XII
THE ANCIENTS AND INVALIDS
Brockway was up betimes the following morning, though not of his ownfree will. Two hours before the "Flying Kestrel" was due in Denver, theporter of the Tadmor awakened him at the command of the irasciblegentleman with the hock-bottle shoulders and diaphanous nose. While thepassenger agent was sluicing his face in the wash-room some one proddedhim from behind, and a thin, high-pitched voice wedged itself into thethunderous silence.
"Mr. ah--Brockway; I understand that you are purposing to take the partyto ah--Feather Plume or ah--Silver Feather, or some such place to-day,and I ah--protest! I have no desire to leave Denver until my ticket ismade to conform to my stipulations, sir."
Brockway had soap in his eyes, and the porter had carefully hidden thetowels; for which cause his reply was brief and to the point.
"Please wait till I get washed and dressed before you begin on me, won'tyou?"
"Wait? Do you say ah--wait? I have been doing nothing but wait, sir,ever since my ah--stipulations were ignored. It's an outrage, sir,I----"
Brockway had found a towel and was using it vigorously as acounter-irritant.
"For Heaven's sake, go away and let me alone until I can get my clotheson!" he exclaimed. "I promised you yesterday you should have the thirtydays that you don't need."
The aggrieved one had his ticket out, but he put it away again intremulous indignation. "Go away? Did I ah--understand you to tell me togo away, sir? I ah-h-h----" but words failed him, and he shuffled out ofthe wash-room, cannoning against the little gentleman in the grass-clothduster and velvet skull-cap in the angle of the vestibule.
"Good-morning, Mr. Brockway," said the comforter, cheerily. "Been havinga tilt with Mr. Ticket-limits to begin the day with?"
"Oh, as a matter of course," Brockway replied, flinging the damp towelinto a corner, and brushing his hair as one who transmutes wrath intovigorous action.
"Find him a bit trying, don't you? What particular form does his maniatake this morning?"
"It's the same old thing. I promised him, yesterday, I'd get theextension on his ticket, and now he says he won't leave Denver till it'sdone. He 'ah-protests' that I sha'n't go to Silver Plume with the party;wants me to stay in Denver and put in the day telegraphing."
"Of course, you'll do it; you do anything anybody asks you to."
"Oh, I suppose I'll have to--to keep the peace. And if I don't go and'personally conduct' the others, there'll be the biggest kind of a row.Isn't it enough to wear the patience of a good-natured angel tofrazzles?"
"It is, just that. Have a cigar?"
"No, thank you. I don't smoke before breakfast."
"Neither do I, normally; but like most other people, I leave all my goodhabits at home when I travel. But about Jordan and the thirty-odd; howare you going to dodge the row?"
"The best way I can. There is a good friend of mine on the train--Mr.John Burton, the general agent of the C. & U., in Salt Lake--and perhapsI can get him to go up the canyon for me."
"Think he will do it?"
"I guess so; to oblige me. He'd lose only a day; and he'd makethirty-odd friends for the C. & U., don't you see."
"I must confess that I don't see, from a purely business point of view,"was the rejoinder. "We are all ticketed out and back, and we can'tchange our route if we want to."
Brockway laughed. "The business of passenger soliciting is far-reaching.Some of you--perhaps most of you--will go again next year; and if thegeneral agent of the C. & U. is particularly kind and obliging, you mayremember his line."
"Dear me--why, of course! You say your friend is on the train?"
"Yes."
"Very well; you go and see him, and I'll help you out by breaking thenews to the thirty-odd."
Brockway struggled into his coat and shook hands with the friendly one."Mr. Somers, you're my good angel. You've undertaken a thankless task,though."
The womanish face under the band of the skull-cap broke into a smilewhich was not altogether angelic. "I shall get my pay as I go along; ourfriend with the bad case of ticket dementia will be carrying the entireresponsibility for your absence before I get through."
"Good! pile it on thick," said Brockway, chuckling. "Make 'em understandthat I'd give all my old shoes to go--that I'm so angry with Jordan forspoiling my day's pleasure that I can't see straight."
"I'll do it," the little man agreed. "Take a cigar to smoke afterbreakfast"--and the gray duster and velvet skull-cap disappearedforthwith around the angle in the vestibule.
Not until he was ready to seek Burton did the passenger agent recollectthat the Naught-fifty was between the Tadmor and the Ariadne, and thatit would be the part of prudence to go around rather than through thePresident's car. When he did remember it he stepped out into thevestibule of the Tadmor to get a breath of fresh air while he waited forthe train to come to a station. Mrs. Dunham was on the Naught-fifty'srear platform, and she nodded, smiled, and beckoned him to come across.
"I'm glad to know that somebody else besides a curious old woman caresenough for this grand scenery to get up early in the morning," she said,pleasantly.
"You mustn't make me ashamed," Brockway rejoined. "I'm afraid I shouldhave been sound asleep this minute if I hadn't been routed out by one ofmy people."
Mrs. Dunham smiled. "Gertrude was telling me about some of yourtroubles. Do they get you up early in the morning to ask you foolishquestions?"
"They do, indeed"--and Brockway, glad enough to find a sympatheticlistener, told the story of the pertinacious human gadfly masqueradingunder the name of Jordan.
"Dear, dear! How unreasonable! Will you have to give up the Silver Plumetrip and stay in Denver with him?"
"I suppose so. I'm going forward presently to try to get Mr. Burton andhis wife to take my place with the party for the day."
"Not Mr. John Burton, of the Colorado & Utah?"
"Yes; do you know him?"
"Only through Gertrude; she met them when she was out here last year,and she likes Mrs. Burton very much indeed."
"I'm glad of that," said Brockway, with great _naivete_; "they are verygood friends of mine."
In the pause that succeeded he was reminded that his way and Gertrude'swould shortly diverge again, and in the face of that thought he couldnot well help asking questions.
"I suppose you are going straight on to Utah," he said, not daring tohope for a negative reply.
"Not to-day. I believe it is Mr. Vennor's plan to go on to-morrowmorning."
When he realized what this meant for him, Brockway forgave his evilgenius in the Tadmor. Then he gasped to think how near he had come tomissing his last chance of seeing Gertrude. But he must know more of themovements of the President's party.
"Will you go to a hotel?" he inquired.
"I think not. I heard Mr. Vennor order dinner in the car, so I presumewe shall make it our headquarters during the day."
Brockway reflected that the private car would doubtless be side-trackedon the spur near the telegraph office in the Union Depot, and wrote itdown that prearrangement itself could do no more. When the train drew upat Bovalley a little later, he excused himself and ran quickly forwardto board the Ariadne. Come what might, Burton must be over-persuaded;the thirty-odd must be given no chance to defeat the Heaven-bornopportunity made possible by the pertinacity of the gadfly.
So marched the intention, but the fates willed delay. Bovalley is but aflag-station, and the passenger agent had barely time to swing up to therear platform of the regular sleeper when the train moved on. Then hefound that he had circumvented one obstacle only to be hampered byanother. The rear door of the Ariadne was locked, and the electric bellwas out of repair. Wherefore it was forty minutes later, and Denver wasin sight, when the rear brakeman opened the door and admitted him.