She left him then, and did not see him again.Four days later the camping party left.Thorpe sent Tim Shearer over, as his most efficient man, to see that they got off without difficulty, but himself retired on some excuse to Camp Four.Three weeks gone in October he received a marked newspaper announcing the engagement of Miss Hilda Farrand to Mr.Hildreth Morton of Chicago.
He had burned his ships, and stood now on an unfriendly shore.The first sacrifice to his jealous god had been consummated, and now, live or die, he stood pledged to win his fight.
Chapter XLV
Winter set in early and continued late; which in the end was a good thing for the year's cut.The season was capricious, hanging for days at a time at the brink of a thaw, only to stiffen again into severe weather.This was trying on the nerves.For at each of these false alarms the six camps fell into a feverish haste to get the job finished before the break-up.It was really quite extraordinary how much was accomplished under the nagging spur of weather conditions and the cruel rowelling of Thorpe.
The latter had now no thought beyond his work, and that was the thought of a madman.He had been stern and unyielding enough before, goodness knows, but now he was terrible.His restless energy permeated every molecule in the economic structure over which he presided, roused it to intense vibration.Not for an instant was there a resting spell.The veriest chore-boy talked, thought, dreamed of nothing but saw logs.Men whispered vaguely of a record cut.Teamsters looked upon their success or failure to keep near the top on the day's haul as a signal victory or a disgraceful defeat.The difficulties of snow, accident, topography which an ever-watchful nature threw down before the rolling car of this industry, were swept aside like straws.Little time was wasted and no opportunities.It did not matter how smoothly affairs happened to be running for the moment, every advantage, even the smallest, was eagerly seized to advance the work.A drop of five degrees during the frequent warm spells brought out the sprinklers, even in dead of night; an accident was white-hot in the forge almost before the crack of the iron had ceased to echo.At night the men fell into their bunks like sandbags, and their last conscious thought, if indeed they had any at all, was of eagerness for the morrow in order that they might push the grand total up another notch.It was madness; but it was the madness these men loved.
For now to his old religion Thorpe had added a fanaticism, and over the fanaticism was gradually creeping a film of doubt.To the conscientious energy which a sense of duty supplied, was added the tremendous kinetic force of a love turned into other channels.And in the wild nights while the other men slept, Thorpe's half-crazed brain was revolving over and over again the words of the sentence he had heard from Hilda's lips: "There can be nothing better than love."His actions, his mind, his very soul vehemently denied the proposition.
He clung as ever to his high Puritanic idea of man's purpose.But down deep in a very tiny, sacred corner of his heart a very small voice sometimes made itself heard when other, more militant voices were still: "It may be; it may be!"The influence of this voice was practically nothing.It made itself heard occasionally.Perhaps even, for the time being, its weight counted on the other side of the scale; for Thorpe took pains to deny it fiercely, both directly and indirectly by increased exertions.But it persisted; and once in a moon or so, when the conditions were quite favorable, it attained for an instant a shred of belief.
Probably never since the Puritan days of New England has a community lived as sternly as did that winter of 1888 the six camps under Thorpe's management.There was something a little inspiring about it.The men fronted their daily work with the same grim-faced, clear-eyed steadiness of veterans going into battle;--with the same confidence, the same sure patience that disposes effectively of one thing before going on to the next.There was little merely excitable bustle; there was no rest.Nothing could stand against such a spirit.Nothing did.The skirmishers which the wilderness threw out, were brushed away.Even the inevitable delays seemed not so much stoppages as the instant's pause of a heavy vehicle in a snow drift, succeeded by the momentary acceleration as the plunge carried it through.In the main, and by large, the machine moved steadily and inexorably.
And yet one possessed of the finer spiritual intuitions could not have shaken off the belief in an impending struggle.The feel of it was in the air.Nature's forces were too mighty to be so slightly overcome; the splendid energy developed in these camps too vast to be wasted on facile success.Over against each other were two great powers, alike in their calm confidence, animated with the loftiest and most dignified spirit of enmity.Slowly they were moving toward each other.The air was surcharged with the electricity of their opposition.Just how the struggle would begin was uncertain; but its inevitability was as assured as its magnitude.Thorpe knew it, and shut his teeth, looking keenly about him.The Fighting Forty knew it, and longed for the grapple to come.The other camps knew it, and followed their leader with perfect trust.The affair was an epitome of the historic combats begun with David and Goliath.It was an affair of Titans.The little courageous men watched their enemy with cat's eyes.
