is name, the torture would become
objective--and blankly unendurable.

Notwithstanding, he found himself looking forward with keen desire to
one more meeting with the beloved tormentor--to a table exchange of
thoughts and speech at the dining-car breakfast which he masterfully
resolved not all the playmakers in a mumming world should forestall or
interrupt.

This determination was shaping itself in the Kentuckian's brain when,
after many futile backings and slack-takings, the ditched car was
finally induced to climb the frogs and to drop successfully upon the
rails. When the obstructing freight began to move, Ballard flung away
the stump of his cigar and climbed the steps of the first open vestibule
on the "Flyer," making his way to the rear between the sleeping
emigrants in the day-coaches.

Being by this time hopelessly wakeful, he filled his pipe and sought the
smoking-compartment of the sleeping-car. It was a measure of his
abstraction that he did not remark the unfamiliarity of the place; all
other reminders failing, he should have realised that the fat negro
porter working his way perspiringly with brush and polish paste through
a long line of shoes was not the man to whom he had given his suit-cases
in the Council Bluffs terminal.

But thinking pointedly of Elsa Craigmiles, and of the joy of sharing
another meal with her in spite of the Lester Wingfields, he saw nothing,
noted nothing; and the reverie, now frankly traversing the field of
sentiment, ran on unbroken until he became vaguely aware that the train
had stopped and started again, and that during the pause there had been
sundry clankings and jerkings betokening the cutting off of a car.

A hasty question fired at the fat porter cleared the atmosphere of
doubt.

"What station was that we just passed?"

"Short Line Junction, sah; whah we leaves the Denver cyar--yes, sah."

"What? Isn't this the Denver car?"

"No, indeed, sah. Dish yer cyar goes on th'oo to Ogden; yes, sah."

Ballard leaned back again and chuckled in ironic self-derision. He was
not without a saving sense of humour. What with midnight prowlings and
sentimental reveries he had managed to sever himself most abruptly and
effectually from his car, from his hand-baggage, from the prefigured
breakfast, with Miss Elsa for his _vis-a-vis_; and, what was of vastly
greater importance, from the chance of a day-long business conference
with President Pelham!

"Gardiner, old man, you are a