where their bodies must
brush close in passing. And followed her to the station. And she was
biting her lip now to keep from being silly and screaming; trying to
plan in panic the scathing things which she must say.

It was dark there. The toad could not see her face and thus learn that
her eyes were dilated. The East-bound roared in as he came up. She
tried to run--it was her train--and couldn't. The toad put a hand upon
her. And then Blue Jeans--blue serge now--dropped off the steps of the
smoker in the shadow close behind her, and became instantly absorbed in
the tableau.

Blue Jeans had whipped Condit. Indeed, he had considered it an unfair
thing. Why, Condit was only a boy--not more than twenty-one or
twenty-two at the most--a baby!--no bigger than himself. Not half so
big as the superintendent! And he could not fight well, either. He
danced a lot, and feinted, and made a great show of annihilation, but
he couldn't really fight. Blue Jeans had been sorry for him a little;
not much, because he'd ought to be in some other business if he
couldn't take care of himself. But he'd dropped so still, the first
time Blue Jeans hit him. So huddled like!

"Have I killed him?" he asked Larrabie, remorsefully, after it had
happened.

Condit had folded up like a sick accordion.

"Have I killed him?"

"Hell, no!" And Larrabie had stared curiously while neither of them
heard the applause.

Before an hour passed Larrabie wired the huge man who had an office in
New York, an office lined with books. The books were never used; the
office saw strange usage.

"A bear-cat," Larrabie wired. "What shall I do with him?"

And an answer had come back:

"Keep him under cover. Work him a little. Will send Devereau when the
time is right."

So Blue Jeans had suddenly found his Dream in the process of coming
true. For he had done, not happy at heart, just what the huge man had
said he would do; he had decided to accumulate other and just as easy
two hundreds.

"I'll herd by myself," was the way he argued himself to this decision.
"I'm no lily, but I'll not soil myself worse with this bunch."

And Larrabie had kept him under cover, and worked him twice, until
another telegram had finally come, advising them that Devereau was on
his way West,--that the "time was right." But Larrabie had been
perplexed again on this occasion by Blue Jeans' lack of enthusiasm. He
reread the telegram aloud and emphasized the ot