"We stop here a little while, don"t we?" she asked of Brockway.
"Yes; twenty minutes or more. Would you like to go out for a breath of fresh air?" She had risen and caught up her wrap and hat.
"I should; it is just what I was going to propose. Cousin Jeannette, I"m going to walk on the platform with Mr. Brockway. Come," she said; and they escaped before Mr. Vennor could overtake them.
Once outside, they paced up and down under the windows of the train, chatting reminiscently of four bright days a year agone, and shunning the intervening period as two people will whose lives have met and touched and gone apart again. At the second turn, they met Mrs. Dunham and Fleetwell; and at the third, the President, sandwiched between Hannah and Priscilla Beaswicke. Whereupon Brockway, scenting espionage, drew Gertrude away toward the engine.
The great, black bulk of the heavy ten-wheeler loomed portentous, and the smoky flare of the engineer"s torch, as he thrust it into the machinery to guide the snout of his oil-can, threw the overhanging ma.s.s of iron and steel into sombre relief.
Brockway shaded his eyes under his hand and peered up at the number beneath the cab window. "The new 926," he said; "we"ll get back some of our lost time behind her."
"Do you know them all by name?" Gertrude queried.
"Oh, no; not all."
"I suppose you"ve ridden on them many times?"
Brockway laughed. "I should say I had--on both sides, as the enginemen say."
"What does that mean?"
"It"s slang for firing and driving; I"ve done a little of both, you know."
"I didn"t know it. Isn"t it terribly dangerous? When anything happens, the men on the engine are almost always killed, aren"t they?"
"When they are it"s because they haven"t time to save themselves. It"s all nonsense--newspaper nonsense, mostly--about the engineer sticking to his post like the boy on the burning deck. A man can do whatever there is to be done toward stopping his train while you could count ten, and no amount of heroism could accomplish any more."
"I have often thought I should like to ride on an engine," Gertrude said.
"I wish I had known it earlier in the day; your wish might have been gratified very easily."
"Might it? I suppose they never let any one ride on the night engines, do they?"
Brockway caught his breath. "Do you mean--would you trust me to take you on the engine to-night?" he asked, wondering if he had heard aright.
"Why not?" she said, with sweet gravity.
The engineer had oiled his way around to their side, and Brockway spoke to him.
"Good-evening, Mac," he said; and the man turned and held up his torch.
"h.e.l.lo, Fred," he began; and then, seeing Gertrude: "Excuse _me_, I didn"t see the lady."
At a sign from Gertrude, Brockway introduced the engineer. "Miss Vennor, this is Mr. Maclure--one of our oldest runners."
"I"m very glad to know you, Mr. Maclure," said Gertrude, sweetly; and the man of machinery sc.r.a.ped his feet and salaamed.
"Mac, Miss Vennor thinks she would like to take a night spin on the 926.
May we ride a little way with you?"
"Well, I should say!" a.s.sented Maclure. "Just pile in and make yourselves at home; and excuse _me_--I hain"t quite got through oilin"
"round yet."
"Thank you," said Brockway; then to Gertrude: "We must find your father or Mrs. Dunham quick; we haven"t more than a minute or two."
They ran back and fortunately came upon Mrs. Dunham and the collegian.
"Cousin Jeannette, I"m going to ride on the engine with Mr. Brockway,"
Gertrude explained, breathlessly. "Don"t say I sha"n"t, for I will. It"s the chance of a lifetime. Good-by; and don"t sit up for me."
"I"ll take good care of her," Brockway put in; and before the astonished lady could expostulate or approve, they were scudding forward to the 926.
VIII
THE CAB OF THE TEN-WHEELER
Engineer Maclure was leaning out of the cab window, watching for the conductor"s signal, when Brockway and Gertrude came up.
"Didn"t know but you"d backed out," he said, jocosely, when they had climbed aboard.
"Oh, no, indeed; we had to get word to my father," said Gertrude.
The engineer waved them across the cab. "Make yourselves at home; the 926 belongs to you as long as you want to own her. Just you pre-empt Johnnie"s box over there, Fred, and make the young lady comfortable."
Brockway stuck a propitiatory cigar into the pocket of the fireman"s jumper, and proceeded to carry out his instructions. Before the tardy signal came, Gertrude was perched upon the high seat, with her skirts gathered up out of harm"s way, and Brockway had fashioned a pad out of a bunch of waste and tied it upon the boiler-head brace at her feet.
"It"s hot," he explained. "When she begins to roll you can put your foot against that and steady yourself. Are you quite comfortable?"
"Quite; and you?" She looked over her shoulder to ask the question, and the strong red glow from the open door of the fire-box glorified the sweet face.
"Comfortable? No, that is hardly the word for it"--he tried the window-fastening, that he might have an excuse for bending over her--"I"m happy; happy to my finger-tips. Do you know why?"
He sought to look up into her face, but at that moment the red glow of the fire-light went out suddenly with the crash of the closing door, and the clangor of the bell made her reply inaudible. None the less, by the dim, half light of the gauge-lamp he saw her eyelashes droop and her lips say No.
For a pa.s.sing instant the social barriers went down and became as though they never were. Standing beside her and blessing the clamor that isolated them, he said:
"Because I am here with you; because, no matter what happens to either of us in the future, no one can ever rob me of this."
He half expected a rebuke, and waited a moment with becoming humility.
When it did not come, he swung himself into the seat behind her and held his peace until she spoke again. That was five full minutes afterward.
For that length of time Gertrude was crushed under an avalanche of new sensations. The last switch-light in the Carvalho yards had flashed to the rear, and the 926 was quickening her speed with sharp little forward lunges under Maclure"s skilful goading. The dizzying procession of grayish-white telegraph-poles hurling itself past the cab windows; the thousand clangorous voices of the great machine; the intermittent glare from the fire-box door, alternating with the fiery shower of sparks pouring from the smoke-stack--it was a bit of pandemonium detached and dashing through s.p.a.ce, and she sat cowed and stunned by the rush and the uproar. But presently the warm wine of excitement began to quicken her heart-beats.
"Isn"t it glorious!" she exclaimed, trying to look back at him.