Janice Day was tired. She had to admit that. But she would not stop over in Chicago even twenty-four hours to rest.

There is scarcely any way of traveling that so eats up the reserve forces of even a perfectly well person as an unaccustomed ride on the rail. No matter how comfortable seats and berths may be, the confinement, the continual jar of the train, and the utter change from the habits of the usual daily life quite bear down the spirit of the traveler.

Especially is the person traveling alone affected. Janice really was glad she had the companionship of Madam on her journey beyond Chicago. Although the thoughts of the black-eyed woman seemed to run strongly to robbery, she was not lacking in information and could talk amusingly of her travels.

She seemed familiar with Europe as well as with much of America. Her knowledge of the Latin-American countries, however, exceeded that of the United States. Just what nationality she was Janice could not guess, although she believed there was some Hebraic blood in Madam's veins.

However, the woman so succeeded in impressing Janice regarding the care of her remaining banknotes that before their train left Chicago the girl took the precaution to secrete her money in a different place upon her person. At the same time, she folded up a piece of newspaper into a packet and pinned it to the place in her corsage where the notes had been.

"It does no harm to do this—and say nothing about it," thought Janice demurely.

Madam made her change in transportation with some skill, and had again secured the berth under that assigned to Janice. They sat together by day, conversing or reading, and always took their meals together in the dining car.

Had Janice known that behind her in the same train, rode her Cousin Marty, she would have been both amazed and troubled.

Marty held to his ticket on this train; but he had seen a chance to sell his berth, and, frugal Yankee that he was, he had done this.

"Hi tunket!" the boy told himself, "that ticket seller thought mebbe he put one over on me when he made me buy a berth reservation clean through. But to my mind those berths ain't a bit more comfortable than a seat in a day coach." For there was a day coach attached to this train.

He said this after he had overheard a man in the smoking compartment complaining about his inability to obtain the reservation of a berth at Chicago. There was nothing timid about Marty Day. He immediately marched up to the man and drove a bargain with him worthy of Uncle Jason himself.

"Every little bit helps," remarked Marty, as he folded the bills the man gave him and tucked them with the rest of his little wad down into the bottom of his inside vest pocket, pinning the money there for safety.

Marty was not disturbed in the least about losing his funds, whether Janice was or not. And he continued to be fully as frugal in his expenditures as he had been at first.

At Chicago Marty had had a very close call—or thought he had. In the crowd in the station he almost ran into Janice. She was with the black-eyed woman and that was probably why his cousin had not noticed him. But it had been near!

He did not know just how Janice would take his surveillance, and the boy had decided it would be better for him to remain in the background unless something extraordinary happened and not reveal himself to her until they reached the Border.

So, to make his identification by his cousin doubly impossible, as he thought, Marty used the hour's wait at Chicago to supply himself with a disguise!

It is not on record that any boy ever lived who did not, at some stage of his career, dream of putting on some simple disguise and appearing before his friends and family as "the mysterious stranger." Marty was not exempt from the usual kinds of boyish folly. He bought and affixed to his upper lip a small black mustache.

The sturdy, freckled-faced boy with the stubby mustache stuck upon his lip, made a very amusing appearance. Under close scrutiny the falsity of his hirsute adornment was easily detected, of course.

The gentleman who had boarded the train at Chicago too late to obtain a berth was vastly amused by Marty's assumption of maturity. Marty's voice was beginning to change and that alone would have revealed his youth in spite of a full growth of whiskers.

"You're pretty young to be traveling alone," this gentleman remarked to Marty after the deal for the berth had been consummated. "Although I see you have all your wits about you, young man."

"Oh, I dunno," drawled the boy from Polktown, trying to stroke the mustache with a knowing air.

"I can see the mustache," grinned Marty's fellow-traveler. "But it isn't a very good fit and it certainly does not match your hair. That down on your cheek, young fellow, is a dead give away. I'd take off the mustache if I were you."

Marty flushed like a boiling lobster. "I—I can't," he stuttered.

"Why not?"

Marty confessed—partially. He told about his cousin in the other car and how he had come on this long journey very secretly to watch over and protect Janice.

Despite the evident ignorance of the boy there was something about his actions that impressed this man with the really fine qualities of Marty's character. He asked the boy:

"Have you telegraphed back to your father to reassure him of your safety—ahem—and your cousin's?"

"No," Marty said. "That runs into money, don't it? I—I was going to write."

"Send a night letter," advised the man. "That will not be very expensive. And it will relieve your folks' minds."

So Marty did this, sending the message from a station where the train lingered for a few minutes. The result of the receipt of this dispatch in Polktown was to start a series of quite unforeseen events; but Marty had no idea of this when he wrote:

As far as he knew the boy told the truth in that phrase. Several times each day Marty managed to get a glimpse of his cousin. On almost every such occasion she was in the company of the tall, black-eyed, foreign-looking woman who had been with Janice when Marty had run against them in the Chicago railway station.

"Those two's havin' it nice an' soft," Marty thought as he observed them through the window of the dining car when the long train stopped at a station and the boy got out to stretch his legs.

"Come in and have dinner with me, Martin," said the gentleman to whom he had sold his berth reservation, seeing the boy apparently gazing hungrily in at the diners.

"Cricky! I don't believe I'd dare. She'd see me," said the boy.

"But I thought you considered yourself well disguised," suggested the other, laughing.

"Say! You don't know what sharp eyes Janice has got. And you saw yourself that this mustache was false."

"Oh! but at a distance——"

"Hi tunket! I'll go you," stammered the boy. "But let's sit back of Janice."

This was agreed to and the much-amused gentleman ushered his young friend to a seat in the dining car, wherein Marty faced the black-eyed Madam while Janice Day's back was toward him.

Since her mind had gradually become relieved of its disturbance occasioned by the mysterious lunch which had come into her possession, Janice's only serious thoughts were of her father and the task that awaited her at the Border. She allowed her thoughts to dwell upon the uncertainties of her venture as little as possible. Worrying would not help. She knew that to be an undoubted truth. So she gave herself up to such amusements of travel as there were and to the informative conversation of the black-eyed woman with whom she had become such "goot friends."

Janice Day was quite a sophisticated young woman despite the fact that all her life had been spent in two very quiet communities. The girl was acquainted through broad reading with both the good and evil fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Innocence does not mean ignorance in this day and generation, and the modern trend of thought and education can be heartily thanked for this change from the old standards, if for nothing else.

Janice was really amused by Madam's so-often expressed fears of being robbed. The girl said nothing to her about the change she had made in carrying her surplus money; and she continued to keep the packet of newspaper pinned to her corsage.

As they lingeringly ate their dinner on this particular evening in the dining car the black-eyed woman suddenly betrayed anxiety:

"My dear!" she cried under her breath. "I do believe there is that boy again!"

"What boy, Madam?" Janice asked curiously, but without alarm.

"I have warned you of him before—yes," hissed Madam tragically. "He iss the same, I am sure! He tried to rob you in Chicago!"

"Oh, Madam!" Janice said, tempted to laugh, "I think you must be mistaken."

"Oh, no, I am not, my dear," the woman said very earnestly indeed. "And he iss yet on our train, I see him watching you of a frequency—yes! You will not be warned——"

"Where is he?" Janice asked, turning slowly to look back, for Madam's black eyes were fixed in that direction.

"There! At the table facing this way. With the man in the pepper-and-salt suit, my dear."

Janice flashed a glance at the "disguised" Marty, flushing as she did so. Her gaze lingered on the boy only an instant, and without dreaming of his presence on the train how should she recognize her cousin?

"Why! he isn't exactly a boy, is he?" she said to the Madam. "He wears a pronounced mustache."

"Yes? Perhaps it is not the same, then," sighed the woman. "But his interest in you, my dear, is marked."

"Perhaps it is in you he is interested," said Janice, smiling. "You have made a conquest, Madam."

"Ach! of that so-little man? It would be my fate!" cried the majestic creature. "It iss always little men that fall in love with me—soh!"

It was apparent, however, that Madam kept a watchful eye on the "so-little man" for she spoke of Marty's surveillance frequently thereafter. Janice failed to view this person who so troubled her companion, near enough to really see clearly any one feature. At a distance the mustache disguised Marty Day's expression of countenance.

All was not destined to go smoothly with Marty, however, during the entire journey to the Border. They crossed Texas by the T. & P. route and near Sweetwater there was an accident. A train had been ditched ahead of that on which Janice and Marty rode and, the track being torn up for some distance and the right of way blocked, the train was halted a long time in the evening at a way station.

It was merely a cluster of houses and stores, a shack for a station, a freight house and corral with cattle-chutes, and a long platform on which the uneasy passengers might stroll to relieve the tedium of the wait.

Of this last privilege Janice and Madam availed themselves. Marty, too, feeling for the nonce both lonely and homesick, was in the crowd on the long platform. He heartily wished he could reveal himself to Janice so as to have somebody "homey" to talk to. Polktown suddenly seemed a long, long way off to the boy.

"Hi tunket!" he murmured to himself. "These stars down here in Texas seem to have got all twisted. They've gone an' switched the Big Dipper on me, I do believe."

And while he chanced to have his head back looking aloft he ran right into Janice and her companion. The Madam screamed and seized the boy by the arm.

"It iss the same—er—young man!" she hissed. "I tell you he iss always at our heels—yes. Now will you belief me? Feel! is your money safe?"

Janice clapped her hand to her bosom; the packet she had thought so securely pinned there was gone.

"Oh!" she gasped. "I have lost it! It is——"

"It has been stolen! You have been robbed! This boy has it!" the black-eyed woman declared with conviction. "What have I told you right along? But I have the thief. No, sir! you may not wr-r-riggle out of my so-strong grasp!"