"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 manœuvre 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.
The general agent's wife laughed as one who refuses to be diverted. "Neither better nor worse than you did. We had a buffet luncheon – baked beans and that exquisite tomato-catchup, you know – served in our section, and we saw one act of a charming little comedy playing itself on the platform at the supper station. Be nice and tell me all about it. Did the cold-blooded gentleman with the overseeing eyes succeed in overtaking you?"
Brockway saw it was no use, and laughed good-naturedly. "You are a born detective, Mrs. Burton; I wouldn't be in Burton's shoes for a farm in the Golden Belt," he retorted. "How much did you really see, and how much did you take for granted?"
"I saw a young man, who didn't take the trouble to keep his emotions out of his face, marching up and down the platform with Miss Vennor on his arm. Then I saw an elderly gentleman pacing back and forth between two feminine chatterboxes, and trying to outgeneral the two happy people. Naturally, I want to know more. Did you really go without your supper to take a constitutional with Miss Gertrude? And did the unhappy father contrive to spoil your tête-à-tête?"
