delighted that you came
to see me, and that my husband was able to help you. Tell me, can we not
do more for you? I do not for one moment believe you can be happy with
your present surroundings. Can we not assist you to leave them?"

The girl rose, sadly shaking her head. "I thank you for your words," she
said. "I don't suppose I'll ever see you again, but I'll say, God bless
you!"

She caught Mrs. Sinclair's hand, pressed it to her lips, and was gone.

Sinclair found his wife very thoughtful when he came home, and he
listened with much interest to her story.

"Poor girl!" said he; "Foster is the man to help her. I wonder where he
is? I must inquire about him."

The next day they proceeded on their way to San Francisco, and matters
drifted on at Barker's much as before. Johnson had, after an absence of
some months, come back and lived without molestation, amid the shifting
population. Now and then, too, some of the older residents fancied they
recognized, under slouched sombreros, the faces of some of his former
"crowd" about the "Ranchman's Home," as his gaudy saloon was called.

Late on the very evening on which this story opens, and they had been
"making up" the Denver Express in the train-house on the Missouri, "Jim"
Watkins, agent and telegrapher at Barker's, was sitting in his little
office, communicating with the station rooms by the ticket window. Jim
was a cool, silent, efficient man, and not much given to talk about such
episodes in his past life as the "wiping out" by Indians of the
construction party to which he belonged, and his own rescue by the
scouts. He was smoking an old and favorite pipe, and talking with one of
"the boys" whose head appeared at the wicket. On a seat in the station
sat a woman in a black dress and veil, apparently waiting for a train.

"Got a heap of letters and telegrams there, ain't year, Jim?" remarked
the man at the window.

"Yes," replied Jim; "they're for Engineer Sinclair, to be delivered to
him when he passes through here. He left on No. 17, to-night." The
inquirer did not notice the sharp start of the woman near him.

"Is that good-lookin' wife of his'n a comin' with him?" asked he.

"Yes, there's letters for her, too."

"Well, good-night, Jim. See yer later," and he went out. The woman
suddenly rose and ran to the window.

"Mr. Watkins," cried she, "can I see you for a few moments, where no one
can interrupt us? It's a matter of life and death." She clutched the