wooden hotel entitled "The
Eldorado," and Albert dashed in at the door and up to the stove, with
both hands covering his ears.

As he stood there, frantic with pain, kicking his toes and rubbing his
ears, he heard a chuckle--a slow, sly, insulting chuckle--turned, and
saw Hartley standing in the doorway, visibly exulting over his misery.

"Hello, Bert! that you?"

"What's left of me. Say, you're a good one, you are? Why didn't you
telegraph me at Marion? A deuce of a night I've had of it!"

"Do ye good," laughed Hartley, a tall, alert, handsome fellow nearly
thirty years of age.

After a short and vigorous "blowing up," Albert said: "Well, now, what's
the meaning of all this, anyhow? Why this change from Racine?"

"Well, you see, I got wind of another fellow going to work this county
for a 'Life of Logan,' and thinks I, 'By jinks! I'd better drop in ahead
of him with Blaine's "Twenty Years."' I telegraphed f'r territory, got
it, and telegraphed to stop you."

"You did it. When did you come down?"

"Last night, six o'clock."

Albert was getting warmer and better-natured.

"Well, I'm here; what ye going t'do with me?"

"I'll use you some way; can't tell. First thing is to find a boarding
place where we can work in a couple o' books on the bill."

"Well, I don't know about that, but I'm going to look up a place a
brakeman gave me a pointer on."

"All right; here goes!"

Scarcely any one was stirring on the streets. The wind was pitilessly
cold, though not strong. The snow under the feet cried out with a note
like glass and steel. The windows of the stores were thick with frost,
and Albert gave a shudder of fear, almost as if he were homeless. He had
never experienced anything like it before.

Entering one of the stores, they found a group of men sitting about the
stove, smoking, chatting, and spitting aimlessly into a huge spittoon
made of boards and filled with sawdust. Each man suspended smoking and
talking as the strangers entered.

"Can any of you gentlemen tell us where Mrs. Welsh lives?"

There was a silence; then the clerk behind the counter said:

"I guess so. Two blocks north and three west, next to last house on
left-hand side."

"Clear as a bell!" laughed Hartley, and they pushed out into the cold
again, drawing their mufflers up to their eyes.

"I don't want much of this," muttered Bert through his scarf.

The house was a large frame house standing on the edge of a bank, and as
the y