t."

"Not in that direction, you may be sure. You said we were to do as we
pleased, and I don't please to go back to Denver. But Mr. Burton seemed
to be quite anxious about it, for some reason. I wonder why?"

"So do I," rejoined Brockway, innocently.

Gertrude stole a glance at him, and he tried to look inscrutable, and
failed. Then they both laughed.

"You are keeping something back; tell me all about it," Gertrude
commanded.

"I am afraid you will be very angry if I do."

"I shall be quite furious if you don't. My! how close that rock was!"

The train was storming up the canyon, dodging back and forth from wall
to wall, roaring over diminutive bridges, and vying with the foaming
torrent at the track-side in its twistings and turnings. The noise was
deafening, but it was bearable, since it served to isolate them.

"Does the compact mean that we are to have no secrets from each other?"
he asked, not daring to anticipate the answer; but Gertrude parried the
direct question.

"What do two people who are trying to be very young and foolish and
irresponsible know about secrets?" she demanded. "You are beating about
the bush, and I won't have it. Tell me!"

For reply, he took the telegram from his pocket, opened it, smoothed it
carefully on his knee, and handed it to her. She read it at a glance,
and a faint flush came and went in her cheek, but whether of vexation or
not he could not determine.

"You are very daring," she said, passing the square of paper back to
him, and her voice was so low that he barely caught the words.

"You told me I wasn't to do anything that I meant to do: I certainly did
not premeditate intercepting your telegrams--or answering them," he
added.

"Then you have answered it? How?"

He turned the paper over and wrote his reply on the back, word for word.

"You dared to say that to my father!" she exclaimed. "How could you?"

"Under some circumstances, I think I could dare anything. But you are
angry, as I said you'd be."

"Of course I am--very. I demand to be taken back to Denver this minute."

"Do you mean that?"

"Didn't I say it?"

Brockway tried in vain to read a contradiction in her face, but the
steady eyes were veiled, and it is the eyes that speak when the lips are
silent.

"I'm sorry," he began; "it meant a great deal to me, but I know it was
inexcusable. I'll go and tell Burton, and you can go back from the
Forks, where the trains meet."

Now Gertrude had build