d his leather belt
another inch. It came over him all at once that he was frightfully
hungry. For the last two days he and his partner had been travelling on
short rations, and to-day they had been on the go since before sun-up.
For a moment the wild idea came to him of jumping on the train and
riding down to Aroya just so he could take a seat in the dining-car and
eat his fill.

"They wouldn't make much out of me at a dollar a throw," he reflected,
with a grin. But it wouldn't be fair to Craig, and he abandoned the idea
in the next breath. He couldn't stand there any longer, though, and see
that man eat. He addressed himself to the closed window before he turned
away.

"I hope it chokes you," he muttered, venomously.

Some of the passengers had descended from the day coach to stretch their
limbs, and with a desire to avoid them Wade walked toward the rear of
the train. Daylight dies hard up here in the mountains, but at last
twilight held the world, a clear, starlit twilight. Overhead the vault
of heaven was hung with deep blue velvet, pricked out with a million
diamonds. Up the slope the camp-fire glowed ruddily. In the west the
smouldering sunset embers had cooled to ashes of dove-gray and steel,
against which Sierra Blanca crouched, a grim, black giant. Wade had
reached the observation platform at the end of the sleeping-car. With a
tired sigh he turned toward the slope and the beckoning fire. But the
sound of a closing door brought his head around and the fire no longer
beckoned.

On the platform, one hand on the knob of the car door as though
meditating retreat, stood the straight, slim figure of a girl. She wore
a light skirt and a white waist, and a bunch of flowers drooped from her
breast. Her head was uncovered and the soft brown hair waved lustrously
away from a face of ivory. The eyes that looked down into his reflected
the stars in their depths, the gently-parted mouth was like a vivid red
rosebud in the dusk. To Wade she seemed the very Spirit of Twilight,
white and slim and ethereal, and so suddenly had the apparition sprung
into his vision that he was startled and bewildered. For a long moment
their looks held. Then, somewhat faintly,

"Why have we stopped?" she asked.

So unreal had she looked that his heart pounded with relief when she
spoke.

"There's a hot-box," he answered, in the tones of one repeating a lesson
learned. His eyes devoured her face hungrily.

"Oh!" said the girl, softly. "