“You never saw them?”
“Oh, no; I’m new—like everything else out here.”
“I suppose you are going to this place called Leadville to make your fortune digging gold?—or is it silver? I never can remember.”
“Not at all,” he hastened to assure her. “I expect to go to work in a railroad office in Denver.”
“We are going to Denver, too,” she volunteered. “The Captain isn’t well, and we are hoping the climate will help him.”
“The Captain?” Philip queried.
“My father,” she explained. Then, as if upon a sudden impulse: “Would you care to—may I?”
“I wish you would,” said Philip, adding: “My name is Trask.”
The easy, self-contained manner in which she compassed the introductions made him wonder if such gifts came naturally to young women of the South. He shook hands rather awkwardly over the back of the seat with Captain Dabney; tried to say the appropriate formality to the wife and mother; tried to make big-brotherly nods to the two younger girls who were named for him as Mysie and Mary Louise.
“Now then, since you know us all around, we can talk as much as we want to,” said the girl at his side.