A Romance in Transit Read online

  A ROMANCE IN TRANSIT

  by

  FRANCIS LYNDE

  Third Edition

  Charles Scribner's SonsNew York 1899

  Copyright, 1897, byCharles Scribner's Sons

  Trow DirectoryPrinting and Bookbinding CompanyNew York

  To the small person who unconsciouslyprovided the _motif_ herein wrought upon,this transitory tale is affectionately attributedby THE AUTHOR

  CONTENTS

  I. P. P. C. ARIADNE

  II. THE "PERSONALLY CONDUCTED"

  III. THE PRIVATE CAR

  IV. THE DINNER STATION

  V. AT THE MEETING-POINT

  VI. REGARDLESS ORDERS

  VII. A DINNER ON WHEELS

  VIII. THE CAB OF THE TEN-WHEELER

  IX. FIFTY MILES AN HOUR

  X. A CONFIDENCE EN ROUTE

  XI. AN ARRIVAL IN TRANSIT

  XII. THE ANCIENTS AND INVALIDS

  XIII. BETWEEN STATIONS

  XIV. WITH DENVER IN SIGHT

  XV. YARD-LIMITS

  XVI. THE MADDING CROWD

  XVII. ON THE NARROW-GAUGE

  XVIII. FLAGGED DOWN

  XIX. THE FOOLISH WIRES

  XX. CHIEFLY SCENIC

  XXI. ON THE HEIGHTS

  XXII. ON THE SPUR-TRACK

  XXIII. THE LAND OF HEART'S DELIGHT

  XXIV. THE END OF A STOP-OVER

  XXV. WESTWARD HO!

  XXVI. A BLIND SIDING

  XXVII. THE DRUMMING WHEELS

  A ROMANCE IN TRANSIT

  I

  P. P. C. ARIADNE

  Train Number Three, the "Flying Kestrel," vestibuled, had crossed theyellow Rubicon of the West and was mounting toward the Occident up thegentle acclivities of the Great Plain. The morning was perfect, as earlyautumn mornings are wont to be in the trans-Missouri region; the trainwas on time; and the through passengers in the Pullman sleeping-car"Ariadne" had settled themselves, each according to his gifts, to enjoyor endure the day-long run.

  There was a sun-browned ranchman in lower eleven, homeward bound fromthe Chicago stockyards; a pair of school-teachers, finishing theirvacation journey, in ten; a Mormon elder, smug in ready-made black andnarrow-brimmed hat, _vis-a-vis_ in lower five with two hundred pounds ofgood-natured, comfort-loving Catholic priesthood in lower six. Tworemoves from the elder, a Denver banker lounged corner-wise in hissection, oblivious to everything save the figures in the financialcolumn of the morning paper; and diagonally across from the banker werethe inevitable newly married ones, advertising themselves as such withall the unconscious _naivete_ of their kind.

  Burton and his wife had lower three. They were homing from the passengeragents' meeting in Chicago; and having gone breakfastless at theMissouri River terminal by reason of a belated train, were waiting forthe porter to serve them with eggs and coffee from the buffet. Thenarrow table was between them, and Burton, who was an exact man with aneye to symmetrical detail, raised the spring clips and carefullysmoothed the wrinkles out of the table-cloth as he talked. A private carhad been attached to the train at the Missouri River, and its freightagewas of moment to the couple in section three.

  "Are you sure it's the President?" asked the wife, leaning back to givethe cloth-laying a fair field. "I thought the Naught-fifty was GeneralManager Cadogan's car."

  "So it is; but President Vennor always borrows it for his annualinspection trip. And I'm quite sure, because I saw Miss Vennor on theplatform when the car was coupled on."

  "Then we'll get home just in time to go on dress-parade," said thelittle lady, flippantly. "Colorado and Utah Division, fall in! 'Shun,company! Eyes right! The President is upon you!" and she went through aminimized manual of arms with the table-knife.

  The general agent frowned and stroked his beard. "Your anarchisticleanings will get us into trouble some time, Emily. Mr. Vennor is not aman to be trifled with, and you mustn't forget that he is the Presidentof the Colorado and Utah Railway Company, whose bread you eat."

  "Whose bread I should like to eat, if that slow-poke in the buffet wouldever bring it," retorted the wife. "And it is you who forget. You are aman, and Mr. Vennor is a man; these are the primal facts, and thebusiness relation is merely incidental. He doesn't think any more of youfor standing in awe of him."

  "I don't stand in awe of him," Burton began; but the opportune arrivalof the buffet porter with the breakfast saved him the trouble ofelaborating his defence.

  Half way through the frugal meal the swing-door of the farther vestibulegave back, and a young man came down the aisle with the sure step of anaccustomed traveller. He stopped to chat a moment with theschool-teachers, and the ranchman in section eleven, looking him overwith an appreciative eye, pronounced him a "man's man," and the terseepithet fitted. He was a vigorous young fellow, clean-limbed and wellput together, and good-looking enough to tolerate mirrors in theirproper places. While he chatted with the two young women, he pushed hishat back with a quick gesture which was an index to his character.Open-hearted frankness looked out of the brown eyes, and healthyoptimism gave an upward tilt to the curling mustache. A young man with arecord clean enough to permit him to look an accusative world in theface without abashment, one would say.

  When he reached the breakfasting pair in three, he stopped again andheld out a hand to each.

  "Well, well; you two!" he said. "I didn't see you when I went forward.Where did you get on?"

  "At the river," replied Mrs. Burton, making room for him in the seatbeside her. "Won't you sit down and break bread with us? literally, youknow; there isn't anything else to break unless you'll wait for theshell of an egg that is not yet cooked."

  "No, thank you; I had my breakfast a good two hours ago. Where have youbeen? and where are you going?"

  "We have been at the passenger meeting in Chicago, and we are on the wayhome," said the general agent.

  "Yes, running a race with the President," cut in Mrs. Burton. "John isdreadfully afraid we sha'n't get to Salt Lake in time to be keel-hauledwith the rest of the force."

  The young man sat back on the arm of the opposite seat with the light ofinquiry in his eyes. "What President?" he asked.

  "Vennor, of our company. Didn't you know he was in the Naught-fifty?"said Burton.

  "No. They coupled it on just as we were leaving the river, and Ithought--I took it for granted that our General Manager was aboard. It'sMr. Cadogan's car."

  "I know; but President Vennor always borrows it for his annual trip."

  "Are you sure? Have you seen him?"

  "Quite sure. I saw Miss Vennor on the platform with some other youngpeople whom I don't know. It's Mr. Vennor's party."

  The young man pushed his hat back, and the look of frankness becameintrospective. "Do you know the Vennors? personally, I mean."

  The little lady made answer:

  "Yes. We met them at Manitou last summer. Do you know them?"

  The young man seemed unaccountably embarrassed. "I--I've met MissGertrude--that was last summer, too," he stammered. "Did you--did youlike her, Mrs. Burton?"

  "Very much, indeed; she is as sweet and lovable as her father is odious._Do_ have a cup of coffee, won't you?"

  "No, thank you. Then you didn't admire the President?"

  "Indeed I didn't; no one could. He is one of the cool, contemptuous kindof people; always looking you over as if he had half a mind to buy you.He was barely civil to me, and he was positively rude to John."

  "Oh, no; not quite that, Emily," amended the husband. "I'm only one of agood many employees to him."

  "Draws the money-line sharp and clear, does he?" said the young man, whoappeared to be more
deeply interested than a merely casual topic wouldaccount for.

  The little lady nodded vigorously. "That's it, exactly. You can fairlyhear the double eagles clink when he speaks."

  The general agent deprecated disloyalty, and was fain to change thesubject.

  "What are you doing so far away from your territory, Fred?" he asked.

  "I'm in charge of the party of old people and invalids in the Tadmor.They'd a mind to be 'personally conducted,' and they threaten to take meall the way across to the Coast."

  "Good!" exclaimed the small person. "Then you can stop over and visit usin Salt Lake."

  The passenger agent shook his head. "I sha'n't get that far. I mustbreak away at Denver, by all means."

  "Would nothing tempt you to go on?"

  "I'm afraid not; that is--I--er--" the young man's embarrassmentsuddenly returned, and he stopped helplessly.

  Mrs. Burton's curiosity was instantly on the alert. "Then there _is_something? Do tell me what it is," she pleaded.

  "It's nothing; in fact, it's much less than nothing. I hesitated becauseI--because your way of putting it is very--that is, it covers a greatdeal of ground," he stammered.

  "Don't make him quibble any more than he has to," said Burton, with mockseverity. "You see it's quite impossible for him to tell the truth."

  The young man laughed good-naturedly. "That's the fact. I've been in thepassenger service so long that I can't always be sure of recognizing theverities when I meet them. But to get back to the original sheep; Imustn't go on--not beyond Denver. It would have been better for allconcerned if I had cut it short at the river."

  "For all concerned? for yourself and the invalids, you mean?" queriedthe curious one.

  "Yes, and perhaps for some others. But speaking of the invalids, I'llhave to be getting back to them; they'll think I've deserted them. I'llbe in again later in the day."

  Mrs. Burton waited until the swing-door of the vestibule had wingeditself to rest behind him. Then she arched her eyebrows at her husbandand said, "I wonder if Fred isn't the least little bit _epris_ withGertrude Vennor?"

  To which the general agent replied, with proper masculine contumely, "Ibelieve you would infer a whole railroad from a single cross-tie. Ofcourse he isn't. Brockway is a good fellow, and a rising young man, buthe knows his place."

  None the less it was the arrow of the woman's intuition, and not that ofthe man's reason, that pierced the truth. In the vestibule the passengeragent suddenly changed his mind about rejoining his party in the Tadmor,turning aside into the deserted smoking-room of the Ariadne to burn areflective cigar, and to piece out reminiscence with present fact.

  Notwithstanding his expressed reluctance, he had intended going on tothe Pacific Coast with the party in the Tadmor; had, in effect, morethan half promised so to do. It was the time of year when he could bestbe spared from his district; and the members of the party had made apoint of it. But the knowledge that Miss Gertrude Vennor was a passengeron the train opened up a new field wherein prudence and reawakenedpassion fought for the mastery, to the utter disregarding of the merebusiness point of view.

  They had met in Colorado the previous summer--the passenger agent andthe President's daughter--and Brockway had lost his heart to thesweet-faced young woman from the farther East before he had so much aslearned her name. He was convoying a train-load of school-teachersacross the continent; and then, as now, she was a member of a party inher father's private car. Their meeting was at Silver Plume, where shehad become separated from her father's party, and had boarded theexcursion train, mistaking it for the regular which was to followBrockway's special as second section. The obvious thing for Brockway tohave done was to put her off at Georgetown, where the following sectionwould have picked her up in a few minutes. But he did no such unselfishthing. Before the excursion train had doubled the final curve of theLoop he was ready to purchase her continued presence at a price.

  This he accomplished by omitting to mention the obvious expedient.Leaving a message with the Georgetown operator, notifying the Presidentthat his daughter was on the excursion train, Brockway went on his wayrejoicing; and, by a judicious conspiracy with his own conductor andengineer, managed to keep the special well ahead of the regular all theway to Denver.

  That was the beginning of it, and fate, kindly or unkindly, had addedyet other meetings; at Manitou, at Leadville, and again at Salt LakeCity, where the President's daughter had voluntarily joined Brockway'ssight-seeing party on the strength of an acquaintance with two of theBoston school-mistresses. The temporary chaperons were kind, and thefriendship had burgeoned into something quite like intimacy before the"Mormon day" was overpast. But there it had ended. Since that day he hadneither seen her nor heard from her; and when he had come to look thematter squarely in the face in the light of sober afterthought, he wasminded to put his infatuation under foot, and to try honestly to be gladthat their lives had gone apart. For he had learned that Mr. FrancisVennor was a multi-millionnaire, and that his daughter was an heiress inher own right; and no poor gentleman was ever more fiercely jealous ofhis poverty rights than was this shrewd young soldier in the unnumberedarmy of the dispossessed.

  But the intervention of half a continent of space is one thing, and thatof a mere car-length is another. Now that he had to walk but the lengthof the Tadmor to be with her again, the eager passion which he hadfondly believed to be safely dead and buried rose up in its might andthreatened to put poverty-pride, and all other calmly considered springsof action to the sword; did presently run them through, for whenBrockway left the smoking-room of the Ariadne and crossed the jarringplatforms to the door of the Tadmor, he was flogging his wits to devisesome pretext which would excuse an invasion of the private car.