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 far before he had encountered a taxi, returning no doubt from a trip to another of the Beverly Hills villas. In the Los Angeles station he had learned that a train was leaving for the East within an hour. Once aboard he had dispatched a telegram to Jack Story warning him of his impending arrival, then tumbled into his berth and fallen into a deep sleep from which he had not awakened until late the next morning when he had looked out upon the multi-coloured Arizona desert.

The telegram somehow miscarried. At any rate Jack Story had not received it in time to meet his distinguished guest at Lamy. A boy in the news-stand of El Ortiz, the Spanish inn with its delightful patio, instructed Ambrose in the lore of how to reach Santa Fe. So he boarded the Harvey bus, driven by a young fellow whose hip bulged with a holstered revolver, reminding Ambrose that bandits still lurked in this lonely country. Bandits, he reflected, would be a positive relief after his experiences of the last few days. The car sped away through the mountains, between uneven rows of rocks of blood-red sandstone that might have been sculptured by one of Montezuma's artists. The earth was spattered with rabbit-brush, juniper, and tumbleweed, and stunted