he caught the soft warm glow
of her eyes and the shimmer of gold-brown tendrils of her hair. And he knew
why she wore that veil. It set his heart beating swiftly--the fact that she
was trying to hide from all eyes but his own a beauty so pure and wonderful
that it made her uncomfortable when under the staring gaze of the Horde.

The hand that rested on his arm he pressed closer to his side as they
walked up the station platform, and under his breath he laughed softly and
joyously as he felt the thrill of it. He spoke no word. Not until they were
in their seat in the coach did Joanne look at him after that pressure of
her hand, and then she did not speak. But in the veiled glow of her eyes
there was something that told him she understood--a light that was
wonderfully gentle and sweet. And yet, without words, she asked him to
keep within his soul the things that were pounding madly there for speech.

As the train rolled on and the babble of voices about them joined the
crunching rumble of the wheels, he wanted to lean close to her and tell her
how a few hours had changed the world for him. And then, for a moment, her
eyes turned to him again, and he knew that it would be a sacrilege to give
voice to the things he wanted to say. For many minutes he was silent,
gazing with her upon the wild panorama of mountain beauty as it drifted
past the car window. A loud voice two seats ahead of them proclaimed that
they were about to make Templeton's Curve. The man was talking to his
companion.

"They shot up a hundred thousand pounds of black powder an' dynamite to
make way for two hundred feet of steel on that curve," he explained in a
voice heard all over the car. "They say you could hear the explosion fifty
miles away. Jack Templeton was near-sighted, an' he didn't see a rock
coming down on him that was half as big as a house. I helped scrape up what
was left of 'im an' we planted him at this end of the curve. It's been
Templeton's Curve ever since. You'll see his grave--with a slab over it!"

It was there almost as he spoke, marked by a white-painted cross in a
circle of whitewashed stones. John Aldous felt a sudden shiver pass through
his companion. She turned from the window. Through her veil he saw her lips
tighten. Until he left the car half an hour later the man in the second
seat ahead talked of Templeton's grave and a dozen other graves along the
right of way. He was a rock-hog, and a specialist on the subject of
graves