"Wait, honey," he said, delaying the young woman. "This may pan out yet."
Barbara paused but did not turn toward the approaching engineer. Slowly Holmes forced his horse, reeking with sweat and dust, into the crowd that opened for him to pass and closed in behind him with excited exclamations as the men saw that the rider reeled in his saddle—his face haggard and drawn with pain and his useless left arm tied to his side.
But Barbara still turned away her face.
Coming so close that his leg almost touched the edge of the platform, the engineer—as though he saw no one but her—held out the black leather bill-book.
"Miss Worth! Barbara!"
With a cry she turned as the rider sank and would have fallen had not Texas, reaching out, lifted him bodily from the saddle to the platform where Holmes sank unconscious.
Barbara, with wonder and horror in her face, stood as if turned to stone, while Pat and Pablo quickly carried the still form of the engineer into the building. Unable to move, the girl followed them with her eyes until Texas, who had caught up the leather bill-book, exclaimed with an oath: "Look, it's the money!"
She looked at him as though she did not comprehend and he held the bundle of bills toward her. "It's the money, the money! You tell them!"
Mechanically Barbara took the money and turned to the crowd that stood silently wondering what it all meant—waiting to learn whether the incident had anything to do with their pay.
Under the powerful light she held up her two hands filled with bills. "Look!" she cried. "Look! Here is the money for your pay. My father sent it. Now will you believe?"