So far John Gray, civil engineer in the service of the Government, had been lost in his avocation. He saw no flower beside his path; he dreamed of no woman he had known. But there came a change, for which he was not responsible. There was delay in the shipping of additional supplies needed for the expedition's work--as there usually is delay and bad management in whatever is intrusted to certain encrusted bureaus in Washington--and in the interval, with nothing to do, this civil engineer spent necessarily most of his time in the little town about the railroad station, and there fell in love. It was an odd location for such luxury or risk as the one denned; but the thing happened. John Gray fell in love, and fell far. Arizona is said, by its present inhabitants, to have a climate which makes the faces of women wonderfully fair, given a face whose features are not distorted to start with. This assertion may be attributed rather to territorial pride than to conviction; but it doesn't matter. There was assuredly one pretty girl in Cougarville, and Gray had begun to feel a more than passing interest in her. He had even gone so far in his meditations as to conceive the idea of taking her East with him when he went back (he had laid up a little money), and though he had not yet suggested this to the young lady, he felt reasonably confident. She had been with him much and seemed very fond of him. Once he had kissed her at the door. Certainly he was fond of her. The little town upon the railroad was not new, and Miss Fleming belonged to one of the old families of the place--that is, her father had come there at least twenty-five years ago. He had mined and dealt in timber and taken tie contracts, and was now considered as fairly ranking among the twenty-five or thirty "warm" men of the place. There were castes in Cougarville, and the society made up of these families was exclusive. Their parties in town were as select as their picnics in the foothills, and the foothill picnics were the occasions where Cougarville society really came out. It was a foothill picnic which brought an end to all relations between John Gray and Miss Molly Fleming. It came about in this way.