Читать книгу The Daughter of a Magnate - Frank H. Spearman - Страница 6

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When the Brock-Harrison party, familiarly known—among those with whom they were by no means familiar—as the Steel Crowd, bought the transcontinental lines that J. S. Bucks, the second vice-president and general manager, had built up into a system, their first visit to the West End was awaited with some uneasiness. An impression prevailed that the new owners might take decided liberties with what Conductor O'Brien termed the "personal" of the operating department.

But week after week followed the widely heralded announcement of the purchase without the looked-for visit from the new owners. During the interval West End men from the general superintendent down were admittedly on edge—with the exception of Conductor O'Brien. "If I go, I go," was all he said, and in making the statement in his even, significant way it was generally understood that the trainman that ran the pay-cars and the swell mountain specials had in view a superintendency on the New York Central. On what he rested his confidence in the opening no one certainly knew, though Pat Francis claimed it was based wholly on a cigar in a glass case once given to the genial conductor by Chauncey M. Depew when travelling special to the coast under his charge.

Be that as it may, when the West End was at last electrified by the announcement that the Brock-Harrison syndicate train had already crossed the Missouri and might be expected any day, O'Brien with his usual luck was detailed as one of the conductors to take charge of the visitors.

The pang in the operating department was that the long-delayed inspection tour should have come just at a time when the water had softened things until every train on the mountain division was run under slow-orders.

At McCloud Vice-president Bucks, a very old campaigner, had held the party for two days to avoid the adverse conditions in the west and turned the financiers of the party south to inspect branches while the road was drying in the hills. But the party of visitors contained two distinct elements, the money-makers and the money-spenders—the generation that made the investment and the generation that distributed the dividends. The young people rebelled at branch line trips and insisted on heading for sightseeing and hunting straight into the mountains. Accordingly, at McCloud the party split, and while Henry S. Brock and his business associates looked over the branches, his private cars containing his family and certain of their friends were headed for the headquarters of the mountain division, Medicine Bend.

Medicine Bend is not quite the same town it used to be, and disappointment must necessarily attend efforts to identify the once familiar landmarks of the mountain division. Improvement, implacable priestess of American industry, has well-nigh obliterated the picturesque features of pioneer days. The very right of way of the earliest overland line, abandoned for miles and miles, is seen now from the car windows bleaching on the desert. So once its own rails, vigorous and aggressive, skirted grinning heaps of buffalo bones, and its own tangents were spiked across the grave of pony rider and Indian brave—the king was: the king is.

But the Sweetgrass winds are the same. The same snows whiten the peaks, the same sun dies in western glory, and the mountains still see nestling among the tracks at the bend of the Medicine River the first headquarters building of the mountain division, nicknamed The Wickiup. What, in the face of continual and unrelenting changes, could have saved the Wickiup? Not the fact that the crazy old gables can boast the storm and stress of the mad railroad life of another day than this—for every deserted curve and hill of the line can do as much. The Wickiup has a better claim to immortality, for once its cracked and smoky walls, raised solely to house the problems and perplexities of the operating department, sheltered a pair of lovers, so strenuous in their perplexities that even yet in the gleam of the long night-fires of the West End their story is told.

In that day the construction department of the mountain division was cooped up at one end of the hall on the second floor of the building. Bucks at that time thought twice before he indorsed one of Glover's twenty-thousand-dollar specifications. Now, with the department occupying the entire third floor and pushing out of the dormer windows, a million-dollar estimate goes through like a requisition for postage stamps.

But in spite of his hole-in-the-wall office, Glover, the construction engineer of that day, was a man to be reckoned with in estimates of West End men. They knew him for a captain long before he left his mark on the Spider the time he held the river for a straight week at twenty-eight feet, bitted and gagged between Hailey's piers, and forced the yellow tramp to understand that if it had killed Hailey there were equally bad men left on the mountain pay-roll. Glover, it may be said, took his final degrees in engineering in the Grand Cañon; he was a member of the Bush party, and of the four that got back alive to Medicine one was Ab Glover.

Glover rebuilt the whole system of snowsheds on the West End, practically everything from the Peace to the Sierras. Every section foreman in the railroad Bad Lands knew Glover. Just how he happened to lose his position as chief engineer of the system—for he was a big man on the East End when he first came with the road—no one certainly knew. Some said he spoke his mind too freely—a bad trait in a railroad man; others said he could not hold down the job. All they knew in the mountains was that as a snow fighter he could wear out all the plows on the division, and that if a branch line were needed in haste Glover would have the rails down before an ordinary man could get his bids in.

Ordinarily these things are expected from a mountain constructionist and elicit no comment from headquarters, but the matter at the Spider was one that could hardly pass unnoticed. For a year Glover had been begging for a stenographer. Writing, to him, was as distasteful as soda-water, and one morning soon after his return from the valley flood a letter came with the news that a competent stenographer had been assigned to him and would report at once for duty at Medicine Bend.

Glover emerged from his hall-office in great spirits and showed the letter to Callahan, the general superintendent, for congratulations. "That is right," commented Callahan cynically. "You saved them a hundred thousand dollars last month—they are going to blow ten a week on you. By the way, your stenographer is here."

"He is?"

"She is. Your stenographer, a very dignified young lady, came in on Number One. You had better go and get shaved. She has been in to inquire for you and has gone to look up a boarding-place. Get her started as soon as you can—I want to see your figures on the Rat Cañon work."

A helper now would be a boon from heaven. "But she won't stay long after she sees this office," Glover reflected ruefully as he returned to it. He knew from experience that stenographers were hard to hold at Medicine Bend. They usually came out for their health and left at the slightest symptoms of improvement. He worried as to whether he might possibly have been unlucky enough to draw another invalid. And at the very moment he had determined he would not lose his new assistant if good treatment would keep her he saw a trainman far down the gloomy hall pointing a finger in his direction—saw a young lady coming toward him and realized he ought to have taken time that morning to get shaved.

There was nothing to do but make the best of it; dismissing his embarrassment he rose to greet the newcomer. His first reflection was that he had not drawn an invalid, for he had never seen a fresher face in his life, and her bearing had the confidence of health itself.

"I heard you had been here," he said reassuringly as the young lady hesitated at his door.

"Pardon me?"

"I heard you had been here," he repeated with deference.

"I wish to send a despatch," she replied with an odd intonation. Her reply seemed so at variance with his greeting that a chill tempered his enthusiasm. Could they possibly have sent him a deaf stenographer?—one worn in the exacting service at headquarters? There was always a fly somewhere in his ointment, and so capable and engaging a young lady seemed really too good to be true. He saw the message blank in her hand. "Let me take it," he suggested, and added, raising his voice, "It shall go at once." The young lady gave him the message and sitting down at his desk he pressed an electric call. Whatever her misfortunes she enlisted his sympathy instantly, and as no one had ever accused him of having a weak voice he determined he would make the best of the situation. "Be seated, please," he said. She looked at him curiously. "Pray, be seated," he repeated more firmly.

"I desire only to pay for my telegram."

"Not at all. It isn't necessary. Just be seated!"

In some bewilderment she sat down on the edge of the chair beside which she stood.

"We are cramped for room at present in the construction department," he went on, affixing his frank to the telegram. "Here, Gloomy, rush this, my boy," said he to the messenger, who came through a door connecting with the operator's room. "But we have the promise of more space soon," he resumed, addressing the young lady hopefully. "I have had your desk placed there to give you the benefit of the south light."

The stenographer studied the superintendent of construction with some surprise. His determination to provide for her comfort was most apparent and his apologies for his crowded quarters were so sincere that they could not but appeal to a stranger. Her expression changed. Glover felt that he ought to ask her to take off her hat, but could not for his life. The frankness of her eyes was rather too confusing to support very much of at once, and he busied himself at sorting the blueprints on his table, guiltily aware that she was alive to his unshaven condition. He endeavored to lead the conversation. "We have excellent prospects of a new headquarters building." As he spoke he looked up. Her eyes were certainly extraordinary. Could she be laughing at him? The prospect of a new building had been, it was true, a joke for many years and evidently she put no more confidence in the statement than he did himself. "Of course, you are aware," he continued to bolster his assertion, "that the road has been bought by an immensely rich lot of Pittsburg duffers——"

The stenographer half rose in her chair. "Will it not be possible for me to pay for my message at once?" she asked somewhat peremptorily.

"I have already franked it."

"But I did not——"

"Don't mention it. All I will ask in return is that you will help me get some letters out of the way to-day," returned Glover, laying a pencil and note-book on the desk before her. "The other work may go till to-morrow. By the way, have you found a boarding-place?"

"A boarding-place?"

"I understand you were looking for one."

"I have one."

"The first letter is to Mr. Bucks—I fancy you know his address—" She did not begin with alacrity. Their eyes met, and in hers there was a queerish expression.

"I'm not at all sure I ought to undertake this," she said rapidly and with a touch of disdainful mischief.

"Give yourself no uneasiness—" he began.

"It is you I fear who are giving yourself uneasiness," she interrupted.

"No, I dictate very slowly. Let's make a trial anyway." To avoid embarrassment he looked the other way when he saw she had taken up the pencil.

"My Dear Bucks," he began. "Your letter with programme for the Pittsburg party is received. Why am I to be nailed to the cross with part of the entertaining? There's no hunting now. The hair is falling off grizzlies and Goff wouldn't take his dogs out at this season for the President of the United States. What would you think of detailing Paddy McGraw to give the young men a fast ride—they have heard of him. I talked yesterday with one of them. He wanted to see a train robber and I introduced him to Conductor O'Brien, but he never saw the joke, and you know how depressing explanations are. Don't, my dear Bucks, put me on a private car with these people for four weeks—my brother died of paresis——"

"Oh!" He turned. The stenographer's cheeks were burning; she was astonishingly pretty. "I'm going too fast, I'm afraid," said Glover.

"I do not think I had better attempt to continue," she answered, rising. Her eyes fairly burned the brown mountain engineer.

"As you like," he replied, rising too, "It was hardly fair to ask you to work to-day. By the way, Mr. Bucks forgot to give me your name."

"Is it necessary that you should have my name?"

"Not in the least," returned Glover with insistent consideration, "any name at all will do, so I shall know what to call you."

For an instant she seemed unable to catch her breath, and he was about to explain that the rarefied air often affected newcomers in that way when she answered with some intensity, "I am Miss Brock. I never have occasion to use any other name."

Whatever result she looked for from her spirited words, his manner lost none of its urbanity. "Indeed? That's the name of our Pittsburg magnate. You ought to be sure of a position under him—you might turn out to be a relation," he laughed, softly.

"Quite possibly."

"Do not return this afternoon," he continued as she backed away from him. "This mountain air is exhausting at first——"

"Your letters?" she queried with an expression that approached pleasant irony.

"They may wait."

She courtesied quaintly. He had never seen such a woman in his life, and as his eyes fixed on her down the dim hall he was overpowered by the grace of her vanishing figure.

Sitting at his table he was still thinking of her when Solomon, the messenger, came in with a telegram. The boy sat down opposite the engineer, while the latter read the message.

"That Miss Brock is fine, isn't she?"

Glover scowled. "I took a despatch over to the car yesterday and she gave me a dollar," continued Solomon.

"What car?"

"Her car. She's in that Pittsburg party."

"The young lady that sat here a moment ago?"

"Sure; didn't you know? There she goes now to the car again." Glover stepped to the east window. A young lady was gathering up her gown to mount the car-step and a porter was assisting her. The daintiness of her manner was a nightmare of conviction. Glover turned from the window and began tearing up papers on his table. He tore up all the worthless papers in sight and for months afterward missed valuable ones. When he had filled the waste-basket he rammed blue-prints down into it with his foot until he succeeded in smashing it. Then he sat down and held his head between his hands.

She was entitled to an apology, or an attempt at one at least, and though he would rather have faced a Sweetgrass blizzard than an interview he set his lips and with bitterness in his heart made his preparations. The incident only renewed his confidence in his incredible stupidity, but what he felt was that a girl with such eyes as hers could never be brought to believe it genuine.

An hour afterward he knocked at the door of the long olive car that stood east of the station. The hand-rails were very bright and the large plate windows shone spotless, but the brown shades inside were drawn. Glover touched the call-button and to the uniformed colored man who answered he gave his card asking for Miss Brock.

An instant during which he had once waited for a dynamite blast when unable to get safely away, came back to him. Standing on the handsome platform he remembered wondering at that time whether he should land in one place or in several places. Now, he wished himself away from that door even if he had to crouch again on the ledge which he had found in a deadly moment he could not escape from. On the previous occasion the fuse had mercifully failed to burn. This time when he collected his thoughts the colored man was smilingly telling him for the second time that Miss Brock was not in.