ance of
being carried by. He could tell as he came back, by the swing, that
they were heading the Peace River curves, for the trucks were hitting
the elevations like punching-bags. Just as he regained the main aisle
of the Lalla Rookh, a lurch of the car plumped him against a
section-head. He grasped it an instant to steady himself, and as he
stopped he looked. Whether it was that his eyes fell on the curtained
section swaying under the Pintsch light ahead--Section Eleven made
up--or whether his eyes were drawn to it, who can tell? A woman's head
was visible between the curtains. Glover stood perfectly still and
stared. Without right or reason, there certainly stood a woman.

With nobody whatever having any business in the car, a car out of
service, carried as one carries a locked and empty satchel--yet the
curtains of Section Eleven, next his stateroom, were parted slightly,
and the half-light from above streamed on a woman's loose hair. She
was not looking toward where he stood; her face was turned from him,
and as she clasped the curtain she was looking into his stateroom.
What the deuce! thought Glover. A woman passenger in a dead sleeper?
He balanced himself to the dizzy wheel of the truck under him, and
waited for her to look his way--since she must be looking for the
porter--but the head did not move. The curtains swayed with the
jerking of the car, but the woman in Eleven looked intently into the
dark stateroom. What did it mean? Glover determined a shock.

"Tickets!" he exclaimed, sternly--and stood alone in the car.

"Tickets!" The head was gone; not alone that, strangely gone. How?
Glover could not have told. It was _gone_. The Pintsch burned dim;
the Teton song crooned through the ventilators; the wheels of the Lalla
Rookh struck muffled at the fish-plates; the curtains of Section Eleven
swung slowly in and out of the berth--but the head was not there.

A creepy feeling touched his back; his first impulse was to ignore the
incident, go into the stateroom and lie down. Then he thought he might
have alarmed the passenger in Eleven when he had first entered. Yet
there was, officially at least, no passenger in Eleven; plainly there
was nothing to do but to call the conductor. He went forward. O'Brien
was sorting his collections in the smoking-room of the next car. Raz
Brown, awake--nominally, at least--sat by, reading his dream-book.

"Is this the Lalla Rookh porter?" asked Glover. O'Br