“You may be right about that,” said the colonel thoughtfully. “There is Haley and the boy for your bags!”
The boy picked up the big dress-suit case, the smaller dress-suit case and the hat case, he grabbed the bundle of cloaks, the case of umbrellas, and the lizard-skin bag. Dubiously he eyed the colonel’s luggage, as he tried to disengage a finger.
“Niver moind, young feller,” called Haley, peremptorily whisking away the nearest piece, “I’ll help you a bit with yours, instead; you’ve a load, sure!”
Mrs. Melville explained in an undertone: “I take all the hand-luggage I possibly can; the over-weight charges are wicked!”
“Haley, they won’t let you inside without a ticket,” objected the colonel. But Haley, unheeding, strode on ahead of the staggering youth.
“I have an English bath-tub, locked, of course, and packed with things, but he has put that in the car,” said Mrs. Melville.
“Certainly,” said the colonel absently; he was thinking: Mrs. Winter, the boy, Miss Smith—how ridiculously complete! Decidedly something will bear watching.
CHAPTER II
AUNT REBECCA
No sooner was Mrs. Melville ushered into her section than the colonel went through the train. He was not so suspicious as he told himself he might have been, with such a dovetailing of circumstances into his accidentally captured information; he couldn’t yet read villainy on that college lad’s frank face. But no reason, therefore, to neglect precautions. “Hope the best of men and prepare for the worst,” was the old campaigner’s motto.
A walk through the cars showed him no signs of the two men. It was a tolerably complete inspection, too. There was only one drawing-room or state-room of which he did not manage to get a glimpse—the closed room being the property of a very great financial magnate, whose private car was waiting for him in Denver. His door was fast, and the click of the type-writer announced the tireless industry of our rulers.