Mrs. Dunham smiled. "Gertrude was telling me about some of your troubles. Do they get you up early in the morning to ask you foolish questions?"
"They do, indeed"--and Brockway, glad enough to find a sympathetic listener, told the story of the pertinacious human gadfly masquerading under the name of Jordan.
"Dear, dear! How unreasonable! Will you have to give up the Silver Plume trip and stay in Denver with him?"
"I suppose so. I'm going forward presently to try to get Mr. Burton and his wife to take my place with the party for the day."
"Not Mr. John Burton, of the Colorado & Utah?"
"Only through Gertrude; she met them when she was out here last year, and she likes Mrs. Burton very much indeed."
"I'm glad of that," said Brockway, with great _naïveté_; "they are very good friends of mine."
In the pause that succeeded he was reminded that his way and Gertrude's would shortly diverge again, and in the face of that thought he could not well help asking questions.
"I suppose you are going straight on to Utah," he said, not daring to hope for a negative reply.
"Not to-day. I believe it is Mr. Vennor's plan to go on to-morrow morning."
When he realized what this meant for him, Brockway forgave his evil genius in the Tadmor. Then he gasped to think how near he had come to missing his last chance of seeing Gertrude. But he must know more of the movements of the President's party.
"I think not. I heard Mr. Vennor order dinner in the car, so I presume we shall make it our headquarters during the day."
Brockway reflected that the private car would doubtless be side-tracked on the spur near the telegraph office in the Union Depot, and wrote it down that prearrangement itself could do no more. When the train drew up at Bovalley a little later, he excused himself and ran quickly forward to board the Ariadne. Come what might, Burton must be over-persuaded; the thirty-odd must be given no chance to defeat the Heaven-born opportunity made possible by the pertinacity of the gadfly.
So marched the intention, but the fates willed delay. Bovalley is but a flag-station, and the passenger agent had barely time to swing up to the rear platform of the regular sleeper when the train moved on. Then he found that he had circumvented one obstacle only to be hampered by another. The rear door of the Ariadne was locked, and the electric bell was out of repair. Wherefore it was forty minutes later, and Denver was in sight, when the rear brakeman opened the door and admitted him.