They said goodbye at the new rail depot in Boise. “Will we see each other again, John?” she asked.
“Would you like it if we did?”
“I would. And you?”
“Yes. I’ve worked in Denver many times; I’ll be sent there again soon, I’m sure.”
“And I to San Francisco.”
“It won’t be long, then,” he said. But he was thinking that in truth it had been two years since his last visit to Colorado; and that Sabina was an attractive woman with too much to offer to remain an unattached widow for long. There was a sadness in him as he watched her board an eastbound Central Pacific car — a sadness born of something he suspected was much more profound than simple kinship.
Two weeks after his return to San Francisco, following a great deal of deliberation, Quincannon sent a wire to Sabina care of the Pinkerton Agency, Denver. It read:
I AM CONSIDERING RESIGNATION FROM SERVICE TO ESTABLISH PRIVATE PRACTICE STOP WOULD YOU BE INTERESTED IN MOVE TO SF TO JOIN ME THIS VENTURE QMK BUSINESS ONLY OF COURSE
He waited anxiously, but not long, for her reply. It came the next afternoon.
YOUR OFFER A PLEASANT SURPRISE STOP YES I WOULD CONSIDER IF EQUAL PARTNERSHIP WHAT YOU HAVE IN MIND STOP BUSINESS ONLY OF COURSE STOP IF YOUR ANSWER AFFIRMATIVE I WILL REQUEST LEAVE OF ABSENCE TO COME YOUR CITY FOR PERSONAL DISCUSSION
Quincannon wired his affirmative. Then he went to the Palace Hotel, and because he had not had a drink of alcohol in nineteen days, he did his celebrating with a pot of black coffee and a fifty-cent cigar.