Number Fifty-one was not yet due at Golden, and a telegram to that station would doubtless reach Gertrude.
"Take a message to Miss Gertrude, Harry," he began; but while he was trying to formulate it in words which should be peremptory without being incendiary, he thought better of it and went out to send it himself.
There was a querulous old gentleman in the telegraph office who was making life burdensome for the operator, and it was with no little difficulty that the President secured enough of the young man"s time and attention to serve his purpose.
"You are quite sure you can reach Golden before the train gets there, are you?" he said, writing the number of his telegraph frank in the corner of the blank.
"Oh, yes," replied the operator, with an upward glance at the clock; "there"s plenty of time. I"ll send it right away."
"But I ah--protest!" declared the querulous gentleman, and he failed not to do so most emphatically after the President left the office.
The operator turned a deaf ear, and sent the message to Miss Vennor; and when, in due course of time, Brockway"s answer came, he sent it out to the private car. The President was still dictating and was in the midst of a letter when the yellow envelope was handed him, but he stopped short and opened the telegram. The reading of Brockway"s insolent question imposed a severe test upon Mr. Vennor"s powers of self-control, and the outcome was not wholly a victory on the side of stoicism.
"Curse his impudence!" he broke out, wrathfully; "I"ll make this cost him something before he"s through with it!" and he sprang to his feet and hurried out with the inflammatory message in his hand.
It is a trite saying that anger is an evil counsellor, and whoso hearkens thereto will have many things to repent of. No one knew the value of this aphorism better than Francis Vennor, but for once in a way he allowed himself to disregard it. He knew well enough that a delicately worded hint to Burton would bring the general agent and his wife and Gertrude back to Denver on the next train, but wrath would not be satisfied with such a placable expedient. On the contrary, he resolved to communicate directly with Gertrude herself, and to rebuke her openly, as her undutiful conduct deserved.
In the telegraph office the operator was still having trouble with the querulous gentleman, but the President went to the desk to write his message, shutting his ears to the shrill voice of the gadfly.
"But, sir, I must ah--protest. I distinctly heard Mr. ah--Brockway tell you to send anything I desired, and I demand that you send this; it was part of the ah--stipulation, sir!"
"This" was a message of five hundred-odd words to the local railway agent in the small town where Mr. Jordan had purchased his ticket, setting forth his grievance at length; and the operator naturally demurred. While he was trying to persuade the pertinacious gentleman to cut the jeremiad down to a reasonable length, the President finished his telegram to his daughter. It was curt and incisive.
"TO MISS GERTRUDE VENNOR, "On Train 51.
"If you do not return this forenoon we shall not wait for you.
"FRANCIS VENNOR."
The operator took it, and the President glanced at his watch.
"Can you catch that train at Beaver Brook?" he inquired.
"Yes, just about."
"Do it, then, at once. Excuse me--" to the gadfly--"this is very important, and you have all day for your business."
The brusque interruption started the fountain of protests afresh, but the operator turned away and sat down to his instrument. Beaver Brook answered its call promptly, and the message to Miss Vennor clicked swiftly through the sounder.
For a quarter of an hour or more, Brockway"s friend in the Golden office had been neglecting his work and listening intently to the irrelevant chattering of his sounder. He heard Denver call Beaver Brook, and when the station in the canyon answered, he promptly grounded the wire and caught up his pen. The effect of this manoeuvre was to short-circuit that particular wire at Golden, cutting off all stations beyond; but this the Denver operator could not know. As a result, the President"s telegram got no farther than Golden, and Brockway"s friend took it down as it was sent. At the final word he opened the wire again in time to hear Beaver Brook swear at the prolonged "break," and ask Denver what was wanted.
Thereupon followed a smart quarrel in telegraphic shorthand, in which Denver accused Beaver Brook of going to sleep over his instrument, and Beaver Brook intimated that Denver was intoxicated. All of which gave the obstructionist at Golden a clear minute in which to determine what to do.
"If I only knew what Fred wants to have happen," he mused, "I might be able to fix it up right for him. As I don"t, I"ll just have to make hash of it--no, I won"t, either; I"ll just trim it down a bit and make it talk backward--that"s the idea! and three words dropped will do it, by jing! Wonder if I can get the switchboard down fine enough to cut them out? Here she comes again."
The quarrel was concluded and Denver began to repeat the message.
Brockway"s friend bent over his table with his soul in his ears and his finger-tips. Denver was impatient, and the preliminaries chattered through the sounder as one long word. At the final letter in the address, the Golden man"s switch-key flicked to the right and then back again; and at the tenth word in the message the movement was repeated.
"O. K.," said Beaver Brook.
"Repeat," clicked Denver.
"No time; train"s here," came back from the station in the canyon; and Brockway"s friend sat back and chuckled softly.
XX
CHIEFLY SCENIC
When the train drew up to the platform at Beaver Brook, Brockway asked Gertrude if he should go and see if there were a message for her.
"No," she said, perversely; "let it find me, if it can."
It came, a minute later, by the hand of Conductor Halsey. She read it with a little frown of perplexity gathering between the straight brows.
"Do we live or die?" Brockway asked, crucially anxious to know what his friend had been able to do for him.
"Why, I don"t understand it at all; it"s simply Greek, after the other one. Papa says: "Do not return on forenoon train. We shall wait for you.""
"Good; I am a true prophet, and our white day is a.s.sured."
"Y--yes, but I don"t begin to understand how he came to change his mind so quickly."
"Perhaps it was the moral force of my impudence," ventured Brockway.
"Don"t make any such mistake as that," she said, quickly. "Papa will not forgive or forget that, and I am sorry you did it."
"You are a bundle of inconsistencies, as you promised to be," Brockway retorted. "But I"m not sorry, and I don"t pretend to be. If I had smothered my little inspiration and given you your telegram at Golden, you wouldn"t be enjoying this magnificent scenery now."
"No; and it is grand beyond words, isn"t it? If it wasn"t for the name of it, I could rave over it like a veritable "Cooky." Can"t we go out on the platform?"
"Yes; but you"ll get your eyes full of cinders."
"I don"t care. Let"s go, anyway."
They did it and, for a wonder, found the rear platform of the second observation-car unoccupied. Gertrude wanted to sit on the step, but Brockway objected, on the score of danger from the jutting rocks; so they stood together, bracing themselves and clinging to the hand-rails.
"Show me the "Old Man of the Mountain" when we come to it," she said; "of course, there _is_ an "Old Man of the Mountain"?"
"There is, indeed, but we pa.s.sed him long ago--at least, the one that is always pointed out to the "Cookies" as you call them. But if you will watch the outlines of the cliffs you can find one of your own in any half-mile of the canyon."
"I don"t want one if they are as cheap as that. I suppose you have made them at a pinch, haven"t you? when you had forgotten to point out the real one?"
"I"m afraid I have; just as I have been obliged to invent statistics.
But that is the fault of the man with a note-book; he will have them, you know."
"Why don"t you tell him the truth?"