Talking, Glover and Marie followed Gertrude and Stumah out on the grass

and across to the big platform where an overland train had pulled in

from the west. They watched the changing of the engines and the crews,

and the promenade of the travellers from the Pullmans.

While Gertrude amused herself with the dog, and Marie asked questions

about the locomotive, Mrs. Whitney and Louise spied them and walked

over. Glover, to make his peace, was compelled to take dinner with the

party in their car. The atmosphere of the special train had never

seemed so attractive as on that night. To cordiality was added

deference. The effect of his success in the cañon--only striking

rather than remarkable--was noticeable on Mr. Brock. At dinner, which

was served at one table in the dining-car, Glover was brought by the

Pittsburg magnate to sit at his own right hand, Bucks being opposite.

No one may ever say that the value of resource in emergency is lost on

the dynamic Mr. Brock. But having placed his guest in the seat of

honor he paid no further attention to him unless his running fire of

big secrets, discussed before the engineer unreservedly with Bucks,

might be taken as implying that he looked on the constructionist of the

Mountain Division as one of his inner official family.

Glover understood the abstraction of big men, and this forgetfulness

was no discouragement. There was an abstraction on his left where

Gertrude sat that was less comfortable.

At no moment during the time he had spent with the company had he been

able to penetrate her reserve enough to make more than an attempt at an

apology for his appalling blunder in the office. With the others he

never found himself at a loss for a word or an opportunity; with

Gertrude he was apparently helpless.

The talk at the lower end of the table ran for a while to comment on

the washout, to Glover's wrist, and during lulls Mrs. Whitney across

the table asked questions calculated to draw a family history from her

uneasy guest. Even Glover's waiter gave him so much attention that he

got little to eat, but the engineer concealed no effort to see that

Gertrude Brock was served and to break down by unobtrusive courtesies

her determined restraint.

When the evening was over he found himself at the pass to which every

evening in her company brought him--the unpleasant consciousness of a

failure of his endeavors and a return of the rage he felt at himself

for having blundered into her bad graces. Her father wanted him to

return with them in the morning to Sleepy Cat to go over the tunnel

plans again. That done, Glover resolved at all costs to escape from

the punishment which every moment near her brought.




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