"I don't blame you for cussing it out," he said; and the saying of it was a mark of the relaxed discipline which was creeping into all branches of the service. "Mr. Loring's car is anybody's private wagon these days. Can you make your time with her?"

"Not on yer life," Callahan growled. "Is it the owld potgutted thafe iv a rayceiver that's in her?"

"Yes; with Governor Bucks and a party of his friends. I take it you ought to feel honored."

"Do I?" snapped Callahan. "If I don't make thim junketers think they're in the scuff iv a cyclone whin I get thim on the crooks beyant Dolores ye can gimme time, Misther M'Tosh. Where do I get shut iv thim?"

"At Agua Caliente. They are going to the hotel at Breezeland, I suppose.

There is your signal to pull out."

"I'll go whin I'm dommed good an' ready," said Callahan, jabbing the snout of his oiler into the link machinery. And again M'Tosh let the breach of discipline go without reproof.

Breezeland Inn, the hotel at Agua Caliente, is a year-round resort for asthmatics and other health seekers, with a sanatorium annex which utilizes the waters of the warm springs for therapeutic purposes. But during the hot months the capital and the plains cities to the eastward send their quota of summer idlers and the house fills to its capacity.

It was for this reason that Mr. Brookes Ormsby, looking for a comfortable resort to which he might take Mrs. Brentwood and her daughters for an outing, hit upon the expedient of going first in person to Breezeland, partly to make sure of accommodations, and partly to check up the attractions of the place against picturesque descriptions in the advertis.e.m.e.nts.

When he turned out of his sleeper in the early morning at Agua Caliente station, car Naught-seven had been thrown in on a siding a little farther up the line, and Ormsby recognized the burly person of the governor and the florid face and pursy figure of the receiver, in the group of men crossing from the private car to the waiting Inn tally-ho. Being a seasoned traveler, the club-man lost no time in finding the station agent.

"Isn't there some way you can get me up to the hotel before that crowd reaches?" he asked; adding: "I'll make it worth your while."

The reply effaced the necessity for haste.

"The Inn auto will be down in a few minutes, and you can go up in that.

Naught-seven brought Governor Bucks and the receiver and their party, and they're going down to Megilp, the mining camp on the other side of the State line. They've chartered the tally-ho for the day."

Ormsby waited, and a little later was whisked away to the hotel in the tonneau of the guests' automobile. Afterward came a day which was rather hard to get through. Breakfast, a leisurely weighing and measuring of the climatic, picturesque and health-mending conditions, and the writing of a letter or two helped him wear out the forenoon; but after luncheon the time dragged dispiteously, and he was glad enough when the auto-car came to take him to the station for the evening train.

As it happened, there were no other pa.s.sengers for the east-bound Flyer; and finding he still had some minutes to wait, Ormsby lounged into the telegraph office. Here the bonds of ennui were loosened by the gradual development of a little mystery. First the telephone bell rang smartly, and when the telegraph operator took down the ear-piece and said "Well?"

in the imperious tone common to his kind, he evidently received a communication that shocked him.

Ormsby overheard but a meager half of the wire conversation; and the excitement, whatever its nature, was at the other end of the line. None the less, the station agent's broken e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns were provocative of keen interest in a man who had been boring himself desperately for the better part of a day.

"Caught him doing it, you say?... Great Scott!... Oh, I don't believe that, you know ... yes--uh-huh--I hear ... But who did the shooting?"

Whether the information came or not, Ormsby did not know, for at this conjuncture the telegraph instruments on the table set up a furious chattering, and the railway man dropped the receiver and sprang to his key.

This left the listener out of it completely, and Ormsby strolled out to the platform, wondering what had happened and where it had happened. He glanced up at the telephone wires: two of them ran up the graveled driveway toward Breezeland Inn; the poles of the other two sentineled the road to the west down which the tally-ho had driven in the early morning.

In the reflective instant the telegraph operator dashed out of his bay-windowed retreat and ran up the track to the private car. In a few minutes he was back again, holding an excited conference with the chauffeur of the Inn automobile, who was waiting to see if the Flyer should bring him any fares for the hotel.

Curiosity is said to be peculiarly a foible feminine. It is not, as every one knows. But of the major masculine allotment, Ormsby the masterful had rather less than his due share. He saw the chauffeur turn his car in the length of it and send it spinning down the road and across the line into the adjoining State; heard the mellow whistle of the incoming train, and saw the station man nervously setting his stop signal; all with no more than a mild desire to know the reason for so much excitement and haste--a desire which was content to wait on the explanation of events.

The explanation, such as it was, did not linger. The heavy train thundered in from the west; stopped barely long enough to allow the single pa.s.senger to swing up the steps of the Pullman; and went on again to stop a second time with a jerk when it had pa.s.sed the side-track switch.

Ormsby put his head out of the window and saw that the private car was to be taken on; remarked also that the thing was done with the utmost celerity. Once out on the main line with car Naught-seven coupled in, the train was backed swiftly down to the station and the small mystery of hurryings was sufficiently solved. The governor and his party were returning, and they did not wish to miss connections.

Ormsby had settled back into the corner of his section when he heard the spitting explosions of the automobile and the crash of hoofs and iron-tired wheels on the sharp gravel. He looked out again and was in time to see the finish of the race. Up the road from the westward came the six-horse tally-ho, the horses galloping in the traces and the automobile straining in the lead at the end of an improvised tow-line. In a twinkling the coach was abreast of the private car, the transfer of pa.s.sengers was effected, and Ormsby was near enough at his onlooking window to remark several things: that there was pell-mell haste and suppressed excitement; that the governor was the coolest man in the group; and that the receiver had to be helped across from the coach to the car. Then the train moved out, gathering speed with each added wheel-turn.

The onlooker leaned from his window to see what became of the tangle of horses and auto-car precipitated by the sudden stop of the tally-ho.

Mirage effects are common on the western plains, and if Ormsby had not been familiar with them he might have marveled at the striking example afforded by the backward look. In the rapidly increasing perspective the six horses of the tally-ho were suddenly multiplied into a troop; and where the station agent had stood on the platform there seemed to be a dozen gesticulating figures fading into indistinctness, as the fast train swept on its way eastward.

The club-man saw no more of the junketing party that night. Once when the train stopped to cut out the dining-car, and he had stepped down for a breath of fresh air on the station platform, he noticed that the private car was brilliantly lighted, and that the curtains and window shades were closely drawn. Also, he heard the popping of bottle corks and the clink of gla.s.s, betokening that the governor's party was still celebrating its successful race for the train. Singularly enough, Ormsby's reflections concerned themselves chiefly with the small dishonesty.

"I suppose it all goes into the receiver's expense account and the railroad pays for it," he said to himself. "So and so much for an inspection trip to Megilp and return. I must tell Kent about it. It will put another shovelful of coal into his furnace--not that he is especially needing it."

At the moment of this saying--it was between ten and eleven o'clock at night--David Kent's wrath-fire was far from needing an additional stoking.

Once more Miss Van Brock had given proof of her prophetic gift, and Kent had been moodily filling in the details of the picture drawn by her woman's intuition. He had gone late to the house in Alameda Square, knowing that Portia had dinner guests. And it was imperative that he should have her to himself.

"You needn't tell me anything but the manner of its doing," she was saying. "I knew they would find a way to stop you--or make one. And you needn't be spiteful at me," she added, when Kent gripped the arms of his chair.

"I don't mind your saying 'I told you so'," he fumed. "It's the fact that I didn't have sense enough to see what an easy game I was dealing them. It didn't take Meigs five minutes to shut me off."

"Tell me about it," she said; and he did it crisply.

"The _quo warranto_ inquiry is inst.i.tuted in the name of the State; or rather the proceedings are brought by some person with the approval of the governor or the attorney-general, one or both. I took to-day for obtaining this approval because I knew Bucks was out of town and I thought I could bully Meigs."

"And you couldn't?" she said.

"Not in a thousand years. At first he said he would take the matter under advis.e.m.e.nt: I knew that meant a consultation with Bucks. Then I put the whip on; told him a few of the things I know, and let him imagine a lot more; but it was no good. He was as smooth as oil, admitting nothing, denying nothing. And what grinds me worst is that I let him put me in fault; gave him a chance to show conclusively how absurd it was for me to expect him to take up a question of such magnitude on the spur of the moment."

"Of course," she said sympathetically. "I knew they would find a way. What are you doing?"

Kent laughed in spite of his sore _amour-propre_.

"At this present moment I am doing precisely what you said I should: unloading my woes upon you."

"Oh, but I didn't say that. I said you would come to me for help. Have you?"

"I'd say yes, if I didn't know so well just what I am up against."

Miss Van Brock laughed unfeelingly.

"Is it a man's weakness to fight better in the dark?"

"It is a man's common sense to know when he is knocked out," he retorted.

She held him with her eyes while she said:

"Tell me what you want to accomplish, David; at the end of the ends, I mean. Is it only that you wish to save Miss Brentwood's little marriage portion?"

He told the simple truth, as who could help, with Portia's eyes demanding it.

"It was that at first; I'll admit it. But latterly--"

"Latterly you have begun to think larger things?" She looked away from him, and her next word seemed to be part of an unspoken thought. "I have been wondering if you are great enough, David."

He shook his head despondently.