Rosalie was silent.
“Perhaps you was their waitress and ran off to see the world without giving notice.”
“No, I wasn’t that; but I – I know them, and – ”
The speech drifted into silence.
“You know rich folks, do you? Lucky you.”
“Not exactly. They – she – ” stammered Rosalie, “they helped – educate me.”
“Oh, you’re educated, are you?” retorted Miss Hickey, giving her coiffure a satisfied lift. “Well, so am I. I’m a typewriter in Chicago, winters.”
“Does – does it pay well?” asked Rosalie, with such serious wistfulness that Miss Hickey forgave her her rich acquaintances.
She grimaced. “Not so you’d notice it. I ain’t goin’ back this fall. You know the Yellowstone Company’ll land you just as many miles from the Park as they brought you, and in any direction you say. Me for Los Angeles. I ain’t afraid I can’t make my living, and I’m sick o’ bein’ snowed on, winters, without any furs.”
Rosalie looked enviously at the other’s snapping black eyes.
“Wonder what savage we’ll go over with,” pursued Miss Hickey, stuffing her nightgown into a bag, and nonchalantly running her comb and toothbrush into her stocking.
“Over? Over?”
“Yes, over to Norris in the stage.”
“Do you mean that savages drive them?” asked Rosalie, her eyes dilating.
Miss Hickey laughed. “Oh, you’re more fun than a barrel o’ monkeys,” she observed. “The drivers certainly are savages. You can ask anybody in the Park.”
Rosalie smiled faintly as she began twisting up her hair. “Oh, that’s some more Park English, is it?” she asked.
“I hope it’ll be Jasper,” said Miss Hickey, “but we won’t get to sit by him, anyway. The dudes all fight for the driver’s seat. I’m going down now. Hurry up, Baby, or you’ll catch it.”
Rosalie obeyed in a panic, and was soon ready to follow. She dreaded the ordeal of the breakfast-room, and prayed that she might be delivered from the Bruces’ table. Her heart came up in her throat when she saw them enter the door; but she was not obliged to wait upon them. As it happened, Miss Hickey had that station, and Rosalie devoted herself assiduously to a deaf gentleman who was traveling with his wife and a young woman at sight of whom Rosalie colored. “Oh, how small this big world is!” she thought; “but she won’t remember me. We seldom met!”
The ordeal of breakfast was at last over, and Rosalie with relief yielded herself to Miss Hickey’s orders, and presently the girls stood on the great piazza of the hotel, but on the edge of the crowd, watching the systematic filling of the stages which were starting on the tour around the Park.
“How shall we know when to go?” she asked of Miss Hickey, to whose side she clung in the confusion.
“Don’t you worry about that,” returned the other. “Have some gum?”
She offered several sticks of the same to Rosalie, who declined, wishing her veil were thicker as she glanced about, dreading to see the Bruce party, and longing to be safely away.
Miss Hickey slid a generous quantity of gum into her own mouth and then settled her hat more firmly on her pompadour by a rearrangement of largely gemmed hat-pins.
While she proceeded in an experienced manner to break up and chew the gum-sticks into a solacing sphere, her conversation continued, untrammeled by this effort.
“Don’t you hear the agent calling the names off?” she asked. “They can’t any of ’em say where they’ll go any more’n we can. They’re going to be took ’round the Park just like a kid out in its baby-wagon. They come when they’re called, you bet; and they don’t know where their bags are any more’n you do. When they get to the Fountain House their bags’ll meet ’em in the hotel; then to-morrow mornin’ they’ll disappear again to meet ’em at the next place. Oh, it’s a great system all right, if too many people didn’t come at once. They have awful times when there ain’t enough places for ’em to sleep, and six or seven get put in one room. These folks that are too exclusive to travel with a party are the ones that get left; for the conductors of these tours get to the hotels a little ahead o’ the other folks, and get all their people provided for; and it’s gallin’ to know you pay just as much as anybody and yet have to herd in with folks you never saw before – just the same as poor heavers like us.” And Miss Hickey gave her companion a nudge that nearly made her reel. “Weren’t you the mad kid last night?” she continued.
“I think you were the mad one,” rejoined Rosalie. “I was dazed. – O Miss Hickey!” She made the exclamation involuntarily; for the Bruce party came out of a door not far from where the girls were standing, and they were dressed for a move.
“Oh, they’re not lay-overs!” exclaimed Rosalie, retreating behind Miss Hickey’s broad shoulder.
“Who – them? Say, what’s the matter with you? Have you stole their diamonds?”
“Don’t you think they’re going in this next stage?” asked Rosalie nervously. “Do watch, Miss Hickey. You’re so tall you can see everything.” For the Bruces had moved to the other side of the piazza and were lost in the crowd.
“I waited on those folks at breakfast,” said Miss Hickey, craning her neck and chewing with such open vigor that she momentarily recalled a dog who endeavors to rid his back teeth of a caramel.
“I know you did,” replied Rosalie; “I saw.”
“Ain’t he grand!” exclaimed Miss Hickey. “I thought when I was pourin’ his coffee that he was just about the size I’d like to go through the Park with on a weddin’ trip. The way he said, ‘No sugar, please!’ Oh, it was just grand. It made me forget every swattie at the post. There ain’t an officer here that can stand up to him, I don’t think.”
“Do see if they are getting into that stage!” asked Rosalie, still in retreat behind her companion’s ample shoulder.
“Nit,” responded Mr. Bruce’s admirer sententiously. “That swell woman with him went down the steps to get in, but his nibs there that’s loadin’ ’em told her to chase herself.”
The crowd was dispersing with celerity.
“There ain’t but two stages left,” went on Miss Hickey, with excitement. “If they don’t go in that next one, we’re all booked to go together. Say, wouldn’t that be grand?”
“No! No! No!” exclaimed Rosalie, emerging from her barrier and watching with dilated eyes.
The stage swept up to the steps. The tourists swarmed into it like bees. Again Mrs. Bruce essayed to enter, and Rosalie could see Irving draw her back, while Betsy Foster stood impassive at a little distance, observing the scene with inexpressive eyes.
CHAPTER VI
THE LAST STAGE
“I should like to know why they put us in the last stage!” demanded Mrs. Bruce, in an irate tone.
“Many advantages,” returned Irving, with a twinkle of his eyes toward Betsy.
“There are not, Irving Bruce, and you ought to have done something about it! Haven’t we always heard about the dust of the Yellowstone?”
“Yes, that’s why they oil the roads now,” returned Bruce pacifically, “and we don’t have to hurry, by this means, you see. Take our own time. Don’t have to hurry past anything to make room for the next stage.”
“I never could endure leavings!” exclaimed Mrs. Bruce, her eyes still snapping as the last stage came around the curve toward the steps.
Betsy