contravened by Mr. Vennor: "I say, Cousin Jeannette, isn't the Sargent
decoration for the staircase hall--" _et sequentia_, until Brockway
sinks back into oblivion to come to the surface ten minutes later at a
summons from the other side.
_Gertrude_, purposely losing the thread of Priscilla Beaswicke's remarks
on the claims of theosophy to an unprejudiced hearing: "What makes you
so quiet, Mr. Brockway? Tell me about your other adventures with the
school-teachers--after you left Salt Lake City, you know."
_Brockway_, catching at the friendly straw with hope once more reviving:
"Then you haven't forgotten--excuse me; Miss Beaswicke is speaking to
you." And the door shuts in his face and leaves him again in outer
darkness.
In the nature of things mundane, even the most leisurely dinner cannot
last forever. Brockway's ordeal came to an end with the black coffee,
and when he was free he would have vanished quickly if Gertrude had not
detained him.
"You are not going to leave us at once, are you?" she protested.
"I--I think I'd better go back to my 'ancients and invalids,' if you'll
excuse me."
Gertrude was conscience-stricken, and her hospitable angel upbraided her
for having given her guest an unthankful meal. Wherefore she sought to
make amends.
"Don't go just yet unless you are obliged to," she pleaded. "Sit down
and tell me about the schoolma'ams. How far did you go with them?"
"I had to make the whole blessed circuit," he said, tarrying willingly
enough.
"Do you often have such deliciously irresponsible people to convoy?"
"Not often; but the regular people usually make up for it in--well, in
cantankerousness; that's about the only word that will fit it." Brockway
was thinking of the exacting majority in the Tadmor.
"And yet it doesn't make you misanthropic? I should think it would. What
place is this we are coming to?"
"Carvalho--the supper station."
Gertrude saw her father coming toward them; she guessed his purpose and
resented it. If she chose to make kindly amends to the passenger agent
for his sorry dinner, she would not be prevented.
"We stop here a little while, don't we?" she asked of Brockway.
"Yes; twenty minutes or more. Would you like to go out for a breath of
fresh air?" She had risen and caught up her wrap and hat.
"I should; it is just what I was going to propose. Cousin Jeannette, I'm
going to walk on the platform with Mr. Brockway. Come," she said; and
they escaped before Mr. Vennor could overtake them.
Once outside, they paced up and down under the windows of the train,
chatting reminiscently of four bright days a year agone, and shunning
the intervening period as two people will whose lives have met and
touched and gone apart again. At the second turn, they met Mrs. Dunham
and Fleetwell; and at the third, the President, sandwiched between
Hannah and Priscilla Beaswicke. Whereupon Brockway, scenting espionage,
drew Gertrude away toward the engine.
The great, black bulk of the heavy ten-wheeler loomed portentous, and
the smoky flare of the engineer's torch, as he thrust it into the
machinery to guide the snout of his oil-can, threw the overhanging mass
of iron and steel into sombre relief.
Brockway shaded his eyes under his hand and peered up at the number
beneath the cab window. "The new 926," he said; "we'll get back some of
our lost time behind her."
"Do you know them all by name?" Gertrude queried.
"Oh, no; not all."
"I suppose you've ridden on them many times?"
Brockway laughed. "I should say I had--on both sides, as the enginemen
say."
"What does that mean?"
"It's slang for firing and driving; I've done a little of both, you
know."
"I didn't know it. Isn't it terribly dangerous? When anything happens,
the men on the engine are almost always killed, aren't they?"
"When they are it's because they haven't time to save themselves. It's
all nonsense--newspaper nonsense, mostly--about the engineer sticking to
his post like the boy on the burning deck. A man can do whatever there
is to be done toward stopping his train while you could count ten, and
no amount of heroism could accomplish any more."
"I have often thought I should like to ride on an engine," Gertrude
said.
"I wish I had known it earlier in the day; your wish might have been
gratified very easily."
"Might it? I suppose they never let any one ride on the night engines,
do they?"
Brockway caught his breath. "Do you mean--would you trust me to take you
on the engine to-night?" he asked, wondering if he had heard aright.
"Why not?" she said, with sweet gravity.
The engineer had oiled his way around to their side, and Brockway spoke
to him.
"Good-evening, Mac," he said; and the man turned and held up his torch.
"Hello, Fred," he began; and then, seeing Gertrude: "Excuse _me_, I
didn't see the lady."
At a sign from Gertrude, Brockway introduced the engineer. "Miss Vennor,
this is Mr. Maclure--one of our oldest runners."
"I'm very glad to know you, Mr. Maclure," said Gertrude, sweetly; and
the man of machinery scraped his feet and salaamed.
"Mac, Miss Vennor thinks she would like to take a night spin on the 926.
May we ride a little way with you?"
"Well, I should say!" assented Maclure. "Just pile in and make
yourselves at home; and excuse _me_--I hain't quite got through oilin'
'round yet."
"Thank you," said Brockway; then to Gertrude: "We must find your father
or Mrs. Dunham quick; we haven't more than a minute or two."
They ran back and fortunately came upon Mrs. Dunham and the collegian.
"Cousin Jeannette, I'm going to ride on the engine with Mr. Brockway,"
Gertrude explained, breathlessly. "Don't say I sha'n't, for I will. It's
the chance of a lifetime. Good-by; and don't sit up for me."
"I'll take good care of her," Brockway put in; and before the astonished
lady could expostulate or approve, they were scudding forward to the
926.
VIII
THE CAB OF THE TEN-WHEELER
Engineer Maclure was leaning out of the cab window, watching for the
conductor's signal, when Brockway and Gertrude came up.
"Didn't know but you'd backed out," he said, jocosely, when they had
climbed aboard.
"Oh, no, indeed; we had to get word to my father," said Gertrude.
The engineer waved them across the cab. "Make yourselves at home; the
926 belongs to you as long as you want to own her. Just you pre-empt
Johnnie's box over there, Fred, and make the young lady comfortable."
Brockway stuck a propitiatory cigar into the pocket of the fireman's
jumper, and proceeded to carry out his instructions. Before the tardy
signal came, Gertrude was perched upon the high seat, with her skirts
gathered up out of harm's way, and Brockway had fashioned a pad out of a
bunch of waste and tied it upon the boiler-head brace at her feet.
"It's hot," he explained. "When she begins to roll you can put your foot
against that and steady yourself. Are you quite comfortable?"
"Quite; and you?" She looked over her shoulder to ask the question, and
the strong red glow from the open door of the fire-box glorified the
sweet face.
"Comfortable? No, that is hardly the word for it"--he tried the
window-fastening, that he might have an excuse for bending over
her--"I'm happy; happy to my finger-tips. Do you know why?"
He sought to look up into her face, but at that moment the red glow of
the fire-light went out suddenly with the crash of the closing door, and
the clangor of the bell made her reply inaudible. None the less, by the
dim, half light of the gauge-lamp he saw her eyelashes droop and her
lips say No.
For a passing instant the social barriers went down and became as though
they never were. Standing beside her and blessing the clamor that
isolated them, he said:
"Because I am here with you; because, no matter what happens to either
of us in the future, no one can ever rob me of this."
He half expected a rebuke, and waited a moment with becoming humility.
When it did not come, he swung himself into the seat behind her and held
his peace until she spoke again. That was five full minutes afterward.
For that length of time Gertrude was crushed under an avalanche of new
sensations. The last switch-light in the Carvalho yards had flashed to
the rear, and the 926 was quickening her speed with sharp little forward
lunges under Maclure's skilful goading. The dizzying procession of
grayish-white telegraph-poles hurling itself past the cab windows; the
thousand clangorous voices of the great machine; the intermittent glare
from the fire-box door, alternating with the fiery shower of sparks
pouring from the smoke-stack--it was a bit of pandemonium detached and
dashing through space, and she sat cowed and stunned by the rush and the
uproar. But presently the warm wine of excitement began to quicken her
heart-beats.
"Isn't it glorious!" she exclaimed, trying to look back at him.
It is quite possible for two persons to converse in the cab of a flying
locomotive, but the factor of distance must be eliminated. Wherefore he
bent over her till his mustache brushed the pink ear.
"I am glad you like it. Are you still quite comfortable?"
"Yes, indeed; thank you. How fast are we going now?"
"About twenty-five miles an hour; but we'll double that when Maclure
gets her warmed up."
"Double it! Why, we seem to be fairly flying now!"
"Wait," said Brockway.
Maclure was sitting sphynx-like on his box, coming to life now and then
to reduce the angle of the reversing-lever, or to increase that of the
throttle. The fireman labored steadily, swaying back and forth between
the coal-chute and the fire-box door, his close-fitting cap on the back
of his head, and Brockway's cigar,--unlighted, in deference to
Gertrude,--between his teeth.
"What dreadfully hard work it must be to shovel coal that way all
night," Gertrude said, following the rhythmic swing of the fireman's
sinewy figure with her eyes.
"He's getting his fire into shape, now," Brockway explained. "He'll have
it easier after a bit."
"Why doesn't he smoke his cigar?"
Brockway smiled. "Because, down under the grime and coal-dust and other
disguises, there is a drop or two of gentle blood, I fancy."
"You mean it's because I'm here? Please tell him to light his cigar, if
he wants to."
Brockway obeyed, and the fireman unbent and bobbed his head in
Gertrude's direction. "Thank ye, ma'am," he shouted, with a good-natured
grin on his boyish face; "but I'm thinkin' a dhry smoke's good enough
for the lady's car"--and he bent to his work again, while the endless
procession of telegraph-poles hurtled past with ever-increasing
swiftness, and the sharp blasts of the exhaust lost their intermittence,
and became blent in a continuous roar.
Presently, the laboring engine began to heave and roll like a
storm-tossed vessel, and Gertrude was fain to make use of the foot-rest.
Being but a novice, she made unskilful work of it; and when her foot
slipped for the third time, Brockway took his courage in both hands.
"Just lean back and brace yourself against my shoulder," he said; "I'm
afraid you'll get a fall."
She did it, and he held himself in watchful readiness to catch her if
she should lose her balance.
"Is that better?"
She nodded. "Much better, thank you. Have we doubled it yet?"
Brockway took out his watch and timed the revolutions of the flying
drive-wheels. "Not quite, but we're bettering the schedule by several
miles. Do you still enjoy it?"
"Yes, much; but it's very dreadful, isn't it? I don't see how he dares!"
"Who? Maclure?"
"Yes; or anyone else. To me it seems braver than anything I ever read
of--to drive a great thing like this with so many precious lives behind
it. The responsibility must be terrible."
"It would be if a fellow thought of it all the time; but one doesn't,
you know. Now I'll venture a guess that Mac is just speculating as to
how much of the 'Kestrel's' lost time he can get back between this and
the end of his run."
But the shrewd old pioneer with the Scottish name was thinking of no
such prosaic thing. On the contrary, he was wondering who Miss Vennor
was; if she would be a worthy helpmate for the passenger agent; and if
so, how he could help matters along.
The switch-lights of Arriba were twinkling in the distance, and his hand
was on the whistle-lever, when the engineer reached a conclusion. The
next instant Gertrude shrieked and would have tumbled ignominiously into
the fireman's scoop if Brockway had not caught her.
"How silly of me!" she said, shame-facedly. "One would think I had never
heard a locomotive whistle before. But it was so totally unexpected."
"I should have warned you, but I didn't think. This is Arriba; do you
want to go back?"
Gertrude was enjoying herself keenly, after a certain barbaric and
unfettered fashion hitherto undreamed of, and she was tempted to drink a
little deeper from the cup of freedom before going back to the
proprieties. Moreover, there was doubtless a goodly measure of reproof
awaiting her, and when she remembered this, she determined to get the
full value of the castigation.
"I'll go on, if you'll let me," she said.
"Let you!" Brockway had been trembling for fear his little bubble of joy
was about to burst, and would have multiplied words. But before he could
say more, the 926 thundered past the station and came to a stand.
Maclure released the air-brake, and clambering down from his box,
dragged the passenger agent from his seat and so out to the gangway.
"Say, Fred, is she goin' back?" he whispered.
"No, not just yet."
"Bully for her; she's got sand, she has. Reckon you could run a spell
and talk to her at the same time?"
Brockway's nerves tingled at the bare suggestion. "Try me and see," he
said.
"It's a go," said Maclure. "Get her over there on my side, and I'll
smoke me a pipe out o' Johnnie's window. Swear to bob I won't look
around once!"
IX
FIFTY MILES AN HOUR
"Let me promote you, Miss Vennor," Brockway said, helping Gertrude to
the foot-board; "Mr. Maclure says you may have his seat for awhile."
Gertrude acquiesced unquestioningly. For some cause as yet unclassified,
acquiescence seemed to be quite the proper thing when she was with
Brockway, though docility with others was not her most remarkable
characteristic. When she was safely bestowed, Maclure rang the bell and
gave Brockway his instructions.
"Next stop's Red Butte--twenty-seven miles--thirty-eight minutes o'
card-time--no allowance for slowin' down at Corral Siding. And if you
can twist 'em any quicker, do it. Turn her loose."
The engineer betook himself to the fireman's box, and Brockway's
resolution was taken on the spur of the moment.
"Do just as I tell you, Miss Vennor, and I'll give you a brand-new
experience," he said, quickly. "Take hold of this lever and pull--both
hands--pull hard!"
Gertrude did it simply because she was told to, and it was not until the
engine lunged forward that she understood what it was she was doing.
"Oh, Mr. Brockway--I can't!" she cried; "it won't mind me!"
"Yes, it will; I'll show you how. Push it back a little; you mustn't
tear your fire. There; let her make a few turns at that."
Gertrude clung to the throttle as if she were afraid it was alive and
would escape, but her eyes sparkled and the flush of excitement mounted
swiftly to cheek and brow.
"Now give her a little more--just a notch or two--that's enough. You
needn't hold it; it won't run away," Brockway said, laughing at her.
"I shall go daft if I don't hold something! Oh, _please_, Mr. Brockway!
I know I shall smash everything into little bits!"
"No, you won't; I sha'n't let you. A little more steam, if you please;
that's right. Now take hold of this lever with both hands, brace
yourself and pull steadily."
The reversing-lever of a big ten-wheeler is no child's plaything, and he
stood ready to help her if she could not manage it. But Miss Vennor did
manage it, though the first notch or two had to be fought for; and
Maclure, who had quite forgotten his promise not to look on, applauded
enthusiastically.
"Good!" said Brockway, approvingly; "you are doing famously. Now a
little more throttle; that's enough."
The 926 forged ahead obediently, and Gertrude began to enter into the
spirit of the thing.
"This is simply Titanic!" she exclaimed. "What shall I do next?"
"Cut her back a little more," Brockway commanded; "two notches. Now a
little more steam--more yet; that will do."
The great engine lunged forward like a goaded animal, and Gertrude sat
up very straight and clung to the reversing-lever when the cab began to
lurch and sway. But she obeyed Brockway's directions promptly and
implicitly.
"Don't be afraid of her," he said. "You have a clear track and a heavy
rail."
"I'm not afraid," she asserted; "I'm miles beyond that, now. If anything
should happen, we'd all be dead before we found it out, so I can be
perfectly reckless."
Mile after mile of the level plain swept backward under the drumming
wheels, and Brockway's heart made music within him because it had some
little fragment of its desire. In order to see the track through the
front window of the cab, he had to lean his elbow on the cushion beside
her, and it brought them very near--nearer, he thought, than they would
ever be again.
Gertrude was much too full of the magnitude of things to care to talk,
but she was finally moved to ask another question.
"Are we really running along on the rails just like any well-behaved
train? It seems to me we must have left the track quite a while ago."
Brockway laughed. "You would know it, if we had. Do you see those two
little yellow lights away out ahead?"
"Yes; what are they?"
"They are the switch-lights at Corral Siding. Take hold of this lever
and blow the whistle yourself; then it won't startle you so much."
Gertrude did that, also, although it was more trying to her nerves than
all that had gone before. Then Brockway showed her how to reduce speed.
"Push the throttle in as far as it will go; that's right. Now the
reversing-lever--both hands, and brace yourself--that's it. Now take
hold of this handle and twist it that way--slowly--more yet--" the air
whistled shrilly through the vent, and the song of the brake-shoes on
the wheels of the train rose above the discordant clangor--"that will
do--turn it back," he added, when the speed had slackened sufficiently;
and he leaned forward with his hand on the brake-lever and scanned the
approaching side-track with practised eyes.
"All clear!" he announced, springing back quickly. "Pull up this lever
again, and give her steam."
Gertrude obeyed like an automaton, though she blenched a little when the
small station building at the Siding roared past, and in a few seconds
the 926 was again bettering the schedule.
"How fast are we going now?" she asked, when the engine was once more
pitching and rolling like a laboring ship.
Brockway consulted his watch. "A little over fifty miles an hour, I
should say. You will be quite safe in calling it that, anyway, when you
tell your friends that you have run a fast express train."
"They'll never believe it," she said; "but I wouldn't have missed it for
the world. What must I do now?--watch the track?"
Brockway said "Yes," though, with all his interest in other things, he
had not omitted that very important part of an engineer's duty from the
moment of leaving Arriba. After a roaring silence of some minutes,
during which Brockway gave himself once more to the divided business of
scanning the rails and burning sweet incense on the altar of his love,
she spoke again.
"What is that we are coming to, away out there?" she asked, trying
vainly to steady herself for a clearer view.
"The lights of Red Butte," he answered, relaxing his vigilance for the
moment at the thought that his little side-trip into the land of joy
would so shortly come to an end.
"No, I don't mean those!" she exclaimed, excitedly; "but this side of
the lights. Don't you see?--on the track!"
Brockway allowed himself but a single swift glance. Half-way between the
flying train and the station the line crossed a shallow sand creek on a
low trestle. On both sides of the swale, crowding upon the track and
filling the bed of the creek, was a mass of moving forms, against which
the lines of glistening rails ended abruptly.
At such a crisis, the engineer in a man, if any there be, asserts itself
without reference to the volitional nerve-centres. In the turning of a
leaf, Brockway had thrown himself upon the throttle, dropped the
reversing-lever, set the air-brake, and opened the sand-box; while
Maclure, seeing that his substitute was equal to the emergency, woke the
echoes with the whistle. A hundred yards from the struggling mass of
frightened cattle, Brockway saw that the air-brake was not holding.
"Don't move!" he cried; and Gertrude cowered in her corner as the heavy
reversing-lever came over with a crash, and the great engine heaved and
buckled in the effort to check its own momentum.
It was all over before she could cry out or otherwise advertise her very
natural terror. The moving mass had melted away before the measured
approach of the train; the trestle had rumbled under the wheels; and the
926 was steaming swiftly up to the station under Brockway's guidance.
"Have you had more than enough?" he asked, when he had brought the train
to a stand opposite the platform at Red Butte.
"Yes--no, not that, either," she added, quickly. "I'm glad to have had a
taste of the real danger as well. But I think I'd better go back; it's
getting late, isn't it?"
"Yes. Mac, we resign. Sorry I had to put your old tea-kettle in the
back-gear; but the air wasn't holding, and we didn't want any chipped
beef for supper. Good-night, and many thanks. Don't pull out till I give
you the signal."
They hurried down the platform arm-in-arm, and Gertrude was the first to
speak.
"Didn't you think we were all going to be killed?"
"No; but I did think I should never forgive myself if anything happened
to you."
"It wouldn't have been your fault. And I've had a glorious bit of
distraction; I shall remember it as long as I live."
"Yes; you have actually driven a train fifty miles an hour," laughed
Brockway, handing her up the steps of car Naught-fifty.
"I have; and now I shall go in and be scolded eighty miles an hour to
pay for it. But I sha'n't mind that. Good-night, and thank you ever so
much. We shall see you in the morning?"
"Yes." Brockway said it confidently, and gave a tug at the bell-cord, to
let Maclure know they were safely aboard; but when the door of the
private car had yawned and swallowed Miss Vennor, he remembered the
President's probable frame of mind, and thought it doubtful.
X
A CONFIDENCE EN ROUTE
When Brockway pulled the bell-cord, he meant to drop off and wait till
the Tadmor came along--a manoeuvre which would enable him to rejoin
his party without intruding on the President's privacy. Then that
reflection about Mr. Vennor's probable frame of mind, and the thought
that the late excursion into the fair country of joy would doubtless
never be repeated, came to delay him, and he let the train get under way
before he remembered what it was that he had intended doing. Whereupon,
he scoffed at his own infatuation, and went into the Ariadne to chat
with the Burtons until another halt should give him a chance to get back
to the Tadmor.
The route to the body of the car led past the smoking-room, and the
passenger agent, having missed his after-dinner cigar, was minded to
turn aside. But the place was crowded, and he hung hesitant upon the
threshold.
"Come in," said Burton, who was one of the smokers.
"No, I believe not; there are too many of you. I'll go and talk to Mrs.
Burton."
"Do; she's spoiling to quiz you."
"To quiz me? What about?"
"You wouldn't expect me to tell, if I knew. Go on and find out."
Brockway went forward with languid curiosity.
"I thought you had quite deserted us," said the little lady. "Sit down
and give an account of yourself. Where have you been all afternoon?"
"With my ancients and invalids," Brockway replied.
Mrs. Burton shook a warning finger at him. "Don't begin by telling me
fibs. Miss Vennor is neither old nor infirm."
Brockway reddened and made a shameless attempt to change the subject.
"How did you like the supper at Carvalho?" he asked.