She ignored a conventional offer of waste from the man in charge of the

cab, who she was surprised to learn, after some sympathetic remarks on

her part, was not the engineman at all. He was a man that had

something to do with horses. And when she suggested it would be quite

an event for so big an engine to go over the mountains for the first

time, the hostler told her it had already been over a good many times.

But Mr. Blood had an easy explanation for every confusing statement,

and did not falter even when Miss Brock wanted to start the 1018

herself. He objected that she would soil her gloves, but she held them

up in derision; plainly, they had already suffered. Some difficulty

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then arose because she could not begin to reach the throttle. Again,

with much chaffing, the stepladder was brought into play, and steadied

on it by Morris Blood, and coached by the hostler, the heiress to many

millions grasped the throttle, unlatched it and pulled at the lever

vigorously with both hands.

The packing was new, but Gertrude persisted, the bar yielded, and to

her great fright things began to hiss. The engine moved like a roaring

leviathan, and the author of the mischief screamed, tried to stop it,

and being helpless appealed to the unshaven man to help her. Glover,

however, was nearest and shut off.

It was all very exciting, and when on the turntable Gertrude was told

by the doctor that her suit was completely ruined she merely held up

both her blackened gloves, laughing, as Glover came up; and caught up

her begrimed skirt and joined him with a flush on her cheeks as bright

as a danger signal.

Some fervor of the magical day, under those skies where autumn itself

is only a heavier wine than spring, something of the deep breath of the

mountain scene seemed to infect her.

She walked at Glover's side. She recalled with the slightest pretty

mirth his fetching the ladder--the way in which he had crossed a flat

car by planting the ladder alongside, mounting, pulling the steps after

him, and descending on them to the other side.

In her humor she faintly suggested his awkward competence in doing

things, and he, too, laughed. As they crossed track after track she

would place the toe of her boot on a rail glittering in the sun, and

rising, balance an instant to catch an answer from him before going on.

There was no haste in their manner. They had crossed the railroad

yard, strangers; they recrossed it quite other. Their steps they

retraced, but not their path. The path that led them that day together

to the engine was never to be retraced.

To worry Crosby's new locomotive, Blood's car had been ordered added to

the westbound limited, but neither Glover nor Blood spent any time in

the private car. The afternoon went in the Pullman with Gertrude Brock

and Doctor Lanning. At dinner Glover did the ordering because he had

earlier planned to celebrate the promotion, already known, of Morris

Blood to the general superintendency.




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