After the introductions, Mr. Cullen said we would not wait, and his remark called my attention to the fact that there was one more place at the table than there were people assembled.  I had barely noted this, when my host said, “Here’s the truant,” and, turning, I faced a lady who had just entered.  Mr. Cullen said, “Madge, let me introduce Mr. Gordon to you.”  My bow was made to a girl of about twenty, with light brown hair, the bluest of eyes, a fresh skin and a fine figure, dressed so nattily as to be to me after my four years of Western life, a sight for tired eyes.  She greeted me pleasantly, made a neat little apology for having kept us waiting, and then we all sat down.

It was a very jolly breakfast-table, Mr. Cullen and his son being capital talkers, and Lord Ralles a good third, while Miss Cullen was quick and clever enough to match the three.  Before the meal was over I came to the conclusion that Lord Ralles was in love with Miss Cullen, for he kept making low asides to her; and from the fact that she allowed them, and indeed responded, I drew the conclusion that he was a lucky beggar, feeling, I confess, a little pang that a title was going to win such a nice American girl.

One of the first subjects spoken of was train-robbery, and Miss Cullen, like most Easterners, seemed to take a great interest in it, and had any quantity of questions to ask me.

“I’ve left all my jewelry behind, except my watch,” she said, “and that I hide every night.  So I really hope we’ll be held up, it would be such an adventure.”

“There isn’t any chance of it, Miss Cullen,” I told her; “and if we were, you probably wouldn’t even know that it was happening, but would sleep right through it.”

“Wouldn’t they try to get our money and our watches?” she demanded.

I told her no, and explained that the express and mail-cars were the only ones to which the road agents paid any attention.  She wanted to know the way it was done:  so I described to her how sometimes the train was flagged by a danger signal, and when it had slowed down the runner found himself covered by armed men; or how a gang would board the train, one by one, at way stations, and then, when the time came, steal forward, secure the express agent and postal clerk, climb over the tender, and compel the runner to stop the train at some lonely spot on the road.  She made me tell her all the details of such robberies as I knew about, and, though I had never been concerned in any, I was able to describe several, which, as they were monotonously alike, I confess I colored up a bit here and there, in an attempt to make them interesting to her.  I seemed to succeed, for she kept the subject going even after we had left the table and were smoking our cigars in the observation saloon.  Lord Ralles had a lot to say about the American lack of courage in letting trains containing twenty and thirty men be held up by half a dozen robbers.