CHAPTER I
THE TRAIN STOPS
"I don't see why they had to build their old railroad down in thebottom of this river bed." With deft fingers Alice Marcum caught backa wind-tossed whisp of hair. "It's like travelling through a trough."
"Line of the least resistance," answered her companion as he rested anarm upon the polished brass guard rail of the observation car. "Thisriver bed, running east and west, saved them millions in bridges."
The girl's eyes sought the sky-line of the bench that rose on bothsides of the mile-wide valley through which the track of the greattranscontinental railroad wound like a yellow serpent.
"It's level up there. Why couldn't they have built it along the edge?"
The man smiled: "And bridged all those ravines!" he pointed to gaps andnotches in the level sky-line where the mouths of creek beds andcoulees flashed glimpses of far mountains. "Each one of those ravineswould have meant a trestle and trestles run into big money."
"And so they built the railroad down here in this ditch where peoplehave to sit and swelter and look at their old shiny rails and scragglygreen bushes and dirt walls, while up there only a half a mile away thegreat rolling plains stretch away to the mountains that seem so nearyou could walk to them in an hour."
"But, my dear girl, it would not be practical. Railroads are builtprimarily with an eye to dividends and--" The girl interrupted himwith a gesture of impatience.
"I hate things that are practical--hate even the word. There isnothing in all the world so deadly as practicability. It is ruthlessand ugly. It disregards art and beauty and all the higher things thatmake life worth living. It is a monster whose god is dollars--and whoserves that god well. What does any tourist know of the real West--theWest that lies beyond those level rims of dirt? How much do you or Iknow of it? The West to us is a thin row of scrub bushes along anarrow, shallow river, with a few little white-painted towns sprinkledalong, that for all we can see might be in Illinois or Ohio. I've beenaway a whole winter and for all the West I've seen I might as well havestayed in Brooklyn."
"But certainly you enjoyed California!"
"California! Yes, as California. But California isn't the _West_!California is New York with a few orange groves thrown in. It is atourist's paradise. A combination of New York and Palm Beach. Thereal West lies east of the Rockies, the uncommercialized,unexploited--I suppose you would add, the unpractical West. A NewYorker gets as good an idea of the West when he travels by train toCalifornia as a Californian would get of New York were he to arrive byway of the tube and spend the winter in the Fritz-Waldmore."
"I rather liked California, what little I saw of it. A business tripdoes not afford an ideal opportunity for sight seeing."
"You like Newport and Palm Beach, too."
The man ignored the interruption.
"But, at least, this trip has combined a good bit of business with avery big bit of pleasure. It is two years since I have seen youand----"
"And so you're going to tell me for the twenty-sixth time in three daysthat you still love me, and that you want me to marry you, and I'llhave to say 'no' again, and explain that I'm not ready to marryanybody." She regarded him with an air of mock solemnity. "But reallyMr. Winthrop Adams Endicott I think you _have_ improved since youstruck out for yourself into the wilds of--where was it, Ohio, or someplace."
"Cincinnati," answered the man a trifle stiffly. The girl shuddered."I had to change cars there once." Again she eyed him critically."Yes, two years have made a really noticeable improvement. Do theCincinnati newspapers always remember to use your whole name or do theydare to refer to Winthrop A. Endicott. If I were a reporter I reallybelieve I'd try it once. If you keep on improving, some day somebodyis going to call you Win."
The man flushed: "Are you never serious?" he asked.
"Never more so than this minute."
"You say you are not ready to many. You expect to marry, then,sometime?"
"I don't _expect_ to. I'm _going_ to."
"Will you marry me when you are ready?"
The girl laughed. "Yes, if I can't find the man I want, I think Ishall. But he must be somewhere," she continued, after a pause duringwhich her eyes centred upon the point where the two gleaming railsvanished into the distance. "He must be impractical, and human,and--and _elemental_. I'd rather be smashed to pieces in the GrandCanyon, than live for ever on the Erie Canal!"
"Aren't you rather unconventional in your tastes----?"
"If I'm not, I'm a total failure! I hate conventionality! And linesof least resistance! And practical things! It is the _men_ who arethe real sticklers for convention. The same kind of men that followthe lines of least resistance and build their railroads alongthem--because it is practical!
"I don't see why you want to marry me!" she burst out resentfully."I'm not conventional, nor practical. And I'm not a line of leastresistance!"
"But I love you. I have always loved you, and----"
The girl interrupted him with a quick little laugh, which held no traceof resentment. "Yes, yes, I know. I believe you do. And I'm gladbecause really, Winthrop, you're a dear. There are lots of thingsabout you I admire. Your teeth, and eyes, and the way you wear yourclothes. If you weren't so terribly conventional, so cut and dried,and matter of fact, and _safe_, I might fall really and truly in lovewith you. But--Oh, I don't know! Here I am, twenty-three. And Isuppose I'm a little fool and have never grown up. I like to readstories about knights errant, and burglars, and fair ladies, andpirates, and mysterious dark oriental-looking men. And I like to go toplaces where everybody don't go--only Dad won't let me and---- Whyjust think!" she exclaimed in sudden wrath, "I've been in Californiafor three months and I've ridden over the same trails everybody elsehas ridden over, and motored over the same roads and climbed the samemountains, and bathed at the same beach, and I've met everybody I everknew in New York, just as I would have met them in Newport or PalmBeach or in Paris or Venice or Naples for that matter!"
"But why go off the beaten track where everything is arranged for yourconvenience? These people are experienced travellers. They know thatby keeping to the conventional routes-----"
"Winthrop Adams Endicott, if you say that word again I'll shriek! OrI'll go in from this platform and not speak to you again--ever! Youknow very well that there isn't a traveller among them. They're justtourists--professional goers. They do the same things, and say thesame things, and if they could think, they'd think the same thingsevery place they go. And I don't want things arranged for myconvenience--so there!"
Winthrop Adams Endicott lighted a cigarette, brushed some white dustfrom his sleeve, and smiled.
"If I were a man and loved a girl so very, very much I wouldn't justsit around and grin. I'd do something!"
"But, my dear Alice, what would you have me do? I'm not a knighterrant, nor a burglar, nor a pirate, nor a dark mysteriousoriental--I'm just a plain ordinary business man and----"
"Well, I'd do something--even if it was something awful like gettingdrunk or shooting somebody. Why, if you even had a past you wouldn'tbe so hopeless. I could love a man with a past. It would show atleast, that he hadn't followed the line of the least resistance. Theworld is full of canals--but there are only a few canyons. Look! Ibelieve we're stopping! Oh, I hope it's a hold-up! What will you doif it is?" The train slowed to a standstill and Winthrop AdamsEndicott leaned out and gazed along the line of the coaches.
"There is a little town here. Seems to be some commotion upahead--quite a crowd. If I can get this blamed gate open we can go upand see what the trouble is."
"And if you can't get it open you can climb over and lift me down. I'mjust dying to know what's the matter. And if you dare to say itwouldn't be conventional I'll--I'll jump!"