The Big-Town Round-Up | Page 9

car. The eyes of that outraged official rolled after him. The book of
rules did not say anything about wrestling-matches in the vestibule.
Besides, it happened that Durand had called him down sharply not an
hour before. He decided to brush off his passengers and forget what he
had seen.
Clay stopped in front of Kitty and said he hoped she would have no
trouble making her transfer in the city. The girl was no fool. She had
sensed the antagonism that had flared up between them in that moment
when they had faced each other five minutes before.
"Where's Mr. Durand?" she asked.
"He got off."
"But the train hasn't stopped."
"It's just crawlin' along, and he was in a hurry."
Her gaze rested upon an angry bruise on his cheek. It had not been
there when last she saw him. She started to speak, then changed her
mind.
Clay seated himself beside her. "Chicago is a right big town, I reckon.
If I can help you any, Miss Kitty, I'd be glad to do what I can."
The girl did not answer. She was trying to work out this puzzle of why
a man should get off before the train reached the station.
"I'm a stranger myself, but I expect I can worry along somehow," he
went on cheerfully.
"Mr. Durand didn't say anything to me about getting off," she persisted.
"He made up his mind in a hurry. Just took a sudden notion to go."
"Without saying anything about his suitcases?"

"Never mentioned 'em."
"You didn't have--any trouble with him?" she faltered.
"Not a bit," he told her genially. "Sorry our tickets take us by different
roads to New York. Maybe we'll meet up with each other there, Miss
Kitty."
"I don't understand it," she murmured, half to herself. "Why would he
get off before we reach the depot?"
She was full of suspicions, and the bruise on the Westerner's cheek did
not tend to allay them. They were still unsatisfied when the porter took
her to the end of the car to brush her clothes.
The discretion of that young man had its limits. While he brushed the
girl he told her rapidly what he had seen in the vestibule.
"Was he hurt?" she asked breathlessly.
"No 'm. I looked out and seen him standin' beside the track j'es'
a-cussin' a blue streak. He's a sho-'nough bad actor, that Jerry Durand."
Kitty marched straight to her section. The eyes of the girl flashed anger.
"Please leave my seat, sir," she told Clay.
The Arizonan rose at once. He knew that she knew. "I was intendin' to
help you off with yore grips," he said.
She flamed into passionate resentment of his interference. "I'll attend to
them. I can look out for myself, sir."
With that she turned her back on him.
CHAPTER III
THE BIG TOWN

When Clay stepped from the express into the Pennsylvania Station he
wondered for a moment if there was a circus or a frontier-day show in
town. The shouts of the porters, the rush of men and women toward the
gates, the whirl and eddy of a vast life all about him, took him back to
the few hours he had spent in Chicago.
As he emerged at the Thirty-Fourth Street entrance New York burst
upon him with what seemed almost a threat. He could hear the roar of it
like a river rushing down a cañon. Clay had faced a cattle stampede. He
had ridden out a blizzard hunched up with the drifting herd. He had
lived rough all his young and joyous life. But for a moment he felt a
chill drench at his heart that was almost dread. He did not know a soul
in this vast populace. He was alone among seven or eight million crazy
human beings.
He had checked his suitcase to be free to look about. He had no
destination and was in no hurry. All the day was before him, all of
many days. He drifted down the street and across to Sixth Avenue. He
clung to the safety of one of the L posts as the traffic surged past. The
clang of surface cars and the throb of motors filled the air constantly.
He wondered at the daring of a pink-cheeked slip of a girl driving an
automobile with sure touch through all this tangle of traffic. While he
waited to plunge across the street there came a roar overhead that
reminded him again of a wall of water he had once heard tearing down
a cañon in his home land.
Instinctively one arm clutched at the post. A monster went flying
through the air with a horrible, grinding menace. It was only the
Elevated on its way uptown. Clay looked around in whimsical