Miss Dividends Part 34

Lawrence, however, makes no attempt at further communication with Miss Travenion, reflecting savagely: "Perhaps before this trip is over, Miss Haughty may need my aid, and call on me, and then I'll explain."

So they pa.s.s up the valley of the Bear, the storm getting wilder, and the snow deeper, as they pull up the heavy grades, and it is night before they reach Aspen, though they have two strong locomotives dragging them.

Then they come to the Aspen Y, which is the top of the divide, and from which there is a down grade running almost to Green River.

But this part of the road is a difficult one to get over. Two locomotives are not considered too much for its grade when there is no snow on the track; now they can just handle the train, the track being slippery, and the snow-drifts heavy and increasing.

It is usual to make a flying switch at this point--one engine detaching itself from the train and entering the Y; leaving one locomotive, which is amply sufficient under ordinary circ.u.mstances, to take care of a train on the steep down grade, which begins at this place.

To-night the two locomotives should both remain attached to the train, and pull it entirely over the divide together--the helping engine being compelled, of course, to go on as far as the next station, Piedmont.

But the conductor, being a man of routine, does it in his ordinary summer way, by the flying switch, and sends the helping locomotive away. This giving its warning toot, uncouples from the second engine, runs ahead of it, and making a switch into the Y, is ready for its return to Evanston.

But the single locomotive now attached to the train has not steam to carry it over the divide; its wheels gradually revolve more slowly, the efforts of the great iron beast become more and more labored, and finally the train comes to a dead standstill, fifty yards from where the grade commences to descend.

Then, when too late, the other locomotive comes back and goes to its a.s.sistance; but the train has stopped--the drifts gradually closing in round the wheels--and now both locomotives cannot move what they could have together carried certainly over the mountain.

Though the attempt is made again and again, the train is stalled, and the snow comes down faster and faster and drifts deeper and deeper.

Fortunately, the failure of the Central Pacific to connect, has produced a very light pa.s.senger list. Harry notices there are only three in his sleeper--a consumptive, going to Colorado, and a lady tourist and her child, a boy of about ten, who have been seeing Salt Lake City.

On the Pullman occupied by Miss Travenion there is only one other traveller--a young girl who is being forwarded to an Eastern school by Gentile parents connected with the Union Pacific Railway, in Ogden.

These, however, after a little, set up a wail. It is for supper, which the conductor grimly informs them is waiting for them at Green River, ninety miles away.

Then comes the triumph of Chicago business methods, and Buck Powers, issuing from the baggage car, cries dominantly: "PIES!! Beefsteak pies!--Mutton pies!--Dried-apple pies! PIES!!"

Going to him, Lawrence says anxiously: "Have you looked after her?"

"Do you think I'd let Miss Beauty starve?" utters the boy in stern reproach. "I have provisioned her stateroom for two days. She's got three beefsteak pies, two mutton hash pasties, two pork turnovers, and six a.s.sorted jam and fruit tarts, as well as a dozen apples. I have done my duty to her, though you haven't. You've left her alone all to-day--you ain't been near to jolly her up. She needs chinning, she does. I have had to step into your shoes and comfort her!"

"Oh, you have, have you?" returns Harry. "Thank you!"

"Well, I'm right glad you're grateful!" remarks Buck. "More so, perhaps, than she is, for when I asked her if she'd seen Brother Brigham at Salt Lake, and how she thought she'd like to be a Mormon--I always ask these questions of tourists coming from Salt Lake--she rose up, a kind of mixture of the Statue of Liberty and my old schoolmarm in Indianie, and said, 'Please continue your business tour at once!' So I got a move on, quick. The next time I pa.s.sed by, her eyes were red, as if she'd been crying. I don't think you've been doing your duty, Cap!"

With this the boy goes on his way, leaving Lawrence rather elated at his information, for he shrewdly guesses that if Miss Travenion is in any very great trouble, she is more likely to call upon him than any one else to help her out of it. Knowing that she is well provisioned and taken care of, some hour or two after this, he having nothing else to do, goes to bed, something the other pa.s.sengers have already done.

Next morning, looking out of the car window, Harry finds the snow deeper than ever, and still falling, and the train stalled more hopelessly than ever at the Aspen Y, now known on railroad maps as Tapioca.

CHAPTER XVI.

"TO THE GIRL I LOVE!"

Getting dressed, Lawrence negotiates with Buck Powers for another pie for breakfast.

That worthy informs him that "provisions has riz" during the night.

"There ain't enough for another round," he says. "If you weren't the Cap I should charge you double."

"Then we shall all be hungry soon--unless relief comes?" asks Harry, as he briskly attacks a pork turn-over, for the crisp, snowy air produces a mountain appet.i.te.

"All but her," remarks Buck. "She's fixed as I told you!"

Thinking he will see what chance there is of immediate relief from their present predicament, Lawrence lights a cigar, and steps off the train into a snow-drift. A hasty examination shows there is no chance of the train being moved, until it is shovelled out by hand, though he is pleased to note that the sun has come out, s.h.i.+ning brightly, and the snow has ceased falling for the present.

A moment after, he gives an exclamation of delight, for the view is a very beautiful one.

To the south, standing out against the horizon, and looking much nearer than they are, stand the Uintah Mountains, dark blue at their base line with pine forests, and white with eternal snow on their peaks. From them, right to his feet, an unbroken tableland of one solid ma.s.s of white. Midway between these mountains and himself, runs the Utah line, and somehow--though the idea hardly forms itself in his mind--he would sooner, on account of the young lady he is protecting, it were further away, especially when he remembers that it is but very little over twenty miles by the railroad over which they have come, from the boundaries of the Mormon Territory. He doesn't think long of this, as he gets interested in watching the movements of the locomotives.

These are now both switched on the Y and are moving about slowly, with a view of keeping themselves what is technically called "alive"--that is, their steam up, sufficient to give them power of motion. Every now and again one is run off the Y and down the main track towards Green River and the east, keeping that portion of the road open, as far as the mouth of a long snow shed, which begins a little way from where Harry stands, and disappears in the distance towards Piedmont.

Towards the east and north he can see a long distance, as the descent is quite rapid to the big plateaus that run to Green River, but there is nothing given to his eye save snow--snow everywhere.

A moment after, the conductor comes tramping through the drifts, and knowing Captain Lawrence by reputation, stops to speak to him.

"I presume," says Harry, "you wired our situation to Evanston last night."

"Of course, and a nice tramp I had of it to the telegraph station. It's over a mile back, and the drifts made it seem five. Every one from here to Ogden, along the track, by this time knows our position."

"I suppose they'll be sending up a relief train soon."

"I hardly think so, before to-morrow," replies the conductor. "They have got all they can take care of, down below at Evanston, just at present.

In fact, I imagine we've not seen the worst of it."

And this is a shrewd prediction, because, though he doesn't know it, this is just the beginning of the great snow blockade of '71 and '72, on the Union Pacific Railway, when some trains were delayed for thirty days between Ogden and Omaha--the usual time being less than three.

"Fortunately, we've not got a heavy train to move," remarks Lawrence, who is anxious to look on the best side of everything.

"And, thank G.o.d! no great amount of pa.s.sengers," replies the conductor.

"Otherwise there would have been a howl for grub before now. We've only got two outside those on the sleepers, and one is a woman, and the other a little girl, the daughter of the engineer of the helping locomotive.

He's got her in his arms now, as he stands by his engine. Come over and see what he thinks," adds the autocrat of the train, as he trudges off through the snow towards one of the locomotives on the Y.

Harry has taken a step to follow him, when he suddenly pauses.

He is just outside Miss Travenion's Pullman car, and now, through a window that is slightly open, comes the voice of his divinity, who is seated at one of the organs those cars sometimes had in those days.

Curiously enough, the girl whom Buck had reported as having the blues last night, is singing the brightest and merriest of ditties this morning.

"By George! It must be because she has plenty to eat," cogitates Lawrence, lighting another cigar on the question.

But a few minutes after, in his own car, Mr. Powers chancing to come along, he gets some information which he thinks elucidates the matter.

"She's kind o' joyous in there, ain't she, Cap?" says Buck, with a grin.

"An' I reckon I did it!"

"How?"