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The joy of the night before, the morning's passionate grief, the ingenuous hope and prayer in her ride after Steering, the sweet, anxious torture of the journey to Salome Park were all giving place to a large, impersonal comprehension of the conflict in Steering's soul. She had known before that there was trouble brewing between him and her father.
Madeira laughed loudly, "God bless you, legal forms! All that a man who wants to sell has to do is to throw a plank, any little rotten plank, across the chasm of future litigation and ten buyers will walk it with nerves of steel." He patted Steering's shoulder. "My boy, it's this headlong impetus that assures the success of the Canaan Company.
Bruce said the words over measuredly. "We can do it easily. Everything he has has gone into the company that is getting its chief encouragement out of the Tigmores. It will be easy to ruin him." "Yes, God above, it will be easy! We r-r-ruin him. We do that thing quick and glad." Bernique slid his lean hands up Steering's arms and held to him. "Wait! Wait!"
Steering's experience with the French Missourian had been too fragmentary for anything but conjecture to come of it, and his own plans were too immature and too heavily conditioned for him to project them directly, but he had a feeling that he should want to know Bernique better some fine day, and he was moved to get some sort of grip upon the old man's interest while the chance lasted.
Now and again, he called loudly, prompted by some fear, he knew not what: "Steerin'! Steerin'! Steerin'!" He reached Redbud by and by, to find no Steering, only the little empty shack. The lean bunks, swaddled roughly in their bedding, looked strangely deserted. Piney sat down on Steering's bunk for a moment to take breath.
Madeira's weight was terrific, even after Steering had brought his other hand into requisition; and though Throcker sprang to the rescue, Throcker was a weak man and the best aid that he could render was to assume a small share of Madeira's weight by getting down flat upon the ledge, after Steering's fashion.
"Because we may be swept no one knows where, my lad. Steering's hard work in such a rapid as this. Besides, we may get into bad company uprooted trees, floating islands of weeds, and all sorts of things that would make nothing of capsizing us. No; it will be best to wait here till the flood begins to fall. I daresay you gentlemen can manage to amuse yourselves somehow."
In the cage it was necessary for Steering to extend his arm behind Miss Madeira, as there were no sides between the great cables at the four corners. It was not a very large cage and the number on it crowded it, so that the girl rested lightly on Steering's arm. He could think of no place so deep down that he would not be well satisfied to journey to it like that.
"I have a bad heart and it's going back on me," he fell weakly beside Steering. "Yes, I can hold on alone." Steering's face was in the loose crush, and his lips were cut by the rock when he opened them, so he stopped trying to talk. "Get back, Mr. Throcker let me get my hands down and help Mr. Steering." It was the girl's voice, and the girl was beside Steering, quiet and capable.
"Steering's perfectly easy. The only trouble is to steer right." "To-o-ot!" said the fog-horn and was answered from astern. Then somewhere to the south-eastward a siren sent a wailing cry, subdued by distance. The fog settled on everything and shone on the boys' sweaters in little beads of moisture.
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