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A ROMANCE IN TRANSIT
by
FRANCIS LYNDE
Third Edition
Charles Scribner's Sons
New York 1899
Copyright, 1897, by
Charles Scribner's Sons
Trow Directory
Printing and Bookbinding Company
New York
To the small person who unconsciously
provided the _motif_ herein wrought upon,
this transitory tale is affectionately attributed
by THE AUTHOR
CONTENTS
I. P. P. C. ARIADNE
II. THE "PERSONALLY CONDUCTED"
III. THE PRIVATE CAR
IV. THE DINNER STATION
V. AT THE MEETING-POINT
VI. REGARDLESS ORDERS
VII. A DINNER ON WHEELS
VIII. THE CAB OF THE TEN-WHEELER
IX. FIFTY MILES AN HOUR
X. A CONFIDENCE EN ROUTE
XI. AN ARRIVAL IN TRANSIT
XII. THE ANCIENTS AND INVALIDS
XIII. BETWEEN STATIONS
XIV. WITH DENVER IN SIGHT
XV. YARD-LIMITS
XVI. THE MADDING CROWD
XVII. ON THE NARROW-GAUGE
XVIII. FLAGGED DOWN
XIX. THE FOOLISH WIRES
XX. CHIEFLY SCENIC
XXI. ON THE HEIGHTS
XXII. ON THE SPUR-TRACK
XXIII. THE LAND OF HEART'S DELIGHT
XXIV. THE END OF A STOP-OVER
XXV. WESTWARD HO!
XXVI. A BLIND SIDING
XXVII. THE DRUMMING WHEELS
A ROMANCE IN TRANSIT
I
P. P. C. ARIADNE
Train Number Three, the "Flying Kestrel," vestibuled, had crossed the
yellow Rubicon of the West and was mounting toward the Occident up the
gentle acclivities of the Great Plain. The morning was perfect, as early
autumn mornings are wont to be in the trans-Missouri region; the train
was on time; and the through passengers in the Pullman sleeping-car
"Ariadne" had settled themselves, each according to his gifts, to enjoy
or endure the day-long run.
There was a sun-browned ranchman in lower eleven, homeward bound from
the Chicago stockyards; a pair of school-teachers, finishing their
vacation journey, in ten; a Mormon elder, smug in ready-made black and
narrow-brimmed hat, _vis-a-vis_ in lower five with two hundred pounds of
good-natured, comfort-loving Catholic priesthood in lower six. Two
removes from the elder, a Denver banker lounged corner-wise in his
section, oblivious to everything save the figures in the financial
column of the morning paper; and diagonally across from the banker were
the inevitable newly married ones, advertising themselves as such with
all the unconscious _naivete_ of their kind.
Burton and his wife had lower three. They were homing from the passenger
agents' meeting in Chicago; and having gone breakfastless at the
Missouri River terminal by reason of a belated train, were waiting for
the porter to serve them with eggs and coffee from the buffet. The
narrow table was between them, and Burton, who was an exact man with an
eye to symmetrical detail, raised the spring clips and carefully
smoothed the wrinkles out of the table-cloth as he talked. A private car
had been attached to the train at the Missouri River, and its freightage
was of moment to the couple in section three.
"Are you sure it's the President?" asked the wife, leaning back to give
the cloth-laying a fair field. "I thought the Naught-fifty was General
Manager Cadogan's car."
"So it is; but President Vennor always borrows it for his annual
inspection trip. And I'm quite sure, because I saw Miss Vennor on the
platform when the car was coupled on."
"Then we'll get home just in time to go on dress-parade," said the
little lady, flippantly. "Colorado and Utah Division, fall in! 'Shun,
company! Eyes right! The President is upon you!" and she went through a
minimized manual of arms with the table-knife.
The general agent frowned and stroked his beard. "Your anarchistic
leanings will get us into trouble some time, Emily. Mr. Vennor is not a
man to be trifled with, and you mustn't forget that he is the President
of the Colorado and Utah Railway Company, whose bread you eat."
"Whose bread I should like to eat, if that slow-poke in the buffet would
ever bring it," retorted the wife. "And it is you who forget. You are a
man, and Mr. Vennor is a man; these are the primal facts, and the
business relation is merely incidental. He doesn't think any more of you
for standing in awe of him."
"I don't stand in awe of him," Burton began; but the opportune arrival
of the buffet porter with the breakfast saved him the trouble of
elaborating his defence.
Half way through the frugal meal the swing-door of the farther vestibule
gave back, and a young man came down the aisle with the sure step of an
accustomed traveller. He stopped to chat a moment with the
school-teachers, and the ranchman in section eleven, looking him over
with an appreciative eye, pronounced him a "man's man," and the terse
epithet fitted. He was a vigorous young fellow, clean-limbed and well
put together, and good-looking enough to tolerate mirrors in their
proper places. While he chatted with the two young women, he pushed his
hat back with a quick gesture which was an index to his character.
Open-hearted frankness looked out of the brown eyes, and healthy
optimism gave an upward tilt to the curling mustache. A young man with a
record clean enough to permit him to look an accusative world in the
face without abashment, one would say.
When he reached the breakfasting pair in three, he stopped again and
held out a hand to each.
"Well, well; you two!" he said. "I didn't see you when I went forward.
Where did you get on?"
"At the river," replied Mrs. Burton, making room for him in the seat
beside her. "Won't you sit down and break bread with us? literally, you
know; there isn't anything else to break unless you'll wait for the
shell of an egg that is not yet cooked."
"No, thank you; I had my breakfast a good two hours ago. Where have you
been? and where are you going?"
"We have been at the passenger meeting in Chicago, and we are on the way
home," said the general agent.
"Yes, running a race with the President," cut in Mrs. Burton. "John is
dreadfully afraid we sha'n't get to Salt Lake in time to be keel-hauled
with the rest of the force."
The young man sat back on the arm of the opposite seat with the light of
inquiry in his eyes. "What President?" he asked.
"Vennor, of our company. Didn't you know he was in the Naught-fifty?"
said Burton.
"No. They coupled it on just as we were leaving the river, and I
thought--I took it for granted that our General Manager was aboard. It's
Mr. Cadogan's car."
"I know; but President Vennor always borrows it for his annual trip."
"Are you sure? Have you seen him?"
"Quite sure. I saw Miss Vennor on the platform with some other young
people whom I don't know. It's Mr. Vennor's party."
The young man pushed his hat back, and the look of frankness became
introspective. "Do you know the Vennors? personally, I mean."
The little lady made answer:
"Yes. We met them at Manitou last summer. Do you know them?"
The young man seemed unaccountably embarrassed. "I--I've met Miss
Gertrude--that was last summer, too," he stammered. "Did you--did you
like her, Mrs. Burton?"
"Very much, indeed; she is as sweet and lovable as her father is odious.
_Do_ have a cup of coffee, won't you?"
"No, thank you. Then you didn't admire the President?"
"Indeed I didn't; no one could. He is one of the cool, contemptuous kind
of people; always looking you over as if he had half a mind to buy you.
He was barely civil to me, and he was positively rude to John."
"Oh, no; not quite that, Emily," amended the husband. "I'm only one of a
good many employees to him."
"Draws the money-line sharp and clear, does he?" said the young man, who
appeared to be more deeply interested than a merely casual topic would
account for.
The little lady nodded vigorously. "That's it, exactly. You can fairly
hear the double eagles clink when he speaks."
The general agent deprecated disloyalty, and was fain to change the
subject.
"What are you doing so far away from your territory, Fred?" he asked.
"I'm in charge of the party of old people and invalids in the Tadmor.
They'd a mind to be 'personally conducted,' and they threaten to take me
all the way across to the Coast."
"Good!" exclaimed the small person. "Then you can stop over and visit us
in Salt Lake."
The passenger agent shook his head. "I sha'n't get that far. I must
break away at Denver, by all means."
"Would nothing tempt you to go on?"
"I'm afraid not; that is--I--er--" the young man's embarrassment
suddenly returned, and he stopped helplessly.
Mrs. Burton's curiosity was instantly on the alert. "Then there _is_
something? Do tell me what it is," she pleaded.
"It's nothing; in fact, it's much less than nothing. I hesitated because
I--because your way of putting it is very--that is, it covers a great
deal of ground," he stammered.
"Don't make him quibble any more than he has to," said Burton, with mock
severity. "You see it's quite impossible for him to tell the truth."
The young man laughed good-naturedly. "That's the fact. I've been in the
passenger service so long that I can't always be sure of recognizing the
verities when I meet them. But to get back to the original sheep; I
mustn't go on--not beyond Denver. It would have been better for all
concerned if I had cut it short at the river."
"For all concerned? for yourself and the invalids, you mean?" queried
the curious one.
"Yes, and perhaps for some others. But speaking of the invalids, I'll
have to be getting back to them; they'll think I've deserted them. I'll
be in again later in the day."
Mrs. Burton waited until the swing-door of the vestibule had winged
itself to rest behind him. Then she arched her eyebrows at her husband
and said, "I wonder if Fred isn't the least little bit _epris_ with
Gertrude Vennor?"
To which the general agent replied, with proper masculine contumely, "I
believe you would infer a whole railroad from a single cross-tie. Of
course he isn't. Brockway is a good fellow, and a rising young man, but
he knows his place."
None the less it was the arrow of the woman's intuition, and not that of
the man's reason, that pierced the truth. In the vestibule the passenger
agent suddenly changed his mind about rejoining his party in the Tadmor,
turning aside into the deserted smoking-room of the Ariadne to burn a
reflective cigar, and to piece out reminiscence with present fact.
Notwithstanding his expressed reluctance, he had intended going on to
the Pacific Coast with the party in the Tadmor; had, in effect, more
than half promised so to do. It was the time of year when he could best
be spared from his district; and the members of the party had made a
point of it. But the knowledge that Miss Gertrude Vennor was a passenger
on the train opened up a new field wherein prudence and reawakened
passion fought for the mastery, to the utter disregarding of the mere
business point of view.
They had met in Colorado the previous summer--the passenger agent and
the President's daughter--and Brockway had lost his heart to the
sweet-faced young woman from the farther East before he had so much as
learned her name. He was convoying a train-load of school-teachers
across the continent; and then, as now, she was a member of a party in
her father's private car. Their meeting was at Silver Plume, where she
had become separated from her father's party, and had boarded the
excursion train, mistaking it for the regular which was to follow
Brockway's special as second section. The obvious thing for Brockway to
have done was to put her off at Georgetown, where the following section
would have picked her up in a few minutes. But he did no such unselfish
thing. Before the excursion train had doubled the final curve of the
Loop he was ready to purchase her continued presence at a price.
This he accomplished by omitting to mention the obvious expedient.
Leaving a message with the Georgetown operator, notifying the President
that his daughter was on the excursion train, Brockway went on his way
rejoicing; and, by a judicious conspiracy with his own conductor and
engineer, managed to keep the special well ahead of the regular all the
way to Denver.
That was the beginning of it, and fate, kindly or unkindly, had added
yet other meetings; at Manitou, at Leadville, and again at Salt Lake
City, where the President's daughter had voluntarily joined Brockway's
sight-seeing party on the strength of an acquaintance with two of the
Boston school-mistresses. The temporary chaperons were kind, and the
friendship had burgeoned into something quite like intimacy before the
"Mormon day" was overpast. But there it had ended. Since that day he had
neither seen her nor heard from her; and when he had come to look the
matter squarely in the face in the light of sober afterthought, he was
minded to put his infatuation under foot, and to try honestly to be glad
that their lives had gone apart. For he had learned that Mr. Francis
Vennor was a multi-millionnaire, and that his daughter was an heiress in
her own right; and no poor gentleman was ever more fiercely jealous of
his poverty rights than was this shrewd young soldier in the unnumbered
army of the dispossessed.
But the intervention of half a continent of space is one thing, and that
of a mere car-length is another. Now that he had to walk but the length
of the Tadmor to be with her again, the eager passion which he had
fondly believed to be safely dead and buried rose up in its might and
threatened to put poverty-pride, and all other calmly considered springs
of action to the sword; did presently run them through, for when
Brockway left the smoking-room of the Ariadne and crossed the jarring
platforms to the door of the Tadmor, he was flogging his wits to devise
some pretext which would excuse an invasion of the private car.
II
THE "PERSONALLY CONDUCTED"
In view of the certain proximity of Miss Gertrude Vennor, Brockway
wanted nothing so much as a quiet opportunity to think his mind clear in
the matter of his love-affair, but time and place were both denied him.
Lying in wait for him at the very door of the Tadmor was a thin old
gentleman, with hock-bottle shoulders and penthoused eyes. His voice was
high-pitched and rasping; and his speech was petulance grown old and
unreasoning.
"Mr. ah--Brockway, I protest! Do you consider it fair to us, your
patrons, to absent yourself for the ah--better part of the morning? Here
I've been waiting for you more than an hour, sir, and----"
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Jordan; I'm sorry," Brockway cut in. "What can I
do for you?"
"You can attend to your ah--business a little closer, for one thing, Mr.
ah--Brockway," quavered the aggrieved one, taking a yard-long coupon
ticket from his breast-pocket; "and for another, you can give me the
sixty days going limit on this ticket that I ah--stipulated for when I
bought it, sir."
Brockway glanced at the ticket and called attention to the conditions in
the contract. "The going limit of thirty days is plainly stated here,
Mr. Jordan. Didn't you read the contract before signing it?"
"Don't make any difference, sir; I ah--stipulated for sixty days, and I
require you to make the stipulation ah--good, sir."
"But, my dear sir, I can't. No representative of any one of the lines
interested is authorized to change these conditions."
"Very well, sir; v-e-r-y well." The irascible one folded the ticket with
tremulous fingers and sought to replace it in his pocket-book. "I shall
know what road to ah--patronize next time, and it won't be yours, Mr.
ah--Brockway; you may depend upon that, sir."
The passenger agent's forte was placability. "Don't worry about your
ticket, Mr. Jordan," he said. "We'll take good care of you, and if you
should happen to be more than thirty days in reaching Los Angeles----"
"Thirty days!" gasped the objector. "Great ah--heavens, sir, you told us
you could put us there in ah--four days and a half!"
"So I did, and so we shall, barring the stop-overs the party may wish to
make; but in that case I don't see why you should require a sixty-day
limit," said Brockway, with an affable smile.
By this time quite a little group had gathered around them, and anxious
queries began to beat thick and fast upon Brockway's ears.
"What's that about our tickets?"
"Thirty days, did you say?"
"Can't have stop-overs?"
Brockway got upon his feet. "One moment, if you please," he protested.
"There is nothing wrong--nothing different. Mr. Jordan and I were merely
discussing the question of an extra limit on his own ticket; that was
all."
"Oh."
"Ah."
"Where do we get dinner?"
"What time do we reach Denver?"
"Is there a dining-car on this train?"
Brockway answered the inquiries in sequence, and when the norm of quiet
was restored, a soft-spoken little gentleman in a grass-cloth duster and
a velvet skull-cap drew him away to the smoking-compartment.
"Let's go and smoke," he said; and Brockway went willingly, inasmuch as
the little gentleman with the womanish face and the ready cigar-case was
the only person in the party who seemed to be capable of travelling
without a guardian.
"Worry the life out of you, don't they, my boy," said the comforter,
when his cigar was alight.
"Oh, no; I'm well used to it."
"I presume you are, in a way. Still, some of the complaints are so
ridiculous. I suppose you've heard the latest?"
"Nothing later than Mr. Jordan's demand for sixty days in which to
complete a week's journey."
"Oh, it isn't that; that's an individual grievance. The other involves
the entire party. Of course, you are aware that the Tadmor is no longer
the rear car in the train?"
"Oh, Lord! are they going to fight about that?"
"Unquestionably. Didn't you promise some of them that this particular
chariot should be at the tail-end of the trans-continental procession?"
"No. It was merely an answer to a question. I said that extra cars were
usually put on behind. Are they going to demand it as a right?"
"Yes; I believe the deputation is waiting for you now."
"Heavens--what a lot of cranks!" said Brockway, despairingly. "The thing
can't be done, but I may as well go and fight it out."
The deputation was in section six, and one of the committee rose and
gave him a seat.
"There is a little matter we should like to have adjusted," began the
courteous one; but Brockway interrupted.
"Mr. Somers was just telling me about it. I hope you are not going to
insist----"
There were two elderly ladies on the committee, and they protested as
one person.
"Now, Mr. Brockway! You know we made it a positive condition--so we
could go out on the platform and see the scenery."
"But, my dear madam, let me explain----"
"There is nothing to explain; it was an explicit promise, and we insist
on its fulfilment."
"Just one word," Brockway pleaded. "The car behind us is our General
Manager's private car, lent to President Vennor, of the Colorado and
Utah. If we should put it ahead of this, Mr. Vennor's party would be
continually disturbed by the passengers and train-men going back and
forth. Don't you see----"
The fourth member of the deputation put in his word at this.
"How long has it been since the railway companies began to put the
convenience of their guests before the rights of their patrons, Mr.
Brockway? Answer me that, if you please."
"I should like to know!" declared one of the ladies. "_We_ have paid for
our accommodations."
The courteous one summed up the matter in set phrase.
"It's no use, Mr. Brockway, as you see. If you don't carry out your part
of the agreement, I'm afraid we shall have to telegraph to your
superiors."
For a moment Brockway was tempted to answer four fools according to
their folly. Then he bethought him that he had but now been seeking a
pretext which would open the door of the private car. Here was a
makeshift; a poor one, to be sure, but better than none. Wherefore,
instead of quarrelling with the deputation, he rose with placatory
phrases in his mouth.
"Very well; I'll see what can be done. But you must give me a little
time; the scenery--" pointing to the monotonous landscape circling
slowly with the onward sweep of the train--"is not exactly of the
rear-platform variety yet."
After which he retreated to the rear vestibule of the Tadmor and stood
looking out through the glass panel in the door at the hamper-laden
front platform of the Naught-fifty, trying to muster courage to take the
chilling plunge. For he knew that the year agone episode was not
altogether pleasing to the father of Miss Gertrude Vennor.
III
THE PRIVATE CAR
"Yes, sah; mighty sorry, sah; but we cayn't cook you-all's dinner,
no-how, sah. Wateh-pipe's done bu'sted in de range."
President Vennor turned and regarded the big-bodied cook of the
Naught-fifty with the eye-sweep of appraisal which Mrs. Burton had found
so annoying.
"No dinner, you say? That's bad. Why did you burst the pipe?"
"I--I didn't bu'sted it, sah; hit des bu'sted hitse'f--'deed it did,
sah!"
"Well, can't you serve us a cold lunch?"
"Might do dat--yes, sah; ef dat'll do."
"What is that, papa; no luncheon to-day?" asked a young woman, coming
down the compartment to stand beside the President's chair.
There was a family resemblance, but in the daughter the magic of
femineity had softened the severer characteristics until they became
winsome and good to look upon. The cool gray eyes of the father were
Gertrude's inheritance, also; but in the eyes of the daughter the
calculating stare became the steady gaze of clean-hearted guilelessness;
and in her even-tinted complexion there was only a suggestion of the
sallow olive of the father's clean-shaven face. For face and figure,
Gertrude owed much to birth and breeding, and it was small wonder that
Frederick Brockway had lost his heart to her in time-honored and
romantic fashion.
The President answered his daughter's query without taking his eyes from
the big-bodied cook.
"No; there is something the matter with the range. Ask the others if
they would prefer a cold luncheon in the car to the _table d'hote_ at
the dinner station."
Gertrude went to the other end of the compartment and stated the case to
Mrs. Dunham, the chaperon of the party; to Priscilla and Hannah
Beaswicke, two young women of the Annex; to Chester Fleetwell, A.B.,
Harvard, by the skin of his teeth, but the ablest oarsman of his class
by a very safe majority; and to Mr. Harold Quatremain, the President's
secretary.
The dinner station carried it unanimously, and Gertrude announced the
vote.
"We're all agreed upon the _table d'hote_," she said; and the
Falstaffian negro shook himself free and backed into the vestibule.
"What is its name? and when do we arrive?"
"I'll have to inquire," Mr. Vennor replied. "I'll go forward and have
the conductor wire ahead for a separate table."
But Gertrude said: "Please don't; let's go with the crowd for once. I'm
so tired of being always specialized."
The President's smile was suggestive of the metallic smirk on the face
of a George-the-Fourth penny. "Just as you please," he rejoined; "but
I'll go and find out when and where."
Now it chanced that at this precise moment Brockway had laid his hand on
the Tadmor's door-knob preparatory to taking the plunge; and when he
opened the door he found himself face to face with the President.
Whereupon he fell back and lost the power of speech, while the incomer
appraised him with his eyes and tried to remember where he had seen him
before. Recognition brought with it a small frown of annoyance.
"Your name is Brockway, I believe," the President said.
"Ye-yes," Brockway stammered, being by no means so sure of it at the
moment.
"H-m; and, if I remember correctly, you are an employee of this line?"
"I am." The passenger agent was beginning a little to recover his
scattered store of self-possession.
"Very good. Possibly you can tell me what I want to know. What is the
dinner station, and when do we reach it?"
"Moreno--twelve-ten. Shall I wire ahead for a private table?" Brockway
asked, eager to preface his unwelcome purpose with some small token of
service.
"By no means; we are no better than the patrons of your company. What is
good enough for them ought to suffice for us."
"Of course, if you don't wish it," Brockway began; and then the plunge:
"I am in charge of the excursionists in this car, and they want it
placed behind yours. If you will kindly consent to humor their whim----"
He stopped in deference to the frown of displeasure which was gradually
overspreading the President's brow.
"And so make our private car a thoroughfare for everybody," said he,
indignantly; then, with a sudden turn which confused Brockway until he
saw its drift, "But you are quite right; the patrons of your company
should always be considered first. We are only guests. By all means,
make the change at the first opportunity."
"Please don't misunderstand me," Brockway said, courageously. "I didn't
propose it. If you object, just say so, and I'll see them all hanged
first."
The President shook his head reprovingly, and Brockway fancied he could
feel the cold gray eyes pinning him against the partition.
"Certainly not; I am afraid you don't sufficiently consider your duty to
your employers. I not only authorize the change--I desire it. I shall
request it if you do not."
Brockway winced under the patronizing tone, but he was determined not to
let pride stand in the way of better things. So he said, "Thank you for
helping me out. I'll have the change made at the dinner station, and
we'll try not to annoy you any more than we can help."
That ended it, and he was no nearer the penetralia of car Naught-fifty
than before. Mr. Vennor turned to go, but at the door he bethought him
of the crippled range.
"A water-pipe has burst in our kitchen range," said he. "Can we get it
repaired this side of Denver?"
Brockway considered it for a moment. Back of his passenger department
service there was an apprenticeship in mechanics, and he was weighing
the scanty furnishings of the engineer's tool-box against the probable
askings of the undertaking. It was a chance to show his good-will, and
he concluded to risk it.
"Hardly. We don't stop long enough at the division station. Is it a very
bad break?"
"Indeed, I know nothing about it. The cook tells me he can't use the
range."
"May I go in and look at it?" Brockway asked.
Now President Vennor, upon recognizing Gertrude's acquaintance of the
previous summer, had determined to prevent a renewal of the intimacy at
whatever cost; but he abhorred _tables d'hote_ and railway
eating-stations, and was willing to make some concessions to avoid them.
So he gave the coveted permission, and a minute later they were in the
kitchen of the private car, inspecting the disabled range.
"It isn't as bad as it might be," Brockway announced, finally. "I think
I can stop the leak with what tools I can find in the engineer's box."
"You?"
"Yes; I'm a machinist by trade, you know. I earned my living at it
awhile, before I went into the passenger department." Brockway found a
certain measure of satisfaction in running counter to the presumed
anti-craftsman prejudice of the man of inherited wealth.
"I'm sure it is very good of you to offer, but I couldn't think of
troubling you," the President said, sparring to gain time in which to
perfect a little plan which had just suggested itself.
"Oh, it's no trouble; I shall be glad enough to help you out."
"Very well, then--if you wish to try. I will make it worth your while."
Brockway straightened up and met the appraising eyes unflinchingly.
"Excuse me, Mr. Vennor, but you've mistaken your man this time," he
said, steadily. "I'll gladly do it as a kindness--not otherwise."
The President smiled. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Brockway," he apologized,
with the faintest possible emphasis on the prefix; "we shall be most
grateful if you will come to our rescue upon your own terms. I presume
you won't have time before noon?"
"N--no," said Brockway, glancing at his watch and generously burying his
pique with the provocation; "but I'll attack it as soon as we leave
Moreno. It won't take long."
Mr. Vennor bowed, and saw his newly pledged servitor safely out upon the
hamper-laden platform. He cherished a little theory of his own
respecting the discouraging of youthful and sentimental intimacies, and
it was based upon conditions which Brockway's proposed undertaking might
easily fulfil. Gertrude had been distinctly pleased with the young man
the preceding summer. Other things had happened since, and, fortunately,
Fleetwell was along to look after his own interests. None the less, it
might be well for them to meet under conditions which would make it
impossible for the passenger agent to pose as Gertrude's social equal.
Accordingly, the President sought out the porter and gave him his
instructions.
"William, that young man will come in this afternoon to repair the
range. When he is well at work, I want you to come and tell me."
IV
THE DINNER STATION
The railway company's hotel at Moreno is a pretentious Queen Anne
cockle-shell, confronted by a broad platform flowing in an unrippled
tide of planking between the veranda and the track, with tributary
wooden streams paralleling the rails.
Brockway knew this platform by length and by breadth; and when the
"Flying Kestrel" ranged alongside he meant to project himself into the
procession of dinner-seekers what time Miss Vennor should be passing the
Tadmor. But _l'homme propose, et la femme_----
"Oh, Mr. Brockway; _will_ you help me find my satchel? the one with the
monogram, you know. I can't find it anywhere." Thus one of the
unescorted ladies whose major weakness was a hopeless inability to keep
in touch with her numerous belongings.
The train was already at a stand, but Brockway smothered his impatience
and joined the search for the missing hand-bag, contenting himself with
a glimpse of the President's daughter as she passed the windows of the
Tadmor. Fleeting as it was, the glimpse fired his heart anew. The year
had brought her added largesse of beauty and winsomeness. The wind was
blowing free and riotous, caressing the soft brown hair under the dainty
travelling hat, and twisting the modest gray gown into clinging
draperies as she breasted it. Brockway gazed and worshipped afresh, and
prudence and poverty-pride vanished when he observed that she was
leaning upon the arm of an athletic young man, whose attitude was
sufficiently lover-like to make the passenger agent abjure wisdom and
curse common sense.
"That's what I get for playing the finical idiot!" he groaned. "A year
ago I might have had it all my own way if I hadn't been a pride-ridden
fool. Confound the money, anyway; it's enough to make a man wish it were
all at the bottom of the sea!"
With which anarchistic reflection he went out to arrange for
transferring the Tadmor, and, incidentally, to get his own dinner. When
the first was done there was scant time for the second, and he was at
the lunch counter when the President's party went back to the
Naught-fifty.
"Why, they've taken on another car," said Gertrude, noticing the change.
"No," her father rejoined, shortly; "we have a passenger agent on board,
and he has seen fit to put his excursionists' car in the rear."
At the word, Gertrude's thoughts went back to a certain afternoon filled
with a swift rush down a precipitous canyon, with a brawling stream at
the track-side, and a simple-hearted young man, knowing naught of the
artificialities and much of the things that are, at her elbow.
The train of reflection paused when they reached the sitting-room of the
private car, but it went on again when the President's daughter had
curled herself into the depths of a great wicker sleepy-hollow to watch
the unending procession of stubble-fields slipping past the car window.
How artlessly devoted he had been, this earnest young private in the
great business army; so different from--well, from Chester Fleetwell,
for example. Chester's were the manners of a later day; a day in which
the purely social distinctions of sex are much ignored. That, too, was
pleasant, in its way. And yet there was something very charming in the
elder fashion.
And Mr. Brockway knew his role and played it well--if, indeed, it were a
role, which she very much doubted. Old school manners are not to be put
on and off like a garment, nor is sincerity to be aped as a fad. Just
here reflection became speculative. What had become of Mr. Brockway
since their "Mormon day"? Had he gone on with his school-mistresses and
ended by marrying one of them? There was something repellent in the
thought of his marrying any one, but when reason demanded a reason,
Gertrude's father had joined her.
"I hope we shall be able to have dinner in the car," the President said,
drawing up a chair. "I stumbled upon a young mechanic when I went
forward to inquire about the eating-station, and he agreed to repair the
range this afternoon."
"How fortunate!"
"Yes," the President rejoined; and then he began to debate with himself
as to the strict truth of the affirmative, and the conversation
languished.
Meanwhile, Brockway had hastened out to the engine at the cry of "All
aboard!" The 828 was sobbing for the start when he climbed to the
foot-board, and the engineer, who knew him, grinned knavishly.
"Better get you some overclothes if you're goin' to ride up here," he
suggested.
"I'm not going to stay. Lend me a pair of overalls, and a jumper, and a
pair of pipe-tongs, and a hammer, and a few other things, will you?"
"Sure thing," said the man at the throttle. "What's up? One o' your
tourists broke a side-rod?"
Brockway laughed and dropped easily into the technical figure of speech.
"No; crown-sheet's down in the Naught-fifty's cook-stove, and I'm going
to jack it up."
"Good man," commented the engineer, who rejoiced in Brockway's happy
lack of departmental pride. "Help yourself to anything you can find."
Brockway found a grimy suit of overclothes and took off his coat.
"Goin' to put 'em on here and go through the train in uniform?" laughed
the engineer.
"Why not?" Brockway demanded. "I'm not ashamed of the blue denim yet.
Wore it too long."
He donned the craftsman's uniform. The garments were a trifle short at
the extremities, but they more than made up for the lack equatorially.
"How's that for a lightning change?" he shouted, trying to make himself
heard above the din and clangor of the engine. "Just hang on to my coat
and hat till I get back, and I'll swap with you again." And gathering up
the handful of tools, he climbed back over the coal and disappeared
through the door of the mail car.
V
AT THE MEETING-POINT
Brockway made his way unrecognized through the train, and found the
Falstaffian cook awaiting him in the kitchen of the Naught-fifty. Five
minutes later, he was hard at work on the disabled stove, quite reckless
of soot and grime, and intent only upon making a workmanlike job of the
repairs. The narrow compartment was none too well ventilated, and he was
soon working in an atmosphere rivalling that of the hot-room in a
Turkish bath. Wherefore he wrought arduously, and in due time the leaky
joint was made whole.
After turning the water on and satisfying himself of the fact, Brockway
crawled out from behind the range and got upon his feet with a sigh of
relief. Just then the portway into the waiter's pantry filled with faces
like the arch of a proscenium-box in a theatre. Brockway wheeled quickly
at the sound of voices and saw the President, one young woman with
eye-glasses and another without, a clean-faced young man with uncut
hair, and--Miss Vennor.
"Ha!" said the President, with the King George Fourth smile and his
coldest stare; "we caught you fairly in the midst of it, didn't we, Mr.
Brockway? Do you still assert that we shall dine at our own table this
evening?"
The effect of Mr. Vennor's dramatic little surprise was varied and not
altogether as he had prefigured. As for the person most deeply
concerned, no one was ever less ashamed of a craftsman's insignia than
was Brockway; but when he saw that the President had permitted him to do
a service for the sole purpose of making him appear ridiculous, his
heart was hot in just proportion to the magnitude of the affront.
As for Gertrude, she could have wept with pity and indignation. This was
the "young mechanic" her father had found and used, only to make him a
laughing-stock! The light of a sudden purpose flashed in the steady gray
eyes, and she spoke quickly, before Brockway could reply to her father's
gibe.
"Why, Mr. Brockway! where did you come from? It really seems that you
are fated to be our good angel. Have you actually got it repaired?" The
winsome face disappeared from the portway, and before Brockway could
open his lips she was standing beside him. "Show me what was the matter
with it," she said.
He obeyed, with proper verbal circumstance, gaining a little
self-possession with every added phrase. Gertrude led him on, laughing
and chatting and dragging the others into the rescue until Brockway
quite forgot that he was supposed to be a laughing-stock for gods and
men.
"I'm very glad to meet you, I'm sure," he said, bowing gravely to the
Misses Beaswicke, when Gertrude had actually gone the length of
introducing him; "Mr. Fleetwell, I've heard of you--and that's probably
more than you can say of me. Mr. Vennor, I think you may safely count
upon having your dinner in the Naught-fifty."
"Yes, thanks to you," said Gertrude, quickly. "Have you--will your other
engagements let you join us?"
Brockway was of four different minds in as many seconds. Here was a
chance to defeat Mr. Vennor at his own game; and love added its word.
But he could not consent to break unwelcome bread, and was about to
excuse himself when the President, in answer to an imperative signal
flying in Gertrude's eyes, seconded the invitation.
"Yes, come in and join us, Mr. Brockway; we shall be glad to have you,
I'm sure." The stony stare which accompanied the words was anything but
hospitable, but the President felt that he had done his whole duty and
something over and above.
Brockway hesitated a moment, glanced at Gertrude, and accepted. Then he
began to gather up the tools. Gertrude caught up her skirts and stepped
into the vestibule to give him room.
"You'll not disappoint us, will you?" she said, by way of leave-taking.
"You may come as early as you please. I want you to meet Cousin
Jeannette."
The portway proscenium-box was empty by this time, and Brockway dropped
his tools and spoke his mind.
"Miss Vennor, I know, and you know, that I ought not to come at all. It
was awfully good of you to ask me, but----"
"But what?" she said, encouragingly.
"I think you must understand what I want to say and can't," he went on.
"You saw that I was like to be overtaken by a fit of very foolish
self-consciousness, and you were kind enough to come to my rescue. I
appreciate it, but I don't want to take undue advantage of it."
"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," she laughed. "We shall look for
you between six and seven. And you'll come, because I'm going to run
away now, before you have a chance to retract. Good-by--till this
evening."
VI
REGARDLESS ORDERS
Ten hours' westing from the Missouri River takes a moderately fast train
well into the great grazing region whose name is Length and Breadth, and
whose horizon is like that of the sea. Since leaving Antelope Springs,
however, the "Flying Kestrel" had been lagging a little. For this cause,
the supper station was still more than an hour away when Brockway
deserted his ancients and invalids and crossed the platforms to the rear
door of the private car.
The admission that he dreaded the ordeal is not to be set down to his
discredit. His life had been an arduous struggle, for an education and
the necessities first, and for advancement afterward. In such a
conflict, utility speedily becomes the watchword, and if the passenger
agent were less of a workaday drudge than his fellows, he was modestly
unaware of the fact.
In the course of the afternoon all the reasons why he should manage to
get himself left behind at some convenient station were given a hearing,
but love finally triumphed, and half-past six o'clock found him at the
door of the Naught-fifty. Fortunately for his introduction, the
occupants of the sitting-room were well scattered; and Gertrude came
forward at once to welcome him.
"Thank you for coming," she said, putting her hand in his with the
cordiality of an old friend; "I was afraid you might forget us, after
all. Let me introduce you to my cousin, Mrs. Dunham; Cousin Jeannette,
this is Mr. Brockway."
Brockway bent low in the direction of an elderly lady with a motherly
face; bowed to the Misses Beaswicke and to Fleetwell, and acknowledged
the President's nod.
"I'm only too happy to be permitted to come," he said to Gertrude,
drawing up a chair to make a group of three with the chaperon. "The
social side of a business man's life is so nearly a minus quantity that
your thoughtfulness takes rank as an act of Christian charity."
Gertrude laughed softly. "Tell me how a business man finds time to
acquire the art of turning compliments," she said; but Mrs. Dunham came
to his rescue.
"I suppose your occupation keeps you away from home a great deal,
doesn't it?" she asked.
"It certainly would if I had a home," Brockway replied.
"Do you have to travel all the time?"
"Rather more than nine-tenths of it, I should say."
"How dreadfully tiresome it must become! Of course, when one is seeing
things for the first time it is very interesting; but I should imagine
the car-window point of view would become hackneyed in a very little
while."
"It does; and it is pathetically unsatisfying if one care for anything
more than a glimpse of things. I have gone up and down in my district
for four years, and yet I know nothing of the country or the people
outside of a narrow ribbon here and there with a railway line in the
centre."
"That is a good thought," Gertrude said. "I have often boasted of having
seen the West, but I believe I have only threaded it back and forth a
few times."
"That is all any of us do," Brockway asserted. "Our knowledge of the
people outside of the railway towns is very limited. I once made a
horseback trip through the back counties of East Tennessee, and it was a
revelation to me. I never understood until then the truth of the
assertion that people who live within sight of a railway all have the
'railway diathesis'."
"Meaning that they lose in originality what they gain in
sophistication?" said Gertrude.
"Just that. They become a part of the moving world; and as the railway
civilizing process is much the same the country over, they lose their
identity as sectional types."
Mrs. Dunham leaned back in her chair and began to make mental notes with
queries after them. Mr. Vennor had given her to understand that they
were to have a _rara avis_, served underdone, for dinner; and, in the
kindness of her heart, she had determined to see that the "young
artisan," as her cousin had called him, was not led on to his own
undoing. Now, however, she began to suspect that some one had made a
mistake. This young man seemed to be abundantly able to fight his own
battles.
"I presume you are very familiar with this part of the country--along
your own line, Mr. Brockway," she said, when the waiter came in to lay
the plates.
"In the way that I have just indicated, yes. I know so much of its face
as you can see from this window. But my knowledge doesn't go much beyond
the visible horizon."
"Neither does mine, but I can imagine," Gertrude said.
"Ah, yes; but imagination isn't knowledge."
"No; it's often better."
"Pleasanter, you mean; I grant you that."
"No, I meant more accurate."
"For instance?"
Gertrude smiled. "You are quite merciless, aren't you? But if I must
defend myself I should say that imagination paints a composite picture,
out of drawing as to details, perhaps, but typically true."
Brockway objected. "Being unimaginative, I can't quite accept that."
"Can't you? That is what Priscilla Beaswicke would call the disadvantage
of being Occidentalized."
"I suppose I am that," Brockway admitted cheerfully. "I can always
breathe freer out here between these wide horizons; and the majesty of
this Great Flatness appeals to me even more than that of the mountains."
They followed his gesture. The sun was dipping to the western edge of
the bare plain, and the air was filled with ambient gold. The tawny
earth, naked and limitless, melted so remotely into the dusty glow of
the sky as to leave no line of demarcation. The lack of shadows and the
absence of landmarks confused the senses until the flying train seemed
to stand with ungripping wheels in the midst of a slowly revolving disk
of yellow flatness, through which the telegraph-poles and mile-posts
darted with sentient and uncanny swiftness.
"I can feel its sublimity," Gertrude said, softly, answering his
thought; "but its solemn unchangeableness depresses me. I love nature's
moods and tenses, and it seems flippant to mention such things in the
presence of so much fixity."
Brockway smiled. "The prairie has its moods, too. A little later in the
year we should be running between lines of fire, and those big balls of
tumbleweed would be racing ahead of the wind like small meteors. Later
still, when the snows come, it has its savage mood, when anything with
blood in its veins may not go abroad and live."
"I suppose you have been out here in a blizzard, haven't you?" said the
chaperon; but when he would have replied there was a general stir, and
the waiter announced:
"Dinner is served."
VII
A DINNER ON WHEELS
When the President's party gathered about the table, Mrs. Dunham placed
Brockway at her right, with Gertrude beside him. Mr. Vennor disapproved
of the arrangement, but he hoped that Priscilla Beaswicke, who was
Brockway's _vis-a-vis_, might be depended upon to divert the passenger
agent's attention. Miss Beaswicke confirmed the hope with her second
spoonful of soup by asking Brockway what he thought of Tourguenief.
Now, to the passenger agent, the great Russian novelist was as yet no
more than a name, and he said so frankly and took no shame therefore.
Whereupon Mr. Vennor:
"Oh, come, Priscilla; you mustn't begin on Mr. Brockway like that. I
fancy he has had scant time to dabble in your little intellectual fads."
Gertrude looked up quickly, and the keen sense of justice began to
assert itself. Having escaped the pillory in his character of artisan,
the passenger agent was to be held up to ridicule in his proper person.
Not if she could help it, Gertrude promised herself; and she turned
suddenly upon the collegian.
"What do you think of Tourguenief, Cousin Chester?" she asked, amiably.
"A good bit less than nothing," answered the athlete, with his eyes in
his plate. "What is there about him that we ought to know and don't?"
"Tell us, Priscilla," said Gertrude, passing the query along.
But the elder Miss Beaswicke refused to enlighten anyone. "Go and get
his book and read it, as I did," she said.
"I sha'n't for one," Fleetwell declared. "I can't read the original, and
I won't read a translation."
"Have you read him in the original, Priscilla?" Gertrude inquired,
determined to push the subject so far afield that it could never get
back.
"Oh, hush!" said the elder Miss Beaswicke. "What is the matter with you
two. I refuse positively to be quarrelled with."
That ended the Russian divagation, and it had the effect of making the
table-talk impersonal. This was precisely what Mr. Vennor desired. What
he meant to do was to set a conversational pace which would show
Gertrude that Brockway was hopelessly out of his element in her own
social sphere.
The plan succeeded admirably. So far as the social aspect of the meal
was concerned, the passenger agent might as well have been dining at the
table of the Olympians. Art, literature, Daudet's latest book, and
Henriette Ronner's latest group of cats, the decorative designs in the
Boston Public Library, and the renaissance of Buddhism in the nineteenth
century--before these topics Brockway went hopelessly dumb. And not once
during the hour was Mrs. Dunham or Gertrude permitted to help him,
though they both tried with charitable and praiseworthy perseverance, as
thus:
_Mrs. Dunham_, in a desperate effort to ignore the Public Library: "I'm
afraid all this doesn't interest you very much, Mr. Brockway. It's so
fatally easy----"