and Miss Wainright was of the multimillionaire De Brutzes, engaged, as everybody must know, to old Hugo de Brutz's son Percy.

"Yes," he said, after the retrospective pause, “I knew it after you told me. Also, I know that the world is coming to an end-sometime. It is only the definite catastrophe that appals us."

Janet for me instantly," she commanded; and a moment later Hungerford was acknowledging a hurried introduction to a rather martial-looking lady with the De Brutz nose and the disconcerting De Brutz manner.

"Ah, Mr. Hungerford? Harry's railroad friend, I infer; I've heard him speak of you. We are going west on your road to-night; you

"Mr. Percy de Brutz is the person to be congratulated," he countered. "Is your cousin here with you?"

"No; he missed the train last night at Dolomite. He is sending his man Hobbs to escort us from Denver."

A thought white-hot from the forge of audacity flashed into Hungerford's brain. He, too, was going west on the midnight train -in state, as it happened. President Brice's private car, the Sylvia, was in Denver, and Hungerford had been directed to bring it out on the line with him. He saw what might be done: how, if the Fates were propitious, the tormenting raptures of the present moment might be prolonged for a few hours at least.

"Miss Cassie, you used to enjoy riding in my old headquarters car on the Red Mountain. Would you like to 'own the road' just one more time before you promise to love, honor, and behave yourself?"

She looked up quickly. "You are going on the night train, too?-in your car? But Aunt Janet and and Hobbs?"

"Leave the details to me. Will you go as my guest if I can persuade your aunt?"

She neither consented nor refused. The orchestra had begun the next number, and she was tilting the tiny watch pinned upon her shoulder.

"This is Harry's dance, and he has forgotten it. Will you go and find him for me, Mr. Hungerford ?"

He saw the watch-hands pointing to eleventen. Since he must go to the hotel and dress before train-time, the interval was none too long; but he did not hesitate.

at the train, perhaps?"

Hungerford begged his boon abruptly:

"I am going on the same train, in Mr. Brice's private car which will be otherwise unoccupied. If you and Miss Cassie will accept the hospitality of the Sylvia

"Why, how kind! We'll be delighted, I'm But there is Hobbs, Mr. Percy de Brutz's He is to meet us at the station and ac

sure. man.

company us."

"I'll take care of Hobbs," said Hungerford; then he excused himself and hastened to find young Calmaine.

"Where's your auto?" he demanded, finding and grappling his host in the upper corridor. "They're both at the door, the touring-car and the runabout."

"All right; take me in the little one by way of the Brown, and let your man drive the ladies. Tell him to kill a little time, so that I can get there first. Miss Wainright and her aunt are. to be my guests in the Sylvia."

"So?" queried Calmaine curiously. Then: "I'll fix it; but if chauffie is a minute or two late, you'll have to hold the train. They mustn't miss there's money at stake."

"How's that?" asked Hungerford, struggling into his rain-coat.

"Eccentric old uncle and a will," explained Calmaine stenographically. "Pot of money to go to Cassie and Percy, jointly, if they marry before Cassie is twenty-one. If not, it goes to some college endowment. The old uncle wasn't a crank-I don't think!"

"He deserved to have to make a will," was Hungerford's comment. "And the present haste?"

"It's needed. Cassie will be twenty-one to

safe

knowing that you can't by any possibility have your fleet steed at the door."

It lacked barely the half-hour of midnight when the music paused again; and when Miss Wainright saw the time she was panic-stricken. "Mercy! we shall miss the train! Find Aunt

"Humph!" snorted the engineer, following his host to the street. "Neither of them needs the legacy, I take it?" Here's my

"Not the least in the world. buggy; climb in and we'll go."

It lacked eight minutes of twelve when the runabout, having made the pause at Hungerford's hotel, stopped at the Union Depot.

"There is the irreproachable Hobbs waiting for his charges," said Calmaine, pointing out a smug-faced man standing guard at the cab

stand.

Hungerford sprang out, and left Calmaine talking to the valet. When he came back, his host was waiting for him in the vestibule.

"Hold on, Bartley; you needn't rush," he said. "The jig's up. Percy de Brutz got away from Dolomite on the Transcontinental, and he'll be here at twelve-two. Hobbs is waiting to tell the ladies."

Hungerford stopped like a man who has met a soft-nosed bullet in mid-rush. "De Brutz coming?" he gasped. "Then the wedding will be here in Denver?"

--

"Sure thing, you'd say

wouldn't you?" Hungerford shoved his hands into his pockets and took three steps toward his train. Then he came back and thrust his face into Calmaine's. "Harry, Miss de Brutz and Miss Wainright have both told me that they positively must make our west-bound train, and I'm not supposed to know anything different. Will you go out and kill Hobbs? or shall I ?”

"I'll do it," said Calmaine promptly. "But hold on a minute, Bartley. What do you hope to gain? It's all settled. You may make them lose their million or so, but

"Never mind; you go and kill Hobbs!" Calmaine turned and ran out to the cabstand, and was back almost immediately.

"It's didded," he said tersely. "Sergeant Connolly has him in charge as a suspicious character. What next?"

"Next we'll pray that your chauffeur gets my passengers here in time," said Hungerford. "If we leave on the dot, De Brutz will be only two minutes away."

"Then we'd better split," said Calmaine. "You get your conductor enthusiastic, and I'll meet your fares, make Hobbs's excuses, and do the porter act."

Hungerford found Hinckley, the conductor of the Dolomite Short Line Flier, standing at the steps of the Sylvia.

'Ready to go, John?" he asked; and, when Hinckley nodded: "All right. Don't lose a second after I give you the word. We want to miss connections with the incoming T. C., if we have to leave ahead of time."

The conductor promised, and went forward. Hungerford paced back and forth in a frenzy of impatience. Would Calmaine never show up with the women? It was one minute past twelve when Hinckley came back to say: "All set, Mr. Hungerford, when you are. The T. C. has whistled in."

"Chauffie overdid it; and Hobbs has made his escape from the policeman!" he gasped in an aside to Hungerford, heaving the hand-bags up to the porter on the steps of the Sylvia.

"Dear me, what a rush !" panted Miss Janet, when Calmaine and Hungerford fairly lifted her and her niece up the steps. "So good of you to wait for us, Mr. Hungerford - why, where has he gone?"

Hungerford had gone to pass the word to Hinckley, who had mysteriously disappeared. Four seconds, five, six, were lost; and the T. C. train from Dolomite was pulling in. Hungerford stopped and threw up his arms in the "go ahead" signal, on the bare chance that Hinckley might be looking. Hinckley was looking. From the head of the train came the answering signal, a lantern swung in a circle, and the wheels began to turn.

Hungerford dashed back along the line of moving cars and boarded the Sylvia. Through the windows in the rear he saw his guests on the observation-platform, and quickly joined them. He was just in time to hear Miss de Brutz say: "Bless me! what is that? It it looks like a fight!"

The Flier was barely moving. The electric headlight of the lately arrived T. C. flooded the platforms with dazzling radiance, pricking out with startling distinctness the incident to which Miss Janet was calling attention.

Hungerford did not have to look twice. It was a fight. A smug-faced man wearing an English tourist's cap was apparently assaulting the police. To him, running, came a neatly garmented little gentleman, side-stepping from the stream of ingoing T. C. passengers. Instantly the fight ceased; for a passing moment the little gentleman seemed to be shaking hands with the policeman. Then the two, rescuer and rescued, turned and ran neck and neck down the platform toward the outcrawling Flier.

Hungerford said something under his breath and reached for the signal-cord. The Flier's speed quickened suddenly, and Miss Cassie said sympathetically:

"Wasn't that too bad! I believe those two men were trying to catch our train."

"Yes," said Hungerford, "I'm afraid they were. There are always some members of the great family of potterers getting left. Shall we go in ?"

jacketed porter was setting out a tea-table, and Hungerford made the tea himself, calling forth encomiums from Miss Janet.

"You railroad gentlemen manage to get the best of everything," she said in genial raillery, adjusting her eye-glasses to take in the luxurious fittings of the president's car. "Brother Hugo declares that you are all pirates and robbers of the strong hand. Are you a pirate, Mr. Hungerford?"

Hungerford laughed.

"Ask Miss Cassie," he said. "She has seen me in action with a pick-handle for my badge of authority."

"Oh, yes," recollected Miss Janet; "I had forgotten Cassie's summer at El Pinto." And she went off upon a loosely linked chain of reminiscence which ran on unbroken until Miss Wainright said:

"You may keep Mr. Hungerford up all night, if you are cruel enough, Aunt Janet; but I'm going to bed. May I, Sir Loch Mr. Hungerford?" Hungerford was on his feet instantly; and when the state-room door closed upon his retiring guests the Flier had just made its first stop, and Hinckley came in with two telegrams one, sealed, for Miss Janet de Brutz, and the other an open one for Hungerford. The latter was from Harry Calmaine:

Devil to pay, and no pitch in the kettle. De B. has chartered a special train and a clergyman, and will Doesn't know you're in it, and is wiring Aunt de B. and Miss W. to stop off at first decent

chase you.

hotel town.

Hungerford jammed the telegram into his pocket and spoke to Hinckley as man to

man:

"There will be a special following us from Denver in a few minutes. How long will it take it to overhaul us in the ordinary run of business on this division?"

Hinckley frowned over the problem for a moment. "With our start and the Flier's fast schedule, I'd say you'd be safe in taking a fouror five-hour nap, Mr. Hungerford. I can call you if anything's due to happen."

Hungerford nodded, let the conductor go, and began to walk the floor, feeling uncomfortably like a criminal. What would Miss de Brutz say when he should finally deliver the sealed telegram - which he had carefully buttoned into an inside pocket? And what was of vastly greater importance - what would Miss Wainright say when she learned that she had been deliberately kidnapped?

Not being able to face these unnerving questions alone and at half-past one o'clock in the morning, he flung himself into the easiest of the

wicker chairs and resolutely shut his eyes to the consequences.

He was dreaming that the special had overtaken the Flier and was telescoping the Sylvia when he awoke. But it was only the grinding of the brakes for the stop at Alpine - that and Hinckley gently shaking him.

"Daytime," said the conductor genially, "and nothing doing yet. As near as I can get it from the wires, we've still got eight or ten miles to the good."

"Eight miles?" gasped Hungerford. "Why, man, they'll catch us right here!" And, before the Flier had fairly stopped, he was off and holding an excited conference with Brockley, the superintendent at the High Mountain division station.

"No, I shouldn't dare to hold him back," said Brockley, when he had been told all that he needed to know. "He has contrived to get a 'regardless' order from Mr. Brice's office, and we can't slur that. But I'll send the Sylvia ahead of the Flier, if you say the word, giving you McBride, the best engine we have, and the right of way."

Do it," snapped Hungerford.

Brockley gave the necessary orders: a switching-engine flew to cut out the Sylvia, and a 'phone call went to the roundhouse for the 610.

"We'll make it," said Brockley confidently, and he kept his word. The Sylvia was detached and rushed swiftly around the Flier; the coupling was made to the waiting 610; and twenty minutes later the private car was storming up the last grade on the Shunt Pass approach. Hungerford looked back. The onecar special was at that moment crawling like a black worm out of the Alpine yards — but it, also, was ahead of the Flier!

The Sylvia's guests slept late, as Hungerford had hoped they might. When the leisurely breakfast was over, the big car had descended the mountain and was rocketing smoothly down the great cañon of the Boiling Water, with the pursuing special still invisible.

After breakfast Miss Janet begged the privilege of writing some letters; and, when Hungerford had installed her at the president's desk, he suggested the observation-platform to Miss Wainright.

"Is it permitted to wish you many happy returns of the day?" he asked, when they were together under the "umbrella roof."

"Oh," she said, coloring faintly, "so Harry told you that, too, did he? Did he leave nothing at all to your imagination?"

"He didn't need to leave that," was the quick response. "I was with you a year ago to-day at El Pinto; you wore a bunch of my