"I'm shy my grip," said the first. "The agent doesn't know where she is, and I can't wait. Round up Rosebud soon as you can, and find out what's become of it."
The other swore frankly at Rosebud, who appeared to be an individual. "I'll bet he's drunk, somewheres. I'll express your war bag when I find it."
The engine bell clanged a warning, and the conductor shouted cryptically. The two men shook hands.
"So long, Joe," said the younger. "I've had a whale of a time. Come up to my country and see me next year. Come any old time. We'll bust things wide open for you."
The other grinned widely. "The missus ain't lettin' me range like I used to. So long. Keep sober, old-timer. Don't play none with strangers. Say, d'you remember the time when we——"
Clyde lost the remainder in the shudder and grind of the trucks as the coaches began to move. The two men disappeared from her field of vision. Nita closed the window. Once more she leaned back, resigning herself to the weariness of the journey.
But a moment afterward the man of the platform appeared at the end of the aisle, accompanied by the porter who carried his bundle. Instantly he became the cynosure of a battery of disapproving eyes.
For his apparel would have been more in place in the bare colonist cars of the first section than in the vestibuled, luxurious rear coaches of the second. From the battered and stained old pony hat on his head to the disreputable laced boots into which his trousers were shoved, he was covered with the gray dust of the plains. Apart from his costume and the top dressing of dust, he was tall, cleanly built, and evidently as hard as a wire nail. His hair missed red by the merest fraction, and his eyes were a clear blue, level and direct. He moved as lightly as a prowling animal, and he met the supercilious and disdainful glances of his fellow passengers with a half smile of amused comprehension.
The porter, with a deference betokening an unusually large advance tip, ushered him to a seat across the aisle from Clyde's. But the stranger, catching a glimpse of himself in the panel mirror, stopped suddenly. Instantly Clyde's nostrils were assailed by a strong odour of leather and horseflesh. She shuddered in spite of herself. It was the last straw. As a rule she was not overparticular, but just then she was in that state of nerves when little things fretted her. She said to herself that a cattle car was the proper place for this young man. As he spoke to the porter she listened resentfully, prepared to disapprove of anything he might say. Said he:
"Mistuh Washin'ton Jeffe'son Bones, look at me carefully. Do you see any dust upon my garments?"
"Yassuh, yassuh," chuckled the porter. "Don't see much else, suh."
"And could you—on a bet of about a dollar—undertake to put me in a condition not to damage the seats?"
"Yassuh; sho' could, suh!"
"Go to it, then," said the stranger. "I'm after you."
He did not return for an hour. Then he was noticeably cleaner, and the odour of horse was replaced by that of cigars, less objectionable to Clyde. As he took his seat he glanced at her frankly, a shade of drollery in his eye, as if he were quite aware of her disapproval, and was amused by it. She stiffened a trifle, ignoring him utterly. Not by a hair's breadth would she encourage this free-and-easy person.
For some hours she had been annoyed by the behaviour of a man several seats away. Whenever she had glanced in his direction he had been looking at her. Once he had smiled ingratiatingly. Clyde's life had not included first-hand experiences of this kind, but she was able to classify the man accurately. Still, there had been nothing definite to complain of. Now this individual arose and came down the aisle. In his hand was a book. He halted by her side.
"Beg pardon," said he. "Would you care to look at this?"
"No, thank you," she replied frigidly.
"It isn't bad," he persisted. "I'll leave it with you."
"Thank you, I don't want it," said Clyde. But nevertheless he dropped the volume in her lap, smiling offensively.
"Look it over," said he. "I'll get it later."
Paying no attention to her indignant refusal, he walked down the aisle to the smoking compartment. Clyde, a bright spot of anger on either cheek, turned to Nita.
"I think I shall speak to the conductor."
"It's because you're so pretty," said Nita, with an air of vast experience. "I've had the same thing, almost, happen to me. Back at college—in the town, I mean—there was a boy——But perhaps I'd better not say anything about it. He was very bold indeed!" She pursed her lips primly, but her eyes belied their expression.
"I beg your pardon," said the man across the aisle.
Once more Clyde froze indignantly. Never before had she felt the need of an escort in her travels. Never again, she told herself, would she travel alone with merely a fifteen-year-old kid for her sole companion. She honoured the new offender with a haughty stare. He smiled unaffectedly.
"Nothing like that," he disclaimed, as if he had read her thoughts. "I'll take that book if you don't want it. He can get it back from me."
He stretched a long arm across, and thanked her as she handed him the book mechanically. Forthwith he opened it, and began to read. And he was still absorbed in it when the donor returned.
That gentleman paused uncertainly beside Clyde, who was haughtily unconscious of his presence.
"Did you—er——" he began.
At that moment the man across the aisle twitched his coat sleeve. "Looking for the book you left with me?" he asked casually. "Here it is."
The other stared at him in uneasy surprise. "I didn't——"
"Oh, yes, you did," the man across the aisle interrupted. "Anyway, you meant to. You'll remember if you think a minute. You didn't leave it with that young lady, because you don't know her, and you're not the kind of man to butt in where you're not wanted. Now, are you?"
"Of course not," the other replied, with a show of indignation. "I don't know——"
"Then that's all right," said the stranger quietly. "Here's your book. And there's your seat. And don't make any more mistakes."
The gregarious gentleman accepted this advice and his book meekly. Thereafter he avoided even looking in Clyde's direction. To her relief the stranger did not presume on the service he had rendered. He stretched his long legs upon the opposite seat, leaned back, and gazed silently at the roof. The afternoon dragged on. Clyde and Nita went to the diner and returned. Afterward the stranger presumably did likewise, spending a decent interval in the smoker. Darkness fell, and the Limited thundered on westward across the plains to the country of the foothills, the mountain ranges, and its goal at the thither end of the Pacific slope.
Suddenly, with a scream of air and a grinding of brake shoes, the train came to a stop. Clyde looked out. The level, monotonous plains were no longer there. The country was rolling, studded with clumps of cottonwoods. The moon, close to the full, touched the higher spots with silver, intensifying the blackness of the shadows.
Clyde peered ahead to the limit of her restricted area of vision, for the lights of a station or a town. There was none. Not even the lighted square of a ranch-house window broke the night. Five minutes passed, ten, and still the train remained motionless. Suddenly, at the forward end of the coach, appeared the porter. Followed the occupants of the smoking compartment, each with his hands on the shoulders of the man in front of him in impromptu lockstep. Behind them came an apparition which caused the passengers, after a first gasp of incredulity, to vent their feelings in masculine oaths and little feminine screams of alarm.
This intruder was a large man, powerfully built. His hat was shoved back from his forehead,