“Now hold on, Sarah,” he protested. “That ain’t fair. Besides, I’m telling this.—Next thing, Seth yells at me, ‘Goin’ to stay here all night?’ “‘Come on,’ I said to the girl, ‘and climb on board. But next time you want a ride don’t flag a locomotive between stations.’ She followed along; but when I got to the step and turned to give her a lift-up, she wasn’t there. I went forward again. Not a sign of her. Above and below was sheer cliff, and the track stretched ahead a hundred yards clear and empty. And then I spotted her, crouched down right against the cowcatcher, that close I’d almost stepped on her. If we’d started up, we’d have run over her in a second. It was all so nonsensical, I never could make out her actions. Maybe she was trying to suicide. I grabbed her by the wrist and jerked her none too gentle to her feet. And she came along all right. Women do know when a man means business.” I glanced from this Goliath to his little, bird-eyed spouse, and wondered if he had ever tried to mean business with her. “Seth kicked at first, but I boosted her into the cab and made her sit up beside me—” “And I suppose Seth was busy running the engine,” Mrs. Jones observed. “I was breaking him in, wasn’t I?” Mr. Jones protested. “So we made the run into Amato. She’d never opened her mouth once, and no sooner’d the engine stopped than she’d jumped to the ground and was gone. Just like that. Not a thank you kindly. Nothing. “But next morning when we came to pull out for Quito with a dozen flat cars loaded with rails, there she was in the cab waiting for us; and in the daylight I could see how much better a looker she was than the night before. “‘Huh! she’s adopted you,’ Seth grins. And it looked like it. She just stood there and looked at me—at us—like a loving hound dog that you love, that you’ve caught with a string of sausages inside of him, and that just knows you ain’t going to lift a hand to him. ‘Go chase yourself!’ I told her _pronto_.” (Mrs. Jones her proximity noticeable with a wince at the Spanish word.) “You see, Sarah, I’d no use for her, even at the start.” Mrs. Jones stiffened. Her lips moved soundlessly, but I knew to what syllables. “And what made it hardest was Seth jeering at me. ‘You can’t shake her that way,’ he said. ‘You saved her life—’ ‘I didn’t,’ I said sharply; ‘it was you.’ ‘But she thinks you did, which is the same thing,’ he came back at me. ‘And now she belongs to you. Custom of the country, as you ought to know.’” “Heathenish,” said Mrs. Jones, and though her steady gaze was set upon the Tower of Jewels I knew she was making no reference to its architecture.