arm, he thought, and it could not make
much difference if Miss Georgie did not hear of it immediately.

CHAPTER XXIV. PEACEFUL RETURNS

That afternoon when the four-thirty-five rushed in from the parched
desert and slid to a panting halt beside the station platform, Peaceful
Hart emerged from the smoker, descended quietly to the blistering
planks, and nodded through the open window to Miss Georgie at her
instrument taking train orders.

Behind him perspired Baumberger, purple from the heat and the beer with
which he had sought to allay the discomfort of that searing sunlight.

"Howdy, Miss Georgie?" he wheezed, as he passed the window. "Ever see
such hot weather in your life? _I_ never did."

Miss Georgie glanced at him while her fingers rattled her key, and it
struck her that Baumberger had lost a good deal of his oily amiability
since she saw him last. He looked more flabby and loose-lipped than
ever, and his leering eyes were streaked plainly with the red veins
which told of heavy drinking. She gave him a nod cool enough to lower
the thermometer several degrees, and scribbled away upon the yellow pad
under her hand as if Baumberger had sunk into the oblivion her temper
wished for him. She looked up immediately, however, and leaned forward
so that she could see Peaceful just turning to go down the steps.

"Oh, Mr. Hart! Will you wait a minute?" she called clearly above the
puffing of the engine. "I've something for you here. Soon as I get this
train out--" She saw him stop and turn back to the office, and let it go
at that for the present.

"I sure have got my nerve," she observed mentally when the conductor
had signaled the engineer and swung up the steps of the smoker, and the
wheels were beginning to clank. All she had for Peaceful Hart in that
office was anxiety over his troubles. "Just held him up to pry into his
private affairs," she put it bluntly to herself. But she smiled at him
brightly, and waited until Baumberger had gone lumbering with rather
uncertain steps to the store, where he puffed up the steps and sat
heavily down in the shade where Pete Hamilton was resting after the
excitement of the past thirty-six hours.

"I lied to you, Mr. Hart," she confessed, engagingly. "I haven't a thing
for you except a lot of questions, and I simply must ask them or die.
I'm not just curious, you know. I'm horribly anxious. Won't you take the
seat of honor, please? The ranch won't run off if you aren't there