She obeyed him. They had told her that the train did not wait very long. His hand found her arm, a different touch than Devereau's.
"Now run," he ordered.
They found most of the vestibules already closed; then one far down still open. So they made it, though he had to toss the bag and fairly lift her on. And it was done so swiftly that it was a full half minute before she caught her breath.
"Oh, thank you!" she exclaimed then.
The porter was fussing with her bag, and her fervor overwhelmed him. But her next words were a shock.
"I—I want to get off," she blurted.
The porter shook his head; he had expected better from her, but all women were riddles.
"We's rolling now, ma'am," he answered. "No stop for two hundred miles."
That night Cecille Manners—Tweed-Suit will no longer serve—lay in her berth and watched the stars reel by. She had misjudged the west and come away too soon; she knew that now. She put her hand upon her arm. No, that wasn't the way it had felt; it had been strong, infallible. And though he had turned quickly away, after putting her aboard; though she had no way of guessing that he had gone back to find Devereau, she was filled just the same with what remained, for a long time at least, a happy certainty. She'd see him again sometime. She had to!
But Devereau had known better than to linger near the baggage truck. So after he had looked beneath it and upon it and all around it and found nobody, Blue Jeans turned and watched the red tail-light of the train disappear.