trons and police
officers in the building to whom she could apply for advice or
assistance.

Naturally independent, this girl of the ranges was not likely to ask a
stranger for help. She could find her own way.

She smiled--yet it was a rather wry smile--when she thought of how Dud
Stone had told her she would be as much of a tenderfoot in New York as he
had been on the plains.

"It's a fact," she thought. "But, if they didn't get my message, I reckon
I can find the house, just the same."

Having been so much in Denver she knew a good deal about city ways. She
did not linger about the station long.

Outside there was a row of taxicabs and cabmen. There was an officer, too;
but he was engaged at the moment in helping a fussy old lady get seven
parcels, a hat box, and a dog basket into a cab.

So Helen walked down the row of waiting taxicabs. At the end cab the
chauffeur on the seat turned around and beckoned.

"Cab, Miss? Take you anywhere you say."

"You know where this number on Madison Street is, of course?" she said,
showing a card with the address on it.

"Sure, Miss. Jump right in."

"How much will it be?"

"Trunk, Miss?"

"Yes. Here is the check."

The chauffeur got out of his seat quickly and took the check.

"It's so much a mile. The little clock tells you the fare," he said,
pleasantly.

"All right," replied Helen. "You get the trunk," and she stepped into the
vehicle.

In a few moments he was back with the trunk and secured it on the roof of
his cab. Then he reached in and tucked a cloth around his passenger,
although the evening was not cold, and got in under the wheel. In another
moment the taxicab rolled out from under the roofed concourse.

Helen had never ridden in any vehicle that went so smoothly and so fast.
It shot right downtown, mile after mile; but Helen was so interested in
the sights she saw from the window of the cab that she did not worry about
the time that elapsed.

By and by they went under an elevated railroad structure; the street grew
more narrow and--to tell the truth--Helen thought the place appeared
rather dirty and unkempt.

Then the cab was turned suddenly across the way, under another elevated
structure, and into a narrow, noisy, ill-kept street.

"Can it be that Uncle Starkweather lives in this part of the town?"
thought Helen, in amazement.

She had always understood that the Starkweather mansion was in one of the
oldest and most respectable parts of N