Melting snow dripped from the bridge-works roof and the snow in the street was gray and honeycombed. The trees along the sidewalk had shaken off their load, and a sunbeam touched the branches and sooty walls. Kit by the drawing office window saw the beam get brighter, and he frowned.
Winter was not gone. In Canada the cold holds on stubbornly, but spring was not far off, and nobody had yet suggested his going back to the bridge. At the office his work, for the most part, was mechanical; he enlarged plans and marked templates for the machine shops. He felt he could not use his talents, and he got no chance to push ahead. Moreover, although he was in the evenings allowed to play dance tunes at the boarding-house, his landlady declared she would not stand for his practicing high-brow music. By and by a clerk crossed the floor.
“Looks as if you were in for it! The boss wants you!”
Kit’s heart beat. To be called to the office was ominous, but he believed the plans he had recently sent to the workshops were accurate. Besides, he had had enough at the bridge-works, and to be fired would not much bother him. He pushed back the door and saw Wheeler. Wheeler was burly and as a rule his look was hard, but sometimes when he talked to Kit his eyes twinkled. His hands were in his pockets and he chewed a cigar. Another gentleman behind a big desk looked up.
“You were a shipyard draftsman, Carson. You know something about working steel plates?”
Kit agreed and the manager gave him some plans.
“Railroad tanks. They’re large; the water’s alkaline and chemicals are used to precipitate the salts. What do you think about the plating?”
“If Carson states all he thinks, I expect the designer will get a jolt,” Wheeler remarked.
Kit wondered whether Wheeler’s joke carried a hint, but he did not know and he studied the plans.
“The construction’s cheap,” he said. “I suppose the pressure’s light?”
“The weight of the enclosed water; that’s all.”
“Then, if the caulking’s really good, perhaps the tanks ought not to leak.”
Wheeler laughed. “They do leak! They’re trickling right across the alkali belt, and to make them tight will cost the opposition high. You see, they’re not our tanks.”
“The company has got an order for a fresh lot along the new line,” said the manager. “The railroad, however, will not pay us a better price, and the construction must be cheap. The problem is to carry a heavy load on thin material. If the job were yours, how’d you get about it?”
Kit saw they tried him out; in fact, he had before imagined he was studied. He knew Western engineers thought English methods out-of-date, but he was moved by reckless humor and he had known the bold line pay.
“You are experts and I ought to be modest,” he replied. “However, to make a thin joint tight you must have good caulking, and good caulking implies long practice and inherited skill. To begin with, I’d send for an English boiler gang. If you got me men from Lancashire, I’d engage to make the landings tight.”
“Carson’s young, but he certainly has some sand,” Wheeler remarked, and the manager looked at Kit rather hard.
“Your plan won’t go. We use Canadian workmen.”
“Then, I expect you’ll use Canadian material, and perhaps your rolling mills can supply the plates I want. At the shipyard our specialty was light construction for fast small steamers, and we were forced to study problems like yours——”
He drew two or three sketch plans and elevations, and resumed: “There’s my notion. The measurements, of course, are not accurate.”
“We’ll send for you again,” said the manager, and when Kit went off gave Wheeler the drawings.
“I believe the boy has got it!”
“Looks like that,” Wheeler agreed with a chuckle. “The proposition beat our gang.”
“But how do you account for a raw lad’s——?”
“The boy was a shipbuilder and I figured on the Jasper Carson touch. We take a kid from a farm and send him to the machine shops; another from a backwoods store goes to an engineering college. In the Old Country they have folks whose grandfathers handled machine tools. Carson belongs to a lot like that; I guess you can hand him the job.”
After a time they sent for Kit and the manager said: “We’ll try out your plan and you can start on your calculations. As soon as the plates are rolled, we’ll give you a picked gang and you’ll begin the first tank on the division west of Harper’s. If your tank is tight, you can build the lot and I reckon we can satisfy you about your pay. In the meantime, we’ll raise you fifty per cent.”
“If the tank is not tight, you can look for another job,” Wheeler added.
“Thank you,” said Kit. “The test is pretty stern, but I admit it’s logical. I must try to make good.”
They let him go and when he returned to his drawing board he thrilled triumphantly. If his tanks carried their load, promotion would be swift and for a shipbuilder to put up the tanks was not really hard. He pictured the letter he would write to Evelyn, but when after supper he went to his room at the boarding-house he hesitated and lighted his pipe. To boast was risky; he had boasted at the bridge. The tanks were not yet built, and one must reckon on obstacles. Sometimes thin steel got brittle around the rivet holes; sometimes the rivets did not properly pull up the seam. Workmen were careless, and so forth.
Moreover, Kit began to feel he was not really keen to write. He had not for some time received a letter from Evelyn, and the last was cold and vaguely resentful. Perhaps she had reason to be disappointed and Kit was sorry, but her grumbling jarred. Anyhow, the thrill was gone. At length, he was going ahead, but his start was late and the proper time to celebrate his triumph was when he arrived. The strange thing was, on the whole he was resigned to wait.
Kit put up his writing pad and got his violin. For half an hour he played merry tunes in the dining-room; and then he and another went up town for a game of pool.
A week or two afterwards a freight train stopped by a creek some distance from the bridge, and Kit and a number of workmen got down from the caboose. A bluff sheltered the spot, and Kit was glad to get behind the trees, for the wind was keen. On the Western plains the snow is thin, and where the rises faced south the grass was dry and bleached. Winter was going but was not altogether gone, and under the boggy surface the soil was frozen. Thick clouds floated about the dreary sky and the light got faint. A flat car carried a wooden house, framed in sections, and Kit called his men.
“We’ll put up the shack, boys, and fix the stove. If you want supper and a bed, you have got to hustle.”
The house went up and was bolted fast in the dark, although to level the ground was ominously hard. The bunks were fixed and soon the stove snapped cheerfully, and one smelt coffee, frying pork, and the resin in the boards. At supper Kit’s appetite was good. At length he had got independent command and his hopes were high. He liked the gang; the muscular, white-skinned fellows were from city workshops and he thought he knew their type. He had stipulated for a first-class cook, and if good food would buy the men’s support, he must risk the company’s grumbling about the bill. Kit thought all were content and he went happily to bed.
In the morning he got to work and soon knew he had not an easy task. A solid foundation was needed to carry the big tank, but when he broke the surface the soil was like iron; storms of rain and sleet drove the men to shelter and at night the trampled slush froze. To handle the cold, sharp-edged steel was awkward, and Kit wondered whether he had not started a month too soon. All the same, speed was important and he pushed stubbornly ahead. The gang was willing and the tank began to grow.
One Saturday evening Kit went to the bridge. The big girders now spanned the river and a service locomotive pushed across the rails and ballast for the approach track. Austin had borne the winter better than Kit had expected. His skin was darkened by frost and the reflection from the snow, his step was firm and his look was tranquil. Kit knew him modestly proud, and when he studied the bridge and pictured the effort it had cost he thought Bob had some cause for satisfaction.
On the whole, Kit thought his going to the workshops was justified. Bob had seized his opportunity and, no doubt, would get his reward; moreover, in one sense, to help his friend had not cost Kit much. The trouble was, Evelyn was disappointed and perhaps thought him slack. She did not know his object for giving up his post, and, when he pondered it, he saw his not enlightening her was significant. He had not expected Evelyn to see he was forced to think for Bob, although Alison had done so and approved his resolve. Well, he was not going to bother about it. Evelyn was ambitious for him, and when the tank was finished she would know he had conquered.
The Sunday was bleak, the dinner Jock gave them was something of a feast, and in the afternoon they sat by the stove and talked. After a time Austin said: “Carrie was delighted to know the bosses sent you to put up the tanks. I’m not at all jealous, Kit, but my wife’s your admirer. You attract women of the best sort. Carrie, for example, is fastidious and cleverer than I am, but she has certainly taken a shine to you.”
Kit knew Bob, in some respects, was not clever; he did not suspect that Kit and Mrs. Austin had plotted for him to remain at the bridge.
“Oh, well,” he said with a smile, “I really think my charm’s unconscious.”
“Sometimes a charm like that is embarrassing,” Austin remarked. “Carrie, however, wants to congratulate you, and if you can stay for a week-end with us, I’d be very glad. When can you fix it?”
Kit said he could not yet get off, and Austin resumed: “Then, since Carrie’s coming to see the bridge we’ll run out to the tank. In fact, you may have a surprise party, because I expect Alison, Florence Grey, and Harries will join us. They haven’t yet been to the bridge and all want to see you.”
“That’s fine! I fancy my cook will see me out. All the same, I’d sooner you gave me a date.”
“Something depends on the weather, but it must be soon. When your letter arrived, Alison was at our house and she was interested. She wants to go with us and she may not be at Fairmead long.”
“Then, you think Miss Forsyth isn’t satisfied at the creamery?” said Kit in a disturbed voice.
“Not at all. They’re putting up fresh plant and a larger building, and she reckons on getting better pay, but she’s bothered about her relations in England. An aunt at a lone homestead is sick and may want her. If she’s called, I guess she’ll go.”
Kit knocked out his pipe and for a few moments was quiet. He admitted he was not reasonable, but he hated to think about Alison’s going. Moreover, he knew her ambitious, and now she made progress for her to go was hard. Yet when he recaptured her portrait of the kind dalesfolk at lonely Whinnyates, he knew she would not hesitate. Well, he was not entitled to grumble and Bob must not think him disturbed.
“To quit will be something of a knock for Alison, but she’s fine stuff,” he said.
“Carrie fell for her at the Winnipeg station waiting-room,” Austin resumed. “Perhaps because we were happy the picture sticks; the pillars, the marble flags and the shabby crowd; you on your battered gripsack, and Alison on the bench. She was tired and lonesome; Carrie reckoned she was near crying, but when we stopped she smiled. That was all; the smile got my wife. Carrie declared she was clean sand, the sort to stay with a hard job and help another.... I reckon she helped you. At Fairmead she talked about you and when we met up at the bridge I own I put Wheeler on your track. Well, I expect you’d have made good, anyhow; but Alison is accountable for your getting a show.”
Kit mused rather unhappily. He knew he did owe Alison much, but he did not altogether see the object of Austin’s remarks. Bob was not a sentimentalist.
“As soon as possible you must fix a date for your visit,” he said. “If your party cannot get across, I’ll start for Fairmead.”
They began to talk about something else, and in the evening Kit went back to the tank.
A week afterwards, Kit one afternoon waited by the top of the grade behind the poplar bluff. The spot commanded two or three miles of the undulating line and a black smoke plume streaked a rise. A bitter north wind swept the plain and the dry white grass rippled like the sea, but the soil was hard like concrete. It looked as if arctic winter had returned and Kit thought the landscape’s distinctness ominous.
Dark clouds rolled up from the northern horizon; in the south, pale sunshine touched the grass, and bluffs and clumps of brush were sharply clear. In the distance a ravine pierced broken ground, and the small trees and ragged bank cut the gray slope in sharp black silhouette. Kit’s visitors, however, would arrive and go by train, and he watched the locomotive steam up the grade.
The flat rail cars stopped by the tank, and Austin helped Florence Grey from the locomotive cab. She gave Kit her hand, rather as if she were forced, and began to talk.
“Hold the train, Bob, until we collect all the gang. Ted went for Carrie and Alison, and I expect they’re on board the caboose. I had not been on a loco, Kit, and Bob put me in the cab, but the engineer wouldn’t stand for the lot and Alison has a smart new coat. Come on and help her down!”
They went along the track, but when they got to the caboose Harries jumped off and a brakesman shut the door.
“Where’s Carrie?” Florence inquired, and Harries gave her a puzzled look.
“I sure don’t know! I thought Mrs. Austin and Alison went with you. They certainly were not at the smith’s shop, and when the train was starting I jumped on board.”
“Oh, shucks! Didn’t you look in the office?”
“Why’d I look in the office? You said I’d get them at the smithy,” Harries rejoined.
“You’re not very bright, Ted. Alison’s clothes are new. Why did you think I reckoned she was at the smoky forge?”
“Search me!” said Harries. “You did think she was there. I don’t know much about women’s clothes, but you’ve got some grease on yours.”
“Men are like that!” Florence remarked scornfully. “However, Bob’s waiting, and I expect the engineer’s getting mad.”
They started for the front of the train and Harries gave Kit a smile. Kit knew Florence’s habit was to dispute with her lover, but he was annoyed, for he had wanted to see Alison. When they reached the locomotive, the engineer looked out from the cab.
“Two of your party short-shipped? Well, maybe they’ll make it on the gravel train. If the pile’s not frozen she ought to come along by and by. I reckon she’ll go back before us, but the gang will be on board and you better wait. If I see your flag I’ll pick you up. So long!”
He shut the window and the cars rolled ahead. Kit and Austin studied the skeleton tank, and then the party went to his shack. Not long afterwards the gravel train steamed by.
Kit’s disappointment was keen. Alison had not arrived and all was flat. Sometimes Florence bantered him and he played up. Austin talked and Harries was naively humorous, but Kit could not banish his moodiness. Alison was going to England and he might not see her before she went.