any to breakfast in the
Rosemary, Misteh Winton--you and Misteh Adams. No? Then I bid you a
vehy good morning, gentlemen, and hope to see you lateh." And he swung
up to the steps of the private car.

Half an hour afterward, the snow still whirling dismally, Winton and
Adams were cowering over a handful of hissing embers, drinking their
commissary coffee and munching the camp cook's poor excuse for a
breakfast.

"Jig's up pretty definitely, don't you think?" said Adams, with a
glance around at the idle track force huddling for shelter under the
lee of the flats and the octopod.

Winton shook his head and groaned. "I'm a ruined man, Morty."

Adams found his cigarette case.

"I guess that's so," he said quite heartlessly. Then: "Hello! what is
our friend the enemy up to now?"

McGrath's fireman was uncoupling the engine from the Rosemary, and Mr.
Somerville Darrah, complacently lighting his after breakfast cigar,
came across to the hissing ember fire.

"A word with you, gentlemen, if you will faveh me," he began. "I am
about to run down to Argentine on my engine, and I propose leaving the
ladies in your cha'ge, Misteh Winton. Will you give me your word of
honeh, seh, that they will not be annoyed in my absence?"

Winton sprang up, losing his temper again.

"It's--well, it's blessed lucky that you know your man, Mr. Darrah!"
he exploded. "Go on about your business--which is to bring another
army of deputy-sheriffs down on us, I take it. You know well enough
that no man of mine will lay a hand on your car so long as the ladies
are in it."

The Rajah thanked him, dismissed the matter with a Chesterfieldian
wave of his hand, climbed to his place in the cab, and the engine
shrilled away around the curve and disappeared in the snow-wreaths.

Adams rose and stretched himself.

"By Jove! when it comes to cheek, pure and unadulterated, commend me
to a Virginia gentleman who has acquired the proper modicum of Western
bluff," he laughed. Then, with a cavernous yawn dating back to the
sleepless night: "Since there is nothing immediately pressing, I
believe I'll go and call on the ladies. Won't you come along for a
while?"

"No!" said Winton savagely; and the assistant lounged off by himself.

Some little time afterward Winton, glooming over his handful of
spitting embers, saw Adams and Virginia come out to stand together on
the observation platform of the Rosemary. They talked long and
earnestly, and when Winton wa