“Well, I’d do something—­even if it was something awful like getting drunk or shooting somebody.  Why, if you even had a past you wouldn’t be so hopeless.  I could love a man with a past.  It would show at least, that he hadn’t followed the line of the least resistance.  The world is full of canals—­but there are only a few canyons.  Look!  I believe we’re stopping!  Oh, I hope it’s a hold-up!  What will you do if it is?” The train slowed to a standstill and Winthrop Adams Endicott leaned out and gazed along the line of the coaches.

“There is a little town here.  Seems to be some commotion up ahead—­quite a crowd.  If I can get this blamed gate open we can go up and see what the trouble is.”

“And if you can’t get it open you can climb over and lift me down.  I’m just dying to know what’s the matter.  And if you dare to say it wouldn’t be conventional I’ll—­I’ll jump!”

CHAPTER II

WOLF RIVER

A uniformed flagman, with his flag and a handful of torpedoes swung from the platform and started up the track.

“What’s the trouble up in front?” asked the girl as Endicott assisted her to the ground.

“Cloud busted back in the mountains, an’ washed out the trussle, an’ Second Seventy-six piled up in the river.”

“Oh, a wreck?” she exclaimed.  “Will we have time to go up and see it?”

“I’d say it’s a wreck,” grinned the trainman.  “An’ you’ve got all the time you want.  We’re a-goin’ to pull in on the sidin’ an’ let the wrecker an’ bridge crew at it.  But even with ’em a-workin’ from both ends it’ll be tomorrow sometime ’fore they c’n get them box cars drug out an’ a temp’ry trussle throw’d acrost.”

“What town is this?”

“Town!  Call it a town if you want to.  It’s Wolf River.  It’s a shippin’ point fer cattle, but it hain’t no more a town ’n what the crick’s a river.  The trussle that washed out crosses the crick just above where it empties into Milk River.  I’ve railroaded through here goin’ on three years an’ I never seen no water in it to speak of before, an’ mostly it’s plumb dry.”

The man sauntered slowly up the track as one who performs a merely nominal duty, and the girl turned to follow Endicott.  “It would have been easier to walk through the train,” he ventured, as he picked his way over the rough track ballast.

“Still seeking the line of least resistance,” mocked the girl.  “We can walk through a train any time.  But we can’t breathe air like this, and, see,—­through that gap—­the blue of the distant mountains!”

The man removed his hat and dabbed at his forehead with a handkerchief.  “It’s awfully hot, and I have managed to secrete a considerable portion of the railroad company’s gravel in my shoes.”

“Don’t mind a little thing like that,” retorted the girl sweetly.  “I’ve peeled the toes of both of mine.  They look like they had scarlet fever.”