But the way obstinately refused to discover itself. The simple thing to do would be to appeal to her uncle's sense of justice. It was not like him to fight with ignoble weapons, she thought, and a tactful word in season might make him recall the order to the superintendent. But she could not make the appeal without betraying Jastrow. She knew well enough that the secretary had no right to show her the telegrams; knew also that Mr. Somerville Darrah's first word would be a demand to know how she had learned the company's business secrets. Regarding Jastrow as little as a high-bred young woman to whom sentiment is as the breath of life can regard a man who is quite devoid of it, she was still far enough from the thought of effacing him.
To this expedient there was an unhopeful alternative: namely, the sending, by the Reverend Billy, or, in the last resort, by herself, of a warning message to Winton. But there were obstacles seemingly insuperable. She had not the faintest notion of how such a warning should be addressed; and again, the operator at Argentine was a Colorado and Grand River employee, doubtless loyal to his salt, in which case the warning message would never get beyond his waste-basket.
“Getting too chilly for you out here? Want to go in?” asked the Reverend Billy, when the scenic enthusiasm began to outwear itself.
“No; but I am tired of the sentry-go part of it—ten steps and a turn,” she confessed. “Can't we walk on the track a little way?”
Calvert saw no reason why they might not, and accordingly helped her over to the snow-encrusted path between the rails.
“We can trot down and have a look at their construction camp, if you like,” he suggested, and thitherward they went.
There was not much to see, after all, as the Reverend Billy remarked when they had reached a coign of vantage below the curve. A string of use-worn bunk cars; a “dinkey” caboose serving as the home on wheels of the chief of construction and his assistant; a crooked siding with a gang of dark-skinned laborers at work unloading a car of steel. These in the immediate foreground; and a little way apart, perched high enough on the steep slope of the mountain side to be out of the camp turmoil, a small structure, half plank and half canvas—to wit, the end-of-track telegraph office.
It was Virginia who first marked the boxed-up tent standing on the slope.
“What do you suppose that little house-tent is for?” she asked.
“I don't know,” said Calvert. Then he saw the wires and ventured a guess which hit the mark.