"Oh, that is your name, is it?" says Mr. Chauncey. "Probably you know a good deal about the West yourself?"
"I was born in Chicago," answers the boy proudly, "and railroaded ever since I was corn high."
"Ah, a railroad man?"
"You bet! I've run on the C. B. & Q., I have," remarks Buck, his voice growing proud, "and any man that has run on de boss road of the West out of Chicago, can call himself a railroad man and nothin' else."
In this exaltation of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, Buck was by no means alone in the early seventies, for somehow that was considered the great road west of the Mississippi, and all who were connected with it from a switchman up, seemed to be very proud of the C. B. & Q., and to run upon it into Chicago, appeared to them to be the acme of railroad bliss and happiness, which was the acme of all happiness. So they kicked off tramps with a proud kick, and they coupled freight cars with a self-satisfied air, and they received deaths with complaisance as defective couplings broke and box cars crashed together, and they made up passenger trains and ran locomotives with the haughty air of men belonging to the most prominent road in that great country which centred in Chicago, to which the rest of America, especially the East, was but an attachment.
"Oh, you are a railroad man—a Western railroad man. Perhaps you can tell me about the Rocky Mountains?"
"What I can't tell you about the Rockies and the U. P. ain't worth knowing," remarks Buck. "After I get through with this candy trip, and give 'em a rattle or two on books, notions and fruit, I'll come back and give you some eye-openers, because I can see you're going to be a good trader." Thus tagging on business with pleasure and self-glorification, Buck Powers proceeds on his way through the cars, shouting in a voice that drowns the roll of the wheels and the tooting of the locomotive:
"Bre-own's prize candies! Twenty-five cents a package! Warranted fresh and genuine, and each package guaranteed to contain a donation! It is your last chance to-night! Last chance to-night for Bre-OWN's prize candy and Chicago chewing gum!"
During this interview, Miss Travenion has looked on with an amused glance. She is astounded that one so small can make so great a noise, for Mr. Buck Powers is but five feet and five inches high, and rather slight, skinny, and wiry of frame, but his voice is like that of Goliath of Gath, with occasional staccatos stolen from the midnight yelp of the coyote of the plains.
As the boy's howls die away in the next car, she says suddenly to Ferdie, "What are you going to do with those books?"