e really and truly believe it?
Her exaltation stayed with her while she waited on table, while she
nursed the wounded men, while she helped Chung wash the dishes. It went
singing with her into her little bedroom when she retired for the night.

June sat down before the small glass and looked at the image she saw
there. What was it he liked about her? She studied the black crisp hair,
the dark eager eyes with the dusky shadows under them in the slight
hollows beneath, the glow of red that stained the cheeks below the
pigment of the complexion. She tried looking at the reflection from
different angles to get various effects. It was impossible for her not to
know that she was good to look at, but she had very little vanity about
it. None the less it pleased her because it pleased others.

She let down her long thick hair and combed it. The tresses still had the
old tendency of her childhood to snarl unless she took good care of them.
From being on her feet all day the shoes she was wearing were
uncomfortable. She slipped them off and returned to the brushing of the
hair.

While craning her neck for a side view June saw in the glass that which
drained the blood from her heart. Under the bed the fingers of a hand
projected into view. It was like her that in spite of the shock she
neither screamed nor ran to the door and cried for help. She went on
looking at her counterfeit in the glass, thoughts racing furiously. The
hand belonged to a man. She could see that now plainly, could even make
out a section of the gauntlet on his wrist. Who was he? What was he doing
here in her room?

She turned in the chair, deliberately, steadying her voice.

"Better come out from there. I see you," she said quietly.

From under the bed Jake Houck crawled.

CHAPTER XLII

A WALK IN THE PARK

June was the first to speak. "So you're here. You didn't get away."

"I'm here," Houck growled. "No chance for a getaway. I ran out the back
door of the bank an' ducked into the hotel. This was the first door I
come to, an' I headed in."

She was not afraid of him. The power he had once held over her was gone
forever. The girl had found resources within herself that refused him
dominance. He was what he always had been, but she had changed. Her
vision was clearer. A game and resourceful bully he might be, but she
knew one quiet youth of a far finer courage.

"They're lookin' for you along the river," she said.

The muscles of his jaw