The Flyers
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George Barr McCutcheon >> The Flyers
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"Ahem! It's a--a gentleman. Ask him to--to come to the rear end of the
train. That's all. Oh, conductor, how soon will we be on the track
again?" The conductor was standing in the door, evidently impressed by
the summons from the drawing-room.
"We're not off the track, madam. There is no danger--just a little
delay. I have telegraphed to see if I can have a relief train come
down from Omegon and pick us up after we've been ferried across the
river."
"This is the very worst road I've ever travelled over--the very
worst," was Eleanor's natural complaint. "When will that get us to
Omegon?"
"We should be there in an hour after leaving here."
"And when did you say we'd leave here?"
"I didn't say. I don't know."
"Who does know, if you don't?" demanded Eleanor.
"God, I presume," observed the harassed conductor, turning away with
the realisation that he had erred in coming to her in the first place.
The porter returned at that moment.
"Nobody in that section, ma'am. It was sold, but the party didn't show
up."
"Good Heavens, you--but he DID show up. I--I know he did. Look again.
Try--but wait! Ask for Mr. Dauntless. Ask quietly, please."
"Yes, ma'am."
Her nerves at highest tension, Miss Thursdale made her way toward the
rear platform of the train. She passed down the curtained aisles of
two coaches, wondering how people could sleep so soundly in a crisis
like this. A porter politely opened a door and she slipped out upon
the last platform. As far as the eye could reach stretched the roadbed
and its telegraph poles, finally disappearing in the haze of the
morning. Wide-spread flood, soaking the flat---
A sharp cry of amazement came from the track just below her. She
looked down and into the eyes of Anne Courtenay, the governess. For a
full minute they stared blankly at each other, apparently bereft of
all the agencies that fall to the lot of woman.
"Miss Courtenay!" finally came from the lips of the girl on the
platform.
"Miss Thursdale!" murmured Anne, reaching out to support herself
against the bumper. Other words failed to come for the time being. In
sheer despair, neither could accomplish more than a pallid smile. To
the reader is left the privilege of analysing the thoughts which
surged through the brains of the bewildered young women,--the fears,
the doubts, the resentments.
"Where--where have you been?" at last fell from Miss Thursdale's lips.
"Been?" repeated Miss Courtenay, vaguely. "Oh, yes; I've been taking a
walk--a constitutional. I always do."
Eleanor stared harder than ever. "All this distance?" she murmured.
"Down the track for half a mile, Miss Thursdale."
"Are--were you on this train?" ejaculated Eleanor.
"Yes--but I--I---" stammered Anne, her face growing red with rising
resentment. "I did not think this of you."
"What do you mean? It is--May I ask why you are here, Miss Courtenay?
It is most extraordinary."
"It is very easily explained," said Miss Courtenay, after a moment's
battle with veracity. "My aunt is very ill in Vancouver." To herself
she was saying: "I must keep her from really seeing Harry. She knows
what he has done--in heaven's name, how could she have found it out?--
and she is waiting to catch us if she can. She has followed us! Thank
goodness, I've seen her first."
Eleanor was not blessed with the possibility of such an explanation
for Anne's presence; she could only believe that the governess had
been suddenly called to the bedside of her aunt--a real person, she
happened to know, and very rich. But how was she to account for her
own astonishing departure from home? Miss Courtenay had seen her at
dinner; nothing had been said regarding "an unexpected journey." In
truth, Eleanor remembered with inflexible accuracy that she had
announced her intention to go to bed with a headache. Then, what must
Miss Courtenay be thinking at this very instant?
An inspiration came to her like a flash. "I--I am running away, Miss
Courtenay," she cried, with a brave attempt to appear naive.
"I don't understand," murmured poor Anne.
"Of course you don't," said Eleanor, inspiration heaping itself up
within her. "Not really, you know, but just for a few days' rest.
Mother thinks I'm looking wretchedly. We didn't say anything about it-
-except to Mr. Windomshire, of course. He knows. Perhaps he will run
up to Omegon in a day or two to see me. It's very quiet there, and
I'll get a good rest. The hotel is delightful--facing the lake. And
the bathing's good. Dear me, I'm so sorry about your aunt." Miss
Courtenay's eyes actually blinked with perplexity. This was a most
staggering bit of news. Eleanor flushed painfully under the gaze of
the other; utter rout followed. She stammered some flimsy excuse and
dashed back into the car. To herself she was crying: "I must find Joe
and tell him to keep out of sight. Oh, how awful this is!"
Just inside the door she met her porter.
"There's nobody named Dauntless on the train, miss. A gentleman who
said he was his friend thinks he missed the train perhaps."
"He--he--oh, I see!" said Eleanor, suddenly perceiving method in Joe's
reluctance to answer to his own name. "Thank you. That's all." Then,
to herself: "He has seen Miss Courtenay, and she HASN'T seen him,--
that's plain." She handed the porter a coin.
"I went to the berth you mentioned, ma'am, and I asked through the
curtains: 'Is Mr. Dauntless in here?' There was a lady in the upper,
miss, an'--an'--well, I'll never forget what she said to me." Eleanor
had gone before he concluded, determined to unearth her cautious
lover, if possible.
Anne caught the porter before he could follow.
"See here, porter," she whispered softly, "go to Car 5, section 6, and
call its occupant. Tell him NOT to get up. Do you understand? NOT to
get up!"
It goes without saying, of course, that all efforts, secret or
otherwise, failed to locate the missing men. The distracted brides,
each trying to run away from the other in a way, were in a state of
collapse, necessarily subdued but most alarming. The Rev. Henry Derby,
a nice-looking young fellow, who looked more like a tennis player than
a minister of the gospel, eventually identified his old friend's ladye
faire, and introduced himself with a discreetness that proved him to
have been in college at the proper period and in a somewhat different
class from that which he now sought to lead. In the privacy of her
drawing-room the bewitching but distressed young woman discussed the
situation with the man who had been chosen to perform the clandestine
ceremony in the far-away town of Omegon. Derby, coming on from his
eastern home in loyal acquiescence to his friend's request, had
designedly taken this train, it being understood that Dauntless would
board it at Fenlock with his fair conspirator. We all know why
Dauntless failed to perform his part of the agreement; Derby, with the
perspicuity of a college man, finally advanced a reason for his
inexplicable failure to appear. Eleanor had begun tearfully to accuse
him of abandoning her at the last moment; Mr. Derby indignantly
scouted the idea. When she related their chase in the motor and their
escape from Windomshire, he formed his conclusions, and they were in
the main remarkably correct.
"I'm afraid, Miss Thursdale, that your disappointed lover, our ancient
enemy, the Englishman, was not to be overcome so neatly. Has it
occurred to you that he may have reached Fenlock before the train
left, and that he is the explanation for Joe's non-appearance?"
"You--you don't mean that he has killed---" she was gasping, growing
whiter and whiter. He hastened to reassure her.
"Oh, no; not so bad as that. But it is possible and quite probable
that he--if, as you say, he was on to your--I should say, aware of
your flight, it is probable that he succeeded in detaining Joe in
Fenlock. That would---" "Impossible! Joe wouldn't let him!" she cried
indignantly.
"Perhaps Joe couldn't help himself. Such things happen. At any rate,
you'll understand, the despised enemy could have---"
"Mr. Windomshire is not a despised enemy. He's a VERY nice man, Mr.
Derby," she interrupted.
"Certainly, Miss Thursdale. What I meant to say was, that he was
morally sure of preventing the wedding if he could only keep you far
enough apart. Now that is probably what he has done. You can't marry
Joe in Omegon or anywhere else unless he is there and not in Fenlock."
"I see. Well, I'll go back to Fenlock!" she exclaimed emphatically, a
little line of determination and stubbornness settling about the
erstwhile trembling lips.
"I admire your loyalty," he said warmly. "Just at present, however, we
are water-bound here, and we've got to make the best of it. I fancy
Joe will telegraph before long."
"If--if he hasn't been hurt. Oh, Mr. Derby, they may have fought. It
would be just like them. It may be dreadfully serious. You don't know
as much about men as I do. They're terribly---"
"Please don't worry, Miss Thursdale," he said, smiling in recollection
of his football days. "You'll find there's been nothing bloody about
all this. The delay is vexatious, but only temporary, I'm sure."
"I'll marry Joe Dauntless now if it has to be delayed a hundred
years," she cried, her eyes flashing.
During the next half-hour poor Derby ran errands, carried messages and
complaints to every one of the train men, finally administering
smelling salts when it occurred to Eleanor that Joe might have fallen
off the train during the night.
In the meantime Anne Courtenay was having a sad half-hour of it. She
had no one to turn to, no one to think it all out for her; she was
alone and in great despair. The porter had failed to find the tall
Englishman; the conductor had been equally unsuccessful; she herself
had searched in vain. His trunks and hers were in the baggage car, she
found, but there was no sign of the man himself. She was a self-
reliant, sensible young woman, accustomed to the rigours of the world,
but this was quite too overwhelming. The presence on the train of the
girl that she had, to all intents and purposes, cruelly deceived, did
not add to her comfort. As a matter of fact, she was quite fond of
Eleanor; they were warm friends despite the vagaries of love. Miss
Courtenay, among other things, began to wonder, as she sat in her
tumbled berth, if retribution had more to do with this than chance.
"Could he have fallen off the train?" she wondered, with a sudden
chill of apprehension. The next instant she was calling to the porter.
"Send the conductor to me at once. My friend has fallen off the train-
-out of his window, perhaps. I am quite sure of it. I want an engine
to go back and look for him. Hurry, please! don't stand there
grinning."
The Pullman conductor came up at that moment.
"Are you the young lady who was asking for Mr. Dauntless?" he asked.
"Dauntless?" she murmured. "No, I'm asking for an engine. Have you--"
"There's another young lady asking for an engine, too, madam. It's
impossible."
"Am I to understand that I shall have to walk?--Oh," with a sudden
start, "is--is there a Mr. Dauntless missing too?"
"Seems so. He's gone."
Anne dropped the curtains in his face, and then stared at them for a
long time. Gradually she began to comprehend. A panic of fear came
over her.
"They have met somewhere and quarrelled! Mr. Dauntless was jealous--
terribly so. He may have--good Heavens!--he may have killed him in the
mistaken idea that Harry was running away with Eleanor. She's on this
very train! It's perfectly natural. Porter," she called, "there has
been foul play!"
"Gee, miss! That's what the other lady is saying!"
"The other--then it is a double murder! Don't laugh! It's--it's--"
"Don't cry, miss; it's all right." She looked at him piteously for a
moment, and then smiled at the absurdity of her conjecture.
A tousled head came from between the curtains of the upper berth
opposite, and a sleepy, hoarse voice demanded:
"How long will we be here? What's the latest?"
"We're on time, sah," replied the porter, from sheer force of habit.
"The devil we are! Say, I've got to be in Omegon by ten o'clock. I'll
sue this infernal road," snarled the irascible party, snapping the
curtains together. It transpired that he was an agent for a medical
college, travelling to Omegon on a most unwholesome but edifying
mission. He was going up to take possession of the body of a man who
had willed his carcass to the school. As the poor chap was not yet
dead, but hopelessly ill, the desire for haste on the part of the
agent may be misunderstood. It seems, however, that there was some
talk of interference by relatives--and the disquieting prospect of a
new will.
"If I were you, miss," counselled the porter, "I'd go out and take a
little walk. The sun is up, an' it's fine. The relief train will be
here 'fore long--an' you all will be rowed acrost the river. Don't
worry."
"But I want to go back the way I came," expostulated Anne, feebly. "I
can't go on without--until I know what has happened to--to Mr.
Windomshire." She took his advice, however, and made her way to the
rear platform.
A number of disgruntled passengers were now abroad, and complaining
bitterly of the delay. There was no hope of breakfast until the train
reached Omegon, where a dining car was waiting. She stood on the
platform and looked gloomily back over the long stretch of roadbed.
"Isn't that an engine coming?" some one asked excitedly at her side.
She turned and found Miss Thursdale, attended by a gentleman, to whom
the question was addressed.
"I believe--yes, it is, Miss Thursdale."
"Then--then we'll all be taken back to the city," she said dejectedly.
"I fancy not. It's probably bringing relief."
"They--they may be bringing bad news," Eleanor groaned. "Oh, Miss
Courtenay, how do you do--again? How is your--your grandmother, wasn't
it?"
"I--I--yes, I think so--I mean, I think she's no better. They may be
bringing his body!" said the other girl, her eyes fixed on the distant
locomotive.
"Oh!" almost screamed Eleanor, and stared wildly without words.
A brakeman far down the track was flagging the locomotive; it came to
a stop, and several men were seen climbing down from the cab. Two of
them eventually disengaged themselves from the little group and
hurried forward. One was carrying a suitcase, and both walked as
though they were either in pain or attended by extreme old age.
"Why--why--" gasped Eleanor, "it's Joe!"
"And--yes, thank God, it's Har--Mr. Windomshire," almost shrieked
Anne.
Then they turned and looked at each other in confusion. Neither had
the courage to carry out the desire to fly to the arms of the man she
longed to see more than all else in the world. They felt themselves to
be caught red-handed.
CHAPTER IV
MRS. VAN TRUDER INTRUDES
None but the most eager, loving eyes could possibly have recognised
the newcomers. It is not unlikely that the remaining passengers
mistook them for tramps. The rivals, morbidly suspicious of each
other, taciturn to the point of unfriendliness, had indeed chartered a
locomotive--not jointly by intention, but because of provoking
necessity. There was but one engine to be had. It is safe to say that
while they travelled many sore and turbulent miles in close proximity
to each other, neither felt called upon to offer or to demand an
explanation.
Five hours in the tender of an engine had done much to reduce them to
the level of the men in the cab, so far as personal appearance was
concerned. They were still wearing their raincoats, much crumpled and
discoloured; their faces were covered with coal dust; they were wet,
bedraggled, and humble to the last degree. The American, naturally,
was the one who clung to his suitcase; he had foreseen the need for a
change of linen. They came toward the train with hesitating, uncertain
steps. If their souls were gladdened by the sight of the two young
women, general appearances failed to make record of it. It was noted
by those who watched their approach that once both of them stopped
short and seemed to waver in their determination to advance. That was
when each became suddenly aware of the presence of an unexpected girl.
Naturally, the Englishman was seriously staggered. The unexplained
Eleanor appeared before his very eyes as an accusing nemesis; it is no
wonder that his jaw dropped and his befuddled brain took to whirling.
The girls, less regardful of appearances, climbed down from the
platform and started forward to meet their knights-errant. The reader
may readily appreciate the feelings of the quartette. Not one of them
knew just precisely how much or how little the others knew; they were
precariously near to being lost in the labyrinth. Something intangible
but regular urged Windomshire to be politic; he advanced to meet
Eleanor as if it were her due. Anne fell back, perplexed and hurt.
"Hang it all," thought Joe, rage in his heart, "he beat me to her,
after all. He'll be enough of a damned ass to try to kiss her before
all these people, too." Whereupon, he closed his eyes tightly. When he
opened them, Miss Courtenay was walking beside him and asking
questions about the weather. Her cheeks were very pink. Windomshire
had awkwardly clasped the hand of Miss Thursdale, muttering something
not quite intelligible, even to himself. Eleanor was replying with
equal blitheness.
"How nice of you to come. Where are you going?"
"Surprised, are you?" he was floundering. "Charmed. Ha, ha! By Jove,
Eleanor--er--I heard you were booked by this train and I--I tried to
catch it for a bit of a ride with you. I missed it, don't you know.
I'll--I'll wager you don't know what I did in my desperation."
"I couldn't guess," she said, trying to catch Joe's eye.
"I hired a private engine, 'pon my word, and then telegraphed ahead to
stop this train!"
"Di--did you do that?" she gasped, forgetting that the bridge was out.
Dauntless, meantime, was trying to explain to Miss Courtenay. She
already had told him that her aunt was ill in Vancouver, and he had
smiled politely and aimlessly.
"I'm on my way to M----. Sudden trip, very important," he was saying.
"Missed the train--I dare say it was this one--so I took an engine to
follow up. Had to ride in the tender."
"It must have been important," she ventured.
"It was. I--" then with an inspired plunge--"I was due at a wedding."
"How unfortunate! I hope you won't miss it altogether."
Joe caught his breath and thought: "Now what the devil did she mean by
that? Has Eleanor told her the whole story?"
It must not be supposed that these young persons were lacking in the
simpler gifts of intelligence; they were, individually, beginning to
put two and two together, as the saying goes. They were grasping the
real situation--groping for it, perhaps, but with a clear-sightedness
and acumen which urged that a cautious tongue was expedient. If the
duplicity was really as four-handed as it seemed, there could be no
harm in waiting for the other fellow to blunder into exposure. Nothing
could be explained, of course, until the conspirators found
opportunity to consult privately under the new order of assignment.
"How romantic!" Eleanor said, as she walked stiffly ahead with her
uncomfortable fiance.
"Eh?" was his simple remark. He was suddenly puzzled over the fact
that he HAD caught up to the train. There was something startling in
that. "Oh--er--not at all romantic, most prosaic. Couldn't get a
coach. Been here long?"
"Since five o'clock."
"I--I suppose you got up to see the sunrise."
"No, to see the river rise," she replied. "The bridge is gone." He was
silent for twenty paces, trying to recall what he had said about
telegraphing ahead.
"You don't mean it! Then I daresay they haven't got my telegram
stopping the train."
"How annoying!"
Dauntless had just said to Anne, in a fit of disgust: "Windomshire's
got a lot of nerve. That was my engine, you know. I hired it."
Windomshire went on to say, careful that Joe was quite out of hearing:
"Mr. Dauntless was quite annoying. He got into my engine without an
invitation, and I'm hanged if he'd take a hint, even after I hired a
stoker to throw a spadeful of coal over him. I don't know why he
should be in such a confounded hurry to get to--what's the name of the
place? I--er--I really think I must go and speak to Miss Courtenay,
Eleanor. She--er--looks ill."
"It's her grandmother who is ill--not she. But, yes! Please try to
cheer her up a bit, Harry. She's terribly upset."
"I'm sure she is," muttered he, dropping back with more haste than
gallantry. Mr. Dauntless sprang forward with equal alacrity, and wrong
was right a moment later.
"Joe dear," whispered Eleanor, "I've been nearly crazy. What
happened?" He was vainly trying to clasp her hand.
"Nell, he's on to us. I wish I knew just why Miss Courtenay is here.
Lord, I'll never forget that ride."
"It was just like you to take advantage of his engine."
"His engine!" exploded Joe, wrathfully. Securely separated from the
others, the elopers analysed the situation as best they could. Two
separate enterprises struggled earnestly for an outcome. On the
surface, the truth seemed plain enough: it was quite clear to both
parties that the extraordinary chain of coincidence was not entirely
due to Providence. There was something of design behind it all. The
staggering part was the calamitous way in which chance had handled
their dear and private affairs.
"He doesn't know that you were in my automobile," concluded Dauntless,
almost at the same time that a like opinion was being expressed by
Windomshire. "Are you willing to go on with it, Nell? Are you scared
out of it?"
"No, indeed," she exclaimed, perplexity leaving her brow. "At first I
feared he might have telegraphed to mother, but now I am sure he
hasn't. He was not following me at all. He is in love with Anne, and
he was surreptitiously off for a part of the distance with her. He
really doesn't want to marry me, you know."
"Well, he isn't going to, you see. By all that is holy, nothing shall
stop us now, dear. We'll go on to Omegon and carry out everything just
as we planned. If he's running off after another girl, it's time you
put an end to him. Don't give him a thought."
"Don't you think we'd better talk it over with Mr. Derby? He
discreetly disappeared when he saw it was you."
"Right! Let's hunt him out. By Jove, we can have him marry us right
here,--great!"
"No," she cried firmly, "it MUST be in a church." He could not move
her from that stand.
"Oh, if we could only get across that confounded river!" scolded Joe,
as they went off in search of Derby.
Windomshire was slowly reconciling himself to the fact that Eleanor
loved Dauntless, but he could not get it out of his head that she
still expected to marry as her mother had planned.
"See here, Anne, it's all very well to say that she loves Dauntless.
Of course she does. But that isn't going to prevent her from marrying
me. I don't believe she was running away with him, don't you know. He
was simply following her. That's the way these Americans do, you know.
Now, the question is, won't she think it odd that you and I should
happen to be doing almost the same thing?"
"To be sure she will," said Anne, coolly. "She has a very bad opinion
of me. I'm sure she doesn't believe you expect to marry me."
"By Jove, dear, it sounds rather dreadful, doesn't it?" he groaned.
"But of course you ARE going to marry me, so what's the odds? Then she
can marry Dauntless to her heart's content. I say, are we never to get
away from this beastly place?"
"They are to row us across the river in boats. We'll be taken up by
another train over there and carried on. Poor Mr. Dauntless, he looks
so harassed."
"By Jove, I feel rather cut up about him. He ought to have her, Anne.
He's a decent chap, although he was da--very unreasonable last night.
I like him, too, in spite of the fact that he kicked coal over me
twice in that confounded bin. He was good enough to take a cinder out
of my eye this morning, and I helped him to find his watch in the
coal-bin. I say, Anne, we might get a farm wagon and drive to some
village where there is a minister--"
"No, Harry! you know I've set my heart on being married in a church.
It seems so much more decent and--regular; especially after what has
just happened."
A porter appeared in the rear platform and shouted a warning to all
those on the ground.
"Get yo' things together. The boats'll be ready in ten minutes, ladies
and gen'l'men." The locomotive uttered a few sharp whistles to
reinforce his shouts, and everybody made a rush for the cars.
The conductor and other trainmen had all they could do to reassure the
more nervous and apprehensive of the passengers, many of whom were
afraid of the swollen, ugly river just ahead. Boats had been sent up
from a town some miles down the stream, and the passengers with their
baggage, the express, and the mail pouches were to be ferried across.
Word had been received that a makeshift train would pick them up on
the other side, not far from the wrecked bridge, and take them to
Omegon as quickly as possible.
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