sound in that breathless noon. The station agent ate as if he had never
been fed before, apologizing every time he took another piece of fried
chicken. Giddy was unabashed before the devilled eggs of which he had
spoken so scornfully last night. After lunch the men lit their pipes and
lay back against the uprights that supported the tank.

"This is the sunny side of railroading, all right," Giddy drawled
luxuriously.

"You fellows grumble too much," said Mrs. Kronborg as she corked the
pickle jar. "Your job has its drawbacks, but it don't tie you down. Of
course there's the risk; but I believe a man's watched over, and he
can't be hurt on the railroad or anywhere else if it's intended he
shouldn't be."

Giddy laughed. "Then the trains must be operated by fellows the Lord has
it in for, Mrs. Kronborg. They figure it out that a railroad man's only
due to last eleven years; then it's his turn to be smashed."

"That's a dark Providence, I don't deny," Mrs. Kronborg admitted. "But
there's lots of things in life that's hard to understand."

"I guess!" murmured Giddy, looking off at the spotted white hills.

Ray smoked in silence, watching Thea and her mother clear away the
lunch. He was thinking that Mrs. Kronborg had in her face the same
serious look that Thea had; only hers was calm and satisfied, and Thea's
was intense and questioning. But in both it was a large kind of look,
that was not all the time being broken up and convulsed by trivial
things. They both carried their heads like Indian women, with a kind of
noble unconsciousness. He got so tired of women who were always nodding
and jerking; apologizing, deprecating, coaxing, insinuating with their
heads.

When Ray's party set off again that afternoon the sun beat fiercely into
the cupola, and Thea curled up in one of the seats at the back of the
car and had a nap.

As the short twilight came on, Giddy took a turn in the cupola, and Ray
came down and sat with Thea on the rear platform of the caboose and
watched the darkness come in soft waves over the plain. They were now
about thirty miles from Denver, and the mountains looked very near. The
great toothed wall behind which the sun had gone down now separated into
four distinct ranges, one behind the other. They were a very pale blue,
a color scarcely stronger than wood smoke, and the sunset had left
bright streaks in the snow-filled gorges. In the clear, yellow-streaked
sky the stars were coming out, flicke