IV

Having waited a reasonable length of time after dinner, Crombie again

left his room, resolved to make a call upon Mr. Littimer, on the plea

of apologizing for having marched away with his shoes.

He would not run the risk, by sending his card, of being denied as a

stranger; so, notwithstanding much hesitation and tremor, he approached

the door which he had once seen standing open, and knocked. A voice

which he now heard for the second time in his life, but which was so

sweet and crept so naturally into the centre of his heart that the

thought of it seemed always to have been there, answered: "Come in."

And he did come in.

"Is Mr. Lit--is your father at home?" It seemed to bring him a little

nearer to her to say "your father."

Blanche had risen from the chair where she was reading, and looked very

much surprised. "Oh," she exclaimed, with girlish simplicity, "I

thought it was the waiter! N-no; he hasn't come home yet."

"I beg pardon. Then perhaps I'd better call later." Crombie made a

feeble movement toward withdrawal.

"Did you want to see him on business? Who shall I tell him?"

"Mr. Crombie, please. It's nothing very important."

"Oh," said Blanche, with a little blush at her own deception, "haven't

I seen you in the house before? Are you staying here?"

She remembered distinctly the incident of the card-case, and how very

nice she had thought him, both on that occasion and every time she had

seen him. But as for him, his heart sank at the vague impersonality

with which she seemed to regard him.

"Yes, I'm here, and can easily come in again."

"I expect my father almost any moment," she said. "Would you like to

wait?"

What an absurd question, to one in his frame of mind! "Well, really, it

is such a very small matter," he began, examining his hat attentively.

Then he glanced up at her again, and smiled: "I only wanted to--to make

an apology."

"An apology!" echoed Blanche, becoming rather more distant. "Oh, dear!

I'm very sorry, I'm sure. I didn't know there'd been any trouble." She

began to look anxious, and turned her eyes upon the smouldering fire in

the grate. So this was to be the end of her pleasant, cheerful reveries

about this nice young man. And the reveries had been more frequent than

she had been aware of until now.

"There has been no trouble," he assured her, eagerly. "Just a little

mistake that occurred; and, in fact, I was hardly responsible for it."

Blanche's eyes began to twinkle with a new and amusing interpretation.

"Ah!" she cried, "are you the gentleman who--" Then she stopped short.

Crombie was placed in an unexpected embarrassment. How could he

possibly drag into his conversation with this lovely young creature so

commonplace and vulgar a subject as shoe-leather! Ignoring her

unfinished question, he asked: "Do you know, Miss Littimer, whether

the--a--one of the servants here has brought up anything for your

father--that is, a parcel, a--"

"A pair of shoes?" Blanche broke in, her eyes dancing, while her lips

parted in a smile.

"Yes, yes; that's what I meant."

"They came up just after dinner," Blanche returned. "Then you _are_ the

gentleman."

"I'm afraid I am," Crombie owned, and they both laughed.

Blanche quietly, and with no apparent intention, resumed her chair; and

this time Crombie took a seat without waiting to be invited again. Thus

they fell to talking in the friendliest way.

"I can't imagine what has become of papa," said Blanche. "He sent word,

in the most mysterious manner, that he had an engagement; and it is so

unusual! Perhaps it's something about the new house he's

building--up-town, you know. Dear me! it does make so much trouble, and

I don't believe I shall like it half as well as these little, cosey

rooms."

The little, cosey rooms were as the abode of giants compared with

Crombie's contracted quarters; but he drew comfort from what she said,

thinking how such sentiments might make it possible to win even so

unattainable an heiress into some modest home of his own.

"You don't know till you try it," he replied. "Just think of having a

place all to yourself, belonging to you."

Blanche lifted her eyebrows, and a little sigh escaped her. She was

reflecting, perhaps, that a place all to herself would be rather

lonely.

"You have never met my father?" she asked.

"No. I have seen him."

"Well, I think you will like him when you know him."

"I don't doubt it!" Crombie exclaimed with fervor, worshiping the very

furniture that surrounded Blanche.

"I hope we may become better acquainted."

"Only I think, Mr. Crombie, he will owe you an apology now."

"Why?"

"For keeping your shoes out so late."

"My shoes!" said the young man, in vehement surprise.

"Why, yes. Didn't you know they came to him? The porter said so."

Crombie grew red with the sense of his disgrace in having his

poverty-stricken boots come to the knowledge of the banker. Really, his

mortification was so great that the accident seemed to him to put an

end to all his hopes of further relations with Blanche and her father.

"Oh, I assure you," he said, rising, "that makes no difference at all!

I'm sorry I mentioned the matter. Pray tell Mr. Littimer not to think

of it. I--I believe I'd better go now, Miss Littimer."

Blanche rose too, and Crombie was on the point of bowing a good-night,

when the door opened, and a weary figure presented itself on the

threshold; the figure of a short man with a spare face, and whiskers in

which gray mingled with the sandy tint. He had a pinched, half-growling

expression, was draped in a light, draggled overcoat, and carried an

umbrella, the ribs of which hung loose around the stick.

"There's papa this moment!" cried Blanche.

Crombie perceived that escape was impossible, and, in a few words, the

reason of his presence there was made known to the old gentleman.

Littimer examined the visitor swiftly, from head to foot--especially

the foot. He advanced to the fire, toasted first one and then the other

of the damp gaiters he had on? and at length broke out, in a tone

bordering on reproach: "So you are the owner, are you? Then my sympathy

has all been wasted! Why, I supposed, from the condition of these

machines that I've been lugging around with me half the day that you

must be in the greatest distress. And, lo and behold! I find you a

young fellow in prime health, spruce and trim, doing well, I should

say, and perfectly happy."

"I can't help that, sir," retorted Crombie, nettled, but speaking with

respect. "I confess I was very happy until a moment or two ago."

"What do you mean by that?" the other demanded, with half-yielding

pugnacity. "Till I came in--is that the idea?"

"Oh, papa!" said Banche, softly.

"Well, honey-bee, what's the matter?" her father asked, trying to be

gruff. "Can't I say what I like, here?" But he surrendered at once by

adding: "You may be sure I don't want to offend any one. Sit down, Mr.

Crombie, and wait just a few moments while I go into the other room and

rejuvenate my hoofs, so to speak--for I fear I've made a donkey of

myself."

He disappeared into an adjoining room with Blanche, who there informed

him artlessly of Crombie's consideration and attentiveness in restoring

the errant shoes. When they came back Littimer insisted upon having the

young man remain a little longer and drink a glass of port with him.

Before taking his departure, however, Crombie, who felt free to speak

since Blanche had retired, made a brief statement in satisfaction of

conscience.

"You hinted," he said, "that you judged me to be doing well. I don't

want to leave you with a false impression. The truth is, I am not doing

well. I have no money to speak of, and to-day I lost the position on

which I depended."

"You don't tell me!" Littimer's newly roused charitable impulses came

to the fore. "Why, now you begin to be really interesting, Mr.

Crombie."

"Thanks," said Crombie; "I'm not ambitious to interest people in that

way, I told you only because I thought it fair."

"Don't be touchy, my dear sir," answered the banker. "I meant what I

said. Come, let's see what can be done. Have you any scheme in view?"

"Yes, I have," said Crombie, with decision.

Littimer gave a grunt. He was afraid of people with schemes, and was

disappointed with the young man's want of helplessness. Dependence

would have been an easier thing to deal with.

"Well," said he, "we must talk it over. Come and see me at the bank

to-morrow. You know the address."

The next day Crombie called at the bank; but Littimer was not there. He

was not very well, it was said; had not come down-town. Crombie did

what he could toward organizing his fight for a directorship, and then

returned to The Lorne, where he punctually inquired after Mr.

Littimer's health, and learned that the banker's ardor in making the

rounds among distressed people the night before had been followed by

reaction into a bad cold, with some threat of pneumonia. Blanche was

plainly anxious. The attack lasted three or four days, and Crombie,

though the affair of the directorship was pressing for attention, could

not forbear to remain as near as possible to Blanche, offering every

aid within his power, so far as he might without overstepping the lines

of his very recent acquaintance. But the Littimers did not, according

to his observation, number any very intimate companions in their

circle, or at least had not many friends who would be assiduous in such

an emergency. Perhaps their friends were too busy with social

engagements. Consequently, he saw a good deal of Blanche, and became to

her an object of reliance.

Well, it was simply one of those things that happen only in fairy tales

or in romances--or in real life. Littimer recovered without any serious

illness, and, after a brief conference with Crombie, entered heartily

into the young man's campaign. Crombie showed him just what

combinations could be formed, how success could be achieved, and what

lucrative results might be made to ensue. He conquered by figures and

by lucid common-sense. Littimer agreed to buy a number of shares in the

Engraving Company, which he happened to know could be purchased, and to

advance Crombie a good sum with which to procure a portion of the same

lot. But before this agreement could be consummated, Crombie, with his

usual frankness, said to the banker:

"I will conceal nothing from you, Mr. Littimer. I fell in love with

Blanche before I knew her, and if this venture of mine succeeds, I

shall ask her to become my wife."

"Let us attend to business," said Littimer, severely. "Sentiment can

take care of itself."

Their manoeuvre went on so vigorously that Blatchford became alarmed,

and sent an ambassador to arrange a compromise; but by this time

Crombie had determined to oust Blatchford himself and elect an entirely

new set of men, to compose more than half the Board, and so control

everything.

He succeeded.

But Littimer did not forget the charitable enthusiasm which had been

awakened by a circumstance on the surface so trivial as the mistake of

a boot-boy. He did not desist from his interest in aiding disabled or

unfortunate people who could really be aided. Some time after Crombie

had achieved his triumph in the Engraving Company, and had repaid

Littimer's loan, he was admitted to a share in the banking business;

and eventually the head of the house was able to give a great deal of

attention to perfecting his benevolent plans.

When the details of their wedding were under discussion, Crombie said

to Blanche: "Oughtn't we to have an old shoe thrown after the carriage

as we drive away?"

She smiled; looked him full in the eyes with a peculiar tenderness in

which there was a bright, delicious sparkle of humor. "No; old shoes

are much too useful to be wasted that way."

Somehow she had possessed herself of that particular, providential

pair; and, though I don't want anybody to laugh at my two friends, I

must risk saying that I suspect Mrs. Crombie of preserving it somewhere

to this day, in the big new house up-town.

THE DENVER EXPRESS

------------------

BY A. A. HAYES

_Augustus Alien Hayes (born in New England in 1837, died in 1892) was

the author of two works relating to the Far West which have placed on

permanent record an interesting phase, now forever past, of the

development of civilisation in that region. "New Colorado and the Santa

Fe Trail" is a descriptive book yielding the information of fact

concerning the pioneer period of settlement in that region; and "The

Denver Express" is a stirring piece of fiction vividly reproducing the

spirit of those days when the forces of social order introduced by the

railroad were battling with the primitive elements of vice and crime.

The latter story, which is here reproduced, appeared in an English

magazine, "Belgravia," where it was most favorably received by readers

whose appetite for such fiction had already been whetted by the tales

of Bret Harte._

THE DENVER EXPRESS

BY A. A. HAYES

[Footnote: From "Belgravia" for January, 1884]

Any one who has seen an outward-bound clipper ship getting under way,

and heard the "shanty-songs" sung by the sailors as they toiled at

capstan and halliards, will probably remember that rhymeless but

melodious refrain--

"I'm bound to see its muddy waters,

Yeo ho! that rolling river;

Bound to see its muddy waters,

Yeo ho! the wild Missouri."

Only a happy inspiration could have impelled Jack to apply the

adjective "wild" to that ill-behaved and disreputable river which,

tipsily bearing its enormous burden of mud from the far Northwest,

totters, reels, runs its tortuous course for hundreds on hundreds of

miles; and which, encountering the lordly and thus far well-behaved

Mississippi at Alton, and forcing its company upon this splendid river

(as if some drunken fellow should lock arms with a dignified

pedestrian), contaminates it all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.

At a certain point on the banks of this river, or rather--as it has the

habit of abandoning and destroying said banks--at a safe distance

therefrom, there is a town from which a railroad takes its departure,

for its long climb up the natural incline of the Great Plains, to the

base of the mountains; hence the importance to this town of the large

but somewhat shabby building serving as terminal station. In its smoky

interior, late in the evening and not very long ago, a train was nearly

ready to start. It was a train possessing a certain consideration. For

the benefit of a public easily gulled and enamored of grandiloquent

terms, it was advertised as the "Denver Fast Express"; sometimes, with

strange unfitness, as the "Lightning Express"; "elegant" and "palatial"

cars were declared to be included therein; and its departure was one of

the great events of the twenty-four hours in the country round about. A

local poet described it in the "live" paper of the town, cribbing from

an old Eastern magazine and passing off as original the lines--

"Again we stepped into the street,

A train came thundering by,

Drawn by the snorting iron steed

Swifter than eagles fly.

Rumbled the wheels, the whistle shrieked,

Far rolled the smoky cloud,

Echoed the hills, the valleys shook,

The flying forests bowed."

The trainmen, on the other hand, used no fine phrases. They called it

simply "Number Seventeen"; and, when it started, said it had "pulled

out."

On the evening in question, there it stood, nearly ready. Just behind

the great hissing locomotive, with its parabolic headlight and its

coal-laden tender, came the baggage, mail, and express cars; then the

passenger coaches, in which the social condition of the occupants

seemed to be in inverse ratio to their distance from the engine. First

came emigrants, "honest miners," "cowboys," and laborers; Irishmen,

Germans, Welshmen, Mennonites from Russia, quaint of garb and speech,

and Chinamen. Then came long cars full of people of better station, and

last the great Pullman "sleepers," in which the busy black porters were

making up the berths for well-to-do travelers of diverse nationalities

and occupations.

It was a curious study for a thoughtful observer, this motley crowd of

human beings sinking all differences of race, creed, and habits in the

common purpose to move westward--to the mountain fastnesses, the

sage-brush deserts and the Golden Gate.

The warning bell had sounded, and the fireman leaned far out for the

signal. The gong struck sharply the conductor shouted, "All aboard,"

and raised his hand; the tired ticket-seller shut his window, and the

train moved out of the station, gathered way as it cleared the

outskirts of the town, rounded a curve, entered on an absolutely

straight line, and, with one long whistle from the engine, settled down

to its work. Through the night hours it sped on, past lonely ranches

and infrequent stations, by and across shallow streams fringed with

cottonwood trees, over the greenish-yellow buffalo grass near the old

trail where many a poor emigrant, many a bold frontiersman, many a

brave soldier, had laid his bones but a short time before.

Familiar as they may be, there is something strangely impressive about

all-night journeys by rail, and those forming part of an American

transcontinental trip are almost weird. From the windows of a night

express in Europe or the older portions of the United States, one looks

on houses and lights, cultivated fields, fences, and hedges; and,

hurled as he may be through the darkness, he has a sense of

companionship and semi-security. Far different is it when the long

train is running over those two rails which, seen before night set in,

seem to meet on the horizon. Within all is as if between two great

seaboard cities; the neatly dressed people, the uniformed officials,

the handsome fittings, the various appliances for comfort. Without are

now long dreary levels, now deep and wild canyons, now an environment

of strange and grotesque rock-formations, castles, battlements,

churches, statues. The antelope fleetly runs, and the coyote skulks

away from the track, and the gray wolf howls afar off. It is for all

the world, to one's fancy, as if a bit of civilization, a family or

community, its belongings and surroundings complete, were flying

through regions barbarous and inhospitable.

From the cab of Engine No. 32, the driver of the Denver Express saw,

showing faintly in the early morning, the buildings grouped about the

little station ten miles ahead, where breakfast awaited his passengers.

He looked at his watch; he had just twenty minutes in which to run the

distance, as he had run it often before. Something, however, traveled

faster than he. From the smoky station out of which the train passed

the night before, along the slender wire stretched on rough poles at

the side of the track, a spark of that mysterious something which we

call electricity flashed at the moment he returned the watch to his

pocket; and in five minutes' time the station-master came out on the

platform, a little more thoughtful than his wont, and looked eastward

for the smoke of the train. With but three of the passengers in that

train has this tale especially to do, and they were all in the new and

comfortable Pullman "City of Cheyenne." One was a tall, well-made man

of about thirty--blond, blue-eyed, bearded, straight, sinewy, alert. Of

all in the train he seemed the most thoroughly at home, and the

respectful greeting of the conductor, as he passed through the car,

marked him as an officer of the road. Such was he--Henry Sinclair,

assistant engineer, quite famed on the line, high in favor with the

directors, and a rising man in all ways. It was known on the road that

he was expected in Denver, and there were rumors that he was to

organize the parties for the survey of an important "extension." Beside

him sat his pretty young wife. She was a New Yorker--one could tell at

first glance--from the feather of her little bonnet, matching the gray

traveling dress, to the tips of her dainty boots; and one, too, at whom

old Fifth Avenue promenaders would have turned to look. She had a

charming figure, brown hair, hazel eyes, and an expression at once

kind, intelligent, and spirited. She had cheerfully left a luxurious

home to follow the young engineer's fortunes; and it was well known

that those fortunes had been materially advanced by her tact and

cleverness.

The third passenger in question had just been in conversation with

Sinclair and the latter was telling his wife of their curious meeting.

Entering the toilet-room at the rear of the car, he said, he had begun

his ablutions by the side of another man, and it was as they were

sluicing their faces with water that he heard the cry:

"Why, Major, is that you? Just to think of meeting you here!"

A man of about tweny-eight years of age, slight, muscular, wiry, had

seized his wet hand and was wringing it. He had black eyes, keen and

bright, swarthy complexion, black hair and mustache. A keen observer

might have seen about him some signs of a _jeunesse orageuse_, but his

manner was frank and pleasing. Sinclair looked him in the face, puzzled

for a moment.

"Don't you remember Foster?" asked the man.

"Of course I do," replied Sinclair. "For a moment I could not place

you. Where have you been and what have you been doing?"

"Oh," replied Foster, laughing, "I've braced up and turned over a new

leaf. I'm a respectable member of society, have a place in the express

company, and am going to Denver to take charge."

"I am very glad to hear it, and you must tell me your story when we

have had our breakfast."

The pretty young woman was just about to ask who Foster was, when the

speed of the train slackened, and the brakeman opened the door of the

car and cried out in stentorian tones:

"Pawnee Junction; twenty minutes for refreshments!"