Skies of Brass
The depressive journey from Colorado to the Middle West records itself in memory as a dismal dream out of which there were awakenings only for train-changings or a word of talk now and then with Cummings. The deputy warden was a reticent man; somber almost to sadness, as befitted his calling; but he was neither morose nor churlish. Underneath the official crust he was a man like other men; was, I say, because he is dead now.
On the final day of the journey I persuaded him to tell me how I had been traced, and I was still human enough to find a grain of comfort in the assurance that Agatha Geddis had not taken my money at the last only to turn and betray me.
Barton, the Glendale wagon sales manager, was the one who was innocently responsible. He had talked too much, as I had feared he would. The clue thus furnished had been lost in St. Louis, but was picked up again, some months later, by Cummings himself through the police-record photograph in Denver.
Cummings admitted that he had followed Polly and me on our wedding journey; that he had known where we were stopping, and had seen us in the canyon-brink hotel.
"Why didn't you take me then?" I asked.
He explained gruffly that the requisition papers with which he was provided were good only in Colorado, and that it was simpler to wait than to go through all the red tape of having them reissued for Arizona. Knowing that the wires were completely at his service, the answer did not satisfy me.
"Was that the only reason?" I queried.
He turned his sober eyes on me and shook his head sorrowfully, I thought.
"I was young once, myself, Weyburn—and I had a wife: she died when the baby came. Maybe you deserve what's coming to you, and maybe you don't; but that little woman o' yours will never have another honeymoon."