She looked puzzled. "Mr. Glover, if you have jestingly beguiled me into real sympathy I shall be angry in earnest."
"You are going to-morrow. How could I jest about it? When you go I face the desert again. You have come like water into my life—are you going out of it forever to-morrow? May I never hope to see you again—or hear from you?" She rose in amazement; he was between her and the door. "Surely, this is extraordinary, Mr. Glover."
"Only a moment. I shall have days enough of silence. I dread to shock or anger you. But this is one reason why I tried to keep away from you—just this—because I— And you, in unthinking innocence, kept me from my intent to escape this moment. Your displeasure was hard to bear, but your kindness has undone me. Believe me or not I did fight, a gentleman, even though I have fallen, a lover."
The displeasure of her eyes as she faced him was her only reply. Indeed, he made hardly an effort to support her look and she swept past him into the car.
The Brock train lay all next day in the Medicine Bend yard. A number of the party, with horses and guides, rode to the Medicine Springs west of the town. Glover, buried in drawings and blueprints, was in his office at the Wickiup all day with Manager Bucks and President Brock.
Late in the afternoon the attention of Gertrude, reading alone in her car, was attracted to a stout boy under an enormous hat clambering with difficulty up the railing of the observation platform. In one arm he struggled for a while with a large bundle wrapped in paper, then dropping back he threw the package up over the rail, and starting empty-handed gained the platform and picked up his parcel. He fished a letter from his pistol pocket, stared fearlessly in at Gertrude Brock and knocked on the glass panel between them.
"Laundry parcels are to be delivered to the porter in the forward car," said Gertrude, opening the door slightly.
As she spoke the boy's hat blew off and sailed down the platform, but he maintained some dignity. "I don't carry laundry. I carry telegrams. The front door was locked. I seen you sitting in there all alone, and I've got a note and had orders to give it to you personally, and this package personally, and not to nobody else, so I climbed over."
"Stop a moment," commanded Gertrude, for the heavy messenger was starting for the railing before she quite comprehended. "Wait until I see what you have here." The boy, with his hands on the railing, was letting himself down.
"My hat's blowin' off. There ain't any answer and the charges is paid."