on the block below the hotel.

The street was practically deserted there. Yet barely two minutes had
passed when, about a block away, in the opposite direction from that of
the hotel, Eph heard a quick little feminine scream.

Wheeling about, Somers saw something that aroused his blood.

A girl, or young woman, he could not tell which, at the distance, cowered
back from a short, thick-set young man who had raised his hand to strike
her.

The next instant Eph saw the blow fall. Again the young woman cried out,
though not very loudly. But the brute seemed on the point of once more
striking her.

"Wow!" sputtered Eph, angrily. "We'll see about that."

On the run Somers went down the short block. The bully, hearing him
come, turned for a look, then darted away down the side street.

"I--I beg your pardon," stammered Eph, as the young woman turned,
flashing a look at him through a thin veil. "I--I don't want to
interfere, but--"

"I'm very glad you did, sir," responded the young woman, in a voice
whose sweetness charmed the submarine boy. "That wretch--"

"I wonder if I can overtake him and thrash him," pondered Eph, glancing
down the side street. The bully had disappeared.

"Oh, don't think of that," begged the girl, in a quick, anxious way. "I
don't want to set people's tongues to wagging."

"No; of course not," Eph assented, quickly.

"But, if you will escort me safe home--"

"Gladly, miss," nodded young Somers, again lifting his cap.

"Oh, that will be so kind of you," she murmured. "For I am afraid Tom
might be waiting for me, on the way to my home--"

"If he gets within hailing distance," uttered Eph, valiantly, "I'll plant
a torpedo fist under him!"

"Will you let me take your arm?" begged the girl; for, from her voice and
her slight, trim she appeared to be no more. That she was indeed afraid
was testified to by the way in which her hand trembled on his arm. It
was such a tender little hand, too! Eph was not a flirt. He did not
give much thought to girls, as a rule, but he wasn't going to see one
struck by a street bully.

So he walked along, down the side street, turning, also, at two or three
other corners, talking cheerily to make the girl forget her late fright.
Her face Eph couldn't see very well, on account of the veil, but he
decided that the young woman possessed beautiful, flashing eyes, as he
caught their expression dimly through the veil.

Down another quiet side street