When Marie and Mrs. Whitney came up, Gertrude sat calmly before the
grate fire, but the note lay hidden over her heart, for in it he had
whispered that while he was away every night at eight o'clock and every
morning, no matter where she should be, or what doing, he should kiss
her lips and her eyes as he had kissed them that first morning in the
dark, warm office. When eight o'clock came her aunt and her sister sat
with her; but Gertrude at eight o'clock, musing, was with her lover and
her lips and eyes again were his to do with what he would. Later
Doctor Lanning came in and she roused to hear the news about the snow.
Between Sleepy Cat and Bear Dance two passenger trains were stalled,
and on Blackbird hill the snow was reported four feet deep on the level.
When the doctor had gone and Marie had retired, Gertrude's aunt talked
to her seriously about her father, whose almost frantic condition over
what he called Gertrude's infatuation was alarming.
Her aunt explained how her final refusal of Allen Harrison, a
connection on which her father had set his heart, might result in the
total disruption of the plans which held so mighty interests together;
and how impossible it was that he should ever consent to her throwing
herself away on an obscure Western man.
Only occasionally would Gertrude interrupt. "Don't strip the poor man
of everything, auntie. If it must come to family--the De Gallons and
Cirodes and Glovers were lords of the Mississippi when our Hessian
forefathers were hiding from Washington in the Trenton hazelbushes."
She could meet her aunt's fears with jests and her tears with smiles
until the worried lady chancing on a deeper chord disarmed her. "You
know you are my pet, Gertrude. I am your foster-mother, dear, and I
have tried to be mother to you and Marie, and sister to my brother
every day of my life since your mother died. And if you----"
Then Gertrude's arms would enfold her and her head hide on her aunt's
shoulder, and they would part utterly miserable.
One morning when Gertrude woke it was snowing and Medicine Bend was cut
completely off from the western end of the division. The cold in the
desert districts had made it impossible to move freights. During the
night they had been snowed in on sidings all the way from Sleepy Cat
east. By night every wire was down; the last message in was a private
one from Glover, with the ploughs, dated at Nine Mile.
Solomon brought the telegram up to Gertrude with the intimation that,
confidentially, Mr. Blood's assistant, in charge of the Wickiup, would
be glad to hear any news it might contain about the blockade, as
communication was now cut entirely off.