Nan Sherwood’s Winter Holidays by Annie Roe Carr (page 3)

CHAPTER XXI

LONG TO BE REMEMBERED

There were lights and music and flowers all about the big reception rooms, and a number of ladies and gentlemen were present besides the committee that had brought the medal for Nan. This was no time to retail such gossip as Linda Riggs had brought to her ears, and Miss Hagford, the governess, did not take her employer into her confidence at that time.

Besides, Nan was suddenly made the heroine of the hour.

If she had felt like running away as the party of young people returned to the Mason house from the moving picture show, Nan was more than desirous of escape now. The situation was doubly embarrassing after Linda Riggs’ cruel accusation; for Nan had the feeling that some, at least, of these strange girls and boys must believe Linda’s words true.

Nan knew that, all the way from the picture show, Linda had been eagerly giving her version of the difficulties that had risen between them since she and Nan had first met on the train going to Lakeview Hall. These incidents are fully detailed in the previous volume of this series, “Nan Sherwood at Lakeview Hall,” as likewise is the incident which resulted in the presentation to Nan of the medal for bravery.

The ladies and gentlemen who had made it their business to obtain this recognition of a very courageous act, had traced the modest schoolgirl by the aid of Mr. Carter, the conductor of the train on which Nan and Bess had been so recently snow-bound.

The committee were very thoughtful. They saw that the girl was greatly embarrassed, and the presentation speech was made very brief. But Mrs. Mason, with overflowing kindness, had arranged for a gala occasion. A long table was set in the big dining room, and the grown folk as well as the young people gathered around the board.

The ill-breeding of Linda Riggs, and her attempt to hurt Nan’s reputation in the eyes of the Masons’ friends, were both smothered under the general jollity and good feeling. Afterward Bess Harley declared that Linda must have fairly “stewed in her own venom.” Nobody paid any attention to Linda, her own cousin scarcely speaking to her. Only once did the railroad magnate’s daughter have an opportunity of showing her ill-nature verbally.

This was when the beautiful gold medal was being passed around the table for the inspection of the company individually. It came in the course of events, to Linda. She took the medal carelessly and turned it over on her palm.

“Oh, indeed–very pretty, I am sure. And, of course, useful,” she murmured. “I have been told that most of these medals finally find their way to the pawnshops.”

This speech made Mrs. Mason, who heard it, look curiously at Linda; the girls about her were silent–indeed, nobody made any rejoinder. It caused Mrs. Mason, however, to make some inquiries of Miss Hagford, and later of Grace and Bess.

The young folk danced for an hour to the music of a big disc machine. The committee of presentation had bidden Nan good-bye, and thanked Mrs. Mason for her hospitality. The party was breaking up.

Mrs. Mason called the young people together when the wraps of those who were leaving were already on.

“One last word, boys and girls, before we separate,” the lady said softly, her arm around Nan, by whom she seemed to stand quite by chance. “I hope you have all had a pleasant time. If we cultivate a happy spirit we will always find pleasure wherever we go. Remember that.

“Criticism and back-biting in any social gathering breed unhappiness and discontent. And we should all be particularly careful how we speak of or to one another. I understand that there was one incident to mar this otherwise perfect evening. One girl was unkind enough to try to hurt the feelings of another by a statement of unmistakable falsehood.”

Mrs. Mason’s voice suddenly became stern. She was careful to avert her gaze from Linda Riggs’ direction; but they all knew to whom she referred.

“I speak of this, boys and girls, for a single reason,” the lady pursued. “For fear some of you may go home with any idea in your minds that the accusation against the girl vilified or against her father is in any particular true, I want you to tell your parents that _I_ stand sponsor for both our dear Nan and her father. Neither could be guilty of taking that which was not his.

“Now, good-night all! I hope you have had a lovely time. I am sure this night will long be remembered by our Nan!”

The boys, led by Walter, broke into a hearty cheer for Nan Sherwood. Every girl save Linda came to kiss her good-night. Her triumph seemed unalloyed.

Yet the first mail in the morning brought a letter which dealt a staggering blow to Nan’s Castle of Delight. Her mother wrote in haste to say that Mr. Ravell Bulson had been to the automobile manufacturers with whom Mr. Sherwood had a tentative contract, and had threatened to sue Mr. Sherwood if he did not return to him, Bulson, his lost watch and chain and roll of bankbills, amounting to several hundred dollars.

The automobile manufacturers had served notice on Mr. Sherwood that they would delay the signing of any final contract until Bulson’s accusation was refuted. Almost all of Mrs. Sherwood’s ready money, received through the Scotch courts, had been invested in the new automobile showroom and garage.

CHAPTER XXII

WHAT HAS BECOME OF INEZ?

Nan could not bring herself to speak of the sudden turn her father’s difficulties had taken. She had long-since learned that family affairs were not to be discussed out of the family circle.

It was bad enough, so she thought, to have Tillbury and Owneyville people discussing the accusation of Ravell Bulson, without telling all the trouble to her friends here in Chicago. Enough had been said on the previous evening, Nan thought, about the matter. She hid this new phase of it even from her chum.

It was Bess who suggested their activities for this day. She wanted to do something for Inez, the flower-girl, in whom usually thoughtless Bess had taken a great interest. She had written to her mother at once about the poor little street arab, and Mrs. Harley had sent by express a great bundle of cast-off dresses outgrown by Bess’ younger sisters, that easily could be made to fit Inez.

Mrs. Mason had shoes and stockings and hats that might help in the fitting out of the flower-seller; and she suggested that the child be brought to the house that her own sewing maid might make such changes in the garments as would be necessary to make them of use for Inez.

“Not that the poor little thing is at all particular, I suppose, about her clothes,” Bess remarked. “I don’t imagine she ever wore a garment that really fitted her, or was made for her. Her shoes weren’t mates–I saw that the other day, didn’t you, Nan?”

“I saw that they were broken,” Nan agreed, with a sigh. “Poor little thing!”

“And although fashion allows all kinds of hats this season, I am very sure that straw of hers had seen hard service for twelve months or more,” Bess added.

Walter, hearing the number and street of Inez’s lodging, insisted upon accompanying the chums on their errand. Grace did not go. She frankly admitted that such squalid places as Mother Beasley’s were insufferable; and where Inez lived might be worse.

“I’m just as sorry for such people as I can be and I’d like to help them all,” Grace said. “But it makes me actually ill to go near them. How mother can delve as she does in the very slums–well, I can’t do it! Walter is like mother; he doesn’t mind.”

“I guess you’re like your father,” said Bess. “He believes in putting poor people into jails, otherwise institutions, instead of giving them a chance to make good where they are. And there aren’t enough institutions for them all. I never supposed there were so many poor people in this whole world as we have seen in Chicago.

“I used to just detest the word ‘poor’–Nan’ll tell you,” confessed Bess. “I guess being with Nan has kind of awakened me to ‘our duties,’ as Mrs. Cupp would say,” and she laughed.

“Oh!” cried Grace. “I’d do for them, if I could. But I don’t even know how to talk to them. Sick babies make me feel so sorry I want to cry, and old women who smell of gin and want to sell iron-holders really scare me. Oh, dear! I guess I’m an awful coward!”

Nan laughed. “What are you going to do with that crisp dollar bill I saw your father tuck into your hand at breakfast, Gracie?” she asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. I hadn’t thought. Papa is always so thoughtful. He knows I just _can’t_ make ends meet on my fortnightly allowance.”

“But you don’t absolutely need the dollar?”

“No-o.”

“Then give it to us. We’ll spend it for something nice with which to treat those kid cousins that Inez told us about.”

“Good idea,” announced Walter. “It won’t hurt you to give it to charity, Sis.”

“All right,” sighed Grace. “If you really all say so. But there is such a pretty tie down the street at Libby’s.”

“And you’ve a million ties, more or less,” declared Bess. “Of course we’ll take it from her, Walter. Come on, now! I’m ready.”

Under Walter’s piloting the chums reached the street and number Inez had given Nan. It was a cheap and dirty tenement house. A woman told them to go up one flight and knock on the first door at the rear on that landing.

They did this, Walter insisting upon keeping near the girls. A red-faced, bare-armed woman, blowsy and smelling strongly of soapsuds, came to the door and jerked it open.

“Well?” she demanded, in a loud voice.

Bess was immediately tongue-tied; so Nan asked:

“Is Inez at home?”

“And who be you that wants Inez–the little bothersome tyke that she is?”

“We are two of her friends,” Nan explained briefly. It was plain that the woman was not in a good temper, and Nan was quite sure she had been drinking.

“And plenty of fine friends she has,” broke out the woman, complainingly. “While I’m that poor and overrun with children, that I kin scarce get bite nor sup for ’em. And she’ll go and spend her money on cakes and ice-cream because it’s my Mamie’s birthday, instead of bringing it all home, as I told her she should! The little tyke! I’ll l’arn her!”

“I am sorry if Inez has disobeyed you,” said Nan, breaking in on what seemed to promise to be an unending complaint. “Isn’t she here–or can you tell us where to find her?”

“I’ll say ‘no’ to them two questions immediate!” exclaimed the woman, crossly. “I beat her as she deserved, and took away the money she had saved back to buy more flowers with; and I put her basket in the stove.”

“Oh!” gasped Bess.

“And what is it to _you_, Miss?” demanded the woman, threateningly.

“It was cruel to beat her,” declared Bess, bravely, but unwisely.

“Is that so? is that so?” cried the virago, advancing on Bess with the evident purpose of using her broad, parboiled palm on the visitor, just as she would use it on one of her own children. “I’ll l’arn ye not to come here with your impudence!”

But Walter stepped in her way, covering Bess’ frightened retreat. Walter was a good-sized boy.

“Hold on,” he said, good-naturedly. “We won’t quarrel about it. Just tell us where the child is to be found.”

“I ain’t seen her for four days and nights, that I haven’t,” declared the woman.

That was all there was to be got out of her. Nan and her friends went away, much troubled. They went again to Mother Beasley’s to inquire, with like result. When they told that kind but careworn woman what the child’s aunt had said, she shook her head and spoke lugubriously.

“She was probably drunk when she treated the child so. If she destroyed Inez basket and used the money Inez always saved back to buy a new supply of bouquets, she fair put the poor thing out o’ business.”

“Oh, dear!” said Nan. “And we can’t find her on the square.”

“Poor thing! I wisht she had come here for a bite–I do. I’d have trusted her for a meal of vittles.”

“I am sure you would, Mrs. Beasley,” Nan said, and she and her friends went away very much worried over the disappearance of Inez, the flower-seller.

CHAPTER XXIII

JUST TOO LATE

Walter Mason was not only an accommodating escort; he was very much interested in the search for Inez. Even Bess, who seldom admitted the necessity for boys at any time in her scheme of life, admitted on this occasion that she was glad Walter was present.

“That woman, poor little Inez’s aunt, would have slapped my face, I guess,” she admitted. “Isn’t it mean of her to speak so of the child? And she had beaten her! I don’t see how you had the courage to face her, Walter.”

“I should give him my medal,” chuckled Nan. “Where now, Walter?”

“To see that officer,” declared the boy.

The trio were again on the square where Inez had told Nan she almost always sold her flowers. Walter came back in a few moments from his interview with the police officer.

“Nothing doing,” he reported. “The man says he hasn’t seen her for several days, and she was always here.”

“I suppose he knows whom we mean?” worried Bess.

“Couldn’t be any mistake about that,” Walter said. “He is afraid she is sick.”

“I’m not,” Nan said promptly. “It is just as Mrs. Beasley says. If her aunt took Inez’s basket and money away, she is out of business. She’s lost her capital. I only hope she is not hungry, poor thing.”

“Dear, dear!” joined in Bess. “If she only knew how to come to us! She must know we’d help her.”

“She knows where we are staying,” Nan said. “Don’t you remember I showed her Walter’s card?”

“Then why hasn’t she been to see us?” cried Bess.

“I guess there are several reasons for that,” said sensible Nan.

“Well! I’d like to know what they are,” cried her chum. “Surely, she could find her way.”

“Oh, yes. Perhaps she didn’t want to come. Perhaps she is too proud to beg of us–just beg _money_, I mean. She is an independent little thing.”

“Oh, I know that,” admitted Bess.

“But more than likely,” Nan pursued, “her reason for not trying to see us was that she was afraid she would not be admitted to the house.”

“My gracious!” exclaimed Walter. “I never thought of that.”

“Just consider what would happen to a ragged and dirty little child who mounted your steps–even suppose she got that far,” Nan said.

“What would happen to her?” demanded the wondering Bess, while Walter looked thoughtful.

“If she got into the street at all (there is always a policeman on fixed post at the corner) one of the men at the house, the butler or the footman, would drive her away.

“You notice that beggars never come through that street. They are a nuisance and wealthy people don’t want to see people in rags about their doorsteps. Even the most charitable people are that way, I guess,” added Nan.

“Your mother is so generous, Walter, that if beggars had free access to the street and the house, she could never go out of an afternoon without having to push her way through a throng of the poor and diseased to reach her carriage.”

“Oh, mercy!” cried Bess.

“I guess that is so,” admitted Walter. “You’ve got mother sized up about right.”

“I know it’s so,” said Nan, quickly. “Do you know, I think your mother, Walter, would have made a good chatelaine of a castle in medieval times. Then charitably inclined ladies were besieged by the poor and miserable at their castle gates. The good lady gave them largess as she stepped into her chariot. Their servants threw silver pennies at a distance so that the unfortunates would scramble for the coins and leave a free passage for miladi.

“In those days,” pursued Nan, quite in earnest, “great plagues used to destroy a large portion of the population–sweeping through the castles of the rich as well as the hovels of the poor. That was because the beggars hung so upon the skirts of the rich. Wealth paid for its cruelty to poverty in those days, by suffering epidemics of disease with the poor.”

“Goodness, Nan! I never thought of that,” said Walter. “What a girl you are.”

“She reads everything,” said Bess, proudly; “even statistics.”

Nan laughed heartily. “I did not get _that_ out of a book of statistics, Bess. But that is why we have so many hospitals and institutions for housing poor and ill people. Society has had to make these provisions for the poor, to protect itself.”

“Now you sound like a regular socialist or anarchist or something,” said Bess, somewhat vaguely.

“You’d have heard it all before, if you’d listened to some of Dr. Beulah’s lectures in the classroom,” Nan said. “But we’re far off the subject of Inez. I wish we could find her; but there seems no way.”

“Oh, Nan! are you sure? Put on your thinking-cap,” begged Bess.

“I have thought,” her chum replied. “I thought of trying to trace her through the people who sell flowers to her. I asked Mrs. Beasley, and she told me that the flowers Inez sells come from the hotels and big restaurants where they have been on the tables over night. They are sorted and sold cheap to street pedlers like Inez. Hundreds of little ragamuffins buy and hawk these bouquets about the streets. The men who handle the trade would not be likely to remember one little girl.

“Besides,” added Nan, smiling sadly. “Inez is a bankrupt. She is out of business altogether. The few pennies she saved back every day–rain or shine, whether she went hungry, or was fed–was her capital; and that her aunt took away. I’m dreadfully worried about the poor thing,” concluded Nan, with moist eyes.

She felt so bad about it that she could not bring herself to join the matinee party that had been arranged by Grace for that afternoon. Some of the girls were going to have a box at a musical comedy, with Miss Hagford as chaperon.

Nan did not plead a headache; indeed, she was not given to white lies. She wished to call on the lovely actress whom she had met the day of her adventure in the department store. She wanted to inquire if she had seen or heard anything of the runaways, Sallie and Celia.

“I’d dearly love to go with you,” Bess observed. “Just think of your knowing such a famous woman. You have all the luck, Nan Sherwood.”

“I’m not sure that it was _good_ fortune that brought me in contact with the lady,” Nan returned ruefully.

“Well! it turned out all right, at least,” said Bess. “And _my_ escapades never do. I never have any luck. If it rained soup and I was hungry, you know I wouldn’t have any spoon.”

Nan set forth before the other girls started for the theatre. She knew just how to find the fashionable apartment hotel in which the actress lived, for she and her friends had passed it more than once in the car.

At the desk the clerk telephoned up to the actress’ apartment to see if she was in, and would receive Nan. The maid did not understand who Nan was, and was doubtful; but the moment Madam came to the telephone herself and heard Nan’s name, she cried:

“Send her up–send her up! She is just the one I want to see.”

This greatly excited Nan, for she thought of Sallie and Celia. When she was let out of the elevator on one of the upper floors, the apartment door was open, and Madam herself was holding out a welcoming hand to her, excitedly saying:

“You dear girl! You are as welcome as the flowers in May. Come in and let me talk to you. How surprising, really! I had no thought of seeing you, and yet I desired to–so much.”

Nan was drawn gently into the large and beautiful reception room, while the actress was talking. She saw the woman’s furs and hat thrown carelessly on a couch, and thought that she must have recently come in, even before Madam said:

“I have just come from an exhausting morning in the studio. Oh, dear! everybody seemed so stupid to-day. There are such days, you know–everything goes wrong, and even the patient camera-man loses his temper.

“Yes, Marie, you may bring the tea tray. I am exhausted; nothing but tea will revive this fainting pilgrim.

“And, my dear!” she added, turning to Nan again, “I have news for you–news of those runaway girls.”

“Oh, Madam! Are Sallie and Celia found?” cried Nan. “I want so to make Mrs. Morton happy.”

“We-ell,” said the actress, with less enthusiasm. “I believe I can give you a trace of them. But, of course, I haven’t them shut up in a cage waiting for their parents to come for them,” and she laughed.

“It really is an odd occurrence, my dear. At the time I was telling you the other day that those girls could not be working with my company, that is exactly what they were doing.”

“Oh!” cried Nan, again.

“Yes, my dear. Just fancy! I only learned of it this very morning. Of course, I give no attention to the extra people, save when they are before the camera. My assistant hires them and usually trains the ‘mob’ until I want them.

“Now, fancy!” pursued the lovely woman, “there was a girl, named Jennie Albert, whom we had been using quite a good deal, and she fell ill. So she sent two new girls, and as Mr. Gray needed two extras that day, he let them stay without inquiring too closely into their personal affairs.

“Oh, I blame Mr. Gray, and I told him so. I did not see the girls in question until the big scene we put on this morning. Then the company before the camera was too large; the scene was crowded. I began weeding out the awkward ones, as I always do.

“Why, positively, my dear, there are some girls who do not know how to wear a frock, and yet they wish to appear in _my_ films!

“These two girls of whom I speak I cut out at once. I told Mr. Gray never to put them into costume again. Why! sticks and stones have more grace of movement and naturalness than those two poor creatures–positively!” cried the moving picture director, with emphasis.

“Ah, well! I must not excite myself. This is my time for relaxation, and–a second cup of tea!”

Her light laughter jarred a bit on Nan Sherwood’s troubled mind.

“To think!” the lovely actress said, continuing, “that it never occurred to my mind that those two awkward misses might be your runaways until I was standing on one side watching the scene as they passed out. One was crying. Of course I am sorry I had to order their discharge, but one must sacrifice much for art,” sighed Madam.

“One was crying, and I heard the other call her ‘Celia.’ And then the crying girl said: ‘I can’t help it, Sallie. I am discouraged’–or something like that.

“Of course, you understand, my dear, my mind was engaged with far more important matters. My sub-consciousness must have filmed the words, and especially the girls’ names. After the scene suited me, it suddenly came back to me that those names were the _real_ names of the runaway girls. They had given Mr. Gray fictitious names, of course. When I sent him out to find them, he was just too late. The girls had left the premises.”

CHAPTER XXIV

OTHER PEOPLE’S WORRIES

Nan had written home quite fully about the presentation of the medal. It was the first her father and mother had known of the courage she had displayed so many weeks before in saving the life of the tiny girl at the Junction.

The fact that some of her fellow passengers had seen the act and considered it worthy of commemoration, of course, pleased Mr. and Mrs. Sherwood; but that Nan had been in peril herself on the occasion, naturally worried her mother.

“I hope you will not go about seeking other adventures, my dear child,” wrote her mother, with gentle raillery. “What with your announcement of the presentation of the medal, and Mrs. Mason’s enthusiastic letter, your father and I begin to believe that we have a kind of female knight errant for a daughter. I am afraid we never shall get our little Nan back again.”

Nan did not really need any bubble of self-importance pricked in this way. She was humbly thankful to have been able to save the little girl from the snake, and that the horrid creature had not harmed her, either.

She had hidden the medal away, and would not display it or talk about it. The thought that her name and her exploit were on the Roll of Honor of the National Society actually made Nan’s ears burn.

She had other worries during these brief winter days–mostly other people’s worries, however. The absolute disappearance of Inez was one; another was the whereabouts of the two runaway girls, Sallie and Celia, who should by this time have discovered that they were not destined to be great motion picture actresses.

Nan had come away from the apartment of her friend, “the Moving Picture Queen,” as Walter called her, that afternoon, with the address of the studio and a letter to Madam’s assistant, Mr. Gray. The next morning, she and Bess went to the studio to make inquiries about the runaway girls. They went alone because Grace had much to do before returning to school; and now their day of departure for Lakeview was close at hand.

“And oh! how I hate to go back to those horrid studies again,” groaned Bess.

Nan laughed. “What a ridiculous girl you are, Bess Harley,” she said. “You were just crazy to go to Lakeview in the first place.”

“Yes! wasn’t I?” interposed Bess, gloomily. “But I didn’t know I was crazy.”

When once the chums came to the motion picture studio they had no thought for anything but their errand and the interesting things they saw on every side. At a high grilled gate a man let them into the courtyard after a glance at the outside of the letter Nan carried.

“You’ll find Mr. Gray inside somewhere,” said the gatekeeper. “You’ll have to look for him.”

Nan and Bess were timid, and they hesitated for some moments in the paved yard, uncertain which of the several doors to enter. They saw a number of girls and men enter through the gate as they had, and watched the men hurry to one door, and the women and girls to another.

“Lets follow those girls,” suggested Bess, as a chattering trio went into the building. “We can’t go far wrong, for the sheep and the goats seem to be separated,” and she giggled.

“Meaning the men from the women?” said Nan. “I guess those doors lead to the dressing rooms.”

She was right in this, for when the two friends stepped doubtfully into a long, high, white-plastered passage, which was quite empty, but out of which many doors opened, they heard a confusion of conversation and laughter from somewhere near.

“What are you going to do?” asked Bess, at once–and as usual–shifting all responsibility to her chum’s shoulders. “Knock at all the doors, one after the other, until we find somebody who will direct us further?”

“Maybe that would not be a bad idea, Bess,” Nan returned. “But–“

Just then a door opened and the confusion of voices burst on the visitors’ ears with startling directness. A girl, dressed as a Gypsy, gaudy of raiment and bejeweled with brilliantly colored glass beads, almost ran the chums down as she tried to pull the door to behind her. The girl’s face was painted with heavy shadows and much white, and so oddly that it looked almost like the make-up for a clown’s part.

“Hello, kids. Going in here?” she asked pleasantly enough, refraining from closing the door entirely.

Nan and Bess obtained a good view of the noisy room. It was lighted by high windows and a skylight. There were rows of lockers for the girls’ clothes along the blank wall of the room. Through the middle and along the sides were long tables and stools. The tables were divided into sections, each of which had its own make-up and toilet outfit.

A mature woman was going about, re-touching many of the girl’s faces and scolding them, as Nan and Bess could hear, for not putting on the grease paint thick enough.

“That nasty stuff!” gasped Bess, in Nan’s ear. “I wouldn’t want to put it on my face.”

Right then and there Bess lost all her desire for posing for the moving picture screen. Nan paid little attention to her, but ran after the girl who was hurrying through the passage toward the rear of the great building.

“Oh, wait, please!” cried Nan. “I want to find Mr. Gray–and I know he can’t be in that dressing-room.”

“Gray? I should say not,” and the girl in costume laughed. Then she saw the letter in Nan’s hand. “Is that for Gray?”

“Yes,” Nan replied.

“Come along then. I expect he’s been waiting for me for half an hour now–and believe me, he’s just as kind and considerate as a wild bull when we keep him waiting. I overslept this morning.”

It was then after ten o’clock, and Nan wondered how one could “oversleep” so late.

“I’m only glad Madam isn’t going to be here this morning. By the way,” the girl added, curiously, “who’s your letter from? You and your friend trying to break into the movies?”

“My goodness, no!” gasped Nan. “I have no desire to act–and I’m sure I have no ability.”

“It might be fun,” Bess said doubtfully. “But do you all have to paint up so awfully?”

“Yes. That’s so we will look right on the screen. Here! that’s Gray–the bald-headed man in the brown suit. I hope you have better luck than two girls from the country who were in here for a couple of days. Gray bounced them yesterday. Who’s your letter from?” added the girl, evidently disbelieving what both Nan and Bess had said when they denied haying any desire to pose for the screen.

“Madam, herself,” said Nan, demurely. “Do you think Mr. Gray will give me a hearing?”

“Well, I guess yes,” cried the girl in costume. “Oh, do give it to him just as he starts in laying me out, will you?”

“Anything to oblige,” Nan said, smiling. “Can we go right over and speak to him?”

“After me,” whispered the girl. “Don’t get into any of the ‘sets,’ or you’ll get a call-down, too.”

They had entered an enormous room, half circular in shape, with the roof and the “flat” side mostly glass. There were countless screens to graduate the light, and that light was all directed toward the several small, slightly raised stages, built in rotation along the curved wall of the studio.

Each of these stages had its own “set” of scenery and was arranged for scenes. On two, action of scenes was taking place while the energetic directors were endeavoring to get out of their people the pantomimic representation of the scenario each had in charge.

One director suddenly clapped his hands and shouted.

“Get this, John! All ready! You dude and cowboy start that scene now. Be sure you run on at the right cue, Miss Legget. Now, John! Ready boys?”

The representation of a tussle between a cowboy and an exquisitely dressed Eastern youth, in which comedy bit the so-called dude disarmed the Westerner and drove him into a corner till his sweetheart bursts in to protect him from the “wild Easterner,” went to a glorious finish.

The camera clicked steadily, the man working it occasionally calling out the number of feet of blank film left on the spool so that the director might know whether to hasten or retard the action of the picture.

Nan and Bess stopped, as they were warned by the girl dressed in Gypsy costume, and watched the proceedings eagerly. Just as the scene came to an end the bald man in the brown suit strode over to the three girls.

“What do you mean by keeping me waiting, Miss Penny?” he demanded in a tone that made Bess shrink away and tremble. “Your scene has been set an hour. I want–Humph! what do _these_ girls want? Did you bring them in?”

Miss Penny poked Nan sharply in the ribs with her elbow. “Show him the letter,” she whispered. Adding aloud: “Oh, I brought them in, Mr. Gray. That’s what delayed me. When I saw they had a letter for you–“

“For me?” snorted the director, and took doubtfully enough the epistle Nan held out to him. But when he sighted the superscription he tore it open with an exclamation of impatient surprise.

“_Now_, what does Madam want?” he muttered, and those few words revealed to Nan Sherwood what she had suspected to be the fact about the director–that she was a very exacting task-mistress.

Miss Penny, nodding slily to Nan and Bess, slipped away to the stage on which the Gypsy camp was set, and around which several men in brigandish looking costumes were lounging.

“What’s this you young ladies want of me?” asked the director, rather puzzled, it seemed, after reading the note. “All she writes is to recommend Miss Sherwood to my attention and then includes a lot of instructions for to-morrow’s work.” He smiled sourly. “She is not explicit. Do you want work?”

“Oh, mercy me! no!” cried Nan.

“I should say not!” murmured Bess.

The director’s worried, querulous face showed relief. He listened attentively while Nan explained about the runaways. She likewise repeated the actress’ version of the discharging of the girls whom she had afterward identified as the two for whom Nan and Bess were in search.

“Yes, yes! I remember. And Madam was quite right in that instance,” grudgingly admitted the director. He drew a notebook from his pocket and fluttered the leaves. “Yes. Here are their names crossed off my list. ‘Lola Montague’ and ‘Marie Fortesque.’ I fancy,” said Mr. Gray, chuckling, “they expected to see those names on the bills.”

“But, oh, Mr. Gray!” cried Nan Sherwood, feeling in no mood for laughing at silly Sallie Morton and Celia Snubbins. “Don’t you know where they live–those two poor girls?”

“Why–no. They were extras and we get plenty of such people,” said the director, carelessly. “Now, the girl who sent them is as daring a girl as I ever saw. I’m sorry she’s hurt, or sick, or something, for although Jenny Albert has little ‘film charm,’ as we call it, she is useful–

“There!” suddenly broke off Mr. Gray. “You might try Jenny’s address. She sent those girls here. She probably knows where they live.”

He hastily wrote down the street and number on a card and handed it to Nan. “Sorry. That’s the best I can do for you, Miss Sherwood.”

He turned away, taking up his own particular worries again.

“And, goodness me, Nan!” sighed Bess, as they went out of the cluttered studio, back through the passage, and so into the courtyard and the street again. “Goodness me! I think _we_ have the greatest lot of other people’s worries on our shoulders that I ever heard of. We seem to collect other folk’s troubles. How do we manage it?”

CHAPTER XXV

RUNAWAYS OF A DIFFERENT KIND

The chums, on leaving the moving picture studio, stopped to read more carefully the card Mr. Gray, the director, had given them. The street on which Jennie Albert lived was quite unknown to Nan and Bess and they did not know how to find it.

Besides, Nan remembered that Mrs. Mason trusted her to go to the moving picture studio, and to return without venturing into any strange part of the town.

“Of course,” groaned Bess, “we shall have to go back and ask her.”

“Walter will find the place for us,” Nan said cheerfully.

“Oh–Walter! I hate to depend so on a boy.”

“You’re a ridiculous girl,” laughed her chum. “What does it matter _whom_ we depend upon? We must have somebody’s help in every little thing in this world, I guess.”

“Our sex depends too much upon the other sex,” repeated Elizabeth, primly, but with dancing eyes.

“Votes for Women!” chuckled Nan. “You are ripe for the suffragist platform, Bessie. I listened to that friend of Mrs. Mason’s talking the other day, too. She is a lovely lady, and I believe the world will be better–in time–if women vote. It is growing better, anyway.

“She told a funny story about a dear old lady who was quite converted to the cause until she learned that to obtain the right to vote in the first place, women must depend upon the men to give it to them. So, to be consistent, the old lady said she must refuse to accept _any_thing at the hands of the other sex–the vote included!”

“There!” cried Bess, suddenly. “Talk about angels–“

“And you hear their sleighbells,” finished Nan. “Hi, Walter! Hi!”

They had come out upon the boulevard, and approaching along the snow-covered driveway was Walter Mason’s spirited black horse and Walter driving in his roomy cutter.

The horse was a pacer and he came up the drive with that rolling action peculiar to his kind, but which takes one over the road very rapidly. A white fleck of foam spotted the pacer’s shiny chest. He was sleek and handsome, but with his rolling, unblinded eyes and his red nostrils, he looked ready to bolt at any moment.

Walter, however, had never had an accident with Prince and had been familiar with the horse from the time it was broken to harness. Mr. Mason was quite proud of his son’s horsemanship.

Walter saw Nan as she leaped over the windrow of heaped up snow into the roadway, and with a word brought Prince to a stop without going far beyond the two girls. There he circled about and came back to the side of the driveway where Nan and Bess awaited him.

“Hop in, girls. There’s room for two more, all right,” cried Walter. “I’ll sit between you. One get in one side–the other on t’other. ‘Round here, Nan–that’s it! Now pull the robe up and tuck it in–sit on it. Prince wants to travel to-day. We’ll have a nice ride.”

“Oh-o-o!” gasped Bess, as they started. “Not too fast, Walter.”

“I won’t throw the clutch into high-gear,” promised Walter, laughing. “Look out for the flying ice, girls. I haven’t the screen up, for I want to see what we’re about.”

Walter wore automobile goggles, and sat on the edge of the seat between the two girls, with his elbows free and feet braced. If another sleigh whizzed past, going in the same direction, Prince’s ears went back and he tugged at the bit. He did not like to be passed on the speedway.

Bess quickly lost her timidity–as she always did–and the ride was most enjoyable. When the first exuberance of Prince’s spirit had worn off, and he was going along more quietly, the girls told Walter what they had seen and heard at the motion picture studio.

“Great luck!” pronounced the boy. “I’d like to get into one of those places and see ’em make pictures. I’ve seen ’em on the street; but that’s different. It must be great.”

“But we didn’t find Sallie and Celia there,” complained Nan.

“You didn’t expect to, did you?” returned the boy. “But I know where that street is. We’ll go around there after lunch if mother says we may, and look for that girl who knows them.”

“Oh, Bess!”

“Oh, Nan!”

The chums had caught sight of the same thing at the same moment. Just ahead was a heavy sleigh, with plumes on the corner-posts, drawn by two big horses. They could not mistake the turnout. It belonged to the Graves’ family with whom Linda Riggs was staying.

The chums had not seen Linda since the evening of the party, when the railroad president’s daughter had acted in such an unladylike manner.

“I see the big pung,” laughed Walter. “And I bet Linda’s in it, all alone in her glory. Pearl told me she hated the thing; but that her grandmother considers it the only winter equipage fit to ride in. You ought to see the old chariot they go out in in summer.

“Hello,” he added. “Got to pull up here.”

A policeman on horseback had suddenly ridden into the middle of the driveway. Just ahead there was a crossing and along the side road came clanging a hospital ambulance, evidently on an emergency call.

The white-painted truck skidded around the corner, the doctor on the rear step, in his summerish looking white ducks, swinging far out to balance the weight of the car.

The pair of horses drawing the Graves’ sleigh, snorted, pulled aside and rose, pawing, on their hind legs. The coachman had not been ready for such a move and he was pitched out on his head.

The girls and Walter heard a shrill scream of terror. The footman left the sleigh in a hurry, too–jumping in a panic. Off the two frightened horses dashed–not up the boulevard, but along the side street.

“That’s Linda,” gasped Bess.

“And she’s alone,” added Nan.

“Say! she’s going to get all the grandeur she wants in a minute,” exclaimed Walter. “Why didn’t she jump, too, when she had the chance?”

He turned Prince into the track behind the swaying sleigh. The black horse seemed immediately to scent the chase. He snorted and increased his stride.

“Oh, Walter! Can you catch them?” Nan cried.

“I bet Prince can,” the boy replied, between his set teeth.

The policeman on horseback was of course ahead in the chase after the runaways. But the snow on this side road was softer than on the speedway, and it balled under his horse’s hoofs.

The black horse driven by Walter Mason was more sure-footed than the policeman’s mount. The latter slipped and lost its stride. Prince went past the floundering horse like a flash.

The swaying sleigh was just ahead now. Walter drew Prince to one side so that the cutter would clear the sleigh in passing.

The chums could see poor, frightened Linda crouching in the bottom of the sleigh, clinging with both hands to one of the straps from which the plumes streamed. Her face was white and she looked almost ready to faint.

CHAPTER XXVI

AN UNEXPECTED FIND

The mounted policeman came thundering down the street after them, his horse having regained its footing. The reins of the big steeds were dragging on the ground, and Walter and his girl companions saw no way of getting hold of the lines and so pulling down the frightened horses.

There was another way to save Linda Riggs, however. Walter looked at Nan Sherwood and his lips moved.

“Are you afraid to drive Prince?” he asked.

“No,” declared Nan, and reached for the reins. She had held the black horse before. Besides, she had driven her Cousin Tom’s pair of big draught horses up in the Michigan woods, and Mr. Henry Sherwood’s half-wild roan ponies, as well. Her wrists were strong and supple, and she was alert.

Walter passed the lines over and then kicked the robe out of the way. Bess sat on the left side of the seat, clinging to the rail. She was frightened–but more for the girl in the other sleigh, than because of their own danger.

Walter Mason motioned to Bess to move over to Nan’s side. The latter was guiding Prince carefully, and the cutter crept up beside the bigger vehicle. Only a couple of feet separated the two sleighs as Walter leaned out from his own seat and shouted to Linda:

“Look this way! Look! Do exactly as I tell you!”

The girl turned her strained face toward him. The bigger sleigh swerved and almost collided with the cutter.

“Now!” yelled Walter, excitedly. “Let go!”

He had seized Linda by the arm, clinging with his other hand to the rail of the cutter-seat. She screamed–and so did Bess.

But Walter’s grasp was strong, and, after all, Linda was not heavy. Her hold was torn from the plume-staff, and she was half lifted, half dragged, into the cutter.

Prince darted past the now laboring runaways. One of the latter slipped on a smooth bit of ice and crashed to the roadway.

His mate went down with him and the sleigh was overturned. Had Linda not been rescued as she was, her injury–perhaps her death–would have been certain.

They stopped at the first drug store and a man held the head of the excited black horse while Walter soothed and blanketed him. Then the boy went inside, and into the prescription room, where Nan and Bess were comforting their schoolmate.

“Oh, dear! oh, dear! I’d have been killed if it hadn’t been for you, Walter Mason,” cried Linda, for once so thoroughly shaken out of her pose that she acted and spoke naturally. “How can I ever thank you enough?”

“Say!” blurted out Walter. “You’d better thank Nan, here, too. I couldn’t have grabbed you if it hadn’t been for her. She held Prince and guided the sleigh.”

“Oh, that’s all right!” interjected Nan, at once very much embarrassed. “Anybody would have done the same.”

“‘Tisn’t so!” cried Bess. “I just held on and squealed.”

But Linda’s pride was quite broken down. She looked at Nan with her own eyes streaming.

“Oh, Sherwood!” she murmured. “I’ve said awfully mean things about you. I’m so sorry–I really am.”

“Oh, that’s all right!” muttered Nan, almost boyish in her confusion.

“Well, I have! I know I made fun of your medal for bravery. You deserve another for what you just did. Oh, dear! I–I never can thank any of you enough;” and she cried again on Bess Harley’s shoulder.

Walter telephoned to the Graves’ house, telling Linda’s aunt of the accident and of Linda’s predicament, and when a vehicle was sent for the hysterical girl the boy, with Nan and Bess, hurried home to a late luncheon, behind black Prince.

Although Mrs. Mason, naturally, was disturbed over the risk of accident Walter and the girl chums had taken in rescuing Linda Riggs, the interest of the young folks was in, and all their comment upon, the possible change of heart the purse-proud girl had undergone.

“I don’t know about these ‘last hour conversions,'” said the pessimistic Bess. “I should wring the tears out of the shoulder of my coat and bottle ’em. Only tears I ever heard of Linda’s shedding! And they may prove to be crocodile tears at that.”

“Oh, hush, Bess!” said Nan. “Let’s not be cruel.”

“We’ll see how she treats you hereafter,” Grace said. “I, for one, hope Linda _has_ had a change of heart. She’ll be so much happier if she stops quarreling with everybody.”

“And the other girls will have a little more peace, too, I fancy; eh?” threw in her brother, slyly. “But how about this place you want to go to this afternoon, Nan?” he added.

“I should think you had had enough excitement for one day,” Mrs. Mason sighed. “The wonderful vitality of these young creatures! It amazes me. They wish to be on the go all of the time.”

“You see,” Nan explained, “we have only a few more days in Chicago and I am _so_ desirous of finding Sallie and Celia. Poor Mrs. Morton is heart-broken, and I expect Celia’s mother fears all the time for her daughter’s safety, too.”

“Those foolish girls!” Mrs. Mason said. “I am glad you young people haven’t this general craze for exhibiting one’s self in moving pictures.”

“You can’t tell when that may begin, Mother,” chuckled Walter. “When Nan was holding on to Prince and I was dragging Linda out of that sleigh, if a camera-man had been along he could have made some picture–believe me!”

“You’ll walk or take a car to the address,” Mrs. Mason instructed them. “No more riding behind that excited horse to-day, please.”

“All right, Mother,” said Walter, obediently. “Now, whenever you girls are ready, I am at your service. It’s lucky I know pretty well the poorer localities in Chicago. Your calling district, Nan Sherwood, seems to number in it a lot of shady localities.”

However, it was only a poor neighborhood, not a vicious one, in which Jennie Albert lived. Grace had accompanied the chums from Tillbury, and the trio of girls went along very merrily with Walter until they came near to the number Mr. Gray had given them.

This number they had some difficulty in finding. At least, four hundred and sixteen was a big warehouse in which nobody lodged of course. Plenty of tenement houses crowded about it but four hundred and sixteen was surely the warehouse.

While Walter was inquiring in some of the little neighboring stores, Nan saw a child pop out of a narrow alley beside the warehouse and look sharply up and down the street. It was the furtive, timid glance of the woods creature or the urchin of the streets; both expect and fear the attack of the strong.

The Lakeview Hall girls were across the street. The little girl darted suddenly toward them. Her head was covered by an old shawl, which half blinded her. Her garments were scanty for such brisk winter weather, and her shoes were broken.

“Oh, the poor little thing!” murmured Grace Mason.

Nan was suddenly excited by the sight of the child crossing the crowded street; she sprang to the edge of the walk, but did not scream as the little one scurried on. Down the driveway came a heavy auto-truck and although the little girl saw the approach of this, she could not well see what followed the great vehicle.

She escaped the peril of the truck, but came immediately in the path of a touring car that shot out from behind to pass the truck. With a nerve-racking “honk! honk!” the swiftly moving car was upon the child.

Bess and Grace _did_ scream; but Nan, first aware of the little one’s danger, was likewise first to attempt her rescue. And she needed her breath for that effort. Other people shouted at the child and, from either sidewalk, Nan was the only person who darted out to save her!

The driver under the steering wheel of the touring car did his best to bring it to an abrupt stop; but the wheels skidded and–for a breathless moment–it did seem as though the shawl-blinded child must go under the wheels of the vehicle.

Nan Sherwood seized the shawl and by main strength dragged its owner to the gutter. The car slid past; both girls were safe!

“You lemme be! you lemme be!” shrieked the girl Nan had rescued, evidently considering herself much abused by the rough treatment her rescuer had given her, and struggling all the time to keep Nan from lifting her upon the sidewalk.

“Why, you little savage!” gasped Bess Harley. “Don’t you know you’ve been saved?”

“Who wants to be saved?” demanded the smaller girl, looking up at the three older ones out of the hood of the shawl she had clung to so desperately. “What youse savin’ me _from_?”

Bess grew more excited. “Why, Nan!” she cried. “It is–it must be! Don’t you see who she is?”

Nan was already looking down into the dark, shrewd and thin countenance of the little one with a smile of recognition. It was Inez, the little flower-girl, whom she had so fortunately pulled out of the way of the automobile.

“Hullo, honey; don’t you know us?” Nan asked her.

“Hi!” exclaimed the street waif. “If it ain’t me tony friends from Washington Park. Say! youse got ter excuse me. I didn’t know youse.”

“Why, Inez!” exclaimed Nan, kindly. “You have a dreadful cold.”

“Say! if I don’t have nothin’ worse than that I’ll do fine,” croaked the little girl, carelessly. “But I never expected to see youse tony folks again.”

“Why, Inez!” exclaimed Bess. “And we’ve been hunting all over for you.”

“Goodness me!” burst out Grace Mason. “You don’t mean to say that this is the poor little thing we’ve been in such a fuss about?”

“Of course she is,” Bess replied.

“This is positively Inez,” laughed Nan, squeezing the little one’s cold hand in her own. “Aren’t you glad to see us, child?”

“I dunno,” said Inez, doubtfully. “Youse ain’t come to take me back to me aunt, have youse?” and she looked around for a chance to escape. “I ain’t goin’ to live with her no more–now I tell youse!” and she became quite excited.

Nan sought to reassure her. “Don’t you be afraid, honey. We wouldn’t see you abused. We only want to help you. That is why we have been searching for you.”

“You been huntin’ me up–jest to _help_ me?” gasped Inez, in wonder.

“Of course we have,” said Bess.

“Hi!” exclaimed the flower-seller, with an impish grin. “I reckon me aunt would say some of yer buttons was missin’. Youse can’t be right in the upper story,” and she pointed to her own head to illustrate her meaning.

“Goodness!” gasped Grace. “Does she think we are crazy because we want to do her a kindness?”

“She’s not used to being treated with much consideration, I am afraid,” Nan observed, in a low voice.

“You ridiculous child!” came from Bess. “Don’t you know that we were both interested in you that first day? We told you we would see you again.”

“Aw, that don’t mean nothin’,” sniffed Inez. “I didn’t expect nothin’ would come of it. If youse folks from Washington Park ain’t crazy, what is the matter wit’ youse? I ain’t nothin’ ter you.”

“Why, goodness me!” cried Grace again. “Do you think everybody who is kind must be out of his head? Who ever heard the like?”

“Folks ain’t generally crazy to do me no favors,” said Inez, with one of her sharp glances. “But if you girls want ter give me somethin’ for nothin,’ you’ve lost some of yer buttons, that’s sure!”

Nan and her two companions had to laugh at this, but the laughter was close to tears, after all. It was really pathetic that this waif of the streets should suspect the sanity of anybody who desired to do her a kindness.

CHAPTER XXVII

JENNIE ALBERT–AND SOMEBODY ELSE

“Well! what do you know about that?” was Walter’s comment, when he came back to the girls and found them surrounding the hungry looking little street waif, of whom he had already heard so much from Nan and Bess.

“We go out to shoot partridges and bring down a crow,” he added. “Goodness! what a hungry looking kid. There’s a bakeshop over the way. Bring her in and see if we can’t cure this child of old Father Famine.”

Inez looked at Walter askance at first. But when she understood that he was going to stand treat to coffee and cakes, she grew friendlier.

“Yep, I’m hungry,” she admitted. “Ain’t I _always_ hungry? M-m–!” as the shop door opened and she sniffed the odors of coffee and food.

“Do, _do_ hurry and feed the poor little thing,” urged Grace, almost in tears. “Oh! I’m sorry I came with you girls. Hungry! Only think of being _hungry_, Walter!”

Inez looked at Grace as though she thought she was losing her mind.

“Aw, say,” said she, “don’t let it worry youse. I’m uster being empty, _I_ am. And ‘specially since me and me aunt had our fallin’ out.”

“Oh! we know about that, Inez,” cried Bess. “We went there to look for you.”

“To me aunt’s?” asked Inez, in some excitement.

“Yes,” Nan replied.

“Is she a-lookin’ for me?” demanded the child with a restless glance at the door of the shop.

“I don’t think she is,” Nan said.

“I should say not!” Bess added. “She seems to fairly hate you, child. And didn’t she beat you?”

“Yep. She’s the biggest, ye see. She took away all me money and then burned me basket. That was puttin’ me on the fritz for fair, and I went wild and went for her. This is what I got!”

She dropped the shawl off her head suddenly. There, above the temple and where the tangled black hair had been cut away, was a long, angry wound. It was partially healed.

“Oh, my dear!” cried Nan.

Grace fell to crying. Bess grew very angry and threatened all manner of punishments for the cruel aunt.

“How did she do it?” Walter asked.

“Flat iron,” replied the waif, succinctly. “I had the poker. She ‘got’ me first. I didn’t dare go back, and I thought I’d die that first night.”

“Oh, oh!” sobbed Grace. “Out in the cold, too!”

“Yes’m,” Inez said, eating and drinking eagerly. “But a nice feller in a drug store–a night clerk, I guess youse call him–took me in after one o’clock, an’ give me something to eat, and fixed up me head.”

“What a kind man!” exclaimed Bess.

“So you see, Inez, there are some kind folks in the world,” said Nan, smiling at the waif. “Some kind ones beside _us_.”

“Yep,” the child admitted. “But not rich folks like youse.”

“Goodness, child!” gasped Grace. “We’re not rich.”

Inez stared at her with a mouthful poised upon her knife. “Cracky!” she ejaculated. “What do youse call it? Furs, and fine dresses, and nothin’ ter do but sport around–Hi! if youse girls from Washington Park ain’t rich, what d’ye call it?”

Nan was looking serious again. “I guess the child is right,” she said, with a little sigh. “We _are_ rich. Compared with what _she_ has, we’re as rich as old King Midas.”

“For goodness’ sake!” cried Bess. “I hope _not_–at least, not in ears.”

The others laughed; but Nan added: “I guess we don’t realize how well off we are.”

“Hear! hear!” murmured Walter. “Being sure of three meals a day would be riches to this poor little thing.”

“Hi!” ejaculated Inez, still eating greedily. “That’d be _Heaven_, that would!”

“But do let her finish her story, girls,” urged Bess. “Go on, dear. What happened to you after the kind druggist took you in?”

“I staid all night there,” said Inez. “He fixed me a bunk on an old lounge in the back room. An’ next morning a girl I useter see at Mother Beasley’s seen me and brought me over here. She ain’t well now and her money’s about run out, I reckon. Say! did youse ever find them two greenies youse was lookin’ for?” she suddenly asked Nan.

“Oh, no! We’re looking for them now,” Nan replied. “Have you seen them, Inez?”

“I dunno. I b’lieve my friend may know something about them.”

“You mean the girl you are with?” Nan asked.

“Yep.”

“Who is she?” asked Bess.

“She’s one o’ them movin’ picture actorines. She does stunts.”

“‘Stunts’?” repeated Walter, while Nan and Bess looked at each other with interest. “What sort of ‘stunts,’ pray?”

“Hard jobs. Risky ones, too. And that last one she went out on she got an awful cold. Whew! I been expectin’ her to cough herself to pieces.”

“But what did she do?” repeated the curious Walter.

“Oh, she was out in the country with the X.L.Y. Company. She was playin’ a boy’s part–she’s as thin as I am, but tall and lanky. Makes up fine as a boy,” said Inez, with some enthusiasm.

“She was supposed to be a boy helpin’ some robbers. They put her through a ventilator into a sleepin’ car standin’ in the railroad yards. That’s where she got cold,” Inez added, “for she had to dress awful light so’s to wiggle through the ventilator winder. It was a cold mornin’, an’ she came back ter town ‘most dead.”

“Where is she now?” asked Walter.

But it was Nan’s question which brought out the most surprising response. “Who is she?” Nan asked the little girl. “What is her name?”

“Jennie Albert. An’ she’s a sure ‘nough movie girl, too. But she can’t get good jobs because she ain’t pretty.”

“I declare!” exclaimed Bess, finally, after a moment of surprised silence.

“I know she can’t live over there in that big warehouse, and that’s number four hundred and sixteen,” said Grace.

“She lives in a house back in a court beside that big one,” explained Inez. “It’s four hundred and sixteen _and a half_.”

“Then it’s only half a house?” suggested Bess Harley.

“I know it can be only _half_ fit to live in,” said Walter. “Not many of these around here are. What are you going to do now, Nan?”

“Inez will take us over and introduce us to Jennie.”

“Sure thing!” agreed the waif.

“Tell us, Inez,” Nan said. “What can we take in to your friend Jennie?”

“To eat, or comforts of any kind?” cried Grace, opening her purse at once.

“Hi!” cried Inez. “Jest look around. Anything youse see. _She ain’t got nothin’_.”

“Which was awful grammar, but the most illuminating sentence I ever heard,” declared Bess, afterward.

The girls made special inquiries of the child, however, and they did more than carry over something for the sick girl to eat. They bought an oil heater and a big can of oil, for the girl’s room was unheated.

There was extra bed-clothing and some linen to get, too, for Inez was an observant little thing and knew just what the sick girl needed. Walter meanwhile bought fresh fruit and canned goods–soup and preserved fruit–and a jar of calf’s foot jelly.

The procession that finally took up its march into the alley toward number four hundred and sixteen _and a half_, headed by Inez and with the boy from the shop bearing the heater and the oil can as rear guard, was an imposing one indeed.

“See what I brought you, Jen Albert!” cried Inez, as she burst in the door of the poorly furnished room. “These are some of me tony friends from Washington Park, and they’ve come to have a picnic.”

The room was as cheaply and meanly furnished as any that the three girls from Lakeview Hall had ever seen. Nan thought she had seen poverty of household goods and furnishings when she had lived for a season with her Uncle Henry Sherwood at Pine Camp, in the woods of Upper Michigan. Some of the neighbors there had scarcely a factory made chair to sit on. But this room in which Jennie Albert lived, and to which she had brought the little flower-seller for shelter, was so barren and ugly that it made Nan shudder as she gazed at it.

The girl who rose suddenly off the ragged couch as the three friends entered, startled them even more than the appearance of the room itself. She was so thin and haggard–she had such red, red cheeks–such feverish eyes–such an altogether wild and distraught air–that timid Grace shrank back and looked at Walter, who remained with the packages and bundles at the head of the stairs.

Nan and Bess likewise looked at the girl with some trepidation; but they held their ground.

“What do you want? Who are you?” asked Jennie Albert, hoarsely.

“We–we have come to see you,” explained Nan, hesitatingly. “We’re friends of little Inez.”

“You’d better keep away from here!” cried the older girl, fiercely. “This is no place for the likes of you.”

“Aw, say! Now, don’t get flighty again, Jen,” urged little Inez, much worried. “I tell youse these girls is all right. Why, they’re pertic’lar friends of mine.”

“Your–your friends?” muttered the wild looking girl. “This–this is a poor place to bring your friends, Ina. But–do sit down! Do take a chair!”

She waved her hand toward the only chair there was–a broken-armed parlor chair, the upholstery of which was in rags. She laughed as she did so–a sudden, high, cackling laugh. Then she broke out coughing and–as Inez had said–she seemed in peril of shaking herself to pieces!

“Oh, the poor thing!” murmured Bess to Nan.

“She is dreadfully ill,” the latter whispered. “She ought really to have a doctor right now.”

“Oh, girls!” gasped Grace, in terror. “Let’s come away. Perhaps she has some contagious disease. She looks just _awful_!”

The sick girl heard this, low as the three visitors spoke. “And I feel ‘just awful!'” she gasped, when she got her breath after coughing. “You’d better not stay to visit Ina. This is no place for you.”

“Why, we must do something to help you,” Nan declared, recovering some of her assurance. “Surely you should have a doctor.”

“He gimme some medicine for her yisterday,” broke in Inez. “But we ain’t got no more money for medicine. Has we, Jen?”

“Not much for anything else, either,” muttered the bigger girl, turning her face away.

She was evidently ashamed of her poverty. Nan saw that it irked Jennie Albert to have strangers see her need and she hastened, as usual, to relieve the girl of that embarrassment.

“My dear,” she said, running to her as Jennie sat on the couch, and putting an arm about the poor, thin, shaking shoulders. “My dear! we would not disturb you only that you may be able to help us find two lost girls. And you _are_ so sick. Do let us stay a while and help you, now that we have come, in return for the information you can give us about Sallie Morton and Celia Snubbins.”

“Gracious! who are they?” returned Jennie Albert. “I never heard of them, I’m sure,” and she seemed to speak quite naturally for a moment.

“Oh, my dear!” murmured Nan. “Haven’t you seen them at all? Why, they told me at the studio–“

“I know! I know!” exclaimed Bess, suddenly. “Jennie doesn’t know their right names. Nan means Lola Montague and Marie Fortesque.”

Jennie Albert stared wonderingly at them. “Why–_those_ girls? I remember them, of course,” she said. “I supposed those names were assumed, but I had no idea they really owned such ugly ones.”

“And where, for goodness’ sake, are they?” cried the impatient Bess.

“Miss Montague and her friend?”

“Yes,” Nan explained. “We are very anxious to find them, and have been looking for them ever since we came to Chicago. You see, they have run away from home, Jennie, and their parents are terribly worried about them.”

“Maybe they were ill-treated at home,” Jennie Albert said, gloomily.

“Oh, they were not!” cried Bess, eagerly. “We know better. Poor old Si Snubbins thinks just the world and all of Celia.”

“And Mrs. Morton is one of the loveliest women I ever met,” Nan added. “The girls have just gone crazy over the movies.”

“Over acting in them, do you mean?” asked the girl who “did stunts.”

“Yes. And they can’t act. Mr. Gray says so.”

“Oh, if they were no good he’d send them packing in a hurry,” groaned the sick girl, holding her head with both hands. “I sent them over to him because I knew he wanted at least _one_ extra.”

“And he did not even take their address,” Nan explained. “Do you know where they live?”

“No, I don’t. They just happened in here. I know that they recently moved from a former lodging they had on the other side of town. That is really all I know about them,” said Jennie Albert.

Meanwhile Walter had been quietly handing in the packages to his sister and Bess. The oil stove was deftly filled by the good-hearted boy before he lifted it and the can of oil inside.

When the big lamp was lit the chill of the room was soon dispelled. Little Inez opened the packages eagerly, chattering all the time to Jennie Albert about the good things the young folks from Washington Park had brought.

But the sick girl, after her little show of interest in Nan’s questioning, quickly fell back into a lethargic state. Nan whispered to Inez and asked her about the doctor she had seen for Jennie.

“Is he a good one?” she asked the child. “And will he come here if we pay him?”

“He’s a corker!” exclaimed the street waif. “But he’s mighty busy. You got to show him money in your hand to get him to come to see anybody. You know how these folks are around here. They don’t have no money for nothin’–least of all for doctors.”

She told Nan where the busy physician was to be found, and Nan whispered to Walter the address and sent him hurrying for the man of pills and powders.

Until the doctor returned with Walter the girls busied themselves cleaning up the room, undressing the patient, and putting her into bed between fresh sheets, and making her otherwise more comfortable. There was a good woman on this same floor of the old tenement house, and Grace paid her out of her own purse to look in on Jennie Albert occasionally and see that she got her medicine and food.

For they were all determined not to leave little Inez in these poor lodgings. “Goodness knows,” Bess remarked, “if she gets out of our sight now we may never find her again. She’s just as elusive as a flea!”

The child looked at Bess in her sly, wondering way, and said: “Hi! I never had nobody worry over what become of me ‘fore this. Seems like it’s somethin’ new.”

CHAPTER XXVIII

WHAT HAPPENED TO INEZ

Walter, who had gone downstairs to wait after he had brought the doctor, had a long wait in the cold court at the door of the lodging house in which Jennie Albert lived. A less patient and good-natured boy would have been angry when his sister and her school chums finally appeared.

He was glad that Grace took an interest in anything besides her own pleasure and comfort. His sister, Walter thought, was too much inclined to dodge responsibility and everything unpleasant.

He wanted her to be more like Nan. “But, then,” the boy thought, “there’s only one Nan Sherwood in the world. Guess I can’t expect Grace to run a very close second to her.”

However, when the girls did appear Grace was chattering just as excitedly as Bess Harley herself; and she led Inez by the hand.

“Yes, she shall! She’ll go right home with me now–sha’n’t she, Walter?” Grace cried. “You get a taxi, and we’ll all pile in–did you ever ride in a taxi, Inez?”

“Nope. But I caught on behind a jitney once,” confessed the little girl, “and a cop bawled me out for it.”

“We’re going to take her home, and dress her up nice,” Bess explained to Walter, “and give her the time of her life.”

Inez seemed a bit dazed. In her own vernacular she would probably have said–had she found her voice–that “things was comin’ too fast for her.” She scarcely knew what these girls intended to do with her; but she had a good deal of confidence in Nan Sherwood, and she looked back at her frequently.

It was to Nan, too, that Walter looked for directions as to their further movements, as well as for exact information as to what had gone on up stairs in Jennie Albert’s room.

“She’s an awfully plucky girl,” Nan said. “No; she’s not very ill now,” the doctor said, “but she does have a dreadful cough. However, the doctor has given her medicine.

“It’s odd,” Nan added thoughtfully, “but she got this cold down at Tillbury. The company she was out with were taking pictures near there. There’s a big old mansion called the Coscommon House that hasn’t been occupied for years. It’s often filmed by movie people; but never in the winter before, that I know of.”

“But, Nan!” exclaimed Walter. “What did we come over here for, anyway? How about those runaway girls?”

“I’m sorry,” Nan said, shaking her head; “but we haven’t found them. They don’t live here, and Jennie doesn’t know where they do live.”

“Goodness! What elusive creatures they are,” grumbled Walter.

“Aren’t they!” Bess exclaimed. “Jennie Albert just happened to meet them when they were looking for work, and told them where she lived. So they came around to see her the other day. That Mr. Gray we saw at the studio had just sent for Jennie, and so she told them to go around and see him. Yes! Just think! ‘Lola Montague’ and ‘Marie Fortesque’! Say! Aren’t those names the limit?”

But Nan considered the matter too serious to joke about. “I am afraid that Sallie and Celia must be about to _their_ limit,” she said. “Poor Mrs. Morton! She said Sallie was stubborn, and she must be, to endure so many disappointments and not give up and go home.”

“The sillies!” said Walter. “How about it, kid? Would _you_ run away from a good home, even if it were in the country?”

“Not if the eats came reg’lar and they didn’t beat me too much,” declared Inez, repeating her former declaration.

“Well, then, we’ll take you where the ‘eats’ at least come regular,” laughed Walter. “Eh, Grace?”

“Of course. Do hurry and get that taxi.”

“What do you suppose your mother will say, Grace?” demanded Bess, in sudden doubt, when Walter had departed to telephone for the taxi-cab.

“I know mother will pity the poor little soul,” Grace declared. “I’m sure she belongs to enough charitable boards and committees so that she ought to be delighted that we bring a real ‘case,’ as she calls them, to her,” and Grace laughed at her own conceit.

Nan, however, wondered if, after all, Mrs. Mason would care to take any practical responsibility upon herself regarding the street waif. It was one thing to be theoretically charitable and an entirely different matter to take a case of deserving charity into one’s own home.

But that thought did not disturb Nan. She had already planned a future for little Inez. She was determined to take her back to Tillbury and leave Inez with her mother.

“I’m sure,” Nan said to herself, “that Momsey will be glad to have a little girl around the house again. And Inez can go to school, and grow to be good and polite. For, goodness knows! she _is_ a little savage now.”

Eventually these dreams of Nan for little Inez came true. Just at present, however, much more material things happened to her when they arrived at the Mason house.

Grace and Bess hung over the little girl, and fussed about her, as Walter laughingly said, “like a couple of hens over one chicken.”

Nan was glad to see her schoolmates so much interested in the waif. She knew it would do both Grace and Bess good to have their charitable emotions awakened.

As for Mrs. Mason, Nan soon saw that that kindly lady would be both helpful and wise in the affair. Left to their own desires, Grace and Bess would have dressed Inez up like a French doll. But Nan told Mrs. Mason privately just what she hoped to do with the child, and the lady heartily approved.

“A very good thing–very good, indeed, Nan Sherwood,” said Mrs. Mason, “if your father and mother approve.”

As it chanced, there was a letter from Mrs. Sherwood awaiting Nan when she and her schoolmates arrived with Inez; from it Nan learned that her father would be in Chicago the next day, having been called to a final conference with the heads of the automobile corporation.

“Mr. Bulson is so insistent, and is so ugly,” the letter said, “that I fear your dear father will have to go to court. It will be a great expense as well as a notorious affair.

“Fighting an accusation that you cannot disprove is like Don Quixote’s old fight with the windmill. There is nothing to be gained in the end. It is a dreadful, dreadful thing.”

Nan determined to meet her father and tell him all about Inez. She was sure he would be interested in the waif, and in her plans for Inez’s future.

That night, however, at the Mason house, there was much excitement among the young people. Of course the girls got Katie, the maid, to help with Inez. Katie would have done anything for Nan, if not for Grace herself; and although she did not at first quite approve of the street waif, she ended in loving Inez.

In the first place they bathed the child and wrapped her in a soft, fleecy gown of Grace’s. Her clothing, every stitch of it, was carried gingerly down to the basement by Katie, and burned.

From the garments Mrs. Harley had sent a complete outfit for the child was selected. They were probably the best garments Inez had ever worn.

“She looks as nice now as me own sister,” Katie declared, when, after a deal of fussing and chatting in the girls’ suite, the street waif was dressed from top to toe.

“Now ye may take her down to show the mistress; and I belave she will be plazed.”

This was a true prophecy. Not only was Mrs. Mason delighted with the changed appearance of Inez, but Mr. Mason approved, too; while Walter considered the metamorphosis quite marvelous.

“Great!” he said. “Get her filled up, and filled out, and her appearance alone will pay you girls for your trouble.”

While they talked and joked about her, Inez fell fast asleep with her head pillowed in Nan Sherwood’s lap.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE KEY TO A HARD LOCK

The young people had planned to spend that next forenoon at a skating rink, where the ice was known to be good; but Nan ran away right after breakfast to meet her father’s train, intending to join the crowd at the rink later.

“I’ll take your skates for you, Nan,” Walter assured her, as she set forth for the station.

“That’s so kind of you, Walter,” she replied gratefully.

“Say! I’d do a whole lot more for you than _that_,” blurted out the boy, his face reddening.

“I think you have already,” said Nan, sweetly, waving him good-bye from the taxi in which Mrs. Mason had insisted she should go to the station.

She settled back in her seat and thought happily for a few minutes. She had been so busy with all sorts of things here in Chicago–especially with what Bess Harley called “other people’s worries”–that Nan had scarcely been able to think of her hopes for the future, or her memories of the past. She had been living very much in the present.

“Why,” she thought, with something like a feeling of remorse, “I haven’t even missed Beautiful Beulah. I–I wonder if I am really growing up? Oh, dear!”

Mr. Sherwood thought her a very much composed and sophisticated little body, indeed, when he met her on the great concourse of the railway station.

“Goodness me, Nan!” he declared, when he had greeted her. “How you _do_ grow. Your mother and I have seen so little of you since we came back from Scotland, that we haven’t begun to realize that you are a big, big girl.”

“Don’t make me out _too_ big, Papa Sherwood!” she cried, clinging to his arm. “I–I don’t _want_ to grow up entirely. I want for a long time to be _your_ little girl.

“I know what we’ll do,” cried Nan, delightedly. “You have plenty of time before your business conference. We’ll walk along together to see how Jennie Albert is–it isn’t far from here–and you shall buy me a bag of peanuts, just as you used to do, and we’ll eat ’em right on the street as we go along.”

“Is that the height of your ambition?” laughed Mr. Sherwood. “If so, you are easily satisfied.”

Nan told her father all about the search for the runaway girls, and about little Inez and Jennie Albert. She wanted to see how the latter was. The comforts she and her friends had left the sick girl the day before, and the ministrations of the physician, should have greatly improved Jennie’s condition.

Nan left her father at the entrance to the alley leading back to Jennie’s lodging; but in a few minutes she came flying back to Mr. Sherwood in such excitement that at first she could scarcely speak connectedly.

“Why, Nan! What is the matter?” her father demanded.

“Oh! come up and see Jennie! _Do_ come up and see Jennie!” urged Nan.

“What is the matter with her? Is she worse?”

“Oh, no! Oh, no!” cried the excited girl. “But she has got such a wonderful thing to tell you, Papa Sherwood!”

“To tell me?” asked her father wonderingly.

“Yes! Come!” Nan seized his hand and pulled him into the alley. On the way she explained a little of the mystery.

“Dear me! it’s the most wonderful thing, Papa Sherwood. You know, I told you Jennie was working for a moving picture company that was making a film at Tillbury. She had a boy’s part; she looks just like a boy with a cap on, for her hair is short.

“Well! Now listen! They took those pictures the day before, and the very day that you came back from Chicago to Tillbury and that awful Mr. Bulson lost his money and watch.”

“What’s that?” demanded Mr. Sherwood, suddenly evincing all the interest Nan expected him to in the tale.

As they mounted the stairs Nan retailed how the company had gone to the railroad yards early in the morning, obtaining permission from the yardmaster to film a scene outside the sleeping car standing there on a siding, including the entrance of Jennie as the burglars’ helper through the narrow ventilator.

“Of course, the sleeping car doors can only be opened from the inside when it is occupied, save with a key,” Nan hastened to say; “so you see she was supposed to enter through the ventilator and afterward open the door to the men.”

“I see,” Mr. Sherwood observed, yet still rather puzzled by his daughter’s vehemence.

Jennie Albert, however, when he was introduced to her by Nan, gave a much clearer account of the matter. To take up the story where Nan had broken off, Jennie, when she wriggled through the window into the car, had seen a big negro man stooping over a man in a lower berth and removing something from under his pillow.

The man in the berth was lying on his back and snoring vociferously. There seemed to be no other passenger remaining in the car.

Jennie did not see what the colored man took from the sleeping passenger, but she was sure he was robbing him. The negro, however, saw Jennie, and threatened to harm her if she ever spoke of the matter.

The director of the picture and other men were outside. The girl was alarmed and more than half sick then. She had the remainder of the director’s instructions to carry out.

Therefore, she hurried to open the sleeping car door as her instructions called for, and the negro thief escaped without Jennie’s saying a word to anybody about him.

Mr. Sherwood, as deeply interested, but calmer than Nan, asked questions to make sure of the identity of the sleeping passenger. It was Mr. Ravell Bulson, without a doubt.

“And about the negro?” he asked the girl. “Describe him.”

But all Jennie could say was that he was a big, burly fellow with a long, long nose.

“An awfully long nose for a colored person,” said Jennie. “He frightened me so, I don’t remember much else about him–and I’m no scare-cat, either. You ask any of the directors I have worked for during the past two years. If I only had a pretty face like your Nan, here, Mr. Sherwood, they’d be giving me the lead in feature films–believe me!”

The mystery of how the negro got into the locked car was explained when Mr. Sherwood chanced to remember that the porter of the coach in which he had ridden from Chicago that night answered the description Jennie Albert gave of the person who had robbed Mr. Bulson.

“I remember that nose!” declared Mr. Sherwood, with satisfaction. “Now we’ll clear this mystery up. You have given me a key, Miss Jennie, to what was a very hard lock to open.”

This proved to be true. Mr. Sherwood went to his conference with the automobile people with a lighter heart. On their advice, he told the story to the police and the description of the negro porter was recognized as that of a man who already had a police record–one “Nosey” Thompson.

This negro had obtained a position with the sleeping car company under a false name and with fraudulent recommendations.

These facts Nan, at least, did not learn till later; she ran off to the skating rink, secure in the thought that her father’s trouble with Mr. Ravell Bulson was over. She hoped she might never see that grouchy fat man again. But Fate had in store for her another meeting with the disagreeable Mr. Bulson, and this fell out in a most surprising way.

When Nan was almost in sight of the building where she expected to join her friends on skates, there sounded the sudden clangor of fire-truck whistles, and all other traffic halted to allow the department machines to pass. A taxi-cab crowded close in to the curb where Nan had halted, just as the huge ladder-truck, driven by its powerful motor, swung around the corner.

Pedestrians, of course, had scattered to the sidewalks; but the wheels of the ladder-truck skidded on the icy street and the taxi was caught a glancing blow by the rear wheel of the heavier vehicle.

Many of the onlookers screamed warnings in chorus; but all to no avail. Indeed, there was nothing the driver of the cab could have done to avert the catastrophe. His engine was stopped and there was no possibility of escape with the car.

Crash! the truck-wheel clashed against the frail cab, and the latter vehicle was crushed as though made of paper. The driver went out on his head. Screams of fear issued from the interior of the cab as it went over in a heap of wreckage and the ladder-truck thundered on.

Nan saw a fat face with bulging eyes set in it appear at the window of the cab. She was obliged to spring away to escape being caught in the wreck. But she ran back instantly, for there were more than the owner of the fat face in the overturned taxi.

With the sputtering of the fat man there sounded, too, a shrill, childish scream of fear, and a wild yelp of pain–the latter unmistakably from a canine throat. Amid the wreckage Nan beheld a pair of blue-stockinged legs encased in iron supports; but the dog wriggled free.

“Hey! Hey!” roared the fat man. “Help us out of this. Never mind that driver. He ought to have seen that thing coming and got out of the way. Hey! Help us out, I say.”

Nobody seemed to be paying much attention to the fat and angry citizen; nor would Nan have heeded him had it not been for the appeal of those two blue-stockinged legs in the iron braces.

The fat man was all tangled up in the robes and in the broken fittings of the cab. He could do nothing for himself, let alone assist in the rescue of the owner of the crippled little limbs. The dog, darting about, barked wildly.

As Nan stooped to lift the broken cab door off the apparently injured boy, the dog–he was only a puppy–ran yapping at her in a fever of apprehension. But his barking suddenly changed to yelps of joy as he leaped on Nan and licked her hands.

“Why, Buster!” gasped the girl, recognizing the little spaniel that she and Bess Harley had befriended in the snow-bound train.

She knew instantly, then, whose was the fat and apoplectic face; but she did not understand about the legs in the cruel looking iron braces until she had drawn a small and sharp-featured lad of seven or eight years of age from under the debris of the taxi-cab.

“Jingo! Look at Pop!” exclaimed the crippled boy, who seemed not to have been hurt at all in the accident.

Mr. Ravell Bulson was trying to struggle out from under the cab. And to his credit he was not thinking of himself at this time.

“How’s Junior?” he gasped. “Are you hurt, Junior?”

“No, Pop, I ain’t hurt,” said the boy with the braces. “But, Jingo! you do look funny.”

“I don’t feel so funny,” snarled his parent, finally extricating himself unaided from the tangle. “Sure you’re not hurt, Junior?”

“No, I’m not hurt,” repeated the boy. “Nor Buster ain’t hurt. And see this girl, Pop. Buster knows her.”

Mr. Ravell Bulson just then obtained a clear view of Nan Sherwood, against whom the little dog was crazily leaping. The man scowled and in his usual harsh manner exclaimed:

“Call the dog away, Junior. If you’re not hurt we’ll get another cab and go on.”

“Why, Pop!” cried the lame boy, quite excitedly. “That pup likes her a whole lot. See him? Say, girl, did you used to own that puppy?”

“No, indeed, dear,” said Nan, laughing. “But he remembers me.”

“From where?” demanded the curious Ravell Bulson, Jr.

“Why, since the time we were snow-bound in a train together.”

“Oh! when was that?” burst out the boy. “Tell me about it snow-bound in a steam-car train? That must have been jolly.”

“Come away, Junior!” exclaimed his father. “You don’t care anything about that, I’m sure.”

“Oh, yes I do, Pop. I want to hear about it. Fancy being snow-bound in a steam-car train!”

“Come away, I tell you,” said the fat man, again scowling crossly at Nan. “You don’t want to hear anything that girl can tell you. Come away, now,” he added, for a crowd was gathering.

“Do wait a minute, Pop,” said Junior. The lame boy evidently was used to being indulged, and he saw no reason for leaving Nan abruptly. “See the dog. See Buster, will you? Why, he’s just in love with this girl.”

“I tell you to come on!” complained Mr. Bulson, Senior. He was really a slave to the crippled boy’s whims; but he disliked being near Nan Sherwood, or seeing Junior so friendly with her. “You can’t know that girl, if the dog does,” he snarled.

“Why, yes I can, Pop,” said the lame boy, with cheerful insistence. “And I want to hear about her being snowed up in a train with Buster.”

“Your father can tell you all about it,” Nan said, kindly, not wishing to make Mr. Bulson any angrier. “He was there in the snowed-up train, too.