ound the station. A
woman's face--scarcely an improvement on the man's--leaned out of the car
window and jeered at the hunter, who cursed her back savagely.

The man walked up to Jim. "Say, did yer see a kid go by here, Mister?"

With a shrug of his shoulders, Jim asked him that question in Mr.
Ollendorf's French method, about the pink-and-green overcoat of the
shoemaker's wife's sister.

The man showered low abuse on what he supposed was a foreigner, until
Jim's ribs rose with the desire to kill him.

"Ayr, wot are yer wastin' time wid th' Dago fur?" called the woman. "Th'
kid's on the roof!" Jim's heart almost stopped, so thoroughly had he
identified himself with this quarrel. He made up his mind to fight for
the boy, right or wrong.

But he was saved the trouble. It was only a jest of the woman's, for she
suddenly called, so earnestly that even Jim was fooled. "No he ain't
neither; I see him! I see him! There he is." It was the perfection of
acting, voice and gesture.

The man ran out to see where she was pointing. "Where is he?" he asked,
looking wildly around.

"On top der flag-pole, like er monkey! You're it!" she cried, with a
shriek of laughter at the black brows of her dupe.

"I'll show yer der joke, when I git in dere!" he threatened.

The woman leaned her chin on her hands and smiled. Jim never forgot the
utter undauntedness, impudence and malice of that face. "Yer allus goin'
to do sumpin', Pete!" she retorted. "Yer'll be a man yet."

A more amiable man than "Pete" might have been provoked by such conduct.
He strode forward with white-knuckled fists and a very unpleasant
expression on his face. Several men started to interfere, but it wasn't
necessary.

The woman quietly looked at her bully, chewing a straw with the utmost
nonchalance. "Give us a kiss," said she. The man's crest dropped. He said
something in an undertone, and got on the car.

Jim needed no further knowledge of this delightful couple to be
thoroughly on the boy's side. It seemed to him that the man was quite
capable of keeping a small animal at hand, for the fun of torturing it,
and as for the woman--well, if there was her like in hell, Jim determined
to be good for the rest of his days.

"All aboard!" cried the conductor, and with a few mighty breaths the iron
giant whisked its load out in the open again.

"Stay where you are, son, till I see whether that fellow is playing a
trick," said Jim, and not until he had looked unde