From a cotton bag he discharged a miscellaneous heap of patent preparations; salves, ointments, emollients, liniments, plasters.

“All I could get,” he explained.  “No drug-store in the funny burg.”

“Thank you,” said Banneker.  “You’re all right.  Want another job?”

“Certainly,” said the lily of the field with undiminished good-will.

“Go and help the white-whiskered old boy in the Pullman yonder.”

“Oh, he’d chase me,” returned the other calmly.  “He’s my uncle.  He thinks I’m no use.”

“Does he?  Well, suppose you get names and addresses of the slightly injured for me, then.  Here’s your coat.”

“Tha-anks,” drawled the young man.  He was turning away to his new duties when a thought struck him.  “Making a list?” he asked.

“Yes.  For my report.”

“Got a name with the initials I. O. W.?”

Banneker ran through the roster in the pocket-ledger.  “Not yet.  Some one that’s hurt?”

“Don’t know what became of her.  Peach of a girl.  Black hair, big, sleepy, black eyes with a fire in ’em.  Dressed right.  Traveling alone, and minding her own business, too.  Had a stateroom in that Pullman there in the ditch.  Noticed her initials on her traveling-bag.”

“Have you seen her since the smash?”

“Don’t know.  Got a kind of confused recklection of seeing her wobbling around at the side of the track.  Can’t be sure, though.  Might have been me.”

“Might have been you?  How could—­”

“Wobbly, myself.  Mixed in my thinks.  When I came to I was pretty busy putting my lunch,” explained the other with simple realism.  “One of Mr. Pullman’s seats butted me in the stomach.  They ain’t upholstered as soft as you’d think to look at ’em.  I went reeling around, looking for Miss I. O. W., she being alone, you know, and I thought she might need some looking after.  And I had that idea of having seen her with her hand to her head dazed and running—­yes; that’s it, she was running.  Wow!” said the young man fervently.  “She was a pretty thing!  You don’t suppose—­” He turned hesitantly to the file of bodies, now decently covered with sheets.

For a grisly instant Banneker thought of the one mangled monstrosity—­that to have been so lately loveliness and charm, with deep fire in its eyes and perhaps deep tenderness and passion in its heart.  He dismissed the thought as being against the evidence and entered the initials in his booklet.

“I’ll look out for her,” said he.  “Probably she’s forward somewhere.”

Without respite he toiled until a long whistle gave notice of the return of the locomotive which had gone forward to meet the delayed special from Stanwood.  Human beings were clinging about it in little clusters like bees; physicians, nurses, officials, and hospital attendants.  The dispatcher from Stanwood listened to Banneker’s brief report, and sent him back to Manzanita, with a curt word of approval for his work.