hall find it out."

Frisbie looked horrified.

"You--you certainly will, Miss Adair; if Mr. Colbrith insists upon
having his car dragged over the range." Then, being quite willing to
make his escape, he turned to his chief. "Is there anything else? If
not, I'll be getting back to the Riley mix-up before the trouble has
time to grow any bigger."

Ford shook his head, and Frisbie lifted his hat to Miss Adair and
turned to climb to his engine cab. But at the moment of brake-releasings
Ford halted him.

"One minute," he said; and turning to his charge: "I'll borrow Dick's
engine and take you down to the Nadia's siding, if you'd rather ride
than walk."

"Oh, will you? That would be fine! But oughtn't Mr. Frisbie to get back
to his work?"

"Y-yes," Ford admitted. "Time is rather important, just now."

"Then we'll walk," she said with great decision.

"That's all, Dick," Ford called. "Keep an eye open for Garcia. He might
make a fluke and shoot straight, for once in a way."

They stood in silence on the wind-swept summit until the curving
down-rush of the western grade had swallowed the retreating engine. Miss
Alicia was the first to speak when the iron clamor was distance-drowned.

"I like your Mr. Frisbie," she said reflectively. "Isn't he the kind of
man who would have taken the message to the other Garcia?"

"He is the kind of man who would stop a bullet for his friend, and think
nothing of it--if the bullet should happen to leave him anything to
think with," he returned warmly. And then he added, half absently: "He
saved my life four years ago last summer."

There was genuine human interest in her voice when she said gently:

"Would you mind telling me about it?"

"It was up in the Minnesota pineries, where we were building a branch
railroad through the corner of an Indian reservation. A half-breed
pot-hunter for the game companies had a right-of-way quarrel with the
railroad people, and he pitched upon me as the proper person to kill. It
was a knife rush in the moonlight; and Dick might have shot him, only he
was too tender-hearted. So he got between us."

"Well?" she prompted, when it became evident that Ford thought he had
finished.

"That was all; except that it was touch and go with poor Dick for the
next six weeks, with no surgeon worthy of the name nearer than St.
Paul."

Miss Alicia was more deeply impressed by the little story than she cared
to have her companion suspect. Her world was a wor