rsed her
lips primly, but her eyes belied their expression.

"I beg your pardon," said the man across the aisle.

Once more Clyde froze indignantly. Never before had she felt the need
of an escort in her travels. Never again, she told herself, would she
travel alone with merely a fifteen-year-old kid for her sole companion.
She honoured the new offender with a haughty stare. He smiled
unaffectedly.

"Nothing like that," he disclaimed, as if he had read her thoughts.
"I'll take that book if you don't want it. He can get it back from me."

He stretched a long arm across, and thanked her as she handed him the
book mechanically. Forthwith he opened it, and began to read. And he
was still absorbed in it when the donor returned.

That gentleman paused uncertainly beside Clyde, who was haughtily
unconscious of his presence.

"Did you--er----" he began.

At that moment the man across the aisle twitched his coat sleeve.
"Looking for the book you left with me?" he asked casually. "Here it
is."

The other stared at him in uneasy surprise. "I didn't----"

"Oh, yes, you did," the man across the aisle interrupted. "Anyway, you
meant to. You'll remember if you think a minute. You didn't leave it
with that young lady, because you don't know her, and you're not the
kind of man to butt in where you're not wanted. Now, are you?"

"Of course not," the other replied, with a show of indignation. "I
don't know----"

"Then that's all right," said the stranger quietly. "Here's your book.
And there's your seat. And don't make any more mistakes."

The gregarious gentleman accepted this advice and his book meekly.
Thereafter he avoided even looking in Clyde's direction. To her relief
the stranger did not presume on the service he had rendered. He
stretched his long legs upon the opposite seat, leaned back, and gazed
silently at the roof. The afternoon dragged on. Clyde and Nita went to
the diner and returned. Afterward the stranger presumably did likewise,
spending a decent interval in the smoker. Darkness fell, and the
Limited thundered on westward across the plains to the country of the
foothills, the mountain ranges, and its goal at the thither end of the
Pacific slope.

Suddenly, with a scream of air and a grinding of brake shoes, the train
came to a stop. Clyde looked out. The level, monotonous plains were no
longer there. The country was rolling, studded with clumps of
cottonwoods. The moon, close to the full, touched the hi