Miss Dividends Part 33

"I can't tell. It seems days. I was buried here on December 1st, early in the morning."

"Why," cries Harry, joyfully: "it's December 1st now. You haven't been there five hours." Then he goes on: "Kruger's only four hours ahead of me. You rest quietly. The miners will have you out in two or three hours. You make up your mind your daughter's safe, if it's in human power! She might die, but never marry Kruger."

Here Ferdie, coming back with some miners, is very much astonished to hear Lawrence say hurriedly to him: "Get the men down that incline.

Remove the rocks and get Tranyon out!"

"And you," cries Chauncey, "where are you going?" for Harry has already turned to leave the dump pile.

"To save his daughter!" And before the last word is out of his mouth, Lawrence is speeding down the trail to Eureka, where in twenty minutes he gets a fresh team, and driving through the storm, which has now become blinding, and through the night, which comes on too soon, and being compelled to go very slowly, for the snow is drifting heavily, he makes Salt Lake City early in the morning.

Going straight to the Townsend House, Harry says to the clerk: "Don't make any mistake this time, young man, in your information. Miss Travenion is here?"

"No, not here!"

"Good Heavens!"

"She was here last night," says the clerk, with a grin, "but drove away, five minutes ago, to catch the train for Ogden," and is astonished at the hurried "Thank you" he gets, as Lawrence runs out to his wagon again.

Clapping a ten dollar bill into the sleepy driver's hands, Harry cries: "That'll wake you up! Utah Central depot like lightning!"

He gets there just in time to board the train as it runs out of the station, to make connection with the Union Pacific that will leave Ogden this morning.

She is not in his car, but Harry looks into the next one, and seeing the young lady asleep, mutters: "She is tired also. I'll not wake her," then suddenly thinks: "By George! How shall I begin the business? She must despise me now!" and wishes he had brought Ferdie with him; though he laughs to himself: "I suppose it would have killed that future Harvard athlete--two nights' steady driving and no rest between!"

Sitting down to think over this matter, and being overcome with weariness himself, sleep comes upon Harry also, and he doesn't wake even after the train has arrived at Ogden, till he is roused by the brakeman.

Looking about him, he gives a start. Miss Travenion has disappeared.

Muttering to himself: "I'm a faithful guardian--I keep my word to her father well! I have a very sharp eye out on my sweetheart!" he runs across to the Union depot, and is relieved to see that the young lady is in the office of Wells, Fargo & Co., expressing a package.

This has come about in this way: Erma Travenion had arrived safely in Salt Lake City at ten o'clock on the night before. Wells, Fargo & Co.

being of course closed, she could not deposit the Utah Central stock that night.

Knowing that speed is vital to her, and that she must have money for her trip East, she drives to the house of Mr. Bussey, the banker, and he very kindly rushes about town for her and gleans up from friends of his sufficient for her trip East, charging her for same on her letter of credit.

Asking his advice about an express package that she wishes to send--though Erma doesn't state its contents--he says: "Take it with you, my child, to Ogden. At that time, before the Union Pacific train leaves, Wells, Fargo & Co. will be open. Express it from there. Their receipt will be just as good in Ogden as in Salt Lake City."

This she is doing while Lawrence is looking at her. Her appearance makes him sigh. Not that she isn't as beautiful as when he last saw her, for she is more lovely, only so much more ethereal. Her eyes are too brilliant, and there is a little apprehension in them, and a few lines of pain on her face, some of which, Harry has a wild hope, are perhaps caused by him; though he grieves over them just the same.

As she comes out of Wells, Fargo's, having finished her business with the express company--which has taken some five minutes, the transaction being a heavy one, and the receipt very formal--Lawrence, with rapture in his heart, and love in his eye, approaches to speak to his divinity, and to his intense chagrin, gets the very neatest kind of a cut. The girl looks him straight in the face--with haughty eyes that never flinch, though there is no recognition in them.

So pa.s.sing on her way, she buys her tickets, and makes arrangements for her sleeping-car.

This catastrophe has been brought about as follows: While standing waiting for the receipt from Wells, Fargo & Co., Erma has caught the conversation of two men who are standing just outside its door.

One of them says: "Who is she?" for Miss Travenion's beauty has attracted his attention.

The other, a mining man who has seen her with the bishop in Eureka, answers: "Tranyon the boss Mormon's daughter."

"Impossible!"

"Fact, I a.s.sure you," laughs the second man. "From the airs she puts on, you'd think she was a New York or St. Louis belle. But I believe she's booked for the seventh wife of old Kruger. These Mormon girls have no brains! I guess readin', writin', an' 'rithmetic's about the extent of her education."

This decidedly slurring description of the belle of Newport's last season makes the girl think every one despises her; and seeing Lawrence, and remembering his desertion, she sighs: "He despises me also--but he shall never show it to me--NEVER!" And so pa.s.ses him as if she had never seen him.

Striving to eat, but finding she has no appet.i.te, Erma goes almost timidly to the train, where she has engaged a stateroom, for she thinks the whole world is talking about her father and herself, in about the same language she has heard, and shrinks from public gaze and public scoff. She is happy to get to the privacy of her stateroom unnoticed--which is not difficult, every one about the station being excited and busy.

The snow is still falling heavily on the tracks, and the Central Pacific is behind time. Finally, getting a telegram that the train on the more western road has been detained by snow on the Sierra Nevada and Pequop Mountains, and is ten hours late, the Union Pacific pulls out of the station, one hour behind its time.

Just then the privacy of Miss Travenion's stateroom is invaded by Buck Powers, on his business tour through the train.

He says in resonant voice: "How are you off for peanuts? They're the only fruit that's in season now."

"I don't wish any," she replies, quietly.

"Won't you have some candy, or chewing gum? You look as if you needed somethin'."

Seeing this is declined by a shake of the head, he suggests: "That fire must have given you the blues, like it did me."

"What do you mean?" asks Erma, a little startled.

"Why," cries Buck, "don't you know it's been burnt down six weeks? There ain't no Chicago, but it made the highest old fire the world has ever seen."

"Oh, that's what you're referring to!" murmurs the young lady, who in her own troubles has failed to remember the destruction of the great Western city. Then she astounds the news-agent by adding, "I had forgotten that it was burnt."

"You--had--forgotten--the Chicago fire! Great Scott! You'd do for a museum!" he gasps. Then he says interrogatively: "You remember me, Buck Powers, don't you?"

She answers: "Yes, very well,--you're the news-boy who was injured by accident on the train. Captain Lawrence saved you."

"Well, I'm relieved that you ain't forgot everything!" he returns, and a moment after leers at her and says: "The Cap's on the train. I reckoned when I saw you he wouldn't be very far away," and goes off whistling merrily, though he leaves a sad heart behind him.

As for Lawrence, for one moment he has savagely thought, "She is safe on this Union Pacific train. Why should I follow her, to get more cuts?"

But the next second he remembers: "She does not know,--she thinks me worse than Livingston, for he is only a prig to her, while I seem an ingrate. She practically gave me fortune. Shall I desert her for a snub that she thinks I deserve? Never!"

After a little, joy comes to him again; he remembers: "Her father said 'Thank G.o.d!' when he heard my name. She told him of me six weeks ago.

She shall think of me again!"

So he has bought tickets for the East, and boarded the train, which is now running up Weber Canon rather slowly, as the grade is quite heavy, and the snow-drifts are multiplying and piling up on the road at a great rate.

An hour afterwards, going into the smoking-car, to kill time by a cigar, Harry looks out of the window, and they are at Echo.

As the train begins to move again he suddenly starts and mutters: "By George! I did right to come! He _is_ on her track!"

For just as the train is pulling out of this station, he sees das.h.i.+ng down the old stage road from Park City a sleigh drawn by two horses, in which four men are gesticulating for the conductor to hold up. But that official, who is standing near Lawrence, says grimly: "What! Pull the check line for Mormon mossbacks who'll get off at the next station, when the train is two hours late and snow-drifts ahead--not much!" And the train rolls on, followed by some very savage curses from the men in the sleigh.

One of these, Harry notes, is Kruger, and he chuckles to himself: "Left behind! He won't overtake us this side of Chicago! However, it's just as well I'm on board!"

An hour after they pa.s.s the Utah line, and come into Evanston two and a half hours late. Here they take dinner, and meet the train from the East that left Green River in the morning. This reports very heavy snows on Aspen Hill.