that the Naught-fifty was between the Tadmor and the Ariadne, and that
it would be the part of prudence to go around rather than through the
President's car. When he did remember it he stepped out into the
vestibule of the Tadmor to get a breath of fresh air while he waited for
the train to come to a station. Mrs. Dunham was on the Naught-fifty's
rear platform, and she nodded, smiled, and beckoned him to come across.
"I'm glad to know that somebody else besides a curious old woman cares
enough for this grand scenery to get up early in the morning," she said,
pleasantly.
"You mustn't make me ashamed," Brockway rejoined. "I'm afraid I should
have been sound asleep this minute if I hadn't been routed out by one of
my people."
Mrs. Dunham smiled. "Gertrude was telling me about some of your
troubles. Do they get you up early in the morning to ask you foolish
questions?"
"They do, indeed"--and Brockway, glad enough to find a sympathetic
listener, told the story of the pertinacious human gadfly masquerading
under the name of Jordan.
"Dear, dear! How unreasonable! Will you have to give up the Silver Plume
trip and stay in Denver with him?"
"I suppose so. I'm going forward presently to try to get Mr. Burton and
his wife to take my place with the party for the day."
"Not Mr. John Burton, of the Colorado & Utah?"
"Yes; do you know him?"
"Only through Gertrude; she met them when she was out here last year,
and she likes Mrs. Burton very much indeed."
"I'm glad of that," said Brockway, with great _naivete_; "they are very
good friends of mine."
In the pause that succeeded he was reminded that his way and Gertrude's
would shortly diverge again, and in the face of that thought he could
not well help asking questions.
"I suppose you are going straight on to Utah," he said, not daring to
hope for a negative reply.
"Not to-day. I believe it is Mr. Vennor's plan to go on to-morrow
morning."
When he realized what this meant for him, Brockway forgave his evil
genius in the Tadmor. Then he gasped to think how near he had come to
missing his last chance of seeing Gertrude. But he must know more of the
movements of the President's party.
"Will you go to a hotel?" he inquired.
"I think not. I heard Mr. Vennor order dinner in the car, so I presume
we shall make it our headquarters during the day."
Brockway reflected that the private car would doubtless be side-tracked
on the spur near the telegraph office in the Union Depot, and wrote it
down that prearrangement itself could do no more. When the train drew up
at Bovalley a little later, he excused himself and ran quickly forward
to board the Ariadne. Come what might, Burton must be over-persuaded;
the thirty-odd must be given no chance to defeat the Heaven-born
opportunity made possible by the pertinacity of the gadfly.
So marched the intention, but the fates willed delay. Bovalley is but a
flag-station, and the passenger agent had barely time to swing up to the
rear platform of the regular sleeper when the train moved on. Then he
found that he had circumvented one obstacle only to be hampered by
another. The rear door of the Ariadne was locked, and the electric bell
was out of repair. Wherefore it was forty minutes later, and Denver was
in sight, when the rear brakeman opened the door and admitted him.
XIII
BETWEEN STATIONS
When Mrs. Dunham returned to the central compartment of the
Naught-fifty, the waiter was laying the table for breakfast, and the
President was looking on with the steadfast gaze which disconcerts.
"Good-morning, Cousin Jeannette. Up early to see the scenery, are you?"
The genial greeting had no hint in it of inward disquietude, past or
present.
"Yes, and I wish I had been earlier. I have been out on the platform
watching the mountains grow."
"Grand, isn't it? You might have had a better view if our car had been
left in its proper place in the rear; but our friend the passenger agent
took good care to secure that for his own party."
Mrs. Dunham was inclined to be charitable. "I fancy he couldn't help it.
From what he tells me, his people must be very exacting."
"Have you seen him this morning?" the President inquired, with some
small show of curiosity.
"Yes; out on the platform. He has been telling me some of his
exasperating experiences."
The President smiled indulgently. "I suspect our young friend has fallen
into a habit of magnifying his difficulties," he said. "It's very easy
to do, you know, when one's business makes a fine art of exaggeration."
"Why, he doesn't impress me that way, at all," said the good lady, who
knew nothing of her cousin's very excellent reasons for disliking
Brockway. "He seems to be a very pleasant young man, and quite
intelligent."
Mr. Vennor shrugged his shoulders. "I don't question his
intelligence--though it wasn't very remarkable at the dinner-table last
night. Did you happen to find out whether he is going all the way across
with his party?"
"He didn't say. His people are going up to Silver Plume to-day, but he
can't go with them. He has to stay in Denver with one of the exacting
ones whose ticket is out of repair."
"Ha! that's a very sharp little trick," said the President; but inasmuch
as he did not elucidate, the chaperon misunderstood.
"To get him into trouble with the others? I fancy that is only
incidental. Mr. Brockway is going to try to get Mr. Burton--our Mr.
Burton, of Salt Lake City, you know--who is on the train, to take charge
of the party on the Silver Plume trip."
Mr. Vennor said, "Oh," and then the young people began to appear, and
the waiter announced breakfast. During the meal the President was too
deeply engrossed in the working out of a small counterplot to hear or
heed much of the desultory table-talk. It was quite evident that the
passenger agent had learned of the proposed stop-over in Denver, and was
preparing to take advantage of it. His confidence with Mrs. Dunham was
only a roundabout way of notifying Gertrude.
Mr. Vennor considered many little schemes of the frustrating sort, and
finally choosing one which seemed to meet all the requirements, put it
in train immediately after breakfast.
"What are you going to do with yourself to-day?" he asked of Fleetwell,
when they had drawn apart and lighted their cigars.
"Don't know," replied the collegian, between whiffs; "whatever the
others want to do."
"I was just thinking," the President continued, carelessly. "The
Beaswicke girls want to call on some friends of theirs, and that
eliminates them. I expect to be busy all day; and Cousin Jeannette says
she doesn't care to go about. Suppose you and Gertrude take a run up
into the mountains on one of the narrow-gauges. It'll fill in the day,
and you can be back in time for dinner this evening."
"I don't mind, if Gertrude wants to go; but I don't believe she does,"
said Fleetwell, with so little enthusiasm that the President looked at
him sharply.
"Think not?"
"I'm almost sure she doesn't," the collegian replied, placidly.
Mr. Francis Vennor was a conservative man, slow to admit even the
contradiction of facts. While waiting for Gertrude the previous evening,
he had convinced himself that his daughter was about to sacrifice
herself. To an impartial onlooker--and he prided himself on being no
less--the evidence was logically conclusive; and, notwithstanding
Gertrude's tardy denial, he still believed that his major premise was
correct, or, at most, only errant in time.
Having thus set his judgment a bad example, it easily broke bounds again
in the same direction. How should Fleetwell know that Gertrude would not
care to spend the day in his company? Probably because they had found
time before breakfast for another of their foolish disagreements. In
that case, it would be the part of wisdom to separate them for the day;
and a plan by which this might be accomplished, and the passenger agent
checkmated at the same time, suggested itself at the instant.
"We'll let it go at that, then," he said, answering Fleetwell's
assumption. "You can manage to wear out the day in town. Perhaps the
Beaswicke girls will let you go calling with them."
"Think so? I'll go and ask them," Fleetwell said, with more animation
than he had yet exhibited; and he threw away his cigar and went about
it.
The President rose and crossed over to Mrs. Dunham's chair.
"Where is Gertrude?" he inquired.
"She complained of a headache and went to her room. Shall I call her?"
"Oh, no; but if you haven't already done so, I wish you wouldn't mention
what Brockway told you, this morning--about his spending the day in
Denver, I mean."
"Certainly not, if you wish it," the chaperon agreed; but the expression
of her face was so plainly interrogative that the President was
constrained to go on.
"There is nothing to be anxious about yet," he hastened to say; "but you
know the old adage about the ounce of prevention. Gertrude is very
self-willed, and they were together rather more than I could wish, last
summer."
"I think you are altogether mistaken, Cousin Francis," said the good
lady, in whom there was no drop of match-making blood. "She has talked
very freely with me about him, and a young girl doesn't do that if there
is any sentiment in the air."
"I hope you are right. But it will do no harm to give ourselves the
benefit of the doubt. I fancy Chester didn't quite approve of the little
diversion last evening--on the engine, you know."
"Pooh! I don't believe he gave it a second thought."
"Possibly not; but he had a very good right to object. It was a reckless
bit of impropriety."
"You sat up for Gertrude last night; did you say as much to her?" the
chaperon asked, shrewdly.
"Not quite that," said the President, who was unwilling to go into
particulars.
"Because, if you did, it was injudicious, that's all. Gertrude is your
own daughter, and she is enough like you to resent anything of that kind
in a way to make you regretful. That accounts for the headache this
morning."
Gertrude's father smiled rather grimly. "I shall presently find a remedy
for the headache, and you'll see that it will work like a charm. But its
efficacy will depend upon your discretion. Not a word about the
passenger agent, if you please."
Mrs. Dunham promised, rather reluctantly, and Mr. Vennor put on his hat
and left the compartment. He had business in the Ariadne; and a little
later, Mrs. Burton, who was buttoning her shoe, looked up to find the
calculating eyes of the President making a calm and leisurely valuation
of her.
XIV
WITH DENVER IN SIGHT
There was the usual early morning confusion in the aisle of the Ariadne
when Brockway picked his way forward to section three over a litter of
opened hand-bags, lately polished shoes, and unshod feet. He found the
Burton section empty, with the porter putting the finishing touches to
his morning's work of scene-shifting.
"Yes, sah; de gemman's in de washroom, an' de lady----"
"Is right here," said a voice at Brockway's elbow. "Good-morning, Mr.
Frederick; how do you find yourself--or aren't you lost?"
The forty-minute lock-out had left scant time for preliminaries, and
Brockway left off the preamble.
"I'm not lost, but I'm going to be if you and John don't help me out.
Will you do it?"
"Sight unseen." The little lady was eying her shoes wistfully and hoping
that Brockway would be brief.
"I thought I could count on you. What is your programme for to-day?"
"For John, business, I suppose; for myself, a carriage, a handy
card-case, and any number of 'how do you dos' and 'good-byes.' Why?"
"I want you both to give me the day, out and out. Listen, and don't say
no till you've heard me through."
"Go on, but don't let it lap over into Denver; we're 'most there."
Brockway stated his case briefly. "It's probably the last chance I'll
ever have to see her," he concluded.
"Why should you want to see her when there is nothing to be done, as you
say?"
"I don't know that--but I do, and you must help me. Will you?"
"Help you carry on a brazen flirtation with that poor, innocent girl?
Never! But if John says he'll go, I suppose I can't help
myself"--resignedly.
"Thank you; I knew you wouldn't be cruel. And if John should happen to
balk a little----"
"Why, I'll talk him over, of course; is that what you want?"
"That's it exactly. Thank you some more."
"Don't mention it. Is that all?"
"Y--yes, all but one little trifle of detail. Have you told John about
my--my lunacy?"
"No."
"Then don't; it's bad enough to be an idiot and know it myself."
"I sha'n't--perhaps. Is _that_ all?"
"Yes, I believe so."
"Then for mercy's sake do go and talk to John, and let me put on my
shoes," said Mrs. Burton, impatiently. "I can't go to breakfast in my
slippers."
Brockway vanished obediently, and presently found Burton struggling into
his outer garments in the smoking-room.
"Hello, Fred; how are the invalids this morning? Get you out bright and
early?"
"One of them did--that old fellow with the bad case of ticket-limits.
I'm in trouble up to my neck, and you've got to help me out."
"Say the word and I'll do it if it costs me something," said Burton, who
was nothing if not helpful to his friends.
"It's going to cost you something--a whole day, in fact. I promised to
'personally conduct' the crowd up to Silver Plume to-day, and the
arrangements are all made. Now this old fellow says he isn't going; says
I've got to stay in Denver with him and telegraph another thirty days to
his ticket, or the heavens will fall. I'm going to do it, and I want you
to take my place with the party."
"Same old maker of hard-and-fast promises, aren't you, Fred," said the
general agent, smiling. "I suppose I can do it, if you can square it
with Emily."
"I've done that already; she's awfully good about it--says she'll go
along and help you out. What's this place? Overton? By Jove! I'll have
to be getting back to my car; we're only fifteen miles out. Thank you
much, old man--see you later"--and the passenger agent pushed through
the group in the wash-room and dropped off to once more make the circuit
of car Naught-fifty.
XV
YARD-LIMITS
It was while Brockway was making his second circuit of the private car
that Mrs. Burton looked up and encountered the calculating gaze of the
President.
"Ah--good-morning, Mrs. Burton; you remember me, I see. On your way back
to Utah, are you?"
"Yes--" the "sir" was on the tip of her tongue, but she managed to
suppress it. "We have been to Chicago, to the passenger meeting."
"So I inferred. Do you enjoy Chicago, Mrs. Burton?"
She felt that five minutes of this would unhinge her reason, but she
made shift to answer, intelligently: "Yes, in a way; but I've never been
about much. Mr. Burton is always so busy when we are there."
"Precisely; always busy; that is the whole history of civilized man in
two words, isn't it? But where is your good husband?"
"He is in the wash-room," she began; but at that moment Burton appeared.
"Ha!" said the President; "good-morning, Mr. Burton. You didn't expect
to find me here chatting with your wife, did you?"
"Well, no, not exactly--that is--" Burton's one weakness lay in undue
deference to his superior officers, and he stumbled helplessly. But his
wife came promptly to the rescue.
"It's such a distinction, Mr. Vennor, that we don't know how to properly
acknowledge it," she retorted, laughing, "Will you excuse me if I finish
buttoning my shoe?"
"Certainly, certainly"--the President's tone was genially paternal; "I
merely wanted to have a word with Mr. Burton;" and he rose and drew the
general agent across to the opposite section.
"Sit down, sit down, Burton; don't stand on ceremony with me," he said,
patronizingly. "I came to ask a favor of you, and positively you
embarrass me."
Burton sat down mechanically.
"I learned a few minutes ago through young Brockway that you were on the
train," the President continued, lowering his voice, "and I understand
that he wishes you to take charge of his party for the day on the trip
up Clear Creek Canyon. Has he spoken to you about it?"
"Yes; he was here just now." Burton answered as he had sat
down--mechanically.
"And you consented to do it, I presume?"
"Why, yes; he asked it as a personal favor, and I thought I might make a
few new friends for our line. But if you don't approve----"
"Don't misunderstand me," interrupted the President, with well-feigned
magnanimity; "as I said, I came to ask a favor. You met my daughter,
Gertrude, when we were out last summer, I believe?"
"Yes, at Manitou." The general agent was far beyond soundings on the sea
of mystery by this time.
"Well, you must know she took a great fancy to your wife, and when I
heard of this arrangement, I determined to ask you to take her along
with you for the day. May I count upon it?"
"Why, certainly; we shall be delighted," Burton rejoined. "Let me
tell----"
But the President stopped him. He had taken time to reflect that a
little secrecy might be judicious at this point; and he was shrewd
enough to distrust women in any affair bordering upon the romantic. So
he said:
"Suppose we make it a little surprise for both of them. Keep it to
yourself, and when your train is ready to leave, I'll bring Gertrude
over to you. How will that do?"
Burton was in a fair way to lose his head at being asked to share a
secret with his President, and he promised readily.
"Not a word. Mrs. Burton will be delighted. I'll be on the lookout for
you."
So it was arranged; and with a gracious word of leave-taking for the
wife, Mr. Vennor went back to his car, rubbing his hands and smiling
inscrutably. He found his daughter curled up in the great wicker chair
in an otherwise unoccupied corner of the central compartment.
"Under the weather this morning, Gertrude?" he asked, wisely setting
aside the constraint which might naturally be supposed to be an
unpleasant consequence of their latest interview.
"Yes, a little," she replied, absently.
"I presume you haven't made any plans for the day," he went on; "I fancy
you don't care to go visiting with the Beaswicke girls."
"No, indeed; I can do that at home."
"How would you like to go up to Silver Plume with Mr. Brockway's party?"
She knew well enough that her father's cold eyes had surprised the
sudden flash of gladness in hers, but she was not minded to reopen the
quarrel.
"Oh, that would be delightful," she said, annulling the significance of
the words with the indifference of her tone; "quite as delightful as it
is impossible."
"But it isn't impossible," said the President, blandly; "on the
contrary, I have taken the liberty of arranging it--subject to your
approval, of course. I chanced upon two old friends of ours who are
going with the party, and they will take care of you and bring you back
this evening."
"Friends of ours?" she queried; "who are they?"
"Ah, I promised not to tell you beforehand. Will you go?"
"Certainly, if you have arranged it," she rejoined, still speaking
indifferently because she was unwilling to show him how glad she was.
For she was frankly glad. The glamour of last night's revelation was
over the recollection of those other days spent with Brockway, and she
was impatiently eager to put her impressions quickly to the test of
repetition--to suffer loss, if need be, but by all means to make sure.
And because of this eagerness, she quite overlooked the incongruity of
such a proposal coming from her father--an oversight which Mr. Vennor
had shrewdly anticipated and reckoned upon.
It was 7.30, and the train was clattering through the Denver yards,
measuring the final mile of the long westward run. Gertrude rose to go
and get ready.
"You needn't hurry," said her father; "the narrow-gauge train doesn't
leave for half an hour. I'll come for you when it is time to go."
He watched her go down the compartment and enter her stateroom without
stopping to speak to any of the others. Then he held up his finger for
the secretary.
"Harry, when the train stops, I want you should get off and see where
Brockway goes. You know him, and you might make an excuse to talk with
him. When you have found out, come and tell me. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir," said Quatremain; and when he had kicked his pride into a
proper attitude of submission, he went about the errand.
XVI
THE MADDING CROWD
Twice a day, in the time whereof these things are written, the platform
of the Denver Union Depot gave the incoming migrant his first true
glimpse of the untrammelled West. A broad sea of planking, open to the
heavens--and likewise to the world at large--was the morning and evening
arena of a moving spectacle the like of which is not to be witnessed in
any well-ordered railway station of the self-contained East.
Trains headed north, east, south, and west, backed across the platform
and drawn apart in the midst to leave a passageway for the crowds; other
trains going and coming, with shouting yard-men for outriders to clear
the tracks; huge shifting pyramids of baggage piled high on tilting
trucks, dividing with the moving trains the attention of the dodging
multitude; the hurrying throngs imbued for the moment with the strenuous
travail-spirit of the New West; these were the persons and the
properties. And the shrieking safety-valves, the clanging bells, the
tinnient gong of the breakfast-room, the rumbling trucks, and the
under-roar of matter in motion, were the pieces in the orchestra.
It is all very different now, I am told. They have iron railings with
wicket-gates and sentinels in uniform who ask to see your ticket, and a
squad of policemen to keep order, and rain-sheds over the platforms (it
used not to rain in the Denver I knew), and all the other appurtenances
and belongings of a well-conducted railway terminus. But the elder order
of disorder obtained on the autumn morning when the "Flying Kestrel"
came to rest opposite the gap in the bisected trains filling the other
tracks. Brockway was the first man out of the Tadmor, but the gadfly was
a close second.
"No, sir; I don't intend to lose sight of you, Mr. ah--Brockway," he
quavered; and he hung at the passenger agent's elbow while the latter
was marshalling the party for the descent on the breakfast-room, a
process which vocalized itself thus:
_Brockway_, handing the ladies in the debarking procession down the
steps of the car: "Breakfast is ready in the dining-room. Special tables
reserved for this party. Wait, and we'll all go in together. Leave your
hand-baggage with the porter, unless it's something you will need during
the day. Take your time; you have thirty minutes before the train leaves
for Clear Creek Canyon and the Loop."
_Chorus of the Personally Conducted:_
"How long did you say we'd have?"
"What are they going to do with our car while we're gone?"
"Say, Mr. Passenger Agent, are you sure the baggage will be safe if we
leave it with the porter?"
"What time have you now?"
"How far is it over to those mountains?"
"Oh, Mr. Brockway; won't this be a good chance to see if my trunk was
put on the train with the others?"
"Say; what time did you say that Clear Creek Canyon train leaves?"
_Brockway_, answering the last question because the inquirer happens to
be nearest at hand: "Eight o'clock."
_The Querist_, with his watch (which he has omitted to set back to
mountain time) in his hand: "Eight o'clock? Then it's gone--it's
half-past eight now! Look here."
_Brockway_, who is vainly endeavoring to persuade an elderly maiden lady
to leave her canary in charge of the porter during the day: "That is
central time you have, Mr. Tucker; mountain time is one hour slower.
Careful, Mr. Perkins; let me take your grip. You won't need it to-day."
_The Elderly Maiden Lady:_ "Now, Mr. Brockway, are you _sure_ it'll be
perfectly safe to leave Dicky with the porter?"
_Mr. Somers, sotto voce_ in Brockway's ear: "Hang Dicky! Let's go to
breakfast."
_The Gadfly:_ "Mr. ah--Brockway, you will oblige me by sitting at my
table. I don't ah--purpose to lose sight of you, sir."
_Brockway_, to the porter: "All out, John?"
_The Porter_, with the cavernous smile of his kind: "All out, sah."
_Brockway_, sandwiching himself between two of the unescorted ladies:
"All aboard for the dining-room!"