This gentleman, apparently, near his native heath, has grown bolder, and as he expresses it to himself, "has been do"en the perlite" to Miss Travenion, indicating to her the various points of interest in Omaha as seen from the river, together with the Union Pacific Railway bridge, which is at this time in process of construction.
"Your daddy and I once spent four hours in winter trying to get across this river, Sissy, and were mighty nigh froze to death doing it, and if it had not been for my U. S. blanket overcoat that I picked up when Johnston was out thar invadin" us"--he checks himself shortly here and mumbles: "I reckon your old man would have given in. But here we air--Permit the hand of fellowship over the step-off!"
This allusion to her father is received by a grateful "thank you" from the young lady, who, if she has read of Albert Sydney Johnston"s campaign in Utah has forgotten the same, and she accepts Mr. Kruger"s aid across the gang-plank in so easy and affable a manner that Lot proffers his further escort to the omnibus waiting to bear this young lady up the hill toward what is called the railroad depot in Omaha.
Having a.s.sisted her into the "bus with rather effusive gallantry, and noting during his attentions a ravishing ankle in silken hose that makes his fatherly eyes grow red and watery, he remarks with a chuckle to himself as he sees the New York beauty drive off: "If Miss High-Fallutin" should come to Zion in the Far West, oh Saints of Melchisedec!" and is so overcome by his emotions that he almost misses the last transfer omnibus.
So, it comes to pa.s.s that in the course of a few minutes they all find themselves at that ramshackle affair that was, and is now, for that matter, termed the Western Union Depot in Omaha. Here the train is drawn up, ready for its race towards the West. Attached to it are two Pullman cars, in one of which Erma"s party have engaged their accommodations, which consist of a rear stateroom, occupied by Mrs. Livingston and her daughter, a forward stateroom, which has been engaged for Miss Travenion and her maid. The section next his mother"s being occupied entirely by Oliver, that young man always looking after his own comfort and luxury very thoroughly; while a section in the forward end of the car, next Miss Travenion"s stateroom, has been set apart for Mr. Ferdinand Chauncey in order that he may be situated so as to give Erma any masculine a.s.sistance or protection she may require.
Of course, this is by no means so convenient for the New York party as the private car, which had been placed at their service by a relative of Mrs. Livingston, one of the magnates of the Pennsylvania Railway, but it had been considered by Mr. Oliver best to submit to the more contracted accommodations found upon a general sleeping car than to the exorbitant charges of the Western railways.
Miss Travenion has already made herself comfortable in her stateroom by the aid of her maid, a pretty French girl, who is about as useless a one as could have been selected for this trip, save in the matter of feminine toilet; when glancing into the open portion of the sleeping car, Erma gets a little surprise. She sees Captain Harry Storey Lawrence entering the same, and placing his _impedimenta_ in the section opposite Ferdie"s, which from its location is also next to her stateroom. She gives the young man a slight bow, which he acknowledges with military courtesy, a little red showing under the tan of the sun upon his hardy cheeks; but thinks only pa.s.singly of the matter, judging it a mere chance of travel, she having already heard the gentleman state that he was returning to Utah.
She would probably pay more attention to the affair did she know that what she considers a mere accident of travel, has been brought about on the part of the young man by deliberate design.
Lawrence having finished his business in Chicago, and his telegrams from Southmead received at the Sherman House indicating that there was no immediate hurry for his presence in Salt Lake, that young gentleman had said to himself, "Why not travel with _her_? Three days in a Pullman sleeper are equal to a voyage at sea. Before my arrival at Salt Lake, _she_ shall have better acquaintance with me than a few words in a Delmonico supper room can produce." Actuated by this idea, the captain had journeyed leisurely to Omaha, and discovering the location of Erma"s stateroom, had promptly selected the section next to it for the trip to the West.
Very shortly after this, with much ringing of bell and much blowing of whistle, the train gets into motion, and pa.s.sing out of the Omaha depot, in a few minutes is climbing a little ascent over which it will pa.s.s into the valley of the Platte, to run along endless plains till the snowy summits of the Rocky Mountains come into view on the Western horizon.
To the south, a low range of hills is bordering the river; to the north prairies, nothing but prairies; to the west nothing but prairies, save two long lines of rails that run straight as an arrow towards the setting sun till they seem to come together and be one.
Gazing at these, her eyes full of expectant happiness and hope, Miss Travenion murmurs, "At the end of these, one thousand and odd miles away, my father," and the green prairies of Nebraska grow very beautiful to her, and the soft southern wind, as it enters the car windows, seems very pleasant to her, and the rays of the setting sun make the green gra.s.s lands and the long reaches of the Platte River flowing over its yellow quicksands and dotted with its little cottonwood islands seem like a landscape of Heaven to her.
Then Ferdie comes in, looking eagerly out of the car window, and whispers: "Do you see any buffaloes yet? I have got a revolver and a sporting rifle to kill them." A second after he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.es, "What"s that!"
And Erma starts and echoes "What"s that?"
For it is a sound these two have never heard the like of before--the shriek of the Western train book agent--not the pitiful note of the puny Eastern vender, but the wild whoop of the genuine transcontinental fiend, who in the earlier seventies went bellowing through a car like a calliope on a Mississippi River boat.
"Bre-_own"s_ prize candies! Twenty-five cents a box, warranted fresh and something that"ll make you feel pleased and slick in every one of "em--Bre-own"s prize candies."
Being of a speculative turn of mind, Ferdie invests in one or two of these, and he and Erma open them together and laugh at their bad luck, for Ferdie has won a Jew"s harp, worth about a cent, and she is the happy possessor of a bra.s.s thimble, and the candies, apparently, have been manufactured before Noah"s Ark put to sea. While joking about this, a new idea seems to strike Ferdie.
The news-boy, who has gathered up his packages after making his trades on the sharpest of business principles, is leaving the car. Mr. Chauncey asks him if he has any Western literature.
"I always have everything," cries the young man. "Give you "The Scout of the Plains," or "Long Har, the Hermit of the Rockies," for twenty-five cents."
"I don"t want fiction; facts are what I"m after," says Ferdie, interrupting him.
"Then I"ll accommodate also," remarks the youth, and going away, he returns after a few minutes bearing four or five bound volumes, ent.i.tled, "The Oatman Girls" Captivity among the Apaches," "The Construction of the Union Pacific Railway," "The Life and Adventures of Jim Beckworth, the Naturalized Crow Chief," "Kit Carson, the Pioneer,"
"Fremont"s Explorations" and "Female Life among the Mormons, by the Wife of an Elder of the Latter-Day Saints."
"Facts come higher," he says, "than lies. These are bound books, and will cost you all the way from $1.50 up to $4. But you can turn "em in at the end of the trip, if you want, and I will let you have fifty per cent. on them. I had sooner you did it that way, because then _I"ll_ bag the profit, not my boss."
Whereupon, Ferdie selects "Kit Carson," "The Building of the Union Pacific Railway," and "Female Life among the Mormons," tendering a ten-dollar bill, for which he receives very little change, but making the agreement for the return of the books on arrival at Ogden, much to the delight of the news-agent, who remarks oracularly, "Buck Powers is never quite left."
"Oh, that is your name, is it?" says Mr. Chauncey. "Probably you know a good deal about the West yourself?"
"I was born in Chicago," answers the boy proudly, "and railroaded ever since I was corn high."
"Ah, a railroad man?"
"You bet! I"ve run on the C. B. & Q., I have," remarks Buck, his voice growing proud, "and any man that has run on de boss road of the West out of Chicago, can call himself a railroad man and nothin" else."
In this exaltation of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, Buck was by no means alone in the early seventies, for somehow that was considered the great road west of the Mississippi, and all who were connected with it from a switchman up, seemed to be very proud of the C. B. & Q., and to run upon it into Chicago, appeared to them to be the acme of railroad bliss and happiness, which was the acme of all happiness. So they kicked off tramps with a proud kick, and they coupled freight cars with a self-satisfied air, and they received deaths with complaisance as defective couplings broke and box cars crashed together, and they made up pa.s.senger trains and ran locomotives with the haughty air of men belonging to the most prominent road in that great country which centred in Chicago, to which the rest of America, especially the East, was but an attachment.
"Oh, you are a railroad man--a _Western_ railroad man. Perhaps you can tell me about the Rocky Mountains?"
"What I can"t tell you about the Rockies and the U. P. ain"t worth knowing," remarks Buck. "After I get through with this candy trip, and give "em a rattle or two on books, notions and fruit, I"ll come back and give you some eye-openers, because I can see you"re going to be a good trader." Thus tagging on business with pleasure and self-glorification, Buck Powers proceeds on his way through the cars, shouting in a voice that drowns the roll of the wheels and the tooting of the locomotive:
"Bre-_own"s_ prize candies! Twenty-five cents a package! Warranted fresh and _gen_uine, and each package guaran_teed_ to contain a donation! It is your last chance to-night! Last chance to-night for _Bre_-OWN"s prize candy and Chicago chewing gum!"
During this interview, Miss Travenion has looked on with an amused glance. She is astounded that one so small can make so great a noise, for Mr. Buck Powers is but five feet and five inches high, and rather slight, skinny, and wiry of frame, but his voice is like that of Goliath of Gath, with occasional staccatos stolen from the midnight yelp of the coyote of the plains.
As the boy"s howls die away in the next car, she says suddenly to Ferdie, "What are you going to do with those books?"
"Amuse auntie with them."
"That I forbid you to do. No more fibs about the West to Mrs.
Livingston. Do you want her to have a nervous fever?"
"Very well," remarks Ferdinand, contemplatively. "If you object to my instructing auntie, I will keep them for my own amus.e.m.e.nt and knowledge." Then he cries suddenly, "By George, wasn"t that a buffalo?"
and throws up the car window, and looks out excitedly, to the serious danger of his caput, for the train is running through a small town.
And Erma laughs and says, "No, it"s a cow."
Just here the conductor comes in and makes everybody on the car alert and happy, for he cries: "GRAND ISLAND! THIRTY MINUTES FOR SUPPER!"
CHAPTER V.
THE GRAND ISLAND EATING-HOUSE.
But with this announcement comes another sensation to Miss Travenion.
Ollie Livingston has been engaged most of the afternoon trying to make the trip comfortable for his mother, for, whatever may be his other failings, he certainly is a dutiful and attentive son.
As the train slackens its speed, he pa.s.ses to Miss Travenion"s stateroom, and remarks: "You have heard the conductor announce supper.
Ferdie, take care of Louise and her mother. I will see to Erma." A moment after he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.es nervously: "I"ll just wash my hands, and be with you in a moment," and moves hurriedly back to the gentlemen"s wash-room at the rear of the car, leaving Erma alone.
Miss Travenion makes her own preparations in the privacy of her stateroom, and steps out to find herself cut off from the rest of her party by her fellow-pa.s.sengers, who have risen hurriedly, and are crowding _en ma.s.se_ through the aisles, anxious to get to their evening meal as rapidly as possible, most of them being old Western travellers and knowing that if they wish to get a good supper, it is best for them to be among the first rush upon the viands of a Pacific railroad eating-house.
The train has stopped, and caught in the crowd, Miss Travenion finds herself swept out upon the front platform of the car; a couple of stout Western women crowd past her, shoving her nearly off the platform. The Pullman porter shouts to her to look out. She has a hurried vision of Mr. Lot Kruger rushing to her a.s.sistance in the next car, and blocked in the aisle and struggling to squeeze past Buck Powers, who has been caught in the supper rush and who is dashing about like a fiend to save his wares from destruction.
She hears a voice that is half-way familiar say incisively: "This way, Miss Travenion, at once!" and looking down, sees Harry Lawrence"s stalwart arm uplifted to a.s.sist her from the car. She puts out two little gloved hands. These are eagerly seized upon, and in an instant she is lifted lightly to the ground.