The stage was starting. Gertrude faced backward as she sat. She could see Glover's salutation, and she waved a glove. He was as utterly confused as she could desire. She saw him rejoin his companion engineer near where lay the shoveller with the covered face, and the thought of the terrible accident depressed her. As she last saw Glover he was pointing at the faulty bank, and she knew that the two men were planning again for the safety of the men.
About Glen Tarn, now quite the best known of the Northern mountain resorts, there is no month like October: no sun like the October sun, and no frost like the first that stills the aspen. Moreover, the travel is done, the parks are deserted, the mountains robing for winter. In October, the horse, starting, shrinks under his rider, for the lion, always moving, never seen, is following the game into the valleys, leaving the grizzly to beat his stubborn retreat from the snow line alone.
Starting from the big hotel in a new direction every day the Pittsburgers explored the valleys and the cañons, for the lake and the springs nestle in the Pilot Mountains and the scenery is everywhere new. Mount Pilot itself rises loftily to the north, and from its sides may be seen every peak in the range.
One day, for a novelty, the whole party went down to Medicine Bend, nominally on a shopping expedition, but really on a lark. Medicine Bend is the only town within a day's distance of Glen Tarn Springs where there are shops; and though the shopping usually ended in a chorus of jokes, the trip on the main line trains, which they caught at Sleepy Cat, was always worth while, and the dining-car, with an elaborate supper in returning, was a change from the hotel table.
Sometimes Gertrude and Mrs. Whitney went together to the headquarters town—Gertrude expecting always to encounter Glover. When some time had passed, her failure to get a glimpse of him piqued her. One day with her aunt going down they met Conductor O'Brien. He was more than ready to answer questions, and fortunately for the reserve that Gertrude loved to maintain, Mrs. Whitney remarked they had not seen Mr. Glover for some time.
"No one has seen much of him for two weeks; he had a little bad luck," explained Conductor O'Brien.
"Indeed?"
"Three weeks ago he was up at Crab Valley. They had a cave-in on the irrigation canal and two or three men got caught under a coal platform near the steam shovel. Glover was close by when it happened. He got his back under the timbers until they could get the men out and broke two of his ribs. He went home that night without knowing of it, but a couple of days afterward he sneezed and found it out right away. Since then he's been doing his work in a plaster cast."
Their return train that day was several hours behind time and Gertrude and her aunt were compelled to go up late to the American House for supper. A hotel supper at Medicine Bend was naturally the occasion of some merriment, and the two diverted themselves with ordering a wild assortment of dishes. The supper hour had passed, the dining-room had been closed, and they were sitting at their dessert when a late comer entered the room. Gertrude touched her aunt's arm—Glover was passing.
Mrs. Whitney's first impulse was to halt the silent engineer with one of her imperative words. To think of him was to think only of his easily approachable manner; but to see him was indistinctly to recall something of a dignity of simplicity. She contented herself with a whisper. "He doesn't see us."