The slight stir incident to the entrance of this offensive stranger
aroused Mr. Hutchinson Port from his agreeable slumber. He yawned
slightly, cast a disparaging glance upon the mountains, and then,
drawing an especially good cigar from his case, betook himself to the
smoking-room. Grace did not realize his intentions until they had become
accomplished deeds.
Mr. Hutchinson Port--although a member (on the retired list) of the
First City Troop, and therefore, presumably, inflamed with the martial
spirit characteristic of that ancient and honorable organization--was
not, perhaps, just the man that a person knowing in such matters would
have selected to pit against a New Mexico desperado in a hand-to-hand
conflict. But Grace felt her heart sink a little as she saw the round
and rather pursy form of her natural protector walk away into the depths
of a mirror at the forward end of the car, and so vanish. And in
this same mirror she beheld, seated only two sections behind her, the
scowling ruffian!
The situation, as Grace regarded it, was an alarming one; and it was
the more trying to her nerves because it did not, reasonably, admit of
action. She was aware that the very presence of a ruffian in a Pullman
car was in the nature of a promise, on his part, that for the time being
it was not his intention either to murder or to rob--unless, indeed,
he were one of a robber band, and was awaiting the appearance of his
confederates. For her either to call her uncle, or break in upon the
Emersonian seclusion of her aunt, she felt would not be well received,
under the circumstances, by either of these her relatives. As to the
porter, that sable functionary had vanished; there was no electric bell,
and the car, one of a Pullman train, had no conductor.
For protection, therefore, should need for protection arise, Grace
perceived that she must depend upon the one other passenger. (They had
lingered so long amid the delights of a Santa Barbara spring that
they were journeying in that pleasant time of year when spring travel
eastward has ended, and summer travel has not yet begun.) This one
other passenger was a little man of dapper build and dapper dress,
whose curiously-shaped articles of luggage betokened his connection with
commercial affairs. Grace was forced to own, as she now for the first
time regarded him attentively, that he did not seem to be wrought of the
stern stuff out of which, as a rule, champions are made.
As she thus looked upon him, she was startled to find that he was
looking very fixedly upon her; and she was further startled, as their
eyes met, by the appearance upon his face of a friendly smile. She would
have been vastly surprised had she been aware that this little person
labored under the belief that he had already effected a favorable
lodgement in her good graces; and she would have been both surprised
and horrified could she have known that each of her own strictly
confidential smiles during her day-dream had been accepted by the
commercial traveller as intended for himself; and had been met, as they
successively appeared, by his own smiles in answer. Yet this was the
actual state of the case; and the little man's soul was uplifted by the
thought that here was a fresh proof, and a very pleasant one, of how
irresistible were his personal appearance and his personal charm of
manner when arrayed in battery against any one of the gentler sex.
Viewed from the stand-point of his experience, this inquiring look
and its attendant eye-encounter indicated that the moment for more
pronounced action now had arrived. With the assured air of one who
possibly may be repulsed, but who certainly cannot be defeated, he arose
from his seat, crossed to Miss Grace Winthrop's section, and, with a
pleasant remark to the effect that in travelling it always was nice to
be sociable, edged himself into the seat beside her.
For a moment, the insolent audacity of this move was so overwhelming
that Grace was quite incapable of coherent expression. The lovely pink
of her cheeks became a deep crimson that spread to the very tips of her
ears; her blue eyes flashed, and her hands clinched instinctively.
"Looked like a perfect little blue-eyed devil," the drummer subsequently
declared, in narrating a highly-embellished version of his adventure,
"but she didn't mean it, you know--at least, only for a minute or two. I
soon combed her down nicely." What he actually said, was:
"Been travellin' far, miss?"
"What do you mean by this? Go away!" Grace managed to say; but she could
not speak very clearly, for she was choking.
"Come, don't get mad, miss! I know you're not mad, really, anyway. When
a woman's as handsome as you are, she can't be bad-natured. Come from
California, I suppose? Nice country over there, ain't it?"
What with surprise and rage and fright, Grace was very nearly frantic
For the moment she was powerless--her uncle in the smoking-room, her
aunt locked up with her Emersonian meditations, the porter in the lobby;
the only available person upon whom she could call for aid a horrible
drunken murderer and robber, steeped in all the darkest crimes of the
frontier! She felt herself growing faint, but she struggled to her feet.
The drummer laid his hand on her arm: "Don't go away, my dear! Just stay
and have a little talk. You see--"
But the sentence was not finished. Grace felt her head buzzing, and
then, from somewhere--a long way off, it seemed--she heard a voice
saying: "I beg your pardon; this thing seems to be annoying you. Permit
me to remove it."
Her head cleared a little, for there was a promise of help--not only in
the words but in the tone. And then she saw the desperado calmly settle
a big hand into the collar of the little man's coat, lift him out of the
seat and well up into the air, and so carry him at arm's-length--kicking
and struggling, and looking for all the world like a jumping-jack--out
through the passage-way at the forward end of the car.
As they disappeared, she precipitately sought refuge in the
state-room--where Miss Winthrop was aroused from her serious
contemplation of All-pervading Thought by a sudden and most energetic
demand upon her protection and her salts-bottle. And, before she could
be made in the least degree to comprehend why Grace should require
either the one or the other, Grace had still further complicated and
mystified the matter by fainting dead away.