d leave the stranger in
possession of his seat, but to her surprise he simply turned on his heel
and walked away. Not, however, before Betty had seen something bordering
on contempt in his eyes.

"I'd hate to have Bob look at me like that," she thought. "It wasn't as
if he didn't like her, or was mad at her--what is it I am trying to
say? Bob looked as if--as if--Oh, bother, I know what I mean, but I
can't say it."

The little spitfire in the seat beside her wriggled uneasily as if she,
too, were not as comfortable as she would pretend. Bob's silent reception
of her discourtesy had infuriated her, and she knew better than Betty
where she stood in the boy's estimation. She had instantly forfeited his
respect and probably his admiration forever.

In a few minutes Bob was back, and with him the conductor.

"Young lady, you're in the wrong seat," that official announced in a tone
that admitted of no trifling. "You were in eighteen in the other car and
I had to move you to twenty-three in here. Just follow me, please."

He reached in and took one of the suitcases, and Bob matter-of-factly
took the other two. The girl opened her mouth, glanced at the conductor,
and thought better of whatever she was going to say. Meekly she followed
him to another section on the other side of the car and found herself
compelled to share a seat with a severe-looking gray-haired woman,
evidently a sufferer from hay fever, as she sneezed incessantly.

Bob dropped down in his old place and shot a quizzical look at Betty.

"Flame City may be tough," he observed, "and I'd be the last one to claim
that it possessed one grain of culture; but at that, I can't remember
having a pitched battle with a girl during my care-free existence there."

"She's used to having her own way," said Betty, with a laudable ambition
to be charitable, an intention which she inadvertently destroyed by
adding vigorously: "She'd get that knocked out of her if she lived West a
little while."

"Guess the East can be trusted to smooth her down," commented Bob grimly.
"Unless she's planning to live in seclusion, she won't get far in peace
or happiness unless she behaves a bit more like a human being."

The girl was more or less in evidence during the rest of the trip and
incurred the cordial enmity of every woman in the car by the coolness
with which she appropriated the dressing room in the morning and curled
her hair and made an elaborate toilet in perfect indifferen