Francis Lynde

A Romance in Transit Francis Lynde

Train Number Three, the "Flying Kestrel," vestibuled, had crossed the yellow Rubicon ofthe West and was mounting toward the Occident up the gentle acclivities of the Great Plain. The morning was perfect, as early autumn mornings are wont to be in the trans-Missouriregion; the train was on time; and the through passengers in the Pullman sleeping-car"Ariadne" had settled themselves, each according to his gifts, to enjoy or endure the daylong run. There was a sun-browned ranchman in lower eleven, homeward bound from the Chicagostockyards; a pair of school-teachers, finishing their vacation journey, in ten; a Mormonelder, smug in ready-made black and narrow-brimmed hat, vis-à-vis in lower five with twohundred pounds of good-natured, comfort-loving Catholic priesthood in lower six. Tworemoves from the elder, a Denver banker lounged corner-wise in his section, oblivious toeverything save the figures in the financial column of the morning paper; and diagonallyacross from the banker were the inevitable newly married ones, advertising themselves assuch with all the unconscious naïveté of their kind.