es. When Miss Carteret let herself out of the rear door, Jastrow
disappeared in the opposite direction, passing through the forward
vestibule and dropping cat-like from the step to inch his way silently
over the treacherous snow-crust to a convenient spying place at the
other end of the car.

Unfortunately for the spying purpose, the shades were drawn behind the
two great windows and the glass door, but the starlight sufficed to
show the watcher a shadowy Miss Virginia standing motionless on the
side which gave her an outlook down the canyon, leaning out, it might
be, to anticipate the upcoming of some one from the construction camp
below.

The secretary, shivering in the knife-like wind slipping down from the
bald peaks, had not long to wait. By the time his eyes were fitted to
the darkness he heard a man coming up the track, the snow crunching
frostily under his steady stride. Jastrow ducked under the platform
and gained a viewpoint on the other side of the car. The crunching
footfalls had ceased, and a man was swinging himself up to the forward
step of the Rosemary. At the instant a voice just above the spy's head
called softly, "Mr. Winton!" and the new-comer dropped back into the
snow and came tramping to the rear.

It was an awkward moment for Jastrow; but he made shift to dodge
again, and so to be out of the way when the engineer drew himself up
and climbed the hand-rail to stand beside his summoner.

The secretary saw him take her hand and heard her exclamation, half
indignant, wholly reproachful:

"You had my note: I told you not to come!"

"So you did, and yet you were expecting me," he asserted. He was still
holding her hand, and she could not--or did not--withdraw it.

"Was I, indeed!" There was a touch of the old-time raillery in the
words, but it was gone when she added: "Oh, why will you keep on
coming and coming when you know so well what it means to you and your
work?"

"I think you know the answer to that better than anyone," he rejoined,
his voice matching hers for earnestness. "It is because I love you;
because I could not stay away if I should try. Forgive me, dear; I did
not mean to speak so soon. But you said in your note that you would be
leaving Argentine immediately--that I should not see you again: so I
had to come. Won't you give me a word, Virginia?--a waiting word, if
it must be that?"

Jastrow held his breath, hope dying within him and sullen ferocity
crouching for the spring i