"Why, he doesn't impress me that way, at all," said the good lady, who knew nothing of her cousin's very excellent reasons for disliking Brockway. "He seems to be a very pleasant young man, and quite intelligent." Mr. Vennor shrugged his shoulders. "I don't question his intelligence--though it wasn't very remarkable at the dinner-table last night. Did you happen to find out whether he is going all the way across with his party?" "He didn't say. His people are going up to Silver Plume to-day, but he can't go with them. He has to stay in Denver with one of the exacting ones whose ticket is out of repair." "Ha! that's a very sharp little trick," said the President; but inasmuch as he did not elucidate, the chaperon misunderstood. "To get him into trouble with the others? I fancy that is only incidental. Mr. Brockway is going to try to get Mr. Burton--our Mr. Burton, of Salt Lake City, you know--who is on the train, to take charge of the party on the Silver Plume trip." Mr. Vennor said, "Oh," and then the young people began to appear, and the waiter announced breakfast. During the meal the President was too deeply engrossed in the working out of a small counterplot to hear or heed much of the desultory table-talk. It was quite evident that the passenger agent had learned of the proposed stop-over in Denver, and was preparing to take advantage of it. His confidence with Mrs. Dunham was only a roundabout way of notifying Gertrude. Mr. Vennor considered many little schemes of the frustrating sort, and finally choosing one which seemed to meet all the requirements, put it in train immediately after breakfast. "What are you going to do with yourself to-day?" he asked of Fleetwell, when they had drawn apart and lighted their cigars. "Don't know," replied the collegian, between whiffs; "whatever the others want to do." "I was just thinking," the President continued, carelessly. "The Beaswicke girls want to call on some friends of theirs, and that eliminates them. I expect to be busy all day; and Cousin Jeannette says she doesn't care to go about. Suppose you and Gertrude take a run up into the mountains on one of the narrow-gauges. It'll fill in the day, and you can be back in time for dinner this evening." "I don't mind, if Gertrude wants to go; but I don't believe she does," said Fleetwell, with so little enthusiasm that the President looked at him sharply. "Think not?" "I'm almost sure she doesn't," the collegian replied, placidly. Mr. Francis Vennor was a conservative man, slow to admit even the contradiction of facts. While waiting for Gertrude the previous evening, he had convinced himself that his daughter was about to sacrifice herself. To an impartial onlooker--and he prided himself on being no less--the evidence was logically conclusive; and, notwithstanding Gertrude's tardy denial, he still believed that his major premise was correct, or, at most, only errant in time.