past master of diplomacy. So, while
the sympathetic part of her was crying out for a chance to talk
Winton's threatened danger over with some one, she lent herself
outwardly to the Reverend Billy's mood--which was one of scenic
enthusiasm; this without prejudice to a growing determination to
intervene in behalf of fair play for Winton if she could find a way.

But the way obstinately refused to discover itself. The simple thing
to do would be to appeal to her uncle's sense of justice. It was not
like him to fight with ignoble weapons, she thought, and a tactful
word in season might make him recall the order to the superintendent.
But she could not make the appeal without betraying Jastrow. She knew
well enough that the secretary had no right to show her the telegrams;
knew also that Mr. Somerville Darrah's first word would be a demand to
know how she had learned the company's business secrets. Regarding
Jastrow as little as a high-bred young woman to whom sentiment is as
the breath of life can regard a man who is quite devoid of it, she was
still far enough from the thought of effacing him.

To this expedient there was an unhopeful alternative: namely, the
sending, by the Reverend Billy, or, in the last resort, by herself, of
a warning message to Winton. But there were obstacles seemingly
insuperable. She had not the faintest notion of how such a warning
should be addressed; and again, the operator at Argentine was a
Colorado and Grand River employee, doubtless loyal to his salt, in
which case the warning message would never get beyond his
waste-basket.

"Getting too chilly for you out here? Want to go in?" asked the
Reverend Billy, when the scenic enthusiasm began to outwear itself.

"No; but I am tired of the sentry-go part of it--ten steps and a
turn," she confessed. "Can't we walk on the track a little way?"

Calvert saw no reason why they might not, and accordingly helped her
over to the snow-encrusted path between the rails.

"We can trot down and have a look at their construction camp, if you
like," he suggested, and thitherward they went.

There was not much to see, after all, as the Reverend Billy remarked
when they had reached a coign of vantage below the curve. A string of
use-worn bunk cars; a "dinkey" caboose serving as the home on wheels
of the chief of construction and his assistant; a crooked siding with
a gang of dark-skinned laborers at work unloading a car of steel.
These in the immediate for