Reply Flagstaff, Arizona. RICHARD GORDON, Superintendent K. &
A.R.R."
"What will that do?" she asked.
"I'm not much at prophecy, and we'll wait for the reply," I said.
All that day we lay at Flagstaff, and after a good sleep, as there was
no use keeping the party cooped up in their car, I drummed up
some ponies and took the Cullens and Ackland over to the Indian
cliff-dwellings. I don't think Lord Ralles gained anything by staying
behind in a sulk, for it was a very jolly ride, or at least that was
what it was to me. I had of course to tell them all how I had settled
on them as the criminals, and a general history of my doings. To hear
Miss Cullen talk, one would have inferred I was the greatest of living
detectives.
"The mistake we made," she asserted, "was not securing Mr. Gordon's
help to begin with, for then we should never have needed to hold the
train up, or if we had we should never have been discovered."
What was more to me than this ill-deserved admiration were two things
she said on the way back, when we two had paired off and were a bit
behind the rest.
"The sandwiches and the whiskey were very good," she told me, "and I'm
so grateful for the trouble you took."
"It was a pleasure," I said.
"And, Mr. Gordon," she continued, and then hesitated for a
moment--"my--Frederic told me that you--you said you honored me
for--?"
"I do," I exclaimed energetically, as she paused and colored.
"Do you really?" she cried. "I thought Fred was only trying to make me
less unhappy by saying that you did.
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