r in the employ of an Eastern railway. During
Hayne's "mountain-station" exile Hurley had brought his wife to Denver,
where far better prospects awaited him. He won promotion in his
profession, and was now one of the principal engineers employed by a
road running new lines through the Colorado Rockies. Journeying to Salt
Lake, he came around by way of Warrener, so that his wife and he might
have a look at the brother she had not seen in years. Their train was
due there early in the afternoon, but was blocked by drifts and did not
reach the station until late at night. There they found a note from him
begging them to take a carriage they would find waiting for them and
come right out and spend the night at his quarters: he would send them
back in abundant time to catch the westward train in the morning. He
could not come in, because that involved the necessity of asking his
captain's permission, and they knew his relations with that captain. It
was her shadow Buxton had seen on the window-screen; and as none of
Buxton's acquaintances had ever mentioned that Hayne had any relations,
and as Hayne, in fact, had had no one for years to talk to about his
personal affairs, nobody but himself and the telegraph-operator at the
post really knew of their sudden visit. Buxton, being an unmitigated
cad, had put the worst interpretation on his discovery, and, in his
eagerness to clinch the evidence of conduct unbecoming an officer and a
gentleman upon Mr. Hayne, had taken no wise head into his confidence.
Never dreaming that the shadow could be that of a blood-relation, never
doubting that a fair, frail companion from the frontier town was the
explanation of Mr. Hayne's preference for that out-of-the way house and
late hours, he stated his discovery to Rayner as a positive fact, going
so far as to say that his sentries had recognized her as she drove away
in the carriage. If he had not been an ass as well as a cad, he would
have interviewed the driver of the carriage; but he had jumped at his
theory, and his sudden elevation to the command of the post gave him
opportunity to carry out his virtuous determination that no such
goings-on should disgrace his administration. He gave instructions to
certain soldier clerks and "daily-duty" men employed in the
quartermaster, commissary, and ordnance offices along Prairie Avenue to
keep their eyes open and let him know of any visitors coming out to
Hayne's by night, and if a lady came in a carri