THE LETTER IN THE CHAPS Though hours may drag themselves into the past so sluggishly that one is fairly maddened by the snail's pace of them, into the past they must go eventually.

Jean had sat and listened to the wheels of the Golden State Limited clank over the cryptic phrase that meant so much.
"Letter-in-the-chaps! Letter-in-the chaps!" was what they had said while the train pounded across the desert and slid through arroyas and deep cuts which leveled hills for its passing.

"Letter-in-the-chaps! Letter-in-the-chaps!" And then a silence while they stood by some desolate station where the people were swarthy of skin and black of hair and eyes, and moved languidly if they moved at all.

Then they would go on; and when the wheels had clicked over the switches of the various side tracks, they would take up again the refrain: "Letter-in-the-chaps! Letter-in-the-chaps!" until Jean thought she would go crazy if they kept it up much longer.
Little by little they drew near to Los Angeles.

And then they were there, sliding slowly through the yards in a drab drizzle of one of California's fall rains.