The Daughter of a Magnate | Page 9

found in a deadly moment he could not escape from. On the

previous occasion the fuse had mercifully failed to burn. This time
when he collected his thoughts the colored man was smilingly telling
him for the second time that Miss Brock was not in.
CHAPTER III
INTO THE MOUNTAINS put me in an awkward position," muttered
Bucks, looking out of the window.
"But it is grace itself compared with the position I should be in now
among the Pittsburgers," objected Glover, shifting his legs again.
"If you won't go, I must, that's all," continued the general manager. "I
can't send Tom, Dick, or Harry with these people, Ab. Gentlemen must
be entertained as such. On the hunting do the best you can; they want
chiefly to see the country and I can't have them put through it on a
tourist basis. I want them to see things globe-trotters don't see and can't
see without someone like you You ought to do that much for our
President Henry S. Brock is not only a national man, and a big one in
the new railroad game, but besides being the owner of this whole
system he is my best friend. We sat at telegraph keys together a long
time before he was rated at sixty million dollars. I care nothing for the
party except that it includes his own family and is made up of his
friends and associates and he looks to me here as I should look to him
in the East were circumstances reversed."
Bucks paused. Glover stared a moment. "If you put it in that way let us
drop it," said he at last. "I will go."
"The blunder was not a life and death matter. In the mountains where
we don't see one woman a year it might happen that any man expecting
one young lady should mistake another for her. Miss Brock is full of
mischief, and the temptation to her to let you deceive yourself was too
great, that's all. If I could go without sacrificing the interests of all of us
in the reorganization I shouldn't ask you to go."
"Let it pass."

The day had been planned for the little reception to the visitors. The
arrival of two more private cars had added the directors, the hunting
party and more women to the company. The women were to drive
during the day, and the men had arranged to inspect the roundhouse,
the shops, and the division terminals and to meet the heads of the
operating department.
In the evening the railroad men were to call on their guests at the train.
This was what Glover had hoped he should escape until Bucks arriving
in the morning asked him not only to attend the reception but to pilot
Mr. Brock's own party through a long mountain trip. To consent to the
former request after agreeing to the latter was of slight consequence.
In the evening the special train twinkling across the yard looked as
pretty as a dream. The luxury of the appointments, subdued by softened
lights, and the simple hospitality of the Pittsburgers those people who
understand so well how to charm and how to repel was a new note to
the mountain men. If self-consciousness was felt by the least of them at
the door it could hardly pass Mr. Brock within; his cordiality was
genuine.
Following Bucks came some of his mountain staff, whom he
introduced to the men whose interests they now represented. Morris
Blood, the superintendent, was among those he brought for ward, and
he presented him as a young railroad man and a rising one. Glover
followed because he was never very far from the mountain
superintendent and the general manager when the two were in sight.
For Glover there was an uncomfortable moment in prospect, and it
came almost at once. Mr. Brock, in meeting him as the chief of
construction who was to take the party on the mountain trip, left his
place and took him with Blood black to his own car to be introduced to
his sister, Mrs,
Whitney. The younger Miss Brock, Marie, the invalid, a sweet-faced
girl, rose to meet the two men. Mrs. Whitney introduced them to Miss
Donner. At the table Gertrude Brock was watching a waiter from the
dining-car who was placing a coffee urn.

She turned to meet the young men that were coming forward with her
father, and Glover thought the awful moment was upon him; yet it
happened that he was never to be introduced to Gertrude Brock.
Marie was already engaging him where he stood with gentle questions,
and to catch them he had to bend above her. When the waiter went
away, Morris Blood was helping Gertrude Brock to complete her
arrangements. Others came up; the