gged me aboard of the same train with Agatha Geddis.

She seemed strangely perturbed when I went to her with the tickets, and
she made no move to leave the window.

"Your train is ready," I told her, as she thrust the ticket envelope
into the bosom of her gown.

"Wait!" she commanded; then she turned back to the window which looked
out upon the cab rank.

There were cabs coming and going constantly, and I didn't know until
afterward what she saw that made her eyes light up and the blood surge
into her cheeks.

"Now I'm ready," she announced quickly. "Put me on the sleeper."

I took her through the gates and at the gate-man's halting of us I saw
that we were followed.

Our shadow was an alert, dapper young man who wore glasses, and I
remembered having seen him, both at the ticket window and in the
women's room. Outside of the gates he confirmed my suspicion by
trailing us to the steps of the sleeping-car.

Even then I didn't suspect what was going on. While the sleeping-car
conductor was examining the tickets and taking the section number I saw
the young man with the spectacles making a hurried reconnaissance of
the car by walking back and forth beside it and peering curiously in
through the lighted windows. Then I missed him for a minute or two
until he came running from the gates with a railroad ticket in his hand.

"I'm going to Cheyenne, and I want a berth in this car," he told the
Pullman conductor, "They said they couldn't sell me one at the
office--that you had the diagram."

The conductor looked over his list. "Nothing doing," he returned.
"All sold out."

"That's all right," snapped the young man; "I'll take my chance sitting
up." With that, he climbed aboard and disappeared in the car.

All this time we had been waiting for the conductor to return my
companion's tickets. When he did so, I helped her up the steps. The
air-brakes were sighing the starting signal, and she turned in the
lighted vestibule and blew me a kiss.

"Good-by, Bertie, dear," I heard her say. "Be a good boy, and give my
love to Little Brown-Eyes." Then, as if to prove the immortal saying
that there is no such thing as ultimate total depravity in the human
atom, she leaned over to whisper the parting word: "Make good with her
if you can, and want to, Bertie: I didn't mean it when I said I'd spoil
your chances. Good-night and good-by." And with that the train moved
off and she was gone.

I slept late in my room at