“Well?” she said, and there was nothing in her tone to indicate that she felt more than a passing interest in his declaration.

“That is all,” he ended shortly.  “I am, as I told you this afternoon, the same man that I was a year ago last spring, as deeply infatuated and, unhappily, just as far below your ideal of what your lover should be.  In justice to me, in justice to Van Lew—­”

“I think your conductor is waiting to speak to you,” she broke in sweetly, and he gave it up, putting her on the car and turning to confront the man with the green-shaded lantern who proved to be Bradford.

“Any special orders, Mr. Lidgerwood?” inquired the reformed cattle-herder, looking stiff and uncomfortable in his new service uniform—­one of Lidgerwood’s earliest requirements for men on duty in the train service.

“Yes.  Run without stop to Little Butte, unless the despatcher calls you down.  Time yourself to make Little Butte by eleven o’clock, or a little later.  Who is on the engine?”

“Williams.”

“Williams?  How does it come that he is doubling out with me?  He has just made the run over the Desert Division with the president’s car.”

“So have I, for that matter,” said Bradford calmly; “but we both got a hurry call about fifteen minutes ago.”

Lidgerwood held his watch to the light of the green-shaded lantern.  If he meant to keep the wire appointment with Flemister, there was no time to call out another crew.

“I don’t like to ask you and Williams to double out of your turn, especially when I know of no necessity for it.  But I’m in a rush.  Can you two stand it?”

“Sure,” said the ex-cow-man.  Then he ventured a word of his own.  “I’ll ride up ahead with Williams—­you’re pretty full up, back here in the car, anyway—­and then you’ll know that two of your own men are keepin’ tab on the run.  With the wrecks we’re enjoying——­”

Lidgerwood was impatient of mysteries.

“What do you mean, Andy?” he broke in.  “Anything new?”

“Oh, nothing you could put your finger on.  Same old rag-chewin’ going on up at Cat Biggs’s and the other waterin’ troughs about how you’ve got to be done up, if it costs money.”

“That isn’t new,” objected Lidgerwood irritably.

“Tumble-weeds,” said Bradford, “rollin’ round over the short-grass.  But they show which way the wind’s comin’ from, and give you the jumps when you wouldn’t have ’em natural.  Williams had a spell of ’em a few minutes ago when he went over to take the 266 out o’ the roundhouse and found one of the back-shop men down under her tinkerin’ with her trucks.”

“What’s that?” was the sharp query.

“That’s all there was to it,” Bradford went on imperturbably.  “Williams asked the shopman politely what in hell he was doing under there, and the fellow crawled out and said he was just lookin’ her over to see if she was all right for the night run.  Now, you wouldn’t think there was any tumble-weed in that to give a man the jumps, but Williams had ’em, all the same.  Says he to me, tellin’ me about it just now:  ’That’s all right, Andy, but how in blue blazes did he, or anybody else except Matthews and the caller, know that the 266 was goin’ out? that’s what I’d like to know.’  And I had to pass it up.”