III
THE REVERIE OF A BACHELOR
It was shortly after midnight when the "Overland Flyer" made itsunscheduled stop behind a freight train which was blocking the track atthe blind siding at Coyote. Always a light sleeper, Ballard was arousedby the jar and grind of the sudden brake-clipping; and after lying awakeand listening for some time, he got up and dressed and went forward tosee what had happened.
The accident was a box-car derailment, caused by a broken truck, and themen of both train crews were at work trying to get the disabled car backupon the steel and the track-blocking train out of the "Flyer's" way.Inasmuch as such problems were acutely in his line, Ballard thought ofoffering to help; but since there seemed to be no special need, he satdown on the edge of the ditch-cutting to look on.
The night was picture fine; starlit, and with the silent wideness of thegreat upland plain to give it immensity. The wind, which for the firsthundred miles of the westward flight had whistled shrilly in the carventilators, was now lulled to a whispering zephyr, pungent with thesubtle soil essence of the grass-land spring.
Ballard found a cigar and smoked it absently. His eyes followed thetoilings of the train crews prying and heaving under the derailed car,with the yellow torch flares to pick them out; but his thoughts were farafield, with his dinner-table companion to beckon them.
"Companion" was the word which fitted her better than any other. Ballardhad found few men, and still fewer women, completely companionable. Someone has said that comradeship is the true test of affinity; and theKentuckian remembered with a keen appreciation of the truth of thissaying a summer fortnight spent at the Herbert Lassleys' cottage on theNorth Shore, with Miss Craigmiles as one of his fellow-guests.
Margaret Lassley had been kind to him on that occasion, holding thereins of chaperonage lightly. There had been sunny afternoons on thebreezy headlands, and blood-quickening mornings in Captain Tinkham'sschooner-rigged whale-boat, when the white horses were racing across theouter reef and the water was too rough to tempt the other members of thehouse-party.
He had monopolised Elsa Craigmiles crudely during those two weeks,glorying in her beauty, in her bright mind, in her triumphant physicalfitness. He remembered how sturdily their comradeship had grown duringthe uninterrupted fortnight. He had told her all there was to tell abouthimself, and in return she had alternately mocked him and pretended toconfide in him; the confidences touching such sentimental passages asthe devotion of the Toms, the Dicks, and the Harrys of her collegeyears.
Since he had sometimes wished to be sentimental on his own account,Ballard had been a little impatient under these frivolous appeals forsympathy. But there is a certain tonic for growing love even in suchbucketings of cold water as the loved one may administer in telling thetale of the predecessor. It is a cold heart, masculine, that will notfind warmth in anything short of the ice of indifference; and whateverher faults, Miss Elsa was never indifferent. Ballard recalled how he hadgroaned under the jesting confidences. Also, he remembered that he hadnever dared to repel them, choosing rather to clasp the thorns than torelinquish the rose.
From the sentimental journey past to the present stage of the same wasbut a step; but the present situation was rather perplexingly befogged.Why had Elsa Craigmiles changed her mind so suddenly about spending thesummer in Europe? What could have induced her to substitute a summer inColorado, travelling under Mrs. Van Bryck's wing?
The answer to the queryings summed itself up, for the Kentuckian, in aname--the name of a man and a playwright. He held Mr. Lester Wingfieldresponsible for the changed plans, and was irritably resentful. In theafter-dinner visit with the sight-seeing party in the Pullman there hadbeen straws to indicate the compass-point of the wind. Elsa deferred toWingfield, as the other women did; only in her case Ballard was sure itmeant more. And the playwright, between his posings as a literaryoracle, assumed a quiet air of proprietorship in Miss Craigmiles thatwas maddening.
Ballard recalled this, sitting upon the edge of the ditch-cutting in theheart of the fragrant night, and figuratively punched Mr. Wingfield'shead. Fate had been unkind to him, throwing him thus under the wheels ofthe opportune when the missing of a single train by either thesight-seers or himself would have spared him.
Taking that view of the matter, there was grim comfort in the thoughtthat the mangling could not be greatly prolonged. The two orbitscoinciding for the moment would shortly go apart again; doubtless uponthe morning's arrival in Denver. It was well. Heretofore he had beenasked to sympathise only in a subjective sense. With another lovercorporeally present and answering to his name, the torture would becomeobjective--and blankly unendurable.
Notwithstanding, he found himself looking forward with keen desire toone more meeting with the beloved tormentor--to a table exchange ofthoughts and speech at the dining-car breakfast which he masterfullyresolved not all the playmakers in a mumming world should forestall orinterrupt.
This determination was shaping itself in the Kentuckian's brain when,after many futile backings and slack-takings, the ditched car wasfinally induced to climb the frogs and to drop successfully upon therails. When the obstructing freight began to move, Ballard flung awaythe stump of his cigar and climbed the steps of the first open vestibuleon the "Flyer," making his way to the rear between the sleepingemigrants in the day-coaches.
Being by this time hopelessly wakeful, he filled his pipe and sought thesmoking-compartment of the sleeping-car. It was a measure of hisabstraction that he did not remark the unfamiliarity of the place; allother reminders failing, he should have realised that the fat negroporter working his way perspiringly with brush and polish paste througha long line of shoes was not the man to whom he had given his suit-casesin the Council Bluffs terminal.
But thinking pointedly of Elsa Craigmiles, and of the joy of sharinganother meal with her in spite of the Lester Wingfields, he saw nothing,noted nothing; and the reverie, now frankly traversing the field ofsentiment, ran on unbroken until he became vaguely aware that the trainhad stopped and started again, and that during the pause there had beensundry clankings and jerkings betokening the cutting off of a car.
A hasty question fired at the fat porter cleared the atmosphere ofdoubt.
"What station was that we just passed?"
"Short Line Junction, sah; whah we leaves the Denver cyar--yes, sah."
"What? Isn't this the Denver car?"
"No, indeed, sah. Dish yer cyar goes on th'oo to Ogden; yes, sah."
Ballard leaned back again and chuckled in ironic self-derision. He wasnot without a saving sense of humour. What with midnight prowlings andsentimental reveries he had managed to sever himself most abruptly andeffectually from his car, from his hand-baggage, from the prefiguredbreakfast, with Miss Elsa for his _vis-a-vis_; and, what was of vastlygreater importance, from the chance of a day-long business conferencewith President Pelham!
"Gardiner, old man, you are a true prophet; it isn't in me to think girland to play the great game at one and the same moment," he said,flinging a word to the assistant professor of geology across thedistance abysses; and the fat porter said: "Sah?"
"I was just asking what time I shall reach Denver, going in by way ofthe main line and Cheyenne," said Ballard, with cheerful mendacity.
"Erbout six o'clock in the evenin', sah; yes, sah. Huccome you to getlef', Cap'n Boss?"
"I didn't get left; it was the Denver sleeper that got left," laughedthe Kentuckian. After which he refilled his pipe, wrote a telegram toMr. Pelham, and one to the Pullman conductor about his hand-baggage, andresigned himself to the inevitable, hoping that the chapter of accidentshad done its utmost.
Unhappily, it had not, as the day forthcoming amply proved. ReachingCheyenne at late breakfast-time, Ballard found that the Denver trainover the connecting line waited for the "Overland" from the West; also,that on this day of all days, the "Overland" was an hour behind herschedule. Hence there was haste-making extraordinary at the end of theBoston-Denver flight. When the delayed Cheye
nne train clattered in overthe switches, it was an hour past dark. President Pelham was waitingwith his automobile to whisk the new chief off to a hurried dinner-tableconference at the Brown Palace; and what few explanations andinstructions Ballard got were sandwiched between the _consomme augratin_ and the dessert.
Two items of information were grateful. The Fitzpatrick Brothers,favourably known to Ballard, were the contractors on the work; andLoudon Bromley, who had been his friend and loyal understudy in thetechnical school, was still the assistant engineer, doing his best topush the construction in the absence of a superior.
Since the chief of any army stands or falls pretty largely by the graceof his subordinates, Ballard was particularly thankful for Bromley. Hewas little and he was young; he dressed like an exquisite, wore neatlittle patches of side-whiskers, shot straight, played the violin, andstuffed birds for relaxation. But in spite of these hindrances, or,perhaps, because of some of them, he could handle men like a borncaptain, and he was a friend whose faithfulness had been proved morethan once.
"I shall be only too glad to retain Bromley," said Ballard, when thepresident told him he might choose his own assistant. And, as timepressed, he asked if there were any other special instructions.
"Nothing specific," was the reply. "Bromley has kept things moving, butthey can be made to move faster, and we believe you are the man to setthe pace, Mr. Ballard; that's all. And now, if you are ready, we havefifteen minutes in which to catch the Alta Vista train--plenty of time,but none to throw away. I have reserved your sleeper."
It was not until after the returning automobile spin; after Ballard hadchecked his baggage and had given his recovered suit-cases to the porterof the Alta Vista car; that he learned the significance of the fightingclause in the president's Boston telegram.
They were standing at the steps of the Pullman for the final word; haddrawn aside to make room for a large party of still later comers; whenthe president said, with the air of one who gathers up the unconsideredtrifles:
"By the way, Mr. Ballard, you may not find it all plain sailing upyonder. Arcadia Park has been for twenty years a vast cattle-ranch,owned, or rather usurped, by a singular old fellow who is known as the'King of Arcadia.' Quite naturally, he opposes our plan of turning thepark into a well-settled agricultural field, to the detriment of hisfree cattle range, and he is fighting us."
"In the courts, you mean?"
"In the courts and out of them. I might mention that it was one of hiscow-men who killed Sanderson; though that was purely a personal quarrel,I believe. The trouble began with his refusal to sell us a few acres ofland and a worthless mining-claim which our reservoir may submerge, andwe were obliged to resort to the courts. He is fighting for delay now,and in the meantime he encourages his cow-boys to maintain a sort ofguerrilla warfare on the contractors: stealing tools, disablingmachinery, and that sort of thing. This was Macpherson's story, and I'mpassing it on to you. You are forty miles from the nearest sheriff'soffice over there; but when you need help, you'll get it. Of course, thecompany will back you--to the last dollar in the treasury, ifnecessary."
Ballard's rejoinder was placatory. "It seems a pity to open up the newcountry with a feud," he said, thinking of his native State and of whatthese little wars had done for some portions of it. "Can't the oldfellow be conciliated in some way?"
"I don't know," replied the president doubtfully. "We want peaceablepossession, of course, if we can get it; capital is always on the sideof peace. In fact, we authorised Macpherson to buy peace at any price inreason, and we'll give you the same authority. But Macpherson alwaysrepresented the old cattle king as being unapproachable on that side. Onthe other hand, we all know what Macpherson was. He had a pretty roughtongue when he was at his best; and he was in bad health for a long timebefore the derrick fell on him. I dare say he didn't try diplomacy."
"I'll make love to the cow-punching princesses," laughed Ballard; "thatis, if there are any."
"There is one, I understand; but I believe she doesn't spend much of hertime at home. The old man is a widower, and, apart from his senselessfight on the company, he appears to be--but I won't prejudice you inadvance."
"No, don't," said Ballard. "I'll size things up for myself on theground. I----"
The interruption was the dash of a switch-engine up the yard withanother car to be coupled to the waiting mountain line train. Ballardsaw the lettering on the medallion: "08".
"Somebody's private hotel?" he remarked.
"Yes. It's Mr. Brice's car, I guess. He was in town to-day."
Ballard was interested at once.
"Mr. Richard Brice?--the general manager of the D. & U. P.?"
The president nodded.
"That's great luck," said Ballard, warmly. "We were classmates in theInstitute, and I haven't seen him since he came West. I think I'll ridein the Naught-eight till bedtime."
"Glad you know him," said the president. "Get in a good word for ourrailroad connection with his line at Alta Vista, while you're about it.There is your signal; good-by, and good luck to you. Don'tforget--'drive' is the word; for every man, minute, and dollar there isin it."
Ballard shook the presidential hand and swung up to the platform of theprivate car. A reluctant porter admitted him, and thus it came aboutthat he did not see the interior of his own sleeper until long after theother passengers had gone to bed.
"Good load to-night, John?" he said to the porter, when, the private carvisit being ended, the man was showing him to his made-down berth.
"Yes, sah; mighty good for de branch. But right smart of dem is ladies,and dey don't he'p de po' portah much."
"Well, I'll pay for one of them, anyway," said the Kentuckian,good-naturedly doubling his tip. "Be sure you rout me out bright andearly; I want to get ahead of the crowd."
And he wound his watch and went to bed, serenely unconscious that thehat upon the rail-hook next to his own belonged to Mr. Lester Wingfield;that the hand-bags over which he had stumbled in the dimly lighted aislewere the _impedimenta_ of the ladies Van Bryck; or that the daintylittle boots proclaiming the sex--and youth--of his fellow-traveller inthe opposite Number Six were the foot-gear of Miss Elsa Craigmiles.