the observation end of the car; but what he did get was of sufficient import to drive out of his mind a curt lecture about blackening the reputation of the army with lies about the Philippines. Haley had told him that he had seen the man with the two moles on his face jump out of his own car at Council Bluffs. He had simply[51] stood on the platform, looking to right and left for a moment; then he had swung himself back on the car. Haley had watched him walk down the aisle and enter the drawing-room. He did not come out; Haley had found out that the drawing-room belonged to Edwin S. Keatcham, “the big railroad man, sor.” [51] “It doesn’t seem likely that he would be an accomplice of a kidnapper,” mused the colonel. “The man might have gone in there while he was out.” “Sure, he might, sor; ’twas mesilf thinking that same; and I wint beyant to the observation-car, and there the ould gintleman was smoking.” “And you stopped to tell yarns to that other gentleman instead of getting back and following—” “No, sor, I beg your pardon, sor; I was kaping me eyes open and on him; for himsilf was in the observation-car where you are now, sor, until we come in, and thin he walked back, careless like, to his own car. Will I be afther following him?” “Yes; don’t lose him.” They did not lose him; they both saw him enter the drawing-room and almost immediately come out and sit down in one of the open sections. [52]“See if you can’t find out from the conductor where he is going,” the colonel proposed to Haley; and he frowned over his thoughts for a bad quarter of an hour at the window. The precipitate of all this mental ferment was a determination to stick close to the boy, saying nothing. He hoped that when they stopped over night at Salt Lake City, according to Aunt Rebecca’s plan, they might shake off the “brother’s” company. The day passed uneventfully. He played bridge with Mrs. Millicent and Miss Smith and Archie, while Aunt Rebecca kept up her French with one of Bentzon’s novels. [52] Afterward she said grimly to him: “I think you must have been converted out in the Philippines; you never so much as winced, that last hand; no, you sat there smiling over your ruin as sweetly as if you enjoyed it.” The colonel smiled again. “Ah, but, you see, I did enjoy it; didn’t you notice
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