ho knew of young Glen Kent, and
proceeded on to the next.

The horseman was well and favorably known in all directions. He was
eagerly cornered wheresoever he appeared by a lot of fellows who were
friends to little purpose, in an actual test. However, he clung to his
mission with commendable tenacity of purpose, and kept upon his way.
Thus he discovered at length, when he visited the bank--an institution
that rarely closed before ten o'clock in the evening--that Kent had
been gone for the past two weeks, no one knew where, but somewhere out
south, with a party.

There was nothing to do after that but to look for fit apartments for
the gently reared girl and her maid. Hunting a needle in the ocean
would have been a somewhat similar task. Van went at once at the
business, with his customary spirit. He was presently informed there
was nothing resembling a room or a bed to be had in all the place. A
hundred men would walk the streets or sleep in chairs that night. The
one apartment suitable for two lone women to occupy had been secured
the previous day by "Plunger" Trask, an Eastern young man who would bet
that grass was not green.

Van searched for Trask and found him "cashing in" a lot of assorted
chips, representing his winnings at a faro game at which he had been
"bucking."

"Hello, there, Van," he said familiarly as the horseman touched him on
the shoulder. "Come and have a drink."

"My teeth are floating now from drink," said Van, "but I'll take
something else if you say so. I want your apartments for the night."

"Say, wire me!" answered the plunger. "That's the cutest little bunch
of nerve I ever saw off the Bowery! How much money have you got in
your clothes?"

"About forty-five dollars," said Van. "Is it good?"

"Not as a price, but O.K. in a flip," said Trask, with an itch for
schemes of chance. "I'll throw you the dice, my room against your
forty-five--and the devil take your luck if you win!"

Van agreed. They borrowed a box of dice, threw three times apiece--and
the horseman paid over his money.

"There you are, old man," said the plunger cheerfully. "Satisfied, I
hope."

"Not quite," said Van. "I'll owe you forty-five more and throw you
again."

"Right ho!" responded Trask. "Go as far as you like."

They shook again. Van lost as before. He borrowed again,
undiscouraged. For the third time they cast the little cubes of
uncertainty and this time Van actually won. The room