k of the platform.

CHAPTER XIV

GLEN TARN

October had not yet gone when they met again in a Medicine Bend street.
Glover, leaving the Wickiup with Morris Blood, ran into Gertrude Brock
coming out of an Indian curio-shop with Doctor Lanning. She began at
once to talk to Glover. "Marie was regretting, yesterday, that you had
not yet found your way to Glen Tarn."

The sun beat intensely on her black hat and her suit of gray. In her
gloved hand she twirled the tip of her open sunshade on the pavement
with deliberation and he shifted his footing helplessly. His heavy
face never looked homelier than in sunshine, and she gazed at him with
a calmness that was staggering. He muttered something about having
been unusually busy.

"We, too, have been," smiled Gertrude, "making final preparations for
our departure."

"Do you go so soon?" he exclaimed.

"We are waiting only papa's return now to say good-by to the
mountains." The way in which she put it stirred him as she had
intended it should--uncomfortably.

"I should certainly want to say good-by to your sister," muttered
Glover. But in saying even so little his naturally unsteady voice
broke one extra tone, and when this happened it angered him.

"You are not timid, are you?" continued Gertrude.

"I think I am something of a coward."

"Then you shouldn't venture," she laughed, "Marie has a scolding for
you."

Morris Blood had been telling Doctor Lanning that he and Glover were to
go over to Sleepy Cat on the train the doctor and Gertrude were to take
back to Glen Tarn. The two railroad men were just starting across the
yard to inspect an engine, the 1018, which was to pull the limited
train that day for the first time. It was a new monster, planned by
the modest little Manxman, Robert Crosby, for the first district run.
"Help her over the pass," Crosby had whispered--the superintendent of
motive power hardly ever spoke aloud--"and she'll buck a headwind like
a canvas-back. Give her decent weather, and on the Sleepy Cat trail
she'll run away with six, yes, eight Pullmans."

Doctor Lanning was curious to look over the new machine, the first to
signalize the new ownership of the line, and Gertrude was quite ready
to accept Blood's invitation to go also.

With the doctor under the superintendent's wing, Gertrude, piloted by
Glover, crossed the network of tracks, asking railroad questions at
every step.

Reaching the engine, she wanted to get up