"I had to do what I could; and you, and Burton, and the operator, had to be saved blameless. But I'll venture a prediction. As well as you know your father, you may prepare yourself to be surprised at what he will say. I am no mind-reader, but I'm going to prophesy that he doesn't recall you."
"But why? I don't understand——"
"We are due at Beaver Brook in five minutes; wait, and you will see."
So they waited while the pygmy locomotive snorted and labored, and the yellow torrent roared and fled backward, and the gray cliffs on either hand flung back the clamorous echoes, and the cool damp air of the canyon, flushed now and then with a jet of spray, blew in at the car windows.
For the first time since her father had suggested the trip with the Burtons, Gertrude began to understand that it could scarcely have been his intention to give her an uninterrupted day in the company of the passenger agent. But in that case, why had he proposed the trip, knowing that Brockway's party would be on the train? The answer to this query did not tarry. She had caught the surprised exclamations of the Tadmorians when Brockway made his appearance, and they pointed to the supposition that his presence on the train was unexpected. And he had been evidently embarrassed; and Mrs. Burton was curiously distrait and unmistakably anxious to get them out of the way before her husband should return.
These things were but straws, but they all pointed to one conclusion. Her father knew, or thought he knew, that the passenger agent was to stay behind in Denver, and he had deliberately sent her away for the day to preclude the possibility of another meeting. And when he had discovered that the little plan had miscarried, he had quite as deliberately ordered her return.
Speaking broadly, the President's daughter was not undutiful; but she was sufficiently like her father to be quickly resentful of coercive measures. Wherefore, when she had cleared up the small mystery to her own satisfaction, she hardened her heart and promised herself that nothing short of a repetition of the peremptory order should make her return on the forenoon train. And the shriek of the engine, whistling for Beaver Brook, punctuated the resolve.