"Do you mean it?" asked her husband. "Shall we let her, Marion? Mr. Bucks says I am to take his car and take Barnhardt, and keep the car there till I can bring Gordon back. Mr. Bucks and his secretary will ride to-night as far as Bear Dance with us, and in the morning they join Mr. Glover there." McCloud looked at his watch. "If you are both going, can you be ready by twelve o'clock for the China Mail?" "We can be ready in an hour," declared Dicksie, throwing her arm half around Marion's neck, "can't we, Marion?" "I can be ready in thirty minutes." "Then, by Heaven--" McCloud studied his watch. "What is it, George?" "We won't wait for the midnight train. We will take an engine, run special to Green River, overhaul the Coast Limited, and save a whole day." "George, pack your suit-case--quick, dear; and you, too, Marion; suit-cases are all we can take," cried Dicksie, pushing her husband toward the bedroom. "I'll telephone Rooney Lee for an engine myself right away. Dear me, it is kind of nice, to be able to order up a train when you want one in a hurry, isn't it, Marion? Perhaps I _shall_ come to like it if they ever make George a vice-president." In half an hour they had joined Bucks in his car, and Bill Dancing was piling the baggage into the vestibule. Bucks was sitting down to coffee. Chairs had been provided at the table, and after the greetings, Bucks, seating Marion Sinclair at his right and Barnhardt and McCloud at his left, asked Dicksie to sit opposite and pour the coffee. "You are a railroad man's wife now and you must learn to assume responsibility." McCloud looked apprehensive. "I am afraid she will be assuming the whole division if you encourage her too much, Mr. Bucks." "Marrying a railroad man," continued Bucks, pursuing his own thought, "is as bad as marrying into the army; if you have your husband half the time you are lucky. Then, too, in the railroad business your husband may have to be set back when the traffic falls off. It's a little light at this moment, too. How should you take it if we had to put him on a freight train for a while, Mrs. McCloud?" "Oh, Mr. Bucks!" "Or suppose he should be promoted and should have to go to headquarters--some of us are getting old, you know." "Really," Dicksie looked most demure as she filled the president's cup, "really, I often say to Mr. McCloud that I can not believe Mr. Bucks is president of this great road. He always looks to me to be the youngest man on the whole executive staff. Two lumps of sugar, Mr. Bucks?" The bachelor president rolled his eyes as he reached for his cup. "Thank you, Mrs. McCloud, only one after that." He looked toward Marion. "All I can say is that if Mrs. McCloud's husband had married her two years earlier he might have been general manager by this time. Nothing could hold a man back, even a man of his modesty, whose wife can say as nice things as that. By the way, Mrs. Sinclair, does this man keep you supplied with transportation?"