fornia, I suppose? Nice country over there, ain't it?"

What with surprise and rage and fright, Grace was very nearly frantic
For the moment she was powerless--her uncle in the smoking-room, her
aunt locked up with her Emersonian meditations, the porter in the lobby;
the only available person upon whom she could call for aid a horrible
drunken murderer and robber, steeped in all the darkest crimes of the
frontier! She felt herself growing faint, but she struggled to her feet.
The drummer laid his hand on her arm: "Don't go away, my dear! Just stay
and have a little talk. You see--"

But the sentence was not finished. Grace felt her head buzzing, and
then, from somewhere--a long way off, it seemed--she heard a voice
saying: "I beg your pardon; this thing seems to be annoying you. Permit
me to remove it."

Her head cleared a little, for there was a promise of help--not only in
the words but in the tone. And then she saw the desperado calmly settle
a big hand into the collar of the little man's coat, lift him out of the
seat and well up into the air, and so carry him at arm's-length--kicking
and struggling, and looking for all the world like a jumping-jack--out
through the passage-way at the forward end of the car.

As they disappeared, she precipitately sought refuge in the
state-room--where Miss Winthrop was aroused from her serious
contemplation of All-pervading Thought by a sudden and most energetic
demand upon her protection and her salts-bottle. And, before she could
be made in the least degree to comprehend why Grace should require
either the one or the other, Grace had still further complicated and
mystified the matter by fainting dead away.

III.

In the course of two or three hours--aided by Miss Winthrop's salts
and Mr. Hutchinson Port's travelling-flask of peculiar old Otard, which
together contributed calmness and strength, and being refreshed by a
little slumber--Grace was able to explain in an intelligible manner the
adventure that had befallen her.

"And no matter what dreadful crimes that horrible man may have
committed," she said, in conclusion. "I shall be most grateful to him to
my dying day. And I want you, Uncle Hutchinson, no matter how unpleasant
it may be to you to do so, to thank him from me for what he did. And,
oh! it was so funny to see that detestable little impudent man kicking
about that way in the air!" Which remembrance, at the same moment, of
both the terrifying and the ludi