Cavalier County farmers press. (Langdon, N.D.) 1920-1921, 1921-03-17

CHAPTER !
At Sand Creek sidina

heva much in the things called
lunches" But there are exceptions
to all rules, and we certainly uncov-
cred the biggest one Of the lot-the
boss and 1.-The night we left Port
land and. the good old Pacific coast.
1t was this way. We had finished
the construction work on the Oregon
Midland; and were OF our way to the
train, when I had one Of those queer
little premonitory chills you heal so
much about and knew just as well as
could be that we were never going
to pull through to Chicago without get
ting a jolt Of some sort. The reason
If you'll call 1t a reason-was that,
just before we came to the railroad
station, the boss walked calmly under
q ladder standing in front Of a new
building; and besides that, it was the
thirteenth day of the month, a Fri
day, and raining like the very mis-
chief.
Just to sort of toll us along, may
be, the fates didn't begin on us that
night. They waited until the next
!, day, and then proceeded to shove us
in behind a freight-train wreck at
Widner, Idaho, where we lost twelve
hours. 1t looked as If that didn't
amount to much, because we weren't
due anywhere at any particular time.
The boss was on his way home for a
little visit with his folks in Illinois,
and beyond that he was going to meet
a bunch of Englishmen in Montreal.
and maybe let them make him general
manager of n of the Canadian rail-
roads. 7
So Mr.. Norcross was in no special
hurry, and neither was 1. I had been
confidential clerk and shorthand man
for the boss on the Midland construc-
ton, and he was taking me along part
~ because he knows a cracking good
stenographer when he sees one. but
mostly because I was dead anxious to
go anywhere he was goinr.
But, if 1t hadn't beer for that
t%welve-hour layout we would nave
caught the Saturday night train on
! the Pioneer Short Line, instead of the
/ train Sunday morning. and there
\ would have been no meeting with
, Mrs. Sheila and Maisie Ann; no tele-
!! gram from Mr.. Chadwick, because it
J wouldn't have found us; no hold-up
at Sand Creek siding in short, nothing
| would have happened that did hap
\ pen.
N It was on Sunday that the jolt be-
n gan to get ready to land on us. Right
III soon after breakfast, with the help of
VA little Pullman berth table and me
l&and my typewriter, Mr.. .Norcross
turned our section into a business office.
IN saying that now we had a good quiet
III day. we'd clean up the million or so
IA odds and ends Of correspondence he'd
been letting go while we were tussling
Il for the Midland right-of-way through
III the Oregon mountains.
n From where he sat debating to me
III the boss was facing forward and now
W and then an absent sort of look came
VI into his eyes while he was talking off
his letters, and it puzzled me because
h 1t wasn't like him. One of the times
\ after he had given me a full grist of
y letters and had gone off to smoke
]. while l typed a few thousand lines
from my notes to catch up. l made
q discovery. There were two people
In Section Five just ahead of us, a
young woman and a girl of maybe ff-
teen or so, and the Pullman was the
S old-fashioned kind. with low seat
backs. | put it up that in those alb
sent-eyed intervals Mr.. Norcross. had
N been studying the back of the young
IA ry1 n ~ d, r11f~e + xroo
it wasn't the little girls.
Along in the forenoon | made an ex-
cuse to go and get a drink of water
out of the forward cooler, and on the
way back I took a good square look
Dat our neighbors in Number Five. The
Foung woman "a pretty enough to
ssstart a stopped clock-only pretty"
%sn't just the word. either; there
wasn't any word, when you come right
sdown to it. And the little girl was
&ssimpfy a peach-a nice, downy, rosy
speach; chunky, round-faced, sunny-
shaired, jolly; with a neat little turned
up nose and big sort of boyish laugh
Hing eyes that fairly dared the world.
At the second call to dinner Mr..
MlASoASlOSS LUlu uc w SlIdp up LliS ina
Chime and put the files away in the
n agrips and we'd go eat. He was pretty
eluiet. breaking out once, in the meat
course, to tell me that he'd just had a
Forwarded telegram from an old friend
pf his that would stop us off for Il
9iay or two In Portal City. the head
Quarters of the Pioneer Short Line.
q FARTHER along, pretty well into the Ice
,ream and black coffee, he came to life
Iigain to ask me II | had noticed the
young lady and the girl In the Pull.
nan section next to ours.
I told him ! had, and then, h~ecause
y haA never known him to bother his
head for two minutes In succession
about my woman, he gaye me n
shoek; said they were tlcketed to