16 Rod, Gun, and Palette in the High Rockies 



They sweep and. soar and tower. One can only contemplate 

 in silence, and thankfulness that it has been given one to see these 

 things, the while there hangs in memory — haply to an old Gregor- 

 ian chant remembered from school days' morning chapel — a 

 sentence from the Venite: "In his hand are the four corners of 

 the earth, and the strength of the hills is his also." 



"The strength of the hills" — that's the word. 



The dining car is deserted, except for the waiters and the 

 steward at his typewriter, preparing his bills for the day. Over 

 an early cup of tea, the steward is good enough to talk to me. 

 He is a spare, dark man, carrying responsibility with polite ease, 

 and with a manner of speaking that makes one feel he has a work- 

 man's pride in his job. A comment on the finished perfection of 

 the service his men give, and the utter invisibility of his machinery 

 brings the acknowledgment: "There is a good bit of it. " 



He fishes out a requisition sheet for food, wines, and cigars 

 only, and passes it to me with a smile. I count the items in half 

 a column, and mentally add seven close set columns of small type. 



"Five hundred and twenty-five items," I sum. 



"Exclusive of crockery, napery, silver, and housekeeping 

 supplies," he nods. "To provide for an estimated — no — worked- 

 out average of between forty and fifty guests one meal each be- 

 tween Chicago and Ogden at this time of year." 



"That, of course, means bookkeeping?" 



"Yes, but mine lies within defined limits. The really fine 

 figuring is done at the head office on the separate reports from 

 each car taken all together." 



Our further talk covered the heads of the difference between 

 scientific, non-wasting provision for variable travel, and provision 

 for large bodies of men moving all together, provision for railway 

 construction camps and section hands, cooking, and provisioning 

 in old-time lumber camps on the coast; his trip through the 

 Canadian Rockies and Selkirks to Vancouver and back in charge 

 of commissariat for Mr. Schiff of Kuhn, Loeb and Co. ; his firm 

 conviction that travelers should see America first, and the proba- 

 bility that they would next season, as a result of the war. His 

 own home place was Omaha, and he had a wife, and two children 

 going to school. 



One took note of the fact that the conductors and trainmen 



