Then, being compelled to it, Mr. Oliver Livingston suddenly remembers that he has met the Westerner before,—a thing he has forgotten, though he has passed him several times upon the train, and suddenly says: "How are yer?" in an absent-minded sort of way, and seating himself enjoys the pleasures of gastronomy.
As the party's appetites become satisfied, their tongues begin to move in conversation, and Harry, taking advantage of the situation, proceeds to make himself very agreeable to Mrs. Livingston; for this young man has been thinking the matter over during his three or four hours on the train, and has concluded that to be a friend of the chaperon's will be very useful to him in his intercourse with Miss Travenion.
"I was afraid," says the New York widow, "that Erma had been carried off by Indians."
"Indians," remarks Lawrence, "were plentiful enough about here four or five years ago, but the railroad, with its settlements, has swept them back. In 1867 there were too many of them at times," and the young man's brow grows dark and his lips compressed with some recollection of the past. Throwing this off, he explains lightly to Mr. Ferdie, who begins eagerly questioning him on the point, that any buffalo that may be seen will be probably far to the West of where they are now; their best hope of catching sight of them being during the next day's journey. "If you had wanted to see buffalo in quantities," he continues, "you should have journeyed on the K. P., one hundred and fifty to two hundred miles south of here. There they graze, sometimes, even now, in droves of ten thousand by the side of the railway track."
"By Jove!" cries Ferdie to this information, looking with longing eyes to the South. "But we will return by the K. P., auntie, won't we?" Then he questions suddenly: "You have killed buffalo, haven't you, Captain Lawrence?"
"A few," remarks the Westerner quietly, and from that time on he is a hero in Ferdie's eyes.
Mr. Ollie having by this time finished his meal,—a business that he has interspersed with a few curt remarks about the badness and greasiness of Western cooking and the general inefficiency of frontier waiter-girls, he arises and suggests, "If you wish to miss this train, you had all better linger a little longer over the table."
To this, Mrs. Livingston suddenly gasps, "Hurry! The passengers are all leaving the room!"
"Oh, no hurry! They are only gentlemen anxious to get at their cigars," says Harry, to whom the meal has been a very pleasant one, Miss Travenion having made it brilliant by one or two glances from her bright eyes and a few vivacious remarks.
But the chaperon suddenly cries in a voice of terror, "If we miss the train, we are here on the prairies, unprotected and alone!"