ugh a case
before he'd quit. I stung him for twenty. Here's some stuff I thought
might be useful."

From a cotton bag he discharged a miscellaneous heap of patent
preparations; salves, ointments, emollients, liniments, plasters.

"All I could get," he explained. "No drug-store in the funny burg."

"Thank you," said Banneker. "You're all right. Want another job?"

"Certainly," said the lily of the field with undiminished good-will.

"Go and help the white-whiskered old boy in the Pullman yonder."

"Oh, he'd chase me," returned the other calmly. "He's my uncle. He
thinks I'm no use."

"Does he? Well, suppose you get names and addresses of the slightly
injured for me, then. Here's your coat."

"Tha-anks," drawled the young man. He was turning away to his new duties
when a thought struck him. "Making a list?" he asked.

"Yes. For my report."

"Got a name with the initials I. O. W.?"

Banneker ran through the roster in the pocket-ledger. "Not yet. Some one
that's hurt?"

"Don't know what became of her. Peach of a girl. Black hair, big,
sleepy, black eyes with a fire in 'em. Dressed _right_. Traveling alone,
and minding her own business, too. Had a stateroom in that Pullman there
in the ditch. Noticed her initials on her traveling-bag."

"Have you seen her since the smash?"

"Don't know. Got a kind of confused recklection of seeing her wobbling
around at the side of the track. Can't be sure, though. Might have been
me."

"Might have been you? How could--"

"Wobbly, myself. Mixed in my thinks. When I came to I was pretty busy
putting my lunch," explained the other with simple realism. "One of Mr.
Pullman's seats butted me in the stomach. They ain't upholstered as soft
as you'd think to look at 'em. I went reeling around, looking for Miss
I. O. W., she being alone, you know, and I thought she might need some
looking after. And I had that idea of having seen her with her hand to
her head dazed and running--yes; that's it, she was running. Wow!" said
the young man fervently. "She was a pretty thing! You don't suppose--" He
turned hesitantly to the file of bodies, now decently covered with
sheets.

For a grisly instant Banneker thought of the one mangled
monstrosity--_that_ to have been so lately loveliness and charm, with
deep fire in its eyes and perhaps deep tenderness and passion in its
heart. He dismissed the thought as being against the evidence and
entered the initials in his booklet.

"I'll look out