ty, and how they would go on
without change to Albuquerque.

There, he said, he must take another train for El Paso, and from El Paso
he must go a distance of twenty miles to the ranch, which lay close to
the border of Mexico, on the Rio Grande.

"But you," he said, quietly, "you can keep straight along in the train
we'll get into at Chicago till you come to Los Angeles. There'll be time
in Chicago to buy your ticket to California, and I can write letters of
introduction. They'll be to good people. You needn't be afraid."

Yet Annesley _was_ afraid, deathly afraid. Not that Knight's friends
would not be "good people," but of going on alone to an unknown place in
an unknown country. It would not have been so terrible, she thought, to
have stayed in New York--if only the Waldos hadn't interfered. But to
have this man--who, after all, was her one link with the old world--get
out of the train which was hurling them through space and leave her to go
on alone!

That was a fearful thing. She could not face the thought--at least not
yet. Perhaps she would feel more courageous to-morrow. On the ship she
had slept little. Her nerves felt like violin strings stretched too
tight--stretched to the point of breaking.

"Does that plan suit you--as well as any other?" Knight was asking.

"I--can't decide yet," the girl answered; and to keep tears back seemed
the most important thing just then. "It doesn't matter, does it, as I
_must_ go on past Kansas City?"

"No, it doesn't matter," Knight agreed. "You've plenty of time. I suppose
you'd like me to leave you now, to rest till dinner time? Here's the
guide-book. You might care to look it over."

But when he had gone Annesley let the book lie unopened on the seat. She
was very tired. She could not think far ahead. Her mind would occupy
itself with the features of the journey, not with her own affairs.

Everything was strange and new. Even the train was wonderful. She had
thought, in the immense station, that the cars looked like a procession
of splendidly built bungalows each painted a different colour and having
brightly polished metal balconies at the end. And inside, the car was
still like a bungalow, or perhaps a houseboat, with neat little panelled
rooms opening all the way down a long aisle.

The coffee-coloured porter and maid were delightful. They smiled at her
kindly, and when they smiled it seemed sadder than ever not to be happy.

The Masons' talk at dinner was dis