orter arrived and took the suitcase from Andy with a
tip-inviting deference.

Andy apologized profusely, with a quaint, cowpunchery phrasing that
caused the woman to take a second look at him. And, since Andy Green
would look good to any woman capable of recognizing--and appreciating--a
real man when she saw him, she smiled and said it didn't matter in the
least.

That was the beginning of the acquaintance. Andy took her by her plump,
chiffon-veiled arm and piloted her to her seat, and he afterward tipped
the porter generously and had his own belongings deposited in the
section across the aisle. Then, with the guile of a foreign diplomat, he
betook himself to the smoking-room and stayed there for three quarters
of an hour. He was not taking any particular risk of losing the
opportunity of an unusually pleasant journey, for the dollar he had
invested in the goodwill of the porter had yielded the information that
the lady was going through to Great Falls. Since Andy had boarded the
train at Harlem there was plenty of time to kill between there and Dry
Lake, which was his destination.

The lady smiled at him rememberingly when finally he seated himself
across the aisle from her, and without any serious motive Andy smiled
back. So presently they were exchanging remarks about the journey. Later
on, Andy went over and sat beside her and conversation began in earnest.
Her name, it transpired, was Florence Grace Hallman. Andy read it
engraved upon a card which added the information that she was engaged
in the real estate business--or so the three or four words implied.
"Homemakers' Syndicate, Minneapolis and St. Paul," said the card. Andy
was visibly impressed thereby. He looked at her with swift appraisement
and decided that she was "all to the good."

Florence Grace Hallman was tall and daintily muscular as to figure. Her
hair was a light yellow--not quite the shade which peroxide gives,
and therefore probably natural. Her eyes were brown, a shade too close
together but cool and calm and calculating in their gaze, and her
eyebrows slanted upward a bit at the outer ends and were as heavy as
beauty permitted. Her lips were very red, and her chin was very firm.
She looked the successful business woman to her fingertips, and she was
eminently attractive for a woman of that self-assured type.

Andy was attractive also, in a purely Western way. His gray eyes were
deceivingly candid and his voice was pleasant with a little, hum