I.

Two men were sitting beside a camp-fire at Saddle Pass, a shallow notch

in the lower end of the Sangre de Cristo Range in southern Colorado.

Although it was the middle of June and summer had come to the valleys

below, up here in the mountains the evenings were still chill, and the

warmth of the crackling fire felt grateful to tired bodies. Daylight yet

held, although it was fast deepening toward dusk. The sun had been gone

some little time behind the purple grandeur of Sierra Blanca, but

eastward the snowy tips of the Spanish Peaks were still flushed with the

afterglow.

Nearby three ragged burros were cropping the scanty growth. Behind them

the sharp elbow of the mountain ascended, scarred and furrowed and

littered with rocky debris. Before them the hill sloped for a few rods

and levelled into a narrow plateau, across which, eastward and

westward, the railway, tired from its long twisting climb up the

mountain, seemed to pause for a moment and gasp for breath before

beginning its descent. Beyond the tracks a fringe of stunted trees held

precarious foothold on the lower slope of a smaller peak, which reared

its bare cone against the evening sky. There were no buildings at Saddle

Pass save a snow-shed which began where the rails slipped downward

toward the east and, dropping from sight, followed for a quarter of a

mile around the long face of the mountain. It was very still up here on

the Pass, so still that when the Western Slope Limited, two hours and

more late at Eagle Cliff, whistled for the tunnel four miles below the

sound came echoing about them startlingly clear.

"Train coming up from the west," said the elder of the two men. "Must be

the Limited." The other nodded as he drained the last drop in his tin

cup and looked speculatively at the battered coffee pot.

"Any more of the Arbuckle nectar, Ed?" he asked.

"Not a drop, but I can make some."

"No, I've had enough, I reckon. That's the trouble with dining late, Ed;

you have too much appetite."

"We'll have to get some more grub before long," was the reply, "or it'll

be appetite and nothing else with us. I can eat bacon with the next man,

but I don't want to feast on it six days running. What we need, Wade, is

variety."

"And plenty of it," sighed the other, stretching his tired legs and

finding a new position. "The fact is, even after this banquet I feel a

little hollow."

"Same here, but I figure we'd better go a little short till we get

nearer town. We ought to strike Bosa Grande to-morrow night."

"Why not hop the train and go down to Aroya? We can find some real grub

there."

"Couldn't get back before to-morrow afternoon. What's the good of

wasting a whole day?"

"Looks to me like we'd wasted about twenty of them already, Ed."

Craig made no reply. He fished a corn-cob pipe and a little sack of

tobacco from his pocket and began to fill the bowl. Wade watched for a

moment in silence. Then, with a protesting groan, he rolled over until

he could get at his own pipe. Craig drew an ember from the edge of the

fire with calloused fingers, held it to his bowl and passed it on to

Wade. Then with grunts of contentment they settled back against the

sagging canvas of their tent and puffed wreaths of acrid smoke into the

twilight.

The shadows were creeping up the mountain side. Overhead the wide sweep

of sky began to glitter with white stars. A little chill breeze sprang

up in the west and fanned the fire, sending a fairy shower of tiny

lemon-yellow sparks into the air. And borne on the breeze came a hoarse

pounding and drumming that grew momentarily louder and reverberated from

wall to wall. The ground trembled and the grazing burros lifted their

shaggy heads inquiringly.

"She's almost up," said Wade. Craig nodded and replaced his pipe between

his teeth. The noise became multisonous. With the clangor of the

pounding wheels came the stertorous gasping of the engines, the creak

and clatter of protesting metal. The uproar filled the pass deafeningly.

"She's making hard work of it," shouted Craig.

"Probably a heavy train," Wade answered.

Then a path of pale light swept around the elbow of the mountain and the

wheezing, puffing monsters reached the head of the grade. The watchers

could almost hear the sighs of relief from the two big mountain-climbers

as they found the level track beneath them. Their breathing grew easier,

quieter as they clanged slowly across the pass a few rods below the

camp. The burros, having satisfied their curiosity, went back to supper.

The firemen in the cab windows raised their hands in greeting and the

campers waved back. Behind the engines came a baggage and express car,

then a day coach, a diner and a sleeper. Slower and slower moved the

train and finally, with a rasping of brakes and the hissing of released

steam, it stopped.

"What's up?" asked Wade.

"Hot-box on the diner; see it?"

"Yes, and smell it. Let's go down."

But Craig shook his head lazily, and Wade, cinching his loosened belt,

limped with aching legs down the slope. The trainmen were already

pulling the smouldering, evil-smelling waste from the box, and after

watching a minute he loitered along the track beside the car. Several of

the shades were raised and the sight of the gleaming white napery and

silver brought a wistful gleam to his eyes. But there was worse to come.

At the last table a belated diner was still eating. He was a large man

with a double chin, under which he had tucked a corner of his napkin. He

ate leisurely, but with gusto.

"Hot roast beef," groaned Wade, "and asparagus and little green beans!

Oh Lord!"

He suddenly felt very empty, and mechanically tightened his leather belt

another inch. It came over him all at once that he was frightfully

hungry. For the last two days he and his partner had been travelling on

short rations, and to-day they had been on the go since before sun-up.

For a moment the wild idea came to him of jumping on the train and

riding down to Aroya just so he could take a seat in the dining-car and

eat his fill.

"They wouldn't make much out of me at a dollar a throw," he reflected,

with a grin. But it wouldn't be fair to Craig, and he abandoned the idea

in the next breath. He couldn't stand there any longer, though, and see

that man eat. He addressed himself to the closed window before he turned

away.

"I hope it chokes you," he muttered, venomously.

Some of the passengers had descended from the day coach to stretch their

limbs, and with a desire to avoid them Wade walked toward the rear of

the train. Daylight dies hard up here in the mountains, but at last

twilight held the world, a clear, starlit twilight. Overhead the vault

of heaven was hung with deep blue velvet, pricked out with a million

diamonds. Up the slope the camp-fire glowed ruddily. In the west the

smouldering sunset embers had cooled to ashes of dove-gray and steel,

against which Sierra Blanca crouched, a grim, black giant. Wade had

reached the observation platform at the end of the sleeping-car. With a

tired sigh he turned toward the slope and the beckoning fire. But the

sound of a closing door brought his head around and the fire no longer

beckoned.

On the platform, one hand on the knob of the car door as though

meditating retreat, stood the straight, slim figure of a girl. She wore

a light skirt and a white waist, and a bunch of flowers drooped from her

breast. Her head was uncovered and the soft brown hair waved lustrously

away from a face of ivory. The eyes that looked down into his reflected

the stars in their depths, the gently-parted mouth was like a vivid red

rosebud in the dusk. To Wade she seemed the very Spirit of Twilight,

white and slim and ethereal, and so suddenly had the apparition sprung

into his vision that he was startled and bewildered. For a long moment

their looks held. Then, somewhat faintly,

"Why have we stopped?" she asked.

So unreal had she looked that his heart pounded with relief when she

spoke.

"There's a hot-box," he answered, in the tones of one repeating a lesson

learned. His eyes devoured her face hungrily.

"Oh!" said the girl, softly. "Then--then you aren't a robber, are you?"

Wade merely shook his head. "I heard noises, and then--when I opened the

door--and saw you standing there--." The first alarm was yielding to

curiosity. She glanced at the scarred and stained hand which grasped the

brass railing, and from there to the pleasant, eager, sunburnt face

under the upturned brim of the battered sombrero. "No, I see you're not

that," she went on reflectively. "Are you a miner?"

"No, only a prospector. We're camped up there." He tilted his head

toward the slope without moving his gaze.

"Oh," said the girl. Perhaps she found that steady, unwinking regard of

his disconcerting, for she turned her head away slightly so that her

eyes were hidden from him. But the soft profile of the young face stood

clear against the darkening sky, and Wade gazed enravished.

"You are looking for gold?" she asked.

"Yes."

"And--have you found it?"

"No."

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" There was sympathy in the voice and in the look she

turned upon him, and the boy's heart sang rapturously. Perhaps weariness

and hunger and the girl's radiant twilit beauty combined to make him

light-headed; otherwise how account for his behavior? Or perhaps

starlight as well as moonlight may affect the brain; the theory is at

least plausible. Or perhaps no excuse is needed for him save that he was

twenty-three, and a Southerner! He leaned against the railing and

laughed softly and exultantly.

"I've found no gold," he said, "but I don't care about that now. For

I've found to-night what is a thousand times better!"

"Better than--than gold!" she faltered, trying to meet his gaze. "Why,

what--"

"The girl I love!" he whispered up to her.

She gasped, and the hand on the knob began to turn slowly. Even in the

twilight he could see the swift blood staining the ivory of her cheek.

His eyes found hers and held them.

"What is your name?" he asked, softly, imperatively.

Oh, surely there is some quality, some magic power in mountain starlight

undreamed of in our philosophy, for,

"Evelyn," whispered the girl, her wide eyes on his and a strange wonder

on her face.

"Evelyn!" he echoed radiantly. "Evelyn! Evelyn what?"

"Walton," answered the girl obediently. He nodded his head and murmured

the name half aloud to his memory.

"Evelyn Walton. And you live in God's country?"

"In New York." Her breath came fast and one hand crept to her breast

where the flowers drooped.

"I'll remember," he said, "and some day--soon--I'll come for you. I love

you, girl. Don't forget."

There was a quick, impatient blast from the engine. The wheels creaked

against the rails. The train moved forward.

"Good night," he said. His hand reached over the railing and one of hers

fell into it. For a moment it lay hidden there, warm and tremulous. Then

his fingers released it and it fled to join its fellow at her breast.

"Good night--dear," he said again. "Remember!"

Then he dropped from the step. There was a long piercing wail of the

whistle that was smothered as the engine entered the snow-shed. The girl

on the platform stood motionless a moment. Then one of her hands dropped

from her breast, and with it came a faded spray of purple lilac. She

stepped quickly to the rail and tossed it back into the twilight. Wade

sprang forward, snatched it from the track and pressed it to his lips.

When the last car dipped into the mouth of the snow-shed he was still

standing there, gazing after, his hat in hand, a straight, lithe figure

against the starlit sky.