was beautiful and that she was wearing a green tailor-made suit; and will you believe me, Neddy, they reported to me next day that their operative failed to pick her up at the station? He said three beautiful women got off the train there, and that none of them wore a green dress.”
“Well, it's just barely possible she may have another dress,” Jerome retorted slyly. “Women are funny that way. They change their dresses about as often as they change their minds.”
“Why, that's so,” Webster answered innocently. “I never thought of that.”
The porter, having delivered his charge's baggage in her section, was returning for another tip. Webster reached out and accosted him.
“Henry,” he said, “do you want to earn a dollar?”
“Yes, sah. Yes indeed, sah.'
“Where did you stow that young lady's hand-baggage?”
“Lower Six, Car Nine, sah.”
“I have a weakness for coloured boys who are quick at figures,” Webster declared, and dismissed the porter with the gratuity. He turned to Jerome. “Neddy, I feel that I am answering the call to a great adventure,” he declared solemnly.
“I know it, Jack. Good-bye, son, and God bless you. If your fit of insanity passes within ninety days, cable me; and if you're broke, stick the Colorado Con' for the cable tolls.”
“Good old wagon!” Webster replied affectionately. Then he shook hands and climbed aboard the train. The instant he disappeared in the vestibule, however, Neddy Jerome waddled rapidly down the track to Car Nine, climbed aboard, and made his way to Lower Six. The young lady in the green tailor-made suit was there, looking idly out the window.
“Young lady,” Jerome began, “may I presume to address you for a moment on a matter of very great importance to you? Don't be afraid of me, my dear. I'm old enough to be your father, and besides, I'm one of the nicest old men you ever met.”
She could not forbear a smile. “Very well, sir,” she replied.
Neddy Jerome produced a pencil and card. “Please write your name on this card,” he pleaded, “and I'll telegraph what I want to say to you. There'll be a man coming through this car in a minute, and I don't want him to see me here—besides which, the train leaves in half a minute, and I live in Denver and make it a point to be home and in bed not later than ten each night. Please trust me, young lady.” ^
The young lady did not trust him, however, although she wrote on the card. Jerome thanked her and fled as fast as his fat old legs could carry him. Under the station arc he read the card.
“'Henrietta Wilkins,'” he murmured. “By the gods, one would never suspect a name like that belonged to a face like that. I know that name is going to jar Jack and cause him to seethe with ambition to change it. He'll trim the Henrietta down to plain Retta, and change Wilkins to Webster! By jingo, it would be strange if that madman persuaded her to marry him. I hope he does. If I'm any judge of character, Jack Webster won't be cruel enough to chain that vision to Sobrante; and besides, she's liable to make him decide who's most popular with him—Henrietta or Billy Geary. If she does, I'll play Geary to lose. However, if that confirmed old bachelor wants to chase rainbows, I might as well help him out, since whichever way the cat jumps I can't lose. It's to my interest to have him marry that girl, or any girl, for that matter, because she'll have something to say about the advisability of kicking aside what amounts, approximately, to thirty thousand a year, in order to sink the family bankroll in a wildcat mine in the suburbs of hell. Well! Needs must when the devil drives.” And he entered the station telegraph office and commenced to write.
An hour later Miss Dolores Ruey, alias Henrietta Wilkins, was handed this remarkably verbose and truly candid telegram:
Denver, Colo., Aug. 7, 1913. Miss Henrietta Wilkins,
Lower 6, Car 9,
On board train 24.
Do you recall the bewhiskered, ragged individual you met on the S.P., L.A. & S.L. train in Death Valley ten days ago? He thrashed a man who annoyed you, but owing to a black eye and his generally unpresentable appearance, he remained in his stateroom the remainder of the trip and you did not see him again until to-night. He lifted his hat to you to-night, and you almost killed him with a look. It did not occur to him that you would not recognize him disguised as a gentleman, and he lifted his hat on impulse. Do not hold it against him. The sight of you again set his reason tottering on its throne, and he told me his sad story.
This man, John Stuart Webster, is wealthy, single, forty, fine, and crazy as a March hare. He is in love with you.
You might do worse than fall in love with him. He is the best mining engineer in the world, and he is now aboard the same train with you, en route to New Orleans, thence to take the steamer to Buenaventura, Sobrante, C. A., where he is to meet another lunatic and finance a hole in the ground. He has just refused a thirty-thousand-dollar-a-year job from me to answer the call of a mistaken friendship. I do not want him to go to Sobrante. If you marry him, he will not. If you do not marry him, you still might arrange to make him listen to reason. If you can induce him to come to work for me within the next ninety days, whether you marry him or not, I will give you five thousand dollars the day he reports on the job. Please bear in mind that he does not know I am doing this. If he did, he would kill me, but business is business, and this is a plain business proposition. I am putting you wise, so you will know your power and can exercise it if you care to earn the money. If not, please forget about it. At any rate, please do me the favour to communicate with me on the subject, if at all interested.
Edward P. Jerome.
President Colorado Consolidated Mines, Limited.
Care Engineers' Club.
The girl read and reread this telegram several times, and presently a slow little smile commenced to creep around the corners of her adorable mouth, for out of the chaos of emotions induced by Ned Jerome's amazing proposition, the humour of the situation had detached itself to the elimination of everything else.
“I believe that amazing old gentleman is absolutely dependable,” was the decision at which she ultimately arrived, and calling for a telegraph blank, she wired the old schemer:
Five thousand not enough money. Make it ten thousand and I will guarantee to deliver the man within ninety days. I stay on this train to New Orleans.
Henrietta.
That telegram arrived at the Engineers' Club about midnight, and pursuant to instructions, the night barkeeper read it and phoned the contents to Neddy Jerome, who promptly telephoned his reply to the telegraph office, and then sat on the edge of his bed, scratching his toes and meditating.
“That's a remarkable young woman,” he decided, “and business to her finger-tips. Like the majority of her sex, she's out for the dough. Well, I've done my part, and it's now up to Jack Webster to protect himself in the clinches and breakaways.”
About daylight a black hand passed Neddy Jerome's reply through the berth-curtains to Dolores Ruey. She read:
Accept. When you deliver the goods, communicate with me and get your money.
Jerome.
She snuggled back among the pillows
