“Bet you ran for something, though,” responded Morganstein.  “Bet they had you up for treasurer.”

Banks laughed.  “There was some talk of it—­my wife said they were looking for somebody that could make good if the city money fell short—­but most of the bunch thought my lay was the Board of Control.  You see, I got to looking after things to help Bailey out, while he was busy moving his apples or maybe his city lots.  My, it got so’s when Mrs. Banks couldn’t find me down to the city park, watching the men grub out sage-brush for the new trees, she could count on my being up-stream to the water-works, or hiking out to the lighting-plant.  It’s kept me rushed, all right.  It takes time to start a first-class town.  It has to be done straight from bedrock.  But now that Annabel’s house up Hesperides Vale is built, and the flumes are in, she thinks likely she can run her ranch, and I think likely,”—­the prospector paused, and his eyes, with their gleam of blue glacier ice, sought Mrs. Weatherbee’s.  Hers clouded a little, and she leaned slightly towards him, waiting with hushed breath—­“I think likely,” he repeated in a higher key, “seeing’s the Alameda has to be finished up, and the fountain got in shape at the park, with the statue about due from New York, I may as well drop Dave’s project and call the deal off.”

There was a silence, during which the eyes of every one rested on Beatriz.  She straightened with a great sigh; the color rushed coral-pink to her face.

“I am—­sorry—­about your loss, Mr. Banks,” she said, then, and her voice fluctuated softly, “but I shall do my best—­I shall make it a point of honor—­to sometime reimburse you.”  Her glance fell to the violets at her belt; she singled one from the rest and, inhaling its perfume, held it lightly to her lips.

“You thoroughbred!” said Frederic thickly.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE EVERLASTING DOOR

Sometime during the night of the fifteenth, the belated Chinook wind began to flute through the canyon, and towards dawn the guests at Scenic Hot Springs were wakened by the near thunder of an avalanche.  After a while, word was brought that the Great Northern track was buried under forty feet of snow and rock and fallen trees for a distance of nearly a mile.  Later a rotary steamed around the high curve on the mountain and stopped, like a toy engine on an upper shelf, while the Spokane local, upon which Banks had expected to return to Weatherbee, forged a few miles beyond the hotel to leave a hundred laborers from Seattle.  Thin wreaths of vapor commenced to rise and, gathering volume with incredible swiftness, blotted out the plow and the snow-sheds, and meeting, broke in a storm of hail.  The cloud lifted, but in a short interval was followed by another that burst in a deluge of rain, and while the slope was still obscured, a report was telegraphed from the summit that a second avalanche had closed the east portal of Cascade tunnel, through which the Oriental Limited had just passed.  At nightfall, when the work of clearing away the first mass of debris was not yet completed, a third slide swept down seven laborers and demolished a snow-shed.  The unfortunate train that had been delayed so long in the Rockies was indefinitely stalled.