flee, Travis Bessemer fell under the charm of the little
spectacled colonial, to whose song we all must listen and to whose
pipe we all must dance.

There was one "point" in the story of Jukes' strange ride that
Condy prided himself upon having discovered. So far as he knew,
all critics had overlooked it. It is where Jukes is describing
the man-trap of the City of the Dead who are alive, and mentions
that the slope of the inclosing sandhills was "about forty-five
degrees." Jukes was a civil engineer, and Condy held that it was a
capital bit of realism on the part of the author to have him speak
of the pitch of the hills in just such technical terms. At first
he thought he would call Travis' attention to this bit of
cleverness; but as he read he abruptly changed his mind. He would
see if she would find it out for herself. It would be a test of
her quickness, he told himself; almost an unfair test, because the
point was extremely subtle and could easily be ignored by the most
experienced of fiction readers. He read steadily on, working
himself into a positive excitement as he approached the passage.
He came to it and read it through without any emphasis, almost
slurring over it in his eagerness to be perfectly fair. But as he
began to read the next paragraph, Travis, her little eyes
sparkling with interest and attention, exclaimed:

"Just as an engineer would describe it. Isn't that good!"

"Glory hallelujah!" cried Condy, slamming down the book joyfully.
"Travis, you are one in a thousand!"

"What--what is it?' she inquired blankly.