she was not going to waste those pennies with frivolities like cabs. She had no choice, though, in the morning; there was no way that she was going to get herself and her heavy trunk to the train station without a cab-unless she was lucky enough to find a cart and driver for hire at that hour.
When she reached the boardinghouse, not only was the schedule waiting, but a telegraph from Jason Cameron himself. In the terse words required by telegraphy, he expressed pleasure that she had chosen to take up the position, promised her needs would be met on the way, and assured her that she would be greeted by his people at the Pacifica switch.
What, she wondered, is a 'Pacifica switch?'
It must mean something to a rail baron, she reasoned. That would have to do for now.
After missing breakfast, she did not intend to skip any other meals although her appetite had vanished again; she managed a luncheon of tea, wafer-thin ham and thick toast, and joined the other girls for a dinner of potato- laden stew with astonishingly little meat in it, more thick slices of bread, and a bread-pudding. On the whole, if this was the daily fare here, she was just as glad not to be staying. A diet so starch-heavy would quickly bloat even the slimmest person.
She took to her bed early, like the nurses who had awakened her, for her first train left the station almost at dawn. After so much walking and emotional turmoil, she was exhausted and drained.
Her last thought before sleep finally caught her was actually one of wonder-wonder at herself, for having made so clear and final a break between her past and her future. Perhaps it was true that despair could drive people to heroism and daring.
But she went into sleep, not with a feeling of excitement, but of resignation. She might be stepping off into the unknown, but it was not with a sense of adventure.
Perhaps that, too, had died with her father. She had once greeted each day with anticipation. Now, her only hope was that the new day would not be worse than the old.
And when all was said and done, for that, too, she had an answer, in a small bottle in her valise....
CHAPTER
TWO
Rose ignored the rocking of the railway car and the steady, vibrating rhythm of the wheels as she ignored the stares of the rude man across from her and kept her eyes firmly fixed on her book. This fellow had gotten on the train at a stop outside Los Angeles; with his 'snappy' checked suit and well-oiled hair, pomaded with brilliantine, he evidently thought he cut quite a fine figure and that she should be well aware of the fact.
She wasn't certain why he had fixed his attention on her, but she wished that he would go away. He had been trying to attract her attention for miles, and she could not imagine what attracted him to her. She was grimy with days of nonstop travel; she hadn't had a bath since Mrs. Abernathy's boardinghouse. Her hair felt so greasy that she thought she must resemble one of those outlandish aboriginal people who coated their locks with oil. Perhaps it was only that she was the only unaccompanied female in the car below the age of sixty. By the huge leather case under his seat, she suspected that he was a drummer-a traveling salesman.
Whatever he's selling, I want none of it.
She was weary to the bone with days of hard traveling. Mrs. Abernathy had awakened her before dawn on the day she had left, with the welcome news that the man who carted away boxes and other 'clean' rubbish was willing to take her and her trunk to the station for half the cost of a cab. She had also given Rose some sound advice in the matter of traveling attire.
'Whatever you put on,' she had warned, 'make certain that it won't show stains, and that it is something you will be willing to throw away at the end of your trip. Believe me, child, you won't want it after that.'
Rose had followed her advice, wearing the dreadful black Manchester-cloth street-skirt and sateen waist she had bought for her father's funeral. The clothing was cheap, but serviceable enough to last the journey and look respectable. She had thought that Mrs. Abernathy had meant that after wearing the same clothing continuously, riding and sleeping in it for days, she would simply never want to see it again.
That might also have been true, but what Mrs. Abernathy had been too well-bred to explain was that the floor of the common railway-carriage-particularly in the West-was filthy. The uncouth men who shared the carriage with her chewed tobacco, and often did not bother to travel to the end of the carriage to use the spittoon. They brought mud and worse in on their boots, and the dust of the plains blew in at the window. The floor was sticky
