The two men went out and she was left alone. A flagman, hat in hand,
passed through the car. The shock of the engine coupler striking the
buffer hardly disturbed her reverie; for her the night meant too much.
Glover was with the operators giving final instructions to Giddings for
ploughs to meet them without fail at Point of Rocks. Hastening from
the office he looked again at the barometer. It promised badly and the
thermometer stood at ten degrees above zero.
He had made his way through the falling snow to where they were
coupling the engine to the car, watched narrowly, and going forward
spoke to the engineer. When he re-entered the car it was moving slowly
out of the yard.
Gertrude, with a smile, put aside her book. "I am so glad," she said,
looking at her watch. "I hope we shall get there by eleven o'clock; we
should, should we not, Mr. Glover?"
"It's a poor night for making a schedule," was all he said. The arcs
of the long yard threw white and swiftly passing beams of light through
the windows, and the warmth within belied the menace outside.
At the rear end of the car the flagman worked with one of the
tail-lights that burned badly, and the conductor watched him. Gertrude
laid aside her furs and threw open her jacket. Her hat she kept on,
and sitting in a deep chair told Glover of her father's arrival from
the East on Wednesday and explained how she had set her heart on
surprising him that evening at Medicine Bend. "Where are we now?" she
asked, as the rumble of the whirling trucks deepened.
"Entering Sleepy Cat Cañon, the Rat River----"
"Oh, I remember this. I ride on the platform almost every time I come
through here so I may see where you split the mountain. And every time
I see it I ask myself the same question. How came he ever to think of
that?"
It needed even hardly so much of an effort to lull her companion's
uneasiness. He was a man with no concern at best for danger, except as
to the business view of it, and when personally concerned in the hazard
his scruples were never deep. Not before had he seen or known Gertrude
Brock, for from that moment she gave herself to bewilderment and charm.
The great engine pulling them made so little of its load that they
could afford to forget the night; indeed, Gertrude gave him no moments
to reflect. From the quick play of their talk at the table she led him
to the piano. When, sitting down, she drew off her gloves. She drew
them off lazily. When he reminded her that she still had on her jacket
she did not look up, but leaning forward she studied the page of a song
on the rack, running the air with her right hand, while she slowly
extended her left arm toward him and let him draw the tight sleeve over
her wrist and from her shoulder. Then his attempt to relieve her of
the second sleeve she wholly ignored, slipping it lightly off and
pursuing the song with her left hand while she let the jacket fall in a
heap on the floor. By the time Glover had picked it up and she had
frowned at him she might safely have asked him, had the fancy struck
her, to head the engine for the peak of Sleepy Cat Mountain.