I
It was the second week in February, but winter had taken a fresh hold:
the stockmen were grumbling; freight was dull, and travel light on the
white Northwestern lines. In the Portland car from Omaha there were but
four passengers: father and daughter,--a gentle, unsophisticated
pair,--and two strong-faced men, fellow-travelers also, keeping each
other's company in a silent but close and conspicuous proximity. They
shared the same section, the younger man sleeping above, going to bed
before, and rising later than, his companion; and whenever he changed
his seat or made an unexpected movement, the eyes of the elder man
followed him, and they were never far from him at any time.
The elder was a plain farmer type of man, with a clean-shaven, straight
upper lip, a grizzled beard covering the lower half of his face, and
humorous wrinkles spreading from the corners of his keen gray eyes.
The younger showed in his striking person that union of good blood with
hard conditions so often seen in the old-young graduates of the life
schools of the West. His hands and face were dark with exposure to the
sun, not of parks and club-grounds and seaside piazzas, but the dry
untempered light of the desert and the plains. His dark eye was
distinctively masculine,--if there be such a thing as gender in
features,--bold, ardent, and possessive; but now it was clouded with
sadness that did not pass like a mood, though he looked capable of
moods.
He was dressed in the demi-toilet which answers for dinners in the West,
on occasions where a dress-coat is not required. In itself the costume
was correct, even fastidious, in its details, but on board an overland
train there was a foppish unsuitability in it that "gave the wearer
away," as another man would have said--put him at a disadvantage,
notwithstanding his splendid physique, and the sad, rather fine
preoccupation of his manner. He looked like a very real person dressed
for a trifling part, which he lays aside between the scenes while he
thinks about his sick child, or his debts, or his friend with whom he
has quarreled.
But these incongruities, especially the one of dress, might easily have
escaped a pair of eyes so confiding and unworldly as those of the young
girl in the opposite section; they had escaped her, but not the
incongruity of youth with so much sadness. The girl and her father had
boarded the car at Omaha, escorted by the porter of one of the forward
sleepers on the same train. They had come from farther East. The old
gentleman appeared to be an invalid; but they gave little trouble. The
porter had much leisure on his hands, which he bestowed in arrears of
sleep on the end seat forward. The conductor made up his accounts in the
empty drawing-room, or looked at himself in the mirrors, or stretched
his legs on the velvet sofas. He was a young fellow, with a tendency to
jokes and snatches of song and talk of a light character when not on
duty. He talked sometimes with the porter in low tones, and then both
looked at the pair of travelers in No. 8, and the younger man seemed
moodily aware of their observation.
On the first morning out from Omaha the old gentleman kept his berth
until nine or ten o'clock. At eight his daughter brought him a cup of
chocolate and a sandwich, and sat between his curtains, chatting with
him cozily. In speaking together they used the language of the Society
of Friends.
The young man opposite listened attentively to the girl's voice; it was
as sweet as the piping of birds at daybreak. Phebe her father called
her.
Afterward Phebe sat in the empty section next her father's. The table
before her was spread with a fresh napkin, and a few pieces of old
household silver and china which she had taken from her lunch-basket.
She and her father were economical travelers, but in all their
belongings there was the refinement of modest suitability and an
exquisite cleanliness. Her own order for breakfast was confined to a cup
of coffee, which the porter was preparing in the buffet-kitchen.
"Would you mind changing places with me?"
The young man in No. 8 spoke to his companion, who sat opposite reading
a newspaper. They changed seats, and by this arrangement the younger
could look at Phebe, who innocently gave him every advantage to study
her sober and delicate profile against the white snow-light, as she sat
watching the dreary cattle-ranges of Wyoming swim past the car window.
Her hair had been brushed, and her face washed in the bitter alkaline
waters of the plains, with the uncompromising severity of one whose
standards of personal adornment are limited to the sternest ideals of
neatness and purity. Yet her fair face bloomed, like a winter sunrise,
with tints of rose and pearl and sapphire blue, and the pale gold of
winter sunshine was in her satin-smooth hair.
The young man did not fail to include in his study of Phebe the modest
breakfast equipment set out before her. He perfectly recalled the
pattern of the white-and-gold china, the touch, the very taste, of the
thin, bright old silver spoons; they were like his grandmother's
tea-things in the family homestead in the country, where he had spent
his summers as a boy. The look of them touched him nearly, but not
happily, it would seem, from his expression.
The porter came with the cup of coffee, and offered a number of
patronizing suggestions in the line of his service, which the young girl
declined. She set forth a meek choice of food, blushing faintly in
deprecation of the young man's eyes, of which she began to be aware.
Evidently she was not yet hardened to the practice of eating in public.
He took the hint, and retired to his corner, opening a newspaper between
himself and Phebe.
Presently he heard her call the porter in a small, ineffectual voice.
The porter did not come. She waited a little, and called again, with no
better result. He put down his newspaper.
"If you will press the button at your left," he suggested.
"The button!" she repeated, looking at him helplessly.
He sprang to assist her. As he did so his companion flung down his
paper, and jumped in front of him. The eyes of the two met. A hot flush
rose to the young man's eyebrows.
"I am calling the porter for her."
"Oh!" said the other, and he sat down again; but he kept an eye upon the
angry youth, who leaned across Phebe's seat, and touched the electric
button.
"Little girl hadn't got on to it, eh?" the grizzled man remarked
pleasantly, when his companion had resumed his seat.
There was no answer.
"Nice folks; from the country, somewheres back East, I should guess,"
the imperturbable one continued. "Old man seems sort of sickly. Making a
move on account of his health, likely. Great mistake--old folks turning
out in winter huntin' a climate."
The young man remained silent, and the elder returned to his paper.
At Cheyenne, where the train halts for dinner, the young girl helped her
father into his outer garments, buttoned herself hastily into her
homespun jacket bordered with gray fur, pinned her little hat firmly to
her crown of golden braids, hid her hands in her muff,--she did not wait
to put on gloves,--and led the way to the dining-room.
The travelers in No. 8 disposed of their meal rapidly, in their usual
close but silent conjunction, and returned at once to the car.
The old gentleman and his daughter walked the windy platform, and cast
rather forlorn glances at the crowd bustling about in the bleak winter
sunlight. When they took their seats again, the father's pale blue eyes
were still paler, his face looked white and drawn with the cold; but
Phebe was like a rose: with her wonderful, pure color the girl was
beautiful. The young man of No. 8 looked at her with a startled
reluctance, as if her sweetness wounded him.
Then he seemed to have resolved to look at her no more. He leaned his
head back in his corner, and closed his eyes; the train shook him
slightly as he sat in moody preoccupation with his thoughts, and the
miles of track flew by.
At Green River, at midnight, the Portland car was dropped by its convoy
of the Union Pacific, and was coupled with a train making up for the
Oregon Short Line. There was hooting and backing of engines, slamming
of car doors, flashing of conductors' lanterns, voices calling across
the tracks. One of these voices could be heard, in the wakeful silence
within the car, as an engine from the west steamed past in the glare of
its snow-wreathed headlight.
"No. 10 stuck this side of Squaw Creek. Bet you don't make it before
Sunday!"
The outbound conductor's retort was lost in the clank of couplings as
the train lurched forward on the slippery rails.
"Phebe, is thee awake?" the old gentleman softly called to his daughter,
about the small hours.
"Yes, father. Want anything?"
"Are those ventilators shut? I feel a cold draft in the back of my
berth."
The ventilators were all shut, but the train was now climbing the Wind
River divide, the cold bitterly increasing, and the wind dead ahead.
Cinders tinkled on the roaring stovepipes, the blast swept the car
roofs, pelting the window panes with fine, dry snow, and searching every
joint and crevice defended by the company's upholstery.
Phebe slipped down behind the berth-curtain, and tucked a shawl in at
her father's back. Her low voice could be heard, and the old man's
self-pitying tones in answer to her tender questionings. He coughed at
intervals till daybreak, when there was silence in section No. 7.
In No. 8, across the aisle, the young man lay awake in the strength of
his thoughts, and made up passionate sentences which he fancied himself
speaking to persons he might never be brought face to face with again.
They were people mixed in with his life in various relations, past and
present, whose opinions had weighed with him. When he heard Phebe
talking to her father, he muttered, with a sort of anguish:--
"Oh, you precious lamb!"
He and his companion made their toilet early, and breakfasted and smoked
together, and their taciturn relation continued as before. Snow filled
the air, and blotted out the distance, but there were few stationary
dark objects outside by which to gauge its fall. They were across the
border now, between Wyoming and Idaho, in a featureless white region, a
country of small Mormon ranches, far from any considerable town.
The old man slept behind his curtains. Phebe went through the morning
routine by which women travelers make themselves at home and pass the
time, but obviously her day did not begin until her father had reported
himself. She had found a hole in one of her gloves, which she was
mending, choosing critically the needle and the silk for the purpose
from a very complete housewife in brown linen bound with a brown silk
galloon. Again the young man was reminded of his boyhood, and of certain
kind old ladies of precise habits who had contributed to his happiness,
and occasionally had eked out the fond measure of paternal discipline.
The snow continued; about noon the train halted at a small water
station, waited awhile as if in consideration of difficulties ahead, and
then quietly backed down upon a side-track. A shock of silence followed.
Every least personal movement in the thinly peopled car, before lost in
the drumming of the wheels, asserted itself against this new medium. The
passengers looked up and at one another; the Pullman conductor stepped
out to make inquiries.
The silence continued, and became embarrassing. Phebe dropped her
scissors. This time the young man sat still, but the flush rose to his
forehead as before. The old gentleman's breathing could be heard behind
his curtains; the porter rattling plates in the cooking-closet; the soft
rustling of the snow outside. Phebe stepped to her father's berth, and
peeped between his curtains; he was still sleeping. Her voice was hushed
to the note of a sick-room as she asked,--
"Where are we now, do you know?"
The young man was looking at her, and to him she addressed the question.
With a glance at his companion, he crossed to her side of the car, and
took the seat in front of her.
"We are in the Bear Lake valley, just over the border of Idaho, about
fifteen miles from the Squaw Creek divide," he answered, sinking his
voice.
"Did you hear what that person said in the night, when a train passed
us, about our not getting through?"
"I wondered if you heard that." He smiled. "You did not rest well, I'm
afraid."
"I was anxious about father. This weather is a great surprise to us. We
were told the winters were short in southern Idaho--almost like
Virginia; but look at this!"
"We have nearly eight thousand feet of altitude here, you must remember.
In the valleys it is warmer. There the winter does break usually about
this time. Are you going on much farther?"
"To a place called Volney."
"Volney is pretty high; but there is Boise, farther down. Strangers
moving into a new country very seldom strike it right the first time."
"Oh, we shall stay at Volney, even if we do not like it; that is, if we
_can_ stay. I have a married sister living there. She thought the
climate would be better for father."