crossing. The train, its
clanging bell slowing for the stop, ground to a halt, the conductor
swinging from a platform to glance at the "clear" board. He waved
"ahead" as Sandy and Molly raced up and clambered to the platform from
which the trainman had dropped off. Now the latter remounted while the
train restarted, gathered speed.

"Where to?" he asked Sandy, surveying the pair of them curiously.

Sandy did not answer. He was watching four running figures coming down
the street. A star flashed on the breast of one of them, a star dulled
with mud. Goodwin had disappeared. Jordan pulled up, Plimsoll close
behind him, and the depot building shut off Sandy's view.

"Where to?" asked the conductor again. "Got reservations?"

"Bound for Boville, New Mexico. On the El Paso and Southwestern. What's
the charges? No reservations, but we rode fifty mile' across the mesa to
make the train."

Sandy produced his roll and at the same time he grinned in the light of
the conductor's lantern. And Sandy's smile was worth much more than
ordinary currency. It stamped him bona-fide, certified his character.
The conductor's profession made him apt at such endorsements.

"We take you to Phoenix," he said. "Change there for El Paso. I can give
you a spare upper for the lady."

Molly, all eyes, tired though they were, was staring at the Pullman
Afro-American, flashing eyes and teeth and buttons at her and even more
at Sandy.

"Fine!" said Sandy. "Smoker's good enough fo' me. He's got a bed for
you, Molly. See you in the morning."

He waited, countenancing her while she climbed the short ladder to the
already curtained berth. Molly's system might be aquiver with wonder but
she never showed loss of wits or poise. She might have traveled so a
hundred times. Back of the curtain she curled up half-undressed but,
even as Sandy registered to himself with a low chuckle: "She never
turned a hair or shied."

He found the smoking-room empty and rolled cigarettes. Presently the
conductor came in to go over his batch of tickets and accounts.

"Cattle?" he asked Sandy.

"Yes, sir. Three Star Ranch, nigh to Hereford."

"Business good these days? Beef's high enough in the city."

"It's fair in the main," answered Sandy. "Sometimes we seem right happy
an' prosperous an' then ag'in," he added with a twinkle in his eyes,
"we're jest a jump ahead of the sheriff."

"Boss," said the porter to the conductor, later, "Ah reckon that's a bad
man fo' s