xt day Santa Cruz would be "wide-open" because of an
excursion from Sacramento. Jack offered to help him lose himself in
the crowd, and again Andy was grateful. For the first time since
leaving the Flying U he went to bed feeling not utterly alone and
friendless, and awoke pleasantly expectant. Friend Jack was to pilot
him down to the Casino at eleven, and he had incidentally made one
prediction which stuck closely to Andy, even in his sleep. Jack had
assured him that the whole town would be at the beach; and if the
whole town were at the beach, why then, Mary would surely be somewhere
in the crowd. And if she were in the crowd--"If she's there, I'll sure
get a line on her before night," Andy told himself, with much
assurance. "A fellow that's been in the habit of cutting any certain
brand of critter out of a big herd ought to be able to spot his girl
in a crowd"--and he hummed softly while he dressed.

The excursion train was already in town, and the esplanade was,
looking down from Beach Hill, a slow-moving river of hats, with
splotches of bright colors and with an outer fringe of men and women.
"That's a good-sized trail-herd uh humans," Andy remarked, and the
insurance agent laughed appreciatively.

"You wait till you see them milling around on the board walk," he
advised impressively. "If you happen to be looking for anybody, you'll
realize that there's some people scattered around in your vicinity. I
had a date with a girl, down here one Sunday during the season, and we
hunted each other from ten in the morning till ten at night and never
got sight of each other."

Andy gave him a sidelong, suspicious glance, but friend Jack was
evidently as innocent as he looked, and so Andy limped silently down
the hill to the Casino and wondered if fate were going to cheat him at
the last moment.

Once in the crowd, it was as Jack had told him it would be. He could
not regard the moving mass of humanity as individuals, though long
living where men are few had fixed upon him the habit. Now, although
he observed far more than did Jack, he felt somewhat at a loss; the
realization that Mary Johnson might pass him unrecognized troubled him
greatly. It did not once occur to him that he, with his gray Stetson
hat and his brown face and keen eyes and tall, straight-backed figure,
looked not at all like the thousands of men all around him, so that
many eyes turned to give him another glance when he passed. Mary
Johnson must be unob