THE BLACK-EYED WOMAN

The train arrived at Albany about dusk. Janice, disturbed by the incident of the mysterious lunch, half expected to be met by a telegram ordering her to return to Polktown. Or perhaps something worse and harder to cope with. But she told herself that not even a uniformed policeman should make her return! She was secretly very glad to be able to get out of the station without being involved in any difficulty of this kind.

She had studied the time-tables and knew which train to take out of Albany. Realizing the long and tedious journey before her, she concluded that it would be the part of wisdom to secure berth reservation right through to El Paso.

Whether or no she should remain on the train as far as that Border city, Janice did not at this time decide. She knew that direct communication with San Cristoval and the Alderdice Mine lay through the desert country below El Paso, and she must be guided a good deal by what she learned en route. Her father had an army friend at Fort Hanc.o.c.k. She might stop off there to make inquiries.

However, she bought her ticket with berth coupons to El Paso, and then went to dinner. She had two hours to wait for the Chicago express, a reservation on which her special ticket called for.

She had no idea, did Janice, just how much trouble and worry of mind she was causing a certain boy who had trailed her from one railroad station to the other with much care that she should not observe his presence.

When Marty sidled up to the ticket window after Janice was gone and asked for a ticket to "just where that girl bought hers for," the agent certainly did stare at him.

"What's all this for?" he asked Marty suspiciously. "Are you following that young lady?"

"Naw," said Marty gruffly. "I'm goin' with her."

"Oh! you are? Who says so?"

"I do," the boy declared. "D'you think I'm goin' to let her go clear 'way down there to Mexico alone looking for her father?"

"Hi!" exclaimed the man, growing interested, there being no other person waiting at the moment. "Who are _you_?"

"Say! you keep it to yourself, will you?" urged Marty anxiously. "I'm her cousin. What'll a ticket cost just like hers? Her dad's been wounded down there in Mexico and she thinks she can go there alone and bring him back. I can't let her do that, can I?"

"Hasn't she any other folks?" asked the ticket seller doubtfully.

"Her dad's all she's got," Marty declared. "But I'm going to see her through."

Well, it was not the ticket seller's business. He named the sum it would cost Marty to go on that special train.

"Hi tunket! I don't want to _buy_ the train," gasped the boy. "I only want to ride on it."

"Special ticket on this train to Chicago. And berth all the way through to El Paso. I can give you a cheaper rate on another train, however, my son."

"But I got to be on the same train as her to look out for her," observed Marty. "Hi tunket! berth clear through, heh? I'll have to sleep day an'

night to get my money's worth."

"It's the best I can do for you."

Marty groaned, but paid like a man. It made a dreadful hole in his capital. He ate his dinner in a lunchroom through the window of which he could watch the exit of the restaurant to which his cousin had gone for her evening meal.

"Take it from me girls don't have no idea about spending money," Marty groaned, swallowing the last mouthful of a ten cent plate of beef stew as he saw Janice leave the restaurant. "The sign on that window over there says: 'Dinner seventy-five cents.' Hi tunket! How can anybody eat seventy-five cents worth of victuals to once't? I never knew Janice had _that_ capacity."

Marty had insisted upon being given a reservation in another car from that in which Janice was to ride. He was glad to note when the long train rolled in that his was a rear car. Janice would ride next to the dining car.

The boy had no use for the dining car or buffet. He had supplied himself with a box of cheap lunch. If his cousin had money "to throw to the birdies," as Marty privately expressed it, not so the son of Mr. Jason Day of Polktown! After all he had said about his father being a "tight-wad" Marty found that it positively hurt to spend more for a thing than he believed it was worth.

He made sure that Janice with her bag boarded the train. He was one of the last to get on himself, thus making sure that nothing had happened to cause his cousin to alight again.

But Janice, relieved because she had seen n.o.body from Polktown, found herself very pleasantly situated in her car. n.o.body had interfered with her in any way. The lunch given her on the train to Albany was a most mysterious thing; but whoever had given it to her seemed not desirous of halting her determined course.

Janice had secured an upper berth; but she did not mind that. She found that the woman who was to occupy the one beneath was already on the train.

She was a black-eyed, dark, rather Oriental-looking person, and Janice thought her quite handsome in a majestic way. And she possessed an engaging smile.

"You are traveling alone, my dear--yes?" the woman asked her with an intonation distinctly foreign. "All the way to Chicago?"

"And beyond," Janice said pleasantly.

"Ach! You American girls are wonderfully independent--yes? Friends will meet you at your journey's end?"

"No. I expect n.o.body to meet me," Janice told her quite sadly. She did not care to take the woman into her complete confidence, although she seemed to be a very pleasant person.

The black-eyed woman lent her a magazine during the evening, as the train rumbled on across New York State. She was friendly, but not too pressing in her attentions and certainly Janice was unsuspicious.

At nine o'clock the porter began to arrange the berths. Janice went to the ladies' room and found the foreign-looking woman there. As the girl, in her dressing-sack which she had taken out of her bag, combed out her hair, the sharp, black eyes of her fellow-pa.s.senger spied something.

"You carry something valuable there?" she said, touching lightly with her finger the packet of banknotes the girl had pinned to the bosom of her waist. "And with only a common pin? Ach! that is unsafe, my dear."

Janice had folded the bills in a silk handkerchief; but of course the woman could feel just what the crisp notes were.

"I think they will be all right," the girl said, shrinking a little from the woman's touch, yet without feeling any real fear of her or of her intentions.

"See!" the other said as though wishing only to be helpful. "I haf a big safety pin here in my bag--see? We will use _it_ to fasten your packet--soh. Iss that not much better?"

Janice could only thank her and smile. Really one could not take offense at such a kind act nor be suspicious of so kindly a person.

Having lost her previous night's sleep it was not strange that Janice should sleep soundly, even on this rushing train. Occasionally she aroused to the knowledge of the wheels clattering over switches, or hollowly roaring as the train crossed a long trestle. The night sped--and the train with it. She was far, far away from Polktown when she awoke.

Again her berth mate was before her in the dressing room. "Iss your money still safe, my dear?" the black-eyed woman asked.

"Oh, yes," laughed Janice, "I am not at all afraid of losing it."

"You are so different. Me, I am always feeling to see if my jewel-bag iss safe. Oh, yes!"

Janice, having no jewels, was not much interested; though it seemed odd that the black-eyed woman should have her mind so fixed on robbery.

Before the train reached Chicago the woman had made herself very friendly with Janice. The latter refrained from telling her new acquaintance just why she was going to the Southwest, and alone, save that she expected to find her father there and that she was anxious about him.

"You will remain over a day in Chicago to rest?" queried the woman. "You haf friends there--yes?"

"Oh, no. We are going to arrive in good time. I know the schedule perfectly," Janice a.s.sured her. "I shall go right on."

It was not until then that the black-eyed woman revealed the fact that she, too, was going on beyond Chicago. It seemed odd to Janice that her fellow-traveler should not before have acknowledged that Chicago was not her destination, still she gave the matter little thought. She did not tell her name to the girl. Indeed, Janice did not reveal her own name during their conversation.

The woman asked Janice very particularly about the route over which the girl was to travel and then, consulting an ivory-bound memorandum book she carried, in which Janice could not help seeing the notes were written in some foreign language, the woman murmured.

"Ach, yes! It iss so. My dear, I can be your fellow-pa.s.senger for many hundred miles farther. Ach! such a great country as it iss. I shall see about having my routing changed at once. We may travel together yet a far way. And we are such goot friends."