;GkLandtlieDea By Karl Edwin Harriman UC-NRLF The Girl and The Deal THE GIRL EXAMINED THE CURIOUS CARVING The Girl and the Deal By Karl Edwin Hartiman Author of Ann Arbor Tales, etc. With Illustration! by W. H. D. KOERNER Philadelphia George W. Jacobs ? Co. Publishers COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY KARL EDWIN HARRIMAN COPYRIGHT, I9O5, BY GEORGE W. JACOBS & CO. Published June, 1905. To THE GIRL M668767 CONTENTS PAGE. I. A YOUNG MAN S PEACE OF MIND 13 II. THE DETERMINATION OF YOUTH 37 III. A PAIR OF EYES ACROSS THE AISLE 49 IV. EXPLANATION AND REJOICING 61 V. AN EDUCATION IN LITTLE 77 VI. THE FOLLY OF SELF-COMMUNION 91 VII. WEST AND EAST 101 VIII. THE SPIRIT OF CHICAGO 117 IX. A CONSCIENCE STRAINED 133 X. THE EDUCATION PROCEEDS 147 XI. A PURCHASE IN THE OPEN 163 XII. ACCESSORY AFTER THE FACT 193 XIII. THE MAGIC OF A SUNSET 205 XIV. DOWN ! 225 XV. THE SOUL OF THE CANYON 241 XVI. CAPITULATION 263 XVII. ONE SORT OF GIRL 271 XVIII. GRADUATION 285 XIX. THE DEAL 303 XX. A GIRL S HAND 313 XXI. AN OFFER is ACCEPTED 333 XXII. THE STAR THAT DID NOT FALL 345 ILLUSTRATIONS The girl examined the curious carving Frontispiece Over the second telegram he pondered longer. .Facing page 22* "I am one of those poor, homeless creatures called orphans" " " 66 "That s Detroit over there" " " 78 A part of the promised education " " 126 He came upon her at the Pullman office " " 134 He was filled with a great longing to tell her then " " 172 "I ve tried to talk about it half a dozen times". " " 250 She gazed at the ties as they raced on to the east . " " 286 "What is your proposition, Mr. Mason?" ( 318 "You are heels over head in love with Aunt Jane" " " 338 "Do you see that star, dear heart?" " " 348 A Young Man s Peace of Mind The Girl and the Deal I. A YOUNG MAN S PEACE OF MIND KUSKY-THROATED newsboys cried the mid-morning editions through the Common. An occasional bootblack persuaded an occasional Bostonian that he needed a shine, and fell upon his knees forthwith before a bench that once was green, but from which the east wind had eaten all but a crackling speck of paint here and there. In Washington Street some thing of the day s activity was already be ginning to appear. Life Boston daily life was springing up in Boston s thorough fares. There were many women moving this way and that with little net shopping 13 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ * bags hanging from their crooked arms. The sun burned in a turquoise sky, dappled with cotton clouds that might gather before even ing and let fall their store of moisture in needed rain. If Harold Mason was conscious of the shifting life about him, he gave no sign. Quite unconsciously indeed, or, perhaps, automatically, he sprang in front of a pair of grays drawing a gleaming brougham up Washington Street, but did not observe the hand that waved to him from the shadow of the vehicle. The ferrule of his stick clicked on the pavement rhythmically. At trie Old Corner Book Store he loitered a moment, but though he stared at the display of a new and already popular novel in the low win dow, he did not see the piles of volumes, nor read the sign informing an interested Bos- M- A YOUNG MAN S PEACE * * ton that the books were on sale at $.1. "publisher s price $1.50." Each morning for three years he had loitered a moment be fore the window on his way to his father s office in Tremont Street, but on this par ticular morning it was habit merely that in duced his hesitation at the corner; for, look in at the window though he might, here, there, everywhere, he saw only her face, her face as he had seen it turned archly up at him when he stood before her in Mrs. Wor- rington s "palm room," as Mrs. Worrington chose to call the end of her conservatory that led from the library in her Brookline home. The young man s stick resumed its click against the uneven pavement as he walked on. Tremont Street was not yet crowded and he was glad for that. He was very silly ; his mind told him as much frankly, but 15 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ ^ somewhere another still little voice he wondered if it could be his heart laughed. Yet there was her face Sibyl Anstruther s face smiling at him from every gleaming window that he passed. "Gad!" he exclaimed inwardly, "why shouldn t a fellow think of her how could a fellow help thinking of her once he had seen her, or better, heard her voice, or bet ter still, gazed into her eyes, or even better, danced with her?" He struck impatiently at a dangling awn ing rope with his stick. Then with a mental start that nearly brought him up standing, he thought of Fred Townsend. To be sure, he didn t know Townsend very well, but he had eyes. And when a girl is willing to sit out four dances with a man in the shade of a mass of canna on a darkened lawn, it is 16 A YOUNG MAN S PEACE * * * reasonable to suppose that the girl has some interest in the man. Sibyl Anstruther had done this. And Mason recalled with a nasty smile the satanic joy that had been his, when, in answer to Mrs. Worrington s anx ious inquiry, he had replied, "Oh, yes, I have seen her; she is outside on the lawn." And he watched his hostess s fleeting white figure as it sped down the walk and plunged into the darkness. Presently she reappeared with Sibyl, and Mason chuckled in his col lar. Jealous? Jealous of a girl whom he had seen but twice? Absurd! Vicious; that was it, simply vicious. Sibyl had interested him ; she had, more or less, saved him from the insufferable boredom of a summer in town a boredom that but for her would have been all the greater for the reason that the last three summers ever since his grad- 17 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ * uation from Harvard he had idled the month happily at Cape May or Martha s Vineyard. But he would show Townsend before autumn; he d show him a lot of things. A man and a maid may accomplish much in two midsummer months, and Sibyl had told him at their first meeting that she meant to stop on in Boston with Daisy Wor- rington, her one-time school-mate, until October. Besides there was the dance next Thursday. He should see her again then, and perhaps He turned into the cool, white-marble corridor of the Colonial building, on the sixth floor of which was his father s private office. He failed to return the elevator boy s morning greeting as was his custom, and, still mechanically, stepped from the car at his floor and passed down the corri- 18 A YOUNG MAN S PEACE * * * dor. From the ground glass of a door at the end stared at him bluntly, in black letters, his father s name John Mason and such was the son s distress of mind, that as he turned the knob he muttered, quite aloud, "Confound trolley cars and bonds and all such in summer ." The office-boy, a freckle-faced little Irishman of the official Boston brand, came toward him from his flat desk in one corner of the room. "Your father has asked for you three times, sir," he said. Mason glowered down at him. "Oh, he has, has he?" he growled. There were two twinkles in the two beady eyes of Michael, but his face was sober as he nodded. "Any wires, Michael?" 19 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ "Two, sir." "San Francisco?" "I think so, sir." "Ah." He passed on into his own office, the sin gle window of which permitted a drab view of a multitude of low roofs. Away over there, somewhere, lay the ocean, Mason was wont to tell himself on a hot afternoon. He noisily flung up the roll top of his desk. Glancing over his mail hastily, he did not wait to open it, but crossed the waiting room to the door opposite the entrance, and en tered the presence of his father. "The boy said you have wanted me," he remarked. His father was gazing out the window into Tremont Street as Harold noiselessly entered the room, but at the sound of his 20 A YOUNG MAN S PEACE * * * voice he wheeled quickly in his pivot desk chair with a slight nervous start. "Good heavens, my foot I" he exclaimed, and, stooping, caressed the gouty member. "I m sorry, father; I should have been more thoughtful." "Never mind, never mind; sit down." Mason indicated a deep mahogany chair at the end of his broad, flat desk. John Mason was in the way of becoming a "captain of industry;" but just at this mo ment, if what he had confided to his son was to be believed, his ship had broken her steer ing gear and was fast drifting toward those rocks of finance upon which so many once sturdy craft have foundered. This office in Tremont Street was his private cabin, as it were; in State Street, at the very heart of "business Boston," were the cabins of the 21 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ * crew, and in Wall Street, where his squat, fat figure was more or less familiar, was another cabin, whither he sped if his gout would let him as often as occasion needed. To change the metaphor, this Tremont Street office was the lion s den, and here was the lion himself at this particular moment, glowering at his motherless cub out of a pair of singularly penetrating, not to say hypnotic, blue eyes. Harold Mason s own eyes, as blue at least as his father s, if lack ing in the other qualities, met them squarely, nor did they waver. From the litter on his desk, Mason, sen ior, unearthed one of the dispatches to which Michael had referred. "Read that," he said, thrusting the yellow sheet at his son. Young Mason s eyes loit ered an instant over the three typewritten 22 OVER THE SECOND TELEGRAM HE PONDERED LONGER A YOUNG MAN S PEACE * * * lines, then lifted again to meet his father s steady gaze. "You know what that means?" The young man nodded. "Then read that." Over the second telegram he pondered longer, though it contained but a single line. Then he looked out the wide window, while he unconsciously rolled the yellow sheet in his fingers. He was brought back to himself by his father s inquiry, keen as a knife and bitterly sneering. "What do you think of that?" "There s only one thing to think and that is, MacDonald has made a rotten failure of it." Mason got upon his feet, but not without an electric twinge of pain that set his face at 23 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * angles. "Rotten 1 It s unpardonable!" he cried. "What s a man to do back here four thousand miles away, if the people he pays big money can t deliver the goods Eh?" He waited as though expecting some reply from the young man in the chair at the end of the desk, but as none was forthcom ing he ran on, tempestuously. "Good heavens, haven t they any sense; haven t any of you young cubs any sense has the old man got to do everything Say, has he?" His eyes and the boy s met an in stant, clinched and broke. "In my days when a young man saw his chance he grabbed it and hung on. I guess the fellow that said the third generation goes back to working in its shirt-sleeves was right after all!" And he launched upon a tirade against the far-distant MacDonald. 24 A YOUNG MAN S PEACE * * ** "The fool a failure ; a complete, a mis erable failure ; and at just the moment when to have turned the trick, as you say, would have saved everything." "Don t you think MacDonald did his best?" Mason, senior, stopped in his unsteady pacing of the thickly carpeted floor and fix ing his eye glasses W 7 ith deliberation stared down at his son. "His best!" he exclaimed. "His best and fail! Young man, let me tell you one thing a man can t do his best and fail. It might be well for you to write that out and hang it up over your desk. He cant!" Harold Mason knew better than to force an argument under the circumstances. His father s present mood was not unfamiliar and always he had sought to escape from the 25 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ ** effects of it. Silence, experience had taught him, was the attitude for him to maintain until the storm had passed. The older man sank into his chair, and wiped his face. "Now this is the point, right here," he be gan with a calmness that was in startling contrast to his excitement of the previous moment. "If Tompkins can t be interested, we re gone." The pale shadow of a smile flickered for an instant about young Mason s eyes. "We need him, that is to say, we need ." "His money," Harold supplied and smiled quite frankly. "Yes, put it that way if you want, but I shouldn t do it in public And what s more, we ve got to have him." "But MacDonald s telegram saying he can t be interested?" 26 A YOUNG MAN S PEACE * ^ ^ "Faugh Doesn t he suggest in the sec ond wire that I should go on to Frisco my self and have a try?" His son nodded. "Doesn t that in itself show there s still a chance doesn t it show that even MacDon- ald, conscious as he is of his own failure, still thinks a better man might turn the trick? I don t like the slang, but it seems to fit the case." "Yes ." "Well, I m not going." And Mason, sen ior, leaned back in his chair. "You re not! Not when the whole deal hinges on it?" Hal exclaimed eagerly. "How could I cross the continent in the middle of summer with my lameness?" his father snapped. "No, sir, I m going to send some one else." 27 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * ** "Some one from the New York office?" The inquiry was made almost indifferently. "New York office? No! MacDonald s a sample of the New York office talent." He hesitated an instant, and then, tapping his chin with his eye glasses, added, tersely, "I m going to send you I" Harold Mason gripped the arms of his chair and leaned forward. "You re going to send me!" he cried. His father nodded. "That s what I said, and this is what you re going to do : You re going to wire today to Chicago for a section on the California train which leaves for the West over the Santa Fe at eight o clock Fri day evening. You re going to wire Tomp- kins that you are coming, and that you wish him to withhold final decision until you reach him, and you re going to sign it plain 28 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * Mason. I ll wire MacDonald to jump into the Pacific or lose himself in the Grand Canyon, or come back here and take up the office-boy s work in New York, for I mean to come on myself and turn the trick there s some more of your Harvard slang. We have to lie once in a while, I suppose ; but this is a white lie, and does no one any harm. Do you understand?" Young Mason did not, quite, but he nodded weakly. "And you re to see Tompkins I ve never seen him in my life nor he me and you re to do in my name what MacDonald tried to do and couldn t. You know the whole af fair. You know the Boston-Portland Trac tion deal will go up in smoke unless we can interest Tompkins, and if it does go up in smoke, so do all the rest and so do we. Un- 29 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ * derstand that, make no mistake about that we Jo too! So it depends upon you whether you and I eat three meals a day and sleep in our own beds or remove to a Settle ment lodging house." There ensued a brief period of silence. Harold Mason strode over to the window and looked down into Tremont Street. He did not distinguish anything there at first, but quite unconsciously, after a moment, his eyes focused upon a brougham that he rec ognized as Mrs. Worrington s. It drew up at the curb directly beneath the window. The footman descended and opened the door. Sibyl Anstruther stepped out. "Well?" He turned then, and faced his father. "There s one thing I want to know," he said quietly, though in his voice there was some- 30 A YOUNG MAN S PEACE ^ ^ * thing of the quality that at times character ized the older man s, "I want to know if this matter is quite as serious as you make out?" "As serious as you don t want to try it, eh so that s what you mean, is it?" The gauge of John Mason s face indi cated a rising pressure within. "Just a moment. It isn t quite that. Only I want to know if I ve been a rotten failure with you here in the office thus far and if this is just your way of letting me down?" In the ten minutes his father had taken to explain the situation, Harold Mason had re membered many another interview with "the Governor," as he was wont to call him, in which the latter had voiced opinions that an hour later he regretted having made as much as his son regretted having heard. Harold Mason, himself, especially in blue THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * ^ moments, had more than once told himself that his successes since leaving college had been rather more social than "industrial." "Letting you down !" his father exclaimed "Letting you down. Great heavens, do you suppose I ve been putting what brain IVe got left through a course of gymnastics all the morning in order to let you down easy? No, sir, this is business plain, cold blooded business, and I m sending you be cause there s no one else; besides, it s a rather delicate matter and the fewer in the offices who know its ins and outs, the better." "Very well, sir, I ll go. I only wanted to know. I thought perhaps ." He did not finish the sentence. "You thought perhaps what?" his father called to him. The young man turned from the door with a smile, as he opened it. 32 A YOUNG MAN S PEACE * ^ ^ "Nothing nothing at all, father," he re plied. "I ll make my plans at once." "You understand everything?" "Yes, sir." He closed the door, crossed the large room, and entering his own office, closed its door as well. Could he have seen his father s face as he turned from him, he would have wondered much, for John Mason not only smiled, gleefully, but rubbed his hands, delightedly. Then he bent over his desk and wrote an in timately private letter to Huber of the New York office from which this paragraph, as pertinent to this story, may have some in terest for the reader: "Hal took it easily. I believe he really thinks it is our salvation to engage Tomp- kins interest. As you know, it isn t quite, but it will be good for us. The fact of the 33 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL *> ** matter is I want to see if it is all girls with the boy, or whether he is in the least amen able to a business influence. A girl in par ticular, or girls in general, are good for a boy if she or they can help. If not, their value is that of a cipher, no more, no less. Once in my talk with the boy, I thought he was beginning to see through the plan, but he didn t. Really, Huber, I am amazed at my own histrionic talent. As for the boy s chances of success, they are rather slim, but one can never tell. Twice he sat up and took notice during our talk. His chin went square, his mouth straightened, and really I guess he s got something of the old man in him after all. From the result, be it success or failure, I can tell what I am keen to know, i. e., is my boy worth a well, any thing to speak of I" 34 The Determination of Youth II. THE DETERMINATION OF YOUTH Yp<OWEVER much Harold Mason -*--* might have wondered had he seen his father s face as he wrote that letter to his confidential man in New York, his wonder would have been as naught compared to his father s could that wise parent have seen his son s face and heard the muttered impre cation that issued from his lips as he shut the door of his own little office and flung himself solidly into his desk chair; for Har old Mason was out of sorts, shockingly out of sorts for him. It was not so much with his father that he waged a mental warfare as with himself and circumstances. "The Governor s all right," he assured himself honestly, "but why couldn t this all have happened in October instead of July? 37 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * That s what I d like to know, and blow MacDonald anyway 1" He gazed out the window as though he rather expected the dirty, drab roofs to an swer him. And perhaps they did, for presently he sat up and the scowl vanished from between his eyes. "I m a bally ass," he muttered "a downright Harvard grad uate ass the worst species known to science. Here I ve been for three years hanging to the tail of the Governor s kite and just when a ripping opportunity comes along for me to show him 1 am good for something be sides keeping this chair warm and doing general office-work, I m not keen for it. Hal Mason," he squared his shoulders and his jaw came forward again "Hal Mason, you ve got to cut out the girls!" Delivering this resolve, valiantly, his 38 DETERMINATION chin receded, and an infinitely tender light came into his blue eyes as he stared unsee ing at the little clock ticking its life away on his desk. His memory slipped back three days. The cold, insensate walls of his lit tle room were transformed into foliage. The air became heavy with incense; the sunlight dimmed to candle-glow. He stood before a girl whose arch face was upturned to him from the shade of the great palm leaves. From somewhere came the sounds of music ; he could distinguish quite clearly the plaint of the harp ; and the violin cried out to him as he stood there gazing down into the girl s deep eyes.- He could not remember what he had said ; he did not try to remember. It was enough only to remember that he had gazed into her eyes and that the rose at her bosom trembled as she breathed. 39 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ * He blinked and pulled himself together. Utter folly! Absurd! A girl whom he had met but twice; one of many girls into whose eyes he had gazed as one might gaze into the still pool of a forest spring, ponder ing its depths. Well, it was all over now. He would be away at least a fortnight and when he re turned Townsend would be running things in his own way. It was too bad to miss Mrs, Worrington s dinner dance. He would be well on his journey by then. Fleeing on to ward Chicago, he could think of Sibyl there, only he would have to think of Town- send too. A little frown marred the smooth ness of his brow again. He had the Governor s confidence though I By Jove he had that! And after all, what does missing a dance with a beautiful girl 40 DETERMINATION amount to compared to winning one s Gov ernor s confidence? He brought his clenched fist down upon his desk with a thwack that caused Michael in the outer office to look up with alarm. "I ll hold up that old Colonel Tompkins on this deal or I ll I ll I ll chloroform him and go through his safe!" he exclaimed. "And incidentally I ll show the Governor that his blond beauty of a son can deliver the goods!" How "the Governor" himself, in the sanc tity of his private office, would have chuckled if he could have heard that! "I wonder," he went on, taking the little clock into his confidence, "if it really is as serious as he would have me believe. Be sides, isn t there any money nearer Boston than San Francisco? But he gave me his THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ * word." And he consoled himself with the thought that the Governor would not send him across the continent especially in the dead of summer if it were not necessary, and, of course, the Governor couldn t make the trip himself. The sleeper to New York, or the Fall River boat occasionally was bad enough ; a journey of four thousand miles was quite out of the question. Well, he must arrange affairs. And it is interest ing to note that the first step he took toward arranging them was to send to Miss Sibyl Anstruther a great box of flowers. He tele phoned for a lower berth on the Boston- Chicago special for the next night. This done, he went to luncheon at the St. Botolph. The mere fact that he was a mem ber of the St. Botolph classifies him. He was not an artist, nor yet a writer, but he 42 DETERMINATION rather preferred the society of artists so he joined the St. Botolph. As the waiter served him his ice, he recalled suddenly that he had not written Mrs. Worrington. He would do so at once, as soon as he left the table, or, what was bet ter still, he would telephone her. Yes, that by all means. He knew her quite well enough, he assured himself. Perhaps, also, he might speak a word to Sibyl herself. It annoyed him exceedingly to be told by the operator at Central that the line was busy. He banged the receiver upon its hook and strode out of the club house. It was Michael, the office boy, who van quished his frown as he entered the office at two o clock. "A telephone call on your desk, sir," re marked the youth. 43 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * ^ It was Mrs. Worrington s number, but as Mason drew the instrument toward him, the bell tinkled, and Michael, from his lit tle desk in a corner of the outer office, heard this one-sided conversation: "Oh, Mrs. Worrington. Yes. Just about to call you up." "I beg pardon the connection ." "Yes." "The dance is all off?" "So sorry." "Gone! Not for good?" (Michael could not see his sick face.) "You re to tell me good-by for her. Ever so grateful." "Yes, you keep the flowers. Dol" "I m leaving town, myself, tomorrow." "Sorry, but I can t really not time, you know." 44 DETERMINATION "Yes, business, of course." "Ha, ha, ha, I d like to say what I think, but if I should the operator would cut me off. Yes?" "Oh, very well. Shall look in on you when I return. I m leaving for Hello! Hello! I say, hello! Central Rot!" And for the second time that day, he vented his spleen against the telephone com pany by nearly ruining the practicability of one of the company s most expensive desk instruments. What was it Mrs. Worrington had said about Sibyl s aunt? Who was her aunt? Why had she an aunt, anyway? These and other questions of similar import Mason asked himself as he squared his goodly bulk to his desk. It was all over now. And Sibyl herself had ended it. Very well. Sud- 45 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ * denly he wheeled in his chair. He had, for the moment, forgotten Townsend. "He s lost, too," he said to himself, "and there s more than a grain of consolation in that." Indeed, the more he thought of Townsend s plight, the more cheerful he became. He whistled. In his own misery, which he tried bravely to deny, he relished Townsend s. But how was the freckled Michael to know that this was the reason Mason gave him a half-dollar when he brought in the late afternoon mail? A Pair of Eyes Across the Aisle III. A PAIR OF EYES ACROSS THE AISLE X-TND UNDERSTAND," the elder 2 *. Mason was saying, "that it all rests with you. It s your great opportunity. I expect that one of these days you will step into Huber s position; and if you win this time, there is no limit to the length you may go. I shall send you to Tokio next." Young Mason looked up quickly. His father was watching him, shielding his eyes from the brilliance of the electric desk-light with one hand. "You mean to put through that new line in Tokio?" he inquired quietly. The elder Mason nodded. Hal rose and took up his bag. "Good- by, father," he said, extending a hand which the other grasped and wrung. 49 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * "Good-by wire often good luck." That was all. Mason, senior, heard his son s foot-falls as he crossed the outer office; the door closed ; he was gone. From his window he saw him spring into the cab waiting, under an electric light, in the street below, and as he turned from the window he said, aloud to himself: "He ll do it he ll do it and if he can interest Tompkins he can do anything." A fine mist of rain was sifting through the air as the cab drew up at the South Sta tion. Mason alighted, paid his driver and proceeded to the gate. Late as it was the great station was filled with an eager, bust ling throng. An elevated train in Summer Street, without, clanged by. Porters shouted to their charges. Down the way 50 A PAIR OF EYES an engine bell rang out, then another ; gates were banged shut. All Boston apparently had been seized with a sudden desire to go away, and was unanimously acting upon that desire. The porter conducted Mason to his sec tion, and thrust his bag beneath the berth. The train was due to leave in six minutes. The vehicular absurdity which we of America call a sleeping-car had always dis gusted Mason and never more deeply than tonight. Preparing to retire in a Pullman was rather like going to bed in a crowded theatre. He shot one glance down the car. From between the curtains near the end pro jected a foot and ankle a feminine foot and ankle clad in a tan silk stocking. Beyond stood a woman in a green dressing sack, braiding her hair before the mirror in the THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * "drawing-room" door. From overhead somewhere came the subdued cursing of a man as he adjusted himself to the shelf upon which he was to spend the night. The car was hot and stuffy, its atmosphere carrying a faint scent of ammonia. Someone was snoring midway down the aisle. The young man entered the narrow com partment at the rear of the Pullman to find the air there already opalescent with smoke. A fat man in a pink shirt, coatless, collarless and in his stocking feet, was bathing his pur ple face luxuriously. A small salesman was ensconced in one corner of the compartment puffing at a long, slim Pittsburg stogie. He nodded agreeably as Mason sank upon the leathern cushion beside him. "Coin 7 far?" he enquired. " Frisco." A PAIR OF EYES * "So? Pretty hot, ain t it? Northern route, I suppose?" "Santa Fe." The little man nodded. "Interesting," he opined, "but may be a little hot in Arizona in July. There the Fourth last year 120 in the shade that s all," and he exhaled a jet of blue smoke complacently. He seemed an agreeable little man and Mason smiled. Conversation, however, lagged. The fat man in the pink shirt dried his face. A bell away off ahead clanged. The train pulled out. It was the jerk that aroused Mason to an appreciation of the fact which, till now, he had almost forgot ten, in the business attendant upon his de parture that he was leaving Boston and her. He flung away his half-burned cigarette 53 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ * and lurched down the narrow, curtained aisle to his section. The rain still prevented the opening of windows, and for a long time Mason tum bled in his berth, unable to sleep. Now that he was all alone, and there was nothing for him to think about in the business he had engaged upon every detail of which he had gone over again and again with his father that afternoon his mind reverted to a consideration of her. He fell asleep at last and dreamed that in some inexplicable way he was overhearing Townsend propose to her. Great heavens, she had accepted him I He awoke. Cautiously he thrust his head through the curtains of his berth. The other passengers were moving. Niagara Falls had been left 54 A PAIR OF EYES behind. When the porter had suggested awakening him to view that tumbling mass of water he had replied, testily, "Do it at your peril." One by one the tired, aching, and wrinkled occupants of the car crept from between the curtains of their respective berths. The woman whom Mason had ob served before the mirror, staggered down the aisle in the same green sack and a shot- silk skirt, clutching a bromide bottle. The owner of the silk clad ankle appeared shock ingly haggard in the light with a cast to her face that plainly betokened the vaudeville stage. Mason assured himself that an ankle gives no clue. He dressed hurriedly and joined his companions in distress in the toilet room at the end of the car. Everyone appeared at odds with himself and the 55 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * ^ world. The fat man was changing his shirt. The salesman was polishing his eye glasses by the window. "Worst night I ever put in," he observed to the flying landscape, outside. But no one either agreed or dissented. The fat man, at a sudden jolt of the car, dropped his collar- button into the nickel-plated cuspidor be tween his feet and swore vociferously. A white-coated waiter came through the car calling breakfast. Mason escaped from the toilet room and sauntered through to the dining-car, forward. The small salesman was already engaged upon a steak. The at tendant drew forth a chair at one of the smaller tables. Some one had left a copy of the morning paper and Mason took it up. He scanned the headlines indifferently. Presently his waiter returned with his 56 A PAIR OF EYES breakfast. He put down the paper. As he raised a glass of water to his lips, he chanced to glance across the aisle. A girl was sitting at the table opposite his own ; at the moment she was looking out the window and her face was averted. Then she turned and Harold Mason looked into the startled eyes of Sibyl Anstruther, 57 Explanation and Rejoicing IV. EXPLANATION AND REJOICING It was almost a scream. The small salesman looked up from his steak. Mason was staring at the girl. She smiled at him as she had once before he could never forget that smile. The same two little lines appeared again be tween her eyebrows. "Yes I," she answered, with a gay nod. Then he plunged across the aisle and took her hand. "You re not served won t you ." "Sit at your table? Of course. I d rather." And she smiled again, the more archly. Neither observed the wink the waiter gave the stolid conductor who stood at the end of the car with his back to the buffet, 61 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ ^ idly polishing one of the brass buttons on his white pique waistcoat. Mason s throat filled up in a most extra ordinary manner and he could only mutter: "Amazing! Wonderful!" And it might have been observed that his hand trembled as he passed her the salt for her cantaloup. "The scenery, you mean?" she exclaimed with some surprise. "How can you say so? I think this particular part of Canada is simply stupid." "I wasn t thinking of the scenery," he re plied. Their eyes met. Perhaps hers read in his what his heart was crying out, for she let them fall to a consideration of her melon. "I was thinking how amazing it is that we should meet again in such a way. When the Governor sent me off on this jaunt I 62 EXPLANATION well, I was sore downright sore. It would mean missing Mrs. Worrington s dance and all that, you know. I phoned her yes terday and she said you were going away something about an aunt, I believe, and that the dance was all off. I was rather glad of that selfish, you know." "It <was a shame," she replied how ex quisitely she broke her toast, he was think ing "that it should have happened just then. I d only time to run over to New York and get the fewest of necessary things. Daisy, I mean Mrs. Worrington, is packing two of my trunks even now. They re to fol low today. But it s jolly to meet some one I know. Doesn t it bore you to travel? I only wish you were going way through." Her eyes fell, but she lifted them to his again as she asked : 63 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * "How far are you going, Mr. Mason?" "San Francisco," he replied wearily. She started, a bit of toast poised midway to her lips. "San Francisco!" she exclaimed, "why, so am I !" "You! You, going to San Francisco!" "Oh, won t it be jolly?" she ran on. "And you do get such good things to eat west of Chicago!" Her face was all alight; in striking con trast to his suddenly clouded countenance. For Mason, after the first delighted wonder at this unlooked-for meeting with Sibyl An- struther, had been straightway precipitated into the deepest depths of black despair. She seemed wholly unconscious, he told himself, that the mountains and deserts out there were spanned by many all too many bands of parallel rails. EXPLANATION "I m sorry," he managed to say, "but I must take the southern route out of Chicago. I suppose you ." "The Santa Fe?" she broke in blithely. He nodded. "So do I." She said it so indifferently, so calmly, so much as though she were tell ing him, "No, two lumps, please," that he stared at her, blankly. Yet there was the little smile still playing about her eyes. "You mean to say that you go out of Chi cago that you take the Santa Fe tomorrow night, too?" It was a gay little nod that she gave him. "Unfortunately, it must be tomorrow night," she said, "we I mean I, shall miss tonight s train by just fifty minutes." Mason wanted to leap from his chair; he felt an almost uncontrollable desire to break 65 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * the trim furniture of that breakfast-car and dance up and down from vestibule to vesti bule. As it was, however, he accidentally brushed a spoon from the table and, stoop ing to recover it, muttered to himself, his face hidden by the damask; "Oh, say oh, say!" It was later when he found himself hap pily alone in the smoking compartment that he danced that little pas seul that would have been so out of place at breakfast. Conversation became quite ordinary afterward. She told him how it chanced that she had left Boston so unexpectedly. "You know I am one of those poor, home less, dreary creatures whom they call or phans," she said, "but fortunately I ve two aunts my mother s sisters. One of them lives in New York and the other Aunt 66 I AM ONE OF THOSE POOR, HOMELESS CREATURES CALLED ORPHANS" EXPLANATION Jane lives in San Francisco. I vibrate be tween them. Oh, I m ever so lavish! I have two homes, one East, one West, like a Montana copper king. I ve been in New York all winter, that is, I had been till I went over to Boston for a good visit with Daisy Worrington; she and I were school mates and the best sort of chums at the Misses Fealy s school, you know. I knew that I should have to be going back West sooner or later maybe to Japan but I didn t think it would be so soon. I d a wire from Aunt Jane only two days ago, for warded me from New York, to come home immediately, as she means to sail for Tokio a week from Thursday. Aunt Jane, you see, can t travel without me, or at least she won t, so I had to vibrate." Her smile said, "Of course, you under- THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * stand," more plainly than words ; but Mason did not, quite, for all that. "But Japan now with the war on? I shouldn t think " he began. "Oh, that s because you don t know Aunt Jane," she broke in laughing. "Ever since the Japs began to sink the Russian ships, she s been frightfully keen to go over. She says she must see Japan in action. But you know in Tokio you d never think there was a war. You know Japan?" She asked it so lightly, so much as though she believed he must "know Japan," that he blushed. "No," he replied, "I don t, though some day I may. To tell the truth, Miss An- struther, I ve never been anywhere but Mel- rose and Brookline," she smiled "and to Harvard." 68 EXPLANATION "You don t mean to say you ve never been to the Coast?" she exclaimed, as though it were an inconceivable matter that he should not. "There you go," he challenged; "the Coast the Coast, mind you." He placed his elbows on the table. "Miss Anstruther, please tell me why all you Cali- fornians ." "Don t say you Californians," she re proved, "for I m just as much a New York girl as I am a Frisco girl, even if my incli nations are toward the latter." "I beg your pardon. All Californians then why do all Californians call their coast the Coast? You ve never heard one of them call it anything else. One would think there was not another coast in the world ." 69 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ * "There isn t," was her quick reply "just like it." He shook his head. "Oh, you ll say so yourself when you see it," she added defensively, "especially if you take the Coast Line up." "But my Coast the Atlantic Coast," he insisted. "Oh, the Atlantic Coast is nice nice and rock-ribbed, as the poet says but well, just wait. I know what I m going to do," she cried, and only caught herself as she would have clapped her hands. "I m going to educate you. You needn t lift your eye brows. You re so saturated with that that Bostonism, that you think nothing exists out West nothing west of Rahway. Why, have you ever thought what would happen to you if it were not for the West?" 70 EXPLANATION He laughed. "No, what?" "Well, in the first place, you wouldn t have a roof to cover you, for all your lumber nowadays comes from out there ; Washing ton. And so you d have to live in a hole in that rock-ribbed coast of yours. Then you wouldn t have any clothes." He looked his amazement. "The clothes you have on," she continued, "unless they came from Lon don -which I don t think they did because they fit too well are made of wool that not long ago was covering the back of a lambkin out in New Mexico or Nevada or Wyom ing. And you d have nothing to eat, either you ll see where your beef steaks come from when we reach when the train crosses Kansas and a corner of Colorado. So, you see, if it were not for the West which you are going to view for the first time under THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ * my guidance, you would be starving to death, undressed, in a hole, in that rock- ribbed coast of yours!" Her elbows were on the table and the tips of her fingers met; across them she was regarding him, and in her eyes was a light half whimsical, half mocking. "Here endeth the first lesson," she con cluded gayly, "and it may please you to know that I think you promise to be a very oh, a very receptive pupil. Who would have thought," she added, as they rose from the table, "that I should ever be the precep tress of a finishing school for Harvard graduates!" "But what will your revered aunt say when she learns of all this?" he made bold to enquire, as they crossed the vestibule into the Pullman behind. 72 EXPLANATION She turned up to him a merry face. "It is barely possible," she replied, naive ly, "that Aunt Jane will never know." He was about to seat himself beside her, but she held out her arm. "No," she said, "you are not to stay here. This is the New York car. You are to go back to the Boston Pullman and curl your self up in a corner of the smoking compart ment and ponder what I have told you. At Detroit I may let you stand beside me at the rail of the ferry as we cross the river. Re member," she warned, as he made no sign of leaving, but still stood looking down into her laughing face, "you must obey your teacher." "I obey," he said. He bowed stiffly and lurched up the aisle. It was then, when he found himself alone 73 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * in the smoking compartment, at the rear of the second Boston sleeper, that he hugged himself and indulged in that little pas sent. "Gad I" he muttered as he threw himself into the seat and lighted a cigarette, "You may bet your last bon-bon, Sibyl Anstruther, that I shall be a receptive pupil! But I wonder what the Governor would say," he mused, chuckling. 74 An Education in Little V. AN EDUCATION IN LITTLE E JOINED her at the rail as the ferry left the Walkersville slip and glided into the broad river. "That s Detroit over there," she said. "Yes, I know of Detroit," he answered, "I put in a summer once in Manchester, New Hampshire the diplomatic colony, you know. A Detroit man was there, and told me of this town. It was settled by the French, or something of that sort." " Or something of that sort/ " she echoed with a little scornful tone in her voice. "So like you a Boston man to affect an indif ference to the Middle West. I dare say you are not in the least interested in the fact that a greater tonnage passes this city than does any other one point in the world." 77 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * ^ "Even the Suez Canal?" he inquired blandly. "The Suez Canal, in that particular, is not to be compared to the Detroit River," she answered decisively. "Really!" He drew out his cigarette case. "You don t mind?" he inquired. She shook her head. Lighting the cigarette he turned and with his eyes swept the river from the emer ald on its breast at the east to the widening below, where it rushes into the waiting arms of Lake Erie. "Why, this is all rather attractive," he said, quietly, as one who is careful of his opinions and knows their worth. "Really, do you think so?" she answered mockingly, "I m so glad." He looked down at her. Her face was 78 "THAT S DETROIT OVER THERE" AN EDUCATION averted; she was gazing at the sea-green water just over the rail. A playful gust loosened a curl by her ear and tossed it against her cheek. Mason bit through his cigarette and thrust his hands into his pockets, defensively. The long traveling coat she was wearing hung loosely from her shoulders. "Oh, yes, and I forgot!" she exclaimed, suddenly, looking up, her eyes alight "and they manufacture more stoves in Detroit than in any other city on earth, and more automobiles, too." "How interesting," he murmured. Their eyes met. "This must cease," she commanded. His eyebrows lifted. "I am trying conscien tiously trying to educate you, to make you feel that there is something out here in the 79 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * ^ West. I dare say you have thought if you have ever thought anything about it at all that you could hunt buffalo and bear and antelope in Detroit or Chicago and the harder I try to teach you, the more you laugh at me." "Oh, I say." He looked genuinely grieved. "Yes, you do. You laugh at me in your collar, as the French say. But wait, we re not West yet. We re still in the East. Den ver people would say we were in the far East, just as Salt Lake people say the Den ver people are. It s all the point of view, you see or rather, the point of location. What I mean you shall learn before you reach the Coast forgive me, I should have specified the Pacific Coast is that in this country yours and mine there is no East 80 AN EDUCATION or West or North or South, really. I want to make you feel it is one country, all ours, no matter where we are." The bewitching little light of whimsy had gone out of her eyes leaving them quite ser ious. She had spoken with great earnest ness ; of this he was aware. "You are right," he said, frankly. "I un derstand, and I mean to make myself feel it all." "I m glad," she exclaimed, "for if you have that spirit it will be easy." He would have liked to say, "You can make me believe anything make me feel anything." A white river-ferry glided across their bow. Ahead a smooth, round whaleback was creeping down to the lake, no sign of life about her long, slim, brown body. The 81 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * Western States, lying at her dock, breathed like an animal, drowsing in the mid-day sun. From her funnels wreathed an opales cent spiral of smoke. On the dock the steve dores were wending in and out with trucks ; little, automatic shuttles weaving the fabric of commerce. Up the hills from the river front they caught glimpses of towers, domes, geometrical piles of gray and white stone. Over the city hung a gossamer of pale smoke. Noiselessly the ferry glided into her slip below Third Street. "Come," she said, "we d better get into the train." He followed her down the narrow pas sage between the cars. "May I take luncheon with you?" he asked. She nodded. 82 AN EDUCATION When they were seated at the table, he acknowledged, "I ve been thinking over all you ve told me, Miss Anstruther ." "Isn t it so?" she asked quickly. "Yes, it is," he replied "but what puz zles me is, how do you happen to know so well about such things?" She looked up and smiled across at him. Opposite them at a double table sat a wo man with three children, and next a clergy man and his wife and daughter. She spoke low. "It is because I have been taught," she said. He laughed. "Well, I ve been to school too," he replied. "Oh, I did not learn it in school," she made haste to explain. "It isn t what you re taught in school that counts. It s what you 83 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ * learn after you ve left school. I know they don t think that way back in Boston, but it s true. One s education ends with a Harvard diploma there. In the West that would only be the beginning. How many people do you suppose there are in Boston who know the real soul of the glorious country out yonder; who know anything about Denver, or Salt Lake, or San Francisco, or the Mojave desert, or Death Valley; who know, because they have felt it, the over powering grandeur of the high Sierras, or the still sublimity of the Grand Canyon?" He shook his head. "But you know all about London and Paris and Budapest and St. Petersburg and Cairo!" She snapped her fingers impatiently. "You know all about Europe, but you don t AN EDUCATION know the least thing about your own coun try, and you ought to be ashamed 1" "But I thought you called yourself as much a New York girl as a Western girl," he managed to say. "I did. I am. I m both. You re only Boston." She said it smilingly. "Some times, after I ve lived the life of the West for a few months," she went on, "I become hungry, down-right hungry, for a glimpse of Broadway and the gleaming shopfronts of Fifth Avenue. When I feel that way I pack my trunk and vibrate." He laughed with her at the frank confes sion. "But it s never for long," she went on. "Last week I began to feel hungry for Aunt Jane again, at least I told Daisy, Mrs. Wor- rington, that it was Aunt Jane. It wasn t 85 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * really. It was the West. It s odd, the ef fect, I mean. I remember two years ago, I d been in New York for three months. One day on our way home from a matinee at the Empire Theatre I heard that call. Driving up the avenue, with the city s life all about us, delightful as it was, I wanted the hills. That queer call sounded louder and louder in my heart. I would have bartered all the East if I had owned it, for an hour at the edge of the plateau in the Grand Canyon, alone in the silence, gazing down at the brown ribbon of the river five thousand feet below. And after dinner what did I do but telegraph Aunt Jane to have me come home. She did the next day and I left that night." She pushed away the finger bowl and rose. Her cheeks were flushed; her eyes 86 AN EDUCATION were brimming with the glory of her youth. He followed her, without speaking, into the car behind. There were only half a dozen passengers in the Pullman. "Do you know," he said as he lingered in the aisle at the end of her section, "I want really to feel that way. I want to feel that I am an American first and a Bostonian after ward. And I believe I shall, too, with your help before I reach the Pac the Coast." And the smile she gave him was worthy of the sacrifice of traditions that he had made. The Folly of Self-Communion VI. THE FOLLY OF SELF-COMMUNION HLONE in the smoking compartment, Harold Mason was again brought face to face with his conscience. For twelve hours he had forgotten business, had forgot ten the heavy old man who at that moment, he told himself, was no doubt drumming on the arms of his chair with his pudgy fingers and wondering if his son s mind was where it should be concentrated on a solution of the Boston-Portland Traction problem. Had his mind been so concentrated? the young man asked himself. Glancing up he saw his face reflected in the wide mirror above the leather cushion of the long seat opposite. The eyes in the reflection gave him a scornful look and fell. After a mo ment they lifted again and met his own. THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ * "What makes me such a fool?" he asked. It was himself to whom he put the question, but that other him in the mirror moved his lips too, questioningly, and in the eyes there was still a scornful look. "I should think you would be ashamed of yourself," he added, disagreeably. And then up between himself and his re flection in the wide mirror, crept Sibyl An- struther s face, and mocked him. His mouth straightened in the way that, quite unknown to himself, had pleased his father. He shrugged his shoulders and looked out the window. For a space he counted the tele graph poles. That was easy, but when he shifted his count to the rushing fence posts, he could not, for the life of him, get beyond sixteen, though he began as far ahead as he could see by craning his neck. The process 92 SELF-COMMUNION served, in a measure, to clear his mind, and with something of a show of interest he drew out a long seal-leather pocketbook,. and taking therefrom four or five folded papers spread them on his knee. There was MacDonald s letter to the "Governor," which had followed his tele gram and explained in detail Tompkins re fusal to leap to the assistance of John Mason. MacDonald told with almost boyish frank ness what he had done; how he had placed before the man Tompkins all the plan with its infinite possibilities in the way of divi dends ; and there was also, between the lines, so Harold Mason thought, a cry for mercy from the "Governor," a mercy, he told himself, that would not be shown. Then there was Huber s letter outlining a new plan of procedure that, to quote, 93 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ * "seems to me irresistible, and cannot result otherwise than in success." Huber was a *genius, in his way. He it was who had con ceived the reorganization of "Electric Heater" and the "dummy" directorate. Small wonder he sat on a pedestal in the elder Mason s estimation, and the young man speculated on that day when he should step into Huber s shoes and carry on the business of the New York office as his fath er s active man, "on the firing line," as Mason, senior, was wont to characterize lower Broadway and Wall Street. "Gad! The possibilities," the son mut tered as he folded the papers, replaced them in the book and slipped it back into his pocket. They were infinite assuredly, and his was the chance to realize them. But would he? He exhaled a long breath that 94 SELF-COMMUNION ended with a little whistle. Or, would he go on in the happy, useless way of so many other chaps whose fathers had made their strike and who, accordingly, neither needed, nor desired, to carry forward the work? There was Townsend, for instance; his Governor had made a couple of millions, was making more now; would die leaving ten of them no doubt. Of course, Townsend had no need to work; but he might at least have had the desire. But it was work in its way inventing social diversions, training for a golf medal and winning it, and driv ing a tandem ; work in a way, no doubt, but a useless sort of work. Why didn t he write a play, or a novel, or short stories or some thing something decent and Christian and Bostonian? Simply because the Town- send ability, the Townsend genius ended 95 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * with "the old man." Frankly, Townsend seemed to give promise of one day becom ing the founder of a new line, a line that, in its origin, would be useless but that after five generations might produce an able great-great grandson. "I wonder if it would help if I were to marry?" Mason asked the question bluntly of his reflection and waited as though for an an swer. Given to mental leaps of this sort and self questioning to an almost abnormal degree, Mason deliberately permitted a picture to emerge, take shape and color in his mind until it was as real as one of the mural paint ings in the Boston Public Library. Would they live in apartments or take a house in Brookline, say? An apartment SELF-COMMUNION probably would be better at the start, cosier and altogether nicer. "Wouldn t it be bully to take breakfast opposite ." Sibyl Anstruther s face crept again be tween his and its reflection in the mirror, and about the mouth in the glass appeared a little, happy smile. And she would pour the coffee. That first morning how exquisitely charming it would be to hear her ask "One lump, dear, or two?" "Rot!" He uttered the exclamation aloud and sat upright suddenly. If Sibyl Anstruther had, by the merest chance in the world, been thrown into a train with him for a journey across the con tinent, was that any reason why he should sit 97 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * alone in the smoking compartment and dream dreams of her pouring his coffee? It was not, assuredly it was not. It was simply his duty to be as nice to her as possible on the journey and in the end to see her re stored to the arms of that revered Aunt Jane. If there were any dreaming to be done, it should be about Tompkins and the Boston- Portland Traction situation and nothing else. And so, with this brave determination, he went forward and flung himself into the seat opposite her without even asking if he might. But she did not reprove him. Put ting down her magazine, she looked across at him and said: "Well, have you been thinking over what I told you?" "I ve been thinking of a lot of things," he replied, and deliberately avoided her in quiring eyes. West and East VII. WEST AND EAST IF SIBYL ANSTRUTHER was con scious of Mason s change of heart, or aware of his diminished zeal, she showed no sign of displeasure, on the contrary she seemed to gain in gaiety what he appeared to have lost in enthusiasm. "I am afraid I shall be very much bored tomorrow," he said, after a space. "Bored I" she exclaimed. "Bored by Chi cago! How funny!" "Shan t I, then?" he inquired, and his smile was rather pale. Why had Heaven given her such eyes and then placed him where he must of necessity look into them? he asked himself. "Assuredly you shall not," she declared. "I can imagine many things happening to 101 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ * you ; I can imagine you walking too close to the Lake and falling in ; I can imagine you hurled off into space from a swinging bridge, though if you landed on the river there s a paradox you could walk ashore, as the rats do. Or, I can imagine you being eaten by a Polar bear out at Lincoln Park, or buried alive in Evanston, or struck by a grip car on State Street but as for being bored; never!" "If all those things should happen to me, I shouldn t be, surely. But I dare say none of them will," he added sadly. "No, I m afraid not; I mean I hope not," she added hastily, meeting his look of sur prise. "Chicago interests you then?" he in quired. "Oh, yes; everything interests me and 1 02 WEST AND EAST Chicago is everything that is a little of everything. You ll say so yourself. I shouldn t care to live there; I don t think you would either. Solid as it really is, Chi cago has always seemed to me to be on the eve of something just about to do some thing to be something, manano, as the Mexicans say." "I know that means tomorrow, " he put in quickly. She nodded. "And yet, you know," she went on, "it has done a lot. It has done greater and finer things in its short life than any other city in the world. It has made itself ." "I knew a few Chicago chaps when I was in college," he said. "One in particular I recall. We used to call him Tiggy Tiggy Gleason. His father was in lard or 103 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ** * butter, or greasy stuff of some sort. Piggy looked it," he chuckled. "And what became of him?" she asked. "I was told by one of the old fellows, he had made a lot of money in the Klondike." Miss Anstruther nodded. "Of course, he did," she exclaimed. "That s the Chicago way. Chicago is one great, throbbing symbol of money; its money is the magic of Chicago. When I first visited there, I thought it was money that I smelled in the air until my friends told me it was the stock yards." She was very serious, but Mason laughed. "It s quite the proper thing for all the rest of the country to poke fun at Chicago, isn t it?" he said. "Yes, it is. Chicago is like a great sleep ing bear that the little careless children poke 104 WEST AND EAST with sticks through the grating of the pit. And the bear only smiles, for the sticks tickle. But do you know" she leaned for ward and spoke with something of her former eagerness "Chicago is splendid; it is Titanic. It will oppress you; you will feel yourself whirled into the tremendous seething maelstrom of its streets. It is alive." "Very much, from all I ve heard," Mason observed suggestively. He was recalling a little incident in his father s career wherein the elder Mason and his Eastern associates had been sadly worsted in a "land deal" south of the present City by the Lake. "In the train going West, last year," Miss Anstruther ran on, "I chanced to overhear a man from Philadelphia and a Chicago 105 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ ^ man talking. The Philadelphian had poked fun at the Chicagoan for quite a few minutes. Finally the man from Chicago could stand it no longer. Why, do you realize, he said, ( that if some tremendous catastrophe were to demolish all the large cities in America but Chicago, the world would have lost none of its greatest things? for all that is good, and all that is great, and all that is splendid in America would be left in Chicago, for the simple reason that Chi cago has now everything that is worth while on the continent, and would have then/ The Philadelphian looked at him, rather dazed for a minute, then replied No, there s one thing it wouldn t have. It wouldn t have Philadelphia. You re right, it wouldn t, exclaimed the Chicagoan, and God be praised 1 1 06 WEST AND EAST "Every one in the car had overheard them and we were all expecting an out-and-out quarrel. But none occurred. The Chi cago man gave his opponent a cigar and they went back into the smoking compart ment, as radiant as a couple of children." Mason laughed. "And all that goes to show " he began. "That it is very foolish to argue with a man from Chicago!" Miss Anstruther fin ished. The transfer agent came through the car just then, jingling a quantity of checks from a huge brass ring on his arm. Miss An struther caught his glance. She explained to him her own checks ; that the bag should be sent that night to the Virginia, the rest of her baggage to the Dearborn Street Sta tion. 107 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * "And where are you stopping?" she in quired of Mason, as the transfer agent lurched on up the aisle. "The Auditorium," he replied, "but I shall drive out to your hotel with you first, if you will permit me." She thanked him, at the same time pro testing that it was quite unnecessary. "I shan t be at all afraid," she said. "But I shall be for you," he replied "and from what I have heard of Chicago I d rather, really. Who knows; your cab might be held up, or you might be seized and carried to some cave and there held for ransom. No, I shall drive with you." "Very well," she agreed. His shoulders were broad, and he would be a fair match for the average Chicago robber, she thought. 108 WEST AND EAST "And perhaps, if you will let me, I shall call at the what is it, Virginia ?" she nodded "in the morning." "Yes, do say at half past ten. And if you re nice and agreeable, I ll act as your guide. For you know it is all a part of that supplementary education." Her eyes were mocking him again and he let his own fall. So it was that they were driven, side by side in a hansom, from the Twelfth Street Station, down Michigan Boulevard, across to the North Side, where at the entrance to the Virginia, he bade her good night. "It is only by way of being decent," he told himself as he leaned back in the cab, which rumbled off down the street the way it had come. Over the horse s back, and ahead, between his pointed ears, Mason peered down the 109 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ * glittering canyon of the city streets. The cab lurched from side to side; his head seemed in imminent and momentary danger of crashing through the side glasses. "So this is Chicago, is it?" he growled to himself "well, I can t say that I like it yet." Lacking the compactness with which he was familiar, the huge lobby of the Auditor ium Hotel attracted him none the less. It was brilliant with many lights, and clamor ous with the footfalls of many hurrying peo- pie. No one appeared to be idling. Men in evening clothes dinner coats and straw or gray felt hats, rushed up to the desk, ex changed a phrase with the official there on duty and hurried away again. A huge tour ing car came to a chugging standstill at the no WEST AND EAST * ^ * * curb at the entrance and a man and woman alighted. She was a large woman with a contour like that of a lyre, while her com panion was small, frail and bent. Dia monds flashed in her ears and her bare hands were crusted with twinkling gems. Mason smiled the smile of a suffering Bos- tonian with a Puritan ancestry. He glanced into the Pompeiian room where a throng of men and women were clamorously eating. Only the silently moving waiters reminded him of home ; for all else he might have been in a foreign city. He had heard that in Vienna people mostly dress and eat, and he thought Vienna and Chicago must be very like. With the traditions of Young s and the Touraine big in his mind he shivered. He began to fear he might induce a head ache were he to loiter longer in this great in THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ * marble rendezvous of a people who made even of their dining a matter of business. So he asked that a boy might conduct him aloft. In his room, he settled himself to examine the late edition of an evening paper. The news was unimportant. He turned to that page headed "The Markets," which to the uninitiated bears a striking resemblance to the puzzle sheet of a London weekly. There was a long letter from New York; another from Boston. Consolidated Copper had moved up two points, he noted; Bay State Gas was down a point. Sugar looked well; General Electric better. But in these things his interest was not vital. Had a bell boy come upon him unobserved a few moments later, he would have seen the paper lying on his knees, while he stared at a corner of the 112 WEST AND EAST rug with an ominous fixity of gaze. Lifting his eyes to the molding that ran across the room at the edge of the frieze, he muttered, "By Jove, she s pretty, anyway!" Then he went to bed. The Spirit of Chicago VIII. THE SPIRIT OF CHICAGO ANSTRUTHER was awaiting him when, at ten o clock the follow ing morning, he arrived at her hotel. "Do you know," she said, "I am about to do a thing that you will resent and I can t say that I shall blame you." "And that is?" he suggested. "I am going to shop." He laughed. "And I shall carry the parcels," he de~ clared. "Oh, I ve done it before lots of times ; not in Chicago, of course, but in Bos- ton. It s rather interesting to be taken for a shoplifter by the dignified floorwalker, as one waits at the glove counter, say." "Come, then," Miss Anstruther com manded, and they left the hotel together. 117 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * She was wearing a little camera slung by a strap from her shoulder and the appearance she presented, accordingly, was that of the typical tourist, if, indeed, the typical tourist be as pretty as she. As for Mason, he assured himself again and again that she was even prettier today than she had appeared on the river ferry when the wind loosened her hair and cast a vagrant strand, as soft as silk, against her cheek. "Shan t we ride?" he inquired, not that he wished to, and her reply was agreeable to him. "By no means," she said. "We shall walk it s not far, really. Besides I want you to see all of Chicago that you possibly can in the short time given you." He had no sort of interest in the residen- 118 THE SPIRIT OF CHICAGO ^ * * tial streets through which she guided him. A breeze was blowing fresh from the Lake and he spoke of the coolness of the morning. "It is for you," she said. "Usually it is hot in Chicago in July. Indeed, one may have ten climates here in as many hours. When the wind blows from the Lake all it lacks is the tang of the salt to make one believe the ocean is close by. But when it veers about and comes from the stockyards "She shiv ered. "Really you ought to visit the stock yards," she added, looking up at him; "everyone does." "I shall try to bear up without," he re plied, and she laughed. In State Street his interest in his immed iate surroundings awoke. At ten o clock in the morning of a mid-week day State Street is the busiest commercial thoroughfare in 119 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ * the world. Compared to it, Washington Street, Chestnut Street, or even Broadway at that hour, are deserted country lanes. Down the avenue, as he viewed it when they crossed to the east side, moved thousands, swiftly, intently. "What time do all these people get up?" Mason inquired. "I dare say many of them are always up, " Miss Anstruther replied. "As for the others, they have been at it since eight o clock." "Nine is early back East, and I m told ten is the hour in London." "But this, you know, is Chicago," was the reply. "And do you suppose these people could have built this great city since 1875 when the cow kicked over the lamp if it were their custom to get up at ten," she in- 120 THE SPIRIT OF CHICAGO ^ * * quired, "or even at nine o clock in the morn- ing?" "I dare say not," Mason agreed. "It has always seemed to me," Miss An- struther went on, "that Mrs. O Leary s cow put Chicago to the greatest test ever given our civilization. And Chicago accepted the challenge. The results are all about you." "I never thought of it in that way," he confessed. "You mean you never thought of it at all," she impertinently replied. "Now if Mrs. O Leary had been living in Philadelphia, for instance, and her cow had been a Quaker bovine, the railways would still be running excursions into the city so that the sight-seers might view the devasta tion and collect bits of melted glass ." "Oh, I say!" Mason protested. 121 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ ^ "No," she insisted, "Chicago s spirit is all its own. No other city in America has it; at least, not in the same degree. Frisco might have developed it if it had been left to itself, that is, if it had remained absolute ly American. But it couldn t. The Orien tal, the Asiatic, influence came in and the people succumbed. San Francisco," she de clared frankly, "is the most fascinating city in America, and, I believe, the wickedest." "Fascinating because it is wicked?" he in quired. She shook her head. "I shouldn t like to confess to that belief," she replied. "But any city so situated that the East and West meet within it, is rather likely to be bad." "That sounds familiar," Mason ex claimed. "My old professor in sociology used to say the same thing." 122 THE SPIRIT OF CHICAGO ^ * * "Probably he gathered his data in San Francisco," she suggested. "And now here we are!" she exclaimed at the arched en trance of a great department store. "You may wait here for me or come in, as you pre fer; I shan t be long." "I shall wait here; please don t hurry, I do not mind waiting," he assured her. It seemed to him that she was gone but a moment and when she joined him he said : "I have felt like that aged farmer of whom I once read in Life. He stood in a city doorway for hours and when asked by a policeman his reason for so doing, replied that he was waiting for the procession to pass. And the odd thing about it," he added, "is that all these people appear to know precisely what they are about." "Assuredly they do," Miss Anstruther 123 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * ** declared. "From the moment they awake in the morning until their heads touch the pillows at night they are busy. They even make eating a matter of business." "I ve already observed that," Mason re plied, recalling his late supper of the night before. "But it s more clearly to be seen at noon," Miss Anstruther said. "I am told that Chi cago supports more dairy lunch places than any other city in the world." "Pie and milk?" She nodded. "That doubtless accounts for the hurry ing throngs here people are trying to get away from dyspepsia. Physical activity is said to be a preventive." They lunched in the fantastic grill room of another famous department store. 124 THE SPIRIT OF CHICAGO * * * Several hundred tired-faced women sat at a multitude of little tables. A casual survey of the dishes before them informed Mason that ices and salads constituted the mid-day diet of Chicago s shopping femininity. The half-sentences of conversation that were carried to him were concerned with a single subject fabrics. "They are all of the remnant army," Miss Anstruther informed him "the bargain- counter-attacking cohorts." "So I should infer," he agreed. "But how they stand the strain on nothing more substantial than salad is the mystery." After luncheon Miss Anstruther pro posed that they go out to Lincoln Park; to which Mason was quite agreeable. It was his first experience of the North Clark Street cable and he breathed a sigh 125 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ ^ of relief when his feet touched the earth again. He had insisted on carrying the camera, together with the three small par cels that represented Miss Anstruther s pur chases. He looked like an undergraduate and she was bold to tell him so. However, he "snapped" the Polar bear and a superb Bengal tiger at her request and otherwise conducted himself as a tourist will, though not as a man upon whose shoulders rests a burden such as that of the Boston-Portland Traction deal resting upon his own. How ever, as she informed him, it was a part of the promised education and therefore was to be borne smilingly. He was very tired when he reached the hotel at six o clock. Miss Anstruther had cheerily, but firmly, declined his invitation to dinner and also his offer to drive out to 126 A PART OF THE PROMISED EDUCATION THE SPIRIT OF CHICAGO ^ ^ * the Virginia for her. At the desk, he was given a telegram from his father. Tomp- kins secretary had wired that Tompkins was in Southern California for a fortnight, and Mason, senior s, wire to his son told him to take his time and see something of the country. The young man s eyes flashed. He would stay on in Chicago and allow Miss Anstruther to proceed alone. Yes, it would be best, by far best, he assured him self. He had sent his baggage to the sta tion earlier in the day. He would drive there now and meet her and tell her of the change in his plans. It was quite the proper thing under the circumstances, he assured himself, as his hansom rumbled away. And it was the safest thing to do, as well. He had worked it all out as he sat beside her under a tree in the park that afternoon while she 127 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ ^ ran on to him concerning her own Chicago experiences. He had thus far been "de cent" to her, perhaps a little more than de cent but He came upon her at the wicket of the Pullman office hi the Dearborn Street Sta tion. "Oh, Miss Anstruther," he began. She turned, smiling, and on the bag at her feet he saw a great bunch of splendid roses. She followed his gaze to them. "Wasn t it thoughtful?" she said, "Mr. Townsend ordered them for me by wire. Wasn t it dear of him and then, too, my New York aunt forwarded a wire to me from Frisco saying that I may take my time as the sailing has been postponed a week. Isn t it jolly? I mean to visit the Grand Canyon again ." 128 THE SPIRIT OF CHICAGO * ^ * She had run on quite heedlessly. Mean time, he had done much thinking. Townsend! Gad, had Townsend gone so far as to call the wire to his assistance? It would be a bore loafing in Chicago two days, anyway. "And Mr. Mason, won t you take the flowers, please, and have the porter care for them?" She turned away an instant and did not see his scowl as he stooped for them. "Please wait till I look up my luggage," he said, and walked away carrying Town- send s roses. 129 A Conscience Strained IX. A CONSCIENCE STRAINED XN ONE hand Mason carried his alli gator bag; in the other, securely gripping their long, green stems, Town- send s splendid roses. Returning from the baggage room, he glanced down at the blos soms and scowled darkly. Miss Anstruther was waiting for him beside the gateman s little peaked-roof sentinel box. "Let me take the flowers, please," she said. "You ve enough to carry without them ." "So have you," he answered, "besides I like to carry them; I I m very fond of flowers." Miss Anstruther turned to the gate as he spoke, and he could not see the faint smile that swept across her dancing eyes ; nor did 133 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * she perceive the vicious grip he gave the roses long, green stems, nor hear the angry gritting of his teeth. The long train lay still and dark, save for the lights at the various platforms where stood the porters guarding their little car pet-covered stools. At the forward plat form of the rear car, as Mason and Miss An- struther approached, stood the Pullman conductor, with a white-coated porter near by. "Bride and groom, Pete," muttered the conductor from the corner of his red-mus- tached mouth. Pete laughed, but the suave conductor was speedily disillusioned when Miss An- struther presented her ticket for a section to Williams, Arizona, and Mason presented a ticket for quite another section separated by 134 HE CAME UPON HER AT THE PULLMAN OFFICE A CONSCIENCE STRAINED ^ * nearly the car s length, straight through to San Francisco. The conductor exchanged a glance with the porter and that dignitary grinned understandingly as he seized the bags of the traveling twain and led the way into the dim-lit car. There was yet fifteen minutes before the train was due to leave, and Mason returned to the platform for a last cigarette before re tiring to his berth. Miss Anstruther joined him shortly and together they strolled up and down the length of the long train. There is something of drama in the de parture of a trans-continental train. To the man or woman who would reach the Pacific Coast, it is the flying house of five days. One places one s life, one s destiny, perhaps, in the hands of a grimy man in light blue overalls, who sits in the window of the loco- 135 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * motive cab and gazes calmly off ahead along two parallel bars of steel. They stopped at the engine and stood there regarding it in silence a space. "That s a ripping big locomotive," Mason said, flicking the ash from his cigarette. Miss Anstruther looked up at htm and smiled. "See," she whispered, "there s the engineer." He came around the pilot from the other side, a smoking, flaring kerosene torch in one hand, in the other a fat, slim-necked oil can. He was humming a little tune to him self, softly. Discovering a multitude of holes about the gigantic wheels and tubes of the great, gleaming monster, whose trainer and exhibitor he was, he thrust the thin nose of the odd-shaped oil can here and there and tilted it. And all the time he hummed 136 A CONSCIENCE STRAINED * ^ softly to himself that little tune. He set his sputtering light on the shelf running the length of the big, lustrous boiler and seizing a handful of cotton waste, wiped here and there, and he did it as gently and as care fully yes, as lovingly as a young mother bathes the face of her crooning babe. "See, there are fourteen wheels," Miss Anstruther said. The engineer looked up. "Them little ones there under the pilot are somethin new," he said, pridefully. "They keep her a mite steadier ." They approached him where he stood close to his toy. The light of the lamp cast queer, flickering shadows on his sooty face, and beneath the grime which was not suffi cient quite to hide the cheeriness of the countenance, they saw the lines of middle 137 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ * age. They were not hard, tense lines, such as one might have expected them to be. On the contrary, they were strangely soft and melting; and in the point of the chin was a dimple. "Do you mind telling me how fast this engine can pull such a train?" Mason in quired curiously. The engineer smiled and took down his oil can from the shelf. "How fast? Oh, I ve hit her off on my old run, out n th desert, seventy-six miles an hour an kep t th iron." He said it simply. "Seventy-six miles an hour," Mason mur mured, as his eyes and Miss Anstruther s met. "Course that ain t th limit," the engineer added. "What she could do, I don t know; 138 A CONSCIENCE STRAINED ^ * a hundred mebbe. I ain t ever thrown her wide open; it ain t never been necessary. I hit her up to seventy-five a few years ago, gettin away from a cloud burst west of Ash Fork; that s bout as fast as I ve ever made her go on this ." "I should say that was quite fast enough," Miss Anstruther declared. "Quite," Mason agreed. "A little too fast, I should say." The engineer extinguished the torch as his fireman s face appeared in the window of the cab above their heads. "All right, Charley?" he asked. He took out a silver watch and regarded the dial. "Yep ," answered the fireman. "Guess you d better get aboard. We re leavin in thirty-five seconds," said the en gineer, and smiled. They saw him swing 139 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ himself up to the cab. The light struck the brass grip of the great throttle and glinted. Down the long platform the conductor was calling, "All aboard." A few belated "tourists" stumbled on, laden like pack mules with their heavy and voluminous hand baggage. Mason followed Miss An- struther into the car. "Oh, Mr. Mason," she exclaimed sudden ly, "my roses. I d forgotten them." "The porter has them," he told her. "Thank you so much," she smiled up at him. "Good night." "Good night." Townsend s roses ! Great heavens, he had more than half forgotten Townsend ; at least had ceased to consider him a factor in this little problem of hearts. And now he had 140 A CONSCIENCE STRAINED ^ * called the wire to his service. Mason lay in his berth a long time trying to "reason it all out," as he told himself. That Townsend thought seriously of Sibyl Anstruther, the presence of the roses in a tin pail, provided by the porter, proved. That he thought very seriously of her was further proved by the fact that he had wired to Chicago for them. "And yet here am I," Mason said to him self, "on the spot." Then he remembered how he had prom ised his conscience that he would only be decent to Miss Anstruther. Why had he not stopped over in Chicago as he had planned? Certainly it would have been better, far better. Why hadn t he? He lay on his back in his blue Japanese silk pa jamas and gazed at a ray of the Pinsch light 141 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * that filtered through the chink of the berth curtains. He had bought the whole section, so the upper berth was not made-up, and now he drew himself to a sitting position and with his eyes still fixed on the ray of light confessed: "It s because I love her; I do; and it re quired Townsend s roses to show me how much." The confession brought him a little moment of elation during which a deep sigh escaped him. "I love her, I love her, I love her," he murmured over and over again. Then the elation was dissipated and a frown settled upon his countenance. "But Townsend; how about Townsend?" he questioned. Could it be that there was anything between them? The roses might indicate that there was ; or they might indi cate Townsend s own feelings merely. 142 A CONSCIENCE STRAINED * Mason wanted to play fair. If Sibyl Anstruther and Townsend were engaged, he wished to know it. His course in any such event was perfectly clear. But if they were not, he would go in to win. Could he win? Thus far she had shown a certain pleasure in his society; she certainly had not at tempted to hide that. But was it any more than she would have shown in the society of any man of her acquaintance under the cir cumstances? Certainty and doubt clashed in Hal Mason s mind as he lay in his berth gazing at the ray of light between the cur tains. He must find out. He must find out tomorrow, he told himself. "But I love you; I love you," he murmured again and again. Then he fell asleep to awake amid the clatter and clang of the dilapidated Union Station at Kansas City. H3 The Education Proceeds X. THE EDUCATION PROCEEDS HE SENT back a wire to his father from Kansas City that the elder Mason was not displeased to receive. "Shall stop over at the Grand Canyon two days. Bright Angel Hotel," was all the telegram contained, but as he folded it and put it into his pocket, Mason, senior, smiled and muttered, "It will do him good." Though just how much "good" it was des tined to "do him" he little knew. Hal breakfasted with Miss Anstruther in the dining-car and in a carafe between them the porter had arranged Townsend s gor geous roses. On the snowy damask cover of the little table lay here and there a blood- red petal that the jar of the train had suf ficed to loosen. If in this Mason perceived THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * a symbol of Townsend s diminishing chances, he gave no sign. "I thought you said we were to have our meals in eating houses," he observed, pre paring his fruit. "We shall after we pass Marceline," she replied. "This car is dropped off there; then ho, for the deep red restaurants!" "I think I shall like them better," he de cided. "One can take a bit of exercise, you know." "Of course you ll like them," she made haste to declare. "You can t help it. You get such good things to eat. It s that and the Grand Canyon that makes me take this road whenever I cross the continent." He was smiling indulgently, perhaps a little skeptically. "You don t believe it?" she asked. "Wait, 148 THE EDUCATION PROCEEDS ^ ^ we ll have supper at Topeka. Wait till after that, and you ll see. Why, the best baked crab I ever ate in my life I had one August night in the eating house at the Needles. And the thermometer registered 109 degrees." "A baked crab in a temperature of 109! Oh, Miss Anstruther, I say I" He had low ered his fork and was gazing into her eyes over the roses. "Truly," she nodded, "and that crab had come all the way from your rock-ribbed coast and was alive when he reached his des tination ." "You re joking!" "Wait," she replied. She confessed to herself that she might be mistaken concerning the crab s life, but she did not say as much. She consoled her- 149 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ ** self with the thought that it had tasted as good as any she had ever eaten at the ocean side. After breakfast he left her for his matu tinal cigarette. There were two other smok ers in the compartment and they made room for him on the leather divan as he entered. One of them, a tall, wiry man with New England chin whiskers, looked up and nodded agreeably. "Well, this don t look much like bleedin Kansas, now does it?" the other man in quired, turning from the window. He was short and fat and good nature shone from his rubicund face. "Kansas quit bleedin quite a spell ago," the tall man replied "Greatest state in the Union." He pulled at his cigar. "Loaned $30,000,000 to Wall Street last year" an- 150 THE EDUCATION PROCEEDS * ^ : other pull "Every mortgage paid" pull "farmers ridin round in autymobeels" pull "yes, sir; greatest state in th Union Coin to bust Standard Oil sure as there s a God in Israel!" Mason had pricked up his ears; he was interested and piqued at the same time. His eyes met those of the tall man. "Live back East?" the latter inquired. "Yes, Boston ." You don t say; well now! Born n New England m self Vermont Came out here when I got my eyes open though " The little fat man laughed and winked at Mason. Like it better, do you?" Mason chanced. "Better! Better!! I should say! I wouldn t go back there t visit my relatives old home week/ even. Ain t nothin back THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * there but a few stone fences, a Jersey cow er two, an occasional sugar bush, and Puritan traditions. Ye ain t got nawthin but the last in Boston. As fer me, I d rather have three hundred acres o Kansas soil a-growin corn eighteen foot high than all th Puritan traditions in New England." Mason laughed. The fat man shook glee fully. As for the speaker his face was dead ly serious save for the twinkle in his eyes. "That s the greatest feature of your part of the country," Mason made bold to say. "What, th corn?" "No, your own enthusiasm ." "Gosh, that s because we ve got something to be enthusiastic over," the tall man ex claimed. "All you folks have got s Faneuil Hall, Old South n that overgrown slate pencil you call Bunker Hill Monument 1" 152 THE EDUCATION PROCEEDS * * "And yet you will agree that all the pros perity of Kansas has been made possible by the infusion of New England stock," Mason ventured. The slim man set his obviously false teeth. "Don t throw it in our faces, m boy," he said, "we re doin our best tryin t fergit it. After you ve run around a leetle out here you ll learn we don t ask a stranger if his great grandfather was one of the fellers that Paul Revere woke up as he rode t spread th alarm, through every Middlesex village and farm guess that s the way it goes, ain t it?" Mason nodded, smiling. "We ask him what he can do. If he can t do nawthin we pass him out t Ne- brasky, where he ll haf t work, or ship him back East again where vittles ain t so neces- THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * sary. Nobody west o th Missouri s got any ancestry," he added, "and if they have they keep it quiet." Mason rose, laughing, and threw away his cigarette end. "Come out here among us, young man, and we ll show you a thing or two," the tall man called after him. Joining Miss Anstruther he told her of the conversation, or rather of the tall Kan- san s monologue, laughing as he did so. "I m glad you laugh," she said. "Why?" he asked, wonderingly. "Because I think it is a sign that you are beginning to understand." "Yes, I think I am," he replied frankly. "If any one back at home had said such things to me I d have resented them, deeply. It s odd I don t under the circumstances." 154 THE EDUCATION PROCEEDS ^ ^ "It s the air," she replied. "The air?" he looked puzzled. She nodded. "The spirit of this country is in the air itself and by simply breathing one takes it into one s veins. You ll find it the same all the way." "And by the time I reach San Francisco I shall be a Westerner in spirit?" She smiled. "Perhaps not. A sudden change may not be the best thing in the world, you know. Plum pudding is lots nicer than haggis, but the Scot wouldn t think so with the first taste. But once weaned, haggis would no longer tempt him." He laughed. "I dare say you could prove to me that the moon is green cheese, after all," he said. "I like to think it is," she replied. 155 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * Afterward they went out on the rear plat form where he placed a little stool for her. She seated herself and rested her arms upon the polished rail. He stood behind and a little at one side, his own arms folded across his breast. "Perhaps you d like to know," she said after a bit, "that, that s alfalfa out there." "Really," he replied. The alfalfa of Kansas was not interesting to him just then, but a little vagrant curl of her soft hair that the breeze tossed over her pink ear was, and he gazed at it as though fascinated. "Yes," she went on, quite as though to her self, "but it is not so good as the alfalfa that they grow down in the Las Cruces Valley in New Mexico. It is too rank here in Kan sas and the cattle can t eat it all. It ought to be grown under irrigation really ." 156 THE EDUCATION PROCEEDS * * "Gad I" he muttered and she turned. "What is it?" she exclaimed. "What a lot you know!" She laughed up at him. "I ve told you how it happens," she said. "I ve been keen to learn all I could about this country ever since I first began to know it. There s lots out here I could show you," she went on ; "I d like you to go up to Salton in Death Valley, where they plow up salt precisely as they plow up a wheat field back East. I d like you to see the marvelous mines they have discovered north of the Needles where gold sticks out of the rocks like wire, and I d like you to go up to old Santa Fe and see a church that, so far as age is concerned, makes your Old South and your Plymouth Rock look like affairs of yes terday. And the ancient Talace, too, 157 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ * though you d never take it for a palace. It has witnessed all the great events in South western history, but you, back East, think an old gate or an ancient well of St. Augustine much more interesting. The Spaniards came up here you know not here exactly, but into Arizona, long before the Pilgrim fathers set foot on New England soil or be fore Jamestown was settled. If you had time, I d like you to visit Laguna and Zuni and Acoma and Oraibi. There s an en chanted mesa, the Indians will tell you, at Acoma, and a moving mountain and a lot of other weird things. It was in Arizona, you know, that those old Spaniards sought the Seven Cities of Cibola that the Indians had told them of cities whose streets were paved with gold and houses roofed with sil ver cities that possessed riches such as Pi- 158 THE EDUCATION PROCEEDS *> ^ zarro never dreamed of in Peru. Why, there are people in the pueblos of Arizona whose customs and religious rites are so an cient that the rites of our own religion, com pared to them, are as new as Christian Science. And as far as that is concerned, the Hopi Indians have practiced what we call Christian Science for a thousand years." Mason had listened to her eagerly. When he spoke, there was a little tremor of emo tion in his voice. "Miss Anstruther," he said, "it s all aw fully interesting; and I can t tell how grate ful I am to you, but ." "But what?" she put in. "You make me feel like an infant in arms ." Laughing, she looked up at him, and the light in her eyes was dazzling. He could THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * ^ have reached out both his arms, taken her in them and held her close. "I don t want you to feel that way," she said, "but I m glad I ve not bored you." For a little space then they watched the receding rails in silence as they curled back from beneath the platform, away ever away to a point as fine as a needle miles upon miles behind. 1 60 A Purchase in the Open XI. A PURCHASE IN THE OPEN IT WAS the next day as the train pulled up, panting, at a huge red water tank that Mason saw his first real cowboys. He had seen many "show specimens" of the genus in Mr. Cody s amazing aggregation of western cleverness, but he had always taken them cum grano sails. But here assuredly was the real thing, the unadulterated Col orado brand, indeed. Coatless, their necks wrapped in gaudy silken kerchiefs, knotted behind, their great goatskin "chaps" look ing like animals themselves, their high, Spanish heels clanking with big-rowelled spurs, their close-cropped heads surmounted by wide-brimmed hats of the regulation buckskin shade, the appearance they made on their calico cow-ponies, as they galloped THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * down the cinder siding, caused Mason s pulses to quicken. They were young fel lows, both of them, with sun-bronzed faces and clear blue eyes. Mason swung himself down from the platform and approached them where they had drawn up near the tank. They were chatting agreeably with the men in the pos tal car. As Mason drew near he glimpsed the revolver that hung in its stamped leather holster from the belt of the taller of the two riders. Off in the distance, balanced on the horizon, was the ranch house, whither they had come to participate in the only real ex citement of the day the stopping of the Overland for water. Mason was smoking a cigarette, but, as he drew near the horses, he flung it away. The nearest animal pricked up his ears at the gesture and the cowboy 164 A PURCHASE IN THE OPEN ^ * turned and looked down at the man on the siding. There was a flash of recognition and at Mason s exclamation a bronzed hand shot forth and seized his own. "Piggy Gleason!" "Hal Mason, or I m a liar I" Had that cowboy struck him he could not have been more amazed than he was now to grasp the hand of a one-time Har vard acquaintance. "What in the name of Heaven are you doing out here like like this?" And Mason indicated the hairy "chaps" that swathed the cowboy s legs. "It s the Governor s ranch, you see. I m sort of superintending it for him over sum mer. Where you bound ; can t you stop off? Come on, do. I ll give you a pony; run you to death!" He seized Mason s shoulder fa- THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * miliarly. The pipe of the red water tank swung about. The engine bell rang. "Perhaps, on my way back," Mason re plied, as he grasped the brass platform rod. "Wire me Piggy Gleason Thatcher- Colorado all summer 1" the man on the horse cried. "All right." And as Mason swung himself aboard the moving train the boys emitted in concert if the phrase may be employed a series of the most unearthly shrieks the Boston man had ever heard, at the same time firing a double salvo of shots from their blue-steel forty-fours. It was their daily God-speed to the Overland, but Harold Mason did not know that. This meeting with Piggy Gleason in the "cow country" affected him more than all 166 A PURCHASE IN THE OPEN * ^ that Miss Anstruther had told him. He would remember Piggy s invitation and drop off on his return, he promised himself, and he noted the town s name in his little seal-covered memorandum book. He had never been familiar with Piggy Gleason at Harvard, but something perhaps the alti tude to which is credited all the good and all the bad in Colorado might now be credited with the spontaneous interest that he felt in Piggy. Quite excited, he sought Miss Anstruther. She had not witnessed the meeting and Mason s brief recital interested and amused her. When he expressed surprise that a Harvard man should turn cowboy, she smiled. "You ll find college men Eastern and native doing all sorts of things out in this THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * country," she said. "You ll find them pros pecting and riding the range, superintend ing mines and in one or two instances that I know of, herding sheep in New Mexico and Nevada. I like the cowboys best though." Her eyes flashed as she spoke. "Why best?" "A cowboy saved my life on the Bright Angel trail in the Grand Canyon once four years ago," she answered simply. "Really?" "Yes, Aunt Jane says I ll marry a cowboy before I die ." Something caused Mason s heart to leap into his throat. "But that is all Aunt Jane knows about it," she added and smiled at him again. "You see," she went on, "Aunt Jane s opin ions on the subject of matrimony are hardly 168 A PURCHASE IN THE OPEN ^ ^ to be depended upon, though I suppose, poor thing, she d have married long ago if it had not been for me." "Why not let her, then?" Mason asked. "It is one of my amusements to keep her on tenter hooks, as it were. There is a man in Frisco, a bachelor, and one of the very best men who ever breathed San Francisco fog, who has been taking a thrice yearly shy at Aunt Jane for, oh, for fifteen years, I guess. And I know that if it were not for me Aunt Jane would have married him ever so long ago. She really cares for him a lot, though she tries to make me believe she doesn t. It has been awfully mean of me, but I ve never given my consent to the mar riage." "Your consent 1" She nodded. 169 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ ** "Aunt Jane is such a dear, I ve not been able thus far to give her up. She s afraid I ll leave her for good if she marries, you see, and so between that suitor of hers and her own peace of mind, she has been led a lively pace. But I m going to settle it all when I reach her. I m going to place their hands together and give them my blessing and start them along the primrose path. I can see Uncle Jack when I tell him! I ve always called him that. He s pleaded with me to deliver my dear aunt into his arms, for ever so long, but I d only laugh at him. I ve teased him until I should think he d employ a Chinaman to kidnap me. So perhaps," she added, "if you stop in San Francisco long enough you may attend a wedding ." "Gad! I d like to!" And how much Mason spoke from his heart perhaps Miss 170 A PURCHASE IN THE OPEN ^ ^ Anstruther did not know. And perhaps she did. For the faintest cloud of pink ap peared upon her cheek and she turned to the window. That evening they played cribbage on a little table that the porter provided. It was a game that Mason had not experienced since his junior year at college. Miss An struther claimed all the counts he failed to see and beat him three games out of five. "It doesn t seem as though I could do any thing, and it does seem as though you could do everything," he said "Cribbage is the cowboy game," she ex plained. "Perhaps that s why I like it ." "But I thought poker ," Mason began. "That s what nearly everyone thinks," she replied. "I dare say poker is played when the boys want to gamble among themselves, 171 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ * but when it s amusement only that they seek, cribbage is the game. I believe that every cowboy in the West has a cribbage-board as a necessary part of his outfit. " "Well," Mason observed, "if I m to be come a cowboy, then, I must polish up my cribbage ." She laughed and they bade each other good night. In his own section Mason sat staring at the plush of the seat in front of him until the porter "shooed" him out to make up the berth. A couple of cattle-men were smoking in the compartment at the end of the car, and both looked up and nodded in the comfortable Western way as he en tered. They had nothing to say, however, and he was glad of that. He took out his railway folder with its blue cross on the cover and studied it intently. The next 172 A HE WAS FILLED WITH A GREAT LONGING TO TELL HER THEN A PURCHASE IN THE OPEN * * night they would be in Albuquerque he pronounced it "Albukerk." He read what the folder had to say concerning the Alvar- ado hotel erected there by the railway two years before. The description of the mu seum interested him. And the further he read the more firmly convinced was he that it was Fate which offered him that curio room as the place wherein he should tell Sibyl Anstruther what he had wanted to tell her these two days back. It would be rarely appropriate he assured himself. Nor did the passage of the night serve to shake his determination. The next morning as he strolled up and down the platform of the breakfast station with Miss Anstruther, he perceived how exquisite she was, and he was filled with a great longing to tell her then and there. But a Mexican sat on a truck 173 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ * watching them and he decided it was not the place. At Lamy, early in the afternoon, they clambered out of the car again for a turn along the platform. At the end of the station in the shadow of the water tank, stood a straight-featured squaw, with her papoose beside her. She was the first Indian in real Indian dress Mason had thus far seen. Her shiny hair, parted in the middle, hung in two tight braids forward over her shoulders. Her gaunt figure was wrapped in a really gor geous, and comparatively clean blanket. Her legs were swathed in the curious loose skin leggings of her people and she stood in beaded moccasins. The child was dressed like its mother save for the blanket. Its lit tle breeches were wide and blue, with rows of vari-colored beading down the outer 174 A PURCHASE IN THE OPEN ^ ^ seams. Its hair was braided like the wo man s, and two feathers waved from the scalp-lock. The tiny moccasins it wore were exquisite specimens of native handi craft. Kneeling, Miss Anstruther held out her arms to the little thing, but it drew back, seizing the edge of its mother s blanket. But as the girl spoke pleasantly, it took cour age and came to her, its eyes fixed upon the pin at her throat. The mother grinned her pleasure and her pride. "How old?" Miss Anstruther asked. The woman thrust a hand from beneath her blanket and held up three fingers. On the first finger, she wore a great silver ring, fan-shaped, with an im mense turquoise set in its centre. Miss Anstruther rose. "Let me see that," she said. 175 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * The squaw held out her claw-like hand. "It s a beauty," Mason said. "How much?" inquired the girl. The squaw held up four fingers. Miss Anstruther shook her head. "Offer her two," she whispered. Mason did. The squaw removed the ring so swift ly that it appeared an act of legerdemain. The girl examined the curious carving, then returned the ring to Mason. Just then the engine bell rang. "Wear it back East," Miss Anstruther said, as they stood on the plaform, "and let your silver-smiths see what sort of rings the Indians out here can make from a Mexican dollar and a native turquois." "I mean to," Mason replied, and slipped the ring over the little finger of his left hand. A PURCHASE IN THE OPEN * The ring, however, proved to be too large despite the bit of cloth with which the silver circlet had been bound by the squaw, so he drew it from his finger and placed it in his waist-coat pocket where it was destined to lie for some time, forgotten. "This is the turquoise country, you know," Miss Anstruther said. "One of the most famous jewelers in America has his own private mine out here and supplies himself with the stones." "Really," Mason leaned forward. "Yes. Its discovery was an accident all discoveries are in this country, father used to say. I remember his telling me that a col lege graduate would come out into the hills with all the money he could carry in a pack and a nickel-plated prospecting kit, quite as perfect and as brilliant in its way as its own- 177 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * er s geological and metallurgical knowl edge. Then he would hire as guide some aged prospector upon whose tousled head the sun of fortune had never shone. At the end of a month the college man would ar rive at the conclusion that an academic knowledge of geology and metallurgy counts for nought in the hills. There, the goddess of fortune reigns supreme. More often than not, the aged guide would quar rel w T ith the college prospector and go off by himself. "Once, under such circumstances, it hap pened that the old prospector himself struck it rich, the very next day, and with one blow of his hammer laid bare a surface vein of ore that proved a lead to the richest mine discovered in the vicinity up to that time. He had run across an old deer s horn in his A PURCHASE IN THE OPEN ^ * wanderings. A deer s horn, you know, is a symbol of good luck among the Indians. So the old man lifted the horn, and in a spirit of fun knocked off a bit of the rock upon which it had lain. The goddess of the hills smiled upon him. There, before his eyes, lay the gold. " A few months later the geological-metal lurgist, having spent all his money and dis covered nothing, went to work for the old man for two dollars a day. The hills could tell a million tales of luck such as that." "And yet," Mason said, when she ceased speaking, "one can t call it all luck. The concentration upon the object of search was certain to have the desired result. That one found gold where another had failed to find it was accidental, merely. It was destined to be found by some one." 179 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * -* "It was the same with the turquoise mine," Miss Anstruther went on. "An artist who had come out here among the Indians to paint them, saw a papoose playing with a quantity of blue stones. He asked where they had been found and a young brave took him to the top of a nearby mesa. The ground was literally covered with the gems. The mesa was not on the reservation and the artist was wise in his generation. He marked his claim, returned to the East and sold it for more money than all the pictures he might paint till the end of time would bring him." The sunset was glorifying the barren lands through which they were passing. In the glow the desert took on a beauty all its own. The very air appeared suffused with an amethyst tint. 1 80 A PURCHASE IN THE OPEN * * It was seven o clock and still quite light when they reached Albuquerque. "I want you to see the station, here," Miss Anstruther said, "for unless you visit South ern California, you will see nothing finer in the way of Mission architecture." In front of them as they alighted stood the building, long and low and grey in the softening light. In the cool cloisters he glimpsed here and there the white of a dress. The broad brick walk, extending from the tracks to the entrance beneath the belfry, was lined on both sides by a row of sitting Indian girls and women. In front of each one was a basket heaped with softly tinted specimens of their pottery decorated with the lines and symbols of their ceremon ials . In front of one girl was a basket piled with polished red apples. 181 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * "They are Hopis and Navajos," Miss An- struther said; "potters, silver-workers, and blanket weavers." Their dress was rich in color with the reds predominating. Despite the heat they wore their swathings close about them and seemed not to mind. The riot of color they pre sented was softened by the lowering sun, which served, as well, to transform their sharp features and give to them a certain beauty. Mason was inclined to make a purchase from each of the women who so pleadingly held up to him her wares, but Miss An- struther dissuaded him. "Don t now," she said. "Wait until after dinner." They followed the others into the dining- room. The white clad waitress who re- 182 A PURCHASE IN THE OPEN * ^ ceived them perhaps understood the situa tion better even than Mason himself, for straightway she led them across the room to a little table for two beneath one of the high west windows, through which streamed a last ray of the summer sun, marking a path of gold upon the floor. Miss Anstruther maintained a stream of small talk that kept Mason silent if inter ested. He had made a brave plan for this night and it was not his intention to swerve one hair s breadth from it. But as the waitress served him with a pistache ice he looked up and said: "And to think that all this is happening out in New Mexico, virtually in the desert!" a And such a terribly long way from Faneuil Hall and Washington Street," Miss Anstruther added. 183 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL "Please don t rub it in," Mason begged. "And shall you stop over at the Canyon?" Miss Anstruther inquired with seeming in difference, looking up from her ice. "Yes, I have made my plans," he replied. "I wonder," she mused aloud, "what you will say when you look down into it for the first time." "Perhaps I shall say nothing," he an swered. She half smiled and looked down. "I couldn t speak for a moment," she said, "when first it was revealed to me." From across the room came the tinkle of glass and the rattle of china. The light from the little red-shaded electric candle on the table cast half Miss Anstruther s face in shadow. They were apart from the others dining in the room, yet of them, none the 184 A PURCHASE IN THE OPEN * * less. Mason s heart was beating rapidly. He became conscious that the moment had come for him to give voice to that which had long lain upon his tongue. He leaned forward. "Miss Anstruther," he began. Perhaps his eyes told her; perhaps his heart called across the table to hers. In any event, as he spoke she pushed away the finger bowl and, rising, said : "Come you must see the curio rooms." He followed her meekly down the echo ing cloister, wondering at his own ready obedience. The place whither she led the way was a museum and yet also a kind of curio shop. Many of the odd objects displayed here for sale were in a way familiar to him. One may buy Indian baskets in Boston, if one THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * will ; but here they seemed to mean more, in the heart of the land that produced them. On the walls hung a multitude of Indian and Mexican tapestries and paintings; cur ious baskets in which one might carry water; plaques, feather ornaments, carved- leather, and what not. Here and there hung a splendid Navajo blanket, its rich colors harmonizing exquisitely with those in the scrape beside it. A wonderfully decorated prayer apron attracted Miss Anstruther s attention, and she spoke to a salesman con cerning it. Mason glanced at his watch. In fifteen minutes their train was scheduled to depart. Presently Miss Anstruther joined him again and they strolled together through the rooms and into a small chamber at the further end of the building. 1 86 A PURCHASE IN THE OPEN * * Suspended by great chains from a ceil ing beam was a swing of the ancient Span ish Mission pattern. Over it was thrown an Indian blanket as richly colored as any oriental fabric Mason had ever seen. Miss Anstruther seated herself in the swing. Mason glanced quickly over his shoulder, then leaned forward, standing, as he was, behind her. He was about to speak when there sounded in his ears a voice from behind, which he recognized as that of the salesman with whom Miss Anstruther had spoken. "Believe me, madam," the voice said, "that apron is genuine and the price at which I offer it to you is in no sense high. Or, if you care to see them, I shall be only too glad to show you a lot of Navajo blankets ranging in price from five hundred THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * ^ to two thousand dollars perfect antiques, woven by the Indians from threads raveled from ancient Spanish cloths. Indian blankets are very like Mexican drawn work, an expert alone is able to distinguish between the valuable and the worthless. May I not show you these blankets?" Mason was all of a tremble. He bit his lip. Here, amid the relics of a civilization far older than his own, he had meant to tell the story of his heart a story itself as old as these things. He located the voice; it came from be hind a great pile of blankets in one corner. And then he heard it again from a point, apparently, further away. An instant he hesitated, then "Miss Anstruther," he began, "there s something I ve been wanting to tell you ." 1 88 A PURCHASE IN THE OPEN ^ * She lifted her face and looked up at him frankly. "What is it?" she asked. He hesitated. "Overland! All aboard! All aboard!" It was the conductor s megaphone call from the track without. "Come; we must hurry!" Miss An- struther cried, springing up. "Confound it!" muttered Mason under his breath, as he followed her through the cloister and out upon the tracks. Accessory After the Fact XII. ACCESSORY AFTER THE FACT AVE on occasion Hal Mason was not given to the use of expletives. And even now he excused himself for the one uttered so fervently at the conductor s call of "all aboard." He was not sure Miss An- struther had not heard it, voiced under his breath though it was. But she had been the first to board the train and he could not, therefore, see her face. However, she was smiling; more, she was laughing. Small wonder the Pullman conductor, standing statuesquely in the vestibule, should have thought her radiance of countenance meant solely for him. Angry at himself, and at the conductor (indeed, most angry at the conductor) Mason lingered a moment on the platform while the white-coated porter 193 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ * dropped the trap in the floor and closed the plate-glass door. Entering the car then, he glanced toward Miss Anstruther s section. It was vacant. The young woman had dis appeared from his sight as completely as if the train had swallowed her. So Mason sought the solitude of the smoking compart ment and the solace of a certain brand of cigar that he had little thought it possible to secure in "the wilds of New Mexico," as he characterized the glowing desert-land through which, for hours, his train had been reeling off the miles. Given, as has been said, to self-analysis motive analysis if you will to a degree unusual in a young man, particularly a Boston young man, he indulged himself in the pernicious habit now between puffs at his cigar. 194 ACCESSORY AFTER THE FACT ^ Had that fervent exclamation been ut tered from his heart or wherever was the seat of the emotions he remembered once having read it was the stomach or had it been the result of, say, physical annoyance? Would he have asked Miss Anstruther to marry him, would he really, if the conduc tor had not called "all aboard" at that es pecial moment? He was questioning his heart now, in all seriousness, and awaited an answer, the while he tried to blow rings of pale blue smoke. To be sure, he argued, he had told him self as he lay in his berth one night what night was it anyway? for the life of him he could not quite remember that he loved her. Heaven knew he was honest enough then, at that precise moment. And had he not fallen asleep, forthwith, to dream 195 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ * of her her voice, her face, her smile? Or was it after all a mere matter of pro pinquity? Would he not consider himself in love with any girl into whose society he might be constantly thrown for a period of five days? Propinquity might mean a lot, given the girl was pretty and had a way with her. On the moment he could recall four separate instances wherein certain nameless fellows of his one-time acquaint ance had met their respective fates at week end house parties. They had married these suddenly revealed fates and had settled down in peace and comfort? He smiled grimly. Hardly. All four, as though moved by a single set of springs, had shortly sought peace and comfort at the hands of a benign judge, who, strange to relate, had, in his earlier days, found himself in the 196 ACCESSORY AFTER THE FACT * same predicament. Yes, propinquity did mean a lot, sometimes 1 And yet, why should his case be precisely like these others? Was it not reasonable that this might be an exception? The grim- ness melted away and his smile softened. Then, of a sudden and with the force of a blow between the eyes, he realized that not once had he considered the possible state of Miss Anstruther s feelings. He had gone straight on in the usual way of Boston youth; had thought only of himself. But, he was sane enough to appreciate, if Miss Anstruther had not shown he was agreeable to her, neither had she, on the other hand, shown that he was not. Indeed, he had every reason, he thought, to feel that there was still a fighting chance, perhaps a little better chance, even, than that. 197 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * But what of the Governor? He winced, thinking of him and what he might say; indeed, what he very probably would say. But he had threshed this out quite clean in his own mind. Let the Governor rage if he chose ; it would all be a part of the game. Governors had raged at the hot-headed- ness of youth since Adam s time. It was the privilege of Governors to resent their natural prerogative to interfere in the se lections of young hearts. Albeit in their day Governmental resentment had had small effect upon their own course in the conquest of hearts. Still it was no more than fair that the Governor should know. And Hal Mason acted immediately. From an inner pocket he took out a little blank- book with detachable leaves and with his fountain pen scribbled this terse epistle: 198 ACCESSORY AFTER THE FACT "Dear Dad: On the train out of Albu querque. I m going to mail this to you to morrow morning at Ash Fork, where we breakfast. You ll get it in time to wire me at the Palace Hotel, Frisco. On this same train is Sibyl Anstruther, a friend of the Worringtons who may tell you anything you want to know about her. / // tell you that I love her. I have reason to know there s a fellow back in Boston who does, too. But he s there and I m here. We are both going to stop over two days at the Grand Canyon. I m going to ask her to marry me. It ll all be over before you get this, but I ll look for your blessing by wire. Maybe the blessing will not be apropos, but I hope it will. I d wire you my inten tions, but if I did it would give you time to wire back before the event, so I m writ ing instead, to prepare you. And about Tompkins, don t lose any sleep. I know it s my chance and I ll get him. "Your son, "HAL." He folded the two sheets and slipped them into a stamped envelope. 199 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ** * The porter had made up nearly all the berths, his own included. Evidently Miss Anstruther had retired, for the curtains of her section were closely drawn. A moment Mason stood there in the aisle, tapping his lips with the envelope. Then he softly called, "Porter." That functionary came toward him. "Porter, when do we pass a train going east?" he asked. "In an hour an 7 a half, suh, if Numbah Eight s on time." "Do we stop long enough for you to put this letter on?" "Yes, suh; we take watah at de same place, suh." Mason gave him the letter. "You won t fail to mail it?" The porter grinned. "No suh ; Ah nevah 200 ACCESSORY AFTER THE FACT * fails de passengers, suh," he replied proudly. "Here s a dollar," and Mason held to ward him a crisp new note. The porter took it and bowed to the floor. Then Mason, with a happy light in his eyes, sought his berth, 201 The Magic of a Sunset XIII. THE MAGIC OF A SUNSET KE appeared just in time for breakfast the next morning. Many of the pas sengers had already left the train and Miss Anstruther was still nowhere to be seen. Mason discovered her, however, in the din ing-room, engaged upon a golden omelet. The chairs beside her were occupied so he was compelled to comfort himself with an occasional glimpse of her from across the room. Around the tables moved what seemed to him an endless line of white-clad girls who served the guests from immense platters. Mason marveled at the system which permitted half a hundred hungry travelers being comfortably and most pala tably served in the half hour allowed the train. He was hungry and not one of the 205 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ * noiselessly moving serving maids was al lowed to pass his chair. Afterward, as he walked down the length of the train with Miss Anstruther, he ob served: "Of all I have seen of this country and of all you have told me, it is the feeding out here that most amazes me. I am ready to apologize for not having believed at first in that crab you told me about ." She lifted a pair of merry eyes to his. "But I do now," he went on. "If they were to serve me with nightingales tongues and peacocks brains at the next eating- house, I should not be in the least surprised, but would accept them as a mere matter of course." Miss Anstruther laughed. "I was just thinking," Mason added, 206 THE MAGIC OF A SUNSET *> * "what a ripping time Lucullus would have on a trip like this. 7 "Wouldn t he!" Miss Anstruther ex claimed. "And yet," she went on with mock seriousness, "I had rather hoped it wouldn t all be the feeding with you." "I guess I m mostly inner man, " he re plied. "And yet you cannot say I am with out appreciation of this country for what it is. But you know I ve not seen anything like the scenery I expected. The hills at Raton and that tunnel were rather interest ing ." "Wait," she put in. "If you had taken any one of the other routes, you would have had nice little dabs of scenery sprinkled all along the way. It s different down here in the Southwest. All the scen ery is compressed, as it were, into one gigan- 207 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * tic, over-powering piece. I mean the Grand Canyon. You ll see it to-night. We change at Williams, you know, and it takes us three hours to reach the Rim." They hurried aboard then. All the morning Miss Anstruther chose to read a new magazine and Mason was ac cordingly left to his own devices. For three hours, he sat in the chair-car ahead, leaning back in his seat, gazing out the window. The letter that was then speeding on toward i Boston had, in the writing of it, served to clear his mind of every vestige of doubt con cerning the propriety of the course he had determined to pursue. So further self-an alysis was quite unnecessary. He had noth ing to do, in fact, but gaze out the window. Away off in the northern distance he thought he saw mountains, but was not sure. 208 THE MAGIC OF A SUNSET ^ ^ The horizon line seemed strangely elevated above his own position. It was as though the train were traversing an immense sau cer covered by an inverted and transparent turquoise bowl. He knew it was hot out there under the pitiless, brazen sun, but he himself was strangely cool. The motion of the train coupled with the heat vibrations above the earth gave to the desert as far as he could see something of the quality of a mirrored reflection in a wavy glass. Once, out there in the endless waste of sand and sage, he caught a fleeting glimpse of a soli tary man astride a burro. The man did not lift his eyes at the passage of the train. He was, to Mason, absolutely alone in space, coming from nowhere, going nowhere. He tried to make himself understand what existence would mean out yonder; 209 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * surely it could not be termed life. The pitiless sun would burn into the very soul of him who dwelt beneath it; and the tur quoise sky would mock him in his anguish. And yet he knew that here came men and women from his own watered, blooming land back East to find the health and the life itself that eluded them there. The sweep of quivering desert, thirsting under the brazen sun, made an appeal to his im agination that had within it something of the dramatic. That life was good, the des ert told him, as he was borne swiftly across it. He rose and passing through the car be hind stood alone on the rear platform. A tiny settlement flew past three low, white washed sheds, a house of boards; and in the doorway stood a woman holding in her 210 THE MAGIC OF A SUNSET * * arms a child. Mason shivered, then into his eyes came a look of tenderness. He thought of the woman there in the doorway as a sym bol; for love dwells even in the desert, and where love is there can be life and all that makes life worth the living. The sun was high in the sky. He turned and re-entered the car just as the engine whistle announced the proximity of a station. At Williams, he dined with Miss An- struther at the Canyon Hotel, and then they amused themselves spinning the little ivory ball around the rim of a roulette wheel, drawn up by the door of the open, un screened bar-room. From his chair at the end of the bar, a sleepy, white-faced youth watched them wearily and smiled at Ma son s exclamation when the little ball came to rest in a compartment that corresponded 211 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * to the square that he had specified on the adjoining green-covered table. Afterward they walked to the foot of Bill Williams mountain. Miss Anstruther was for ascending it, but even her promise to point out to him where lay the "lost mine" of that region was insufficient to tempt him to make the ascent. So, instead, in the shade of a scrubby bush, she told him the story of Old Peleg, who had run across the vein one day, but had never been able to rediscover it albeit he had made many trips over the lucky route, as scores since his time had also done, but to no purpose. The sun found them where they sat and drove them down to the railway station where the Canyon train stood waiting. As the train was making ready to depart, Miss Anstruther said: "Do you see that lit- 212 THE MAGIC OF A SUNSET ^ * tie, frail man there, talking with the engi neer?" Mason followed the direction of her eyes and nodded. "I want you to get into conversation with him. He is John Hance, Captain John Hance, they call him out here. For twenty years he has lived down in the Canyon. My father used to know him well. Perhaps he knows more about the Canyon than any man who ever lived, save Powell." Hance, Mason discovered shortly, was not averse to talking. He was thoroughly West ern, Mason decided, in that respect. "M boy," he said in reply to the young man s question, "what do I live down in that hole fer? Til tell ye. I was born back in yer country. All my life I ve been tryin t git away from yer durn civilization. So I 213 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * ^ started west. I set a spell in Missouri but it follered me there. Then I come on t Colorado; it got there right behind me. I trailed on t Utah; there she was right be hind me again. Then sez I, Til make a break fer th Pacific. Unbeknownst t me they d struck gold in Californy an fer months civilization had been crossin th Isthmus or roundin th Horn, t head me off. I was plum penned in. So sez I, I ll turn round and make fer this hole in th ground n , by gosh, I ll bet it won t git me there. N so I did n I ve been livin in this hole fer twenty years, me n my dog." "Then you re not married, Captain?" Mason said. "No, I ain t, though I s pose I may say I m almost married; all I m needin t be completely so, is the woman s consent ." 214 THE MAGIC OF A SUNSET * * Mason laughed; the reply pleased him. "Ever been t th Canyon?" the old man asked. Mason shook his head. "Well, I guess it s w uth seein ; guess ye ll say so yerself when ye git a bead on it." "What s it like, Captain?" Hance looked at him from a pair of pale blue eyes. Then he spat through the open window. "Like!" he exclaimed. "Well, some times it s like a flower, one o them Californy flowers that s got more n a dozen colors in em ; then again it s like a woman, smilin ; n I ve seen it mad, so mad it skairt even m dog. Sometimes I ve thought it was Heaven itself; n again I ve thought it was a sort of an abandoned hell, a claim that th Devil quit when he see he needed more 215 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * ** room. But there ain t no use o m tryin t tell ye what it s like more n t say it s jest a hell of a hole in th ground that t look at 11 give ye a pritty good idee how the world was made, in th beginnin . See it fer yer- self, m boy, V remember this: what it s like t ye it was never that t anybody else before, V never will be t anybody else again. It s different t every man an 7 woman an child that sees it, but t all of em alike it s a hell of a hole!" The captain s joke ended the conversa tion, for the captain forthwith fell asleep in his chair. When the little train pulled up at the Canyon station and Mason and Miss An- struther alighted, the former looked about him for some sign of the wonder that he had been promised. He saw nothing but 216 THE MAGIC OF A SUNSET * * a few trees and a flight of wide wooden steps leading to a half-log, half-board "ho tel." But he was too wise to comment upon the commonplace dreariness of the outlook. Perhaps divining what was passing in his mind, Miss Anstruther said: "It s not here. Let s have supper first. Aren t all men more impressionable just after meals?" So he followed her from the rear into the little, low-ceiled, bare-floored office of the Bright Angel Hotel, wherefrom they were conducted by a Japanese boy into the din ing-room. "You see," Mason said, "I have placed myself absolutely in your hands. You hold the curtain cord and when you give the word I shall open wide my eyes and look." "It won t be long," she replied as a waiter served the dessert. 217 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * They finished in silence. There were less than a dozen persons in the dining-room, for the Grand Canyon is yet to be discov ered by the man who crosses the continent. Thus far it is better known in England or Germany than in America. "And now, please, Miss Anstruther," Mason said, after supper, "has the time come to show me this great thing that I came here to see?" She regarded him steadily across the table, a little wrinkle between her eyes. "Do you feel quite ready?" she asked. "Quite," he answered. "Come, then." She led the way quickly out of the dining- room, through the little office and out upon the porch. She leaped lightly to the ground and ran to a low paling perhaps twenty feet 218 THE MAGIC OF A SUNSET * * from the door. There she turned, threw out her arms, and "Look!" she cried. Mason s face went tense ; his jaw shot for ward, and his hands clenched. "My God!" he murmured reverently. What he beheld was, in all its sublime crudity, a piece of God s unfinished work, the rough moulds wherein He cast the mountains. And the moulds were of myr iad forms. Across a sea of peaks rose the perfect dome of a Titanic temple gilded by the sink ing sun. About it were thrones suited to the gods that dwelt on high Olympus, backed by granite arras painted like a tap estry. The varied colors of the rocks were so merged and melted by the lowering sun as to form what seemed a frozen rainbow. 219 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ * Gradually Mason lowered his eyes. Down, down, down, a never-ending dis tance from his feet he made out little clumps of green that he took to be grass, but that he was later to learn were willow trees. There the shadows were deepening. Above, the light still played. Off to the east, an immeasurable distance, the purple of even ing was rising; straight across the ragged chasm lay a bar of silver light, deflected from a western peak. In the further west the sun poised like a great golden wafer on a mountaintop. The whites, the pinks, the reds, the greens all the colors in the abounding rock seemed to take on a lumin- ancy of their own, combining to produce an orgy of color that was suffused, perme ated and glorified by a cast of pale-rose light. 220 THE MAGIC OF A SUNSET * * Where Mason and the girl stood, even now the twilight was deepening. Neither spoke. To Mason, leaning upon the paling with folded arms, there came an overpowering sense of the divine majesty of the work upon which he looked. His sense of this rose even above his appreciation of the beauty of the work. For a long time he dared not trust his voice. He felt something of the emotion he often had experienced when lis tening to a great orchestra s interpretation of a masterpiece of music, only infinitely intensified. The girl beside him touched his arm lightly. He turned to her. "Come," she said. "To-morrow, if you like," she ventured as they walked away, "we ll go down there, 221 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ * with a guide. I only wish you might see the sun rise over the Canyon." And he did. He told the Japanese boy to call him for the spectacle. So Miss An- struther, much to her surprise, found him ready in the morning when she appeared. 222 Down! XIV. DOWNl 1ASON was wearing the little camera slung over his shoulder by a strap. "I don t know what I am taking it for," he said. "But I dare say it s quite the thing, isn t it?" "Always," Miss Anstruther assured him. He had never seen her dressed as she was now, but he knew she had never appeared more charming. "You are surprised by my costume?" she suggested. "Not surprised exactly," he replied, "but ," he hesitated. "I should like to tell you just what I think," he added boldly. She let fall her eyes. "Perhaps you d better not," she said. "But this costume explains my disappear- 225 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * ance night before last. I was in the bag gage car ahead/ as the song has it." "In the baggage car!" exclaimed Mason. "I knew you d be shocked," she went on. "But it was necessary, absolutely necessary. You see all my luggage was checked through to Frisco and these riding togs were in one of my trunks. I didn t want them all thrown off back at Williams, and for the life of me, I couldn t remember which trunk these things were in. So I bribed the baggageman with a series of my most charming smiles to let me go through every one of them to find the things I wanted. Fortunately, however, they were in the first trunk." Mason regarded her curiously. "I m glad you found them," he said, "for you look ripping." 226 DOWN! It was the boldest speech he had ever made to her and he feared the result. He need not have feared, however, for Miss Anstruther replied, simply: "And I m glad you think so." The hat she wore was one of the regula tion Stetson s of the West, with a leather band and a thong of buckskin tied behind, under the low knot of her soft hair. About the loose collar of her navy blue, white-but toned shirtwaist was jauntily tied a broad, sheer scarf of scarlet silk. From the big- buckled buckskin belt drawn close around her waist hung, severely, a divided skirt of tan whip-cord with patch pockets at the sides, secured by brass-buttoned flaps. The skirt reached little more than midway be tween her knees and ankles and her riding boots were of varnished tan leather. Over 227 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * her arm, she carried the long, loose coat that she had worn throughout the journey. In this costume the appearance she pre sented was enough to set the heart of any man dancing; more than enough to set Ma son s to throbbing violently. "Have you seen the guide?" she asked. He shook his head. "Come, you must; there are the horses." She started on. Mason turned. A little way from the hotel near the head of the trail a rough- garbed man in high-heeled boots stood at the converging heads of three cow-ponies. The man s back was toward them, but as they approached, he turned. "Good morning, Pete!" Miss Anstruther cried. Off came the wide slouch hat from the 228 DOWN! man s yellow head. His eyes lighted and his teeth showed through the curtain of his drooping, tawny mustache. "Well, howdy do," he greeted her, and held out a big hand. "Mr. Mason," Miss Anstruther said, "this is Mr. Turner, Pete Turner, he s the man who saved my life here on the trail ; you remember I told you." The men s eyes met. "Th lady s some mistaken, Mr. Mason," the guide said, smiling "Beggin her pard- ing, it was jus th other way round. She saved mine." "Pete, how dare you?" Turner wagged his head. "Oh, all right, then you didn t," he said; "but you did jus the same," he added under his breath to Mason, and laughed slyly. 229 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ * "I m going to have this calico pony," Miss Anstruther decided. "Then you take this n, Mr. Mason." Tur ner indicated the third horse, a sorrel with a hang-dog cast of countenance and white stockings. Mason mounted awkwardly from the wrong side. The pony swung his head about and gave him a glance filled with re proof. Pete coughed. Standing on the left side of the calico pony Miss Anstruther had chosen, the guide stooped. In his right hand she placed a foot. As lightly as though she were a ball of down, he tossed her up ; there was an instant s flash of varnished boot in the sunlight and she sat calmly astride the horse. Turner vaulted into his saddle and the descent of the trail began. 230 DOWN! "** ** ^ ^ ^ The evening before, in the purple twi light, and this morning, in the golden glory of the new day, Mason had viewed the Canyon as one might view a great spec tacle. The awe with which he then was filled was far less than that which surged upon him now as he realized that he was, for a little moment, to become a part of this Titanic show. The guide had ridden on ahead and he had fallen in line behind Miss Anstruther, bringing up the little cavalcade. He obeyed the guide s injunction not to use the reins as the horse knew the trail better than he did, so looping them loosely over the saddle horn, he looked about him. The first descent, a matter of perhaps fifty feet, was precipitous. Involuntarily he leaned back in the saddle. The wise 231 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * trail horse beneath him did not shamble as another might have done. Rather, he set tled back on his haunches and, stiffening at an angle his thin fore-legs, slid down the steep decline. At the bottom, Mason sat up and shiv ered. His jaw was set and he gripped the horn of the immense cowboy saddle in which he sat. In his fear, he was glad that he had fallen behind the calico pony, for he was a little ashamed of the nervousness that possessed him. For a way, the trail zigzagged back and forth but always descending across the face of the rock. Mason twisted in his sad dle and looked back along the trail. For thirty feet lay the way clear to his sight; be yond there appeared nothing. Pie looked ahead again. The guide and Miss An- 232 DOWN! ^ ^ ^ ^ "^ struther had vanished. At a point forty feet in front of him the trail appeared sud denly to end against a sheer wall of rock. He was alone in the silence. He remembered a tale he had once heard a traveler tell of a certain cave in Greece wherein the stillness is such that one may hear one s blood pounding through his veins. He felt that he knew now what such silence must be like. It was a new impres sion and one that he could never forget. He was approaching that point where the trail had seemed to disappear. It looped the rounded corner of the granite wall and descended. He looked down. Two levels below were the guide and Miss Anstruther. As he appeared, they shouted up at him. It was only an instant; ten steps and they were blotted out again. 233 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * ^ The trail skirted a cliff hundreds of feet high, and edged into a corner made by two towering walls of rose-colored rock; a cor ner as rectangular as the corner of a room. His horse slipped and Mason s heart leaped into his mouth; but the careful animal at once regained his sure foothold on the nar row pathway. Again the descent became precipitous, again he was compelled to lean back in the saddle as the animal slid to the next level. From somewhere below was borne up to him a ringing shout: "You re goin round Cape Horn in a minute!" His grip on the pommel of the saddle tightened. His horse, independent of con trol, plodded patiently on. It appeared to Mason that he was now traversing the least dangerous portion of 234 DOWN! ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ the trail thus far. The horse started for ward suddenly. The edge of the plateau appeared a little way ahead but the horse kept straight on. And then Mason experi enced a shock; a mingled sensation of hope lessness and faith. The trail, forming an acute angle, proceeded to a sharp edge of towering rock and passed around the point. Breathlessly Mason threw back his head and looked up. A thousand feet, straight to the dome of heaven, rose that edge of rock. He quickly lowered his gaze and looked down. Sixteen hundred feet below him the rock descended sheer. Then, shutting his eyes, for the sight made him dizzy, he real ized that he was riding on a shelf of granite less than thirty inches wide, with his right stirrup scraping the wall, and his left hang ing over the most awful abyss on earth. 235 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ * Involuntarily he inclined his body in ward, as though the better to maintain the balance of the animal he was riding. On the next level Miss Anstruther awaited him. His face was white, a cold perspira tion stood in beads upon his brow. "Perhaps I should have told you," she said, "but it is quite safe; the horses know the trail so well." He was glad of her assurance, but he was more than grateful to her for the way she gave it him. He nodded, but did not speak. They proceeded then in closer file. "I think we had better not go to the riv er," Miss Anstruther said, "there s really nothing down there ; you have to throw your head way back and look straight up to see the sky. The plateau is better. There s lots to be seen from there." 236 DOWN! * * * * "* "Very well," he said, "you know best" Close together though they kept, there were still moments when each of the riders was lost to the sight of the others. One such occurred so suddenly that Mason gasped. It was for one instant as though he were in a deep, wide well ; then quite as suddenly a point was gained wheref rom he could look down upon the tents of the In dian Gardens where they were to rest He had seen these tents from the Rim that morning. They had appeared, perhaps, as large as tea-cups. Now he perceived that they were quite the size of the sea-side cot tages with which he was familiar back East. 237 The Soul of the Canyon XV. THE SOUL OF THE CANYON aRRIVING at the tents after half an hour, Mason breathed a sigh of deep relief and dismounted eagerly. His legs were like whalebone. He sank limp and weak beneath the sheltering canopy of the wall-less tent. Miss Anstruther appeared as fresh as when starting out in the morn ing. Pete led the horses into the shade of a clump of willows, the same willows that, from the Rim of the Canyon, Mason had taken to be bunch grass. Of a sudden, the young man became very thirsty and looked about him. Swaying from the cords by which it was suspended from the ridge of the canopy was an ordin ary flour sack, its mouth held open by an inserted hoop of wood. Mason saw Miss 241 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ ^ Anstruther go to it, and, taking up a cup from the bench beneath, fill it with water from the sack. He stared at her, wide-eyed. "Don t you want a drink?" she asked him. "Rather," he replied. And she came to him with a filled cup. He drank the cool water eagerly. Glancing from her dancing eyes to the swaying bag, he said: "This is the first time I ve ever seen wa ter kept in a flour sack." She laughed. "It s the way they do it in the desert," she explained. "I don t know the physics of it, but the evaporation has something to do with it. The Indians keep water for days in hanging bags and baskets, and it s a sort of social law among them that every one who passes the bag shall sway it slight- 242 THE SOUL OF THE CANYON * * ly. The evaporation does the rest and, of course, keeps it cool." It was not so very clear to Mason, but he could not doubt his eyes, much less his throat, for there hung the bag, and had he not drunk of its cool, delicious contents? "Aren t you hot?" Miss Anstruther in quired. She had removed her cowboy hat and was fanning herself with it. j Now that she had mentioned it, Mason was hot, but he had not thought of it before. "You see," she said, "we re rather nearer the center of the earth down here than we were at the Rim. It is always hot here; a lot hotter at the river. It never snows down here, either. It may be snowing ever so hard up at the hotel, but before the flakes reach where we are they become rain. Captain Hance will tell you about it." 243 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * After they had rested awhile, she rose and went to the door of the tent. "Come out and look," she said. He left the camera on the bench and fol lowed her. On every side save one, towered walls of rock, their varying strata as delicately tint ed as a flower. At his feet, the grass and small bushes were thick and green, but all above was richly colorous. The sun, creep ing toward the zenith, was reflected from wall to wall, and pinnacle to pinnacle. The brilliancy was dazzling. Mason looked of! across the plateau. The further Rim was apparently as far away as it had seemed the night before from up^ above. Distances were all awry. Points of rock that looked to be a long way off were really near at hand, while other 244 THE SOUL OF THE CANYON *> * points that he would have sworn were a moment s walk away, were miles. It was the light and its reflection from different angles that produced these illusions of dis tance. For a time, in utter silence, they enjoyed the beauty and the brilliancy. "Is it much further to where we are go ing?" Mason then asked. "No, a few minutes ride," Miss An- struther replied. Soon the guide appeared with the horses from out the clump of willows; and they mounted and went on. Over the round rocks with which the trail across the boulder field was strewn, the heat quivered as above a stove. Mason asked the guide if he had any idea what the temperature might be. 245 16 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ * Pete gazed off across the rocks, then up at the sky. "Oh, mebbe a hundred an twelve or thir teen," he ventured. Miss Anstruther turned in the saddle, and regarded Mason, smiling. He shook his head. "It s so dry," she said; "if it weren t we couldn t ride out here." A little way further and Turner dis mounted, flinging the reins over the horse s head, the approved method of "tying" a cow-pony. "Here we are," he said. Mason assisted Miss Anstruther to dis mount. They followed the guide among the immense boulders, and over a low ledge to the very edge of the plateau. "Oh, this is the glorious place!" Miss 246 THE MAGIC OF A SUNSET ^ * Anstruther cried emotionally. "And now do you understand," she added, her face alight, "why I sometimes am hungry for it, back East, in Boston or New York?" Mason did not reply. His every sense responded to the call of his surroundings. Across the chasm at his feet rose a sheer black wall of granite, rusty here and there as though it were of iron. To the right and left reared lofty pinnacles of red and amber surmounted with caps of white. And be low, a thousand feet, the roar of its rapids reduced, by the height at which they stood above it, to a lulling croon, leaped the Col orado, a red river of mud, the Vampire of the Desert, slowly eating its way into the very vitals of the earth. He turned and looked into Miss An- struther s eyes. For an instant neither spoke. 247 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ ^ Then he said: "You want to know what I think what the impression is?" He hesi tated. "I can t tell you." His voice shook and he looked away. Who, in all truth, was he, he asked him self that instant, to have an opinion in the face of these things? Turner had gone back to where the horses were. Mason and the girl beside him were alone in this magic world of si lence. There came to Mason then an over whelming sense of the little part his life was playing in the game of Time. Ages had dawned and died. All the glories that were the ancient world s had faded like the fancies of a dream. Alexandria, Nineveh, Thebes, Babylon, Rome; all the mighty empires of the East had stood their time to 248 THE SOUL OF THE CANYON ^ ^ flaunt before mankind their tinsel, then had gone back to earth again. Yet here about him, now, still towered these ancient tem ples of God, the same yesterday, today and forever, mute, insensate symbols of eter nity. And yet, in the strength of his youth, he knew that because of his love for this girl here beside him, he was one with these peaks and pinnacles, for this love of his was of an eternity equal to their own. He dashed a moisture from his eyes, and, turn ing to the girl, they fell to talking of little things. Miss Anstruther asked for the camera. He had left it in the tent back at the Gar dens. Turner, who had joined them with the bags of luncheon, offered to return for it. When he had disappeared among the 249 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ ^ boulders, and they had seated themselves on one of the huge rounded rocks, Mason turned again to the girl beside him. "Miss Anstruther," he said, "will you let me speak to you of of of something that is quite serious, that 1 mean that may be quite serious to both of us?" "To me?" she wonderingly inquired, and in her wide eyes there was no dissembling of surprise. "Yes," he said, "I ve meant, indeed, I ve tried to talk to you about it several oh, half a dozen times, perhaps, since we since you and I left Chicago." She was looking away from him now, across the chasm. Mason glanced back over his shoulder quickly. Pete was quite out of sight. "Miss Anstruther Sibyl I love you 250 TVE TRIED TO TALK ABOUT IT HALF A DOZEN TIMES" THE SOUL OF THE CANYON ^ * I love you so dearly," he pulled himself to gether. "Sibyl, will you marry me?" He had not given her time to think, for, after the stammering preamble, his ques tion had been fired at her point-blank, in a way, it may be said in passing, that would have delighted Mason, senior, whatever he might have thought of the proceeding as a whole. He moved nearer the girl, and eag erly seized her hand. "Will you?" he begged. She turned to him then, and her eyes were tender. a Mr. Mason," she began, but he looked so hurt that she added "Hal, then," and continued in quite the conventional way: "Don t think I don t believe in you, I do i dear, but let me think, won t you? I shan t tell you, Hal, that I don t love you. Per- 251 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ ^ haps I do, but down here, at the edge of this great chasm what I might do or say down here I cannot hold myself responsible for. It is always like that when I am here; the bigness, the silence, and the awfulness of it all overpower me. One instant I want to cry and another I want to laugh." She took his hand in both hers and gazed deeply into his clear, blue eyes. "Hal, it wasn t quite fair of you to ask me down here," she pleaded, with a little, pathetic smile. "I think I understand," he replied, quiet ly, and withdrew his hand. "But I love you so, Sibyl, I ve loved you ever since that morning we saw each other in the car yes, before that. I knew I loved you when I met you at Mrs. Worrington s for the first time." 252 THE SOUL OF THE CANYON ^ ^ "Daisy is such a dear," she put in. "Perhaps I shouldn t have," he ran on, "you know I m not what you d call inde pendent. I ve been in the Governor s em ploy since leaving Harvard, and what I have he has given me, really. This trip, even, is just a matter of the Governor s business that is, it was meant to be that, but now I ve made it my own, for you are here, dear. Perhaps, I have been unfair, Sibyl, but you know my heart now, and that it belongs to you. I don t think I can wait long for your answer I don t, really, dear I can t. Tell me, won t you? Tell me tonight before we go on. Tell me here. Don t you think you can?" He had spoken so quietly yet so eagerly that she was quite moved and her eyes, when she looked at him, were misty. 253 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * "I ll tell you tonight," she promised, very low. "Let me think till then." She leaned over the edge as she spoke, and looked down. "Oh, see!" she cried, clutching his arm. "Look! Down there! See that poor, lone some little white flower." Their heads touched an instant as they leaned together over the chasm s brink. "I ve never seen a flower here before," she said. "Would you like it?" he asked quickly. "So much," she answered. Then she straightened up. "How absurd!" she ex claimed. "It might as well be a million miles away as down there." At a glance Mason had perceived what he took to be a way of descending to where the little blossom was. 254 THE SOUL OF THE CANYON * ^ "I ll get it," he said, and before she could throw out her arm to restrain him or even utter a cry, he had slid forward and dropped over the edge of the rock. As he disappeared, the girl pressed her hands to her breast and listened. Then everything wavered before her eyes. She was growing sick and faint. With an al most unconscious effort, she pulled herself together, and leaning forward, looked down. Perhaps twelve feet below the edge, standing upon a frail point of rock that projected not more than ten inches from the face of the wall, was Mason. One hand clutched a second jut of rock and midway between his waist and knees was still an other. At his feet, on a tiny shelf, nodded the little white blossom of his quest. The girl did not call down to him, nor 255 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * ^ did he look up. She saw him release his hold upon the jutting point of rock and, sinking upon his heels, grasp the one below. Then, with his free hand, he reached down and plucked the flower. A thousand feet below him leaped the river. Miss Anstruther drew back. She tried to cry out but her voice was frozen in her throat. Irresistibly she felt herself drawn again to the edge. Mason had managed to secure a foothold on the point above the one on which he had stood to pluck the flower. His head was, perhaps, five feet below the level on which she stood. He could climb no higher. As it was, he was clinging by one hand, the fingers of which he had inserted into a fissure in the rock. It was impossible for him to look up and preserve his balance. 256 THE SOUL OF THE CANYON * * "Sibyl," he called, clearly; "Sibyl " "Yes what is it?" she answered in a breathless whisper. "I don t believe I can get up to the top without your help." His voice was calm and cold. She found her own voice then. "Can you hang on?" she cried "only for a moment I ll run back over the plateau, Pete should be here now." "No, no, please don t," he called up to her, "I d rather you wouldn t. You ve that long coat of yours, haven t you? Knot the sleeves of it around your wrists and drop it over, then brace yourself against the rock up there. I think it is quite simple." Swiftly, fearfully, she did as he bade her. He felt the hem of the garment brush across his hair. 257 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ ^ "Do you think you can hold it?" he called. "Yes." Every muscle in her body tightened. Mason had drawn his fingers from the fissure in the rock and clutched the coat. It became taut. Every ounce of the girl s strength was necessary to sustain the weight. She shut her eyes. She felt herself being drawn slowly to the edge over which she must plunge. And then, of a sudden, the coat hung loose from her hands. She sank back, and covering her face, sobbed uncon trollably. A voice sounded above her, and she looked up. Then a sharp, startled cry escaped her. Mason stood before her, and dangling from between his teeth was the little white flower. He held it out to her, smiling. 258 THE SOUL OF THE CANYON ^ ^ Her eyes were radiant. Her breath came quick and short. "Hal!" she cried. Perhaps she would have flung herself in to his trembling arms that instant had not a voice behind her said: "Here s the camera." She turned slowly. "Ain t you et yet?" Pete inquired. A message flashed from the girl s eyes to Mason s. "No," Mason answered, "we were wait ing for you." So, on a sheltered ledge, they all ate luncheon together from the paper bags. There were sandwiches and pickles and cheese and hard-boiled eggs and slices of cold ham. And a little green lizard the friend of every Canyon tourist smelling 259 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ * the food, crept out upon the ledge and back again stealthily, with a bit of the ham; while the sleek gray rat, his companion, dined sumptuously off a bit of cheese. 260 Capitulation XVI. CAPITULATION [ASON and Miss Anstruther were sit ting on a bench at the paling. She was leaning forward, her elbows on her knees, her chin in her hands. The purple night was rising in the east. To the west the peaks were gilded by the sinking sun. Across the Canyon, straight before them, lay a bar of silver light, the last of day. "What a wonderful, wonderful day it has been," she said, almost as if to herself. He did not reply at once, nor turn to her. "Of what are you thinking?" she asked. He shook his head, then answered: "Of the mystery of it all. I understand now why you begged me not to speak of what lay in my heart this afternoon, and yet this shall always be my holy day." 263 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ * "I am glad," she answered simply. Then, "See!" she cried suddenly, "the sun!" It had dropped behind a ragged peak which stood forth in royal purple against the aurora of golden light. The wide beam of white that, an instant before, had bridged the Canyon melted. The pinks in the rocks deepened. "The glory of it all!" the girl exclaimed. There approached them, from the hotel behind, one of the Japanese bell-boys. He appeared so suddenly at Miss Anstruther s elbow that she jumped. "Oh, how you frightened me!" she cried Mason glared at the smiling boy, who held out a telegram. Miss Anstruther looked from him to Mason, then down at the yel low envelope. "For me?" she asked, a light of puzzle- 264 CAPITULATION ment in her eyes, as she took the message and the boy departed. "Oh, it s probably from Daisy Worrington," she decided. "I remember I wired her I d stop over here." She tore open the envelope. The message was brief. She read it through twice. A flush mantled her cheek. Mason was star ing blankly across the Canyon. Miss An- struther let the yellow sheet fall into her lap and drew her lower lip between her teeth. Then she held out the telegram to Mason, saying, "Perhaps I should show you this." With a single glance he read the type written line. It contained a proposal of marriage and was signed Frederick Town- send. He turned his head; the girl beside him was still gazing away to the east. "This this seems to call for an answer," he said, quietly. 265 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ * She nodded, simply, but did not speak. "And what is your answer to be?" His voice was quite calm, as calm, in deed, as it had been when he called up to her from under the edge of the rock. She shook her head wearily. A moment he hesitated as though in doubt, then said, rising: "You ll excuse me for a moment, won t you?" He did not wait for her reply. He was not absent long and when he returned, he perceived that she had not moved. "I ve I ve tried to help you," he said. "I ve been so bold as to prepare an answer myself won t you read it before I send it?" And over her shoulder, he dropped a mes sage sheet. The light was fast ebbing but she could 266 CAPITULATION distinguish the words, written in his bold, even characters, quite clearly. "To Frederick Townsend, "The Effingham, Beacon St., Boston, Mass. "I have, today, announced my engage ment to Mr. Harold Mason. "Sibyl Anstruther." An instant she hesitated, then she thrust the sheet back to him, still without turning. One of the Japanese boys chanced to be passing at the moment. "Shall I send it?" Mason asked quickly. The brown head before him nodded. "Boy," he called, "take this wire and here s a dollar tell the operator to rush it through." The boy gasped as his fingers tightened around the coin, bowed to the ground, and fled. Mason leaned forward, quickly, eagerly. 267 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * "Sibyl." It was no more than a whisper. One of her hands groped above her shoul der until it found his. "Sibyl." Slowly her head turned. A little vagrant curl by her ear brushed across his face, for they were very close together. Into each other s eyes they looked, and there each read the other s soul. The twilight was deep about them. Sibyl Anstruther opened her other hand, and in the palm lay a little white flower. "Hal," she murmured; then Why shouldn t they have? Probably no one saw them, nor, that instant, would they have cared if a million had been look ing on. 268 One Sort of Girl XVII. ONE SORT OF GIRL next morning, after an early breakfast, they were taken to O Neill s Point. Pete drove the little calico team over the corduroy road through the wood. Mason and Miss Anstruther, on the back seat of the canopied surrey, were tossed about like fishing floats in a pool. They had nothing to say during the ride, nor had Pete, whose mind appeared to be concen trated on his horses and on the off wheels of the vehicle. Again and again, the hubs missed the tree trunks by a hair s breadth almost, and during the greater part of the drive Mason s heart was in his mouth. He recalled stories he had read and doubted, it may be said in passing of the extraor dinary achievements of mountain coach- 271 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * drivers who urged their horses to a gallop along the narrow rock shelves that they traversed. He thought those men, of a day long since dead, must have passed their spirits and their skill on to the tawny-haired cowboy who sat before him now, rolling about in his seat, the while he called shrilly to the plunging animals. It was yet early when they arrived at the Point, where is to be had what is, perhaps, the finest view of the Canyon obtainable from any one spot. The rose lights of morning enveloped the pinnacles and gran ite parapets; down where the sun had not yet crept, the purples were still deep and velvety. The cowboy stood on the very edge of the Rim. He had taken off his hat and the slight breeze rumpled his thick hair. 272 ONE SORT OF GIRL "Does it always look the same to you?" Miss Anstruther asked. He did not turn, but continued to gaze across the mighty gorge. "No; not always. In fact not ever the same," he answered. "That s why I m al ways lookin at it, jes t see if I can make it look like it s looked before. But I can t. One day it s one thing, an another day it s different. Sure," he added, reverently, "seems as if God was always monkeyin with it, an changin it, an every time it s prettier than th las ." Mason s and the girl s eyes met, and in hers was a faint, misty smile. "So none of us ever gets tired of it," Pete went on. "I ve took folks down th trail from back East, and lots of times they ve asked me if I didn t get tired goin up an 273 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * down, seein th same thing all th time. What s th use o talkin t those folks?" he asked sneeringly, as he turned to them. Mason smiled appreciatively. "They don t know nothin . Why, I ve even heard some say the Canyon wasn t equal t th pictures of it! They compare it t th Yosemite n th Yellowstone! Lord! I trailed th Yosemite fore ever the tourist heard of it, an as fer th Yellowstone! Say, you could put ten Yellowstones an a dozen Yosemites in that there hole," he swept his arm in a semicircle "an they d be lost!" Miss Anstruther nodded. "You know cause you ve saw em," he added. "I know," she confirmed. "And now won t you show Mr. Mason the cave under this ledge?" she asked. 274 ONE SORT OF GIRL "Sure this way. It ain t far down." "Aren t you coming?" Mason inquired. "No, I Ve been down. You go I ll wan der along the Rim," Miss Anstruther re plied. The guide descended first, slipping and sliding, to a ledge that projected perhaps ten feet below the edge of the abyss. Mason followed as gracefully as possible, but he was humorously conscious of the sorry pic ture he would present to any one who might be on a lower level and prompted to look up at the moment of his descent. It was not so much of a cave, as caves go ; but standing back in the blackness and looking out through the entrance across the Canyon, the young man received a curious optical sensation; it was quite as though he were inside a telescope. 275 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * "This here Point," Pete was saying, "was named for Bucky O Neill." "The rough rider?" Mason inquired eag erly. "Yes, him that got plugged fore his time." "Did you know him?" "Know him!" Pete spat. "Did I know him? Lord, they ain t a man, woman, er child in Arizony that didn t know him, jes like there wasn t one that knew him any sort o well-like, that didn t leak when we heard they d got him. He was a man, Bucky O Neill, as clean an as square a man as ever stood in leather. If you don t believe me, ask the President. He knew him. They were a lot alike, folks tell me, that knew em both. Both square an straight an that s why we loved Bucky O Neill out here; V 276 ONE SORT OF GIRL that s why we re lovin Roosevelt. Take a feller from back East an set him down out here anywhere in the West, from the Mis souri t th Coast, or from Santa Fe to Me- dora n the boys 11 soon find out what he s up to ; n th President, I guess, stacked up with th best of em." Pete drew a hand across his forehead, gazed intently at the opposite side of the Canyon, then looked down into the abyss below. "You see," he continued, and there was a tender note in his voice, "Bucky had a bug in his head that these rocks was full o gold n copper, and he done a lot o prospectin right round here. That s how they come to call this O Neill s Point, an I m thinkin they ain t many that s got a monument ekal t this n o his." 277 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ * He went to the entrance of the cave, and balancing himself on the edge of the shelf, pointed. "Ov r there, that s Bright Angel Creek," he said. "Powell named it in 72 when him and his party came through the Canyon on their trip from th head waters o th Color ado t th Gulf. Talk bout nerve ! Say, them fellers had it, some! You see th Colorado s all red mud, n they got so sick lookin at it that when they made that bend over there, n seen that creek sparklin in th sun, they jes up n named it Bright Angel, they was so glad t see somethin sides red mud. When any of us crosses th Canyon, we go up that creek." "You ve crossed?" Mason asked. "Me? I should say so. M mother lives over on th other Rim. Takes a couple o 278 ONE SORT OF GIRL weeks t get there, easy goin . But mother don t like me t tackle it too often, thinks it s dangerous." He laughed. "Did you ever have an accident here in the Canyon?" Mason asked. "No," Pete answered slowly, "not a real one. Lost a horse an two pack animals swimmin th river a year ago las fall. Once m horse jumped th trail, but I guess she s told you about that." He gave his yellow head an upward tilt. "She!" Mason exclaimed. "You mean ." "Th lady," Pete said. "She told me you saved her life here once," Mason suggested. Pete laughed. "I tried t tell you yesterday it was th other way round," the cowboy explained with a chuckle, "only she wouldn t let me." 279 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * ^ "I remember," Mason said, thoughtfully. "JVT horse seen somethin new on th trail n jumped. I kicked th stirrups loose jes in time t grab a bush only bush for a hun dred yards either way. Th lady was on the lower level, and when my horse went down it nearly squashed her n hers, but she seen it a-comin , I guess, n got out from under. Up bove me she jes hollered t hang on, V without losing no time she got th cinch off her horse V flung it down t me. I looped it round that bush with one hand, V work- in my shoulders up through th loop, hung there, danglin my heels till somebody come. Th lady d run on up th trail n met Cap n Hance comin down with his little pack train. Cap n, he unslung th pack from one o th burros n dropped th line over t me, fust workin his coat under it on 280 ONE SORT OF GIRL the rock edge above, so s it wouldn t cut th rope, n I come up hand over hand. That s really how it happened." The utter simplicity of the man s anec dote caused Mason to experience a peculiar thrill in the region of his heart. Reaching out, he grasped the cowboy s hand, while he gazed deep into the honest eyes. "Pete," he exclaimed, "I m going to marry that lady." "Are you?" "Yes." "I kind o thought as much," was the calm reply. "An all I ve got t say is, you re in luck, an it s owin t her that I m here t tell ye so; fer if she hadn t ripped off that cinch an let me have it, I d a had t leggo that bush, n I d a fell so fer down it 281 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ ^ wouldn t a been necessary t bury me. She s all right." He moved along the ledge. Mason fol lowed him and accepted his necessary as sistance to negotiate the Rim. Miss Anstruther was walking along the road a few yards beyond the horses, but at Mason s call she came running back. As they bumped over the road among the trees, Mason whispered to her, "Pete told me about you, dear, and what you did." "Pete is a very foolish person," she whis pered back, but the eyes that looked into his were bright and dancing, and he thrilled at the touch of her hand, 282 Graduation XVIII. GRADUATION porter of the Overland train, which they met at Williams shortly after noon, brought them two little camp stools and left them to their own devices. Miss Anstruther leaned her arms upon the rail at the edge of the platform and gazed down at the ties as they leaped back from under the car and raced on and on to the east. "Sibyl." She did not look up. "Sibyl," Mason called again. The eyes she raised to his were soberer than he had ever seen them before. "Why, what is it, dear?" There was a little note of alarm in his voice. "I was just thinking," she said slowly. 285 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ ^ "Thinking what?" was his anxious query. She sat upright then and faced him, her hands lying passive in her lap. "I was thinking what it will mean to give up all this." She swept one arm in a semi circle. "And the experience of yesterday and go back East to live forever." He leaned forward and one of his hands closed over hers. "We ll not give it up, dear," he said. Her eyes spoke her gratefulness. "We ll not give it up," he repeated. "Why should we? It means so much to you and" he hesitated. She seemed to await breathlessly. "And it has come to mean as much to me." "Hal!" There was in her cry a note of sheer delight. "If any one had told me two weeks ago," 286 \ -v <->T^..^. _ .--r SHE GAZED AT THE TIES AS THEY RACED ON TO THE EAST GRADUATION he went on, "that over night, almost, the magic of this country would get into my blood, I d have laughed. But it s different now. Something here, something that is not here at all, perhaps, but that exists only in my own mind, grips me. I should like to be a part of this life and of the world out here ; I am going to try to be. I don t know what the Governor will say" a little frown ruf fled his brow. "He ll laugh probably, but that won t change it; I know it won t. You see he s never been out here himself; if he had been, he would understand. He and I are really a good deal alike, though per haps he d not take that as a compliment." "Don t depreciate yourself," Sibyl pro tested, and he smiled. "I ll not," he said. "Do you know, dear," he went on, "a fortnight ago I was telling 287 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ myself that thus far my life had been abso lutely useless ; that I was a mere tail to the Governor s kite." "But the kite won t fly without a tail," she put in, and something of the old mocking light came an instant into her eyes. "That s true of the old-time kites that we used to fly," he went on, "but father is an other sort; he s one of these modern box kites that have no need of an appendage." She laughed. "But now I see things rather differently," he said, "I see that honest work is what counts, and that one must work to live. This country has taught me that. I dare say I should not have forgotten that it was hammered into my head back in my fresh man year at Harvard, but the Governor was paying all the bills then, and the fact of the 288 GRADUATION need of work was not so very clear to me. Oh, IVe argued it all out in my own mind, dear; I ve even tried to argue you out of my mind, actually to cancel you from the equa tion. And all the time you were the ( x , and now IVe found the value of it little girl." He was leaning toward her, and their hands were clasped. "And you ll let me help?" she asked. "You have helped," he told her. "We both laughed the other day when you men tioned conducting a school for Harvard graduates. But that s what it has amounted to; and now that I have taken the final exams., dear, have I passed?" They were quite alone out there on the rear platform of the train as it rushed across the desert. Overhead the brilliant tur quoise sky was flecked with semi-transpar- 289 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * ent clouds, their edges tinted like opals. The girl glanced over her shoulder quickly through the car door. The porter had long since vanished. Raising her full, red lips, she kissed him on the cheek. "There s your diploma," she said. "Sweetheart!" He pressed her hand in both his. She looked at him with smiling eyes. "But I haven t done anything," she said. "Perhaps I shouldn t confess it, but if I ve tried to make you feel the glory, and some thing of the magic of this great country of yours and mine, it s no more than I d have done for for another. Oh, all my inclina tions are missionary," she exclaimed, laugh ingly. A little frown had come into his eyes and he looked down. 290 GRADUATION "And yet perhaps it A^ been different in your case, after all, Hal," she added. "Do you remember that dance at Daisy Wor- rington s?" "Rather," he exclaimed "rather." "We d danced a lot early in the evening; do you remember that, too?" He nodded. "And I liked you!" "Did you, really?" "Yes. Of course, you re not very great snooks at a dance, but I liked you just the same." "Perhaps Townsend dances rather better than I do." He spoke curtly. "Oh, a lot better!" she cried. "A whole lot!" "He s a rather good sitter, too, I should say," he suggested, sourly. 291 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * "Poor Fred," she murmured. "So you remember that, too, do you?" "Could I forget it? Could I forget how all of a sudden you vanished as completely as though the Back Bay had swallowed you? To be sure, I saw the flicker of your gown out on the lawn, but I would not go for you. The next dance was mine, but if you preferred to bolt it and sit under a lot of leaves with Townsend, like the babes in the woods, I wouldn t follow to claim you." He looked up to discover that she was laughing at him. "It wasn t any laughing matter, then," he protested. "Oh, Hal, Hal, you stupid!" she cried, "if the train didn t sway so I could hug you for your dear stupidity. Don t you think I remembered ours was the next dance?" 292 GRADUATION "All the worse," he broke in sharply. "And it was I who suggested to poor Fred that we go out on the lawn." "You!" She nodded. "Oh, don t you see?" she pleaded. "You are stupid." "I guess I am," he agreed. "I wanted to be there when you came to claim me." His eyebrows lifted, but he said nothing. "Have I got to tell it all?" she pleaded. She looked down, and the faintest wave of color mounted her cheek. "And when you should come, and Fred leave, I meant to say I was tired and we would keep a-sitting there for for Oh, dear, I guess I was in love with you then way way up to my eyes! And you didn t 293 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * come to claim me at all!" She threw out her arms in mock desperation. "I was an idiot!" Mason exclaimed. "I m afraid you were then," she agreed, demurely. A long time they sat there on the little stools. Away back in the east the shadows were lengthening. The train was running away from the twilight into the golden glory of the desert sunset. The door behind opened and the porter called: "Does yo want dinnah at de Needles?" Receiving Mason s affirmative reply, he withdrew at once and they were alone again. Until the purple evening enveloped them they sat there. "Needles is one of the most interesting places in the desert," Sibyl said, "and the 294 GRADUATION hottest. It s a few miles across the Col orado River, you know, and the southern gateway to California. It has been known to be 132 there at noon." Even now the air was growing more and more heated as the train rushed on. Shel tered as they were by the hood of the vesti bule, Mason was none the less conscious that he was hot, feverishly hot, yet not uncom fortable. "Put your hand out at the side," the girl bade him. He did so, and the air smote it like a blast from a furnace. "But it is so dry one doesn t feel ener vated," Sibyl said. Presently they entered the car. All the windows were shut tight to prevent the en trance of the withering outside air. Mason 295 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * experienced a peculiar sensation in his head; it was as though the top were lifting lightly, but he was not faint. Indeed, the feeling was more pleasant than otherwise. The train rumbled across the long, high bridge that spans the torrent of the Colo rado. Presently the conductor called, "Needles!" Mason and Miss Anstruther were among the first to alight. In the shadows of the low station, looming huge in the night, pierced here and there by beams of the yel low light within, were gathered groups of Mojave Indians, women and girls for the most part, and as the travelers made their way to the dining-room, they were besieged on all sides and besought to buy the bead wares and pottery the squaws would sell. The effect of these squat, square-visaged 296 GRADUATION creatures, in their gaudy calicoes, in the dim yellow light of the station platform, struck Mason as altogether weird and uncanny. A score of electric fans whirred in the dining-room, where a dozen white clad girls moved noiselessly about from table to table. Sibyl looked up from her iced boullion at the little dinner card propped before her against its leather support. "Hal I" Her whisper was almost breath less. He turned to her. "See!" And with her fork she indicated a line on the menu. "Baked crabs," he read and looked at her. One of the silently moving girls in white served him. He tasted of the minced meat. "Gad!" he muttered. 297 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * "And now do you believe me?" she asked, her eyes dancing. Against the wall beside her hung a ther mometer. "See!" she said. He followed her eyes. The mercury registered 98. It was nine o clock at night more than three thousand miles from Bos ton, and he was eating an Atlantic crab. "I shall believe you always," he said. After dinner until the instant of the train s departure, they bargained with the squaws. One of them, a young girl, offered Sibyl the silver ring that she was wearing, and perhaps its sale would have been ac complished had not the warning bell been rung just then. The incident recalled to Mason the ring that he had purchased sev eral days before, and had quite forgotten. 298 GRADUATION They stood on the platform as the train pulled out, watching the receding lights of the little desert town. He produced the ring from his pocket. "I d not thought of it before," he said. He took her left hand in his and slipped the sil ver circlet over the slim third finger. "Will you let it serve, dear," he said, "till day after tomorrow?" She looked up at him. Her face was ghostly in the green light of the signal lan tern shining from the end of the train above their heads. "It will do for always," she answered. "See, it can be made smaller when we find a jeweler." 299 The Deal XIX. THE DEAL valley of the San Joaquin, which lay about them in the morning, was like an ocean of gold in the brilliant sun light. As far as Mason could see from the windows on either side of the car was wheat, golden wheat, rippling in the gentle breeze. Now and again, in the far distance, a ranch house was to be seen surrounded by trees and turf, affording the only green splotches in the landscape. These oases in the yellow expanse were like islands in the golden sea. Even the right-of-way, between the wire fences, was thick with the yellow spears of the wheat, and at intervals, beside the track, were red store houses, their platforms piled high with thick bulging bags of the peo ple s food. 303 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ ^ In the slang of speculation, as he had heard it spoken by his father s friends back East, "wheat" was a juggling term It might mean much, or nothing. It was the mere name of a commodity in which men dealt frenziedly; but the stuff itself, the simple name of which was on so many tongues, was never seen. The wonder of these fields through which he was speeding strangely impressed Mason as he watched the flat, endless, golden land scape. Here was he in the center .of a vast ocean of the commodity itself whose name alone till now was all that he had known. He was conscious of a sort of awe as he gazed across the fields. He realized the in finite, potential force of this growing grain, and spoke of it to the girl opposite him, eag erly. 304 THE DEAL She put down the book that she was read ing. "It is the world s food," she said, soberly. After a moment, she added: "Sometimes I have felt these fields to be grander even than the Canyon." "I have always smiled," he said, "when I have read back East of the wild scenes that now and then are acted on the Chicago Board. But I shall never smile at them again." "They fight there for these oceans," Miss Anstruther said, "battle for the people s bread, while the wheat ripens in the sun." "It s a game worth playing," he said, as though speaking to himself "And mine, now, is very small, a mere child s contest, compared to it." She leaned toward him with earnest eyes. 305 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ * "Won t you tell me, dear, all about your mission in Frisco?" she asked. "I want to know it; shouldn t I now? Perhaps I can help, dear. Oh, you don t know how much I want to help 1" He regarded her steadily. Her eyes did not waver, but smiled back into his bravely. "It s not much," he said; "there s a trac tion deal on back East. It s my father s idea, and he has sent me out here to see a man who has a lot of money who may go into it with him. It is for me to persuade him. And Sibyl" his jaw went square, and the lines around his mouth straightened "I m going to win his interest. Last night I lay awake in my berth, rehearsing what I shall say to him. I must win, dear; for both our sakes. I wrote father of you a few days ago. He has the letter now. He will 306 THE DEAL wire me in Frisco. So, I m going to win for you." "Hal," she whispered, "I shall pray for you, but of course you ll win. And that wire, dear, from your father you ll let me see it, won t you, no matter what it is?" He hesitated. "Promise." "I promise," he replied. Thereafter she told him all she knew of the country through which they sped, Fresno the capital of Raisin Land, Barstow and Bakersfield, with their quaint Spanish stations surrounded by tall palms, and shin ing in the midday brilliance amid a profus ion of flowers. When, in the early evening, the train neared Oakland, Miss Anstruther began to gather her belongings. 307 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * ^ : "Journeys end," she whispered softly. "In lovers meeting," he added. It was quite dark when they alighted from the train and boarded the San Pablo. They had supper at a little round table in the tiny cafe of the huge ferry-boat. After ward they went out on deck, forward. The cold cut intoMason s bones. Athin gossamer of fog trembled above the water. The pur ple sky was sprinkled with stars. Ahead, through the mist curtain shone the yellow lights of San Francisco. For half an hour they stood there at the rail, gazing at the points of light that each instant became more and more distinct one from another. "There is so much I want you to see, here," she said, "but first you must do your work. At the ferry-house I shall bid you good-night" 308 THE DEAL "There will be some one to meet you?" he asked. "No. Aunt Jane has no idea of the pre cise time of my arrival. But I ll drive home alone to-night. I mean to play a prank on aunt. You shall come to dine with us to-morrow night then I shall tell her. Please let me ; don t protest. I know her so well. She has always said she loves to be surprised. To-morrow night, then, I mean she shall have the surprise of her whole life." And so at the ferry-house, he saw her into a cab, and she waved her hand to him from the window. He was driven straight up Market Street to the Palace Hotel. After the clerk had assigned him a room, he asked for telegrams. One was given 309 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * him and he tore it open with trembling fingers. "Congratulations," was the single word it contained; it was signed, "Daisy Worring- ton." He laughed outright. So Sibyl had wired her one-time school-mate without having told him, had she? Then a little whistle escaped his lips. It had not been Sibyl, he told himself, but Townsend. He smiled. Certainly it was Townsend, and all Boston knew of his en gagement by now. But the Governor; why was there not a telegram from him? He went to his room at once. Presently his luggage arrived. He unpacked his bag, ar ranged his things, and went to bed 310 A Girl s Hand XX. A GIRL S HAND XT WAS nine o clock when Mason awoke the next morning. His little black leather traveler s clock, ticking away on the dresser, told him the hour. He looked out into the face of the new day. Then he looked back at the clock. Either the day or the clock was woefully wrong and he felt that he could depend upon the clock. He had not reckoned with the Frisco fog. That was all. Still in doubt, he dressed and descended to the restaurant. He ate his breakfast amid a multitude of palms. An hour and a half had slipped by when he arose from the table. Perhaps, he thought, Colonel Tompkins had not as yet returned to town. Then he remembered the girl s face that had looked at him, long- 3*3 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ * ingly, from the cab window at the ferry house the night before. In a few hours he would see her face again. He knew how eagerly the eyes would question him. And what would he be able to tell them? Outside, the fog had lifted, and the Cali fornia sun was filling Market Street with the glory of the new day. Hal Mason squared his shoulders. What had he to fear? Youth was his, and the world was young. So he asked the boy at the news-stand the direction to the Express building, and, obtaining it, left the hotel. In the ante-room of Colonel Tompkins office a boy received his card. He was a small boy a very small boy with red hair, and huge freckles across the bridge of his nose; altogether strangely like Mason s own office-boy back in Boston; and the 3H A GIRL S HAND young man seized upon the likeness as a good omen. Yes, Colonel Tompkins was in and would see him. His heart jumped in his breast; he pulled a long breath. Five steps, and he con fronted the man whom he had traveled four thousand miles to win. In the instant that passed before the ex change of greetings, Mason "sized up" the man before him quite as he was wont to "size up" his opponent on the foot-ball line in his early college days. Colonel Tompkins was a stout, middle- height man, who, judging from his round, clean-shaven face, might have been forty or sixty years of age. He held his eye glasses between the thumb and finger of his left hand, and his clear, blue eyes seemed to look 315 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ ^ through Mason s head and out at the back, past the tall screen that hid one end of the littered flaMop desk, through the closed door of the ante-room, and on and on. "Colonel Tompkins," Mason said, and held out his hand. "Mr. Mason," returned the other, as their hands touched. He waved his caller to the chair set back in the angle of the screen, where its occupant was invisible to any one who might appear in the doorway of the ante-room. Tompkins seated himself in his desk chair; there was a moment of si lence, then he spoke. His voice was clear but gentle. "I find I have been laboring under a de lusion, sir," he said. "I had looked for ward, quite apart from business, I assure you, to welcoming to San Francisco Mr. 316 A GIRL S HAND John Mason, whom I have never had the good fortune to meet, but whose name is very well known to me. You are, I take it" "His son, Colonel Tompkins," Hal pro vided. "I am glad to meet his son, then," Tomp kins replied, and his smile revealed his strong, even teeth. "Colonel Tompkins," Mason began, "I present to you my father s regrets that he was unable, owing to his health, to cross the continent, and I am grateful to you, on his behalf, for your very cordial welcome to me. You are, in some degree at least, fami liar, through our Mr. MacDonald, with the nature of my mission." "I met Mr. MacDonald," was the calm reply, "and we did go over the subject of 3*7 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ * let me see it was a traction deal, was it not, a matter of bonds arid so forth?" "Boston Portland," Mason recalled to him. Tompkins nodded. "Oh, yes, I remember." Mason leaned forward, his elbows on the desk. "And the most attractive traction pro position, Colonel Tompkins," he said, "that the East contains to-day." Colonel Tompkins smiled. "Attractive to an Easterner, Mr. Mason, I believe you mean," he corrected, agreeably. "Or a Westerner, Colonel," Mason re plied. Their eyes met and clinched. Then Col onel Tompkins did a little thing that many of his associates would have been amazed to see him do. He leaned across the desk, and placing his fingers tip to tip said : 318 WHAT Is YOUR PROPOSITION, MR. MASON? A GIRL S HAND "What is your proposition, Mr. Mason?" Mason swallowed twice. Up before his eyes floated a face, his father s ; and another face, Sibyl s. "I ll tell you. It is a plan to consolidate every trolley-line running out of Boston. Consummated, the whole of New England will be virtually owned by the company. Thirty-six independent, but non-competi tive lines will be concentrated under a sin gle management." "Very good," was the calm reply, "but what is the shape of these lines to-day?" Mason drew from his long pocket book a number of sheets of tissue. "Here," he said, "are the reports of last month s business on every one of those thirty-six lines." Tompkins ran through the papers 319 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * swiftly, then handed them back to Mason. "Very good again," he said, "now what is the idea?" Mason spoke clearly, directly, outlining in detail the plan conceived by his father of combining the various properties. Tomp- kins gazed out the window, the while he tapped his chin with his gold-rimmed eye glasses. Mason ceased speaking. The older man turned slowly. "It is admirably conceived," he said, "but you have not referred to the fran chises." Mason s heart sank momentarily. He coughed. "An oversight," he explained, "they are absolutely solid fifty years" "And then?" the Colonel suggested, with a smile. 320 A GIRL S HAND Mason shrugged his shoulders and held out his hands palms up. Tompkins nodded. He appeared, a mo ment, lost in thought. Then he said: "Mr. Mason, your father s plan is admir able, and as for you, I congratulate you heartily on your lucid presentation of its details. I am a much older man than you, and if you will forgive me for mentioning it, I am rather more experienced in affairs of this sort than you so when I tell you that you have come much closer to interest ing me than Mr. MacDonald did, you may take it as a genuine compliment to your skill." Mason s heart was pounding now. "But there is one thing I d like to know. It is this: Why, if this is so admirable a plan, should it have been necessary to enlist 321 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ * in its development, the interest of say Col onel Tompkins whose heart is fixed upon this country of ours out here, almost four thousand miles aw ay? Canyou tellme why?" There was a smile in the eyes that met Mason s across the littered desk. Here was the question that Mason had feared. A fortnight back he could not have answered it. But much had come into his life in these two weeks. So he said: "Colonel Tompkins, I can tell you. I can tell you on absolutely my own responsi bility. This very West of which you are a part has provided me with the answer. This is a deal in tangible quantities. The ele ment of speculation is almost entirely ab sent from it. My father is an Eastern man ; you are a Western man. My father should be. Though he may be himself quite un- 322 A GIRL S HAND aware of it, his is the spirit of the West. It is this spirit that has prompted him to seek your interest in this proposition. And now that we are talking about it where is the East and where the West, and where the North, and where the South, in this coun try? To you, here, Denver is away back east; to us in Boston, it is terribly far west. We are all Americans, Colonel Tompkins, and all this is America; and when we get right down to it, there are no directions among us isn t that so?" "You are very right," was the quick re sponse, "very right, only it amazes me to hear you, a Boston man, talk like that. It is quite true that we are all off one piece and yet you talk like a Westerner" And he laughed big and boisterously. "And I see you are sincere," he added, "only I should 323 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * ^ like to know where you picked up such ideas?" Mason hesitated a moment, then said: "Colonel Tompkins, if I were to tell you that one of your own girls your Western girls has educated me, would you think the less of me?" "The less of you!" Tompkins exclaimed. "The less of you! I d think a hundred per cent, more of you!" "You may then," was the quiet re joinder. Tompkins regarded him steadily for a moment. "I m very glad," he said, quietly. Then he seemed to pull himself up mentally. "Mr. Mason," he began, "your plan strikes me as one of the best I have heard ex plained in a long time. It strikes me as 324 A GIRL S HAND thoroughly feasible, and infinite in its pos sibilities." Every nerve in Mason s body was on edge, but his face was calm, and a little cold, steely smile was in his eyes. "But circumstances are such that I can not join forces with your father, much as I might like to" Oh, how glad was Hal Mason that Tompkins chanced to be gazing out the window as he uttered this knell of the young man s hopes. His heart sank leaden in his breast. The lids fluttered down over his eyes. He felt, of a sudden, very tired. Tompkins, still gazing out the window, was speaking to Mason, but his voice sounded from a long way off, as faint as a dream voice. He had failed. He had failed. 325 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * . . . . "I am going to tell you why I cannot be with you," the dream voice was saying. "I am going to be frank, for I know what your personal disappointment is. Back in your part of the country, not far from Philadelphia, is a place you call At lantic City. Well, south of here, near San Diego, we are arranging for the building of what we propose to make Pacific City, a great seaside resort for the people all the people. A company is now in process of or ganization. We shall begin work next year. Our plans thus far are unknown to any but those of us who are interested. I tell you this in confidence ; and I am telling you be cause I want you to understand that it is not your plan nor yourself, but simply the circumstances and the time, that forbid my joining with your father." He looked at 326 A GIRL S HAND his watch and started. "My dear Mr. Mason," he exclaimed, "I am very sorry, but I have an appointment for luncheon, else I should have you with me. However, I am going to suggest that we dine together to-night." "Thank you," Mason replied weakly, "but I have already accepted an invitation for dinner to-night." "And you return East?" "To-morrow." Then it was that Fate, the comedian, danced in upon the stage. Sitting in the angle of the screen, Mason could not see the door into the ante-room swing open. But he saw Colonel Tompkins half rise from his chair, his face alight, and heard him cry: "Sibyl!" And then before his very eyes he beheld 327 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * Colonel Tompkins take Sibyl Anstruther into his arms and kiss her on the forehead. Things swam before him. He rose, his face pale and tense, his fingers curled into the palms of his hands. He tried to speak, but could utter no sound. Then she saw him. "Hal!" she cried in surprise. She read what was written on his face. With wonder stamped upon his own, Colonel Tompkins released her and stared blankly from one to the other. Then Sibyl sank upon a chair, and her laughter rang out as clear as a bell. "Oh, how foolish you both look!" she cried. "If you only could see yourselves!" Mason was staring dumbly at her. "Don t you understand, Hal?" she pleaded, "this is Uncle Jack you know I 328 A GIRL S HAND told you. You re not my real uncle, are you, you dear old thing? but maybe you will be won t you?" She laughed again. And then Mason s face cleared, but not so the older man s. "And now I suppose I must tell you who he is!" Sibyl ran on with mock seriousness. She went to Mason then, and, linking her arm to his, drew him around the end of the desk. "Uncle Jack," she said, "you and Aunt Jane have always told me I d marry a cow boy. Well I m not going to. I m going to marry a man from Boston this man from Boston." And she gave Mason s arm a lit tle hug. Some of the blankness went out of Tomp- kins face, then. "And aren t you going to give us your 329 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * blessing?" Sibyl begged, with dancing eyes. "This is the girl who has educated you?" was the dumfounded man s wondering question. Mason inclined his head. "God bless my soul!" Whereupon, weak and limp, Colonel "Jack" Tompkins sank into his desk chair, gripping the arms of which, he continued to stare first at one, then at the other, of the two eager young faces above him. 330 An Offer is Accepted XXI. AN OFFER IS ACCEPTED HOR a moment thus; then Colonel Tompkins leaned back in his chair and laughed, as he had not laughed before for a long, long time. Recovering, he turned to Sibyl, who had seated herself, and said: "Why didn t you tell me, you witch ; why didn t you?" "It was my surprise," she answered. "I meant not to tell you till to-night ; and when I called you up by phone this morning to let you know I had reached the ahem (with a glance at Mason) Pacific Coast, you were, so quick in asking me down to luncheon with you to-day that I hadn t time even to give you a clue. I d not the faintest idea in the world that you were the man 333 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * Hal had crossed the continent to see. And now we ll go to luncheon all three of us. Do you suppose your pocket-book can stand a luncheon at the Tech/ Uncle Jack? Then we ll all dine together to-night at home with Aunt Jane. Aren t you ashamed, Uncle Jack, to have neglected her so? She has told me ; and to-morrow oh, we shall all have to go somewhere to-morrow." "But Mr. Mason is returning East to morrow, Sibyl ; shall you ." Tompkins got no farther. Sibyl went to where Mason sat in silence at the end of the desk. His face told her he had failed. In the exuberance of her own gaiety, she had, till now, quite forgot ten how serious to him was his mission. Boldly she confronted the older man. "Uncle Jack Tompkins, do you mean to 334 AN OFFER IS ACCEPTED ^ * tell me you have, as we say out here, ( turned down Hal s deal?" "Sibyl, hush," Mason started forward, suffering ten-fold more at her words. "I have not told you, dear," Tompkins answered. Mason put forth a protesting hand. "Hal, don t try to restrain me. I am be ginning to see light," she cried. Tompkins laughed. Mason could have fled, had not Sibyl barred the way. "Have you told him then?" she went on. "Sibyl, circumstances are such" Tomp kins began. "Circumstances fudge!" she exclaimed. "What are circumstances? Hal has told me a little of what his father s plan is ; why shouldn t he have? I don t know a thing about business, and between you and me, 335 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * Uncle Jack, I care less, but what I do want to know is: Is there anything wrong with the proposition, I suppose you d call it?" "Not a thing, dear; on the contrary, it s one of the best ideas I have had my atten tion called to in a long, long time." Sibyl clapped her hands. "Good!" she cried. "Why, then, aren t you going into it?" A smile as tender as a woman s came into Tompkins blue eyes as he gazed into the youthful defiant face before him. "My dear," he began, "there are things you would not understand, but that Mr. Mason, here, does. Isn t that so, Mason?" "Quite," Hal assured him. In the face of his ignominious defeat he rallied to the rescue of this man from the danger of a pretty girl s blazing eyes. 336 AN OFFER IS ACCEPTED ^ * "Hal Mason, you should be ashamed!" Yet with the condemning words there came a whimsical smile into Sibyl s face. She passed to the other side of the desk composedly. "Now, Uncle Jack Tompkins and may be after to-day I ll never call you that again as long as I live, it depends wholly upon yourself I want you to listen to me," she began. His laughing eyes rested fondly upon her. "I m going to speak plainly very, very plainly, and I m going to be personal aw fully personal, but you must listen : Uncle Jack, you are heels over head in love with Aunt Jane, now aren t you?" What would Hal Mason not have given if at that instant the floor had opened magic- 337 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * ally and swallowed him? But Colonel Tompkins appeared not in the least em barrassed. He nodded affirmatively. "More than that, Sib," he answered. "Of course you are!" she cried gaily. "Did you think I didn t know? Now here s something you don t know positive ly. Aunt Jane is heel I mean just as much in love with you as you are with her." Mason could have cried out, so intense was the embarrassment he was suffering. Tompkins leaned forward eagerly. "Really, Sib, really?" he begged. She nodded with tight-shut lips. "And here s something else," she went on rapidly. "Aunt Jane will never marry you so long as I am unmarried you knew that, didn t you? Well, you know it now. Even 338 "You ARE HEELS OVER HEAD IN LOVE WITH AUNT JANE AN OFFER IS ACCEPTED * * if she /j in love with you, she thinks her first duty is to me. I haven t told her yet that I am engaged to Hal. I meant to tell both of you to-night, just to see your faces ; and oh, I m so glad I waited!" She met the look of puzzlement in Tompkins face with a smile. "Don t you see?" she asked. "When I am married to Hal, Aunt Jane will marry you so quickly it will make your head swim ; whereas if I don t marry Hal, she ll never marry you, never, never for if I don t marry Hal, I ll never marry any one. Oh, dear, don t you see now? Must I say it all? Well then, if you refuse to go into this deal, for my sake, for Hal s sake, Til not marry him. If you do go in, I ll marry him to morrow, and you and Aunt Jane can have the knot tied just as quickly as you desire 1" 339 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL * * Mason sprang to his feet. "Sibyl!" he cried. "Stop." He turned to Tompkins. "I beg of you, sir, do not ." "Just a moment," Tompkins said. "Sibyl," he went on, "you ve got me. I know as well as I know I am here in my own office this minute, that you would not give up this young man for all the traction deals on earth. You ve put up the biggest bluff, dear, that was ever flashed in San Francisco, but I daren t call it! Take the pot ! You win!" "Colonel Tompkins, I ." "Never mind, Mr. Mason," the older man interrupted, "you seem to be quite out of it. This appears to be Sibyl s deal entire ly, and I suppose when the thing is put through, she should have a pass over the en tire system, shouldn t she?" 340 AN OFFER IS ACCEPTED ^ ^ "You mean ," Mason began slowly. "I mean that I am with you your father." "But Pacific City?" "Pacific City, Hal I suppose I d best begin calling you that now Pacific City, Hal, must wait! Mason s heart leaped into his throat. "And I may send a wire that ." "Just a moment." Tompkins drew toward him a pad of tele gram blanks. He wrote swiftly. "How will this do?" he asked, and read: "John Mason, Tremont Street, Boston, Mass. "Your son has won the finest girl on the Coast, and she has won me. I am with you. "Tompkins." Sibyl glided up to him with a smile. THE GIRL AND THE DEAL *> ^ "Uncle Jack," she said, "if you really won t mind I m going to kiss you." And she did, where his hair was gray over one ear. Then looking down into his eyes, her hands on his shoulders, she asked: "And it is a good proposition, isn t it?" His smile was answer enough. He pressed a button on his desk. The boy entered. He gave him the message, saying, "Have that sent at once." And so it was that a little party of three sat down to a memorable luncheon together half an hour later in the Techau restaurant. 342 The Star That Did Not Fall XXII. THE STAR THAT DID NOT FALL HROM the wide hallway came the sound of skirts, rustling. Then, for an instant, the doorway framed the figure of a woman; her blue-grey hair seemed to catch the light and hold it, her figure still possessed the lines of what once must have been a beautiful girlhood, and her face, even now, was youthful. "So you are Sibyl s Hal?" she said, and smiled. Mason bowed. "She told me," she went on. "And I am glad for both your sakes." She came forward then, holding out both her hands, which he took in his, perceiving as he did so, how small they were, and how smooth. 345 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ ^ Looking up into his face she said: "We of the West have learned to judge quickly, and our first impressions are rarely wrong. I welcome you here for myself and for Sibyl. I have always looked upon her as my daughter, and henceforth I shall con sider you as my boy." She had spoken with such tenderness that a little mist came into his eyes, and, inclin ing his face, he kissed her on the forehead. When Sibyl joined them they were seated side by side at the balcony window. Aunt Jane held out her hand to the girl. "You have made me young again," she said. Then she turned to Hal. "Sibyl has told me the whole story," she went on. "She has confessed everything. You should scold her, Hal, for she called it 346 THE STAR THAT DID NOT FALL * funny your meeting in the train and the the transcontinental courtship that fol lowed. It is not funny, children" in each of her hands she held one of theirs "it s the old, old story of the East winning the West again. It s nature." A bell sounded. A flush, as delicate as the rose-tint in a young girl s cheek, came into Aunt Jane s. She rose and glided to ward the drawing-room door. "Come," Sibyl whispered, and led the way through the hall window out upon the balcony. "It is Uncle Jack. We must let them have their romance, now that we have ours." From a pocket he drew forth a folded sheet and gave it to her. "Father s message," he said. She moved away, into the light that shone 347 THE GIRL AND THE DEAL ^ * through the window from within and opened the fold of yellow paper. The mes sage was brief; she read it at a glance "Blessings, bring home your bride. "Father." Her hands fell and she raised her misty eyes to his. "Hal," she whispered, "what a wonder ful world it is!" He drew her to him; her cheek was against his shoulder. In the velvet sky were a multitude of stars. From below the perfume of the roses was borne up to them on the wings of the night. "Sweetheart," he spoke softly "would you have sent me away as you threatened, if Uncle Jack had not promised?" A moment she hesitated. Then : 348 "Do You SEE THAT STAR, DEAR HEART?" THE STAR THAT DID NOT FALL * "Do you see that star, dear heart?" she asked "the brightest of them all? That star could come tumbling down here, lover, but you and I know it never willl" 349 YB 32877