"No; I drove across alone."
He looked at her with a hint of astonishment and something that suggested a natural curiosity as to the cause for the visit, which she now found it insuperably difficult to explain.
"You haven't been at work this evening?" she asked.
"No," replied Thorne. "I rode in to the railroad early yesterday and I've just got back after calling at two or three farms west of the creek. It seemed possible that I might be able to hire a couple of men I'd wired for back along the line, but I found that somebody else had got hold of them at another station. As a matter of fact, I had expected it."
"Then you must have made the journey almost without a rest!"
"Volador's dead played out," answered Thorne. "I had to do something, though it seemed pretty useless in any case."
"Ah!" Alison exclaimed softly; "then you mean to go on?"
"Until I'm turned out, which will no doubt happen very shortly."
"I suppose that will hurt you?"
He looked at her for a moment with his face awry and signs of a sternly repressed longing in his eyes.