with the strenuous
travail-spirit of the New West; these were the persons and the
properties. And the shrieking safety-valves, the clanging bells, the
tinnient gong of the breakfast-room, the rumbling trucks, and the
under-roar of matter in motion, were the pieces in the orchestra.

It is all very different now, I am told. They have iron railings with
wicket-gates and sentinels in uniform who ask to see your ticket, and a
squad of policemen to keep order, and rain-sheds over the platforms (it
used not to rain in the Denver I knew), and all the other appurtenances
and belongings of a well-conducted railway terminus. But the elder order
of disorder obtained on the autumn morning when the "Flying Kestrel"
came to rest opposite the gap in the bisected trains filling the other
tracks. Brockway was the first man out of the Tadmor, but the gadfly was
a close second.

"No, sir; I don't intend to lose sight of you, Mr. ah--Brockway," he
quavered; and he hung at the passenger agent's elbow while the latter
was marshalling the party for the descent on the breakfast-room, a
process which vocalized itself thus:

_Brockway_, handing the ladies in the debarking procession down the
steps of the car: "Breakfast is ready in the dining-room. Special tables
reserved for this party. Wait, and we'll all go in together. Leave your
hand-baggage with the porter, unless it's something you will need during
the day. Take your time; you have thirty minutes before the train leaves
for Clear Creek Canyon and the Loop."

_Chorus of the Personally Conducted:_

"How long did you say we'd have?"

"What are they going to do with our car while we're gone?"

"Say, Mr. Passenger Agent, are you sure the baggage will be safe if we
leave it with the porter?"

"What time have you now?"

"How far is it over to those mountains?"

"Oh, Mr. Brockway; won't this be a good chance to see if my trunk was
put on the train with the others?"

"Say; what time did you say that Clear Creek Canyon train leaves?"

_Brockway_, answering the last question because the inquirer happens to
be nearest at hand: "Eight o'clock."

_The Querist_, with his watch (which he has omitted to set back to
mountain time) in his hand: "Eight o'clock? Then it's gone--it's
half-past eight now! Look here."

_Brockway_, who is vainly endeavoring to persuade an elderly maiden lady
to leave her canary in charge of the porter during the day: "That is
central time you have, Mr. Tucker; m