no!" she exclaimed, wildly. "Better this moment together
than a lifetime apart!"

"--For me he threw himself in front of the drivers. This moment is
mine and yours because he gave his right hand for it--shall I desert
him now he needs me? And so a hundred times and in a hundred ways we
gamble with death and laugh if we cheat it: and our poor reward is only
sometimes to win where far better men have failed. So in this railroad
life two men stand, as he and I have stood, luck or ill-luck, storm or
fair weather, together. And death speaks for one; and whichever he
calls it is ever the other must answer. And this--is duty."

"Then do your duty."

Distinctly, and terrifying in their unexpectedness, came the words from
the farther end of the parlor. They turned, stunned. Gertrude's
father was crossing the room. He raised his hand to dispel Glover's
sudden angry look. "I was lying on the couch; your voices roused me
and I could not escape. You have put clearly the case you stand in,"
he spoke to Glover, "and I have intervened only to spare both of you
useless agony of argument. The question that concerns you two and me
is not at this moment up for decision; the other question is, and it is
for you, my daughter, now, to play the woman. I have tried as I could
to shield you from rough weather. You have left port without
consulting me, and the storms of womanhood are on you. Sir, when do
you start?"

"My engine is waiting."

"Then ask your people to attach my car. You can make equally good
time, and since for better or worse we have cut into this game we will
see it out together."

Gertrude threw her arms around her father's neck with a happy sob as
Glover left. "Oh daddy, daddy. If you only knew him!"

CHAPTER XXI

PILOT

"There are mountains a man can do business with," muttered Bucks in the
private car, his mustache drooping broadly above his reflecting words.
"Mountains that will give and take once in a while, play fair
occasionally. But Pilot has fought us every inch of the way since the
day we first struck a pick into it. It is savage and unrelenting. I'd
rather negotiate with Sitting Bull for a right of way through his
private bathroom than to ask an easement from Pilot for a tamarack tie.
I don't know why it was ever called Pilot: if I named it, it should be
Sitting Bull. What the Sioux were to the white men, what the Spider
Water is to the bridgemen, that, and more, Pilot has been