stop!" she decided promptly. Not for worlds would she accept assistance from Greer. She had dismissed him. He had no right to intrude in any way.

Heroically Roxana left the car and walked north. She had never been alone on the street so late, and, remembering the distance, the darkness and .the loneliness of the blocks, she was really alarmed. She did not fear the pedestrians she met as much as those who overtook her. She dreaded the sound of footsteps behind, conjuring up all sorts of horrors. As she hurried up the deserted thoroughfare it seemed to her that some one followed. If she hastened, the pursuing footsteps quickened. When she slackened speed, the other did the same. It frightened her, and she became breathless. With

DIV. 554.

and took her seat. From beneath her lowered lids she saw Greer standing sentinel on the platform. The car was empty, with the exception of a negro, and Roxana had traveled several blocks before the conductor came to collect her fare.

She opened her purse and looked hurriedly from one compartment to another. It was empty. Evidently she had spent every penny during the shopping expedition. But there remained her wrist bag, into which she frequently dropped small change. The conductor went forward to speak to the motorman. Roxana pursued the search. In vain she emptied out her belongings from the satchel. She found no coin. Then she unfastened her coat. Surely in the change pocket she would find a nickel. But the pocket was as bare as Mother Hubbard's cupboard. The conductor returned. Roxana was frightened. It was late, and she had quite a trip before her.

"I seem to have no change," she commenced nervously.

"Allow me." Greer handed the fare to the official, who looked questioningly at Rox

ana.

"No! I'll get off! Please

ror gained. She began to run. Then the dread became a certainty. The other one would soon overtake her. What if that negro had seen her gold purse?

Across the avenue she saw an alley. She had heard that thieves often evaded arrest by disappearing in the darkness of such places. If she cut through might not she, too, escape? Desperate, half hysterical, Roxana made a sudden rush

MOORE, DIV. 554.

across the road. A street car grazed her shoulder, the motorman cursed as he reversed the lever. Terrified, she had all but reached the desired shelter when a strong hand grasped her suddenly by the arm. She tried to scream, but no sound came. Lifting her eyes, her glance met Greer's, looking sternly at her.

"I guess that will do for one night," he remarked coldly. "Come over to the drug store while I phone for a cab."

Completely unnerved, Roxana followed. The reaction had been sudden. She tried to remember what they had quarreled about, but could only feel relief in his presence. Greer ordered the cab, then went outside to wait.

"Come," he commanded tersely on its arrival.

Gratefully Roxana obeyed. Then as he was about to close the door she found her voice." Don't leave me."

"I've no intention of doing so." And he mounted by the driver. When they reached her home Roxana's eyes were suspiciously red.

"Well?" said Greer. The bull pup sniffed respectfully at his boots. Greer stooped and patted him on the head. "The dog forgives me "-

"Then its mistress can do no less," she admitted.

"A dog, a woman and a walnut tree -began Greer, teasingly.

"Hush, hush!" whispered, Roxana, with her hand on his lips. "You know I never really believed "

"Of course not," he agreed promptly. Then, as his arms tightened about her, "But, oh, Roxie, don't let us play that game again."-B. Hayden.

A Lackawanna Lochinvar.

It was Eager's first vacation in ten years, and he had started out with a deliberate determination to make the most of it. None the less, when he went back into sleeper No. 2 to gather up his belongings for the stop at Buffalo, he had a feeling that fate had been distinctly unkind to him. Miss Brazelton had been his fellow passenger all the way across from Omaha; and it was only at breakfast in the dining-car, on this second morning, that he had become aware of the fact.

"That's what I call beastly hard luck!" he growled, jamming the loose things into his suit-case with an utter disregard for his usual orderly habit. "It was the chance of a lifetime-a chance that I'll never get again if I live to be a hundred. And I missed it !"

Not to miss anything else, he hurried through his own preparations for debark

ation, and so earned a minute or two to go back to her in sleeper No. 1.

"It's rather an eleventh hour offering, Miss Brazelton, but can I be of any assistance to you here?" he asked. “I believe you said you were not going through?"

"Oh, no, thank you," said Miss Alicia, smiling sweetly up at him. "I am to stay over until Tuesday morning with Aunt Van Alstine, and there will be some one at the station to meet me-Cousin Percy, perhaps."

He wondered if she added Mr. Percy Van Alstine's name with malice. Out in Red Mountain, Wyoming, she was the reigning princess, and she took tribute from all; not because her father, the copper king, owned that particular portion of the earth and the reversion of it, but in right of her wit and beauty. Eager had built the railroad which had opened up the copper king's bonanza, but he did not presume upon that. He was well aware of the social distances lying between a mere builder of railroads and Jasper Brazelton's daughter-if Miss Brazelton cared to insist upon them. But he tried manfully to forget the Brazelton millions when he said:

"I'm awfully sorry I didn't know you were on the train. To think that we've been riding within a car-length of each other since yesterday morning! "

She made a bewitching little mouth at him. "Isn't it perfectly harrowing! And now you are going on to New York— "No," he hastened to say; "I'm stopping over, too. It's a vacation trip for -my first in ten years-and I am going to do it thoroughly. There is a little old worn-out farm up on the north side of Ontario where all the Eagers began; I mean to run over and have a look at it."

me

"Oh," she said; "I wish I had some reminiscences.”

He laughed. "I've promised myself a lot of them on this trip. After the Canadian episode I shall come back here and make a daylight run over my old home road, the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western. You didn't know I started out as a plug operator, studying engineering on the side, away back here in the effete East, did you?"

She made room for him on the seat beside her. "Sit down for the few minutes we have left," she commanded. "I am beginning to think I don't know you at all, Mr. Eager. Are you really the person they call The Big Boss' out on the Red Mountain Extension ?"

He laughed again. "I suppose so; only I'm trying to forget it for a few days. There isn't much room for sentiment in keeping that depraved piece of track

alive, summer and winter. But now I am going to turn back some of the leaves and be young and irresponsible for a little while. Don't you envy me?"

"I wish I might be there to see," she said, enthusiastically. "You'd never be able to give me little shivers of awe again, as you did that day when I wanted to ride down Red Mountain on the engine and you wouldn't let me."

"I wish you might," he echoed; and then the train came to a stand in the station, and he took her to the entrance to turn her over to Mr. Percy Van Alstine, who was waiting with his automobile, purposely dodging an introduction to that gilded son of fortune.

This was how it came about that

trasting Van Alstine's present opportunities with his own, and the contrast threatened to spoil his holiday.

All things considered, he was in no very joyous frame of mind when he went to the Buffalo station on the Tuesday morning to take the train for New York. He was a few minutes early, and while he was glancing over his copy of the Express and waiting for his train call, there was a bustle at the entrance, a soft frou-frou of feminine draperies, and he was suddenly accosted by a well-groomed little lady who was calmly surveying him through a pair of ivory handled eye glasses.

"H'm; you are Mr. Percy Van Alstine's man, I suppose," she said, with

Eager's Canadian side trip was marred by a picture of the New York yachtsman and man-about-town helping Miss Alicia up to a seat in the tonneau of the big Panhard. He knew the Van Alstines by hearsay They were relatives by marriage on the Brazelton side, and they were made of money; at least, that is the way Eager phrased it. Percy, the son of the railroad president, had visited the Brazeltons at Red Mountain, and his goodnatured contempt for all things western remained a proverb in the copper camp. Rumor had it that Miss Alicia meant to keep the copper millions in the family by marrying Percy. Eager refused to believe this, but he could not help con

the exactly proper touch of austerity; and then, without giving him time to reply: "You may take our tickets for New York, if you please, and see to the luggage. Here are the transfer checks."

He was on his feet, with the slips of cardboard in his hand, before he saw Miss Alicia in the background. She was actually giggling. He saved the situation promptly.

"Quite at your service, I'm sure," he said solemnly, with a profound bow, and he went obediently to take the tickets and attend to the luggage.

"Dear me!" said Miss Van Alstine, fluttering into the seat Eager had just vacated. "What an impressive man

prompted the chaperon- "Will Miss Brazelton also have a cup of tea?" he asked, gravely; and when he was gone to fetch it, Alicia had symptoms of a violent return of the emotions.

"He is certainly a treasure," sighed Miss Van Alstine, sipping her tea contentedly. "So deferential, and-and so, you might say, anticipative. You can hardly think your wish before he has set about gratifying it. He says his name is James, but I can't begin to make him tell Ime where he has been in service. I'm sure it must have been an earl's household, though, at the very least." "Thank you-James," said Miss

effort she managed to suppress the wild desire to shriek when Eager came deferentially to put them on the train; but once safely in the parlor car she fled to the retiring room to have it out with her emotions. To think of the dignified, manmastering chief engineer of the Red Mountain Extension posing as her aunt's lackey!

When she emerged, the train was swinging along on its way to Mount Morris, and Eager was bringing Aunt Van Alstine a cup of tea from the buffet. "Will Miss-er-a-" Brazelton,"

46

Brazelton, when he came with the second cup of tea, and her eyes were dancing.

It was just then that the train conductor came through. For one moment he stared open-mouthed at the big figure standing at the back of Miss Janet's chair. Then, with a mighty hand-grasp: "Why, Jim, old man!"

Eager hurried him off out of earshot, and Miss Van Alstine put up her eyeglasses.

"How very odd!" she murmured. "Isn't it?" gasped Alicia. "Do you suppose the conductor has also been a

When he could break away from the conductor, Eager came back to ask if there was anything else he could do for the ladies; and being given a recess by Miss Van Alstine he disappeared. From her post at the window Alicia saw him dropping off at each station to be welcomed with shoulder clappings and hand wringings by the men of his old service, and it moved her curiously. Ten years intervened, so he had told her, and it was quite impossible that he should have kept up his connection with his old time work fellows. Yet the welcomings

After which he disappeared, as a servant should; and Miss Brazelton pouted prettily and thought the play had gone on long enough.

After dinner Miss Van Alstine composed herself for a nap, and Miss Alicia changed her seat and waited. He came, after the proper interval, and she motioned him to a seat in the reversed chair opposite her own.

66

Don't you think you have kept it up quite long enough?" she asked.

"The little comedy, you mean? It was none of my play writing. Your aunt merely took me for granted, and I couldn't do less than help her out, could

were hearty and unfeigned, and out of them she picked a new point of view. Beneath the outward and conventionally social shell, which was all she had ever seen of him, there dwelt a man in the deeper, truer sense of the word; a man who could make friends and keep them. She had never known a true "man's man," and the glimpse was very satisfying.

When the dining car dinner was announced, Eager was punctiliously at hand to take his charges into the car, to see them seated, and to bespeak their service.

-Courtesy Bro. W. H. Greer, Div. 595. I? But tell me, how did it happen?"

"Oh, it was simple enough. Cousin Percy-Mr. Van Alstine-had to go to New York last night; some yacht club meeting, I believe. He was to leave his man to go down with us today, and the man was to meet us at the station. Just why Aunt Janet should pounce upon you-"

"That's easy," interrupted Eager. "I doubtless looked the part. Have I played it decently well-for an understudy?

"So well that you'll have a lot of trouble in convincing Aunt Janet that