read the passenger-agent's telegram twice, and tried to keep Kate from suspecting the true direfulness of it. Then he broke down and told her the whole story, sparing himself not at all, and even going so far as to excuse Cargill's apparent indifference.
Kate sat in the hammock and listened, relieving the strain on her nerves by tying knots in the fringe. When she found speech it was a fine mixture of indignation and reproach; and if there be any truth in signs, Mr. Frederic Cargill's left ear should have burned painfully.
"It's just too mean!" she declared; "after he had promised—" and then: "Oh, Tom, Tom, will you never learn to be heedful!"
Tom ignored the reproach and rose superior to mere personal bitternesses, shaking his head and answering out of a vaster experience of business.
"You're a girl, and you don't understand," he said dogmatically. "He says he's 'ordered,' and that settles it. Besides, if I'd given him that telegram at first, as I ought to have done, he wouldn't have promised. But that doesn't let me out. What are we going to do about it? That's the question."
It suited Kate's purpose at that moment to appear altogether devoid of suggestion, so she said, as if in despair: "Do? What can we do?"
"I don't know; wire father that I'm no good on top of earth, I suppose."
"What good will that do?"
Tom thought about it for a moment, and was constrained to admit that no good end could be attained by telegraphing.
"We're just done up, that's all; and it's my fault," he said desperately, when he had reasoned it out.
Kate went on with the knot-tying, and was silent while she measured her opportunity. Then she looked up and said:
"That message came half an hour ago, and I've been puzzling over it ever since." She stopped abruptly and looked him straight in the eyes. "Tom, how much have you learned about the passenger-business since you've been helping in the office?"
He saw whereunto her question would lead, and shook his head gloomily. "You might say next to nothing—anyway, not enough to make me believe I could do it."
But Kate knew her brother and would not be stopped. "I wish I knew as much as you do—about rates and such things; I'd go."
Tom's heart leaped within him, and then became as heavy as lead.
"Pooh! You wouldn't know the first identical thing to do after you got there, and neither should I. Of course I can figure rates, and all that, but that doesn't count."
"What does count?" demanded Kate.
"Oh, a whole lot of things. You've got to know your people, and how to get on their blind side, and how to jolly 'em up and make 'em believe your line's the only one there is, and all that."
"Who says so?"
"Why, all the men; I've heard them tell about it in the office lots of times. Then Mr. Manville will be there, and father says he's a hustler from 'way back, and as tricky as he is smart. I shouldn't be anywhere after the people got a good chance to laugh at me once."
Kate swung herself gently in the hammock and began to untie the knots. "I thought you had more nerve, Tom, and—I must say it—more magnanimity," she said, with true feminine artfulness. "You say it's your fault, but it is father who will have to suffer for it."
The remark was as spark to powder, as she had intended it to be.
"Nerve!" cried Tom, hotly. "You think I'm afraid, do you?—that I'm ashamed to go and tell them what a blockhead I've been? I'll just show you! If you'll give me the money, I'll go to Richville to-night. You'll see if I haven't nerve!"
Kate sat up and applauded.
"That's what I was waiting for; I knew it was in you if I could only press the right button. Now listen to me—I've thought it all out since that message came. You take the four-twelve to St. Paul, go to Mr. Donegal and get passes for us,—yes, I'm going, too; two heads are better than one, especially when neither of them happens to be a man's head,—then get your rate-sheets and things out of the office, and meet me at the Union Depot at five-thirty."
Tom went aghast at the immensity of the thing, but he was too near drowning not to catch at straws. At first sight the undertaking seemed little better than hopeless, even if they should reach Richville in time; but Kate's offer to go along and help turned the scale. She was three years his senior, and beneath a boyish assumption of contempt for all girls of whatever age he had a profound respect for his sister's diplomatic gifts.
"I don't know; maybe we can do it," he said doubtfully. "Anyway, we can try."