Miss Dividends: A NovelGunter, Archibald Clavering
General
Miss Dividends: A Novel
Gunter, Archibald Clavering
Latter Day Saints -- Fiction
Telegraphic communication having been restored between Evanston and
Green River, Lawrence wires the superintendent of the division a
statement of what happened at Aspen and Piedmont, and receives the
following characteristic reply:
"Shall hold you for damage to locomotive. The homicide part of the
matter is not our business."
A day or so after this, a passenger train gets through from the West to
Green River, and walking out to meet it, Harry is astonished but
delighted to see Mr. Ferdinand Chauncey step out of one of its sleepers.
This gentleman, being brought in to see Miss Travenion, informs her of
her father's safety.
"I got him out of the mine within two hours," he says, "of Lawrence's
leaving. Together we sneaked down through Mormondom to Ogden, where your
papa concealed himself on a Central Pacific train, and is now in
California, I imagine, unless the snow-drifts on the C. P. are as bad as
on this!"
Relieved from anxiety about her father, Erma begins to pick up spirits
again, for this young lady, in her life that has been so easy up to this
time, has not been accustomed to seeing men die for her, and has not
recovered from the death of the boy at the Piedmont switch.
A little while after, Mr. Chauncey, who has an Evanston "_Age_" in his
pocket, pulls it out, and says: "Perhaps you may be interested in that!"
pointing to an article in the newspaper which is an account of the
inquest by coroner's jury held upon the body of Kruger at Evanston.
They had taken the evidence of some of the train-hands, and the verdict
had been:
"That the boy Buck Powers killed Kruger, and Kruger killed Buck Powers!
Consequently there is an all-round _nolle prosequi_ in the matter."
This rather unique finding pleases Harry immensely, for now, he
imagines, he will not be delayed in getting his sweetheart to
civilization.
Some two or three hours after, telegraphic orders being received, they
board the same train that Mr. Ferdie has come into Green River on, and
depart for the East.
Passing through Rawlings in the night, early the next day they find
themselves halted by the snow blockade at Medicine Bow, about one
hundred miles west of Laramie; and this time it seems to be a permanent
stoppage.
Train after train comes in from the West, and none from the East, they
being held there by snow, at Cooper's Lake, and tremendous drifts in the
deep cuts from Laramie towards Sherman.
Fortunately they have plenty to eat. There is a grocery store, and they
are the first of this snow blockade, and so they live on "the fat of the
land," which means canned goods of every style, and ham and bacon _ad
libitum_.
Though Ferdie rages at the delay, Lawrence, being near his sweetheart,
would be content but for one thing: Erma's position, without a chaperon,
and accompanied by two men, neither of them relatives, is
"embarrassing."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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