some little time behind the purple grandeur of Sierra Blanca, but
eastward the snowy tips of the Spanish Peaks were still flushed with the
afterglow.

Nearby three ragged burros were cropping the scanty growth. Behind them
the sharp elbow of the mountain ascended, scarred and furrowed and
littered with rocky debris. Before them the hill sloped for a few rods
and levelled into a narrow plateau, across which, eastward and
westward, the railway, tired from its long twisting climb up the
mountain, seemed to pause for a moment and gasp for breath before
beginning its descent. Beyond the tracks a fringe of stunted trees held
precarious foothold on the lower slope of a smaller peak, which reared
its bare cone against the evening sky. There were no buildings at Saddle
Pass save a snow-shed which began where the rails slipped downward
toward the east and, dropping from sight, followed for a quarter of a
mile around the long face of the mountain. It was very still up here on
the Pass, so still that when the Western Slope Limited, two hours and
more late at Eagle Cliff, whistled for the tunnel four miles below the
sound came echoing about them startlingly clear.

"Train coming up from the west," said the elder of the two men. "Must be
the Limited." The other nodded as he drained the last drop in his tin
cup and looked speculatively at the battered coffee pot.

"Any more of the Arbuckle nectar, Ed?" he asked.

"Not a drop, but I can make some."

"No, I've had enough, I reckon. That's the trouble with dining late, Ed;
you have too much appetite."