A Romance in Transit

"Very good," said his employer. "Now go back and keep your eye on him; and, at precisely five minutes of eight, come and tell me where he is and what he is doing."

Quatremain turned on his heel and swore a clerkly oath, well smothered, to the effect that he would do nothing of the sort. It was not the first time the President had used him as a private detective, but, happily, use had not yet dulled his reluctance. None the less, he went back to the door of the dining-room and waited, and while he tarried curiosity came to keep wrath company. What was afoot that the President should be so anxious about the movements of the passenger agent? The secretary could not guess, but he determined to find out.

Three minutes before Quatremain's time-limit expired, Brockway, followed closely by a slope-shouldered old gentleman with close-set eyes, came out with Burton. He nodded to the secretary and kept on talking to the general agent. Quatremain could scarcely help overhearing.

"You can introduce yourself," he was saying; "there isn't time for any formalities. You'll find them docile enough – they haven't any kick coming with you, you know – and I'll be here to take them off your hands when you get back. No, I'll not go over to the train, unless you want me to; I'm going to the telegraph office with Mr. Jordan here, and then up-town to see our general agent about his ticket. Good-by, old man; and thank you again."

Quatremain looked at his watch. It was 7.55, to the minute, and he walked leisurely around to the private car.

"Well?" said the President, and the steady gaze of the cold eye slew the falsehood which the secretary was about to utter.

"He's in the telegraph office with one of his people," Quatremain replied, angry enough to curse himself for being so weak as to tell the truth.

"Very good. Go into my stateroom and get the mail ready. I'll come in and dictate to you presently."

The secretary obeyed as one who may not do otherwise, and left the stateroom door ajar. A moment later, he heard a tap at the door of Gertrude's room, and then the President and his daughter left the car together. Quatremain slammed down the cover of his desk, snatched his hat, and followed them. He had paid the servile price, and he would at least gratify his curiosity.

He caught sight of them in the crowd streaming out toward the Colorado Central train, and scored the first point when he observed that the President made a detour to avoid passing the open door of the telegraph office. Then he kept them in view till he saw Miss Vennor give her hand to Burton at the steps of one of the narrow-gauge cars.

At that moment, Mrs. Burton, who was comfortably established in the midst of a carful of the Tadmorians, chanced to look out of the window. She saw the President and his daughter come swiftly across the platform, saw her husband step out to meet them and shake hands with Gertrude, remarked the quick flash of glad surprise on the young girl's face, and the nervous anxiety with which the President consulted his watch, and was immediately as well apprised of the inwardness of the little plot as if she had devised it herself.

"Oh! oh!" she said to herself, with indignant emphasis; "that venerable old tyrant is turning her over to us to get her out of Fred's way! And he hasn't told her that Fred isn't going!"

Now, to the Emily Burton type of woman-kind, the marring of a plot is only less precious than the making of one. The little lady had never been known to think deeply, but a grain of swift wit is sometimes worth an infinity of tardy logic. Whatever intervened, the conclusion was clear and definite; Brockway's chance must be rescued at all hazards – and there were only two minutes in which to do it.

She scanned the throng on the platform eagerly, hoping to catch sight of him, but the faces were all strange save one. That was the face of the President's private secretary; and, without a moment's hesitation, she beckoned him.

Quatremain saw the signal, and made his way to her window, taking care to keep as many human screens as possible between himself and the group at the car steps.

"Mrs. Burton, I believe," he said, lifting his hat.

"Yes" – hurriedly. "Do you know Mr. Brockway?"

Quatremain bowed.

"Do you know where he is now?"

"Yes; he's over in the telegraph office."

"Will you take him a message from me, quickly?"

"Certainly, with pleasure."

"Then tell him I say he is going to be lost if he doesn't catch this train; he'll understand. And please hurry – there isn't a second to spare!"

Quatremain nodded, and vanished in the crowd. He understood nothing of what was toward, but he suspected that what he was about to do would somehow interfere with the President's plans, and that was sufficient to make him run when he was well out of sight. He found Brockway in the telegraph office, writing a message, with the slope-shouldered gentleman at his elbow, and delivered Mrs. Burton's message verbatim and shorn of any introduction whatsoever.

The effect on the passenger agent was surprising, if not explanatory. "Says I'm going to be – Not if I know it! I say, Tom" – flinging the pad of blanks at the operator, to call his attention – "wire anything – everything – this gentleman wants you to; I'm off!"

"But, Mr. ah – Brockway, I – I protest!" buzzed the gadfly, clutching at the passenger agent; but he was not quick enough, and when the protest was formulated, there was no one but the operator to listen to it.

The engine-bell was ringing and the train had begun to move when Brockway dashed out of the office, and the appreciative bystanders made way for him and cheered him as he sped away across the platform. It was neck-and-neck, and nothing to choose; but he was making it easily, when he collided squarely in mid career with the tall figure of the President. For a single passionate instant Mr. Francis Vennor forgot his traditions, and struck out savagely at the passenger agent. The blow caught Brockway full in the chest and made him gasp and stagger; but he gathered himself quickly, swerved aside, and ran on, catching the rear hand-rail of the last car as the train swept out of the station.

XVII

ON THE NARROW-GAUGE

For a certain breath-cutting minute after he had made good his grasp on the hand-rails of the rear car, Brockway was too angry to congratulate himself. A blow, even though it be given by a senior, and that senior the father of the young woman with whom one chances to be in love, is not to be borne patiently save by a philosopher or a craven, and Brockway was far enough from being either the one or the other.

But, fortunately for his own peace of mind, the young man reckoned a quick temper among his compensations. By the time he had recovered his breath, some subtle essence of the clean, crisp morning air had gotten into his veins, and the insult dwindled in the perspective until it became less incendiary. Nay, more; before the engineer whistled for Argo, Brockway was beginning to find excuses for the exasperated father. He assumed that Gertrude was on the train with the Burtons – Mrs. Burton's message could mean no less – and Mr. Francis Vennor had doubtless been at some pains to arrange the little plan of separation. And to find it falling to pieces at the last moment was certainly very exasperating. Brockway admitted it cheerfully, and when he had laughed aloud at the President's discomfiture until the sore spot under his right collar-bone ached again, he thought he was fit to venture among the Tadmorians. Accordingly, he made his way forward through the two observation-cars to the coach set apart for the thirty-odd.

His appearance was the signal for a salvo of exclamatory inquiry from the members of the party, but Brockway had his eyes on the occupants of a double seat in the middle of the coach, and he assured himself that explanations to the thirty-odd might well wait. A moment later he was shaking hands with Mrs. Burton and Miss Vennor.

"Dear me!" said the proxy chaperon, with shameless disingenuousness; "I was really beginning to be afraid you were left. Where have you been all the time?"

"Out on the rear platform, taking in the scenery," Brockway replied, calmly, sitting down beside Gertrude. "Didn't you see me when I got on?"

Mrs. Burton had seen the little incident on the station platform out of the tail of her eye as the train was getting under way, so she was barely within truthful limits when she said "No." But she looked very hard at Brockway and succeeded in making him understand that Gertrude was not to know anything about the plot or its marring. The young man telegraphed acquiescence, though his leaning was rather toward straight forwardness.

"Did you rest well after your spin on the engine last night?" he asked of Gertrude.

"Quite well, thank you. Have you ever ridden on an engine, Mrs. Burton?"

"Many times," replied the marplot; and then she made small-talk desperately, while she tried to think of some way of warning her husband not to be surprised at the sudden change in Brockway's itinerary for the day. Nothing better suggesting, she struck hands with temerity when Burton appeared at the forward door with the conductor, and ordered Brockway to take Gertrude back to the observation-car.

"It's a shame that Miss Vennor should be missing the scenery," she said. "Go along with her and make yourself useful. We will take care of your ancients."

The small plotter breathed freer when they were gone. She knew she had a little duel to fight with her conservative husband, and she preferred to fight it without seconds. Her premonition became a reality as soon as he reached her.

"How is this?" he began; "did you know Fred had changed his plans?"

She shook her head. "He didn't take me into his confidence."

"Well, what did he say for himself?"

"About changing his mind? Nothing."

"He didn't? that's pretty cool! What does he mean by running us off up here on a wild-goose chase?"

"How should I know, when he didn't tell me?"

"Well, I'll just go and find out," Burton declared, with growing displeasure.

But his wife detained him. "Sit down and think about it for a few minutes, first," she said, coolly. "You are angry now, and you mustn't forget that he's with Miss Vennor."

"By Jove! that is the very thing I'm not forgetting. I believe you were more than half-right in your guess, yesterday; but we mustn't let them make fools of themselves – anyway, not while we are responsible."

"I don't quite savez the responsibility," retorted the little lady, flippantly. "But what do you imagine?"

"I don't imagine – I know. He found out, somehow, that she was going with us, and just dropped things and ran for it."

"Do you think he did that?"

"Of course he did. And if we're not careful the odium of the whole thing will fall on us."

"Well, what are you going to do about it?"

"I don't know. I suppose we ought to go back from Golden and take Miss Vennor along with us."

"Wouldn't that be assuming a great deal? You would hardly want to tell the President that you had brought his daughter back because you were afraid she might do something rash."

"Oh, pshaw!" said Burton, who was rather out of his element in trying to pick his way among the social ploughshares.

"But that is what you will have to tell him, if we go back," she insisted, with delicious effrontery.

Burton thought about it for a moment, and ended by accepting the fact merely because it was thrust upon him. "I couldn't very well do that, you know," he objected, and she nearly laughed in his face because he had fallen so readily into her small trap; "but if we don't break it off, what shall we do?"

"Do? why, nothing at all! Mr. Vennor asks us to take his daughter with us on a little pleasure-trip, and he doesn't tell us to bring her back instanter if we happen to find Fred on the train."

Burton was silenced, but he was very far from being convinced, and he gave up the return project reluctantly, promising himself that he should have a very uncomfortable day of it.

In the meantime, the two young people in the observation-car were making hard work of it. A good many undiscussable happenings had intervened between their parting and their meeting, and these interfered sadly with the march of a casual conversation. As usually befalls, it was the young woman who first rose superior to the embarrassments.

"I'm glad of this day," she said, frankly, when they had exhausted the scenery, the matchless morning, the crisp air, and half a dozen other commonplaces. "I enjoyed our trip down from Silver Plume a year ago so much, and it seemed the height of improbability to imagine that we'd ever repeat it. Did you think we ever should?"

"No, indeed," replied Brockway, truthfully; "but I have wished many times that we might. Once in awhile, when I was a boy, I used to get a day that was all my own – a day in which I could go where I pleased and do as I liked. Those days are all marked with white stones now, and I often envy the boy who had them."

"I think I can understand that."

"Can you? I didn't know little girls ever had such days."

"I've had a few, but I think they were never given me. They were usually stolen, and so were doubly precious."

Brockway laughed. "Suppose we call this a stolen day, and try to make it as much like the others as we can. Shall we?"

"It's a bargain," she said, impulsively.

"From this minute, I am any irresponsible age you please; and you – you are to do nothing whatever that you meant to do. Will you agree to that?"

"Gladly," Brockway assented, the more readily since his plans for the day had been so recently demolished and rebuilt. "We'll go where we please, and do as we like; and for this one day nobody shall say 'Don't!'"

She laughed with him, and then became suddenly grave. "It's no use; we can't do it," she said, with mock pathos; "the 'ancients and invalids' won't let us."

"Yes, they will," Brockway asserted, cheerfully; "Burton will take care of them – that's what he's here for. Moreover, I shall take it upon myself to abolish the perversities, animate or inanimate."

"Please do. And if Mrs. Burton scold me – "

"She'd better not," said Brockway, with much severity. "If she does, I'll tell tales out of school and give her something else to think about."

"Could you?"

"You would better believe it; she is trembling in her shoes this blessed minute for fear I may. But you would have to stand by me."

"I? Well, I've promised, you know. What place is this?"

The train had entered the great gateway in Table Mountain, and was clattering past the Golden smelting works.

"It is Golden – you remember, don't you?" And then Brockway bethought him of something. "Will you excuse me a minute, while I get off and speak to the agent?"

"Certainly," said Gertrude; and when the train skirted the high platform, Brockway sprang off and ran quickly to the telegraph office. The operator was just coming out with a freshly written message in his hand.

"Hello, Fred," he said; "didn't know you were on. Do you happen to know a Miss Gertrude Vennor? She's with John Burton's party."

"Yes," said Brockway, tingling to get hold of the message before Burton should come along.

"All right; give her this, will you? I can't leave that blessed wire a minute."

Brockway thrust the telegram into his pocket, dodged around the throng of station loungers, and won back to the rear platform of the observation-car without seeing or being seen of the general agent. Then he drew the crumpled paper from his pocket and read it shamelessly.

"To Miss Gertrude Vennor,

"Care John Burton,

"On Colorado Central Train 51.

"Come back from Golden on first train. Have changed our plans, and shall leave Denver at 1.30 P.M.

"Francis Vennor."

XVIII

FLAGGED DOWN

Brockway read the President's telegram twice, folded it very small, and tucked it into his waistcoat pocket.

"That's just about what I expected he'd do, and it's a straight bluff," he muttered. "All the same, she's not going back. And I've got to block it without getting Burton into trouble."

There was no time for anything but the simplest expedient. He jumped off again and ran back to the telegraph office.

"Say, Jim, that message to Miss Vennor is bulled. Ask Denver to repeat it to Beaver Brook, will you?" he said, interrupting the operator as he was repeating the train order.

The man of dots and dashes finished the order. "Can't do it, Fred; get me into hot water up to my neck. Think of something else."

"Will you help me if I do?"

"Sure; any way that won't cost me my job."

The conductor and engineer had signed the order, but Brockway begged for a respite. "Just a minute, Halsey, while I write a message," he said, snatching a pad of blanks and writing hastily, while the conductor waited.

"To Francis Vennor,

"Private Car 050, Denver.

"Can't you reconsider and leave Denver to-morrow morning, as previously arranged? Am quite sure Miss Vennor prefers to go on. Answer at Beaver Brook.

"Frederick Brockway."

He tossed the pad to the operator.

"There you are, Jim; don't break your neck to make a 'rush' of it; and when you hear the answer coming do what you can to make it limp a little – anything to change the sense a bit."

"I'll do it," quoth the operator; and then the conductor gave the signal, and Brockway boarded the train and rejoined Gertrude.

"Did you think I had deserted you?" he asked.

"Oh, no; and Mr. Burton's been in to keep me company. He came to ask if I didn't want to go back to Denver."

"Did he?" said Brockway, wondering if Burton had also had a message. "And you told him no?"

"Of course I did. Haven't we made a compact?"

"Yes, but – "

"But what?"

"You said you were going to be irresponsible, you know, and I didn't know just where it might crop out."

"Not in that direction, you may be sure. You said we were to do as we pleased, and I don't please to go back to Denver. But Mr. Burton seemed to be quite anxious about it, for some reason. I wonder why?"

"So do I," rejoined Brockway, innocently.

Gertrude stole a glance at him, and he tried to look inscrutable, and failed. Then they both laughed.

"You are keeping something back; tell me all about it," Gertrude commanded.

"I am afraid you will be very angry if I do."

"I shall be quite furious if you don't. My! how close that rock was!"

The train was storming up the canyon, dodging back and forth from wall to wall, roaring over diminutive bridges, and vying with the foaming torrent at the track-side in its twistings and turnings. The noise was deafening, but it was bearable, since it served to isolate them.

"Does the compact mean that we are to have no secrets from each other?" he asked, not daring to anticipate the answer; but Gertrude parried the direct question.

"What do two people who are trying to be very young and foolish and irresponsible know about secrets?" she demanded. "You are beating about the bush, and I won't have it. Tell me!"

For reply, he took the telegram from his pocket, opened it, smoothed it carefully on his knee, and handed it to her. She read it at a glance, and a faint flush came and went in her cheek, but whether of vexation or not he could not determine.

"You are very daring," she said, passing the square of paper back to him, and her voice was so low that he barely caught the words.

"You told me I wasn't to do anything that I meant to do: I certainly did not premeditate intercepting your telegrams – or answering them," he added.

"Then you have answered it? How?"

He turned the paper over and wrote his reply on the back, word for word.

"You dared to say that to my father!" she exclaimed. "How could you?"

"Under some circumstances, I think I could dare anything. But you are angry, as I said you'd be."

"Of course I am – very. I demand to be taken back to Denver this minute."

"Do you mean that?"

"Didn't I say it?"

Brockway tried in vain to read a contradiction in her face, but the steady eyes were veiled, and it is the eyes that speak when the lips are silent.

"I'm sorry," he began; "it meant a great deal to me, but I know it was inexcusable. I'll go and tell Burton, and you can go back from the Forks, where the trains meet."

Now Gertrude had builded upon the supposition that she was safe beyond the reach of recall, and she made haste to retract.

"Yes, do!" she said, tragically; "make me go down on my knees and beg you not to – I'll do it, if you insist. How was I to know that you were only trying to humiliate me?"

The swift little recantation gave Brockway a glimpse into her personality which was exceedingly precious while it lasted. A man may fall in love with a sweet face on slight provocation and without preliminaries, but he knows little of the height and depth of passion until association has taught him. But love of the instantaneous variety has this to commend it, that its demands are modest and based upon things visible. Wherefore, certain small excellences of character in the subject, brought to light by a better acquaintance, come in the nature of so many ecstatic little surprises.

That is the man's point of view. The woman takes the excellences for granted, and if they are lacking, one of two things may happen: a great smashing of ideals, or an attack of heavenly blindness. Gertrude was of the tribe of those who go blind; and deep down in her heart she rejoiced in Brockway's audacity. Hence it was only for form's sake that she said, "How was I to know that you were only trying to humiliate me?"

"I humiliate you!" he repeated, quite aghast at the bare suggestion. "Not knowingly, you may be very sure. But about the telegram; you are not angry with me because I was desperate enough to answer it without having first shown it to you?"

"I said I was, and so I must be. But I don't see how you could have done otherwise – not after you had promised not to let anything interfere. Do you think Mr. Burton had a telegram, too?"

"I was just wondering," Brockway rejoined, reflectively. "I think we are safe in assuming that he hadn't."

"I don't care; I'm not going back," said Gertrude, with fine determination. "Papa gave me this day, early in the morning, and I'm going to keep it. What do you think of an irresponsible young person who says such an unfilial thing as that?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you what I think."

"Try me and see."

"That is one of the things I don't dare – not yet."

"You'd better not abate any of your daring; you'll need it all when we get back," laughed Gertrude, speaking far better than she knew.

"To take the consequences of my impudence?"

"Yes. You don't know my father; he is steel and ice when he is angry."

Remembering the object-lesson on the station platform in Denver, Brockway ventured to dissent from this, though he was politic enough not to do so openly.

"You think he will be very angry, then?"

"Indeed I don't – I know it."

"I'm sorry; but I'm afraid he will be angrier yet, before long."

"Why?"

"You read my message: I asked him to answer at Beaver Brook. He'll be pretty sure to send you a peremptory order to turn back from Forks Creek, won't he?"

"Why, of course he will; and I'll have to go back, after all – I sha'n't dare disobey. Oh, why didn't you make it impossible, while you were doing it?"

"I had to do what I could; and you, and Burton, and the operator, had to be saved blameless. But I'll venture a prediction. As well as you know your father, you may prepare yourself to be surprised at what he will say. I am no mind-reader, but I'm going to prophesy that he doesn't recall you."

"But why? I don't understand – "

"We are due at Beaver Brook in five minutes; wait, and you will see."

So they waited while the pygmy locomotive snorted and labored, and the yellow torrent roared and fled backward, and the gray cliffs on either hand flung back the clamorous echoes, and the cool damp air of the canyon, flushed now and then with a jet of spray, blew in at the car windows.

For the first time since her father had suggested the trip with the Burtons, Gertrude began to understand that it could scarcely have been his intention to give her an uninterrupted day in the company of the passenger agent. But in that case, why had he proposed the trip, knowing that Brockway's party would be on the train? The answer to this query did not tarry. She had caught the surprised exclamations of the Tadmorians when Brockway made his appearance, and they pointed to the supposition that his presence on the train was unexpected. And he had been evidently embarrassed; and Mrs. Burton was curiously distrait and unmistakably anxious to get them out of the way before her husband should return.