eceding
cliff. "Her eyes are hazel," he thought, "with turquoise lights. I never
heard of such a combination, but--it's fine."

A little later, when he went in to take his seat, he found her in the
chair across the aisle. The train was skirting the bluffs of Keechelus
then, and she had taken off her coat and hat and sat watching the
unfolding lake. His side glance swept her slender, gray-clad figure to the
toe of one trim shoe, braced lightly on her footstool, and returned to her
face. In profile it was a new delight. One caught the upward curl of her
black lashes; the suggestion of a fault in the tip of her high, yet
delicately chiseled nose; the piquant curve of her short upper lip; the
full contour of the lifted chin. Her hair, roughened some, was soft and
fine and black with bluish tones.

The temptation to watch her was very great, and Tisdale squared his
shoulders resolutely and swung his chair more towards his own window,
which did not afford a view of the lake. He wanted to see this new
railroad route through the Cascades. This Pass of Snoqualmie had always
been his choice of a transcontinental line. And he was approaching new
territory; he never had pushed down the eastern side from the divide. He
had chosen this roundabout way purposely, with thirty miles of horseback
at the end, when the Great Northern would have put him directly into the
Wenatchee Valley and within a few miles of that tract of Weatherbee's he
was going to see.

There were few travelers in the observation car, and for a while nothing
broke the silence but the clamp and rush of the wheels on the down-grade,
then the man with a camera entered and came down the aisle as far as the
new passenger's chair. "I hope you'll excuse me," he said, "I'm Daniels,
representing the _Seattle Press_, and I thought you would like to see this
story go in straight."

Tisdale swung his chair a little towards the open rear door, so that he
was able to watch without seeming to see the progress of the comedy. He
was quick enough to catch the sweeping look she gave the intruder, aloof
yet fearless, as though she saw him across an invisible barrier. "You mean
you are a reporter," she asked quietly, "and are writing an account of the
accident for your newspaper?"

"Yes." Daniels dropped his cap into the next chair and seated himself
airily on the arm. The camera swung by a carrying strap from his shoulder,
and he opened a notebook, which he supported on his knee wh