Glover looked at his watch; it was Giddings' trick at Medicine Bend,

and he made little doubt of getting what he asked for. He walked to

the eating-house and from there directly across to the roundhouse, and

started a hurry call for the night foreman. He found him at a desk

talking with Paddy McGraw, the engineer that was to have taken out

Number Six.

"Paddy," said Glover, "do you want to take me to Medicine to-night?"

"They've just cancelled Number Six."

"I know it."

"You don't have to go to-night, do you?"

"Yes, with Mr. Brock's car. This isn't as bad as the night you and I

and Jack Moore bucked snow at Point of Rocks," said Glover,

significantly. "Do you remember carrying me from the number seven

culvert clean back to the station after the steampipe broke?"

"You bet I do, and I never thought you'd see again after the way your

eyes were cooked that night. Well, of course, if you want to go

to-night, it's go, Mr. Glover. You know what you're about, but I'd

never look to see you going out for fun a night like this."

"I can't help it. Yet I wouldn't want any man to go out with me

to-night unwillingly, Paddy."

"Why, that's nothing. You got me my first run on this division. I'd

pull you to hell if you said so."

Glover turned to the night foreman. "What's the best engine in the

house?"

"There's the 1018 with steam and a plough."

Glover started. "The 1018?"

"She was to pull Six." The mountain man picked up the telephone, and

getting the operators, sent a rush message to Giddings. Leaving final

instructions with the two men he returned to the telegraph office.

When Giddings's protest about ordering a train out on such a night

came, Glover, who expected it, choked it back--assuming all

responsibility--gave no explanations and waited. When the orders came

he inspected them himself and returned to the car. Gertrude, in the

car alone, was drinking coffee from a hotel tray on the card table.

"It was very kind of you to send this in," she said, rising cordially.

"I had forgotten all about dinner. Have you succeeded?"

"Yes. Could you eat what they sent?"

"Pray look. I have left absolutely nothing and I am very grateful. Do

I not seem so?" she added, searchingly. "I want to because I am."

He smiled at her earnestness. Two little chairs were drawn up at the

table, and facing each other they sat down while Gertrude finished her

coffee and made Glover take a sandwich.

When the train conductor came in ten minutes later Glover talked with

him. While the men spoke Gertrude noticed how Glover overran the

dainty chair she had provided. She scrutinized his rough-weather garb,

the heavy hunting boots, the stout reefer buttoned high, and the

leather cap crushed now with his gloves in his hand. She had been

asking him where he got the cap, and a moment before, while her

attention wandered, he had told her the story of a company of Russian

noblemen and engineers from Vladivostok, who, during the summer, had

been his guests, nominally on a bear hunt, though they knew better than

to hunt bears in summer. It was really to pick up points on American

railroad construction. He might go, he thought, the following spring

to Siberia himself, perhaps to stay--this man that feared the wind--he

had had a good offer. The cap was a present.




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