A Romance in Transit

"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."