Here, blushing very slightly, she murmurs, "Thank you, Captain Lawrence!"
"I am glad you remember my name," answers the young man in a very happy voice.
Then he continues rapidly, "Excuse me a second. Your maid does not appear to know what to do." And he a.s.sists the French abigail to alight with as much care, if perhaps not as much ceremony, as he did the mistress.
"Yes," replies Erma. "We travelled by a private car as far as Omaha, and, of course, had our meals on board of it. Therefore, Marie was rather disconcerted--as, to tell the truth, so was I."
"Ah, then, you _do_ need my a.s.sistance, if you want a meal," says Harry quickly, for the gong is sounding very wildly outside the eating-house, and the throng from the long train of cars is moving bodily upon it.
Noting this, the young man cries shortly: "Indecision means hunger--at all events, the leavings. Come with me!"
Then, perceiving that Erma is hesitating and looking towards the car from which Ferdie and Louise are just appearing, and which still conceals Mrs. Livingston and her son, he says hurriedly: "Quick; I"ll reserve a table for your party and get them a first chance at the meal.
Come at once if you want your supper!"
"Of course I want my supper," cries Miss Travenion with a laugh; for the brisk Nebraska air, which is quite often cool toward evening, in October, has stimulated the young lady"s appet.i.te, which, like that of most healthy girls of her age, is generally a good one.
So the young lady, placing her hand upon his arm and followed by her maid, turns away from the crowd and is led to a side door, Lawrence seeming to know the by-ways of the hotel pretty well.
In front of this are lounging the station master and two or three railroad employees. These spring up with e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of welcome and delight! One cries, "G.o.d bless you, Cap!" and another, "Harry, you"re doing well." A third guffaws _sotto voce_, "You bet he is."
Returning their salutes, he says shortly, "Please let me in at the side door--before the rush. This young lady is hungry." A moment after they are in the dining-room of the railroad hotel before the crowd of pa.s.sengers have entered by the main portal.
This is a large apartment filled with tables, each of which will accommodate six people, and each presided over and waited upon by a brisk moving, calico-clothed Nebraska maiden.
A moment after, Erma"s escort says to a bright-eyed prairie-girl who is flourishing a feather duster to keep the flies off an as yet unoccupied table: "Sally, reserve this table for myself and party."
Then to Miss Travenion"s astonishment the maid answers, giving him a look of open-eyed admiration, "Yes, Cap!"
The next instant she finds herself seated beside him, and her maid, under his direction, taken to another table and made comfortable by another brisk Nebraska girl, who also answers deferentially, "Yes, Cap!"
Then the one employed at their table calmly but uncompromisingly waves off both flies and pa.s.sengers from the tempting seats with her feather duster, remarking, "This "ere table"s engaged! This "ere table"s engaged," to applying drummers and hungry cattlemen who would make a raid upon the precious vacant chairs; for all the other seats in the room are by this time in use and the viands are flying off the tables in a manner peculiar to Western appet.i.tes; while over all this comes in continual chorus from the waiting-girls: "Steaks--chops--ham and eggs--tea or coffee--pie or pudding," with an occasional variation of "stewed prunes or fruit."
In this chorus their attendant maid has already joined, singing out in a business way, "Steaks, chops or ham and eggs," when to Miss Travenion"s awful blushes, the girl suddenly stops her song and giggles, after the free and easy manner of the prairies, "I know what"s the matter with you, Cap; you"ve been going and gitting married, and are bringing your wife West!" casting a look of identification on Erma as the imported bride.
To this Harry, choking down a rising curse, mutters in a very hoa.r.s.e voice, "Steaks for two, and ham and eggs _turned_!"
Then Ferdie inserts himself into this scene of embarra.s.sment to the young lady, and from which she has half risen to fly in a sudden bashful spasm, and says: "Erma, what the deuce have you been doing? Mrs.
Livingston is almost hysterical, and thinks the Indians have got you, when it is only Captain Lawrence and--supper."
"Yes," answers Harry, who blesses the boy for his interruption; "I know more about Western eating-houses than you do. I have rescued Miss Travenion from the crowd, and reserved a table for the rest of your party. Just bring them along, will you--that"s a good fellow?"
To this, Mr. Chauncey, who has already met Lawrence upon the train during the afternoon, answers: "Won"t I? I have been hunting everywhere for a place for our ladies. It was these vacant chairs that attracted me."
Then the young New Yorker, having gone in search of his party, Miss Travenion once more finds herself subject to the attentions of the gentleman beside her. But these are so very respectful that her embarra.s.sment gradually vanishes, and she devotes herself with considerable comfort of mind to the supper which has just been placed before her, for Captain Lawrence is particularly careful from now on that his attentions to her, though effective as regards her wants, shall have not the slightest affectation of familiarity in them.
So the girl, looking at him, thinks: "Some men who might consider themselves of perhaps higher breeding than this one beside me, would have made a joke out of that awful _contretemps_, but Captain Lawrence is a gentleman, and gentlemen are very much the same all the world over," and once or twice, when he does not notice it, she turns grateful eyes upon him during pauses in the meal.
A moment after, Mr. Chauncey re-appears, followed by the Livingstons.
Mrs. Livingston mutters: "Good gracious, Erma, how you frightened me. My heart is beating yet. If anything had happened to you, what would I have said to your father?"
She would continue her emotion, did not Miss Travenion quietly say, "You owe your supper this evening to Captain Lawrence, who was kind enough to take charge of me in the crush, and also to look after your interests in the matter of chairs and vacant table."
To which Miss Louise e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.es: "Oh, how good of you. I"m dying of hunger!" and the widow, who still remembers the fortunate compliment of the young man, remarks: "Captain, as I owe my meal to you, I will sit beside you," giving him a grateful glance and taking the chair on the young man"s left hand.
Then, being compelled to it, Mr. Oliver Livingston suddenly remembers that he has met the Westerner before,--a thing he has forgotten, though he has pa.s.sed him several times upon the train, and suddenly says: "How are yer?" in an absent-minded sort of way, and seating himself enjoys the pleasures of gastronomy.
As the party"s appet.i.tes become satisfied, their tongues begin to move in conversation, and Harry, taking advantage of the situation, proceeds to make himself very agreeable to Mrs. Livingston; for this young man has been thinking the matter over during his three or four hours on the train, and has concluded that to be a friend of the chaperon"s will be very useful to him in his intercourse with Miss Travenion.
"I was afraid," says the New York widow, "that Erma had been carried off by Indians."
"Indians," remarks Lawrence, "were plentiful enough about here four or five years ago, but the railroad, with its settlements, has swept them back. In 1867 there were too many of them at times," and the young man"s brow grows dark and his lips compressed with some recollection of the past. Throwing this off, he explains lightly to Mr. Ferdie, who begins eagerly questioning him on the point, that any buffalo that may be seen will be probably far to the West of where they are now; their best hope of catching sight of them being during the next day"s journey. "If you had wanted to see buffalo in quant.i.ties," he continues, "you should have journeyed on the K. P., one hundred and fifty to two hundred miles south of here. There they graze, sometimes, even now, in droves of ten thousand by the side of the railway track."
"By Jove!" cries Ferdie to this information, looking with longing eyes to the South. "But we will return by the K. P., auntie, won"t we?" Then he questions suddenly: "You have killed buffalo, haven"t you, Captain Lawrence?"
"A few," remarks the Westerner quietly, and from that time on he is a hero in Ferdie"s eyes.
Mr. Ollie having by this time finished his meal,--a business that he has interspersed with a few curt remarks about the badness and greasiness of Western cooking and the general inefficiency of frontier waiter-girls, he arises and suggests, "If you wish to miss this train, you had all better linger a little longer over the table."
To this, Mrs. Livingston suddenly gasps, "Hurry! The pa.s.sengers are all leaving the room!"
"Oh, no hurry! They are only gentlemen anxious to get at their cigars,"
says Harry, to whom the meal has been a very pleasant one, Miss Travenion having made it brilliant by one or two glances from her bright eyes and a few vivacious remarks.
But the chaperon suddenly cries in a voice of terror, "If we miss the train, we are here on the prairies, unprotected and ALONE!"
This pathetic remark, in a rising young frontier city of two thousand inhabitants, produces a giggle from Miss Louise. She t.i.tters, "Pooh, ma!
This is a metropolis. I saw a dozen trainmen, half a hundred loafers and one or two tramps on the platform as we drew up."
But Mrs. Livingston having risen, the party saunter towards the door, that lady thanking Lawrence for some information he has given, tending to dissipate her fears of wild Western adventure on the railroad. She concludes this by saying, "You must give us a little of your aid and protection, we have had so little frontier experience, Captain,"--a request that gentleman is very glad to accede to, and he promises that he will look after them all, especially the widow, very thoroughly and very faithfully during their journey.
Harry in conversation with Mrs. Livingston has left the room, so have Ferdie and Louise, and Ollie is employed settling the score; Erma finds herself alone. Actuated, perchance, by a wish to learn more of the gentleman who has been kind to her this afternoon, and perhaps prompted by some curiosity to know why he is treated with so much respect under the familiar appellation of "Cap" by the Western waiter-girls, she turns back, and walking up to the bright-eyed abigail who has waited on them, says, "You seem to know the gentleman who brought me into supper this evening very well."
"Oh, Cap Lawrence?" answers the girl. "I should think so; we all have a pretty powerful liking and respect for him about this portion of the country."
"And why?"
"Why?" cries the Western girl. "Don"t you know? Well, five years back, when this "ere hotel was nothin" but a log cabin and I worked giving meals to our section men, the Indians made a raid up thar at Elm Creek,"
she points towards the west, "and if it hadn"t been for the Cap taking a hand-car and going up the track they would have wiped out every section hand to the last man. As it was, they killed five of them, and it ain"t every man out here that wants to run into a lot of Sioux on the war-path, in an open hand-car, but Cap Lawrence is the man to do it. You are married to him, ain"t you, Missus?"
"No," replies Erma, growing very red. "I am married to no man," and striding away from the girl joins Ollie, though she catches a prophetic, "Wa-al, perhaps some day you will be. I seed him look at you once or twice, and you"ll be mighty lucky if you catch him."
The subject of this colloquy is standing on the platform smoking his cigar; he sees Miss Travenion pa.s.s him upon the arm of Mr. Oliver Livingston, and wonders why the girl blushes so deeply, though she gives him a pleasant nod. Then he suddenly thinks, "It is that accursed remark of that red-headed Sally in the eating-house," and does not know that Sally has done him one of the best turns that have as yet come to him.
She has set the mind of the girl he loves running upon a subject that had not as yet occurred to her. As it is, Erma gives a glance at the stalwart figure of the Westerner as he stands, in athletic ease, puffing his cigar, then catching sight of Ollie"s rather diminutive figure, compares the two, perhaps not altogether to the advantage of Mr.
Livingston.
As Miss Travenion is a.s.sisted into the train by her escort, Lawrence looking at her himself hears a low but resonant whisper at his side, "By Jove, Cap, ain"t she purty? Reckon she must come from Chicago." Looking around he sees Buck Powers standing at his side, gazing in admiration at the beauty who has caught and entranced the engineer"s soul. This would make Harry angry did he not notice that the news-agent is very young, though his face has that peculiar precocity that comes from an early struggle with the world and an early battle for life and bread, and notes that the tone of the boy is as respectful and loving as his would be did he happen to speak of his divinity.
A moment after, Mr. Livingston returning from the car, Captain Lawrence accosts him and offers him a cigar.