or?"

"The steamer does, I believe. I left the steamer there and went to
the hotel for a while and spent another while at Thebes with a
friend of mine."

"The excavator!" cried Arlee quickly.

"Then you do remember," said Billy with a direct look, "that dance
and----"

"And our talk," she finished gaily. "And your being Phi Beta Kappa.
Oh, I was properly impressed! And I didn't know then that you were a
regular Sherlock Holmes as well."

"I didn't know it either," said Billy grinning. But he knew that she
didn't know now how much of a Sherlock Holmes he had managed to be
for her.

"That seems ages ago," she declared, "and in an altogether different
world. The only real world seems to be this desert----"

"Bedouin breakfast and camel races," finished Billy. "And it's so
much of a lark for me that I can't keep my mind on the problem of
the future. But I have to get you to Luxor by to-morrow night----"

"And I can't arrive in the rags and tatters of a white silk calling
gown," mentioned Arlee cheerfully, surveying her disreputable and
most delightful disarray. "I must have trunks and a respectable
air--and a chaperon, I suppose."

"And I won't do at that. But if you get to Luxor you'll be all
right. You can go to the hotel and to-morrow night the Evershams'
boat will get in about seven in the evening."

"Did you say my trunks were sent to Cook's?"

He repeated the story of the telegram to the Evershams. Over the
arrival of the boy with money for her hotel bill she wrinkled her
brows in perplexity. "I suppose he thought there would be less
discussion about me if my bills were paid," she said finally. "But
I'd like to get that money back to him."

"I'll see he gets it--with interest," responded Billy.

"And you----?" She looked up at him with a startled, vivid blush
that stained her soft skin from throat to brow. "You must have been
to a great deal of expense----"

"Not a bit. Please don't----"

"But I must. When I get to a bank. I still have my letter of credit
with me," she said thankfully, "but it didn't do me any good in that
wretched palace. It was just paper to them. I showed it to the girl
once and tried to make her understand."

"The first station we find we'd better wire for your trunks to be
sent by express to Cook's at Luxor--or to the Grand Hotel. And then
you can take the train straight to Luxor and buy some clothes
there."

"But the train--I can't travel in this! And there would be peopl