ngering
silently in the background, looking on where she could not hear. Was
it less than human that she should resent it and make an excuse to go?
And yet she had done it so quietly--that was the lady in her--without a
word of tragedy or reproach! He remembered suddenly that she had
laughed quite naturally and made some joke about his name being Mister.

"What's that you say about the trains still running?" he demanded as he
roused up from his thoughts. "Well, excuse me, right now! I'm on my
way! I'm going back to hunt that girl up!"

He leaped to his feet and left her still smoking as he rushed off to
enquire about the trains.

"Well, well," she murmured as she gazed thoughtfully after him, "he's
as impulsive as any child. Just a great, big boy--I rather like
him--but he won't last long, in New York."

CHAPTER XVIII

NEW YORK

Rimrock Jones' return to New York was as dramatic and spectacular as
his first visit had been pretentious and prodigal. With two thousand
dollars and a big black hat he had passed for a Western millionaire;
now, still wearing the hat but loaded down with real money, he returned
and was hailed as a Croesus. There are always some people in public
life whose least act is heralded to the world; whereas others, much
more distinguished but less given to publicity, accomplish miracles and
are hardly known. And then there are still others who, fed up with
flattery and featured in a hundred ways, are all unwittingly the
victims of a publicity bureau whose aim is their ultimate undoing.

A real Western cowboy with a pistol under his coat, a prospector turned
multi-millionaire in a year, such a man--especially if he wears a
sombrero and gives five-dollar tips to the bell-hops--is sure to break
into the prints. But it was a strange coincidence, when Rimrock jumped
out of his taxicab and headed for the Waldorf entrance, to find a
battery of camera men all lined up to snap him and a squad of reporters
inside. No sooner had Rimrock been shot through the storm door into
the gorgeous splendors of Peacock Alley than they assailed him en
masse--much as the bell-boys had just done to gain his grip and the
five-dollar tip.

That went down first--the five-dollar tip--and his Western remarks on
the climate. Then his naive hospitality in inviting them all to the
bar where they could talk the matter over at their ease, and his
equally cordial agreement to make it tea when he was reminded that