Preceded by a track boss along the ledges where the blasting crew was already putting down the dynamite, a man almost as large as Glover and rigged in a storm cap and ulster made his way toward the camp headquarters. The mountain men sprang to their feet with a greeting for the general manager—it was Bucks.
He took Blood's welcome with a laugh, nodded to the roadmasters, and pulling his cap from his head, turned to grasp Glover's hand.
"I hear you're going to spoil some of our scenery, Ab. I thought I'd run up and see how much government land you were going to move without a permit. Glad you got down so promptly. Callahan had nervous prostration for a while last night. I told him you'd have some sort of a trick in your bag, but I didn't suppose you would spring the side of a mountain on us. Am I to have any coffee or not? What are you eating, dynamite? Why, there's Ed Smith—what are you hanging back in the dark for, Ed? Come out here and show yourself. It was like you to lend us your men. If the boys forget it, I sha'n't."
"I'd rather see you than a hundred men," declared Glover.
"Then give me something to eat," suggested Bucks.
As he spoke the snappy, sharp reports of exploding dynamite could be heard; they were springing the drill holes. Bucks sitting down on the bowlder, wrapping the tails of his coat between his legs and taking coffee from Young drank while the men talked. From the box car below, Ed Smith's men were packing the black powder up the trail to the Paw. When it began going into the holes, Glover went to the ledge to oversee the charging.
In the Pittsburg train, at Sleepy Cat, an early dinner was being served to the cañon party. They had come back enthusiastic. The scenery was declared superb, and the uncertainty of the situation most satisfying. The riot of the mountain stream, which plunging now unbridled from wall to wall had scoured the deep gorge for hundreds of feet, was a moving spectacle. The activity of the swarming laborers, preparing their one tremendous answer to the insolence of the river, had behind it the excitement of a game of chance. The stake, indeed, was eight solid trains of perishable freight, and the gambler that had staked their value and his reputation on one throw of the dice was their own easy-mannered guide.
They discussed his chances with the indifference of spectators. Doctor Lanning, the only one of the young people that had ever done anything himself, was inclined to think Glover might win out. Allen Harrison was willing to wager that trains couldn't be got across a hole like that for another twenty-four hours.
Mrs. Whitney wondered why, if Mr. Glover were really a competent man, he could not have held his position as chief engineer of the system, but Doctor Lanning explained that frequently Western men of real talent were wholly lacking in ambition and preferred a free-and-easy life to one of constant responsibility; others, again, drank—and this suggestion opened a discussion as to whether Western men could possibly do more drinking than Eastern men, and transact business at all.
While the discussion proceeded there came a telegram from Glover telling Doctor Lanning that the blast would be made about seven o'clock. Preparations to start were completed as the company rose from the table, and Gertrude Brock and Marie were urged to join the party. Marie consented, but Gertrude had a new book and would not leave it, and when the others started she joined her father and Judge Saltzer, her father's counsellor, now with them, who were dining more leisurely at their own table.
Bucks met the doctor and his party at the head of the cañon and took them to the high ledge across the river, where they had been brought by Glover in the morning. In the cañon it was already dark. Men were eating around campfires, and in the narrow strip of eastern sky between the walls the moon was rising. Work-trains with signal lanterns were moving above and below the break, dumping ballast behind the track layers. At a safe distance from the coming blast a dozen headlights from the roundhouse were being prepared, and the car-tinks from Sleepy Cat were rigging torches for the night.
The blasting powder in twenty-pound cans was being passed from hand to hand to the chargers. Score after score of the compact cans of high explosive had been packed into the scattered holes, and as if alive to what was coming the chill air of the cañon took on the uneasiness of an atmosphere laden with electricity. Men of the operating department paced the bench impatiently, and trackmen working below in the flare of scattered torches looked up oftener from their shovels to where a chain of active figures moved on the face of the cliff. Word passed again and again that the charging was done, but the orders came steadily from the gloom on the ledge for more powder until the last pound the engineer called for had been buried beneath his feet in the sleeping rock.
After a long delay a red light swung slowly to and fro on the ledge. From the extreme end of the cañon below the Cat's Paw came the crash of a track-torpedo, answered almost instantly by a second, above the break. It was the warning signal to get into the clear. There was a buzz of rapid movement among the laborers. In twos and threes and dozens, a ragged procession of lanterns and torches, they retreated, foremen urging the laggards, until only a single man at each end of the broken track kept within sight of the tiny red lantern on the ledge. Again it swung in a circle and again the torpedoes replied, this time all clear. The hush of a hundred voices, the silence of the bars and shovels and picks gave back to the chill cañon its loneliness, and the roar of the river rose undisturbed to the brooding night.
On the ledge Glover was alone. The final detail he was taking into his own hands. The few that could still command the point saw the red light moving, and beside it a figure vaguely outlined making its way. When the red light paused, a spark could be seen, a sputtering blaze would run slowly from it, hesitate, flare and die. Another and another of the fuses were touched and passed. With quickening steps tier after tier was covered, until those looking saw the red light flung at last into the air. It circled high between the cañon walls in its flight and dropped like a rocket into the Rat. A muffled report from the lower tier was followed by a heavier and still a heavier one above. A creeping pang shot the heart of the granite, a dreadful awakening was upon it.
From the tier of the upmost holes came at length the terrific burst of the heavy mines. The travail of an awful instant followed, the face of the spur parted from its side, toppled an instant in the confusion of its rending and with an appalling crash fell upon the river below.
With the fragments still tumbling, the nearest men started with a cheer from their concealment. Smoke rolling white and sullen upward obscured the moon, and the cañon air, salt and sick with gases, poured over the high point on which the Pittsburgers stood. Below, torches were shooting like fireflies out of the rock. From every vantage point headlights flashed one after another unhooded on the scene, and the song of the river mingled again with the calling of the foremen.
"That ends the fireworks," remarked Bucks to those about him. "Let us watch a moment for Mr. Glover's signal to me. As soon as he inspects he is to show signals on the Cat's Paw, and if it is a success we will return at once to Sleepy Cat."
"And by the way, Mr. Bucks, I shall expect you and Mr. Glover up to the car for my game supper. Have you arranged for him to come?"
"I have, Mrs. Whitney, thank you."
"Oh, see those pretty red lights over there now. What are they?" asked Louise, who stood with Allen Harrison.
"The signals," exclaimed Bucks. "Three fusees. Good for Glover; that means success. Shall we go?"
When the sightseers made their way out of the cañon material trains working from both ends of the break were shoving their loaded flats noisily up to the ballasting crews and the water was echoing the clang of the spike mauls, the thud of tamping-irons, the clash of picks, the splash of tumbling stone, and the ceaseless roll of shovels.
Foot by foot, length by length, the gap was shortened. Bribed by extra pay, driven by the bosses, and stimulated by the emergency, the work of the graders became an effort close to fury. Watches were already consulted and wagers were being laid between rival foremen on the moment a train should pass the point. Above the peaks the stars glittered, and high in the sky the moon shot a path of clear light down the river itself. The camp kettles steamed constantly, and coffee strong enough to ballast eggs and primed with unusual cordials was passed every hour among the hundreds along the track.
In the lower yard at Sleepy Cat the pilot train was being made ready and the clatter of switching came into the cañon. From still further came the barking exhaust of the first-train engine waiting for orders for the cañon run.
Glover pacing the narrow bench below the camp returned again to the operator's table, and in the light of the lantern wrote a message to Medicine Bend. When it had been sent he upended an empty spike keg, and sitting down before the fire, got his back against a rock and gave himself to his thoughts. Men straggled back and forth, but none disturbed him. Some, in turn, fed the fire, some rolled themselves in their blankets and lay down to sleep, but his eyes were lost all the while in the leaping blaze.
A volleying signal of the locomotive whistles roused him. He looked at his watch and stepped to the verge of the ledge. Toward Sleepy Cat a headlight was slowly rounding the first curve. The pilot train was coming and below where he stood he could see green lights swinging. The locomotive of the work-train was at the hind end and the roadmasters standing on the first flat car were signalling. Mauls were ringing at the last spikes when the head flat car moved cautiously out on the new track. Car after car approached, every second one bearing a flagman re-signalling to the cab as the train took the short curves of the cañon and entering the gorge rolled slowly beneath the Cat's Paw over the prostrate granite.
The trackmen parted only long enough to give way to the advancing cars. The locomotive steamed gingerly along. In the gangway stood a small, broad-hatted man, Morris Blood. He waved his lantern at Glover, and Glover caught up a hand-torch to swing an answering greeting.
Down the uncertain track could be seen at reassuring intervals the slow, green lights of the track foremen swinging all's well. The deepening drum of the steaming engine as it entered the gorge walls, the straining of the injectors, and the frequent hissing check of the air as the powerful machine restrained its moving load, was music to the tired listener above. Then, looming darkly behind the tender, surprising the onlookers, even Glover himself, came the real train. Not till the roadbuilders heard the heavy drop of the big cars on the new rail joints did they realize that the first train of fruit was already crossing the break.
Ten minutes afterward Bucks, who was with Mr. Brock in the directors' car, had the news in a message. The manager had agreed to have Glover present for the supper which was now waiting, and for some time messengers and telegrams passed from the Brock Special to the cañon. It was not until twelve o'clock that they learned definitely through word from Morris Blood that Glover had torn his hand slightly in handling powder and had gone to Medicine Bend to have it dressed.
If Glover's aim in disappearing had been to escape the embarrassment of Mrs. Whitney's attentions the effort was successful only in part.
Lanning and Harrison left in the morning in charge of Bill Dancing to join the hunting party in the Park, and Mr. Brock finding himself within a few hours' ride of Medicine Bend decided to run down. Late in the afternoon the Pittsburg train drew up at the Wickiup.
Gertrude and her sister left their car together to walk in the sunshine that flooded the platform, for the sun was still a little above the mountains. In front of the eating-house a fawn-colored collie racing across the lawn attracted Gertrude, and with her sister she started up the walk to make friends with him. In one of his rushes he darted up the eating-house steps and ran around to the west porch, the two young ladies leisurely following. As they turned the corner they saw their runaway crouching before a man who, with one foot on the low railing, stood leaning against a pillar. The collie was waiting for a lump of sugar, and his master had just taken one from the pocket of his sack coat when the young ladies recognized him.
"Really, Mr. Glover, your tastes are domestic," declared Marie; "you make excellent taffy—now I find you feeding a collie." She pointed to the lump of sugar. "And how is your hand?"
"I can't get over seeing you here," said Glover, collecting himself by degrees. "When did you come? Take these chairs, won't you?"
"You, I believe, are responsible for the early resumption of traffic through the cañon," answered Marie. "Besides, nothing in our wanderings need ever cause surprise. Anyone unfortunate enough to be attached to a directors' party will end in a feeble-minded institution."
Gertrude was talking to the collie. "Isn't he beautiful, Marie?" she exclaimed. "Come here, you dear fellow. I fell in love with him the minute I saw him—to whom does he belong, Mr. Glover? Come here."
"How is your hand?" asked Marie.
"Do give Mr. Glover a chance," interposed Gertrude. "Tell me about this dog, Mr. Glover."
"He is the best dog in the world, Miss Brock. Mr. Bucks gave him to me when I first came to the mountains—we were puppies together——"
"And how about your hand?" smiled Marie.
"What is his name?" asked Gertrude.
"It wasn't a hand, it was a wrist, and it is much better, thank you—his name is Stumah."
"Stumah? How odd. Come here, Stumah. Does he mind?"
"He doesn't mind me, but no one minds me, so I forgive him that."
"Aunt Jane doesn't think you mind very well," said Marie. "Clem had a steak twice as large as usual prepared for the supper you ran away from."
"It is always my misfortune to miss good things."
Talking, Glover and Marie followed Gertrude and Stumah out on the grass and across to the big platform where an overland train had pulled in from the west. They watched the changing of the engines and the crews, and the promenade of the travellers from the Pullmans.
While Gertrude amused herself with the dog, and Marie asked questions about the locomotive, Mrs. Whitney and Louise spied them and walked over. Glover, to make his peace, was compelled to take dinner with the party in their car. The atmosphere of the special train had never seemed so attractive as on that night. To cordiality was added deference. The effect of his success in the cañon—only striking rather than remarkable—was noticeable on Mr. Brock. At dinner, which was served at one table in the dining-car, Glover was brought by the Pittsburg magnate to sit at his own right hand, Bucks being opposite. No one may ever say that the value of resource in emergency is lost on the dynamic Mr. Brock. But having placed his guest in the seat of honor he paid no further attention to him unless his running fire of big secrets, discussed before the engineer unreservedly with Bucks, might be taken as implying that he looked on the constructionist of the Mountain Division as one of his inner official family.
Glover understood the abstraction of big men, and this forgetfulness was no discouragement. There was an abstraction on his left where Gertrude sat that was less comfortable.
At no moment during the time he had spent with the company had he been able to penetrate her reserve enough to make more than an attempt at an apology for his appalling blunder in the office. With the others he never found himself at a loss for a word or an opportunity; with Gertrude he was apparently helpless.
The talk at the lower end of the table ran for a while to comment on the washout, to Glover's wrist, and during lulls Mrs. Whitney across the table asked questions calculated to draw a family history from her uneasy guest. Even Glover's waiter gave him so much attention that he got little to eat, but the engineer concealed no effort to see that Gertrude Brock was served and to break down by unobtrusive courtesies her determined restraint.
When the evening was over he found himself at the pass to which every evening in her company brought him—the unpleasant consciousness of a failure of his endeavors and a return of the rage he felt at himself for having blundered into her bad graces. Her father wanted him to return with them in the morning to Sleepy Cat to go over the tunnel plans again. That done, Glover resolved at all costs to escape from the punishment which every moment near her brought.
When they started for Sleepy Cat, the afternoon sun was bright, and much of the time was spent on the pretty observation platform of the Brock car. During the shifting of the groups Mr. Brock stepped forward into the directors' car for some papers, and Gertrude found herself alone for a moment on the platform with Glover. She was watching the track. He was studying a blueprint, and this time he made no effort to break the silence. Determined that the interval should not become a conscious one she spoke. "Papa seems unwilling to give you much rest to-day."
"I think I am learning more from him, though, than he is learning from me," returned Glover, without looking up. "He is a man of big ideas; I should be glad of a chance to know him."
"You are likely to have that during the next two weeks."
"I fear not."
"Did you not understand that Judge Saltzer and he are both to be with our party now?"
"But I am to leave it to-night."
She made no comment. "You do not understand why I joined it," he continued, "after my——"
"I understand, at least, how distasteful the association must have been."
He had looked up, and without flinching, he took the blow into his slow, heavy eyes, but in a manner as mild as Glover's, defiance could hardly be said to have place at any time.
"I have given you too good ground to visit your impatience on me," he said, "and I confess I've stood the ordeal badly. Your contempt has cut me to the quick. But don't, I beg, add to my humiliation by such a reproach. I'm blundering, but not wholly reprobate."
Her father appeared at the door. Glover's eyes were fastened on the blueprint.
Gertrude let her magazine lie in her lap. She could not at all understand the plans the two men were discussing, but her father spoke so confidently about taking up Glover's suggestions in detail during the two weeks that they should have together, and Glover said so little, that she intervened presently with a little remark. "Papa; are you not forgetting that Mr. Glover says he cannot be with us on the Park trip."
"I am not forgetting it because Mr. Glover hasn't said so."
"I so understood Mr. Glover."
"Certainly not," objected Mr. Brock, looking at his companion.
"It is a disappointment to me," said Glover, "that I can't be with you."
"Why, Mr. Bucks and I have arranged it, to-day. There are no other duties," observed Mr. Brock, tersely.
"True, but the fact is I am not well."
"Nonsense; tired out, that's all. We will rest you up; the trip will refresh you. I want you with me very particularly, Mr. Glover."
"Which makes me the sorrier I cannot be."
"Here, Mr. Bucks," called Mr. Brock, abruptly, through the open door. "What's the matter with your arrangements? Mr. Glover says he can't go through the Park."
The patient manager left Judge Saltzer, with whom he was talking, and came out on the platform. Gertrude went into the car. When the train reached Sleepy Cat, at dusk, she was sitting alone in her favorite corner near the rear door. The train stopped at a junction semaphore and she heard Bucks' voice on the observation platform.
"I hate to see a man ruin his own chances in this way, that's all," he was saying. "I've set the pins for you to take the rebuilding of the whole main line, but you succeed admirably in undoing my plans. By declining this opportunity you relegate yourself to obscurity just as you've made a hit in the cañon that is a fortune in itself."
"Whatever the effect," she heard someone reply with an effort at lightness, "deal gently with me, old man. The trouble is of my own making. I seem unable to face the results."
The train started and the voices were lost. Bucks stepped into the car and, without seeing Gertrude in the shadow, walked forward. She felt that Glover was alone on the platform and sat for several moments irresolute. After a while she rose, crossed to the table and fingered the roses in the jar. She saw him sitting alone in the dusk and stepped to the door; the train had slowed for the yard. "Mr. Glover?—do not get up—may I be frank for a moment? I fear I am causing unnecessary complications—" Glover had risen.
"You, Miss Brock?"
"Did you really mean what you said to me this afternoon?"
"Very sincerely."
"Then I may say with equal sincerity that I should feel sorry to spoil papa's plans and Mr. Bucks' and your own."
"It is not you, at all, but I who have——"
"I was going to suggest that something in the nature of a compromise might be managed——"
"I have lost confidence in my ability to manage anything, but if you would manage I should be very——"
"It might be for two weeks—" She was half laughing at her own suggestion and at his seriousness.
"I should try to deserve an extension."
"—To begin to-morrow morning——"
"Gladly, for that would last longer than if it began to-night. Indeed, Miss Brock, I——"
"But—please—I do not undertake to receive explanations." He could only bow. "The status," she continued, gravely, "should remain, I think, the same."
The directors' party had been inspecting the Camp Pilot mines. The train was riding the crest of the pass when the sun set, and in the east long stretches of snow-sheds were vanishing In the shadows of the valley.
Glover, engaged with Mr. Brock, Judge Saltzer, and Bucks, had been forward all day, among the directors. The compartments of the Brock car were closed when he walked back through the train and the rear platform was deserted. He seated himself in his favorite corner of the umbrella porch, where he could cross his legs, lean far back, and with an engineer's eye study the swiftly receding grace of the curves and elevations of the track. They were covering a stretch of his own construction, a pet, built when he still felt young; when he had come from the East fiery with the spirit of twenty-five.
But since then he had seen seven years of blizzards, blockades, and washouts; of hard work, hardships, and disappointments. This maiden track that they were speeding over he was not ashamed of; the work was good engineering yet. But now with new and great responsibilities on his horizon, possibilities that once would have fired his imagination, he felt that seven years in and out of the mountains had left him battle-scarred and moody.
"My sister was saying last night as she saw you sitting where you are now—that we should always associate this corner with you. Don't get up." Gertrude Brock, dressed for dinner, stood in the doorway. "You never tire of watching the track," she said, sinking into the chair he offered as he rose. Her frank manner was unlooked for, but he knew they were soon to part and felt that something of that was behind her concession. He answered in his mood.
"The track, the mountains," he replied; "I have little else."
"Would not many consider the mountains enough?"
"No doubt."
"I should think them a continual inspiration."
"So they are; though sometimes they inspire too much."
"It is so still and beautiful through here." She leaned back in her chair, supported her elbows on its arms and clasped her hands; the stealing charm of her cordiality had already roused him.
"This bit of track we are covering," said he after a pause, "is the first I built on this division; and just now I have been recalling my very first sight of the mountains." She leaned slightly forward, and again he was coaxed on. "Every tradition of my childhood was associated with this country—the plains and rivers and mountains. It wasn't alone the reading—though I read without end—but the stories of the old French traders I used to hear in the shops, and sometimes of trappers I used to find along the river front of the old town; I fed on their yarns. And it was always the wild horse and the buffalo and the Sioux and the mountains—I dreamed of nothing else. Now, so many times, I meet strangers that come into the mountains—foreigners often—and I can never listen to their rhapsodies, or even read their books about the Rockies, without a jealousy that they are talking without leave of something that's mine. What can the Rockies mean to them? Surely, if an American boy has a heritage it is the Rockies. What can they feel of what I felt the first time I stood at sunset on the plains and my very dreams loomed into the western sky? I toppled on my pins just at seeing them."
She laughed softly. "You are fond of the mountains."
"I have little else," he repeated.
"Then they ought to be loyal to you. But the first impression—it hardly remains, I suppose?"
"I am not sure. They don't grow any smaller; sometimes I think they grow bigger."
"Then youarefond of them. That's constancy, and constancy is a capital test of a charm."
"But I'm never sure whether they are, as you say, loyal to me. We had once on this division a remarkable man named Hailey—a bridge engineer, and a very great one. He and I stood one night on a caisson at the Spider Water—the first caisson he put into the river—do you remember that big river you crossed on the plains——"
"Indeed! I am not likely to forget a night I spent at the Spider Water; continue."
"Hailey put in the bridge there. 'This old stream ought to be thankful to you, Hailey, for a piece of work like this,' I said to him. 'No,' he answered, quite in earnest; 'the Spider doesn't like me. It will get me some time.' So I think about these mountains. I like them, and I don't like them. Sometimes I think as Hailey thought of the Spider—and the Spider did get him."
"How serious you grow!" she exclaimed, lightly.
"The truce ends to-morrow."
"And the journey ends," she remarked, encouragingly.
"What, please, does that line mean that I see so often, 'Journeys end in lovers meeting?'"
"I haven't an idea. But, oh, these mountains!" she exclaimed, stepping in caution to the guard-rail. "Could anything be more awful than this?" They were crawling antlike up a mountain spur that rose dizzily on their right; on the left they overhung a bottomless pit. Their engines churned, panted, and struggled up the curve, and as they talked the dense smoke from the stacks sucked far down into the gap they were skirting.
"The roadbed is chiselled out of the granite all along here. This is the famed Mount Pilot on the left, and this the worst spot on the division for snow. You wouldn't think of extending our truce?"
"To-morrow we leave for the coast."
"But you could leave the truce; and I want it ever so much."
She laughed. "Why should one want a truce after the occasion for it has passed?"
"Sometimes out here in the desert we get away from water. You don't know, of course, what it is to want water? I lost a trail once in the Spanish Sinks and for two days I wanted water."
"Dreadful. I have heard of such things. How did you ever find your way again?"
He hesitated. "Sometimes instinct serves after reason fails. It wasn't very good water when I reached it, but I did not know about that for two weeks. It is a curious thing, too—physiologists, I am told, have some name for the mental condition—but a man that has suffered once for water will at times suffer intensely for it again, even though you saturate him with water, drown him in it."
"How very strange; almost incredible, is it not? Have you ever experienced such a sensation?"
"I have felt it, but never acutely until to-day; that is why I want to get the truce extended. I dread the next two days."
She looked puzzled. "Mr. Glover, if you have jestingly beguiled me into real sympathy I shall be angry in earnest."
"You are going to-morrow. How could I jest about it? When you go I face the desert again. You have come like water into my life—are you going out of it forever to-morrow? May I never hope to see you again—or hear from you?" She rose in amazement; he was between her and the door. "Surely, this is extraordinary, Mr. Glover."
"Only a moment. I shall have days enough of silence. I dread to shock or anger you. But this is one reason why I tried to keep away from you—just this—because I— And you, in unthinking innocence, kept me from my intent to escape this moment. Your displeasure was hard to bear, but your kindness has undone me. Believe me or not I did fight, a gentleman, even though I have fallen, a lover."
The displeasure of her eyes as she faced him was her only reply. Indeed, he made hardly an effort to support her look and she swept past him into the car.
The Brock train lay all next day in the Medicine Bend yard. A number of the party, with horses and guides, rode to the Medicine Springs west of the town. Glover, buried in drawings and blueprints, was in his office at the Wickiup all day with Manager Bucks and President Brock.
Late in the afternoon the attention of Gertrude, reading alone in her car, was attracted to a stout boy under an enormous hat clambering with difficulty up the railing of the observation platform. In one arm he struggled for a while with a large bundle wrapped in paper, then dropping back he threw the package up over the rail, and starting empty-handed gained the platform and picked up his parcel. He fished a letter from his pistol pocket, stared fearlessly in at Gertrude Brock and knocked on the glass panel between them.
"Laundry parcels are to be delivered to the porter in the forward car," said Gertrude, opening the door slightly.
As she spoke the boy's hat blew off and sailed down the platform, but he maintained some dignity. "I don't carry laundry. I carry telegrams. The front door was locked. I seen you sitting in there all alone, and I've got a note and had orders to give it to you personally, and this package personally, and not to nobody else, so I climbed over."
"Stop a moment," commanded Gertrude, for the heavy messenger was starting for the railing before she quite comprehended. "Wait until I see what you have here." The boy, with his hands on the railing, was letting himself down.
"My hat's blowin' off. There ain't any answer and the charges is paid."
"Will you wait?" exclaimed Gertrude, impatiently. The very handwriting on the note annoyed her. While unfamiliar, her instinct connected it with one person from whom she was determined to receive no communication. She hesitated as she looked at her carefully written name. She wanted to return the communication unopened; but how could she be sure who had sent it? With the impatience of uncertainty she ripped open the envelope.
The note was neither addressed nor signed.
"I have no right to keep this after you leave; perhaps I had no right to keep it at all. But in returning it to you I surely may thank you for the impulse that made you throw it over me the morning I lay asleep behind the Spider dike."
She tore the package partly open—it was her Newmarket coat. Bundling it up again she walked hastily to her compartment. For some moments she remained within; when she came out the messenger boy, his hat now low over his ears, was sitting in her chair looking at the illustrated paper she had laid down. Gertrude suppressed her astonishment; she felt somehow overawed by the unconventionalities of the West.
"Boy, what are you doing here?"
"You said, wait," answered the boy, taking off his hat and rising.
"Oh, yes. Very well; no matter."
"Ma'am?"
"No matter."
"Does that mean for me to wait?"
"It means you may go."
He started reluctantly. "Gee," he exclaimed, under his breath, looking around, "this is swell in here, ain't it?"
"See here, what is your name?"
"Solomon Battershawl, but most folks call me Gloomy."
"Gloomy! Where did you get that name?"
"Mr. Glover."
"Who sent you with this note?"
"I can't tell. He gave me a dollar and told me I wasn't to answer any questions."
"Oh, did he? What else did he tell you?"
"He said for me to take my hat off when I spoke to you, but my hat blowed off when you spoke to me."
"Unfortunate! Well, you are a handsome fellow, Gloomy. What do you do?"
"I'm a railroad man."
"Are you? How fine. So you won't tell who sent you."
"No, ma'am."
"What else did the gentleman say?"
"He said if anybody offered me anything I wasn't to take anything."
"Did he, indeed, Gloomy?"
"Yes'm."
She turned to the table from where she was sitting and took up a big box. "No money, he meant."
"Yes'm."
"How about candy?"
Solomon shifted.
"He didn't mention candy?"
"No'm."
"Do you ever eat candy?"
"Yes'm."
"This is a box that came from Pittsburg only this morning for me. Take some chocolates. Don't be afraid; take several. What is your last name?"
"Battershawl."
"Gloomy Battershawl; how pretty. Battershawl is so euphonious."
"Yes'm."
"Who is your best friend among the railroad men?"
"Mr. Duffy, our chief despatcher. I owe my promotion to 'im," said Solomon, solemnly.
"But who gives you the most money, I mean. Take a large piece this time."
"Oh, there ain't anybody gives me any money, much, exceptin' Mr. Glover. I run errands for him."
"What is the most money he ever gave you for an errand, Gloomy?"
"Dollar, twice."
"So much as that?"
"Yes'm."
"What was that for?"
"The first time it was for taking his washing down to the Spider to him on Number Two one Sunday morning."
This being a line of answer Gertrude had not expected to develop she started, but Solomon was under way. "Gee, the river w's high that time. He was down there two weeks and never went to bed at all, and came up special in a sleeper, sick, and I took care of him. Gee, he was sick."
"What was the matter?"
"Noomonia, the doctor said."
"And you took care of him!"
"Me an' the doctor."
"What was the other errand he gave you a dollar for?"
"Dassent tell."
"How did you know it was I you should give your note to?"
"He told me it was for the brown-haired young lady that walked so straight—I knew you all right—I seen you on horseback. I guess I'll have to be going 'cause I got a lot of telegrams to deliver up town."
"No hurry about them, is there?"
"No, but's getting near dinner time. Good-by."
"Wait. Take this box of candy with you."
Solomon staggered. "The whole box?"
"Certainly."
"Gee!"
He slid over the rail with the candy under his arm.
When he disappeared, Gertrude went back to her stateroom, closed the door, though quite alone in the car, and re-read her note.
"I have no right to keep this after you leave; perhaps I had no right to keep it at all. But in returning it to you I surely may thank you for the impulse that made you throw it over me the morning I lay asleep behind the Spider dike."
It was he, then, lying in the rain, ill then, perhaps—nursed by the nondescript cub that had just left her.
The Newmarket lay across the berth—a long, graceful garment. She had always liked the coat, and her eye fell now upon it critically, wondering what he thought of the garment upon making so unexpected an acquaintance with her intimate belongings. Near the bottom of the lining she saw a mud stain on the silk and the pretty fawn melton was spotted with rain. She folded it up before the horseback party returned and put it away, stained and spotted, at the bottom of her trunk.
The car in itself was in no way remarkable. A twelve-section and drawing-room, mahogany-finish, wide-vestibule sleeper, done in cream brown, hangings shading into Indian reds—a type of the Pullman car so popular some years ago for transcontinental travel; neither too heavy for the mountains nor too light for the pace across the plains.
There were many features added to the passenger schedule on the West End the year Henry S. Brock and his friends took hold of the road, but none made more stir than the new Number One, run then as a crack passenger train, a strictly limited, vestibuled string, with barbers, baths, grill rooms, and five-o'clock tea. In and out Number One was the finest train that crossed the Rockies, and bar nobody's.
It was October, with the Colorado travel almost entirely eastbound and the California travel beginning, westbound, and the Lalla Rookh sleeper being deadheaded to the coast on a special charter for an O. and O. steamer party; at least, that was all the porter knew about its destination, and he knew more than anyone else.
At McCloud, where the St. Louis connection is made, Number One sets out a diner and picks up a Portland sleeper—so it happened that the Lalla Rookh, hind car to McCloud, afterward lay ahead of the St. Louis car, and the trainmen passed, as occasion required, through it—lighted down the gloomy aisle by a single Pintsch burner, choked to an all-night dimness.
But on the night of October 3d, which was a sloppy night in the mountains, there was not a great deal to take anybody back through the Lalla Rookh. Even the porter of the dead car deserted his official corpse, and after Number One pulled out of Medicine Bend and stuck her slim, aristocratic nose fairly into the big ranges the Lalla Rookh was left as dead as a stringer to herself and her reflections—reflections of brilliant aisles and staterooms inviting with softened lights, shed on couples that resented intrusion; of sections bright with lovely faces and decks ringing with talk and laughter; of ventilators singing of sunshine within, and of night and stars and waste without—for the Lalla Rookh carried only the best people, and after the overland voyage on her tempered springs and her yielding cushions they felt an affection for her. When the Lalla Rookh lived she lived; but to-night she was dead.
This night the pretty car sped over the range a Cinderella deserted, her linen stored and checked in her closets, her pillows bunked in her seats, and her curtains folded in her uppers, save and except in one single instance—Section Eleven, to conform to certain deeply held ideas of the porter, Raz Brown, as to what might and might not constitute a hoodoo, was made up. Raz Brown did not play much: he could not and hold his job; but when he did play he played eleven always whether it fell between seven, twenty-seven, or four, forty-four. And whenever Raz Brown deadheaded a car through, he always made up section eleven, and laid the hoodoo struggling but helpless under the chilly linen sheets of the lower berth.
Glover had spent the day without incident or excitement on the Wind River branches, and the evening had gone, while waiting to take a train west to Medicine Bend, in figuring estimates at the agent's desk in Wind River station. He was working night and day to finish the report that the new board was waiting for on the rebuilding of the system.
At midnight when he boarded the train he made his way back to look for a place to stretch out until two o'clock.
The Pullman conductor lay in the smoking-room of the head 'Frisco car dreaming of his salary—too light to make any impression on him except when asleep. It seemed a pity to disturb an honest man's dreams, and the engineer passed on. In the smoking-room of the next car lay a porter asleep. Glover dropped his bag into a chair and took off his coat. While he was washing his hands the train-conductor, Billy O'Brien, came in and set down his lantern. Conductor O'Brien was very much awake and inclined rather to talk over a Mexican mining proposition on which he wanted expert judgment than to let Glover get to bed. When the sleepy man looked at his watch for the fifth time, the conductor was getting his wind for the dog-watch and promised to talk till daylight.
"My boy, I've got to go to bed," declared Glover.
"Every sleeper is loaded to the decks," returned O'Brien. "This is the most comfortable place you'll find."
"No, I'll go forward into the chair-car," replied Glover. "Good-night."
"Stop, Mr. Glover; if you're bound to go, the Lalla Rookh car right behind this is dead, but there's steam on. Go into the stateroom and throw yourself on the couch. This is the porter here asleep."
"William, your advice is good. I've taken it too long to disregard it now," said Glover, picking up his bag. "Good-night."
But it was not a good night; it was a bad night, and getting worse as Number One dipped into it. Out of the northwest it smoked a ragged, wet fog down the pass, and, as they climbed higher, a bitter song from the Teton way heeled the sleepers over the hanging curves and streamed like sobs through the meshed ventilators of the Lalla Rookh. It was a nasty night for any sort of a sleeper; for a dead one it was very bad.
Glover walked into the Lalla Rookh vestibule, around the smoking-room passage, and into the main aisle of the car, dimly lighted at the hind end. He made his way to the stateroom. The open door gave him light, and he took off his storm-coat, pulled it over him for a blanket, and had closed his eyes when he reflected he had forgotten to warn O'Brien he must get off at Medicine Bend.
It was unpleasant, but forward he went again to avoid the annoyance of being carried by. He could tell as he came back, by the swing, that they were heading the Peace River curves, for the trucks were hitting the elevations like punching-bags. Just as he regained the main aisle of the Lalla Rookh, a lurch of the car plumped him against a section-head. He grasped it an instant to steady himself, and as he stopped he looked. Whether it was that his eyes fell on the curtained section swaying under the Pintsch light ahead—Section Eleven made up—or whether his eyes were drawn to it, who can tell? A woman's head was visible between the curtains. Glover stood perfectly still and stared. Without right or reason, there certainly stood a woman.
With nobody whatever having any business in the car, a car out of service, carried as one carries a locked and empty satchel—yet the curtains of Section Eleven, next his stateroom, were parted slightly, and the half-light from above streamed on a woman's loose hair. She was not looking toward where he stood; her face was turned from him, and as she clasped the curtain she was looking into his stateroom. What the deuce! thought Glover. A woman passenger in a dead sleeper? He balanced himself to the dizzy wheel of the truck under him, and waited for her to look his way—since she must be looking for the porter—but the head did not move. The curtains swayed with the jerking of the car, but the woman in Eleven looked intently into the dark stateroom. What did it mean? Glover determined a shock.
"Tickets!" he exclaimed, sternly—and stood alone in the car.
"Tickets!" The head was gone; not alone that, strangely gone. How? Glover could not have told. It wasgone. The Pintsch burned dim; the Teton song crooned through the ventilators; the wheels of the Lalla Rookh struck muffled at the fish-plates; the curtains of Section Eleven swung slowly in and out of the berth—but the head was not there.
A creepy feeling touched his back; his first impulse was to ignore the incident, go into the stateroom and lie down. Then he thought he might have alarmed the passenger in Eleven when he had first entered. Yet there was, officially at least, no passenger in Eleven; plainly there was nothing to do but to call the conductor. He went forward. O'Brien was sorting his collections in the smoking-room of the next car. Raz Brown, awake—nominally, at least—sat by, reading his dream-book.
"Is this the Lalla Rookh porter?" asked Glover. O'Brien nodded.
"Who's your passenger in Eleven back there?" demanded Glover, turning to the darky.
"Me?" stammered Raz Brown.
"Who's your fare in Eleven in Lalla Rookh?"
"My fare? Why, I ain't got nair 'a fare in Lalla Rookh. She's dead, boss."
"You've got a woman passenger in Eleven. What are you talking about? What's the matter with you?"
Raz Brown's eyes rolled marvellously. "'Fore God, dere ain't nobody dere ez I knows on, Mr. O'Brien," protested the surprised porter, getting up.
"There's a woman in Eleven, Billy," said Glover.
"Come on," exclaimed O'Brien, turning to the porter. "She may be a spotter. Let's see."
Raz Brown walked back reluctantly, Conductor O'Brien leading. Into the Lalla Rookh, dark and quiet, around the smoking-room, down the aisle, and facing Eleven; there the Pintsch light dimly burned, the draperies slowly swayed in front of the darkened berth. Raz Brown gripped the curtains preliminarily.
"Tickets, ma'am." There was a heavy pause.
"Tickets!" No response.
"C'nduct'h wants youh tickets, ma'am."
The silence could be cut with an axe. Raz Brown parted the curtains, peered in, opened them wider, peered farther in; pushed the curtains back with both hands. The berth was empty.
Raz looked at Conductor O'Brien. O'Brien grasped the curtains himself. The upper berth hung closed above. The lower, made up, lay untouched—the pillows fresh, the linen sheets folded back, Pullmanwise, over the dark blanket.
The porter looked at Glover. "See foh y'se'f."
Glover was impatient. "She's somewhere about the car," he exclaimed, "search it." Raz Brown went through the Lalla Rookh from vestibule to vestibule: it was as empty as a ceiling.
Puzzled and annoyed, Glover stood trying to recall the mysterious appearance. He walked back to where he had seen the woman, stood where he had stood and looked where he had looked. She had not seemed to withdraw, as he recalled: the curtains had not closed before the head; it had vanished. The wind sung fine, very fine through the copper screens, the Pintsch light flowed very low into the bright globe, the curtains swung again gracefully to the dip of the car; but the head was gone.
A discussion threw no light on the mystery. On one point, however, Conductor O'Brien was firm. While the conductor and the porter kept up the talk, Glover resumed his preparations for retiring in the stateroom, but O'Brien interfered.
"Don't do it. Don't you do it. I wouldn't sleep in that room now for a thousand dollars."
"Nonsense."
"That's all right. I say come forward."
They made him up a corner in the smoking-room of the 'Frisco car, and he could have slept like a baby had not the conviction suddenly come upon him that he had seen Gertrude Brock. Should he, after all, see her again? And what did it mean? Why was she looking in terror into his stateroom?