Part 3 (2/2)

”You are in a fix, sure. But this train will take you through the Pa.s.s to Ellensburg, and there ought to be a hospital and a garage there. Or--the westbound pa.s.senger, due at this siding in seven minutes”--the conductor looked at his watch--”could put you back in Seattle at eight-fifteen.”

”Make it the westbound; no hospital for me. Telegraph for a drawing-room, conductor, and notify this station agent to s.h.i.+p the machine on the same train. And, Elizabeth,” he paused to take the drinking-cup she had filled, ”you look up a telephone, or if there isn't a long distance, telegraph James. Tell him to have a couple of doctors, Hillis and Norton, to meet the eight-fifteen; and to bring the limousine down with plenty of pillows and comforters.” He drained the cup and dropped it into the open hamper.

”Now, porter,” he added, ”if you hurry up a c.o.c.ktail, the right sort, before that westbound gets here, it means a five to you.”

As these various messengers scurried away, the girl who remained picked up the cup and poured a draught of wine for the lady in the tonneau. ”I am so sorry, but it was the only way. Do you think it is a sprain?” she asked.

”Yes.” The older woman took the cup in her left hand. She had a deep, carrying voice, and she added, looking at the injured wrist: ”It's swelling frightfully, but it saved my face; I might have had just such a hideous wound as Frederic's. Isn't it a relief to hear him talking so rationally?”

The girl nodded. ”He seems quite himself,” she said gravely. But she turned to cover the mirth in her eyes; it suffused her face, her whole charming personality. Then suddenly, at the moment the flow was highest, came the ebb. Her glance met Tisdale's clear, appraising look, and she stood silent and aloof.

He looked away and, after a moment, seeing nothing further to do, started back to his train. She turned to take the empty cup, and as she closed the hamper the whistle of the westbound sounded through the gorge.

Tisdale walked on through the observation car to the rear platform and stood looking absently off through an aisle of Alpine firs that, parklike, bordered the track. It was a long time since the sight of a pretty woman had so quickened his blood. He had believed that for him this sort of thing was over, and he laughed at himself a little.

The westbound rumbled to a stop on the parallel track, he felt the trucks under him start, and an unaccountable depression came over him; the next moment he heard a soft voice directing the porter behind him, and as unaccountably his heart rose. The girl came on through the open door and stopped beside him, bracing herself with one hand on the railing, while she waved her handkerchief to the group she had left. He caught a faint, clean perfume suggesting violets, the wind lifted the end of her veil across his shoulder, and something of her exhilaration was transmitted to the currents in his veins. ”Good-by, Elizabeth,” she called. ”Good-by.

Good-by.”

Some trainmen were getting the injured man aboard the westbound pa.s.senger, and the lady who had left the wrecked automobile to go with him sent back a sonorous ”Au revoir.” But Elizabeth, who was hurrying down from the station where she had accomplished her errand, turned in astonishment to look after the speeding eastbound. Then a rocky k.n.o.b closed all this from sight.

The girl on the platform turned, and Tisdale moved a little to let her pa.s.s. At the same time the lurching of the car, as it swung to the curve, threw her against him. It all happened very quickly; he steadied her with his arm, and she drew back in confusion; he raised his hand to his head and, remembering he had left his hat in his seat, a flush shaded through his tan. Then, ”I beg your pardon,” she said and hurried by him through the door.

Tisdale stood smoothing his wind-ruffled hair and watching the receding cliff. ”Her eyes are hazel,” he thought, ”with turquoise lights. I never heard of such a combination, but--it's fine.”

A little later, when he went in to take his seat, he found her in the chair across the aisle. The train was skirting the bluffs of Keechelus then, and she had taken off her coat and hat and sat watching the unfolding lake. His side glance swept her slender, gray-clad figure to the toe of one trim shoe, braced lightly on her footstool, and returned to her face. In profile it was a new delight. One caught the upward curl of her black lashes; the suggestion of a fault in the tip of her high, yet delicately chiseled nose; the piquant curve of her short upper lip; the full contour of the lifted chin. Her hair, roughened some, was soft and fine and black with bluish tones.

The temptation to watch her was very great, and Tisdale squared his shoulders resolutely and swung his chair more towards his own window, which did not afford a view of the lake. He wanted to see this new railroad route through the Cascades. This Pa.s.s of Snoqualmie had always been his choice of a transcontinental line. And he was approaching new territory; he never had pushed down the eastern side from the divide. He had chosen this roundabout way purposely, with thirty miles of horseback at the end, when the Great Northern would have put him directly into the Wenatchee Valley and within a few miles of that tract of Weatherbee's he was going to see.

There were few travelers in the observation car, and for a while nothing broke the silence but the clamp and rush of the wheels on the down-grade, then the man with a camera entered and came down the aisle as far as the new pa.s.senger's chair. ”I hope you'll excuse me,” he said, ”I'm Daniels, representing the _Seattle Press_, and I thought you would like to see this story go in straight.”

Tisdale swung his chair a little towards the open rear door, so that he was able to watch without seeming to see the progress of the comedy. He was quick enough to catch the sweeping look she gave the intruder, aloof yet fearless, as though she saw him across an invisible barrier. ”You mean you are a reporter,” she asked quietly, ”and are writing an account of the accident for your newspaper?”

”Yes.” Daniels dropped his cap into the next chair and seated himself airily on the arm. The camera swung by a carrying strap from his shoulder, and he opened a notebook, which he supported on his knee while he felt in his pocket for a pencil. ”Of course I recognized young Morganstein; everybody knows him and that chocolate car; he's been run in so often for speeding about town. And I suppose he was touring through Snoqualmie Pa.s.s to the races at North Yakima fair. There should be some horses there worth going to see.”

”We meant to spend a day or two at the fair,” she admitted, ”but we expected to motor on, exploring a little in the neighborhood.”

”I see. Up the valley to have a look at the big irrigation dam the Government is putting in and maybe on to see the great Tieton bore. That would have been a fine trip; sorry you missed it.” Daniels paused to place several dots and hooks on his page. ”I recognized Miss Morganstein, too,”

he went on, ”though she was too busy to notice me. I met her when I was taking my course in journalism at the State University; danced with her at the Junior Prom. And the other lady, whose wrist was sprained, must have been her sister, Mrs. Feversham. I was detailed to interview the new Alaska delegate when he pa.s.sed through Seattle, and I understood his wife was to join him later. She was stopping over for a visit, and the society editor called my attention to a mighty good picture of her in last Sunday's issue. Do you know?--” he paused, looking into the girl's face with a curious scrutiny, ”there was another fine reproduction on that page that you might have posed for. The lady served tea or punch or did something at the same affair. But I can't remember her name--I've tried ever since we left that station--though seems to me it was a married one.”

”I remember the picture you mean; I remember. And I was there. It was a bridge-luncheon at the Country Club in honor of Mrs. Feversham. And she-- the lady you were reminded of--won the prize. So you think I resemble that photograph?” She tipped her head back a little, holding his glance with her half-veiled eyes. ”What an imagination!”

”Of course if you did pose for that picture, it doesn't do you half justice; I admit that. But”--regarding her with a wavering doubt--”I guess I've been jumping at conclusions again. They call me the 'Novelist' at the office.” He paused, laughing off a momentary embarra.s.sment. ”That's why I didn't want to depend on getting your name from the society editor.”

”I am glad you did not. It would have been very annoying, I'm sure--to the lady. I suppose,” she went on slowly, while the glamour grew in her eyes, ”I suppose nothing could induce you to keep this story out of the _Press_.”

He pursed his lips and shook his head decidedly. ”I don't see how I can.

I'd do 'most anything to oblige you, but this is the biggest scoop I ever fell into. The fellows detailed by the other papers to report the fair went straight through by way of the Northern Pacific. I was the only reporter at the wreck.”

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