They sat down opposite each other; but not until Glover saw there were
two plates instead of one, and learned that Gertrude had eaten no
dinner because she was waiting for him, did he mutter something about
all that an American girl is capable of in the way of making a man
grateful and happy. There was nothing to hurry them back to the other
end of the car, and they did not rejoin Mr. Brock and Bucks, who were
smoking forward, until eleven o'clock. Callahan came in afterward, and
sitting together Mr. Brock and Gertrude listened while the three
railroad men planned the campaign for the next day.
Parting late, Glover said good-night and left with Callahan to inspect
the rotary. The fearful punishment of the day's work on the knives had
shown itself, and since dark, relays of mechanics from the Sleepy Cat
shops had been busy with the cutting gear, and the companion plough had
already been ordered in from the eighth district.
Glover returned to the car at one o'clock. The lights were low, and
Clem, a night-owl, fixed him in a chair near the door. For an hour
everything was very still, then Gertrude, sleeping lightly, heard
voices. Glover walked back past the compartments; she heard him asking
Clem for brandy--Bill Dancing, the lineman, had come with news.
The negro brought forward a decanter and Glover poured a gobletful for
the old man, who shook from the chill of the night air.
"The boys claim it's imagination," Dancing, steadied by the alcohol,
continued, "but it's a fire way over below the second bridge. I've
watched it for an hour; now you come."
They went away and were gone a long time. Glover returned alone--Clem
had disappeared; a girlish figure glided out of the gloom to meet him.
"I couldn't sleep," she whispered. "I heard you leave and dressed to
wait." She looked in the dim light as slight as a child, and with his
hand at her waist he sunk on his knee to look up into her face. "How
can I deserve it all?"
She blinded his upturned eyes in her hands, and not until she found her
fingers were wet did she understand all he had tried to put into his
words.
"Have you any news?" she murmured, as he rose.
"I believe they have found him."
She clasped her hands. "Heaven be praised. Oh, is it sure?"
"I mean, Dancing, the old lineman, has seen his fire. At least, we are
certain of it. We have been watching it two hours. It's a speck of a
blaze away across toward the mines. It never grows nor lessens, just a
careful little campfire where fuel is scarce--as it is now with all the
snow. We've lighted a big beacon on the hill for an answer, and at
daybreak we shall go after him. The planning is all done and I am free
now till we're ready to start."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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