The caller indicated a desire to speak with Uncle Jason in private before he departed, and the two men went out of doors to unblanket the colt and discuss the subject the elder had come to talk about.

Later Janice learned that the old gentleman had come for the express purpose of offering Mr. Day financial assistance in straightening out the tangle of Tom Hotchkiss' affairs. Elder Concannon would take up the first note of a thousand dollars, which was almost due, and would accept Uncle Jason's signature for the debt without security. It was a friendly thing and the show of kindness on the elder's part delighted Janice as much as it surprised her relatives.

On this evening, however, and while Uncle Jason was at the stable with Elder Concannon, Janice and Marty had something else to think about. It was Marty who spied the flitting figure down by the lane gate as he looked out of the kitchen door after the departing elder and Uncle Jason.

"Hi tunket!" he drawled. "What's that, I want to know? 'Tisn't a dog—nor a calf. Something's got strayed, sure enough, and don't know whether to venture in here or not."

"What is it, Marty?" Janice asked idly, following him to the door.

The boy grabbed his cap without replying and ran toward the gate. When Janice came out upon the porch the figure had disappeared behind the hole of one of the great trees down by the fence. Marty's coming frightened it out of the shadow in a moment and they saw it going up the road.

"Hey, there! Stop!" Marty called. "It's only me—Marty Day. I won't hurt you."

He could run twice as fast as his quarry, and in a minute had the shaking, weeping figure by the arm.

"Hi tunket!" he gasped. "Lottie Drugg! What you doin' over here?"

"Oh! oh! oh!" sobbed the girl. "I want Janice. Take me to my Janice Day. Oh! do, Marty!"

"Sure," he told her. "There! there! don't cry no more. Were you lost? What brought you here, Lottie?"

"I—I can't tell you," she wailed. "I'll tell my Janice—I'll tell her."

"Come on, then," said Marty huskily. "Janice is just yonder. Don't you see her on the porch?"

He led the sobbing child into the yard of the Day house and Janice, hearing them coming, ran out to learn what it meant.

"Lottie!" she cried, amazed.

Lottie Drugg ran into the bigger girl's arms. "Oh, Janice! My Janice Day!" she sobbed. "You'll take me in, won't you? You'll let me live with you? You love me just the same, don't you?"

"Goodness! What's the matter with the child?" gasped Janice.

"You got me," her cousin said gruffly. "I dunno what it's all about."

"Does your father know where you are, Lottie? Or Mamma 'Rill?"

Lottie's weeping became more abandoned.

"They don't care nothing more about me. They're not going to want me any more pretty soon. No, they're not! If—if you won't—won't have me, Janice Day, I sha'n't have a—a place in this—this world to go to."



CHAPTER IX

MRS. SCATTERGOOD TALKS

"What do you suppose is the matter with Lottie?" murmured Marty. "Is she sick or something?"

Suddenly Janice Day suspected the truth. She hugged little Lottie all the tighter, saying in reply to her cousin:

"Don't bother her now, Marty. She isn't sick, I'm sure. She'll be all right in a little while. She's come over here to spend the night with me, haven't you, Lottie?"

"Ye—yes! If you'll k-k-keep me."

"Sure we'll keep you," said Marty gruffly. He was much moved by the little girl's tears. "You stop her from gulpin' that way, Janice. She'll—she'll swallow her palate!"

"She's in no danger, Marty," the older girl said. "She's just sobbing."

Lottie's tempestuous sobs began to subside. Janice led her toward the kitchen door, whispering: "Is there anything the matter with papa or Mamma 'Rill? Tell me, Lottie."

"Just that they ain't going to want me any more," repeated Lottie.

"Has Mrs. Scattergood been talking to you?" whispered Janice.

The visitor nodded emphatically but said nothing more. Janice turned to Marty, and the boy wondered why she looked so angry. He had not done anything out of the way, he was sure.

"Run right across town to the store, Marty, and tell Mr. Drugg and his wife where she is. Tell them she is going to stay all night with me. But don't tell them anything else."

"Huh?" queried Marty.

"Not a thing. Just that she came here to stay all night with me and I didn't want them to be worried. That's enough."

"Oh!" grunted Marty. "I see," and he started out of the yard immediately, while Janice led the more-quietly-sobbing Lottie into the house.

"Dear sakes alive!" exploded Aunt 'Mira, "what ever is Lottie Drugg doin' 'way over here at this time o' night? Anythin' wrong with 'Rill?"

"Not a thing," Janice said cheerfully. "Lottie wanted to stay all night with me and she is a little late getting here. Now hush, honey! don't cry any more. You are here now and you'll be all right, you know."

"Why, do tell!" said wondering Aunt 'Mira. "What's she cryin' for? Didn't she know that little gals was as welcome here as the flowers in spring? Come, give Miz' Day a kiss, sweetheart. I'm sartain sure glad to see ye."

Lottie began to feel better and swallowed her sobs—if not her palate—very quickly. She was of some importance in this house, at least. She sat down and took off her tam-o'-shanter and unbuttoned the new blue coat of which she had been so proud only a few days before. But she was no longer wearing "Mamma 'Rill's" present—the string of blue beads.

"It's airly yet," said Mrs. Day. "When's your usual bedtime, Lottie? We can all have a game of parchesi or somethin'. Can't we, Janice?"

"I don't go to bed much before half-past nine. Sometimes I'm let to stay up later," Lottie said.

"And your eyes are as bright as buttons now," said Aunt 'Mira comfortably. "Jest wipe the tears out of 'em."

"That is right, Lottie. Marty will soon be back and we'll play games," Janice agreed.

Lottie removed her coat and began to feel decidedly better. Marty came in after a while, red in the face and short of breath, but cheerfully a-grin again. He gave a bundle to Janice and winked at her as he said:

"All right. I ran all the way. They say she can stay. Whew!"

"It's my nightie," whispered Lottie, pointing to the bundle. "And my toothbrush and clean stockings, and things."

"Some day you'll bust something, runnin' so," said Mrs. Day to Marty. "Where are all those picture puzzles and toy-games? You want to amuse Lottie now she's here."

Nothing loath, the boy rummaged out a wealth of amusement-producing inventions and Lottie forgot her sorrow for the time being. Mr. Day came in, and, being instructed by Janice in the kitchen, made no comment upon Lottie Drugg's presence.

The visitor sat close beside Marty and if, at any time, she did not play to the best advantage, he corrected her privately. As for Mr. and Mrs. Day they looked on and smiled. Who could help smiling at little Lottie Drugg?

Janice was glad that her visitor's mind was coaxed away from her troubles before bedtime. By that time Lottie was chattering like a squirrel and she bade the family good-night happily.

After the two girls had said their prayers and got into bed, the visitor suddenly seized Janice tightly around the neck and sobbed a little with her face pressed close against the bigger girl's shoulder.

"Oh, Janice Day! I never can go home to papa and Mamma 'Rill. What shall I do?"

"Don't worry about that, honey," Janice told her soothingly. "You can stay here, you know, if you wish to."

"Oh, yes! I love you. Mr. and Mrs. Day are awfully nice to me. And Marty is just the best boy. But—but it isn't going to be like home," she wailed.

"Well then, dear, why don't you wish to go home any more?" asked her friend soberly.

"They—they don't want me. They—they ain't going to want me at all."

"Who says so?"

"I—I know they don't. Why, Janice Day! they've asked God for another little girl—a baby girl—to come and stay with them. Mrs. Scattergood says so. That's what she meant by saying my nose was going to be put out of joint. She told me so. I asked her," confessed Lottie.

"Oh, my dear!" sighed Janice.

It was difficult to seek to relieve Lottie's mind regarding the wonderful thing that was coming to pass in the Drugg household, without saying what might be unkind, but true, about Mrs. Scattergood. Just at this moment Janice felt that she could have shaken the acid-tempered old woman with the greatest satisfaction!

"Did you ask Papa Drugg or Mamma 'Rill about it?" Janice queried of the little girl.

"Oh, no."

"Then how do you know they don't want you any more?"

"Why—of course they don't. Or they wu—wu—wouldn't ask for another little girl," sobbed Lottie.

"Perhaps the baby will be a little boy, honey. When folks ask God for a baby He sends what He thinks is best for them to have. And wouldn't you just love to have a little baby brother to love and play with and help take care of? Now, wouldn't you?"

"Oh, Janice Day!"

"Just think! You'd always have somebody to play with at home and you wouldn't be lonely any more. You wouldn't even mind if your echo went away," suggested Janice. "Think of it! When he grows bigger——"

"He'll be like Marty!" gasped Lottie, clutching at her friend more vigorously.

"That is, if it is a boy. But if it is a dear little girl, she'll be lots of company for you," Janice pursued. "Think how nice it would be to have a sister. I've always wished I had one. She can play keep house with you, and play dolls, and you both can dress up and be real grown-up ladies, and——"

A long, contented sigh from little Lottie. She began to breathe regularly, with only now and then a sob in her voice. She was asleep.

Janice, however, did not sleep at once. With the soft, warm body of the innocent child in her arms she lay a long time pondering these things.

How unkind of Mrs. Scattergood to let the barb of her bitter tongue sting Lottie's gentle heart! How wrong and unwise 'Rill's mother was about most things!

Because she selfishly desired her daughter to be at her beck and call, Mrs. Scattergood had opposed her marriage to Hopewell Drugg. So, at every turn, where the sour old creature could do so, she sowed thorns in the path of her daughter and Hopewell.

"She makes herself unhappy, and all about her, as well. She succeeded in embittering poor 'Rill's life for several weeks with her untrue gossip about Mr. Drugg's drinking. Now, when she should be her daughter's greatest stay and comfort, she deliberately tries to set poor little Lottie against her own mamma and father. It is dreadful," Janice decided. "It must be stopped. I've got to do something about it!"

So, when she finally dropped to sleep it was with this decision firm in her mind. She awoke with it, too, and after leaving Lottie at the schoolhouse, Janice drove her car around by Mrs. Scattergood's little dwelling at the crown of the High Street hill.

The birdlike little old woman was out in her front yard swathing her rosebushes in straw and mulching their roots against the harder frosts of winter which were already due. She waved a gloved hand to the young girl who stepped out from behind the steering wheel of her car and entered the creaking gate.

"Here ye be, Janice Day, jest as bright as a new penny," said Mrs. Scattergood. "I wanter know if that young'un of Hopewell Drugg's was over to your house last night."

"Yes, she was, Mrs. Scattergood," Janice gravely replied. "She remained all night with me."

"Huh, I don't approve of sech didoes. My young'uns was allus in the house by dark—and stayed in till mornin'. 'Rill came traipsin' over here after eight o'clock to see if I'd seen her."

"Lottie was all right," said Janice. "I sent Marty over to tell 'Rill not to worry."

"The young'un ain't more'n ha'f witted. I allus have said so."

"She is just as bright as any other child of her age—brighter than some," affirmed Janice warmly. "She is more sensitive than most. Therefore we should be careful what we say to her."

"Ha! what d'ye mean, Janice Day?" asked the old woman, eyeing her caller suspiciously and belligerently.

Janice told her. She spoke warmly and with flashing eyes that held Mrs. Scattergood silent for the nonce. She had never seen Janice display any appearance of wrath before, and if her pet cat had suddenly turned in her lap and spit at her and scratched her, Mrs. Scattergood would have been no more surprised.

"Hoity-toity, young lady!" she finally said. "Do you think this is pretty talk to me that's old enough to be your grandmother?"

"That is just why I am saying it to you, Mrs. Scattergood," Janice responded firmly. "You are little Lottie's grandmother——"

"No, I ain't!" snapped the woman, her face very grim. "Nor I ain't likely to adopt any young one of Hope Drugg's and Cindy Stone's. I—should—say—not!"

"And is that the attitude you propose to assume when the little stranger comes? You cannot deny your relationship then."

"Oh! Well! Ahem! That's quite another matter," said Mrs. Scattergood crossly.

"Just now, when dear 'Rill needs all the kindness that can be shown her—by everybody—why can't you forget your"—"spite" she desired to say, but did not—"dislike of Hopewell and little Lottie? Be friends with them. Why! this arrival should make you all one happy family together."

Mrs. Scattergood snorted—literally. "Ha! Sech a great to-do about nothin'," she ejaculated.

"Oh, no, Mrs. Scattergood. It's not about nothing. It's the greatest thing that can happen. It is the most beautiful thing in the world to 'Rill. I know she feels that way."

"Poor critter! She's almost as big a fule as that young'un, Lottie," muttered the woman.

"Doesn't she need your love and comfort all the more, then?" suggested Janice softly. "Think of it, Mrs. Scattergood."

"I'll tell ye what I do think, Janice Day," snapped the other, not at all pacified. "I think you'd be in better business if you found something else to do, 'stead o' comin' here to tell me what's my duty."

"Oh, now, Mrs. Scattergood, don't be angry with me. I know you'll be sorry later if you do not show the love that 'Rill has the right to expect from you at this time. Don't make trouble for her."

"Humph!" ejaculated the old woman, scowling at her. "A body might think you had trouble enough of your own so't you could afford to mind your own business."

Janice flushed, for the criticism stung. She had, however, determined not to take offense at anything Mrs. Scattergood might say. Nothing but the girl's deep sense of the necessity for her act had urged her to address 'Rill's mother in this way.

"I haven't any personal trouble just now, Mrs. Scattergood. Of course, Uncle Jason's difficulty worries me a bit. But when daddy hears about it he will help."

"Your father! Broxton Day! Humph!" exploded the old woman, her wrinkled face flushed and her eyes snapping. "I calc'late Broxton Day has got his hands full right now without doin' anythin' for your Uncle Jase."

"Why, what do you mean, Mrs. Scattergood?"

The color washed out of Janice's cheeks instantly, and her lips remained parted in her excitement. Somehow the tart old woman's speech struck deep into the girl's heart.

For several days she had been fighting down the feeling of suspicion and fear that was rising like a tide within her. Daddy's letter was delayed. She had not chanced to see any newspaper but the Courier of late. Why! even Uncle Jason's Ledger had not appeared on the sitting room table. She watched the hard old face of the crotchety Mrs. Scattergood in a fascination of growing horror, repeating:

"What do you mean? Has anything happened to daddy? And you know it—and I don't?"

"Well, ye oughter if ye don't," snapped Mrs. Scattergood. "I never did believe in hidin' the trewth from folks. No good comes of it."

"What is it? What has happened to my father?" and Janice clutched at her arm.

"Wal, I've gone so fur, I might's well tell ye," the woman said, all of a flutter now. "Somebody oughter tell ye. Ye was bound to find it out, anyway."

"But what is it?"

"Broxton Day's been shot by them Mexicaners. He's shot, is a prisoner, an' I hear tell he ain't never likely to git out o' that plaguey country alive!"



CHAPTER X

THE ONLY SERIOUS THING

The gate clashed open again just as Janice's weakened grasp slipped from Mrs. Scattergood's arm and she staggered away from the excited, panting old woman. The girl would have fallen, save that the young man who rushed in at the gate, having seen the danger in season, caught her in his arms.

The girl's eyelids fluttered; her lips remained open; the pallor of her face was terrifying.

"What's happened?" demanded the newcomer. "What have you done to her, Mrs. Scattergood?"

"Me? I ain't done nothing—not a thing!" denied the woman shrilly.

"You said something to her, then?"

"Wal! What if I did? She'd oughter hev been told before."

"You told her?"

"Daddy! Oh, Daddy!" moaned Janice.

"You mind your own business, Frank Bowman! You're one o' them foolish folk, too, that's allus tryin' ter hide the trewth 'cause it's bitter. Sure 'tis bitter; 'twas meant ter be. An' these namby-pamby people in this world that can't stand the trewth to be told to 'em——"

Mrs. Scattergood overlooked the plain fact that the reason she had lost her temper and told this secret to Janice Day was because the girl had told her a few truths. But Frank Bowman was not listening to the old woman's tirade. Janice had not lost consciousness. Only for a moment did she sag helplessly on the young civil engineer's arm.

Then he led her out at the gate and to her car. He aided Janice into the seat, but slipped behind the steering wheel himself and touched the self-starter.

Mrs. Scattergood stared after them, slowly retreating the while toward the house. Her face did not display its customary smirk of complacency. That bit of gossip that had trembled on the tip of her tongue for days, and which she had been begged not to reveal to Janice, had at length been spoken. Her mind should have been relieved; but Mrs. Scattergood was not satisfied. There was something wrong. All she could see as she stumbled into the house was the stricken face of the young girl who had so often done her a friendly kindness, whose smile had been, after all, a cheering sight to her aging vision, whose whole existence here in Polktown seemed to be for the express purpose of making other people happy. It was with a sort of mental shock that Mrs. Scattergood suddenly discovered she, too, had been blessed and comforted by the spirit of Janice Day.

The car swept up the hill and over its crown, as the old woman retired into her cottage. Frank Bowman had not said a word. He twisted the steering wheel a trifle and they shot around the Town House front and into the Upper Middletown road.

"Oh, Frank! Is it true? It is true!" the girl finally faltered.

"Yes. Your father is wounded. We do not know how badly. No news has come out of the district since the first report. He is a prisoner of the insurrectos at the mine."

"There has been another battle?"

"Yes. Another uprising against the government. It's an awful thing——"

"Is there no hope? Oh, Frank! there must be!"

"Of course there is hope," he cried. "He's no worse off than he has been several times before."

"But you say he is shot!"

"Well—yes. That is the report."

"If one part of the report is true, why not the other?" said the girl, her keenness of wit thus displayed.

"But the wound may not be bad. We don't know that it is. Oh! hang that old woman, anyway! Why did she tell you?"

"Because she was angry with me," sighed Janice.

"Well——"

"And you must all think father very badly hurt or you would not have hid it from me—for how long?"

He told her. "But we don't really know anything about it. Nelson is raising heaven and earth for news. There is a good deal of excitement along the Border, they say——"

"Yes. I read that. Oh! how have you all managed to hide it from me for so long? I felt—Oh, you had no right!"

"We did what we hoped was for the best," Frank said gently.

"Oh, I suppose you did. But daddy wounded! I must go to him, Frank."

"Oh no, my dear girl. That would not be possible. Nobody can get beyond San Cristoval, and no American is allowed to cross the Border. It is not safe to enter Mexico now on any pretext. Those greasers hate us worse than poison."

Janice tried to control herself. She had not wept; this dry-eyed suffering was a deal worse for the girl, however, than would have been a passion of tears.

"Where—where are you taking me?" she asked suddenly, laying her hand on Frank's arm.

"Why, weren't you on your way to the seminary?"

"But I can't go there now," she said. "Not to-day."

"Here's Elder Concannon's place, right ahead. We can turn there if you like."

At the moment the elder himself appeared from one of the barns, and seeing the car and recognizing its occupants he came out to the great gate to hail them.

"Aren't going right by without stopping, are ye?" he said genially.

Frank Bowman quite involuntarily brought the car to a stop. The moment he did so the elder saw Janice's face.

"What's the matter?" he asked quickly. "Has she been told? Does she know?"

Frank nodded and the old man quickly came around to the girl's side.

"My dear," he said huskily. "My dear, brave girl! You've got something to trouble you now for a fac'. It's the waiting to hear news—to get the exact fac's—that is going to be hardest. Your friends have saved you some of that."

"Oh, I know! I know they thought they were doing it for the best," wailed Janice. "But daddy! He needs me!"

"It may not be anywhere near so bad as it might be, or as you think it is," Frank put in.

"Quite true—quite true," said the elder very gently for him. "I know just how hard 'tis to wait, Janice. I calculate those that wait at home suffer more than those that actually see battle, murder, and sudden death. But your father, Janice, may be already on his way home. You can't tell. You got to have patience."

"But I ought to go to him, Elder Concannon," she said.

"Not to be thought of! Not to be thought of!" he repeated. "What? A gal like you going clear down there to Mexico? Preposterous!"

That is what Uncle Jason said later, when his niece broached the subject to him. Indeed, Janice found nobody would listen to her or agree to such a project. A girl to go down to the Border, especially in these uncertain times? They scoffed at her!

It was said that the parties of rebels and commandoes of the Mexican army were hovering along the Rio Grande, ready to swoop like hawks upon unprotected Americans. The thin line of United States soldiers was strung along the desert country, watchfully waiting, policing the district as best they could. But they could not protect Americans who went over the line.

That evening an informal council of war was held in the Day sitting room. Frank Bowman was there as well as Nelson Haley. Frank was a very busy young man, for the branch railroad was completed, and, having built it, he was to act as supervisor of the branch until the directors decided upon another incumbent for the office. Besides, Frank had a deep interest in the pretty daughter of Vice President Harrison of the V. C. Road, and therefore he was not seen about Polktown so often in his free hours as formerly. He had come this evening, however, with Nelson, and the two young men, as well as the older heads, were unalterably opposed to Janice Day's desire to attempt going to the Border.

"Why, you couldn't get across the Rio Grande," Frank said decisively. "Trains are not running with any degree of regularity on any road in Northern Mexico. The International is at a standstill, I am told—tracks torn up in places and the American engineers chased out. And this San Cristoval place is on a branch of the International."

Nelson asked a question about the best route to be followed in getting to that point on the Border opposite to San Cristoval, and Frank told them, clearly and concisely.

"But even then you are several hundred miles from the Companos District," he pursued. "Chihuahua is a big state. Texas itself is only to be compared to it for size. A ranching country, slopes up to the Sierras. It is in the foothills of the Sierras that the Alderdice Mine is situated. Why, Janice! you are actually just as near to your father—at least news of him—here in Polktown as you would be down there on the Border, for there all wires and other lines of communication are cut. There is no safe way of getting beyond the Rio Grande at the present time."

"Jefers-pelters!" ejaculated Walky Dexter, who was present at the conference. "Broxton Day might's well be in Chiny."

"You are right, Walky, for once," declared Uncle Jason. "I wish he'd never gone down to that heathenish country."

Aunt 'Mira was in tears—had been so since Janice had driven home in her car with the civil engineer that morning. She had controlled herself after a fashion, these several days for Janice's sake; now she was making up for lost time, so Marty declared, and wept with abandon.

"Why, she can't go down there inter Mexico," wailed the woman. "No gal like her can't. 'Tain't fit. Why, them women down there don't even wear decent clo'es! I've seen pitchers of 'em with nothin' on but basket-work stuff around their waists an' anklets. It's disgraceful!"

"Oh, cricky, Ma!" chortled Marty. "You are gittin' things mixed for sure. That's the Hawaiian Islands you're thinkin' of. Hula-hula girls. Oh my!"

"Wal, 'tis jest as bad in Mexico, I haven't a doubt," said the fleshy woman, tossing her head. "'Tis no place for a decent gal like our Janice."

"Ye air jest as right as rain, Miz' Day," agreed Walky.

"Hi tunket!" said the boy, the only person who did not attempt to discourage Janice in her thought of starting at once for the Border. "Hi tunket! wouldn't it be dandy to go down there among those greasers and bring Uncle Brocky home? I'd go with you, Janice, in a minute!"

"Huh!" gruffly said his father, "you'd be a lot of use, you would."

"I bet I would be, so now!" said the boy. "If Janice goes, I'm going. Ain't I got some interest in Uncle Brocky, I'd like to know?"

"You show your int'rest in this sittin' room fire, son," observed Mr. Day. "Go out and get an armful of chunks. Fire's goin' out on us."

"That's all right," growled Marty. "If Janice goes, I'm goin'—that's all there is about it."

But nobody considered for a moment that Janice could, should, or would go! It seemed positively ridiculous to the minds of all her friends that the girl should even contemplate such a thing.

"But what shall I do?" she cried.

"Wait. That's all any of us can do, Janice," Nelson said tenderly. "It is terrible to be inactive at such a time, I know. But you could do nothing down there on the Border that you cannot do here in Polktown."

"I'd be nearer to daddy," she said, with a sob.

"Ye don't know that," put in Uncle Jason. "We don't none of us know where Broxton Day is right now. Why! he might open that door yonder and walk in here any moment. How d'we know?"

But Janice found little comfort in the thought. Indeed, she scarcely heard what her uncle said. She could think of little but her father's perilous situation, wounded and a prisoner among people whom she believed to be as bloodthirsty as savages.

Uncle Jason's financial difficulties were nothing to compare to this. Little Lottie Drugg's state of mind slipped entirely out of Janice Day's memory.

The only serious thing in the world to her now was her father's peril and her inability to get to him to lend him the comfort of her presence.



CHAPTER XI

"I MUST GO!"

Janice awoke after a very uneasy and depressing night with the phrase "I must go" written so plainly upon the mirror of her mind that it might as well have appeared across the pretty wall paper at the foot of the bed.

"I must go!"

No matter what other people said—no matter what they thought. At this juncture the young girl was fain to believe her own wisdom superior to that of all her friends.

Of course, daddy had sent her here to be in Uncle Jason's care. She was really supposed to be under his domination. If Uncle Jason said "No!" Janice was presumed to obey, just as Marty had to obey.

And Uncle Jason had uttered his refusal quite distinctly. He could not see the need for Janice to go to the Border when not a thing was yet known regarding Broxton Day's situation save that he was wounded and was held prisoner far beyond the lines of the Mexican army.

"Why, Janice," he told her at the breakfast table, "I ain't got any money to spare jest now, for a fac', as ye well know; but if I thought for a minute 'twould do your father a mite o' good, I'd take what I have and go down there myself to look for him. Sartain sure I would!"

"You jest trust to your uncle, Janice," said Aunt 'Mira, once more on the verge of tears. "He knows best; don't ye doubt it."

Janice did doubt it. She did not wish to say so, but no matter what her friends said, or how wise they might be in other matters, the girl's intuition told her that beyond peradventure there was something for her to do for her father if once she could get to Mexico.

She saw it was of no use to talk about it, however positive she might be that she was right. She could not convince Uncle Jason and Aunt 'Mira. Indeed, she could not even change Nelson Haley's opinion. Everybody seemed to think it was an unheard-of idea for a girl to go alone on such a journey for any reason.

Janice had traveled East alone to Polktown when she was only a young girl, and nobody, save Mrs. Scattergood, criticized that fact. It was because there seemed to be danger threatening along the Border—the possibility of actual war between the United States and Mexico—that they all considered her desire so extraordinary.

To Uncle Jason, too, in his personal difficulties over the Tom Hotchkiss notes, the money for such a trip as Janice wished to make seemed a big item. It was, of course; that truth the girl admitted. It was a big item for her to contemplate. Although the bank at Greenboro sent her aunt each month a check to cover Janice's board there was no hope of the girl's getting other money from that source. The board matter was an agreement Mr. Broxton Day had entered into with the bank before he went to Mexico. Janice did not really understand how her father stood financially with the Greenboro bank. She did not know whether or not he had money on deposit there. His recent profits from the mine she actually knew nothing about. He was always liberal with her regarding spending money when he had any money at all. She had never asked him for a penny, for that was unnecessary.

Just now her funds chanced to be very low. Some repairs on the Kremlin car had been necessary; and then there was her fall outfit which had just been paid for.

Janice counted her loose cash and looked up her bank balance. The latter was down to fifty dollars; she had not much more than ten dollars in her pocketbook.

She could not ask Uncle Jason for money. Nor Nelson. She could depend upon nobody to help her in this emergency, for they were all against her.

Those words were ever before her mental vision; "I must go!" Determination grew hourly in her heart. No matter what others thought or said her duty lay far off there to the southwest—over the Border in battle-ridden Mexico!

Her main trouble was the fact that she must keep her intention secret from her friends—from those whom she loved and who loved her. Janice's nature was naturally the opposite to secretive and this course was particularly distasteful to her.

She had, however, come to that point where she must decide for herself, and she refused to be influenced by her advisers. Had their objections been based upon anything better than a feeling and belief that the Border "was no place for a girl," Janice would have hesitated to follow her determination, so opposed to the consensus of Polktown opinion. But she felt that her friends failed to see the matter in the right light.

Daddy was wounded—a prisoner—perhaps dying! He needed her! It seemed to the troubled, anxious girl as though his dear voice, so well remembered, rang continually in her ears. He called for her!

She could not tell her friends this. They would not understand it—not even Nelson. Janice felt that although the schoolmaster sympathized with her in every fiber of his being, he was bound by his very love for her to oppose her desire in this matter.

He of course could not go with her to Mexico. Uncle Jason would not if he could. Who else was there to take the lead in such a venture?

"Why," thought Janice Day, "I've just got to go, and go alone! That's all there is to it. And the less I say about it before I'm ready to start the better."

She thought she saw a way to her end—a financial way, at least. She had offered to sell her car to aid Uncle Jason in his trouble. She would sell it now for funds with which to make her determined journey, for Uncle Jason did not need her proffered assistance at present, while her father's need was much the greater.

Every hour that passed increased Janice's anxiety. What if daddy died down there in Mexico—all alone among strangers, without ever seeing his daughter again?

This thought was too dreadful for Janice to mention aloud to anybody. It was in her mind continually; she could not escape it.

That very day—the one following her discovery through Mrs. Scattergood of the truth about Broxton Day as known to so many Polktown folk—Janice set about carrying out her plan. She drove around to Mr. Cross Moore's instead of going directly to Middletown and the seminary.

There had been a time not so very long before when Janice and the president of the town selectmen had been at variance. Mr. Cross Moore had desired the Polktown hotel to retain its liquor license while the girl had championed the dry cause. The latter had won; but Cross Moore was a good loser. Mrs. Moore might be angry with Janice Day; but her husband had always held what he termed "a sneaking fondness for that Day girl" and no matter how much they might conflict in politics or opinion, the man respected Janice's earnestness and appreciated her unselfishness.

Coming down the hilly street, guiding her car skillfully around the "hubbly" places, Janice saw Mrs. Beaseley out sweeping the narrow brick walk laid in front of her gate. The tall and solemn-looking woman, still dressed in mourning for the husband dead now many years, and whose memory she worshiped, gave the girl a frosty smile, although Janice knew there was an exceedingly warm heart behind it.

"You air late going to school, Janice Day," she said. "Mr. Haley went an hour ago."

"I am not going to the seminary this morning," the girl replied, stopping her car. "Everything is all right with you, I suppose, Mrs. Beaseley?"

"Oh, yes," the widow said, sighing mournfully. "I have my health, and should be thankful for't I s'pose. My sainted Charles useter say that health was ev'rything in this world—an' 'twas to him. When he lost his health he lost all his zest for livin'. He had allus been a robust man up to his sickness. He was a heavy feeder and as long as he eat his victuals with guster I felt he was all right.

"Now, Mr. Haley, he ain't never jest suited me regardin' eatin'. It does seem as though a young man like him should put away more victuals than he does."

"Well, I'm sure he never gets up from your table hungry, dear Mrs. Beaseley," laughed Janice. "And some of the doctors say that one should do that to insure a long life."

"What! go hungry?" gasped this scandalized housewife.

"Not eating quite all we think we want at each meal," explained Janice.

"Wal! for the good Land o' Goshen! I hev said—an' I stick to it—that doctors is given more nowadays to change in styles an' fashions than what silly women air—even that Bowman gal that cut up such didoes in Polktown last winter.

"Fust they believe in stuffin' a body; then it's the fashion ter starve folks. One doctor says meat victuals is the only fit eatin' for human bein's an' the next one wants you should put on a nosebag an' eat horse feed. Humph! Reminds me of silly George Putnam and his pig."

"What about them, Mrs. Beaseley?" asked Janice, who was always amused by the widow's speeches.

"Why, George had a right likely shote give to him one year, but it turned out a runt, he fed it so queer. The critter seemed allus squealin' for something to eat, an' my Charles asked him:

"'George, how d'you feed that critter?'

"'Why,' says silly George, 'I kalkerlate ter feed him ev'ry other day.'

"'Ye do?' says Charles. 'What's that for? Don't you suppose the pig gits hungry jest as often as you do?'

"'Ye-es—that may be,' says George. 'But I like my side-meat 'ith a streak o' lean an' a streak o' fat.'

"Why, goo' mornin', Mr. Cross Moore! How's your lady this mornin'?" concluded the widow as the selectman, whom Janice had seen coming up the hill, stopped beside the car.

"She's 'bout the same, Miz' Beaseley. Morning, Janice! Which way you going?"

"I am going your way, Mr. Moore," the girl said with a sudden feeling of timidity. "I—I was coming to see you."

"Well, turn right around and drive up toward—well, toward Concannon's—and you can see me all you want to. I don't want mother should see me drivin' off with you in this car," and he chuckled. "She thinks she's taken a gre't dislike to this sort o' locomotion; but I'm going to have a car of some kind, jest the same."

Janice made no reply until she had turned the automobile and was headed uptown. Then her first words were:

"Mr. Moore, I want you to buy this car."

"Ahem! you mean one like it—a Kremlin?" he said, eyeing her curiously.

"No. This very car. It's all right and I will sell it to you cheap."

"You goin' to get a new one, Janice?"

"Oh, Mr. Moore! I'm not thinking of motor cars. I'm in great trouble. Perhaps you know? My father——"

"I heard something down to Massey's drugstore about his being hived up somewhere in Mexico by them insurrectionists," replied Cross Moore, still watching her countenance.

"Well, I want to go to him. You know how Uncle Jason is fixed just now."

"Yes, Janice. Jase is in a hole."

"So you see, I've got to sell my car."

"Mebbe I could git the money for you—ye can borry it of me," suggested the selectman.

"Oh, thank you, Mr. Moore! That's more than kind. But I wouldn't know when or how I could pay you back. And Uncle Jase can't possibly help me—if he would. I am going to tell you frankly, Mr. Moore, the folks don't approve of my going down there to find father."

"No? Wal, it's not to be wondered at."

"But, don't you see? I've just got to go, Mr. Moore. And I must sell my car to get the money to pay my fare. You can have it for——" she pondered and then mentioned a sum that she thought was a bargain price indeed, even for a car that had been run as far as this Kremlin. "You can have it for that—and for one other thing."

"Huh? A string to it?" he demanded.

"Your silence is involved. You must not tell anybody you have bought the car till I get out of town. I am going to run away, Mr. Moore, and you must help me if you wish to own this automobile."



CHAPTER XII

NELSON DOES NOT UNDERSTAND

Janice came back from Middletown with several bundles. She had been shopping, she told Aunt 'Mira; but she did not mention the fact that she had drawn her last fifty dollars from the bank.

Mr. Cross Moore had been to the bank, too; and the sum of money which he had drawn out in crisp twenty and fifty dollar bills was pinned securely to Janice's underwaist.

She merely told the folks that Mr. Moore was going to take his wife out in the car, for he had already learned to run an automobile, it seemed. And if the president of the town selectmen could not license himself to drive a motor car, who could?

Janice's uncle and aunt made no comment; they had other things to think about. If Marty suspected anything he kept his suspicions to himself.

All of course watched the papers for news of Broxton Day; but Mexican news seemed very tame indeed. Those Americans who came out of Chihuahua told dreadful stories; but most of these tales had to be taken with "more than a grain of salt." Many of these "Americans" owned to Spanish-Mexican names, and were merely Americans by naturalization—and that "for business purposes only."

Their tales dealt with the recent uprising in the Companos District; but nothing new was related about what had happened at the mines north of San Cristoval. No mention was made in any dispatches regarding Mr. Broxton Day. Letters to Nelson Haley in reply to his inquiries, both from Washington and the Border, merely said that matters were in such a chaotic state in Chihuahua that no facts were available.

It was on the evening of this eventful day—the day she had sold her car—that Janice went to speak privately with Nelson. Knowing that her uncle would absolutely forbid her departure for the Border if she told him she was going, Janice would not open any discussion with him. She had already written a note to leave for her Uncle Jason and Aunt 'Mira to read after she was gone. But with Nelson it was different. How could she go away from Polktown without telling the young schoolmaster she was going—without sharing with him this secret that now had begun to weigh so heavily on her mind?

She stopped at Hopewell Drugg's for a minute and found the little family in almost a holiday spirit—the storekeeper bustling about waiting on customers, 'Rill at her sewing table, and little Lottie singing over the supper dishes.

"You did the child a world of good, it seems," the storekeeper's wife said softly, to her friend. "Since she spent the night with you, Lottie has been like another girl."

"Don't let her drift away from you again, honey," Janice said, smiling tenderly on the little woman. "Remember, Lottie must have just as deep an interest in this wonderful happening as any of you."

"I—I don't know just how to talk to her," 'Rill whispered, flushing a little.

"You don't have to talk," smiled Janice. "Just love her—that is all you need do. You do love her, and don't let anybody tell her differently."

There was a lamp burning in Nelson Haley's study, and Janice tapped lightly on the window pane, bringing him to the front door. She did not wish to run the gantlet of Mrs. Beaseley's volubility on this occasion.

"My dear!" said the schoolmaster, drawing her within and seeing her very serious face. "Nothing new has happened?"

"About daddy?" she sighed. "Nothing that I am aware of. I know nothing, Nelson. But I feel that I must know very soon. This uncertainty is killing me!"

"My dear girl," he murmured. "I wish I could help you."

"But you can't," she broke in with energy. "Nobody can. I must help myself now, for you and the others have done all you could."

"Why, Janice, what more can you do than we have attempted?" he asked wonderingly. "The moment any news comes over the Border of your father it will be telegraphed North."

"And do you think I can wait here—inactive, hopeless—for something to turn up? Why, Nelson! there is nobody down there with any special interest in daddy. The men who are engaged in the mining enterprise with him are all in the North here."

"Yes, yes," Nelson cried. "But what can be done? What can I do? What can any of us do, my dear Janice?"

"I don't know that anybody can do anything—up here. But I mean to go down there—yes, I do! I am going to find my father, Nelson."

She began to sob hysterically and the schoolmaster patted her hand with soothing intent. "Of course you can't do that, Janice. A girl like you could do nothing down there in Mexico."

"How do you know?" she demanded, dashing away her tears and looking up at him. "I tell you, Nelson, I am going."

He sighed and shook his head. "Of course you can't do that, Janice," he repeated. "I thought that was all settled last evening."

"It was perhaps settled in your mind; not in mine."

"It would be an unheard-of thing to do. Your uncle and aunt would never allow it."

"Yes, Nelson, I know that. But I will go just the same," the girl told him.

He shook his head again and smiled at her. "You have the will to do it, I don't doubt, Janice. But, really, you couldn't."

Janice opened her lips once more; then she closed them. What was the use of saying anything further? Even Nelson did not believe she would carry out her intention.

"Very well, then," she said, rising and making ready for departure. "I'll say good-bye. You can't see it my way, Nelson; but if it were you who were wounded and alone down there in Mexico do you suppose any power on earth would keep me from going to you?"

She slipped away before the full force of her final speech percolated to the young schoolmaster's brain. He got up to follow her; then he paced the floor of his study instead.

"Of course, she doesn't really mean it," he finally told himself, and went back to the correction of the pile of compositions on his table.

It was quite true. Nobody believed she meant it except Mr. Cross Moore. And the selectman had perhaps a higher opinion of Janice Day's ability than most people in Polktown. We respect a person who was got the best of us in any event, and Mr. Moore had reason for considering this young girl to be the principal person involved in his recent defeat in town politics.

At another time Janice might have been somewhat piqued by the apparent fact that nobody believed she could or would start for Mexico. She had thought her reputation in Polktown for determination and the carrying out of anything she undertook to be such that her friends would believe that, when she said a thing, she meant it. She had been a do something girl since first she had come to this Vermont village to live. They might have been warned by past events of what to expect of Janice Day when once she had made up her mind.

She had already packed her bag. It made her unhappy to do this secretly and to sit with the family during the evening without saying a word regarding her plans.

Walky Dexter looked in for a little while; but he was unable for once to raise the general temperature of the social spirit. As for Marty, Janice caught him several times looking at her so strangely that she feared he suspected something. Walky noted the boy's strange mood, for he finally drawled:

"Jefers-pelters, Marty! what's ailin' on ye? Ye look like Peleg Swift did arter he eat the three black crows."

"Huh! that old wheeze!" growled Marty. "He didn't eat no three crows. He only ate something they said was burned as black as a crow. One o' his wife's biscuit, I bet."

"He, he! Mebbe you're right," chuckled Walky.

"I reckon on givin' Marty a good dose ef jalap," said his mother. "I was thinkin' for sev'ral days he was lookin' right peaked."

"There!" fairly yelled Marty to Mr. Dexter. "See what you got me in for? You are about as much use as the last button on a rattlesnake's tail, you are!"

But Marty dodged the unwelcome, old-fashioned remedy that night. He slipped away early—presumably to bed. Janice was not long in going to her room; but she did not lie down to sleep. When the house was dead-still, all save the mice in the walls and the solemn ticking of the hall clock, the girl arose and dressed for departure.

The Constance Colfax made her trip down the lake in the morning, halting for freight and for any chance passengers at the Polktown dock at six o'clock. The steamer got into Popham Landing before ten o'clock, in time for the morning train to Albany.

Janice was ready for departure long before it was time to leave the house. At this time of year it was quite dark at half-past five. When she crept out with her bag the frost was crisp under foot.

The steamboat was whistling mournfully for the landing. She saw nobody astir on Hillside Avenue, but when she reached High Street two drummers were leaving the Lake View Inn with their sample cases. There seemed nobody else going to the steamboat dock; Janice drew her veil closer and hurried on.

Walky Dexter did not make an appearance. She had heard him say the evening before that all the freight and express matter was already at the dock and that he could sleep late for once.

Indeed, it seemed as though everything worked in Janice Day's favor. There was nobody abroad to see her, or to object to her departure.

At home, when the family arose, they would not at first think her absence from the kitchen strange. Aunt 'Mira would say: "Oh! let her sleep a while if she will."

Janice could hear the tones of her aunt's voice, and her eyelids stung suddenly with unbidden tears.

Later they would go to her room to call her and find the note to Uncle Jason she had left pinned to the cushion on her bureau.



CHAPTER XIII

MARTY EXPANDS

We are prone to judge other people from our inner secret knowledge of self. When we say we think another person would do a certain thing, we usually base our opinion upon what we would be tempted to do under like circumstances.

Thus it was that Marty Day knew in his heart exactly what his Cousin Janice was about to attempt. Why, to use his own effulgent expression, "there was nothing to it!" Of course she would seize the first opportunity that opened to go to the Border in search of Uncle Brocky.

Would he not do the same thing himself if his father were captured and wounded by the Mexicans? "A fellow would have to be a regular hard-boiled egg to dodge his duty when his father was in such trouble," the boy told himself; and in Marty's opinion Janice Day was a "regular fellow."

He listened to all the objections raised by the older folks just as Janice did. And they made about the same impression on him that they did upon his cousin. Indeed, he was somewhat angered by the way Nelson Haley and Frank Bowman joined in this advice with the others against the idea of Janice going to the Border.

"But, shucks!" thought the lad. "They had to talk that way. That comes of being really grown up. Right down in their hearts you bet Nelse Haley and Frank Bowman are only sorry they can't go down there themselves to hunt for Uncle Brocky."

Perhaps Marty was not so far from the truth in this surmise. Nelson and Frank were in the early years of their manhood. There was something very attractive in the idea of starting out on such a mission as Janice planned.

Marty did not hint to his cousin that he suspected her intention. But he followed her on that busy day—followed every move she made. He was sure she had sold her car to Cross Moore. Marty had a friend in Middletown to whom he telephoned and through whom he learned that both Janice and Mr. Moore had been seen in the National Bank.

He immediately borrowed Frank Bowman's motorcycle and hurried over to Middletown before the banks closed. As his father had said, Mrs. Day had deposited a "nest-egg" for Marty in the savings bank and had given him the book. The boy proceeded to draw out the money on his account to the very last cent of interest.

"Hi tunket!" he thought as he whizzed back toward Polktown. "It ain't much; but it'll help some.

"Mebbe dad and ma may need me and my money a lot; but Janice is going to need me first—of course she is. She can't go clear 'way down there to Mexico alone." Which shows that Marty shared the general masculine feeling that, being "only a girl," Janice could not really carry out her intention. "She's got to have a man along whether she thinks she needs one or not. And, hi tunket! I'm going to be it."

Marty, however, was not altogether visionary. He had made it his business to find out about what it would cost to get to the Border, and he realized he must have money for other expenses besides his car fare.

On returning the motorcycle to the civil engineer he took his courage in both hands and said:

"Mr. Bowman, would you do me a great favor?"

"I think so, Marty. What is it?" returned Frank, smiling into the freckled, perspiring face of the boy. "Want to borrow my dress suit or a hundred dollars?"

"The hundred dollars," Marty told him gaspingly.

"You don't mean it!"

"Yes, sir; I do. And I can't tell you what I want it for, nor for how long I'm going to need it. But I'll pay it back."

"Marty," said his friend, "I've got only seventy-five dollars handy. Will that do?"

"It'll haf to."

"Do you mean it?" demanded the good-natured engineer. "Do you really mean you need it?"

"Yes, sir! I need it all right, all right. And I don't want you should ask me what for. And I don't want you should tell anybody."

At another time Frank Bowman might have hesitated. But knowing the trouble Mr. Day was in over the Hotchkiss notes, he suspected Marty was bent on helping his father with some needed sum of money. He took out his notecase and handed the seventy-five dollars to Marty in banknotes.

"You're a good fellow, Mr. Bowman," the boy cried.

"So are you," responded the engineer, smiling into the lad's eyes.

"'Tisn't everybody would trust me like this."

"'Tisn't everybody who knows you as well as I do, Marty. If you get stuck and can't pay me back right away, I'll let you work it out when the V. C. branch gets to running."

That was talking "man to man" and Marty's chest swelled.

"You won't be sorry for this," he assured Frank Bowman, and hurried home to supper.

So he had the money safely fastened in his inside vest pocket while he watched his cousin so oddly during the evening. When she was helping Aunt 'Mira with the dishes Marty slipped into Janice's room. He found her traveling bag in the bottom of her closet, packed as he suspected.

"Hi tunket! isn't she a plucky girl?" Marty told himself. "I'm just proud to be her cousin, so I am! We'll have some time down there among the greasers, believe me!"

Marty owned a shotgun and he was tempted to take it along. But he thought better of that. He could not very well hide it while traveling on the train.

"B'sides I reckon rifles, or these here automatics, are more fashionable down there on the Border," the boy ruminated.

Bedtime came and he, like Janice, was too excited to sleep. He was afraid he might sleep, however, and, knowing his failing, he determined to arrange matters so that he could not possibly miss the boat in the morning.

Putting a pair of clean socks and an extra handkerchief in one jacket pocket, and a clean collar in another (for Marty believed in traveling light), he climbed out over the shed roof before midnight and carefully descended to the ground by the grape arbor route. Making his way to the wharf he curled up on some bags in front of the freight-house door. Nobody could unlock and open that door without disturbing him; but the chill morning air awoke him in plenty of season.

When the steamboat bumped into the dock Marty was right at hand to catch the bow hawser. It was still dark and he slipped aboard without being noticed.

The Constance Colfax boasted no staterooms; but the few all-night passengers from up the lake were sprawled about the unventilated cabin in a somnolent state. Marty only peeped in at them, and then ensconced himself on deck where he could watch the gangplank.

He saw his cousin in her heavy veil come aboard. She, too, preferred to remain on deck, cold as it was, to going into the stuffy cabin. Janice was warmly dressed and the morning was clear. When the Constance Colfax got under way again she watched the few twinkling lights of Polktown and the stars overhead fade out as the sky grew rosy above the mountain tops.

The boat was well out of the cove when the sun came up. A brisk wind whipped up the whitecaps. Sheltered in the lee of the little deckhouse, Janice was left to herself and to her thoughts save when the purser came around for her fare.

"Didn't take on no crowd at Polktown, Miss," he observed genially. "Only you and three more."

Janice had noticed only the two traveling salesmen; but she made no comment. She did not suppose she was in the least interested in that fourth passenger whom she had not seen.

At last they reached the Landing. The railroad here was only a branch line and the cars were old-fashioned and uncomfortable. She could get no good accommodations to Albany she well knew, so she bought a ticket only as far as that city.

Had she intended going south and west by way of New York she would have been obliged to make some arrangement to get over to Middletown to take the train there. This might have caused comment. Besides, from what Frank Bowman had said, she believed she could save both time and money by taking the Great Lakes route.

There were three day coaches in the little train already made up at the Landing. Janice chose a seat in the middle coach without any idea that somebody in whom she would have been very much interested stole into the rear car before the train started.

Marty dared not go to the ticket office, for fear his cousin might look out of the car-window and see him. But he was quite sure Janice was bound for Albany first, and he paid his fare to that point when the conducter came through.

It was a tiring ride, with stops at "everybody's barnyard gate," and the coaches filled up and were half emptied again two or three times during the journey. Janice had made no preparation for luncheon and once when the train halted at a junction "ten minutes for refreshments" as the brakeman bawled it out, she could find nothing in the bare and dirty lunchroom fit to eat or drink.

When she returned, hopeless and hungry, to her seat there was a neatly wrapped shoebox lying on the dusty plush cushion.

"Why! whose is this?" she involuntarily asked aloud.

"Isn't it for you, my dear?" asked a woman who occupied the seat directly behind hers and to whom Janice had already spoken.

The girl picked up the package and read scrawled upon it in an entirely unfamiliar handwriting: "Miss Janice Day."

"Oh! it has my name on it," Janice admitted. "But I don't know a thing about it." She was rather frightened. Somebody had recognized her. Somebody knew she had run away and must be watching and following her. "Who—who put it here?" she asked the woman in the next seat.

"Why, you are actually pale, child!" laughed the matron, who had her own well filled lunch basket open in her lap. "You don't suppose it is an infernal machine? It looks like a box of lunch to me."

"Yes, I know," said Janice faintly. "But I can't imagine who could have left it here for me. It has my name on it."

"A brakeman left it," explained the woman. "Leastwise it was a man with a railroad cap on. Open it. I should not question the goods the gods provide. You found nothing fit to eat in that station, I am sure."

The train was already moving on. Janice sat down and opened the package. There was first of all a thermos bottle filled with hot tea. There were ham sandwiches—more satisfying as to thickness than delicacy, perhaps—a slab of plum cake and several solid looking doughnuts with a piece of creamy cheese.

It was more like a workman's lunch than one put up to tempt the appetite of a traveler; but Janice was hungry and she finally ate every crumb of it.

She examined the thermos bottle very carefully, searching for some mark upon it that might reveal the identity of the owner. Why! she could not even return the bottle, and it must have cost almost a dollar. She remembered that Marty had sent off to a catalog house for one like this and it had cost him eighty-five cents.

After she had eaten the hearty luncheon she went back and spoke to the brakeman. But he denied knowing anything about the package or having placed it in her seat. The forward brakeman made a similar statement. She even asked the conductor about it with the same result.

"I certainly would not worry about it, my dear," the comfortable matron behind Janice said. "Some friend of yours has played a joke upon you—and a very kind joke, I call it."

"Yes. But who?" murmured Janice Day, feeling much worried indeed.

"Somebody got aboard at that station to deliver the box and you were out of your seat——"

"But how did he know it was my seat?" demanded Janice.

"Saw you through the window as the train stopped," suggested the friendly woman. "Of course, I only thought it was the brakeman who brought it. I did not really pay attention."

This explanation did not go far enough to relieve Janice's mind. She could not imagine who had planned the surprise. Nobody, she felt sure, knew she was leaving Polktown but Mr. Cross Moore. And surely he would not do a thoughtful thing like this.

It was a mystery bound to trouble her a great deal. She did not know who might bob up before her at almost any place and try to make her go back to her uncle and aunt.

The girl was determined to withstand this demand, no matter who made it. If Uncle Jason himself had followed her Janice Day was sure she should keep right on in her intent. Or Nelson——

"It can't be Nelson. He couldn't leave his school for even a day," the girl thought. "And he surely did not believe I meant to go when I saw him last evening, or he would not have taken what I said so coolly. Who could it be?"

Not for a moment did Janice suspect the truth. She had no idea that a familiar, boyish figure sat in a rear seat of the rear coach, his hat pulled well down over his eyes, eating from a box of lunch similar to that she had found in her seat. That is, lacking nothing but the bottle of tea. Marty owned only one thermos bottle. He had wheedled the cook on board the Constance Colfax to put up the two lunches for him; but he washed his own down with water from the tank at the end of the car.

Marty was already beginning what he considered to be his necessary oversight of Janice on this journey. He was quite sure a girl who did not think of lunch was not fit to travel alone!



CHAPTER XIV

THE BLACK-EYED WOMAN

The train arrived at Albany about dusk. Janice, disturbed by the incident of the mysterious lunch, half expected to be met by a telegram ordering her to return to Polktown. Or perhaps something worse and harder to cope with. But she told herself that not even a uniformed policeman should make her return! She was secretly very glad to be able to get out of the station without being involved in any difficulty of this kind.

She had studied the time-tables and knew which train to take out of Albany. Realizing the long and tedious journey before her, she concluded that it would be the part of wisdom to secure berth reservation right through to El Paso.

Whether or no she should remain on the train as far as that Border city, Janice did not at this time decide. She knew that direct communication with San Cristoval and the Alderdice Mine lay through the desert country below El Paso, and she must be guided a good deal by what she learned en route. Her father had an army friend at Fort Hancock. She might stop off there to make inquiries.

However, she bought her ticket with berth coupons to El Paso, and then went to dinner. She had two hours to wait for the Chicago express, a reservation on which her special ticket called for.

She had no idea, did Janice, just how much trouble and worry of mind she was causing a certain boy who had trailed her from one railroad station to the other with much care that she should not observe his presence. When Marty sidled up to the ticket window after Janice was gone and asked for a ticket to "just where that girl bought hers for," the agent certainly did stare at him.

"What's all this for?" he asked Marty suspiciously. "Are you following that young lady?"

"Naw," said Marty gruffly. "I'm goin' with her."

"Oh! you are? Who says so?"

"I do," the boy declared. "D'you think I'm goin' to let her go clear 'way down there to Mexico alone looking for her father?"

"Hi!" exclaimed the man, growing interested, there being no other person waiting at the moment. "Who are you?"

"Say! you keep it to yourself, will you?" urged Marty anxiously. "I'm her cousin. What'll a ticket cost just like hers? Her dad's been wounded down there in Mexico and she thinks she can go there alone and bring him back. I can't let her do that, can I?"

"Hasn't she any other folks?" asked the ticket seller doubtfully.

"Her dad's all she's got," Marty declared. "But I'm going to see her through."

Well, it was not the ticket seller's business. He named the sum it would cost Marty to go on that special train.

"Hi tunket! I don't want to buy the train," gasped the boy. "I only want to ride on it."

"Special ticket on this train to Chicago. And berth all the way through to El Paso. I can give you a cheaper rate on another train, however, my son."

"But I got to be on the same train as her to look out for her," observed Marty. "Hi tunket! berth clear through, heh? I'll have to sleep day an' night to get my money's worth."

"It's the best I can do for you."

Marty groaned, but paid like a man. It made a dreadful hole in his capital. He ate his dinner in a lunchroom through the window of which he could watch the exit of the restaurant to which his cousin had gone for her evening meal.

"Take it from me girls don't have no idea about spending money," Marty groaned, swallowing the last mouthful of a ten cent plate of beef stew as he saw Janice leave the restaurant. "The sign on that window over there says: 'Dinner seventy-five cents.' Hi tunket! How can anybody eat seventy-five cents worth of victuals to once't? I never knew Janice had that capacity."

Marty had insisted upon being given a reservation in another car from that in which Janice was to ride. He was glad to note when the long train rolled in that his was a rear car. Janice would ride next to the dining car.

The boy had no use for the dining car or buffet. He had supplied himself with a box of cheap lunch. If his cousin had money "to throw to the birdies," as Marty privately expressed it, not so the son of Mr. Jason Day of Polktown! After all he had said about his father being a "tight-wad" Marty found that it positively hurt to spend more for a thing than he believed it was worth.

He made sure that Janice with her bag boarded the train. He was one of the last to get on himself, thus making sure that nothing had happened to cause his cousin to alight again.

But Janice, relieved because she had seen nobody from Polktown, found herself very pleasantly situated in her car. Nobody had interfered with her in any way. The lunch given her on the train to Albany was a most mysterious thing; but whoever had given it to her seemed not desirous of halting her determined course.

Janice had secured an upper berth; but she did not mind that. She found that the woman who was to occupy the one beneath was already on the train.

She was a black-eyed, dark, rather Oriental-looking person, and Janice thought her quite handsome in a majestic way. And she possessed an engaging smile.

"You are traveling alone, my dear—yes?" the woman asked her with an intonation distinctly foreign. "All the way to Chicago?"

"And beyond," Janice said pleasantly.

"Ach! You American girls are wonderfully independent—yes? Friends will meet you at your journey's end?"

"No. I expect nobody to meet me," Janice told her quite sadly. She did not care to take the woman into her complete confidence, although she seemed to be a very pleasant person.

The black-eyed woman lent her a magazine during the evening, as the train rumbled on across New York State. She was friendly, but not too pressing in her attentions and certainly Janice was unsuspicious.

At nine o'clock the porter began to arrange the berths. Janice went to the ladies' room and found the foreign-looking woman there. As the girl, in her dressing-sack which she had taken out of her bag, combed out her hair, the sharp, black eyes of her fellow-passenger spied something.

"You carry something valuable there?" she said, touching lightly with her finger the packet of banknotes the girl had pinned to the bosom of her waist. "And with only a common pin? Ach! that is unsafe, my dear."

Janice had folded the bills in a silk handkerchief; but of course the woman could feel just what the crisp notes were.

"I think they will be all right," the girl said, shrinking a little from the woman's touch, yet without feeling any real fear of her or of her intentions.

"See!" the other said as though wishing only to be helpful. "I haf a big safety pin here in my bag—see? We will use it to fasten your packet—soh. Iss that not much better?"

Janice could only thank her and smile. Really one could not take offense at such a kind act nor be suspicious of so kindly a person.

Having lost her previous night's sleep it was not strange that Janice should sleep soundly, even on this rushing train. Occasionally she aroused to the knowledge of the wheels clattering over switches, or hollowly roaring as the train crossed a long trestle. The night sped—and the train with it. She was far, far away from Polktown when she awoke.

Again her berth mate was before her in the dressing room. "Iss your money still safe, my dear?" the black-eyed woman asked.

"Oh, yes," laughed Janice, "I am not at all afraid of losing it."

"You are so different. Me, I am always feeling to see if my jewel-bag iss safe. Oh, yes!"

Janice, having no jewels, was not much interested; though it seemed odd that the black-eyed woman should have her mind so fixed on robbery.

Before the train reached Chicago the woman had made herself very friendly with Janice. The latter refrained from telling her new acquaintance just why she was going to the Southwest, and alone, save that she expected to find her father there and that she was anxious about him.

"You will remain over a day in Chicago to rest?" queried the woman. "You haf friends there—yes?"

"Oh, no. We are going to arrive in good time. I know the schedule perfectly," Janice assured her. "I shall go right on."

It was not until then that the black-eyed woman revealed the fact that she, too, was going on beyond Chicago. It seemed odd to Janice that her fellow-traveler should not before have acknowledged that Chicago was not her destination, still she gave the matter little thought. She did not tell her name to the girl. Indeed, Janice did not reveal her own name during their conversation.

The woman asked Janice very particularly about the route over which the girl was to travel and then, consulting an ivory-bound memorandum book she carried, in which Janice could not help seeing the notes were written in some foreign language, the woman murmured.

"Ach, yes! It iss so. My dear, I can be your fellow-passenger for many hundred miles farther. Ach! such a great country as it iss. I shall see about having my routing changed at once. We may travel together yet a far way. And we are such goot friends."

Janice felt somewhat abashed at this claim. She enjoyed the black-eyed woman's conversation; but she was not strongly drawn toward her. If they were such "goot friends" the feeling of friendship must be mostly on Madam's side.

For it was as "Madam" that Janice knew the woman. It seemed to fit, and she seemed to expect its use. She was a very interesting person, the girl thought, and naturally she was curious about the black-eyed woman.

There was an hour's wait at Chicago, and when Janice and her acquaintance left the train together it was to enter a dense throng in the train-shed.

"Be careful, my dear," whispered Janice's companion warningly. "Keep your coat buttoned across your chest. No knowing—pickpockets always in big crowds are—yes."

Janice was inclined to smile; but as her companion walked closely upon one side of her she felt herself being shouldered roughly on the other hand.

She turned sharply and with an exclamation. Her coat was torn open by some means. Janice wore a loose-fitting blouse and it was not easy to be certain that a hand was at her bosom.

"Look! that boy!" hissed Madam in the girl's ear. "Such a shrewd-faced rascal. Ach! I believe he tried to rob you."

Janice, clutching quickly at her blouse over the packet of banknotes, knew her money was safe. She only saw the back of the boy to whom Madam referred.

"Why!" Janice Day murmured. "He isn't a bit bigger than Marty. Do—do you really think he tried to rob me, Madam?"

"Sure of it!" announced her companion with emphasis. "Ach, yes! We know so little about those we meet in a crowd, my dear."



CHAPTER XV

A SHOCK TO POLKTOWN

Marty Day, who was neither a prophet nor a person of much moment in his native town, was, of all Janice's friends, the only one who really believed the girl would put her desire into action.

To tell the truth, even Cross Moore, who had bought Janice's automobile and who held the original bill of sale of the car, upon the possession of which he had insisted, scarcely believed the girl would get out of town without being halted by her uncle.

Nelson Haley did not suppose for a "single solitary moment" that Janice meant what she said when she bade him good-bye in his study. The next day he went to school without an idea that Janice was already on her way to the Border. He missed Marty Day, but did not think there was anything significant in the boy's absence.

School was over for the day and Nelson was leaving the building, bidding good-day to Bennie Thread, the janitor, when Walky Dexter drove through the side street, urging Josephus in a most disgraceful way.

"Git up, there, ye pernicious pest!" Walky shouted to his old horse, thrashing him with the wornout whip he carried and which never, by any possibility, could hurt the rawboned animal. "Gidap! Jefers-pelters, Schoolmaster! is thet you?" he suddenly demanded, seeing Nelson. Josephus stopped immediately. He well knew Walky's conversational tone. "Hev ye heard about it?" sputtered the expressman.

"Heard what?" asked Nelson calmly. "Sure you are not overexerting yourself? Your face is very red, Walky. Perspiration at this time of year——"

"Oh, you go fish!" exclaimed Walky. "Mr. Haley! I got suthin' ter tell ye. I kin see well enough ye ain't wise to it."

"Walky," said the young schoolmaster solemnly, "there are really a lot of things in this life that I am not wise to, as you call it, and I doubt if I shall ever understand them all."

"Oh! is that so?" retorted Walky Dexter. "Wal, I'll perceed ter wise ye up to one thing right now. Ain't ye missed Marty to-day?"

"Marty Day?"

"Yep. That's the young scalawag."

"He has been absent from school—yes."

"Oh! he has? D'ye know where he's gone to?"

"Why, no."

"And neither does nobody else," declared the expressman excitedly. "Unless he's gone off with Janice—an' she never said a thing about him, I understand."

The expressman's word's amazed Nelson quite as much as Walky could have wished.

"What are you talking about? What do you mean by saying Janice has gone away?"

"Jefers-pelters!" ejaculated Walky. "Ain't you hearn a thing about it?"

"No."

"Wal then, you better lift a laig an' git up to the ol' Day house," Walky observed. "If ye ever seen a stir-about ye'll see one there. I dunno but ol' Jase'll hev a fit an' step in it. And as for Miz' Day, she's jest erbout dissolved in tears by now, as the feller said. An', believe me! if she does dissolve there'll purt' nigh be a deluge on this hillside, an' no mistake!"

Before he had finished and clucked to the sleeping Josephus, Nelson Haley had reached the corner of Hillside Avenue and was striding up the ascent to the Day house. He saw several people come to their front doors, and he knew they would have hailed him had he given them a chance. Everybody seemed to be aware of this startling happening but himself.

He went into the kitchen of the Day house without knocking. His gaze fell upon the ample Mrs. Day weaving to and fro in her rocking chair, her apron to her eyes, while Uncle Jason was sitting dejectedly in his chair upon the other side of the stove, with his dead pipe clutched fast between his teeth.

"Mr. Haley!" the man exclaimed. "Have a cheer."

"Oh! oh!" sobbed Aunt 'Mira, shaking like a mold of jelly.

"I don't want a chair!" ejaculated Nelson, placing his bag on the uncleared dining table. "I've just heard of it. What does it mean?"

"She's gone," Uncle Jason said gloomily.

"They've gone," sobbed Aunt 'Mira.

"We dunno that—not for sure. We don't know they're gone together. Janice didn't say a thing about Marty in her letter," and he pointed to an open letter on the table. "Read it, Mr. Haley," he added.

The schoolmaster seized the note Janice had left on her pin-cushion and read:

"Dear Uncle and Aunt:

"You must not blame me or think too hard of me. I have just got to go. Daddy needs me. I am sure I can find him. I could not stay idly in Polktown and wait any longer. I will telegraph you when I reach the Border. Don't blame me. I just have to go! Love.

Janice."

"I might have known it! I might have known it!" muttered the schoolmaster.

"Ye might have known what?" demanded Mr. Day.

"That she meant what she said. She told me last evening she was going, and I didn't believe her."

"Oh, Mr. Haley!" cried Aunt 'Mira. "And ye didn't tell us in time——"

"In time for what?" exploded her husband. "Hi Guy! I'd like to see any man stop any female when she's sot on doin' a thing."

"But she's gone alone clear down there to Mexico and——"

"Where's Marty?" demanded Nelson.

"Oh! she don't say nothin' about him," sobbed the woman. "His bed ain't been slep' in, an——"

"If Marty has disappeared, too," the schoolmaster said with decision, "you can be sure he is with her."

"Do ye believe so?" asked Mr. Day doubtfully. "Seems to me she wouldn't have encouraged the boy to go off that-a-way."

"Of course not," Nelson agreed. "But I have an idea that, of all of us, Marty was the wisest. You'll learn he suspected Janice of planning to go away and he has gone with her, or followed her."

"That boy!" ejaculated his mother.

"If he has——" began Uncle Jason; but Nelson continued:

"I have considerable confidence in Marty. At least, he is a courageous young rascal. I fancy he has followed Janice, unknown to her, and with the desire of helping her."

"But he is only a bo-o-oy," wailed his mother again.

"Say!" Uncle Jason said suddenly, "he's a good deal of a man, come to think on't. I b'lieve you air right, Mr. Haley."

"That does not, however," said Nelson, shaking his head, "change the fact that Janice, even with such an escort as Marty, should not go down there. I am greatly worried."

"Wal, don't you think we be?" demanded Uncle Jason.

"Yes. I know how you must feel. But think how I feel, Mr. Day," the schoolmaster said gently. "I believe I should have thrown up everything when she told me she was determined to go, and have accompanied her instead of letting Marty do it."

"I snum!" ejaculated Mr. Day, "don't I feel jest the same way? Janice is a do something gal, sure enough. We'd oughter knowed she wouldn't sit quiet to home here when Broxton was in sech trouble."

"But she's only a gal!" repeated his wife.

"She's a diff'rent gal from most," declared Mr. Day.

"And poor Marty! How'd he ever get money enough to go with her?" mourned the good woman.

"His bankbook's gone," said Mr. Day. "He's proberly took ev'ry cent he could rake an' scrape. You would give him that bankbook to keep, Almiry."

"Oh! oh!" sobbed Mrs. Day.

"But—but how did Janice get money enough to take such a long journey?" asked Nelson hesitatingly.

"Sold her ortermobile," stated Uncle Jason gruffly.

"No!"

"Yes, she did. I been over to Cross Moore's an' put it right up to him. You know what he is. He'd buy a cripple's wooden laig if he could see his way ter makin' a profit on it. He got the car at a cheap price, I calculate, and agreed to say nothing about it till arter Janice had gone. Oh! I ain't worried about Janice's means. It's what may happen to her down there."

"She can't get beyond the Border," Nelson declared.

"We don't know. You know how detarmined Janice is. I snum! we'd oughter know her detarmination now."

"It don't matter. Nothin' don't matter," Mrs. Day groaned. "She's gone—an' Marty's gone. An' what ever will become of 'em 'way down there among them murderin' Mexicaners——"

"Well, well, Almiry! They ain't got there yet," put in Mr. Day.

Nelson Haley had never felt so helpless in all his life. Not even when charged with stealing a collection of gold coins that had been intrusted to the care of the School Committee, had the young man felt any more uncertain as to his future course. What should he do? Indeed, what could he do now that Janice had really departed from Polktown?

Whether it would have been quite the proper thing or not for him to have accompanied the girl on her long journey, did not now enter into the situation. Janice was gone and he was here—and he felt himself to be a rather useless sort of fellow. He now thought very seriously of the last words Janice had spoken to him the day before:

"If it were you who were wounded and alone down there in Mexico do you suppose any power on earth would keep me from going to you?"

The schoolmaster's heart thrilled again at the thought. She meant it—of course she did! Janice, he should have known, always meant what she said.

But now, in the light of her courageous action in leaving alone for the Border, the memory of her words impressed the young man more deeply. She would have dared any danger, she intimated, had it been Nelson who she believed needed her; why should he have doubted for a moment that she was brave enough to seek her wounded father?

"I'm a selfish, ignorant fool!" Nelson railed in secret. "I do not deserve to be loved by such a girl. I don't half appreciate her. What a helpless, ineffectual thing I am! And what now can I do to aid or encourage her? Nothing! I have lost my chance. What can she think of me?"

He thus took himself to task that evening in his study. The whole town rang with the story of Janice's departure and with the belief that Marty Day had either accompanied his cousin or followed her in a boyish attempt to assist in her mission.

"She ain't like other gals," Mrs. Beaseley mourned at the supper table. "Do have another helpin' of col' meat, Mr. Haley—an' try this pertater salad. It's by a new receipt.

"I count her quite able ter take keer of herself ord'narily, Mr. Haley. What worries me is her eatin'," added the widow, passing the plate of hot biscuits to her boarder.

"If folks don't eat right, as my sainted Charles often said, they ain't got the chance't of a rabbit when anythin' happens 'em. No, sir! Do eat that quarter o' layer cake, Mr. Haley. 'Tis the las' piece an' I do despise to make a fresh cake while there's any of the old left.

"The eatin' on them trains an' in them railroad stations, they tell me, is somethin' drefful. I hope you'll make out a supper, Mr. Haley."

Hopewell Drugg, in a worried state of mind, came across the street to consult Nelson. He did not know what his wife would do or say when she learned that Janice had left town.

"I sincerely hope Miss Janice will find her father and bring him back to Polktown soon," the storekeeper said.

"Do you believe she can?" asked the schoolmaster, rather startled.

"Why not?" was Hopewell's response. "She has never yet, to my knowledge, failed in anything she has set out to do."

This statement furnished Nelson with another positive shock. Not for a moment had he considered that Janice would accomplish what she had set about doing. It seemed impossible to his mind that a mere girl could get into Mexico and return again with her wounded father. Yet here was Hopewell Drugg implicitly believing in her ultimate success!

Mrs. Scattergood buzzed like a very cross bumblebee. She seemed only too glad that Janice had done something to shock Polktown.

"Wal! what could you expect from a gal that's allus had her own way an' been allowed to go ahead an' boss things the way Janice Day has? I don't approve of these new-fashioned gals. What diff'rent could ye expec'?"

"That's a fac'," agreed Marm Parraday, who chanced to be the recipient of this opinion. "Ye could expec' Janice Day to do just what she done—an' I tell 'em all so. She ain't no namby-pamby, Susie-Sozzles sort of a gal—no, ma'am!

"Lem says he doesn't see how she found the pluck to do it. But it didn't s'prise me none, Miz' Scattergood. A gal that's done what Janice Day has for, and in, Polktown is jest as able to do things down there in Mexico."

"Why, haow you talk!" gasped Mrs. Scattergood, finding to her amazement that the hotel-keeper's wife did not at all agree with her opinion of Janice. "She's nothin' but a gal. In aour day——"

"Ye-as, I know," admitted Marm Parraday. "When we was gals women's rights and women's doin's warn't much hearn tell on. Still, Miz' Scattergood, I wasn't so meek as I know on. But mebbe, women was mostly chattels—like horses an'—an' chickens. But if that was so, that day's gone by, thanks be! An' it's gone by in Polktown a deal because of this same Janice Day. Oh, yes! I know what she's done here, an' all about it. Mebbe she didn't know she was a-doin' of it. But if Polktown ever erects a statue to the one person more than another that 'woke it up, it'll hafter be the figger of jest a gal, with a strapful o' schoolbooks in one hand, the other hand held out friendly-like, and that queer, sweetenin' little smile of Janice on its face."

Yes, Janice and what she had done was the single topic of conversation all over town that night. Those who knew her best did not call her mission a "silly, child's trick." Oh, no, indeed!

Down the hill below Hopewell Drugg's store and below the widow's home where Nelson lodged, in the nearest house indeed to Pine Cove on that street, and to Lottie's echo, Mr. Cross Moore sat with his invalid wife. The usual orphan from the county asylum who was just then doing penance for her sins in acting as Mrs. Moore's maid, had gone to bed. The woman in her wheel-chair watched Mr. Moore from under frowning brows.

"I expect you think, Cross Moore, that you've done a smart trick—a-buyin' that car so't Janice Day could get out o' town. The neighbors air all talkin' about it."

"Oh, I wouldn't worry, Mother," the man said quietly. "Janice is all right. She'll make good. She's quite a smart gal, is Janice."

"Ha!" snapped the invalid. "That may be. I guess it's so. She pulled the wool over your eyes, I don't doubt. That ol' contraption she sold you ain't wuth ha'f what ye paid for it, Cross Moore."



CHAPTER XVI

MARTY RUNS INTO TROUBLE

Janice Day was tired. She had to admit that. But she would not stop over in Chicago even twenty-four hours to rest.

There is scarcely any way of traveling that so eats up the reserve forces of even a perfectly well person as an unaccustomed ride on the rail. No matter how comfortable seats and berths may be, the confinement, the continual jar of the train, and the utter change from the habits of the usual daily life quite bear down the spirit of the traveler.

Especially is the person traveling alone affected. Janice really was glad she had the companionship of Madam on her journey beyond Chicago. Although the thoughts of the black-eyed woman seemed to run strongly to robbery, she was not lacking in information and could talk amusingly of her travels.

She seemed familiar with Europe as well as with much of America. Her knowledge of the Latin-American countries, however, exceeded that of the United States. Just what nationality she was Janice could not guess, although she believed there was some Hebraic blood in Madam's veins.

However, the woman so succeeded in impressing Janice regarding the care of her remaining banknotes that before their train left Chicago the girl took the precaution to secrete her money in a different place upon her person. At the same time, she folded up a piece of newspaper into a packet and pinned it to the place in her corsage where the notes had been.

"It does no harm to do this—and say nothing about it," thought Janice demurely.

Madam made her change in transportation with some skill, and had again secured the berth under that assigned to Janice. They sat together by day, conversing or reading, and always took their meals together in the dining car.

Had Janice known that behind her in the same train, rode her Cousin Marty, she would have been both amazed and troubled.

Marty held to his ticket on this train; but he had seen a chance to sell his berth, and, frugal Yankee that he was, he had done this.

"Hi tunket!" the boy told himself, "that ticket seller thought mebbe he put one over on me when he made me buy a berth reservation clean through. But to my mind those berths ain't a bit more comfortable than a seat in a day coach." For there was a day coach attached to this train.

He said this after he had overheard a man in the smoking compartment complaining about his inability to obtain the reservation of a berth at Chicago. There was nothing timid about Marty Day. He immediately marched up to the man and drove a bargain with him worthy of Uncle Jason himself.

"Every little bit helps," remarked Marty, as he folded the bills the man gave him and tucked them with the rest of his little wad down into the bottom of his inside vest pocket, pinning the money there for safety.

Marty was not disturbed in the least about losing his funds, whether Janice was or not. And he continued to be fully as frugal in his expenditures as he had been at first.

At Chicago Marty had had a very close call—or thought he had. In the crowd in the station he almost ran into Janice. She was with the black-eyed woman and that was probably why his cousin had not noticed him. But it had been near!

He did not know just how Janice would take his surveillance, and the boy had decided it would be better for him to remain in the background unless something extraordinary happened and not reveal himself to her until they reached the Border.

So, to make his identification by his cousin doubly impossible, as he thought, Marty used the hour's wait at Chicago to supply himself with a disguise!

It is not on record that any boy ever lived who did not, at some stage of his career, dream of putting on some simple disguise and appearing before his friends and family as "the mysterious stranger." Marty was not exempt from the usual kinds of boyish folly. He bought and affixed to his upper lip a small black mustache.

The sturdy, freckled-faced boy with the stubby mustache stuck upon his lip, made a very amusing appearance. Under close scrutiny the falsity of his hirsute adornment was easily detected, of course.

The gentleman who had boarded the train at Chicago too late to obtain a berth was vastly amused by Marty's assumption of maturity. Marty's voice was beginning to change and that alone would have revealed his youth in spite of a full growth of whiskers.

"You're pretty young to be traveling alone," this gentleman remarked to Marty after the deal for the berth had been consummated. "Although I see you have all your wits about you, young man."

"Oh, I dunno," drawled the boy from Polktown, trying to stroke the mustache with a knowing air.

"I can see the mustache," grinned Marty's fellow-traveler. "But it isn't a very good fit and it certainly does not match your hair. That down on your cheek, young fellow, is a dead give away. I'd take off the mustache if I were you."

Marty flushed like a boiling lobster. "I—I can't," he stuttered.

"Why not?"

Marty confessed—partially. He told about his cousin in the other car and how he had come on this long journey very secretly to watch over and protect Janice.

Despite the evident ignorance of the boy there was something about his actions that impressed this man with the really fine qualities of Marty's character. He asked the boy:

"Have you telegraphed back to your father to reassure him of your safety—ahem—and your cousin's?"

"No," Marty said. "That runs into money, don't it? I—I was going to write."

"Send a night letter," advised the man. "That will not be very expensive. And it will relieve your folks' minds."

So Marty did this, sending the message from a station where the train lingered for a few minutes. The result of the receipt of this dispatch in Polktown was to start a series of quite unforeseen events; but Marty had no idea of this when he wrote:

"I got my eye on Janice. She is all right so far."

As far as he knew the boy told the truth in that phrase. Several times each day Marty managed to get a glimpse of his cousin. On almost every such occasion she was in the company of the tall, black-eyed, foreign-looking woman who had been with Janice when Marty had run against them in the Chicago railway station.

"Those two's havin' it nice an' soft," Marty thought as he observed them through the window of the dining car when the long train stopped at a station and the boy got out to stretch his legs.

"Come in and have dinner with me, Martin," said the gentleman to whom he had sold his berth reservation, seeing the boy apparently gazing hungrily in at the diners.

"Cricky! I don't believe I'd dare. She'd see me," said the boy.

"But I thought you considered yourself well disguised," suggested the other, laughing.

"Say! You don't know what sharp eyes Janice has got. And you saw yourself that this mustache was false."

"Oh! but at a distance——"

"Hi tunket! I'll go you," stammered the boy. "But let's sit back of Janice."

This was agreed to and the much-amused gentleman ushered his young friend to a seat in the dining car, wherein Marty faced the black-eyed Madam while Janice Day's back was toward him.

Since her mind had gradually become relieved of its disturbance occasioned by the mysterious lunch which had come into her possession, Janice's only serious thoughts were of her father and the task that awaited her at the Border. She allowed her thoughts to dwell upon the uncertainties of her venture as little as possible. Worrying would not help. She knew that to be an undoubted truth. So she gave herself up to such amusements of travel as there were and to the informative conversation of the black-eyed woman with whom she had become such "goot friends."

Janice Day was quite a sophisticated young woman despite the fact that all her life had been spent in two very quiet communities. The girl was acquainted through broad reading with both the good and evil fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Innocence does not mean ignorance in this day and generation, and the modern trend of thought and education can be heartily thanked for this change from the old standards, if for nothing else.

Janice was really amused by Madam's so-often expressed fears of being robbed. The girl said nothing to her about the change she had made in carrying her surplus money; and she continued to keep the packet of newspaper pinned to her corsage.

As they lingeringly ate their dinner on this particular evening in the dining car the black-eyed woman suddenly betrayed anxiety:

"My dear!" she cried under her breath. "I do believe there is that boy again!"

"What boy, Madam?" Janice asked curiously, but without alarm.

"I have warned you of him before—yes," hissed Madam tragically. "He iss the same, I am sure! He tried to rob you in Chicago!"

"Oh, Madam!" Janice said, tempted to laugh, "I think you must be mistaken."

"Oh, no, I am not, my dear," the woman said very earnestly indeed. "And he iss yet on our train, I see him watching you of a frequency—yes! You will not be warned——"

"Where is he?" Janice asked, turning slowly to look back, for Madam's black eyes were fixed in that direction.

"There! At the table facing this way. With the man in the pepper-and-salt suit, my dear."

Janice flashed a glance at the "disguised" Marty, flushing as she did so. Her gaze lingered on the boy only an instant, and without dreaming of his presence on the train how should she recognize her cousin?

"Why! he isn't exactly a boy, is he?" she said to the Madam. "He wears a pronounced mustache."

"Yes? Perhaps it is not the same, then," sighed the woman. "But his interest in you, my dear, is marked."

"Perhaps it is in you he is interested," said Janice, smiling. "You have made a conquest, Madam."

"Ach! of that so-little man? It would be my fate!" cried the majestic creature. "It iss always little men that fall in love with me—soh!"

It was apparent, however, that Madam kept a watchful eye on the "so-little man" for she spoke of Marty's surveillance frequently thereafter. Janice failed to view this person who so troubled her companion, near enough to really see clearly any one feature. At a distance the mustache disguised Marty Day's expression of countenance.

All was not destined to go smoothly with Marty, however, during the entire journey to the Border. They crossed Texas by the T. & P. route and near Sweetwater there was an accident. A train had been ditched ahead of that on which Janice and Marty rode and, the track being torn up for some distance and the right of way blocked, the train was halted a long time in the evening at a way station.

It was merely a cluster of houses and stores, a shack for a station, a freight house and corral with cattle-chutes, and a long platform on which the uneasy passengers might stroll to relieve the tedium of the wait.

Of this last privilege Janice and Madam availed themselves. Marty, too, feeling for the nonce both lonely and homesick, was in the crowd on the long platform. He heartily wished he could reveal himself to Janice so as to have somebody "homey" to talk to. Polktown suddenly seemed a long, long way off to the boy.

"Hi tunket!" he murmured to himself. "These stars down here in Texas seem to have got all twisted. They've gone an' switched the Big Dipper on me, I do believe."

And while he chanced to have his head back looking aloft he ran right into Janice and her companion. The Madam screamed and seized the boy by the arm.