IV
ARCADY
Arcadia Park, as the government map-makers have traced it, is ahigh-lying, enclosed valley in the heart of the middle Rockies, roughlycircular in outline, with a curving westward sweep of the great rangefor one-half of its circumscribing rampart, and the bent bow of the ElkMountains for the other.
Apart from storming the rampart heights, accessible only to the hardyprospector or to the forest ranger, there are three ways of approach tothe shut-in valley: up the outlet gorge of the Boiling Water, across theElk Mountains from the Roaring Fork, or over the high pass in theContinental Divide from Alta Vista.
It was from the summit of the high pass that Ballard had his first viewof Arcadia. From Alta Vista the irrigation company's narrow-gaugerailway climbs through wooded gorges and around rock-ribbed snow balds,following the route of the old stage trail; and Ballard's introductorypicture of the valley was framed in the cab window of the locomotivesent over by Bromley to transport him to the headquarters camp on theBoiling Water.
In the wide prospect opened by the surmounting of the high pass therewas little to suggest the human activities, and still less to foreshadowstrife. Ballard saw a broad-acred oasis in the mountain desert, billowedwith undulating meadows, and having for its colour scheme the gray-greenof the range grasses. Winding among the billowy hills in the middledistance, a wavering double line of aspens marked the course of theBoiling Water. Nearer at hand the bald slopes of the Saguache pitchedabruptly to the forested lower reaches; and the path of the railway,losing itself at the timber line, reappeared as a minute scratch scoringthe edge of the gray-green oasis, to vanish, distance effaced, near agroup of mound-shaped hills to the eastward.
The start from Alta Vista with the engine "special" had been made atsunrise, long before any of Ballard's fellow-travellers in thesleeping-car were stirring. But the day had proved unseasonably warm inthe upper snow fields, and there had been time-killing delays.
Every gulch had carried its torrent of melted snow to threaten thesafety of the unballasted track, and what with slow speed over thehazards and much shovelling of land-slips in the cuttings, the sun wasdipping to the westward range when the lumbering little constructionengine clattered down the last of the inclines and found the long leveltangents in the park.
On the first of the tangents the locomotive was stopped at awatering-tank. During the halt Ballard climbed down from his crampedseat on the fireman's box and crossed the cab to the engine-man'sgangway. Hoskins, the engine-driver, leaning from his window, pointedout the projected course of the southern lateral canal in the greatirrigation system.
"It'll run mighty nigh due west here, about half-way between us and thestage trail," he explained; and Ballard, looking in the directionindicated, said: "Where is the stage trail? I haven't seen it since weleft the snow balds."
"It's over yonder in the edge of the timber," was the reply; and amoment later its precise location was defined by three double-seatedbuckboards, passenger-laden and drawn by four-in-hand teams oftittupping broncos, flicking in and out among the pines and pushingrapidly eastward. The distance was too great for recognition, butBallard could see that there were women in each of the vehicles.
"Hello!" he exclaimed. "Those people must have crossed the range fromAlta Vista to-day. What is the attraction over here?--a summer-resorthotel?"
"Not any in this valley," said the engineman. "They might be going onover to Ashcroft, or maybe to Aspen, on the other side o' the ElkMountains. But if that's their notion, they're due to camp outsomewhere, right soon. It's all o' forty mile to the neardest of theRoaring Fork towns."
The engine tank was filled, and the fireman was flinging the drippingspout to its perpendicular. Ballard took his seat again, and became oncemore immersed in his topographical studies of the new field; which waspossibly why the somewhat singular spectacle of a party of touristshastening on to meet night and the untaverned wilderness passed from hismind.
The approach to the headquarters camp of the Arcadia Company skirted theright bank of the Boiling Water, in this portion of its course a riverof the plain, eddying swiftly between the aspen-fringed banks. But a fewmiles farther on, where the gentle undulations of the rich grass-landgave place to bare, rock-capped hills, the stream broke at intervalsinto noisy rapids, with deep pools to mark the steps of its descent.
Ballard's seat on the fireman's box was on the wrong side for thetopographical purpose, and he crossed the cab to stand at Hoskins'selbow. As they were passing one of the stillest of the pools, theengineman said, with a sidewise jerk of his thumb:
"That's the place where Mr. Braithwaite was drowned. Came down here fromcamp to catch a mess o' trout for his supper and fell in--from the farbank."
"Couldn't he swim?" Ballard asked.
"They all say he could. Anyhow, it looks as if he might 'a' got out o'that little mill-pond easy enough. But he didn't. They found his fishingtackle on the bank, and him down at the foot of the second rapidbelow--both arms broke and the top of his head caved in, like he'd beenrun through a rock crusher. They can say what they please; I ain'tbelievin' the river done it."
"What do you believe?" Ballard was looking across to a collection of lowbuildings and corrals--evidently the headquarters of the old cattleking's ranch outfit--nestling in a sheltered cove beyond the stream, andhis question was a half-conscious thought slipping into speech.
"I believe this whole blame' job is a hoodoo," was the prompt rejoinder.And then, with the freedom born of long service in the unfettered areaswhere discipline means obedience but not servility, the man added: "Iwouldn't be standin' in your shoes this minute for all the money theArcadia Company could pay me, Mr. Ballard."
Ballard was young, fit, vigorous, and in abounding health. Moreover, hewas a typical product of an age which scoffs at superstition and isimpatient of all things irreducible to the terms of algebraic formulas.But here and now, on the actual scene of the fatalities, the "two sheeraccidents and a commonplace tragedy" were somewhat less easily dismissedthan when he had thus contemptuously named them for Gardiner in theBoston railway station. Notwithstanding, he was quite well able to shakeoff the little thrill of disquietude and to laugh at Hoskins's vicariousanxiety.
"I wasn't raised in the woods, Hoskins, but there was plenty of talltimber near enough to save me from being scared by an owl," heasseverated. Then, as a towering derrick head loomed gallows-like in thegathering dusk, with a white blotch of masonry to fill the ravine overwhich it stood sentinel: "Is that our camp?"
"That's Elbow Canyon," said the engineman; and he shut off steam andwoke the hill echoes with the whistle.
Ballard made out something of the lay of the land at the headquarterswhile the engine was slowing through the temporary yard. There was theorderly disorder of a construction terminal: tracks littered with carsof material, a range of rough shed shelters for the stone-cutters, adotting of sleeping-huts and adobes on a little mesa above, and a huge,weathered mess-tent, lighted within, and glowing orange-hued in thetwilight. Back of the camp the rounded hills grew suddenly precipitous,but through the river gap guarded by the sentinel derrick, there was avista distantly backgrounded by the mass of the main range rising darklyunder its evergreens, with the lights of a great house starring thedeeper shadow.