ly to make sure of accommodations, and partly to check up the
attractions of the place against picturesque descriptions in the
advertisements.

When he turned out of his sleeper in the early morning at Agua Caliente
station, car Naught-seven had been thrown in on a siding a little farther
up the line, and Ormsby recognized the burly person of the governor and
the florid face and pursy figure of the receiver, in the group of men
crossing from the private car to the waiting Inn tally-ho. Being a
seasoned traveler, the club-man lost no time in finding the station agent.

"Isn't there some way you can get me up to the hotel before that crowd
reaches?" he asked; adding: "I'll make it worth your while."

The reply effaced the necessity for haste.

"The Inn auto will be down in a few minutes, and you can go up in that.
Naught-seven brought Governor Bucks and the receiver and their party, and
they're going down to Megilp, the mining camp on the other side of the
State line. They've chartered the tally-ho for the day."

Ormsby waited, and a little later was whisked away to the hotel in the
tonneau of the guests' automobile. Afterward came a day which was rather
hard to get through. Breakfast, a leisurely weighing and measuring of the
climatic, picturesque and health-mending conditions, and the writing of a
letter or two helped him wear out the forenoon; but after luncheon the
time dragged dispiteously, and he was glad enough when the auto-car came
to take him to the station for the evening train.

As it happened, there were no other passengers for the east-bound Flyer;
and finding he still had some minutes to wait, Ormsby lounged into the
telegraph office. Here the bonds of ennui were loosened by the gradual
development of a little mystery. First the telephone bell rang smartly,
and when the telegraph operator took down the ear-piece and said "Well?"
in the imperious tone common to his kind, he evidently received a
communication that shocked him.

Ormsby overheard but a meager half of the wire conversation; and the
excitement, whatever its nature, was at the other end of the line. None
the less, the station agent's broken ejaculations were provocative of keen
interest in a man who had been boring himself desperately for the better
part of a day.

"Caught him doing it, you say?... Great Scott!... Oh, I don't believe
that, you know ... yes--uh-huh--I hear ... But who did the shooting?"
Whether the information came or not,