Mr. Houston was aroused from his pleasant revery by the rather noisy
entrance of a young man, who, with flushed face, and manner more
indicative of self-assertion than self-possession, passed down the car
and took a seat facing himself. This was none other than our friend,
Rutherford, who, having secured his berth in the sleeper, and arranged
his belongings to his entire satisfaction, immediately repaired to the
smoking car to soothe his perturbed and agitated spirits by a cigar.
From under his heavily drooping eyelids, Houston regarded his
vis-a-vis with concealed amusement, for he was an apt student of human
nature, and possessed an unusual degree of insight into the
characteristics of those with whom he was thrown in contact.
Rutherford, on his part, was watching Houston with his usual degree of
interest and curiosity. Each was measuring the other from his own
standpoint: Houston's prompt decision was,--"A good-hearted fellow,
but something of a cad;" while Rutherford's vague surmises, summed up
verbally, would have been,--"Nice looking sort of fellow, a gentleman;
guess he's got the stuff, too; 'twon't do any harm to make his
acquaintance."
An opportunity for this soon presented itself, for as the conductor
passed leisurely through the car, examining tickets, Rutherford
discovered that their destinations were the same, and hastily drawing
his card case from his pocket, said:
"As we seem likely to be fellow travelers for a while, I should be
pleased to make your acquaintance; allow me," at the same time
offering his card.
Houston took the card, greeting him courteously, and giving his own
in exchange. He half smiled as he looked at the diminutive slip of
cardboard with its Boston address made unnecessarily prominent, while
Rutherford, after scanning the card he held, bearing simply the name
of W. E. Houston, remarked with a decidedly upward inflection,
"You are from--?"
"From Chicago," Houston replied promptly.
"Ah," Rutherford responded, "then I suppose you are quite familiar
with this part of the country."
"Well, not exactly," replied Houston, smiling, "Chicago, I'll admit,
seems inclined to embrace a small part of the state of Illinois within
her city limits, but I never heard of her attempting to claim the
prairies of the Missouri valley among her suburbs."
"Well, no," said Rutherford, laughing, "not quite so bad as that, I
guess, but perhaps I didn't convey my meaning very clearly; my idea
was, that living in one of the western cities, you know, perhaps you
were out this way often."
"On the contrary, this is my first trip out here."
"Indeed! A pleasure trip, I presume?"
"No, I am out on business," replied Houston, not caring to state very
definitely just then the nature of his business.
"Well," said Rutherford, settling himself into an attitude more
comfortable than graceful, "I came out on a pleasure trip, but I must
say that so far, the pleasure has been rather an uncertain quantity;
for the last forty-eight hours, I haven't seen much besides dust,
Indians and desperadoes."
"Forty-eight hours!" exclaimed his companion, "you surely have not
been on this train that length of time."
"Not on this train; I stopped off last night to see an old friend of
mine that has a ranch out here," and forthwith, Rutherford launched
into a recital of his experiences of the last few hours, not omitting
a description of the man whose appearance had struck such terror to
his heart and expedited his departure from Valley City.
"I tell you, he was a man I wouldn't like to meet in the dark; he was
armed to the teeth, and there was a look in his eye that was awfully
unpleasant."
Mr. Houston judged from his companion's manner that he had not been
particularly pleased at meeting this alleged desperado in broad
daylight, but he courteously refrained from any such insinuation, and
as supper was just then announced, the young men adjourned to the
dining car, and the experiences of Mr. Rutherford were, for the time,
forgotten.
Nothing special occurred that evening, except that the monotony of the
journey was slightly relieved by the train entering upon the Bad
Lands. For some time, Houston and Rutherford stood upon the rear
platform, enjoying their cigars, and watching the strange phenomena of
that weird region; on all sides, vast tracts of ashen gray or black,
as if burnt to a crisp, with no sign of life, animal or vegetable, the
lurid lights flashing and playing in the distance, until it seemed as
though they might be gliding through the borderland of Dante's
Inferno.
Their cigars finished, they separated for the night, to be agreeably
surprised by the delightful change that met their eyes the following
morning. Houston was already at the breakfast table enjoying the
scenery, when Rutherford sauntered into the dining car. They exchanged
greetings, and the latter dropped into a seat facing his companion,
exclaiming as he did so,
"Well, say now, this looks a little more like civilization, doesn't
it?" and having ordered his breakfast and helped himself to fruit, he
proceeded to watch the beautiful panorama flashing past in the
sunlight.
They were passing through one of the most fertile valleys of the
northwest. Away to the south, a beautiful river glistened like a broad
ribbon of silver, and leading from it was a gleaming net-work of
irrigating canals and ditches, carrying the life-giving waters over
thousands of broad acres; some already green with grass and alfalfa,
while others were dotted with scores of men and horses opening the
brown earth in long, straight lines of furrows, or scattering
broadcast the golden grain.
Far in the distance, faintly outlined against the blue sky, was a
fleecy, cloud-like mass, grayish blue at the base, with points here
and there of dazzling whiteness, which Houston had known at once as
the first glimpse of the Rocky Mountains, but which Rutherford failed
to notice.
"Well," said the latter, withdrawing his head from the window, and
preparing to attack his breakfast, "it seems to me, after nearly
forty hours of nothing but prairies, it's about time to see some
mountains."
"They're in sight now," responded Houston quietly.
"What!" exclaimed his companion, dropping his knife and fork in
haste.
"You can see them now; I've been waiting for you to recognize them,"
said Houston, smiling; "look off there to the southwest," he added, as
Rutherford was readjusting his eye-glasses, preparatory to a careful
survey of the horizon.
"Well, I'll be blessed!" ejaculated the latter, "I supposed those were
clouds. My! but they must be mighty far away, twenty-five miles, I
expect, at the least."
"Sixty miles, at least," said Houston, glancing at them, "perhaps
more."
"Pardon me, gentlemen," said a bland voice across the aisle, and the
young men, turning, saw a much-bejewelled individual, with a florid,
but very smiling face; "I see you have not yet become accustomed to
the vast distances of this great country of ours in the northwest.
Those mountains which you are discussing are about ninety miles
distant."
Rutherford's eyes expressed an immense amount of incredulity, while
Houston simply bowed silently. The man continued:
"The wonderful rarity of our atmosphere in these altitudes is
something that has to be experienced in order to be thoroughly
understood and appreciated, or even believed. You tell an eastern man
of the great distances here at which you can see and hear, clearly and
readily; he will immediately doubt your veracity, simply because it is
without the line of his experience. Now I myself, personally, with my
own, unaided vision, have been able to count the mules in a pack-train
sixty-three miles distant, and have repeatedly held conversations at
a distance of fifteen miles."
"Guess the conversation was pretty much all on one side, wasn't it?"
asked Rutherford, adding sotto voce to Houston, "as on the present
occasion."
"Ah, no, indeed not," the man replied; "I see, my young friend, that
you are inclined, like all strangers, to be a little incredulous and
skeptical, but if you remain in this country of ours any length of
time, that will soon pass away, very soon."
"I don't think I care to remain here very long then, if it will have
any such effect on my brain as that," said Rutherford.
"You are inclined to be facetious, my friend; that is all right, I
appreciate a little witticism myself occasionally. By the way," he
continued, evidently determined to get into conversation with Houston,
"I suppose you young gentlemen are out here on business, looking for
valuable investments in this wonderful country."
At the word "Business" Mr. Rutherford instantly assumed his dignity,
dropping into the slightly drawling tone he always used on such
occasions, and which he intended as an extinguisher on any person whom
he deemed too familiar.
"Well, no," he replied, twirling an incipient mustache, "at least, not
so far as I am concerned; I am just out on a sort of an extended
pleasure trip, you know."
"Ah, your friend is a business man, I judge; perhaps," turning to
Houston, "we can interest you in some of our rare bargains in the line
of real estate, improved or unimproved, city or country; or possibly
in our mines, gold or silver properties, quartz or placer, we have
them all."
"You seem to have a 'corner' on this part of the northwest?" remarked
Rutherford, rather sarcastically.
"Indeed, young man, we have a good many 'corners,' pretty valuable
ones, too," the man replied imperturbably, still watching Houston, who
replied in a courteous but indifferent tone:
"I am out here on business, but am not in a position to make any
investments at present, nor do I expect to be for some time."
"Ah, your business?" asked his interlocutor.
"I am an accountant," he replied quietly.
The man seemed satisfied. "Well, gentlemen," he said, rising from the
table, "I am glad to have met you, and hope to have the pleasure of
seeing you later in our city. Allow me to present my card, and if
there is anything we can ever do for you in our line, please give us a
call," and smilingly handing each a card, he bowed himself out of the
car.
"Well, by Jove!" exclaimed Rutherford, his grammar getting a little
mixed, "either that man's a fool, or he thought we were; I don't know
which."
"Probably the latter," said Houston, smiling; then glancing at the
card beside his plate, he read, "J. D. Wilson, President of the
Northwestern Mining, Land and Investment Company, Silver City;" and he
was the prospective clerk of The Northwestern Mining, Land and
Investment Company!