in the old
smoking car, to weigh the balance against them from every angle, and to
see failure on every side. But they had become gamblers with Fate; for
one, it was his final opportunity, to take or disregard, with a faint
glimmer of success at one end of the vista, with the wiping out of every
hope at the other. They tried not to look at the gloomy side, but that
was impossible. As the train ground its way up the circuitous grades,
Houston felt that he was headed finally for the dissolution. But there
was at least the consolation about it that within a short time the
uncertainty of his life would be ended; the hopes either crushed forever,
or realized, that--

"Ba'tiste!" They were in the snowsheds at Crestline, and Houston had
pointed excitedly toward a window of the west-bound train, just pulling
past them on the way down the slope. A woman was there, a woman who had
turned her head sharply, but with not enough speed to prevent a sight of
her by the French-Canadian who glanced quickly and gasped:

"The Judas!"

Houston leaped from his seat and ran to the vestibule of the car, but in
vain. It was closed; already the other last coach of the other train was
pulling past and gaining headway with the easier grade. Wondering, he
returned to his seat beside his partner.

"It was she, Ba'tiste," came with conviction. "I got a good look at her
before she noticed me. Then, when I pointed--she turned her head away."

"But Ba'teese, he see her."

"She's going back. What do you suppose it can mean? Can she be--"

"Ba'teese catch the nex' train to Tabernacle so soon as we have finish
our business. Eet is for no good."

"I wonder--" it was a hope, but a faint one--"if she could be coming back
to make amends, Ba'tiste? That--that other thing seemed so unlike the
person who had been so good to me, so apart from the side of her nature
that I knew--"

"She have a bad mouth," Ba'tiste repeated grimly. "She have a bad eye,
she have a bad tongue. A woman with a bad tongue, she is a devil.
You--you no see it, because she come to you with a smile, when every one
else, he frown. You think she is the angel, yes, _oui_? But she come to
Ba'teese different. She talk to you sof' and she try to turn you against
your frien'. Yes. _Oui_? _Ne c'est pas_? Ba'teese see her with the
selfish mouth. Peuff! He see her when she look to heem out from the
corner of her eye--so. Ba'teese know. Ba'teese come back quick, to