“Only a bridge gone,” was the word disgustedly handed back from mouth to mouth. There had been an unusual fall of rain in the arid country to the north, and for a few hours one of the _arroyos_ had become a boiling flood, which had swept away a substantial new bridge. The passengers straggled forward to the scene of trouble. In the curious half light of the sun sinking into the desert behind and illuminating all the vast high plain with a brilliant reddish light, the huddle of passengers along the right of way and the stalled cars seemed singularly out of place, accentuating the desolate loneliness of the country, where for miles and miles as far as the eye could reach nothing was to be seen rising above the sagebrush and cactus except a range of misty, purple mountains a few miles to the south and a huge water tank a mile or two in the rear. On either side of the petty stream that had already subsided to its normal shallow condition several trains had been caught and held by the loss of the bridge, the Eastern Limited being the last to join the confusion. The passengers on these various trains had mingled along the right of way and were watching the efforts of a large gang of laborers to build a temporary track across the gully, which was almost completed. Some of the passengers had been there since early morning, and these greeted the newcomers from the Limited with joking inquiries about the state of the larder on their train. It was a good hundred miles in either direction to any station possessing a lunch counter, and the question of supper was becoming of serious importance to the less fortunate travelers. As Brainard talked with some of these passengers from the East, he was given a newspaper brought on the last train. It was the Sunday morning _Albuquerque Star_. Brainard drew to one side and scanned its pages by the fading light. It did not take long for him to find what he was seeking. On the front page of the first section, in the place of honor, there was an associated press dispatch from San Francisco, describing the sensational robbery in the office of a prominent business man. It told without material exaggeration the events of the afternoon before; there was no hint that the affair was more than a daring, but common burglary by a reckless and experienced hand. Brainard rather resented this aspect of the story. In conclusion it said that the authorities had strong clews and expected to lay their hands on the robber before he would have any chance to dispose of the more valuable part of his haul. Brainard handed the paper back to its owner, chatted for a few moments longer about their common predicament, then strolled thoughtfully back the way he had come.