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-à-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 naïveté 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 épris 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.
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.
"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'hôte 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'hôte