Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1901-08-09
CHAPTER I.-CoNr1NUED.

CHAPTER I.-CONTINUED.
Only one man of the party seemed
to have no further interest in what
was going on outside. With one hand
still grasping the edge of the upright
partition between two sections near
the forward end, and the other just
Setting go. apparently, of the bell
cord. the tall, slender, well-built
young soldier, with dark-brown eyes
and softly curling lashes, was lower
ing himself into the aisle. The
brakeman proceeded to rebuke him
on the spot.
Look here, young Teller. You'll
nave to keep your hands off that bell
cord. Here I've been cussin' things
for keeps, thinkin' it was knotted or
caught. 1t was just you had hold of
it. Don't you know better'n that?
Amt you ever travelled before?"
The man addressed was showing
something away inside the breast of
his shirt. He did it with almost os-
tentatious elaboration, quietly eying
the brakeman before replying. Then,
SLOWLY readjusting the knot of a fine
BLACK silk necktie, so that its broad,
Tapping ends spread over the coarser
material of the garment, he slowly
looked the justly exasperated brake
man over from head to foot and as
slowly and placidly answered.:
mot more than about half around
the world. AS for your bell cord, it
was knotted; it caught in that ring.
saw that some one was tugging and
trying to get it loose, so swung up
there and Strengthened it. just what
you'd have done under the circum-
stances. fancy"
The brakeman turned redder I'M
der the ruddy brown of his sum
tanned skin. This was no raw
rookie" after all. In his own YER
nacular, as afterwards expressed to
the conductor, 81 seen was up ag'in'
the real ting dis time," but it was
fard to admit it at the moment
VeXation had to have a vent. The
Dell cord no longer served. The sup
posed meddler had proved a help.
Something or somebody had to be
the victim of the honest brakeman's
spleen, so, somewhat unluckily, as
events determined, he took it out on
the company and that decrepit car,
cow buzzing along with much COM
plant of axle and of bearing.
Damn this old shake-down, any
howl" said he. ''The company ought
TO know 'nough not to have such
things lynn round loose. Some night
it'll fall to pieces and kill folks"
And with this implied apology for
his aspersions of Recruit Foster, the
brakeman hustled away.
But what he said was heard by
more than one, and remembered when
perhaps he would have wished it for
gotten. The delay at Ogden was sup
plemented by a long halt before the
setting of that blazing sun, neces-
STATED by the firing of the waste
in the boxes of those long-neglected,
trucks. Far back as the rearmost
sleeper the sickening smell of burn
ing, oil-steeped packing drove femi-
nine occupants to their satchels in
search of scept-bottles, and the men
to such comfort as could be found
in TASKS of bulkier make
In the heart of the desert, with
dust and desolation spreading far
on every hand. the long train had
stopped to douse those foul-smelline
fires, and, while train-hands pried
off the red-hot caps and dumped
buckets of water into the blazing
cavities, changing malodorous smoke
to dense clouds of equally unsavory
steam, and the recruits in the afflict-
cd car found consolation in "josh-
Ing" the hard-sweating, hard-swear-
ing workers, the young officer who
had boarded the second sleeper at
Ogden. with half dozen bipeds in
busters or frazzled shirt-sleeves, had
become involved in complication on
the shadier side of the train.
Somewhere into the sage-brush a
5ack-rabbi had darted and was now
I'm hiding. With a dozen eager heads
poked from the northward windows
and stretching arms and index fin
gers guiding them in their inglorious
hunt, the lieutenant and his few
associates were stalking the first
four-footed object sighted from the
train since the crossing of the bald
divide.
Within the heated cars, with
flushed faces and plying palm-leaf
fans. a few of the women passengers
were languidly gazing from the win
lows. At the center window of the
Z cond sleeper, without palm-leaf
md looking serene and unperturbed,
sat the young girl whose lovely face
had SO excited Mr.. Stuyvesant's deep
admiration. Thrice since leaving
Ogden, on one pretext or other. had
he passed her section and stolen such
= look as could be given without
Z \