could have cried.

"It isn't money, miss, it's the rules," said the conductor kindly. "I
can't do it."

Kathlyn turned in despair toward the station. It was then she saw the
boxed lion on the platform. She returned to the conductor of the
freight.

"Why isn't that lion shipped?"

"We can't carry a lion without an attendant, miss. You ought to know
that."

"Very well," replied Kathlyn. She smiled at the conductor confidently.
"I'll travel as the lion's attendant. You certainly can not object to
that."

"I guess you've got me," admitted the conductor. "But where the
dickens will we put the cat? Every car is closed and locked, and there
is not an empty."

"You can easily get the lion in the caboose. I'll see that he doesn't
bother any one."

"Lions in the caboose is a new one on me. Well, you know your dad's
business better than I do. Look alive, boys, and get that angora
aboard. This is Miss Hare herself, and she'll take charge."

"Kit, Kit!"

"Winnie!"

"Oh, I'll be brave. I've just got to be. But I've never been left
alone before."

The two girls embraced, and Winnie went sobbing back to the maid who
waited on the platform.

What happened in that particular caboose has long since been newspaper
history. The crew will go on telling it till it becomes as fabulous as
one of Sindbad's yarns. How the lion escaped, how the fearless young
woman captured it alone, unaided, may be found in the files of all
metropolitan newspapers. Of the brown man who was found hiding in the
coat closet of the caboose nothing was said. But the sight of him
dismayed Kathlyn as no lion could have done. Any-dark skinned person
was now a subtle menace. And when, later, she saw peering into the
port-hole of her stateroom, dismay became terror.

Who was this man?

CHAPTER II

THE UNWELCOME THRONE

Kathlyn sensed great loneliness when, about a month later, she arrived
at the basin in Calcutta. A thousand or more natives were bathing
ceremoniously in the ghat--men, women and children. It was early morn,
and they were making solemn genuflections toward the bright sun. The
water-front swarmed with brown bodies, and great wheeled carts drawn by
sad-eyed bullocks threaded slowly through the maze. The many white
turbans, stirring hither and thither, reminded her of a field of white
poppies in a breeze. India! There it lay, ready for her eager feet.
Always had she dreamed about it, and romanced over i