n a more charming face,
though she gave me only a glimpse of it; and when she turned away, and
the crowd about us, attracted for the moment, separated again into its
various elements, I stood gazing after her for a moment as stupidly as
the veriest schoolboy smitten at sight of his first love, and then,
turning to go my way, and letting my eyes fall to the ground, I saw
just at my feet a small leather bag, or what is called by the ladies a
'reticule.' It lay upon the very spot where the young lady had been so
rudely jostled, and I picked it up and turned to look after her. She
had disappeared in the crowd, and after following the way she had
taken for two or three blocks, and finding the crowd more dense and
the trail hopelessly lost, I turned at last and went back, bestowing
the little reticule in my largest pocket, and gradually bringing my
thoughts back to my own affairs, and those of Greenback Bob and the
rascal Delbras.

CHAPTER III.

A CONUNDRUM.

I had not gone far on my way after deciding that the lovely blonde had
quite escaped me--in fact, I was once more about to pass under the
viaduct opposite the Woman's Building and which separated Midway from
the grounds proper--when a tall figure in blue appeared at my elbow,
and fell easily into my somewhat hasty stride while saying:

'You will pardon me, I hope, for intruding, and let me say how much I
appreciated and enjoyed the sudden way in which you halted that Turk
just now. It was scientifically done.'

I turned to look at the speaker. His words were courteously uttered,
and I knew him at once by his blue uniform for one of those
college-bred guards who have helped so much to make the great Fair a
success to question-asking visitors. He was a tall, handsome fellow,
with an eye as brown as his hair, and as honest and direct as the
sun's rays at that very moment, and I recognised him almost at once as
the guard who had hastened to lend his aid, and had sent the Turks to
the right-about, there being nothing else to do. A churl could not
have resisted that pleasant half-smile.

'It was nothing,' I said carelessly; 'the fellow was wantonly
heedless.'

'It was a very pretty and scientific turn of the wrist,' he insisted,
'and--yes, those fellows at first were obsequious enough; now, some of
them, having found out how ill-mannered the Americans dare be without
being beaten, are aping our manners. I--I trust the young lady was not
hurt?'

The big brow