The Denver Express | Page 2

rail, and those forming part of an American
transcontinental trip are almost weird. From the windows of a night
express in Europe or the older portions of the United States, one looks
on houses and lights, cultivated fields, fences, and hedges; and, hurled
as he may be through the darkness, he has a sense of companionship
and semi-security. Far different is it when the long train is running over
those two rails which, seen before night sets in, seem to meet on the
horizon. Within all is as if between two great seaboard cities; the neatly
dressed people, the uniformed officials, the handsome fittings, the
various appliances for comfort. Without are now long dreary levels,
now deep and wild canyons, now an environment of strange and
grotesque rock-formations, castles, battlements, churches, statues. The
antelope fleetly runs, and the coyote skulks away from the track, and
the gray wolf howls afar off. It is for all the world, to one's fancy, as if
a bit of civilization, a family or community, its belongings and
surroundings complete, were flying through regions barbarous and
inhospitable.
From the cab of Engine No. 32; the driver of the Denver Express saw,
showing faintly in the early morning, the buildings grouped about the
little station ten miles ahead, where breakfast awaited his passengers.
He looked at his watch; he had just twenty minutes in which to run the
distance, as he had run it often before. Something, however, traveled
faster than he. From the smoky station out of which the train passed the
night before, along the slender wire stretched on rough poles at the side
of the track, a spark of that mysterious something which we call
electricity flashed at the moment he returned the watch to his pocket;
and in five minutes' time the station-master came out on the platform, a
little more thoughtful than his wont, and looked eastward for the smoke
of the train. With but three of the passengers in that train has this tale
especially to do, and they were all in the new and comfortable Pullman
"City of Cheyenne." One was a tall, well-made man of about
thirty--blond, blue-eyed, bearded, straight, sinewy, alert. Of all in the
train he seemed the most thoroughly at home, and the respectful
greeting of the conductor, as he passed through the car, marked him as
an officer of the road. Such was he--Henry Sinclair, assistant engineer,
quite famed on the line, high in favor with the directors, and a rising

man in all ways. It was known on the road that he was expected in
Denver, and there were rumors that he was to organize the parties for
the survey of an important "extension." Beside him sat his pretty young
wife. She was a New Yorker--one could tell at first glance--from the
feather of her little bonnet, matching the gray traveling dress, to the tips
of her dainty boots; and one, too, at whom old Fifth Avenue
promenaders would have turned to look. She had a charming figure,
brown hair, hazel eyes, and an expression at once kind, intelligent, and
spirited. She had cheerfully left a luxurious home to follow the young
engineer's fortunes; and it was well known that those fortunes had been
materially advanced by her tact and cleverness.
The third passenger in question had just been in conversation with
Sinclair and the latter was telling his wife of their curious meeting.
Entering the toilet-room at the rear of the car, he said, he had begun his
ablutions by the side of another man, and it was as they were sluicing
their faces with water that he heard the cry:
"Why, Major, is that you? Just to think of meeting you here!"
A man of about twenty-eight years of age, slight, muscular, wiry, had
seized his wet hand and was wringing it. He had black eyes, keen and
bright, swarthy complexion, black hair and mustache. A keen observer
might have seen about him some signs of a jeunesse orageuse, but his
manner was frank and pleasing. Sinclair looked him in the face,
puzzled for a moment.
"Don't you remember Foster?" asked the man.
"Of course I do," replied Sinclair. "For a moment I could not place you.
Where have you been and what have you been doing?"
"Oh," replied Foster, laughing, "I've braced up and turned over a new
leaf. I'm a respectable member of society, have a place in the express
company, and am going to Denver to take charge."
"I am very glad to hear it, and you must tell me your story when we
have had our breakfast."

The pretty young woman was just about to ask who Foster was, when
the speed of the train slackened, and the brakeman opened the door of
the car and cried out in