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“The train was late, having waited at Colfax two hours for the Eastern Overland, else they would have been left, those two, and your father–but such is fate!

“It was ten o’clock when they reached Oakland. He lost the pair for a moment in the crowd going aboard the boat, but saw the girl again far forward, standing alone by the rail. He strolled across the deck, not appearing to have seen her. She moved a trifle nearer; with her eyes on the water, speaking low as if to herself, she said:–

“‘I am in great danger. Will you help me? If you will, listen, but do not speak or come any nearer. Be first, if you can, to go ashore; have a carriage ready, and wait until you see me. There will be a moment, perhaps–only a moment. Do not lose it. You understand? He, too, will have to get a carriage. When he comes for me I shall be gone. Tell the driver to take me to–‘ she gave the number of a well-known residence on Van Ness Avenue.

“He looked at her then, and said quietly, ‘The Benedet house is closed for the summer.’

“She hung her head at the name. ‘Promise me your silence!’ she implored in the same low, careful voice.

“‘I will protect you in every way consistent with common sense,’ your father answered, ‘but I make no promises.’

“‘I am at your mercy,’ she said, and added, ‘but not more than at his.’

“‘Is this a case of conspiracy or violence?’ your father asked.

“She shook her head. ‘I cannot accuse him. I came of my own free will. That is why I am helpless now.’

“‘I do not see how I can help you,’ said father.

“‘You can help me to gain time. One hour is all I ask. Will you or not?’ she said. ‘Be quick! He is coming.’

“‘I must go with you, then,’ your father answered, ‘I will take you to this address, but I need not tell you the house is empty.’

“‘There are people in the coachman’s lodge,’ she answered. Then her companion approached, and no more was said.

“But the counter-elopement was accomplished as only your father could manage such a matter on the spur of the moment–consequences accepted with his usual philosophy and bonhomie. If he could have foreseen all the consequences, he would not, I think, have refused to give her his name.

“He left her at the side entrance, where she rang and was admitted by an oldish, respectable looking man, who recognized her evidently with the greatest surprise. Then your father carried out her final order to wire Norwood Benedet, Jr., at Burlingame, to come home that night to the house address and save–she did not say whom or what; there she broke off, demanding that your father compose a message that should bring him as sure as life and death, but tell no tales. I do not know how she may have put it–these are my own words.

“There was a paragraph in one newspaper, next morning, which gave the girl’s full name, and a fancy sketch of her elopement with the famous range-rider Dick Malaby. This was just after the close of the cattlemen’s war in Wyoming. Malaby had fought for one of the ruined English companies. (The big owners lost everything, as you know. The country was up in arms against them; they could not protect their own men.) Malaby’s employers were friends of the Benedets, and had asked a place with them for their liegeman. He was a desperado with a dozen lives upon his head, but men like Norwood Benedet and his set would have been sure to make a pet of him. One could see how it all had come about, and what a terrible publicity such a name associated with hers would give a girl for the rest of her life.

“But money can do a great deal. Society was out of town; the newspapers that society reads were silent.