nfallible.
And though he had turned quickly away, after putting her aboard; though
she had no way of guessing that he had gone back to find Devereau, she
was filled just the same with what remained, for a long time at least,
a happy certainty. She'd see him again sometime. She had to!

But Devereau had known better than to linger near the baggage truck.
So after he had looked beneath it and upon it and all around it and
found nobody, Blue Jeans turned and watched the red tail-light of the
train disappear.

Who shall say where fancy first was bred? Not you--or I--nor even Blue
Jeans. For he had not even seen her yet, not with seeing eyes. Here
was yet no chapter of his Dream.

"A decent girl!" was what he muttered. "A decent girl--I'd swear it!"

And he looked again, eagerly, beneath the truck.

An hour later when Blue Jeans heard a man asking for Perry Blair in the
Cactus House, he stepped up. He didn't care for his looks, which was
no novelty so far in this venture.

"I'm Perry Blair," he said.

"I'm Devereau."

And later, over a contract:

"This mentions mighty little money," said Perry, "and that little
bashful and meek."

Perry's manner did not even approximate the respect which Devereau felt
was his due.

"You'll be well taken care of," he stated curtly.

But Perry's answer, like one he had made the huge man, made Devereau
pause and think.

"No doubt at all," said he. "I'll be seeing to that myself."

And they didn't know, not till a long time afterward, that they had met
only a little while before. It had been dark at the platform's end.
Perry had caught nothing save a canine grin.

CHAPTER IV

ALL ELSE IS HERESY

There are certain people, good people to whom orthodox precepts and
preachments are more than the constant evidence of their own eyes, who
will find displeasure in this story. For they are accustomed to a
formula in all such tales and are not likely to abide a departure from
it.

By it they have come to know immediately, whenever a woman with
instincts of doubtful propriety is introduced early in the action, just
what to expect. Her doom has struck. The frightful end which will be
hers is only a deferred matter still in the hands of her historian: The
dark river, a rushing car over an embankment to swift oblivion, a
living agony of remorse,--the rewards it will be noted bear a distinct
resemblance each to the other. For the wages of sin have long been
classifi