Only three passengers rode in the Pullman car. One was a commercial traveler, busy making up his weekly statement to the firm. Another was a Boston lady, in gold-rimmed glasses and a costume that helped the general effect of frigidity. The third looked out of the open window at the distant hills. He was a slender young fellow, tanned almost to a coffee brown, with eyes of Irish blue which sometimes bubbled with fun and sometimes were hard as chisel steel. Wide-shouldered and lean-flanked he was, with well-packed muscles, which rippled like those of a tiger. At Chiquita the train stopped, but took up again almost instantly its chant of the rail. Meanwhile, a man had swung himself to the platform of the smoker. He passed through that car, the two day coaches, and on to the sleeper; his keen, restless eyes inspected every passenger in the course of his transit. Opposite the young man in the Pullman he stopped. "May I ask if you are Lieutenant O'Connor?" "My name, seh." The young man in the seat had slewed his head around sharply, and made answer with a crisp, businesslike directness. The new-comer smiled. "I'll have to introduce myself, lieutenant. My name is Flatray. I've come to meet you." "Glad to meet you, Mr. Flatray. I hope that together we can work this thing out right. MacQueen has gathered a bunch that ought to be cleaned out, and I reckon now's the time to do it. I've been reading about him for a year. I've got a notion he's about the ablest thing in bad men this Territory has seen for a good many years." Flatray sat down on the seat opposite O'Connor. A smile flicked across his face, and vanished. "I'm of that opinion myself, lieutenant." "Tell me all about this affair of the West kidnapping," the ranger suggested. The other man told the story while O'Connor listened, alert to catch every point of the narrative. The face of the lieutenant of rangers was a boyish one--eager, genial, and frank; yet, none the less, strength lay in the close-gripped jaw and in the steady, watchful eye. His lithe, tense body was like a coiled spring; and that, too, though he seemed to be very much at ease. With every sentence that the other spoke, O'Connor was judging Flatray, appraising him for a fine specimen of a hard-bitten breed--a vigilant frontiersman, competent to the finger tips. Yet he was conscious that, in spite of the man's graceful ease and friendly smile, he did not like Flatray. He would not ask for a better man beside him in a tight pinch; but he could not deny that something sinister which breathed from his sardonic, devil-may-care face.