The day in the Heart River mountains is the thin, gray day of the
alkali and the sage. On Friday afternoon Glover's car lay sidetracked
at the east end of the Nine Mile shed waiting for a limited train to
pass. The train was late and the sun was dropping into an ashen strip
of wind clouds that hung cold as shrouds to the north and west when the
gray-powdered engine whistled for the siding.
Motionless beside the switch Glover saw down the gloom of the shed the
shoes wringing fire from the Pullman wheels, and wondered why they were
stopping. The conductor from the open vestibule waved to him as the
train slowed and ran forward with the message.
"Giddings wired me to wait for your answer, Mr. Glover," said the
conductor.
Glover was reading the telegram: "I may start Saturday.
"G. B."
There was one chance to make it; that was to take the limited train
then and there. Bidding the conductor wait he hastened to his car,
called for his gripsack, gave his assistant a volley of orders, and
boarded a Pullman. Not the preferred stock of the whole system would
have availed at that moment to induce an inspection of Nine Mile shed.
There were men that he knew in the sleepers, but he shunned
acquaintance and walked on till he found an empty section into which he
could throw himself and feast undisturbed on his telegram. He studied
it anew, tried to consider coolly whether her message meant anything or
nothing, and gloated over the magic of the letters that made her
initials: and when he slept, the word last in his heart was Gertrude.
In the morning he breakfasted late in the sunshine of the diner, passed
his friends again and secluded himself in his section. Never before
had she said "I"; always it had been "we." With eyes half-closed upon
the window he repeated the words and spoke her name after them, because
every time the speaking drugged him like lotus, until, yielding again
to the exhaustion of the week's work and strain, he fell asleep.
When he woke the car was dark; the train conductor, Sid Francis, was
sitting beside him, laughing.
"You're sleepy to-day, Mr. Glover."
"Sid, where are we?" asked Glover, looking at his watch; it was four
o'clock.
"Grouse Creek."
"Are we that late? What's the matter?"
The conductor nodded toward the window. "Look there."
The sky was gray with a driving haze; a thin sweep of snow flying in
the sand of the storm was whitening the sagebrush.
Glover, waking wide, turned to the window. "Where's the wind, Sid?"
"Northwest."
"What's the thermometer?"
"Thirty at Creston; sixty when we left MacDill at noon."
"Everything running?"
"They've been getting the freights into division since noon. There'll
be something doing to-night on the range. They sent stock warnings
everywhere this morning, but they can't begin to protect the stock
between here and Medicine in one day. Pulling hard, isn't she? We're
not making up anything."