Part 19 (2/2)
”Repeat,” clicked Denver.
”No time; train's here,” came back from the station in the canyon; and Brockway's friend sat back and chuckled softly.
XX
CHIEFLY SCENIC
When the train drew up to the platform at Beaver Brook, Brockway asked Gertrude if he should go and see if there were a message for her.
”No,” she said, perversely; ”let it find me, if it can.”
It came, a minute later, by the hand of Conductor Halsey. She read it with a little frown of perplexity gathering between the straight brows.
”Do we live or die?” Brockway asked, crucially anxious to know what his friend had been able to do for him.
”Why, I don't understand it at all; it's simply Greek, after the other one. Papa says: 'Do not return on forenoon train. We shall wait for you.'”
”Good; I am a true prophet, and our white day is a.s.sured.”
”Y--yes, but I don't begin to understand how he came to change his mind so quickly.”
”Perhaps it was the moral force of my impudence,” ventured Brockway.
”Don't make any such mistake as that,” she said, quickly. ”Papa will not forgive or forget that, and I am sorry you did it.”
”You are a bundle of inconsistencies, as you promised to be,” Brockway retorted. ”But I'm not sorry, and I don't pretend to be. If I had smothered my little inspiration and given you your telegram at Golden, you wouldn't be enjoying this magnificent scenery now.”
”No; and it is grand beyond words, isn't it? If it wasn't for the name of it, I could rave over it like a veritable 'Cooky.' Can't we go out on the platform?”
”Yes; but you'll get your eyes full of cinders.”
”I don't care. Let's go, anyway.”
They did it and, for a wonder, found the rear platform of the second observation-car unoccupied. Gertrude wanted to sit on the step, but Brockway objected, on the score of danger from the jutting rocks; so they stood together, bracing themselves and clinging to the hand-rails.
”Show me the 'Old Man of the Mountain' when we come to it,” she said; ”of course, there _is_ an 'Old Man of the Mountain'?”
”There is, indeed, but we pa.s.sed him long ago--at least, the one that is always pointed out to the 'Cookies' as you call them. But if you will watch the outlines of the cliffs you can find one of your own in any half-mile of the canyon.”
”I don't want one if they are as cheap as that. I suppose you have made them at a pinch, haven't you? when you had forgotten to point out the real one?”
”I'm afraid I have; just as I have been obliged to invent statistics.
But that is the fault of the man with a note-book; he will have them, you know.”
”Why don't you tell him the truth?”
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