She nodded, but when they reached the Rosemary the returning engine
was rattling down upon the open siding. Virginia drew back.

"I don't want to meet Uncle Somerville just now," she confessed.
"Can't we climb up to the observation platform at the other end of the
car?"

He said yes, and made the affirmative good by lifting her in his arms
over the high railing. Once safely on the car, she bade him leave her.

"Slip in quietly and they won't notice," she said. "I'll come
presently."

Calvert obeyed, and Virginia stood alone in the darkness. Down in the
Utah construction camp lights were darting to and fro; and before long
she heard the hoarse puffs of the big octopod, betokening activities.

She was shivering a little in the chill wind sliding down from the
snow-peaks, yet she would not go in until she had made sure. In a
little time her patience was rewarded. The huge engine came storming
up the grade on the new line, pushing its three flat-cars, which were
black with clinging men. On the car nearest the locomotive, where the
dazzling beam of the headlight pricked him out for her, stood Winton,
braced against the lurchings of the train over the uneven track.

"God speed you, my--love!" she murmured softly; and when the gloom of
the upper canyon cleft had engulfed man and men and storming engine
she turned to go in.

She was groping for the door-knob in the darkness made thicker by the