because of the crossings.”
“i should think it would be most difficult,” she indifferently responded, and hurried back to the girls.
“i feel horribly selfish,” she confessed, slipping her arm around lucile on one side and arly on the other; and the reverend smith boyd, strangely inclined to poetry these days, compared them to the three graces, with hope in the centre. they were an attractive picture for the looking of any man; the blonde lucile, the brown gail, and the black-haired arly, all fresh-cheeked, slender, and sparkling of eye.
“i’m glad your conscience smites you,” smiled arly. “wasn’t it fun?”
“the most glorious in the world!” and gail glanced doubtfully at tim corman, who was right on the spot.
“come on, girls,” heartily invited tim, who could catch a hint as fast as any man. “i’ll introduce you to tom,” and, profoundly happy in his gallantry, he returned to the front of the car with a laughing blonde on one arm and a laughing brunette on the other.
allison turned confidently to chat with gail, but that young lady, smiling on the reverend smith boyd, moved back to the observation platform, and the reverend smith boyd followed the smile with alacrity.
“i’ve been neglecting this view,” she observed, gazing out into the rapidly diminishing perspective, then 141she glanced up sidewise at the tall young rector, whose eyes were perfectly blue.
he answered something or other, and the conversation was so obviously a tête-à-tête that allison remained behind. ted teasdale had long since found, in the engineer, a man who knew motor boating in every phase of its failures; so that allison and tim corman were in sole possession of the parlour compartment, and tim looked up at allison with a complacent grin, as the latter sat beside him.
“well, eddie, i put in a plug for you,” stated tim, with the air of one looking for approval.
“how’s that?” inquired allison, abstractedly.
“boosted you to the girl. say, she’s a peach!”
allison looked quickly back at the platform, and then frowned down on his zealous friend tim.
“what did you tell miss sargent about me?”
“don’t you worry, eddie; it’s all right,” laughed tim. “i hinted to her, so that she had to get it, that you’re about the most eligible party in new york. i let her know that no man in this village had ever skinned you. she wanted to know how you made this big combination, and i told her you made ’em all get off; pushed ’em off the map. take it from me, eddie, after i got through, she knew where to find a happy home.”
allison’s brows knitted in quick anger, and then suddenly he startled the subway with its first loud laugh. he understood now, or thought he did, gail’s distant attitude; but, knowing what was the matter, he could easily straighten it out.
“thanks, tim,” he chuckled. “let’s talk business a minute. i had you hold up the vedder court condemnation because i got a new idea last night. those buildings are unsafe.”
142“well, the building commissioners have to make a living,” considered tim.
“that’s what i think,” agreed allison.
tim corman looked up at him shrewdly out of his puffy slits of eyes, for a moment, and considered.
“i get you,” he said, and the business talk being concluded, allison went forward.
“mccarthy,” he snapped, in a voice which grated; “what are all those boxes back in the beginning of the ‘y’ of the west docks branch?”
“blasting material,” and mccarthy looked uncomfortable.
“get it out,” ordered allison, and returned to tim.
the girls and ted came back presently, and, with their arrival, gail brought the reverend smith boyd into the crowd, thereupon they resolved themselves into some appearance of sociability, and allison, for the amusement of the company, slyly started old tim corman into a line of personal reminiscences, so replete in unconscious humour and so frank in unconscious disclosure of callous knavery, that the company needed no other entertainment.
out into the open, where the sun paled the electric lights of the car into a sickly yellow, up into the air, peering into third story tenements and down narrow alleys, aflutter with countless flapping pieces of laundry work, then suddenly into the darkness of the tunnel again, then out, on the surface of country fields, and dreary winter landscape, to the terminal. it was more cosy in the tunnel, and they returned there for lunch, while the general manager and the general engineer and the general construction manager of the municipal transportation company, with occasional crisp visits from president allison, soberly discussed the condition 143of the line. the reverend smith boyd displayed an unexpected technical interest in that subject. he had taken an engineering course in college, and, in fact, he had once wavered seriously between that occupation and the church, and he put two or three questions so pertinent that he awakened a new respect in allison. allison took the rector to the observation platform to explain something in the construction of the receding tunnel, and as they stood there earnestly talking, with concentrated brows and eyes searching into each other for quick understanding, gail sargent was suddenly struck by a wonder as to what makes the differences in men. allison, slightly stocky, standing with his feet spread sturdily apart and his hands in his coat pockets, and his clean-cut profile slightly upturned to the young rector, was the very epitome of force, of decisive action, of unconquerable will. he seemed to fairly radiate resistless energy, and as she looked, gail was filled with the admiration she had often felt for this exponent of the distinctively american spirit of achievement. she had never seen the type in so perfect an example, and again there seemed to wave toward her that indefinable thrill with which he had so often impressed her. was the thrill altogether pleasurable? she could not tell, but she did know that with it there was mixed a something which she could not quite fathom in herself. was it dislike? no, not that. was it resentment? was it fear? she asked herself that last question again.
the young rector was vastly different; taller and broader-shouldered, and more erect of carriage, and fully as firm of profile, he did not somehow seem to impress her with the strength of allison. he was more temperamental, and, consequently, more susceptible to change; therefore weaker. was that deduction correct? 144she wondered, for it troubled her. she was not quite satisfied.
suddenly there came a dull, muffled report, like the distant firing of a cannon; then an interval of silence, an infinitesimal one, in which the car ran smoothly on, and, half rising, they looked at each other in startled questioning. then, all at once, came a stupendous roar, as if the world had split asunder, a jolting and jerking, a headlong stoppage, a clattering, and slapping and crashing and grinding, deafening in its volume, and with it all, darkness; blackness so intense that it seemed almost palpable to the touch!
there was a single shriek, and a nervous laugh verging on hysteria. the shriek was from arly, and the laugh from lucile. there was a cry from the forward end of the car, as if some one in pain. a man’s yell of fright; greggory the general manager. a strong hand clutched gail’s in the darkness, firm, reassuring. the rector.
“don’t move!” it was the voice of allison, crisp, harsh, commanding.
“anybody hurt?” tim corman, the voice of age, but otherwise steady. one could sense, somehow, that he sat rigid in his chair, with both hands on his cane.
“it’s me,” called tom, the motorman. “head cut a little, arm bruised. nothing bad.”
“gail?” allison again.
“yes.” clear voiced, with the courage which has no sex.
“mrs. teasdale? mrs. fosland?”
both all right, one a trifle sharp of voice, the other nervous.
“ted? doctor boyd?” and so through the list. everybody safe.
145“it is an accidental blast,” said the voice of allison. he had figured that a concise statement of just what had happened might expedite organisation. “we are below the farmount ridge, over a hundred feet deep, and the tube has caved in on us. there must be no waste of exertion. don’t move until i find what electrical dangers there are.”
they obeyed his admonition not to move, even to the extent of silence; for there was an instinct that allison might need to hear minutely. he made his way into the front compartment, he called the chief engineer. there was a clanking of the strange looking implements on the floor of the car. a match flared up, and showed the pale face of the engineer bending over.
“no matches,” ordered allison. “we may need the oxygen.”
he and the engineer made their way back into the parlour compartment. they took up the door of the motor well in the floor, and in a few minutes they replaced it. from the sounds they seemed remarkably clumsy.
“that much is lucky,” commented allison. “the next thing is to dig.”
they were quiet a moment.
“in front or behind?” wondered the engineer.
again a pause.
“in front,” decided allison. “the explosion came from that direction, and has probably shaken down more of the soil there than behind, but it’s solid clay in the rear, and further out.”
gail felt the rector’s hand suddenly leave her own. it had been wonderfully comforting there in the dark; so firm and warm and steady. he had not talked much to her, just a few reassuring words, in that low, melodious 146voice, which thrilled her as did occasionally the touch of allison’s hand, as did the eyes of dick rodley. but she had received more strength from the voice of allison. he was big, allison, a power, a force, a spirit of command. she began, for the first time, to comprehend his magnitude.
“what have we to dig with?” the voice of the reverend smith boyd, and there was a note of eagerness in it.
“the benches up in front here,” yelled mccarthy, and there was a ripping sound as he tore the seat from one of them.
“pardon me.” it was the voice of the rector, up in front.
“the balance of you sit down, and keep rested,” ordered allison, now also up in front. “mccarthy, boyd and i go first.”
the long struggle began. the girls grouped together in the back of the car, moving but very little, for there was much broken glass about. up in front the three men could be heard making an opening into the débris through the forward windows. they talked a great deal, at first, strong, capable voices. they were interfering with each other, then helping, combining their strength to move heavy stones and the like, then they were silent, working independently, or in effective unison.
tim corman was the possessor of a phosphorescent-faced watch, with twenty-two jewels on the inside and a ruby on the winding stem, and he constituted himself timekeeper.
“thirty minutes,” he called out. “it’s our shift.”
“you’d better save yourself, tim,” suggested greggory, in a kindly tone.
147“i’ll do as much as any of you!” growled old tim, with the will, if not the quality, of youth in his voice. “will one of you girls take care of my rings?” and stripping them from his fingers, he laid them carefully in the outstretched hands of arly. there was a good handful of them.
the men crawled in from outside, but they stayed in the front compartment. the air was growing a trifle close, and they breathed heavily.
“good-bye girl,” called the gaily funereal voice of ted teasdale. “husband is going to work.”
“put on your gloves,” lucile reminded him.
“greggory,” called allison.
“here,” responded the careless fat man. “how did you find it?”
“loose,” reported allison, and there was a sound suspiciously like grunting, as greggory crawled through the narrow opening.
another interminable wait, while the air grew more stifling. there was no further levity after lincoln and the motorman and mccarthy had come back; for the condition was becoming serious. some air must undoubtedly be finding its way to the car through the loose débris, but the carbonic acid gas exhaled from a dozen pairs of lungs was beginning to pocket, and the opening ahead, though steadily pushing forward, displayed no signs of lessening solidity.
they established shorter shifts now; a quarter of an hour. the men came silently in and out, and as silently worked, and as silently rested, while the girls carried that heavy burden of women’s hardest labour; waiting!
greggory was the first to give out, then the injured motorman. when their turns came, they had not the 148strength nor the air in their lungs. strong mccarthy was the next to join them.
the shifts had reduced to two, of two men each by now; ted and old tim, and allison and the rector; and these latter two worked double time. their lips and their tongues were parched and cracking, and in their periods of rest they sat motionlessly facing each other, with a wheeze in the drawing of their breath. their stentorian breathing could be heard from the forward end of their little tunnel clear back into the car, where the three girls were battling to preserve their senses against the poisonous gases which were now all that they had to breathe. acting on the rector’s advice, they had stood up in the car to escape the gradually rising level of the carbonic gas, stood, as the time progressed, with their mouths agape and their breasts heaving and sharp pains in their lungs at every breath. arly dropped, silently crumpling to the floor; then, a few minutes later, lucile, and, panic-stricken by the thought that they had gone under, gail felt her own senses reeling, when suddenly, looking ahead through eyes which were staring, she saw a crack of blessed light!
there was a hoarse cry from ahead! the crack of light widened. another one appeared, some four feet to the right of it, and gail already fancied that she could feel a freshening of the air she breathed with such tearing pain. against the light of the openings, two figures, the only two which were left to work, strove, at first with the slow, limp motions of exhaustion, and then with the renewed vigour of approaching triumph. she could distinguish them clearly now, by the light which streamed in, the stocky, strong figure of allison and the tall, sinewy figure of the rector. they were 149working frantically, allison with his coat off, and the rector with his coat and vest both removed, and one sleeve torn almost entirely from his shirt, revealing his swelling biceps, and a long, red scratch. gail’s senses were numbed, so that they were reduced to almost merely optical consciousness, so that she saw things photographically; but, even in her numbness, she realised that what she had thought a trace of weakness in the rector, was only the grace which had rounded his strength.
the two figures bent inward toward each other. there was a moment of mighty straining, and then the whole centre between the two cracks rolled away. a huge boulder had barred the path, and its removal let down a rush of pure, fresh air from the ground above, let down, too, a flood of dazzling light; and in the curving, under-rim of the opening, stood the two stalwart men who were the survival of the fittest! the mere instinct of self-preservation drove gail forward, with a cry, toward the source of that life-giving air, and she scrambled through the window and ran toward the two men. they came hurriedly down to meet her, and each gave her a hand.
