But with this announcement comes another sensation to Miss Travenion.

Ollie Livingston has been engaged most of the afternoon trying to make the trip comfortable for his mother, for, whatever may be his other failings, he certainly is a dutiful and attentive son.

As the train slackens its speed, he passes to Miss Travenion's stateroom, and remarks: "You have heard the conductor announce supper. Ferdie, take care of Louise and her mother. I will see to Erma." A moment after he ejaculates nervously: "I'll just wash my hands, and be with you in a moment," and moves hurriedly back to the gentlemen's wash-room at the rear of the car, leaving Erma alone.

Miss Travenion makes her own preparations in the privacy of her stateroom, and steps out to find herself cut off from the rest of her party by her fellow-passengers, who have risen hurriedly, and are crowding en masse through the aisles, anxious to get to their evening meal as rapidly as possible, most of them being old Western travellers and knowing that if they wish to get a good supper, it is best for them to be among the first rush upon the viands of a Pacific railroad eating-house.

The train has stopped, and caught in the crowd, Miss Travenion finds herself swept out upon the front platform of the car; a couple of stout Western women crowd past her, shoving her nearly off the platform. The Pullman porter shouts to her to look out. She has a hurried vision of Mr. Lot Kruger rushing to her assistance in the next car, and blocked in the aisle and struggling to squeeze past Buck Powers, who has been caught in the supper rush and who is dashing about like a fiend to save his wares from destruction.

She hears a voice that is half-way familiar say incisively: "This way, Miss Travenion, at once!" and looking down, sees Harry Lawrence's stalwart arm uplifted to assist her from the car. She puts out two little gloved hands. These are eagerly seized upon, and in an instant she is lifted lightly to the ground.

Here, blushing very slightly, she murmurs, "Thank you, Captain Lawrence!"

"I am glad you remember my name," answers the young man in a very happy voice.

Then he continues rapidly, "Excuse me a second. Your maid does not appear to know what to do." And he assists the French abigail to alight with as much care, if perhaps not as much ceremony, as he did the mistress.

"Yes," replies Erma. "We travelled by a private car as far as Omaha, and, of course, had our meals on board of it. Therefore, Marie was rather disconcerted—as, to tell the truth, so was I."

"Ah, then, you do need my assistance, if you want a meal," says Harry quickly, for the gong is sounding very wildly outside the eating-house, and the throng from the long train of cars is moving bodily upon it.

Noting this, the young man cries shortly: "Indecision means hunger—at all events, the leavings. Come with me!"

Then, perceiving that Erma is hesitating and looking towards the car from which Ferdie and Louise are just appearing, and which still conceals Mrs. Livingston and her son, he says hurriedly: "Quick; I'll reserve a table for your party and get them a first chance at the meal. Come at once if you want your supper!"

"Of course I want my supper," cries Miss Travenion with a laugh; for the brisk Nebraska air, which is quite often cool toward evening, in October, has stimulated the young lady's appetite, which, like that of most healthy girls of her age, is generally a good one.

So the young lady, placing her hand upon his arm and followed by her maid, turns away from the crowd and is led to a side door, Lawrence seeming to know the by-ways of the hotel pretty well.

In front of this are lounging the station master and two or three railroad employees. These spring up with ejaculations of welcome and delight! One cries, "God bless you, Cap!" and another, "Harry, you're doing well." A third guffaws sotto voce, "You bet he is."

Returning their salutes, he says shortly, "Please let me in at the side door—before the rush. This young lady is hungry." A moment after they are in the dining-room of the railroad hotel before the crowd of passengers have entered by the main portal.

This is a large apartment filled with tables, each of which will accommodate six people, and each presided over and waited upon by a brisk moving, calico-clothed Nebraska maiden.

A moment after, Erma's escort says to a bright-eyed prairie-girl who is flourishing a feather duster to keep the flies off an as yet unoccupied table: "Sally, reserve this table for myself and party."

Then to Miss Travenion's astonishment the maid answers, giving him a look of open-eyed admiration, "Yes, Cap!"

The next instant she finds herself seated beside him, and her maid, under his direction, taken to another table and made comfortable by another brisk Nebraska girl, who also answers deferentially, "Yes, Cap!" Then the one employed at their table calmly but uncompromisingly waves off both flies and passengers from the tempting seats with her feather duster, remarking, "This 'ere table's engaged! This 'ere table's engaged," to applying drummers and hungry cattlemen who would make a raid upon the precious vacant chairs; for all the other seats in the room are by this time in use and the viands are flying off the tables in a manner peculiar to Western appetites; while over all this comes in continual chorus from the waiting-girls: "Steaks—chops—ham and eggs—tea or coffee—pie or pudding," with an occasional variation of "stewed prunes or fruit."

In this chorus their attendant maid has already joined, singing out in a business way, "Steaks, chops or ham and eggs," when to Miss Travenion's awful blushes, the girl suddenly stops her song and giggles, after the free and easy manner of the prairies, "I know what's the matter with you, Cap; you've been going and gitting married, and are bringing your wife West!" casting a look of identification on Erma as the imported bride.

To this Harry, choking down a rising curse, mutters in a very hoarse voice, "Steaks for two, and ham and eggs turned!"

Then Ferdie inserts himself into this scene of embarrassment to the young lady, and from which she has half risen to fly in a sudden bashful spasm, and says: "Erma, what the deuce have you been doing? Mrs. Livingston is almost hysterical, and thinks the Indians have got you, when it is only Captain Lawrence and—supper."

"Yes," answers Harry, who blesses the boy for his interruption; "I know more about Western eating-houses than you do. I have rescued Miss Travenion from the crowd, and reserved a table for the rest of your party. Just bring them along, will you—that's a good fellow?"

To this, Mr. Chauncey, who has already met Lawrence upon the train during the afternoon, answers: "Won't I? I have been hunting everywhere for a place for our ladies. It was these vacant chairs that attracted me."

Then the young New Yorker, having gone in search of his party, Miss Travenion once more finds herself subject to the attentions of the gentleman beside her. But these are so very respectful that her embarrassment gradually vanishes, and she devotes herself with considerable comfort of mind to the supper which has just been placed before her, for Captain Lawrence is particularly careful from now on that his attentions to her, though effective as regards her wants, shall have not the slightest affectation of familiarity in them.

So the girl, looking at him, thinks: "Some men who might consider themselves of perhaps higher breeding than this one beside me, would have made a joke out of that awful contretemps, but Captain Lawrence is a gentleman, and gentlemen are very much the same all the world over," and once or twice, when he does not notice it, she turns grateful eyes upon him during pauses in the meal.

A moment after, Mr. Chauncey re-appears, followed by the Livingstons.

Mrs. Livingston mutters: "Good gracious, Erma, how you frightened me. My heart is beating yet. If anything had happened to you, what would I have said to your father?"

She would continue her emotion, did not Miss Travenion quietly say, "You owe your supper this evening to Captain Lawrence, who was kind enough to take charge of me in the crush, and also to look after your interests in the matter of chairs and vacant table."

To which Miss Louise ejaculates: "Oh, how good of you. I'm dying of hunger!" and the widow, who still remembers the fortunate compliment of the young man, remarks: "Captain, as I owe my meal to you, I will sit beside you," giving him a grateful glance and taking the chair on the young man's left hand.

Then, being compelled to it, Mr. Oliver Livingston suddenly remembers that he has met the Westerner before,—a thing he has forgotten, though he has passed him several times upon the train, and suddenly says: "How are yer?" in an absent-minded sort of way, and seating himself enjoys the pleasures of gastronomy.

As the party's appetites become satisfied, their tongues begin to move in conversation, and Harry, taking advantage of the situation, proceeds to make himself very agreeable to Mrs. Livingston; for this young man has been thinking the matter over during his three or four hours on the train, and has concluded that to be a friend of the chaperon's will be very useful to him in his intercourse with Miss Travenion.

"I was afraid," says the New York widow, "that Erma had been carried off by Indians."

"Indians," remarks Lawrence, "were plentiful enough about here four or five years ago, but the railroad, with its settlements, has swept them back. In 1867 there were too many of them at times," and the young man's brow grows dark and his lips compressed with some recollection of the past. Throwing this off, he explains lightly to Mr. Ferdie, who begins eagerly questioning him on the point, that any buffalo that may be seen will be probably far to the West of where they are now; their best hope of catching sight of them being during the next day's journey. "If you had wanted to see buffalo in quantities," he continues, "you should have journeyed on the K. P., one hundred and fifty to two hundred miles south of here. There they graze, sometimes, even now, in droves of ten thousand by the side of the railway track."

"By Jove!" cries Ferdie to this information, looking with longing eyes to the South. "But we will return by the K. P., auntie, won't we?" Then he questions suddenly: "You have killed buffalo, haven't you, Captain Lawrence?"

"A few," remarks the Westerner quietly, and from that time on he is a hero in Ferdie's eyes.

Mr. Ollie having by this time finished his meal,—a business that he has interspersed with a few curt remarks about the badness and greasiness of Western cooking and the general inefficiency of frontier waiter-girls, he arises and suggests, "If you wish to miss this train, you had all better linger a little longer over the table."

To this, Mrs. Livingston suddenly gasps, "Hurry! The passengers are all leaving the room!"

"Oh, no hurry! They are only gentlemen anxious to get at their cigars," says Harry, to whom the meal has been a very pleasant one, Miss Travenion having made it brilliant by one or two glances from her bright eyes and a few vivacious remarks.

But the chaperon suddenly cries in a voice of terror, "If we miss the train, we are here on the prairies, unprotected and alone!"

This pathetic remark, in a rising young frontier city of two thousand inhabitants, produces a giggle from Miss Louise. She titters, "Pooh, ma! This is a metropolis. I saw a dozen trainmen, half a hundred loafers and one or two tramps on the platform as we drew up."

But Mrs. Livingston having risen, the party saunter towards the door, that lady thanking Lawrence for some information he has given, tending to dissipate her fears of wild Western adventure on the railroad. She concludes this by saying, "You must give us a little of your aid and protection, we have had so little frontier experience, Captain,"—a request that gentleman is very glad to accede to, and he promises that he will look after them all, especially the widow, very thoroughly and very faithfully during their journey.

Harry in conversation with Mrs. Livingston has left the room, so have Ferdie and Louise, and Ollie is employed settling the score; Erma finds herself alone. Actuated, perchance, by a wish to learn more of the gentleman who has been kind to her this afternoon, and perhaps prompted by some curiosity to know why he is treated with so much respect under the familiar appellation of "Cap" by the Western waiter-girls, she turns back, and walking up to the bright-eyed abigail who has waited on them, says, "You seem to know the gentleman who brought me into supper this evening very well."

"Oh, Cap Lawrence?" answers the girl. "I should think so; we all have a pretty powerful liking and respect for him about this portion of the country."

"And why?"

"Why?" cries the Western girl. "Don't you know? Well, five years back, when this 'ere hotel was nothin' but a log cabin and I worked giving meals to our section men, the Indians made a raid up thar at Elm Creek," she points towards the west, "and if it hadn't been for the Cap taking a hand-car and going up the track they would have wiped out every section hand to the last man. As it was, they killed five of them, and it ain't every man out here that wants to run into a lot of Sioux on the war-path, in an open hand-car, but Cap Lawrence is the man to do it. You are married to him, ain't you, Missus?"

"No," replies Erma, growing very red. "I am married to no man," and striding away from the girl joins Ollie, though she catches a prophetic, "Wa-al, perhaps some day you will be. I seed him look at you once or twice, and you'll be mighty lucky if you catch him."

The subject of this colloquy is standing on the platform smoking his cigar; he sees Miss Travenion pass him upon the arm of Mr. Oliver Livingston, and wonders why the girl blushes so deeply, though she gives him a pleasant nod. Then he suddenly thinks, "It is that accursed remark of that red-headed Sally in the eating-house," and does not know that Sally has done him one of the best turns that have as yet come to him. She has set the mind of the girl he loves running upon a subject that had not as yet occurred to her. As it is, Erma gives a glance at the stalwart figure of the Westerner as he stands, in athletic ease, puffing his cigar, then catching sight of Ollie's rather diminutive figure, compares the two, perhaps not altogether to the advantage of Mr. Livingston.

As Miss Travenion is assisted into the train by her escort, Lawrence looking at her himself hears a low but resonant whisper at his side, "By Jove, Cap, ain't she purty? Reckon she must come from Chicago." Looking around he sees Buck Powers standing at his side, gazing in admiration at the beauty who has caught and entranced the engineer's soul. This would make Harry angry did he not notice that the news-agent is very young, though his face has that peculiar precocity that comes from an early struggle with the world and an early battle for life and bread, and notes that the tone of the boy is as respectful and loving as his would be did he happen to speak of his divinity.

A moment after, Mr. Livingston returning from the car, Captain Lawrence accosts him and offers him a cigar.

"Awh! thanks," remarks Ollie, being compelled to the same, and accepting it, he finds it to his astonishment to be a very good one,—much better than the average weed he would get in a New York club: for this young man does not know that the Western mining man and speculator uses the very best of cigars, wines, and all creature comforts, even when his luck is hard and his pocket almost empty.

A moment after Mr. Lot Kruger passes the two, and gives Harry a by no means kindly glance, for he has noticed the attentions of this gentleman to the daughter of his old friend, and does not like them.

This feeling is perhaps also felt, though at this time in a lesser degree, by Mr. Oliver Livingston, who somehow or other has arrived at the conclusion that Miss Travenion likes to listen to the conversation of this gentleman from the West, and does not like it very much more than Mr. Kruger.

Consequently, when the engineer rings the bell and the conductor cries, "All aboard!" Harry Lawrence has made one active and one at present passive enemy, though he is rapidly growing to be a hero in Mr. Ferdie's imagination; and as for Buck Powers, he has loved and admired this young engineer of the Pacific Railway for years, as nearly every other employee of the same, especially those engaged in its early building, have done ever since he ran the lines in Nebraska when that State was a howling wilderness of Indians, wild animals, trappers and prairies.

Then the train, getting under headway, passes with illuminated Pullmans and flashing headlight into the night of the plains. Miss Travenion, with a new interest in her mind as to this Western gentleman chance seems to have thrown into her way, looks out of her stateroom—the car is half empty, most of its male passengers being in the smoking room with their after-dinner cigars. Among them, Ferdie and Ollie.

Captain Lawrence is at the other end of the car, conversing with Mrs. Livingston and Louise.

Erma carelessly picks up a book,—one of Ferdie's purchases, the volume on the Union Pacific Railway; and glancing languidly over its pages, sees a picture of Indians attacking a hand-car, and reads, "Elm Creek Massacre" in large type. Beneath it is an account of the heroism of Captain Harry Storey Lawrence.

Then the brakeman cries out "Elm Creek." The train pauses for a moment, and gazing out, she can see the station house on the side track. A moment after, the locomotive dashing on again, she finds herself peering into the darkness that lies upon the low stretch of prairie, and wondering exactly whereabouts the man sitting so quietly and conversing with Mrs. Livingston, made his fight; and her imagination getting the better of her, she seems to see the stalwart figure, which is commencing to interest her, standing on a little hand-car on that lone prairie, surrounded by Indians and fighting them off, and saving the section men surprised at their work, as they drop their tools and run from their labor; and she sees his dark eyes, that she has commenced to know very well, flashing with determination as he encourages the fleeing laborers, and getting them on the car, they make their running fight towards the station, and hears the cracking of the deadly rifles and the whoops of the pursuing savages.

She is interrupted in this fantasie by Mr. Livingston's placid voice, saying, "What are you reading, Erma?" for she still has the volume in her hand.

"Only an account of the construction of this railway," says the young lady, and she passes him the volume.

Looking over the account of the "Elm Creek Massacre," Ollie's eyes open rather widely; but, a moment after, he remarks sneeringly: "This fiction of the Rocky Mountains seems to make quite a hero of your friend Lawrence. I wonder if he wrote the book himself?" And the gentleman chuckles to himself, imagining he has been rather witty.

Miss Travenion's reply rather disconcerts him.

"I am glad you call him my friend," answers the girl, a gleam of admiration in her blue eyes. "Any man who could do what is written there, is worthy to be any woman's friend."

"Oh, indeed," says Mr. Livingston, rather nettled at this; partly because he thinks his joke is not appreciated, and partly because he does not care about Erma Travenion showing an interest in any other man save his own small self. "I suppose you will soon make a first-class border ruffian out of your hero?" Then he utters oracularly: "I wonder how it is that some girls seem to take such interest in 'men of blood.'"

"I don't take interest in 'men of blood,'" cries Miss Travenion, rather warmly, for this remark about border ruffians is not pleasing to her; "but I do take interest in the men of courage, determination and manhood, who are risking their lives to make this country a greater America."

But here she gets a surprise from Ollie, who, incited by the beauty of the girl, which is made greater by her enthusiasm, replies suddenly: "If I thought you would like it, Erma, I myself would become a pioneer."

The idea of Mr. Ollie's turning frontiersman, proves too much for Miss Travenion's control; she bursts into a fit of laughter, which disconcerts the young man, and makes him retreat from her, with a plaintive, "I meant what I said. I didn't believe you would treat my expression of regard for you with a jeer."

Left to herself, however, Erma goes into more thought about this man who has risked his life for others, and even after she has gone to bed, as she turns upon her pillow, visions of Captain Harry Storey Lawrence, fighting Indians, come to her, and she wakes up with a suppressed scream, for he is about to be scalped, and finds that it is only the shriek of the locomotive, and the war-whoops of the Indians are only the outcries of the porter, announcing that they are approaching Sydney, where they have thirty minutes for an early breakfast.