AND A SHOCK
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 you _are_ fond 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.