y the time the decrepit but life-saving little local drew into Gila Bend they had somewhat recovered from their harrowing experience.
Marjorie was still pale, however, as Kendrick helped her from the train.
"I may recover," she said with a wan smile, "but I'll never look the same! An old saying, but I know what it means now."
He thought better of a sudden impulse to tell her she looked quite all right to him. Instead, he said grimly:
"I know now what a lot of things mean!"
The Tucson limited would not be through for over an hour, they learned. That would give them time to hunt up the authorities and sound a warning of the ominous invader that was in the vicinity. Perhaps, by prompt military action, it might be destroyed, or at least crippled.
But first they went to the telegraph office, where Marjorie got off a message that would bring joy to her grieved family.
While standing there outside the barred window, odors of food wafting to them from a nearby lunch-room.
"Um-m!" she sniffed. "That smells good to me! I haven't tasted any earthly cooking for ages. Everything on that horrible disc was synthetic."