in the desert, and he took every
precaution against such a calamity.

Nothing of this uncertainty and inner weakness appeared in his outward
actions, however. No one accused him of looking like an "easy mark" or
"a soft thing." The line of his lips and the lower of his strongly
marked eyebrows made strangers slow of approach. He was never awkward,
he could not be so any more than could a fox or a puma, but he was
restless, irresolute, brooding, and gloomy.

He moved down to the Occidental Grand, where he was able to secure a
room on the top floor for fifty cents per day. His meals he picked up
wherever he chanced to be when feeling hungry. When weary with his
wanderings he often returned to his seat on the sidewalk before the
hotel and watched the people pass, finding in this a melancholy
pleasure.

One evening the night clerk, a brisk young fellow, took a seat beside
him. "This is a great corner for the girls all right. A feller can just
about take his pick here along about eight. They're after a ticket to
the theater and a supper. If a feller only has a few seemolleons to
spare he can have a life worth livin'."

Mose turned a curious glance upon him. "If you wanted to find a party
in this town how would you go at it?"

"Well, I'd try the directory first go-off. If I didn't find him there
I'd write to some of his folks, if I knew any of 'em, and get a clew. If
I didn't succeed then I'd try the police. What's his name?"

Harold ignored this query.

"Where could I try this directory?"

"There's one right in there on the desk."

"That big book?"

"Yes."

"I didn't know what that was. I thought it was a dictionary."

The clerk shrieked with merriment. "The dictionary! Well, say, where
have you been raised?"

"On the range."

"You mean cowboy?"

"Yes; we don't need directories out there. Does that book tell where
everybody lives?"

"Well no, but most everybody shows up in it somewhere," replied the
clerk quite soberly. It had not occurred to him that anybody could live
outside a directory.

Harold got up and went to the book which he turned over slowly, looking
at the names. "I don't see that this helps a man much," he said to the
clerk who came in to help him. "Here is Henry Coleman lives at 2201
Exeter Street. Now how is a man going to find that street?"

"Ask a policeman," replied the clerk, much interested. "You're not used
to towns?"

"Not much. I can cross a mountain range easier than I can