In the privacy of a room at the hotel Harrison hastily manufactured an urgent telegram calling him at once to San Francisco to see a sick uncle, and had barely time to explain matters and express his deep regret at being forced to leave the party at such short notice.
An hour later he lay back in a luxurious chair in the smoking compartment of the California Limited, and gazed out of the
windows at the vast desert plains through which they passed. His eyes had a far-away look in them, and ever and anon he sighed.
Far up the Grand Cañon road late that evening Brady and his three companions still sat watching sadly for the stage which came not. There they had sat in the burning sun without food or water since ten o'clock that morning. They did not speak to each other, but occasionally they cursed, sometimes the birds, sometimes the inanimate things about them. At times they thought of Harrison—but what their thoughts were no one will ever know.
ONE TOUCH OF NATURE.
"Pretty good cigar this," remarked the Cowboy.
The Eastern man nodded.
"Nowadays we can buy good ones out where I live, but 'twa'n't very long ago when good cigars were as rare out there as buffaloes are now round Kansas City."