He did not know all that was before him, nor what was to happen before he again saw his friends, the cowboys.
CHAPTER IV
ROY IS PUZZLED
While Roy's father had given him some instructions as to the best method of proceeding while in New York, Mr. Bradner had said nothing to his son about what he might expect on his railroad trip. Therefore the boy was totally unprepared for the novelties of modern travel. Mr. Bradner had thought it wise to let his son find out things for himself.
Roy had never been in anything but an ordinary day coach, and those were of an old-fashioned type. But his father had purchased for him tickets all the way to New York in the Pullman parlor and sleeping cars, and it was in a luxurious parlor car, then, that Roy found himself when he boarded the express.
At first the boy did not know what to make of it. The car had big chairs instead of the ordinary seats, the windows were nearly twice as large as those in other coaches, and there were silk and plush curtains hanging over them. Besides there was a thick, soft velvety carpet on the floor of the coach, and, what with the inlaid and polished wood, the hangings, mirrors, brass and nickel-plated fixtures, Roy thought he had, by mistake, gotten into the private car of some millionaire.
He had occasionally seen the outside of these fine coaches as they rushed through Painted Stone, but he had never dreamed that he would be in one. So, as soon as he entered the coach, he started back.
"What's de matter, sah?" inquired a colored porter in polite tones, as he came from what seemed a little cubby-hole built in the side of the car.
"Guess I'm in the wrong corral," remarked Roy, who was so used to using western and cattle terms, that he did not consider how they would sound to other persons.