ch naps as I could steal in the saddle, and had ridden
over a hundred and fifty miles to boot. But I couldn't bear to think
of Miss Cullen's anxiety, and the moment I had made myself decent, and
finished eating, I went into 218.

The party were all in the dining-room, but it was a very
different-looking crowd from the one with which that first breakfast
had been eaten, and they all looked at me as I entered as if I were
the executioner come for victims.

"Mr. Cullen," I began, "I've been forced to do a lot of things that
weren't pleasant, but I don't want to do more than I need. You're not
the ordinary kind of road agents, and, as I presume your address is
known, I don't see any need of arresting one of our own directors as
yet. All I ask is that you give me your word, for the party, that none
of you will try to leave the country."

"Certainly, Mr. Gordon," he responded. "And I thank you for your great
consideration."

"I shall have to report the case to our president, and, I suppose, to
the Postmaster-General, but I sha'n't hurry about either. What they
will do, I can't say. Probably you know how far you can keep them
quiet."

"I think the local authorities are all I have to fear, provided time
is given me."

"I have dismissed the sheriff and his posse, and I gave them a hundred
dollars for their work, and three bottles of pretty good whiskey I had
on my car. Unless they get orders from elsewhere, you will not hear
any further from them.

"You must let me reimburse what expense we have put you to, Mr.
Gordon. I only wish I could as easily repay your kindness."

Nodding my head in assent, as well as in recognition of his thanks, I
continued, "It was my duty, as an official of the K. & A., to recover
the stolen mail, and I had to do it."

"We understand that," said Mr. Cullen, "and do not for a moment blame
you."

"But," I went on, for the first time looking at Madge, "it is not my
duty to take part in a contest for control of the K. & A., and I shall
therefore act in this case as I should in any other loss of mail."

"And that is--?" asked Frederic.

"I am about to telegraph for instructions from Washington," I replied.
"As the G.S. by trickery has dishonestly tied up some of your proxies,
they ought not to object if we do the same by honest means; and I
think I can manage so that Uncle Sam will prevent those proxies from
being voted at Ash Fork on Friday."

If a galvanic battery had been applied to th