over people. 'Yes, madam,' he
sadly replied: 'there is nothing musses an engine up so.'"

I don't think Miss Cullen liked Lord Ralles's comments on
American courage any better than I did, for she said,--

"Can't you take Lord Ralles and Captain Ackland into the service
of the K. & A., Mr. Gordon, as a special guard?"

"The K. & A. has never had a robbery yet, Miss Cullen," I
replied, "and I don't think that it ever will have."

"Why not?" she asked.

I explained to her how the Canyon of the Colorado to the north,
and the distance of the Mexican border to the south, made escape
so almost desperate that the road agents preferred to devote
their attentions to other routes. "If we were boarded, Miss
Cullen," I said, "your jewelry would be as safe as it is in
Chicago, for the robbers would only clean out the express- and
mail-cars; but if they should so far forget their manners as to
take your trinkets, I'd agree to return them to you inside of one
week."

"That makes it all the jollier," she cried, eagerly. "We could
have the fun of the adventure, and yet not lose anything. Can't
you arrange for it, Mr. Gordon?"

"I'd like to please you, Miss Cullen," I said, "and I'd like to
give Lord Ralles a chance to show us how to handle those gentry;
but it's not to be done." I really should have been glad to have
the road agents pay us a call.

We spent that day pulling up the Raton pass, and so on over the
Glorietta pass down to Lamy, where, as the party wanted to see
Santa Fe, I had our two cars dropped off the overland, and we ran
up the branch line to the old Mexican city. It was well-worn
ground to me, but I enjoyed showing the sights to Miss Cullen,
for by that time I had come to the conclusion that I had never
met a sweeter or jollier girl. Her beauty, too, was of a kind
that kept growing on one, and before I had known her twenty-four
hours, without quite being in love with her, I was beginning to
hate Lord Ralles, which was about the same thing, I suppose.
Every hour convinced me that the two understood each other, not
merely from the little asides and confidences they kept
exchanging, but even more so from the way Miss Cullen would take
his lordship down occasionally. Yet, like a fool, the more I saw
to confirm my first diagnosis, the more I found myself dwelling
on the dimples at the corners of Miss Cullen's mouth, the
bewitching uplift of her upper lip, the runaway curls about her
neck, and the curves and col