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Daughter of a Magnate

<h3> CHAPTER X </h3> <h3> AND A SHOCK </h3> The directors' party had been inspecting the Camp Pilot mines. The train was riding the crest of the pass when the sun set, and in the east long stretches of snow-sheds were vanishing In the shadows of the valley. Glover, engaged with Mr. Brock, Judge Saltzer, and Bucks, had been forward all day, among the directors. The compartments of the Brock car were closed when he walked back through the train and the rear platform was deserted. He seated himself in his favorite corner of the umbrella porch, where he could cross his legs, lean far back, and with an engineer's eye study the swiftly receding grace of the curves and elevations of the track. They were covering a stretch of his own construction, a pet, built when he still felt young; when he had come from the East fiery with the spirit of twenty-five. But since then he had seen seven years of blizzards, blockades, and washouts; of hard work, hardships, and disappointments. This maiden track that they were speeding over he was not ashamed of; the work was good engineering yet. But now with new and great responsibilities on his horizon, possibilities that once would have fired his imagination, he felt that seven years in and out of the mountains had left him battle-scarred and moody. "My sister was saying last night as she saw you sitting where you are now—that we should always associate this corner with you. Don't get up." Gertrude Brock, dressed for dinner, stood in the doorway. "You never tire of watching the track," she said, sinking into the chair he offered as he rose. Her frank manner was unlooked for, but he knew they were soon to part and felt that something of that was behind her concession. He answered in his mood. "The track, the mountains," he replied; "I have little else." "Would not many consider the mountains enough?" "No doubt." "I should think them a continual inspiration." "So they are; though sometimes they inspire too much." "It is so still and beautiful through here." She leaned back in her chair, supported her elbows on its arms and clasped her hands; the stealing charm of her cordiality had already roused him. "This bit of track we are covering," said he after a pause, "is the first I built on this division; and just now I have been recalling my very first sight of the mountains." She leaned slightly forward, and again he was coaxed on. "Every tradition of my childhood was associated with this country—the plains and rivers and mountains. It wasn't alone the reading—though I read without end—but the stories of the old French traders I used to hear in the shops, and sometimes of trappers I used to find along the river front of the old town; I fed on their yarns. And it was always the wild horse and the buffalo and the Sioux and the mountains—I dreamed of nothing else. Now, so many times, I meet strangers that come into the mountains—foreigners often—and I can never listen to their rhapsodies, or even read their books about the Rockies, without a jealousy that they are talking without leave of something that's mine. What can the Rockies mean to them? Surely, if an American boy has a heritage it is the Rockies. What can they feel of what I felt the first time I stood at sunset on the plains and my very dreams loomed into the western sky? I toppled on my pins just at seeing them." She laughed softly. "You are fond of the mountains." "I have little else," he repeated. "Then they ought to be loyal to you. But the first impression—it hardly remains, I suppose?" "I am not sure. They don't grow any smaller; sometimes I think they grow bigger." "Then you are fond of them. That's constancy, and constancy is a capital test of a charm." "But I'm never sure whether they are, as you say, loyal to me. We had once on this division a remarkable man named Hailey—a bridge engineer, and a very great one. He and I stood one night on a caisson at the Spider Water—the first caisson he put into the river—do you remember that big river you crossed on the plains——" "Indeed! I am not likely to forget a night I spent at the Spider Water; continue." "Hailey put in the bridge there. 'This old stream ought to be thankful to you, Hailey, for a piece of work like this,' I said to him. 'No,' he answered, quite in earnest; 'the Spider doesn't like me. It will get me some time.' So I think about these mountains. I like them, and I don't like them. Sometimes I think as Hailey thought of the Spider—and the Spider did get him." "How serious you grow!" she exclaimed, lightly. "The truce ends to-morrow." "And the journey ends," she remarked, encouragingly. "What, please, does that line mean that I see so often, 'Journeys end in lovers meeting?'" "I haven't an idea. But, oh, these mountains!" she exclaimed, stepping in caution to the guard-rail. "Could anything be more awful than this?" They were crawling antlike up a mountain spur that rose dizzily on their right; on the left they overhung a bottomless pit. Their engines churned, panted, and struggled up the curve, and as they talked the dense smoke from the stacks sucked far down into the gap they were skirting. "The roadbed is chiselled out of the granite all along here. This is the famed Mount Pilot on the left, and this the worst spot on the division for snow. You wouldn't think of extending our truce?" "To-morrow we leave for the coast." "But you could leave the truce; and I want it ever so much." She laughed. "Why should one want a truce after the occasion for it has passed?" "Sometimes out here in the desert we get away from water. You don't know, of course, what it is to want water? I lost a trail once in the Spanish Sinks and for two days I wanted water." "Dreadful. I have heard of such things. How did you ever find your way again?" He hesitated. "Sometimes instinct serves after reason fails. It wasn't very good water when I reached it, but I did not know about that for two weeks. It is a curious thing, too—physiologists, I am told, have some name for the mental condition—but a man that has suffered once for water will at times suffer intensely for it again, even though you saturate him with water, drown him in it." "How very strange; almost incredible, is it not? Have you ever experienced such a sensation?" "I have felt it, but never acutely until to-day; that is why I want to get the truce extended. I dread the next two days." She looked puzzled. "Mr. Glover, if you have jestingly beguiled me into real sympathy I shall be angry in earnest." "You are going to-morrow. How could I jest about it? When you go I face the desert again. You have come like water into my life—are you going out of it forever to-morrow? May I never hope to see you again—or hear from you?" She rose in amazement; he was between her and the door. "Surely, this is extraordinary, Mr. Glover." "Only a moment. I shall have days enough of silence. I dread to shock or anger you. But this is one reason why I tried to keep away from you—just this—because I— And you, in unthinking innocence, kept me from my intent to escape this moment. Your displeasure was hard to bear, but your kindness has undone me. Believe me or not I did fight, a gentleman, even though I have fallen, a lover." The displeasure of her eyes as she faced him was her only reply. Indeed, he made hardly an effort to support her look and she swept past him into the car. The Brock train lay all next day in the Medicine Bend yard. A number of the party, with horses and guides, rode to the Medicine Springs west of the town. Glover, buried in drawings and blueprints, was in his office at the Wickiup all day with Manager Bucks and President Brock. Late in the afternoon the attention of Gertrude, reading alone in her car, was attracted to a stout boy under an enormous hat clambering with difficulty up the railing of the observation platform. In one arm he struggled for a while with a large bundle wrapped in paper, then dropping back he threw the package up over the rail, and starting empty-handed gained the platform and picked up his parcel. He fished a letter from his pistol pocket, stared fearlessly in at Gertrude Brock and knocked on the glass panel between them. "Laundry parcels are to be delivered to the porter in the forward car," said Gertrude, opening the door slightly. As she spoke the boy's hat blew off and sailed down the platform, but he maintained some dignity. "I don't carry laundry. I carry telegrams. The front door was locked. I seen you sitting in there all alone, and I've got a note and had orders to give it to you personally, and this package personally, and not to nobody else, so I climbed over." "Stop a moment," commanded Gertrude, for the heavy messenger was starting for the railing before she quite comprehended. "Wait until I see what you have here." The boy, with his hands on the railing, was letting himself down. "My hat's blowin' off. There ain't any answer and the charges is paid." "Will you wait?" exclaimed Gertrude, impatiently. The very handwriting on the note annoyed her. While unfamiliar, her instinct connected it with one person from whom she was determined to receive no communication. She hesitated as she looked at her carefully written name. She wanted to return the communication unopened; but how could she be sure who had sent it? With the impatience of uncertainty she ripped open the envelope. The note was neither addressed nor signed. "I have no right to keep this after you leave; perhaps I had no right to keep it at all. But in returning it to you I surely may thank you for the impulse that made you throw it over me the morning I lay asleep behind the Spider dike." She tore the package partly open—it was her Newmarket coat. Bundling it up again she walked hastily to her compartment. For some moments she remained within; when she came out the messenger boy, his hat now low over his ears, was sitting in her chair looking at the illustrated paper she had laid down. Gertrude suppressed her astonishment; she felt somehow overawed by the unconventionalities of the West. "Boy, what are you doing here?" "You said, wait," answered the boy, taking off his hat and rising. "Oh, yes. Very well; no matter." "Ma'am?" "No matter." "Does that mean for me to wait?" "It means you may go." He started reluctantly. "Gee," he exclaimed, under his breath, looking around, "this is swell in here, ain't it?" "See here, what is your name?" "Solomon Battershawl, but most folks call me Gloomy." "Gloomy! Where did you get that name?" "Mr. Glover." "Who sent you with this note?" "I can't tell. He gave me a dollar and told me I wasn't to answer any questions." "Oh, did he? What else did he tell you?" "He said for me to take my hat off when I spoke to you, but my hat blowed off when you spoke to me." "Unfortunate! Well, you are a handsome fellow, Gloomy. What do you do?" "I'm a railroad man." "Are you? How fine. So you won't tell who sent you." "No, ma'am." "What else did the gentleman say?" "He said if anybody offered me anything I wasn't to take anything." "Did he, indeed, Gloomy?" "Yes'm." She turned to the table from where she was sitting and took up a big box. "No money, he meant." "Yes'm." "How about candy?" Solomon shifted. "He didn't mention candy?" "No'm." "Do you ever eat candy?" "Yes'm." "This is a box that came from Pittsburg only this morning for me. Take some chocolates. Don't be afraid; take several. What is your last name?" "Battershawl." "Gloomy Battershawl; how pretty. Battershawl is so euphonious." "Yes'm." "Who is your best friend among the railroad men?" "Mr. Duffy, our chief despatcher. I owe my promotion to 'im," said Solomon, solemnly. "But who gives you the most money, I mean. Take a large piece this time." "Oh, there ain't anybody gives me any money, much, exceptin' Mr. Glover. I run errands for him." "What is the most money he ever gave you for an errand, Gloomy?" "Dollar, twice." "So much as that?" "Yes'm." "What was that for?" "The first time it was for taking his washing down to the Spider to him on Number Two one Sunday morning." This being a line of answer Gertrude had not expected to develop she started, but Solomon was under way. "Gee, the river w's high that time. He was down there two weeks and never went to bed at all, and came up special in a sleeper, sick, and I took care of him. Gee, he was sick." "What was the matter?" "Noomonia, the doctor said." "And you took care of him!" "Me an' the doctor." "What was the other errand he gave you a dollar for?" "Dassent tell." "How did you know it was I you should give your note to?" "He told me it was for the brown-haired young lady that walked so straight—I knew you all right—I seen you on horseback. I guess I'll have to be going 'cause I got a lot of telegrams to deliver up town." "No hurry about them, is there?" "No, but's getting near dinner time. Good-by." "Wait. Take this box of candy with you." Solomon staggered. "The whole box?" "Certainly." "Gee!" He slid over the rail with the candy under his arm. When he disappeared, Gertrude went back to her stateroom, closed the door, though quite alone in the car, and re-read her note. "I have no right to keep this after you leave; perhaps I had no right to keep it at all. But in returning it to you I surely may thank you for the impulse that made you throw it over me the morning I lay asleep behind the Spider dike." It was he, then, lying in the rain, ill then, perhaps—nursed by the nondescript cub that had just left her. The Newmarket lay across the berth—a long, graceful garment. She had always liked the coat, and her eye fell now upon it critically, wondering what he thought of the garment upon making so unexpected an acquaintance with her intimate belongings. Near the bottom of the lining she saw a mud stain on the silk and the pretty fawn melton was spotted with rain. She folded it up before the horseback party returned and put it away, stained and spotted, at the bottom of her trunk. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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