with the sleeping car company under a
false name and with fraudulent recommendations.

These facts Nan, at least, did not learn till later; she ran off to the
skating rink, secure in the thought that her father's trouble with Mr.
Ravell Bulson was over. She hoped she might never see that grouchy fat
man again. But Fate had in store for her another meeting with the
disagreeable Mr. Bulson, and this fell out in a most surprising way.

When Nan was almost in sight of the building where she expected to join
her friends on skates, there sounded the sudden clangor of fire-truck
whistles, and all other traffic halted to allow the department machines
to pass. A taxi-cab crowded close in to the curb where Nan had halted,
just as the huge ladder-truck, driven by its powerful motor, swung around
the corner.

Pedestrians, of course, had scattered to the sidewalks; but the wheels of
the ladder-truck skidded on the icy street and the taxi was caught a
glancing blow by the rear wheel of the heavier vehicle.

Many of the onlookers screamed warnings in chorus; but all to no avail.
Indeed, there was nothing the driver of the cab could have done to avert
the catastrophe. His engine was stopped and there was no possibility of
escape with the car.

Crash! the truck-wheel clashed against the frail cab, and the latter
vehicle was crushed as though made of paper. The driver went out on his
head. Screams of fear issued from the interior of the cab as it went over
in a heap of wreckage and the ladder-truck thundered on.

Nan saw a fat face with bulging eyes set in it appear at the window of
the cab. She was obliged to spring away to escape being caught in the
wreck. But she ran back instantly, for there were more than the owner of
the fat face in the overturned taxi.

With the sputtering of the fat man there sounded, too, a shrill, childish
scream of fear, and a wild yelp of pain--the latter unmistakably from a
canine throat. Amid the wreckage Nan beheld a pair of blue-stockinged
legs encased in iron supports; but the dog wriggled free.

"Hey! Hey!" roared the fat man. "Help us out of this. Never mind that
driver. He ought to have seen that thing coming and got out of the way.
Hey! Help us out, I say."

Nobody seemed to be paying much attention to the fat and angry citizen;
nor would Nan have heeded him had it not been for the appeal of those two
blue-stockinged legs in the iron braces.

The fat man was all tangled up in the robes and