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About The Red Cloud chief. (Red Cloud, Webster Co., Neb.) 1873-1923 | View Entire Issue (April 5, 1917)
RED CLOUD, NEBRASKA, CHIEF r I- 8 mwCLiimrrirjtTTeHitx!!mvtikrwrTTirnM.'m.n'.,'ieKi.'ejJXx WEB CYRUS TOWNSEND BRADY and CYRUS TOWNSEND BRADY, Jr. Author and Clergyman Civil Engineer Copyright by Hernia ff II. Retell Co. THE FAMOUS ENGINEER LEARNS THAT HE MADE THE BIG MISTAKE OF HIS LIFE AND MANY LIVES MUST PAY THE PENALTY. Tlic Martlet Construction coin puny l.s putting up " great Interna tluntit bridge pliitinuil by Bertram Meade, .Si, famous engineer. Ills son, llertrain Monde, .Jr., a resilient engineer at the bridge, loves Helen Illlngworth, daughter of Colonel Illlngworth, head of the (.'(instruction company, anil tliey will marry us noon as tin.' bridge Is completed. The. young engineer ipiestloned his father's Judgment on the strength of certain Important girders, hut win laughed at. ILs doiihts are veri fied when the bridge suddenly collapses, with heavy loss of life, CHAPTER VI. The Failure. In spite of himself anil his confidence in the bridge, Ahhott felt a little un easy the next inoriiliiK At bottom he liad more respect for Meade's tech nical knowledge than he had displayed or oven admitted to himself. The younger engineer's terrllled alarm, his utter forgetfulnoss or the amenities be tween them, his frantic but futile ef forts to telephone, of which the op erator told Abbott In the morning bis hurried departure to New York, were, to say the least, somewhat disquieting, much more so than he was fulu to ad mit to himself. Although It Involved a bard and somewhat dangerous climb downward and took upwards of a hair hour or his valuable time, the llrst thing the erect ing engineer did In the morning was to Bo down to the pier head and make a thorough and careful examination or tho buckled member. C-10-K was, or course, a part of the great lower chord of the huge dlamonil-shapeil truss, which, with Its parallel sixty feet away on tho other side of the bridge and Its two opposltes across the river, support ed tho wholo structure. If anything were wrong, seriously, Irreparably wrong, with the member and It gave way, the whole truss would go. The other truss would Inevitably follow HUlt, and the cantilever would Immedi ately collapse. Abbott realized that, of course, as be climbed carefully down to the pier bead and stood on the shoe. Abbott, as he stood by tho member and surveyed It throughout Its length, could easily sec that It had buckled, al though tho deviation was slight, about two Inches at Its maximum in sixty feet. He brought with liliu a line and, with infinite cure and pains, he drew It taut across the slight concavity like u bow-string. He had estimated the camber, or the distance between the center of the bow and the string, at one and a hair Inches. As he made more careful measurements, he discov ered that It was slightly over one and three-quarter Inches. In seven hun dred and twenty that was scarcely no ticeable, and It did not seem very much to Abbott. As he stood there fooling himself an Insignificant figure umld this great Interwoven mass of steel, again the sense of Its strength nnd stability came to him overpowering ly, so much so that he laughed aloud In a rather grim fashion at the un wonted nervousness which had been Induced In his mind by Meade's words and actions. Hut ho was a conscientious man, so lie pursued bis Investigations further. ITe climbed up on top of the member, which was easy enough by means or the criss-crossed lacing, and carefully Inspected the lacings at the center of tho concavity, or sldewlse spring from the right line. He noticed, by getting down on his face and surveying the lacing bars closely, u number of flue hair-line cracks In the paint, surface traceries apparently, running here and there from the rivet holes. The rivets them Helves had rather a strained look. Some of the outer rivets seemed slightly loose, where before they must have been tight, for the members, like all other parts of tho bridge, had been carefully Inspected tit the shop and any looseness of the rivets would cer tainly have been noticed there. Hut Abbott's obsession as to tho strength of the bridge had grown stronger. Lin ing It out, crawling over it, feeling Us rigidity, ho decided that these evident HtruliiB were to bo expected. Of course the lacings that held the webs together would huvo to take up a terrtlle stress. They had been designed for that pur pose. Largely because lie did not llud anything very glaring, and because lie wanted to believe what he believed, tho chief of construction left the pier head and clambered up to the Hour with more satisfaction In his heart than his somewhat surprising anticipation which had so unwillingly grown under the stimulus of Meade's persistence, had led him to expect. Tho whistle was Just blowing for the commencement of worlc when he got bnck toho bridge Uoor. He could not but rollect, as the men came swarming nlong the tracks to begin their day's work, that the responsibility for their lives lay with him. Well, Abbott was a big man In ills way, he had assumed responsibilities heforo and was per--uctlv willing to do so uguln, both for nmiwnMw OF :By: men and bridge. The workmen at least had no suspicious or premonitions of disaster. Witching!), the chief erecting fore man, knew about the camber. It had not bothered him. As he approached the two exchanged greetings. "You're out curly, Mr. Abbott," said Wllchlngs. "Yes, I've been down to examine C-10-K." Wllchlngs laughed. "That little spring Is nothing." Ho looked over the track and through the maze of bracing at tho member, "ir wo had a pier somewhere we could hold up the earth with that strut. You didn't llnd out anything, did you?" "Not a thing except some hair-line cracks In the paint around the rivets." "You'll often llnd those where there's a heavy load to take up. This bridge will stand long after you and I and every man, on it has quit work for good." Now Wllchlngs was a man of experi ence and ability, and If Abbott had needed any continuation of his opinion this careless expression would huvo served. He did send him across the river to camlno the half-completed cantilever on the other hank, upon which work had been suspended, await ing shipments of steel. Wllchlngs later reported that It was all right, which was what he expected, of course, and this also lidded to Abbott's confidence. The day was an unusually hard one. A great quantity of structural steel that had been delayed ami which had threatened to hold up the work, arrived that day nnd the chief of construction was busier than he had ever been. Ho was driving the men with furious energy. F.vou under the best conditions It would be well-nigh impossible to complete the bridge on time. Abbott had pride In carrying out the contract and the financial question was a con siderable one. Had it not been for that, perhaps, he would have paid more attention to Meade's appeal. So he hurried on the work at top speed. l.ate In the afternoon, without say ing anything to Wllchlngs, who had re sumed his regular work, or to anybody In fact, Abbott went down to look at the member again, lie climbed down a hundred feet or more to make an other examination at the expense of He Made Another Careful tlon. Examlna- much valuable time, for he had not passed so busy a day as that one since the bridge began. Kvorythlng was ex actly as It had been. Those hair-lino cracks had troubled him a little despite Wllchlng's remark. He studied them a second time. They were Just as they had been, so far as he could tell, no larger, no more numerous. The lacings rang "xuctly the same under Ids hum mer. lie climbed back to the Uoor of the bridge and spent the next half hour In specting the progress of the work. The suspended span had already been pushed out far beyond tho end of tho cantilever. The work on the other side of the river had been stopped, As soon us they got the suspended span halfway over they would transfer the workmen and llnlsli the opposite canti lever. Abbott calculated that perhaps In another week they could get It out If he drove the men. Ho looked at Ills watch, giudglngly observing that It waa utmost live o'clock. The men we. fs'S STEEL nothing to Ahhott. Tho bridge was everything. That Is not to say he was heartless, but the bridge and Its erec tion were supreme In his mind, The material was arriving and every thing was going on with such a swing ami vigor that ho would fain have kept them at work an hour or two longer. The men themselves did not feci that way. .Some of the employees of the higher grades had got the obsession of the bridge, hut to most of them it was the tiling they worked at, by which they got their dally bread nothing more. Those who worked by the day were already laying aside their tools, nnd preparing for their departure. They always would get ready so Mint at the signal all that was left to do was to stop. The riveters, who were paid by tho piece, kept ut It always to the very last minute. Ahhott had been standing near the outer end of the cantilever and he turned and walked toward the hank. The pneumatic riveters were rat-tat-tatting on tlie rivet heads with a per fectly damnable Iteration of Insistent sound. A confused babel of voices, the clatter of hummers, ringing sounds of swinging steel grating against steel, clanking of trucks, grinding of wheels, the deep breathing of locomotives, mingled In un unharmoulous diapason of horrid sound. Abbott was right above the pier head now. He looked down at It through the struts and Uoor beams and braces, fastening his gaze on the questioned member. There It stood satisfactorily, of course. Yet, something impelled hlin to walk out on the nearest Uoor beam to the extreme edge of the truss nnd look down at It once more, leaning far out to see It better. He could get a better view of It with nothing between It and him. It still stood bravely. It was all right, of course. lie wished that he had never said a word about It to anyone. lie did not see why he could not regard it with the Indifference that It merited. As he stured down at It over the edge of the truss the whistle for quitting blew. Kvory sound of work ceased after the briefest of Intervals, except here ami there a few riveters driving home a Until rivet kept at it for a few sec ond, but only for u few seconds. Then, for a moment a silence like death It self Intervened. It seemed as If tho ever blowing wind had been momen tarily stilled. That shrill whistle and the consequent cessation of the work always affected everybody the same way. There was Inevitably and in variably a pause. The contrast be tween the noise and Its sudden stop page was so great that the men In stinctively waited a few seconds and drew a breath before they began to light their pipes, close their tool boxes, pick up their coats and dinner palls, ami resume their conversation as they strolled along the roadway to the shore. It seemed to Abbott that It had never been so silent on the bridge before. There was almost always a breeze, sometimes u gale, blowing down or up the gorge through which the river Unwed, but that afternoon not a breath was stirring. Abbott found himself waiting In strained and unwonted suspense Tor tho next second or two, his eyes fixed on tho member. The long warm rays of the afternoon sun Illuminated It clearly. In that second immediately below him, far down toward the pier head he saw a sudden Hash as of break ing steel. Low, but clear enough In the Intense silence, ho heard a popping sound like the simp of a great linger. Then the bright gleam of freshly broken metal caught Ids excited glance. The lacing was giving way. Meade was right. The member would go with It The first pop or two was succeeded by a little rattle as of revolver shots heard from a distance, as the lacings gave way In quick succession. Abbott was a man with n powerful voice and he raised It to Its limit. The idle workmen, Just beginning to laugh nnd Jest, heard u great cry: "Off the bridge, for God's sake!" Two or three, among them Wllch lngs, who happened to bo within a few feet of the landward end, without un derstanding why, but Impelled by the agony, the appeal, the horror in the great shout of the master builder,' leaped for tho shore. On the bridge Itself some stepped forward, some stood still staring, others peered down ward. Tho great sixty-foot webs of steel wavered like ribbons In tho wind. The bridge shook us If In an earth quake. There was a heavy, shuddering, swaying movement and then tho 000 foot cantilever arm plunged down ward, as a great ship fulls Into the trough of a mighty sen. Sharp-keyed sounds cracked out overhead as tho truss parted at tho apex, tho outward half Inclining to tho water, tho Inward linlf sinking strnlght down. Shouts, oaths, screams rose, heard faintly ahovo the mighty bell-llko re quiem of grent girders, struts and ties smiting other members and ringing In the ears of the helpless men like doom. Then, with u fearful crash, with a mighty shiver, tho landward half col lapsed on the low shore, like a house of cards upon which has been laid the weight of n massive hand, The river section, cnrrylng the greater load at the top and torn from its base, plunged, like un uvalnncho of steel, 1200 feet down Into the river, throwing far ahead of it, as from a giant catapult, the traveler on the out wind end or the suspended span and a locomotive on the Uoor beneath. Wllchlngs, and the few men safe on the shore, stood trembling, looking ut the buro pier head, at the awful tan gled mass of wreckage on the shore between the pier and the bank; Uoor beam and stringer, girder and strut, bent, twisted, broken In ragged and horrible ruin, while the water, deeper than the chasm It had cut, rolled Its waves smoothly over the agitations or the great plunge beyond the pier. They stared sick and faint at the tangled, Interwoven mass of steel, ribboning In every direction for In the main the rivets held so It was not any defect of Joints, but structural weakness In the body of the members that had brought it down and Inclosing as In a net many bodies that a few seconds before hud been living men. They hud seen body afterbody hurled through the ulr from the outward end 11 till, as they gazed fearfully in horror here and there dark figures iloated to the surface of the water. They caught glimpses of white, dead fuces as the mighty current rolled them under and swept them on. And no sound came from the hundred and fifty who had gone down with the bridge. The 12(H) foot fall would have killed them with out the smashing and battering and crashing of the great girders that had fallen upon them or driven them from the Uoor and burled them, crushed and broken, Into the river. Meade had been right. Abbott had one swift Hush of acknowledgment, one swift moment packed with such re grets us might fill a lifetime an eter nity In a hell of remorse before lie, like the rest, had gone down with the bridge I CHAPTER VII. For the Son. The messago wus received In ghast ly silence. No one spoke for a moment, None moved. Colonel Illlngworth's face wus fiery red. IJertram Meade was whiter than any other man In the room. lie wus thinking of his father. The girl moved first. Her father and the young engineer were the two most deeply touched. They were both In agony, both In need of her. Unhesi tatingly she stepped to the side of the younger. And the father saw and un derstood even In the midst of ids suf fering. She had chosen. "We nre ruined," gasped the colo nel, tugging at his collar. "We could stand the financial loss, but our reputa tion I s We'll never get another con tract. I might as well close the works. And It Is your father's fault. It's up to him. The blood of those men Is upon Ids head. Well, sir, I'll let the whole world know how grossly incompetent lie is, how " "Sir," said young Meade, standing very erect and whiter than ever, "the fault Is mine. I made the calculations. I checked nnd rechecked them. No body could know with absolute certain ty the ability of the lower chord mem bers to resist compression. Hut what ever the fault, it is mine. My futlier had absolutely nothing to do with it. He Is" "He's got to bear the responsibility," cried the colonel passionately. "It has his name" "No, I tell you," thundciod the younger man. "For I'll proclaim my own responsibility. The fault is till mine nnd I'll publish the fact from one end of the world to the other." "It's a load I wouldn't want to have on my conscience," said Colonel Illlng worth. "The ruin of a great establishment like the Martlet," added Doctor Sev erence. "Tho dishonor to American engineer ing," said Curtlss. "And the nwful loss of life," con tinued tho colonel. "I nssume them all," protested tho young limn, forcing his lips to speak, although the cumulative burdens sot forth so clearly nnd so mercilessly bade fair to crush him. "It wns only a inlstuke," protested Helen Illlngworth, drnwlng closer to her lover's side, nnd with dlUlculty re sisting u temptation to clasp him In lior arms. "A mistake!" exclaimed her father bitterly. "You said yourself," urged the worn iin, turning to tho chief engineer, "that you didn't know whether the designs would work out, that nobody could know, but you were convinced that they would." "Walt," Interrupted tho father. "Meade, there is one consequenco you have got to bear that you haven't thought of." "What do you mean?" "Do you think I'd let my daughter iiturry a man who had ruined me, un Incompetent engineer by his own con fession, a-" "It Is Just," snld Meade. "I have nothing further to do here, gentlemen. I must go to my father." "Just or not," cried Helen Illlng worth, "I can't allow you to dispose of me In that way, father. If ho Is as hlamablo as ho says ho is, and as you say ho Is, now Is tho tlmo above all others for the woman who loves him to stand by him." "Miss Illlngworth, you don't know what you nro saying," said Meade, forcing himself Into a cold formality he did not feel. "I am disgraced, shamed. There Is nothing In llfo for mo. My chosen profession my repu tation everything la gone." "The more need you have for me, then." "It Is noble of you. I shall love you forever, but" He turned resolutely away and walked doggedly out of the room. Hel en Illlngworth made a step to follow him. "Helen," Interposed her father, catching her almost roughly by the arm In his anger and resentment, "If you go out of tills door ufter that man, I'll never speak to you again." "Father, I love you. I'm sorry for you. I would do anything for you but this. You have your friends. That man yonder has nothing, nothing but me. I must go to him." She turned and went out of the room without a backward look or an other word, no one detaining her. Now It happened that by hurrying down the hill in the station wagon, Meade had Just caught a local train, which made connections with the Heading express some twenty miles uwuy, and Helen Illlngworth In her car reached the sta tion platform Just In time to see It de part. She remembered that ten miles across the country another railroad ran and If she drove hard she could possibly catch a train which would hind her In Jersey City a few minutes iiefore the train her lover caught. She told the chauffeur, who scented a ro mance and drove as he hud never driven before. Tho girl caught the express und rode to the Hudson terminal In the city. The newsboys on the street were al ready crying the loss of the bridge. Site saw the story displayed In lurid red headlines as she sprang Into the taxi and bade the chauffeur hurry her to the Uplift building downtown. The ' bill she handed him In advance made him recklessly break the speed limit. Bertram Meade, Sr., had not left the oUlce during the wholo long afternoon. , Ho sat alone, quietly waiting for the end. As to the drowning life unrolls . In rapid review, so pictures of tho past took form and shape In his mind. Ho recalled many failures. No success Is uninterrupted and unbroken. It Is through constant blundering that we arrive. He had learned to achieve by falling, as everybody else learns. But failures and mistakes, which were par donable in the beginning of his career, could not bo condoned now; those should have taught him. lie realized too late that his later achievement hnd begot in him n kind of conviction of omniscience, a belief In his own infalli bility, had for a man. Ills pride had gone before, hard upon approached the fall. He had been so sure of himself that even when the possibility that ho might be mistaken had been pointed out and even argued, he had laughed It to scorn. Ills son's arguments ho hud held lightly on account of his youth nnd comparative inexperience to ids sorrow he realized it, too late. Again came that strange feeling of pride, the only thing which could in any way alleviate his misery or lighten his despair. It was his own son who had pointed out the possible defect. Youth more often than not disregards the counsel of ago. In this case age had made light of tho warnings of youth. It wns a strange reversal, ho thought, grimly recognizing a touch of sardonic nnd terrible humor In the sit uation. "Whom the gods destroy they first make mad." Well, lie had been mnd enough. If he had only listened to tho boy. And now there was nothing he could do but wait. Yes, as the long hours passed and the sun declined, and the evening approached, there sudden ly Hashed upon him that there was still something lie could do. He hud ex perienced some strange physical sen sations during that afternoon, uneuso In his brenst, some sharp pains about his heart. He forgot them for tho mo ment In the idea that hud come to him. When the bridge fell lie would nvow the whole responsibility, take all the blame. Fortunately for his plans, ids son had reduced to writing his views on the compression members, which had almost taken the form of protest, and this letter had been handed to his father. His llrst mind had been to tear it up after he had read it nnd had overborne the objections contained therein, but on second thought he had carefully filed It away with the origi nal drawings. It wns, of course, in the younger Meade's own handwriting. lie went to his private safe, opened tho drawings und found tho letter at tached to the sheet of drawings. He put bnck the other drawings and closed tho safe without locking it. Then ho went back to the desk and considered the document. He had been blind, mad. He laid tho paper down on his desk and put his huud to his heart. Of course lie would submit those pa pers to the public ut once. Wns thero anything else he could do? Yes, Ho sat down at the desk and drew a sheet of paper before him and began to write. Slowly, tremblingly, ho perse vered, carefully weighing his words be fore he traced them on paper. He had not written very long beforo the door of the outer olllce opened and ho heard the sound of sort footsteps entering tho room. Ho recognized the new comer. It was old ShurtlliT, a man who had been his private secretary and confidential clerk Tor many yenrs. He stopped writing and called to him. Shurtllft' was an old bachelor, gray, thin, tall, reticent. He had but one passion Meade, Sr. ; but no glory tho reputation of the great engineer. Yes, nnd us there is no great passion without Jealousy, Shurtllff wns filled with womanly Jealousy of Bertram Meado becatiso Ills father loved him nnd was proud of him. ShurtlliT know nil nbout tho private affairs of tho two engineers, father and son. Ho knew all nbout the protest of tho younger Meade. The fattier had told hln. Just what he Intended to do with it. Shurtllff might have been a great man If left to himself or forced to act for himself. Hut pursuing a great pas sion so long as he had, he had merged himself In the more aggressive person ality of his employer and friend. IIo hud received a good engineering edu cation, but had got into trouble over a failure, a rather bad mistake in his early career, too big to be rectified, to he forgiven, or condoned. The older Meade had taken him up, had been kind to him, had offered to try to put him on his feet again, but his big fail ure had increased Ids natural timidity, so he stayed on. He had become u pnrt of the old man's life. Young Meade had never been able to get very far Into the personality of Shurtllff, but lie liked him und respect ed him. lie realized the man's devo tion to Ids father, and he understood and admired him. Aside from that Jealousy the old man could not but like the young one. lie was too like ids father for Shurtllff to dislike him. Tho secretary wished hlin well ; ho wanted to see him a great engineer. Of course he could never be the engineer that his father was. That would not bo in tho power of man. But still, even If he never attained that height, he could yet rise very high. Shurtllff would not admit that there was anything on curth to equal Meade, Sr. The secretary was greatly surprised ns he stopped beside his own desk to hear his name called from the Inner olllce. lie recognized his employer's Si "Mr. Meade, What Is the Matter?" voice, of course, yet there wan n strange note In it which somehow gave him a sense of uneasiness. He went Into the room at once and stopped aghast. "Good God, Mr. Meade!" he ex claimed. Ordinarily he was the quietest and most undemonstrative of men. There was something soft and subtle about his movements. An exclamation of that kind had hardly escaped him In the thirty years of their association. He checked himself Instantly, but Meade, Sr., understood. The day he fore ShurtlliT had left hlin a hale, hearty, vigorous somewhat ruddy man. Now lie found him old, white, trem bling, stricken. Meade looked at Shurt lliT with a lack-luster eye und with a face that was dead while It was yet alive. "Mr. Meade," began the secretary u second time, "what Is the matter?" "The International bridge," an swered the other, and the secretary no ticed the strangeness of ids voice more and more. "It's nbout to collapse. Per haps it lias failed already." Meade passed ids hand over his brow and then brought it down heuvily on the desk. "As we sit here, maybe, It Is falling," he added somberly in a sort of dull, Impersonal wuy. Into the mind of the secretary enmo a foolish old Hue: "London bridge is falling down, falling down I" Ho must lie mad or Meado must ho mnd. "I can't believe It, sir. Why?" "There's a deflection in one of tho lower chord members of ono and three quarters Incites. It's bound to col lapse. The boy was right, Shurtllff," explained Meado. "I was wrong. I am ruined." "Don't say that, sir. You linyc never failed in anything. Thero must bo somo means." "ShurtlliT, you ought to know there is no power on cartli could suvo that member. It's only a question of tlmo when It will fall." Tho secretary leaned bnck against the doorjnmb, put Ids hand over his face, and shook llko n leaf, Tho old man eyed him. "Don't take it so hard," ho said. "It's not your fnult, you know." "Mr. Meade," burst out tho other mnn, "you don't know what it means to me. A failure myself, I have glo ried in you. I you have been every thing to mo, sir. I can't stand It." "I know," said Meado kindly, no roso and walked over to the man, laid his hand on his shoulder, took Ids other hand In his own. "It hurts more, perhaps, to loso your conlldenco in mo than It would to loso tho conlldenco of tho world." How the gods conspire to make complete the wreckage of reputations and how young Meade Is cast Into outer dark ness Is told In the next Install ment. TO BE CONTINUED.) A : i i ft A m n H