The Daughter of a Magnate - Page 62/119

October had not yet gone when they met again in a Medicine Bend street.

Glover, leaving the Wickiup with Morris Blood, ran into Gertrude Brock

coming out of an Indian curio-shop with Doctor Lanning. She began at

once to talk to Glover. "Marie was regretting, yesterday, that you had

not yet found your way to Glen Tarn."

The sun beat intensely on her black hat and her suit of gray. In her

gloved hand she twirled the tip of her open sunshade on the pavement

with deliberation and he shifted his footing helplessly. His heavy

face never looked homelier than in sunshine, and she gazed at him with

a calmness that was staggering. He muttered something about having

been unusually busy.

"We, too, have been," smiled Gertrude, "making final preparations for

our departure."

"Do you go so soon?" he exclaimed.

"We are waiting only papa's return now to say good-by to the

mountains." The way in which she put it stirred him as she had

intended it should--uncomfortably.

"I should certainly want to say good-by to your sister," muttered

Glover. But in saying even so little his naturally unsteady voice

broke one extra tone, and when this happened it angered him.

"You are not timid, are you?" continued Gertrude.

"I think I am something of a coward."

"Then you shouldn't venture," she laughed, "Marie has a scolding for

you."

Morris Blood had been telling Doctor Lanning that he and Glover were to

go over to Sleepy Cat on the train the doctor and Gertrude were to take

back to Glen Tarn. The two railroad men were just starting across the

yard to inspect an engine, the 1018, which was to pull the limited

train that day for the first time. It was a new monster, planned by

the modest little Manxman, Robert Crosby, for the first district run.

"Help her over the pass," Crosby had whispered--the superintendent of

motive power hardly ever spoke aloud--"and she'll buck a headwind like

a canvas-back. Give her decent weather, and on the Sleepy Cat trail

she'll run away with six, yes, eight Pullmans."

Doctor Lanning was curious to look over the new machine, the first to

signalize the new ownership of the line, and Gertrude was quite ready

to accept Blood's invitation to go also.

With the doctor under the superintendent's wing, Gertrude, piloted by

Glover, crossed the network of tracks, asking railroad questions at

every step.

Reaching the engine, she wanted to get up into the cab, to say that,

before leaving the mountains forever, she had been once inside an

engine. Glover, after some delay, procured a stepladder from the "rip"

track, and with this the daughter of the magnate made an unusual but

easy ascent to the cab. More than that, she made herself a heroine to

every yardman in sight, and strengthened the new administration

incalculably.