were shelves full of canisters, boxes and cans, a goodly array of
convenient eatables. Lying asleep across a bench was a young colored
man, who wore the cap and apron of a dining-car cook.

Ralph felt that he was intruding, but his curiosity overcame him. He
stepped to the door of the partition. Near its top was a small pane of
glass, and through this Ralph peered.

"I declare!" he exclaimed under his breath, and with a great start.

A strange, vivid picture greeted the astonished vision of the young
railroader. If the rear part of the tourist car had suggested a modern
kitchen, the front portion was a well-appointed living room. It had a
stove in its center, and surrounding this were all the comforts of a
home. There was a bed, several couches, easy chairs, two illuminated
lamps suspended from side brackets, and the floor was covered with
soft, heavy rugs.

Upon one of the couches lay a second colored man, apparently a special
car porter, and he, like the cook, was fast asleep. All that Ralph had
so far seen, however, was nothing to what greeted his sight as his
eyes rested on the extreme front of the car.

There, lying back in a great luxurious armchair, was a preternaturally
thin and sallow-faced man. His pose and appearance suggested the
invalid or the convalescent. He lay as if half dozing, and from his
lips ran a heavy tube, connected with a great glass tank at his side.

Such a picture the mystified Ralph had never seen before. He could not
take in its full meaning all in a minute. His puzzled mind went
groping for some reasonable solution of the enigma. Before he could
think things out, however, there was a sound at the rear door of the
car. Some one on the platform outside had turned the knob and held the
door about an inch ajar, and Ralph glided towards it. Through the
crack he could see three persons plainly. Ralph viewed them with
wonderment.

He had half anticipated running across Zeph Dallas somewhere about the
train, but never this trio--Ike Slump, Jim Evans and the man he had
known as Lord Montague. The two latter were standing in the snow. Ike
was on the platform. He was asking a question of the man who had posed
as a member of the English nobility:

"Be quick, Morris; what am I to do?"

Lord Montague, _alias_ Morris, with a keen glance about him, drew a
heavy coupling pin from under his coat.

"Take it," he said hastily, "and get inside that car."

"Suppose there's somebody hinders me?"