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The Award of Justice; Told in the Rockies, a novel by A. Maynard Barbour |
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Chapter 3 |
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_ CHAPTER III Mr. Houston was aroused from his pleasant revery by the rather noisy entrance of a young man, who, with flushed face, and manner more indicative of self-assertion than self-possession, passed down the car and took a seat facing himself. This was none other than our friend, Rutherford, who, having secured his berth in the sleeper, and arranged his belongings to his entire satisfaction, immediately repaired to the smoking car to soothe his perturbed and agitated spirits by a cigar. From under his heavily drooping eyelids, Houston regarded his vis-a-vis with concealed amusement, for he was an apt student of human nature, and possessed an unusual degree of insight into the characteristics of those with whom he was thrown in contact. Rutherford, on his part, was watching Houston with his usual degree of interest and curiosity. Each was measuring the other from his own standpoint: Houston's prompt decision was,--"A good-hearted fellow, but something of a cad;" while Rutherford's vague surmises, summed up verbally, would have been,--"Nice looking sort of fellow, a gentleman; guess he's got the stuff, too; 'twon't do any harm to make his acquaintance." An opportunity for this soon presented itself, for as the conductor passed leisurely through the car, examining tickets, Rutherford discovered that their destinations were the same, and hastily drawing his card case from his pocket, said: "As we seem likely to be fellow travelers for a while, I should be pleased to make your acquaintance; allow me," at the same time offering his card. Houston took the card, greeting him courteously, and giving his own in exchange. He half smiled as he looked at the diminutive slip of cardboard with its Boston address made unnecessarily prominent, while Rutherford, after scanning the card he held, bearing simply the name of W. E. Houston, remarked with a decidedly upward inflection, "You are from--?" "From Chicago," Houston replied promptly. "Ah," Rutherford responded, "then I suppose you are quite familiar with this part of the country." "Well, not exactly," replied Houston, smiling, "Chicago, I'll admit, seems inclined to embrace a small part of the state of Illinois within her city limits, but I never heard of her attempting to claim the prairies of the Missouri valley among her suburbs." "Well, no," said Rutherford, laughing, "not quite so bad as that, I guess, but perhaps I didn't convey my meaning very clearly; my idea was, that living in one of the western cities, you know, perhaps you were out this way often." "On the contrary, this is my first trip out here." "Indeed! A pleasure trip, I presume?" "No, I am out on business," replied Houston, not caring to state very definitely just then the nature of his business. "Well," said Rutherford, settling himself into an attitude more comfortable than graceful, "I came out on a pleasure trip, but I must say that so far, the pleasure has been rather an uncertain quantity; for the last forty-eight hours, I haven't seen much besides dust, Indians and desperadoes." "Forty-eight hours!" exclaimed his companion, "you surely have not been on this train that length of time." "Not on this train; I stopped off last night to see an old friend of mine that has a ranch out here," and forthwith, Rutherford launched into a recital of his experiences of the last few hours, not omitting a description of the man whose appearance had struck such terror to his heart and expedited his departure from Valley City. "I tell you, he was a man I wouldn't like to meet in the dark; he was armed to the teeth, and there was a look in his eye that was awfully unpleasant." Mr. Houston judged from his companion's manner that he had not been particularly pleased at meeting this alleged desperado in broad daylight, but he courteously refrained from any such insinuation, and as supper was just then announced, the young men adjourned to the dining car, and the experiences of Mr. Rutherford were, for the time, forgotten. Nothing special occurred that evening, except that the monotony of the journey was slightly relieved by the train entering upon the Bad Lands. For some time, Houston and Rutherford stood upon the rear platform, enjoying their cigars, and watching the strange phenomena of that weird region; on all sides, vast tracts of ashen gray or black, as if burnt to a crisp, with no sign of life, animal or vegetable, the lurid lights flashing and playing in the distance, until it seemed as though they might be gliding through the borderland of Dante's Inferno. Their cigars finished, they separated for the night, to be agreeably surprised by the delightful change that met their eyes the following morning. Houston was already at the breakfast table enjoying the scenery, when Rutherford sauntered into the dining car. They exchanged greetings, and the latter dropped into a seat facing his companion, exclaiming as he did so, "Well, say now, this looks a little more like civilization, doesn't it?" and having ordered his breakfast and helped himself to fruit, he proceeded to watch the beautiful panorama flashing past in the sunlight. They were passing through one of the most fertile valleys of the northwest. Away to the south, a beautiful river glistened like a broad ribbon of silver, and leading from it was a gleaming net-work of irrigating canals and ditches, carrying the life-giving waters over thousands of broad acres; some already green with grass and alfalfa, while others were dotted with scores of men and horses opening the brown earth in long, straight lines of furrows, or scattering broadcast the golden grain. Far in the distance, faintly outlined against the blue sky, was a fleecy, cloud-like mass, grayish blue at the base, with points here and there of dazzling whiteness, which Houston had known at once as the first glimpse of the Rocky Mountains, but which Rutherford failed to notice. "Well," said the latter, withdrawing his head from the window, and preparing to attack his breakfast, "it seems to me, after nearly forty hours of nothing but prairies, it's about time to see some mountains." "They're in sight now," responded Houston quietly. "What!" exclaimed his companion, dropping his knife and fork in haste. "You can see them now; I've been waiting for you to recognize them," said Houston, smiling; "look off there to the southwest," he added, as Rutherford was readjusting his eye-glasses, preparatory to a careful survey of the horizon. "Well, I'll be blessed!" ejaculated the latter, "I supposed those were clouds. My! but they must be mighty far away, twenty-five miles, I expect, at the least." "Sixty miles, at least," said Houston, glancing at them, "perhaps more." "Pardon me, gentlemen," said a bland voice across the aisle, and the young men, turning, saw a much-bejewelled individual, with a florid, but very smiling face; "I see you have not yet become accustomed to the vast distances of this great country of ours in the northwest. Those mountains which you are discussing are about ninety miles distant." Rutherford's eyes expressed an immense amount of incredulity, while Houston simply bowed silently. The man continued: "The wonderful rarity of our atmosphere in these altitudes is something that has to be experienced in order to be thoroughly understood and appreciated, or even believed. You tell an eastern man of the great distances here at which you can see and hear, clearly and readily; he will immediately doubt your veracity, simply because it is without the line of his experience. Now I myself, personally, with my own, unaided vision, have been able to count the mules in a pack-train sixty-three miles distant, and have repeatedly held conversations at a distance of fifteen miles." "Guess the conversation was pretty much all on one side, wasn't it?" asked Rutherford, adding sotto voce to Houston, "as on the present occasion." "Ah, no, indeed not," the man replied; "I see, my young friend, that you are inclined, like all strangers, to be a little incredulous and skeptical, but if you remain in this country of ours any length of time, that will soon pass away, very soon." "I don't think I care to remain here very long then, if it will have any such effect on my brain as that," said Rutherford. "You are inclined to be facetious, my friend; that is all right, I appreciate a little witticism myself occasionally. By the way," he continued, evidently determined to get into conversation with Houston, "I suppose you young gentlemen are out here on business, looking for valuable investments in this wonderful country." At the word "Business" Mr. Rutherford instantly assumed his dignity, dropping into the slightly drawling tone he always used on such occasions, and which he intended as an extinguisher on any person whom he deemed too familiar. "Well, no," he replied, twirling an incipient mustache, "at least, not so far as I am concerned; I am just out on a sort of an extended pleasure trip, you know." "Ah, your friend is a business man, I judge; perhaps," turning to Houston, "we can interest you in some of our rare bargains in the line of real estate, improved or unimproved, city or country; or possibly in our mines, gold or silver properties, quartz or placer, we have them all." "You seem to have a 'corner' on this part of the northwest?" remarked Rutherford, rather sarcastically. "Indeed, young man, we have a good many 'corners,' pretty valuable ones, too," the man replied imperturbably, still watching Houston, who replied in a courteous but indifferent tone: "I am out here on business, but am not in a position to make any investments at present, nor do I expect to be for some time." "Ah, your business?" asked his interlocutor. "I am an accountant," he replied quietly. The man seemed satisfied. "Well, gentlemen," he said, rising from the table, "I am glad to have met you, and hope to have the pleasure of seeing you later in our city. Allow me to present my card, and if there is anything we can ever do for you in our line, please give us a call," and smilingly handing each a card, he bowed himself out of the car. "Well, by Jove!" exclaimed Rutherford, his grammar getting a little mixed, "either that man's a fool, or he thought we were; I don't know which." "Probably the latter," said Houston, smiling; then glancing at the card beside his plate, he read, "J. D. Wilson, President of the Northwestern Mining, Land and Investment Company, Silver City;" and he was the prospective clerk of The Northwestern Mining, Land and Investment Company! _ |
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