"Gleichen, about sixty miles east of Calgary," came the reply.
"Construction camp?" asked the first voice.
"No," came the answer, "This line was laid about when you were born, I guess."
Someone laughed then.
"But what are all those tents off there in the distance?" again asked the curious one.
"Indian tepees," was the reply. "This is the heart of the Blackfoot
Reserve."
Norton's heart gave a great throb—the far-famed Blackfoot Indians!—and just outside his Pullman window! Oh, if the train would only wait there until morning! As if in answer to his wish, a quick, alert voice cut in saying, "Washout ahead, boys. The Bow River's been cutting up. We're stalled here for good and all, I guess." And the lanterns and voices faded away forward.
Norton lay very still for a few moments trying to realize it all. Then raising himself on one elbow, he peered out across an absolutely level open prairie. A waning moon hung low in the west, its thin radiance brooding above the plains like a mist, but the light was sufficient to reveal some half-dozen tepees, that lifted their smoky tops and tent poles not three hundred yards from the railway track. Norton looked at his watch. He could just make out that it was two o'clock in the morning. Could he ever wait until daylight? So he asked himself over and over again, while his head (with its big mop of hair that would curl in spite of the hours he spent in trying to brush it straight) snuggled down among the pillows, and his grave young eyes blinked longingly at those coveted tepees. And the next thing he knew a face was thrust between his berth-curtains, a thin, handsome, clean-shaven face, adorned with gold-rimmed nose glasses, and crowned with a crop of hair much like his own, and a voice he loved very much was announcing in imitation of the steward, "Breakfast is now ready in the dining-car."
Norton sprang up, pitching the blankets aside, and seized Professor Allan by the arm. "Oh, Pater," he cried, pointing to the window, "do you see them—-the Indians, the tepees? It's the Blackfoot Reserve! I heard the trainmen say so in the night."
"Yes, my boy," replied the Professor, seating himself on the edge of his son's berth. "And I also see your good mother and estimable father dying of starvation, if they have to wait much longer for you to appear with them in the dining-car—"