undoubtedly was, Betty found humor in
the situation. Heads of every kind and description stuck through the
curtains, women's, some in boudoir caps, some without, men's heads,
either bald or with hair grotesquely ruffled by sleep, and on every face
depicted every one of the varied emotions which have disturbed the human
race since time began. And there they were, all frozen to immobility by
the sound of two men's voices raised in heated discussion.

Then the owners of the voices came into view, and the expression on all
the faces changed to bewildered amazement. Instead of the masked bandit
which they had half expected to see there was a very portly and very
excited gentleman and with him was a conductor, not so portly but just
as excited.

"I tell you," the conductor was saying, his face red with wrath, "you
are violating the rules of the company by flagging this train for a
personal matter----"

"You have told me that before," roared the portly gentleman, waxing
almost apoplectic. "And I've told you I don't care a hang for the rules
of the company. What I want to find is my daughter and that young scamp
she ran away with. And if you don't help me, I'll wring your neck!"

"I tell you there is no couple answering your description on this
train," rasped the conductor, as the two made their way, shouting and
gesticulating, through the two rows of amazed heads and so on into the
next car.

"Well, I'll be blowed," commented the voice belonging to one of the
heads; and as if that were a signal, all the other heads promptly
withdrew to the accompaniment of exclamations and laughter.

In the darkness of the berth Betty chuckled.

"Oh, they did look so funny, Gracie," she said. "All those people with
their heads stuck out into the aisle. You should have taken a peek."

"Humph," grunted Grace, unsympathetically, as she prepared to climb into
her berth again. Then she said: "I hope if that man's daughter takes a
notion to run away again, she won't do it on our train, that's all!"

CHAPTER V

THE HANDSOME COWBOY

Next morning the girls were hilarious over the mirthful episode in the
train the night before. Betty and Mollie "took off" the expressions on
the faces of their fellow passengers till Amy and Grace shouted with
glee.

"Oh, stop it, you two," gasped Grace, finally. "I'm sore from laughing.
I think you would make a hit as clowns in a circus."

"My, isn't she complimentary?" lisped Mollie, and the gir