It was a December morning, -the Missouri December of mild temperatures andsaturated skies, -and the Chicago and Alton's fast train, dripping from the rush through thewet night, had steamed briskly to its terminal track in the Union Station at Kansas City.Two men, one smoking a short pipe and the other snapping the ash from a scentedcigarette, stood aloof from the hurrying throngs on the platform, looking on with themeasured interest of those who are in a melee but not of it."More delay," said the cigarettist, glancing at his watch. "We are over an hour late now.Do we get any of it back on the run to Denver?"The pipe-smoker shook his head."Hardly, I should say. The Limited is a pretty heavy train to pick up lost time. But it won'tmake any particular difference. The western connections all wait for the Limited, and weshall reach the seat of war to-morrow night, according to the Boston itinerary."Mr. Morton P. Adams flung away the unburned half of his cigarette and masked a yawnbehind his hand."It's no end of a bore, Winton, and that is the plain, unlacquered fact," he protested. "Ithink the governor owes me something. I worried through the Tech because he insistedthat I should have a profession; and now I am going in for field work with you in a howlingwinter wilderness because he insists on a practical demonstration. I shall ossify out therein those mountains. It's written in the book.""Humph it's too bad about you," said the other ironically. He was a fit figure of a man, clean-cut and vigorous, from the steadfast outlook of the gray eyes and the firm, smoothshaven jaw to the square fingertips of the strong hands, and his smile was of good-naturedcontempt. "As you say, it is an outrage on filial complaisance. All the same, with the right-ofway fight in prospect, Quartz Creek Canyon may not prove to be such a valley of dry bonesas-Look out, ther
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