to leave us for good?"

Her eyes wavered before his. It may be that she had intended to abandon
the campaign permanently, but, with his straight and masterful glance
demanding an honest answer, she could not say it.

"Yes, I will come back," she said, and then, with a sudden burst of
feeling: "Oh, I like your group; I like all of you. This great journey
has been something fresh and wonderful to me, and I do not want to leave
it!"

"I thought not," said Harley, with returning confidence, "and I am glad
that you sent for me here, because it has given me a chance to tell you
that, while you mean to keep your promise, I also mean to keep mine.
Mr. Plummer will yet yield you up. You are mine, not his, you know you
are!"

He bent suddenly and kissed her lightly on the forehead, and every nerve
in her tingled at the first touch of the lips of the man whom she loved.
Yet with the sense of right, of loyalty to another, strong within her,
she was about to protest, but he was gone, and the first kiss still
tingled on her forehead. She felt as if he had put there an invisible
seal, and that now in very truth she belonged to him.

The two ladies under the escort of Mr. Plummer left an hour later for
Salt Lake City, and everybody was at the station to see them go. Mrs.
Grayson was quiet as usual, and Sylvia was noticeably subdued, a fact
which most of them ascribed to the tragedy of Flying Cloud and her
coming absence of two weeks from a most interesting campaign.

"You ought to cheer up, Miss Sylvia," said Hobart, "because you are not
half as unlucky as we are. You can spare us much more easily than we can
spare you."

"I am really sorry that I must go," she said, sincerely.

"But you will come back to us?"

"I have promised to do so."

"That is enough; we know that you will keep a promise, Miss Sylvia."

Sylvia at first would not look at Harley. His kiss still burned upon her
brow, and she yet felt that it was his seal, his claim upon her. And her
conscience hurt her for it, because there was "King" Plummer, strong,
protecting, and overflowing with love for her and faith in her. But as
she was telling them all good-bye she was forced to say it to Harley,
too, in his turn, and when he took her hand he pressed it ever so
little, and said, for her ear only:

"I am still hoping. I refuse to give you up."

She retreated quickly into the Salt Lake car to hide her blush.

When they saw the last smoke of the train melting