Mr. Goodnight himself sent the despatch, and he thanked Churchill warmly for the very important information told so luminously in his letter. The solid and respectable portion of the party had hoped much from the presence of Mr. Heathcote, but as he had yielded to the influence of another, instead of exerting his own, it would be necessary to take additional action later. Meanwhile he requested Mr. Churchill to keep him accurately and promptly informed of everything, and Churchill at once telegraphed: "Despatch received. Will be glad to comply with your request." Then he congratulated himself, and felt good, his complacent demeanor forming a contrast to that of several others in the party. The latter were "King" Plummer, Sylvia Morgan, and John Harley, all of whom were unhappy. Harley was troubled by his conscience, and he could not do anything to keep it from sticking those little pins into him. Sylvia Morgan, despite herself, drew him on, not the less because his first feeling towards her had been one of hostility. She had a piquant touch, a manner full of unconscious allurement--the radiation of a pure soul, though it was--that he had never seen in any other woman, and the harder he fought against it, the more surely it conquered him. He took from his valise a copy of that old Chicago newspaper, with her picture on the front page, and wondered how he could have intimated that she was the cause of its being there. As he knew her better, he knew that she could not have done it, and he knew, too, that she would have scornfully resented any insinuation of having done so by refusing to deny it. The "King" was unhappy, too, in his way, and that was very bad indeed for him. He had tried an effusive gallantry, and it did not seem to succeed any better than obedience to his own impulses--on the whole, rather worse; and now, not knowing what else to do, he sulked. It was not any sly sulking, but genuine, open sulking in his large, Western way, thus leaving it apparent to all that the great "King" Plummer was sad. And that meant much to the party, because in a sense it was now personally conducted by him. In his joyous mood, which was his usual mood until the present, he had a large and pervasive personality that was a wonderful help to travel and social intercourse. They missed his timely, if now and then a trifle rough, jests, his vast knowledge of the mountains, which had some good story of every town to which they came, and his infinite zest and humor, which also communicated more zest and humor to every one with him. It was a grievous day for them all when "King" Plummer began to mourn. More than one guessed the cause, but wisely they refrained from any attempt to remove it. They could do nothing but endure the gloom in silence, until the clouds passed, as they hoped they would pass.