Miss Dividends: A NovelGunter, Archibald Clavering
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Miss Dividends: A Novel
Gunter, Archibald Clavering
Latter Day Saints -- Fiction
Then, Miss Travenion, some load seeming to have been lifted from her
mind, turns to her stateroom, to watch over the sleeping news-boy. As
she sits gazing at the recumbent invalid, she wonders, "Why should I be
happy to hear that Harry Lawrence is not regarded as a murderer by those
who have seen him kill?" and while musing upon this, the boy opens his
eyes, for the effect of the opiate has passed off, Erma's conversation
with the Western man having been a long one.
A moment after, he says faintly, "If you please, Miss, I would like to
go back to business. This trip ain't goin' to pay me nothing."
"You lay quiet, Buck," whispers the girl. "I'll attend to your business
for you," for a sudden idea has come into Erma's head. She steps lightly
out into the car, and taking off her straw hat, throws a greenback into
it, and goes about among the passengers of the Pullmans, taking up a
collection for the injured waif, which nets him a great deal more than
the profits of his trip would have been, even were he in good health and
pursuing his business with his usual keenness.
Coming in from this, she shakes the money joyfully before the boy's eyes
and laughs, "What kind of a news-agent do you think I make? There are
the profits of the trip, Buck. Take some of this lemonade and go to
sleep again."
To which the boy murmurs, "You would make a corker. They'd buy
two-year-old peaches from you--they would," drinks down the beverage her
white hand places at his lips, and so goes to sleep again.
All this time the train, which seems to rattle along very merrily to the
girl, has been leaving the valley of the Green River--that stream which
flows between sandstones that, rising hundreds of feet above its banks,
have the appearance of domes and mediaeval castles and cathedrals, making
it as picturesque as the Rhine, only much more grand; for far below, on
its course to the blue Gulf of California, its cliffs from hundreds of
feet grow into thousands, and its cathedrals and domes and palaces and
ruins are those of giants, not of men, for this river is really the
Colorado, and its Grand Canyon is the most sublime spectacle of the whole
American continent, not even excepting the tremendous mountains and
glaciers of the British Northwest.
So, after a few hours' running over plateaux nearly as barren as the
Sahara Desert, though they would blossom like the garden of Gethsemane
could irrigation ever be brought to them, they approach the high
tablelands at Piedmont, and climbing through long snow sheds to Aspen
Hill, run down the valley of the Bear River, by which stream the train
winds its way to Evanston, the last town in Wyoming Territory.
As they progress westward, Miss Travenion leaves the sleeping boy, and
coming to Mrs. Livingston's stateroom, finds that lady in conversation
with Mr. Kruger, who seems to be very happy at getting back to his Utah
home.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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