On Sunday, Mr. Osborne’s second son, Phil, came over from Orange, where he was employed in the Edison laboratories. A part of the day was given up to a good-natured argument between Roy and his mother as to whether the latter should take a trunk or a suit case. Mrs. Osborne had enough articles laid out to have carried Roy on a cruise around the world. But, after repeated explanations, she surrendered. The suit case won. And in that were only a few toilet necessities, for Roy realized that in the west he would need only what he meant to buy in Chicago.
A little after ten o’clock Monday morning, Roy was off. At half-past seven Tuesday morning the eager young traveler—never before so far from home—found himself in the dingy, smoky Union Station in Chicago. In the station dining-room he first ate a good breakfast. An hour later he called a cab and drove to the downtown offices of the railroad over which he planned to travel to Pueblo.
Having secured transportation and sleeping car accommodation, he re-entered his cab, and directed the driver to one place of which he had dreamed for days—a well-known sporting goods and “outfitting” shop on Wabash Avenue. Here he dismissed his cab. When Roy left this store at noon he was the happiest lad in all that great city.
With his shopping done, he did what sight-seeing he could until five o’clock, at which hour he was again at the store. His precious supplies had been compactly placed in a strong box and labeled, “Mr. Royce Osborne, Bluff, Utah, via Pueblo and Dolores.” Loading the box into another cab, Roy saw his baggage deposited at the Dearborn Street Station, got a check for it, tipped the baggageman a quarter and was at last ready for his real journey.
The only change he had made in his list of things needed was to substitute a shoulder water canteen for his ½-gallon affair.
[CHAPTER VII]
ON THE EDGE OF THE DESERT
At one o’clock Saturday afternoon, when the straining locomotive at last pulled its weaving, narrow-gauge train into the far western mountain town of Dolores, Colorado, one passenger did not require the services of a porter to assist him to alight. Travel-worn but jubilant, Roy Osborne sprang to the station platform.
“Dolores at last!”