private reading at the other end or the car after a while. Now is
there another 'party'? Oh, to be sure; come, Mr. Glover, are all
railroad men romantic? This is growing interesting--let me see your
palm. Oh!"

"Now what have I done?" asked Glover as Louise, studying his palm,
started. "I have changed my name--I admit that; but I have always
denied killing anyone in the States. Are you going to tell the real
facts? Won't someone lend _me_ a hand for a few minutes? Or may I
withdraw this entry before exposure?"

"Mr. Glover! of all the hands! I'm not surprised you were chosen to
show the sights. There's something happening in your hand every few
minutes. Adventures, heart affairs, fortunes, perils--such a
life-line, Mr. Glover. On my word there you are hanging by a hair--a
hair--on the verge of eternity----"

Glover laughed softly.

"Oh, come, Louise," protested Mrs. Whitney. "Touch on lighter lines,
please."

"Lighter lines! Why, Mr. Glover's heart-line is a perfect canyon." The
laughter did not daunt her. "A perfect canyon. I've read about hands
like this, but I never saw one. No more to-night, Mr. Glover, you are
too exciting."

"But about hanging on the verge--has it anything to do with a lynching,
do you think, Miss Donner?" asked Glover. "The hair rope might be a
lariat----"

"Mr. Glover!"--the train conductor opened the car door. "Is Mr. Glover
in this car?"

"Yes."

"A message."

"May I be excused for a moment?" said Glover, rising.

"What did I tell you?" exclaimed Louise, "a telegram! Something has
happened already."

CHAPTER VI

THE CAT AND THE RAT

At five o'clock that evening, snow was falling at Medicine Bend, but
Callahan, as he studied the weather bulletins, found consolation in the
fact that it was not raining, and resting his heels on a table littered
with train-sheets he forced the draft on a shabby brier and meditated.

There were times when snow had been received with strong words at the
Wickiup: but when summer fairly opened Callahan preferred snow to rain
as strongly as he preferred genuine Lone Jack to the spurious compounds
that flooded the Western market.

The chief element of speculation in his evening reflections was as to
what was going on west of the range, for Callahan knew through cloudy
experience that what happens on one side of a mountain chain is no
evidence as to what is doing on the other--and by species of warm
weather depravity tha