With this the young athlete stepped forward with so threatening and determined an aspect, that Mr. Simon Goldollar, with one terrified glance, sought safety in precipitate flight, nor did he pause until he had gained the shelter of the train.
“It doesn’t seem exactly the thing to frighten a fellow half to death just when he is making friendly advances to you,” reflected Phil, as he watched the flying figure of Mr. Goldollar, “but what else could I do? I had to try and keep my promise. Besides, how dared he to insult me with such a proposal? The idea of suggesting that I should turn smuggler!” At this thought the lad’s blood boiled with such indignation that he felt inclined to follow Mr. Goldollar, and still further impress upon him the lesson he had just received. Before he could carry out this intention, however, the train started, and he was obliged to let well enough alone, at least for the present.
As for Mr. Simon Goldollar, his feelings had received a much greater hurt than that with which his body had been threatened, and as he slipped into a seat in the smoking-car, as far as possible from the one occupied by Phil, his dark features were distorted with rage.
“I’ll pay you for this outrage, very suddenly and with compound interest, you canting young hypocrite you!” he muttered, at the same time shaking his fist vaguely in the direction of the sturdy lad, against whom in a fair fight he would have stood no better chance than an infant. He did not re-enter the sleeper until after the train reached Vancouver, so that Phil did not see him again, and wondered without much caring whether he had not been left behind.
During the last few miles of that eventful overland journey Phil was so busy gathering up his belongings, repacking his bag, and bidding farewell to those of his fellow-passengers who were to stop in Vancouver, that he forgot all about the scenery. Consequently when the train stopped for the last time, and the porter called out: “Vancouver! Change here for Victoria, Japan, and China!” it seemed incredible that the sparkling waters visible through the car window could be those of the Pacific Ocean.
They were, though, or rather they were the waters of Burrard Inlet, an arm of Puget Sound, on which the new but rapidly growing city of Vancouver is located. Just across the wharf, at one side of which the train had stopped, lay a great white clipper-bowed steamship, bearing the name in letters of gold _Empress of India_. She was one of the fleet of superb ocean flyers that form the Canadian Pacific’s connecting link between America and Asia. The mere sight of this beautiful ship, and of the Japanese stewards and cabin-boys clustered on her snowy decks, made Phil feel as though he had indeed joined the great army of “globe-trotters.”