ed.

"He made up his mind in a hurry. Just took a sudden notion to go."

"Without saying anything about his suitcases?"

"Never mentioned 'em."

"You didn't have--any trouble with him?" she faltered.

"Not a bit," he told her genially. "Sorry our tickets take us by
different roads to New York. Maybe we'll meet up with each other
there, Miss Kitty."

"I don't understand it," she murmured, half to herself. "Why would he
get off before we reach the depot?"

She was full of suspicions, and the bruise on the Westerner's cheek did
not tend to allay them. They were still unsatisfied when the porter
took her to the end of the car to brush her clothes.

The discretion of that young man had its limits. While he brushed the
girl he told her rapidly what he had seen in the vestibule.

"Was he hurt?" she asked breathlessly.

"No 'm. I looked out and seen him standin' beside the track j'es'
a-cussin' a blue streak. He's a sho-'nough bad actor, that Jerry
Durand."

Kitty marched straight to her section. The eyes of the girl flashed
anger.

"Please leave my seat, sir," she told Clay.

The Arizonan rose at once. He knew that she knew. "I was intendin' to
help you off with yore grips," he said.

She flamed into passionate resentment of his interference. "I'll
attend to them. I can look out for myself, sir."

With that she turned her back on him.

CHAPTER III

THE BIG TOWN

When Clay stepped from the express into the Pennsylvania Station he
wondered for a moment if there was a circus or a frontier-day show in
town. The shouts of the porters, the rush of men and women toward the
gates, the whirl and eddy of a vast life all about him, took him back
to the few hours he had spent in Chicago.

As he emerged at the Thirty-Fourth Street entrance New York burst upon
him with what seemed almost a threat. He could hear the roar of it
like a river rushing down a canon. Clay had faced a cattle stampede.
He had ridden out a blizzard hunched up with the drifting herd. He had
lived rough all his young and joyous life. But for a moment he felt a
chill drench at his heart that was almost dread. He did not know a
soul in this vast populace. He was alone among seven or eight million
crazy human beings.

He had checked his suitcase to be free to look about. He had no
destination and was in no hurry. All the day was before him, all of
many days. He drifted down the street and across to Sixth Avenue. He