“Sit down,” said Van, inverting a tub at the feet of the wondering women.  “I’ll see if I can rustle up your brother.”

He went out in the rain, dived impartially into the first of the crowded saloons, was somewhat hilariously greeted by a score of convivial fellows, found no one who knew of young Glen Kent, and proceeded on to the next.

The horseman was well and favorably known in all directions.  He was eagerly cornered wheresoever he appeared by a lot of fellows who were friends to little purpose, in an actual test.  However, he clung to his mission with commendable tenacity of purpose, and kept upon his way.  Thus he discovered at length, when he visited the bank—­an institution that rarely closed before ten o’clock in the evening—­that Kent had been gone for the past two weeks, no one knew where, but somewhere out south, with a party.

There was nothing to do after that but to look for fit apartments for the gently reared girl and her maid.  Hunting a needle in the ocean would have been a somewhat similar task.  Van went at once at the business, with his customary spirit.  He was presently informed there was nothing resembling a room or a bed to be had in all the place.  A hundred men would walk the streets or sleep in chairs that night.  The one apartment suitable for two lone women to occupy had been secured the previous day by “Plunger” Trask, an Eastern young man who would bet that grass was not green.

Van searched for Trask and found him “cashing in” a lot of assorted chips, representing his winnings at a faro game at which he had been “bucking.”

“Hello, there, Van,” he said familiarly as the horseman touched him on the shoulder.  “Come and have a drink.”

“My teeth are floating now from drink,” said Van, “but I’ll take something else if you say so.  I want your apartments for the night.”

“Say, wire me!” answered the plunger.  “That’s the cutest little bunch of nerve I ever saw off the Bowery!  How much money have you got in your clothes?”

“About forty-five dollars,” said Van.  “Is it good?”

“Not as a price, but O.K. in a flip,” said Trask, with an itch for schemes of chance.  “I’ll throw you the dice, my room against your forty-five—­and the devil take your luck if you win!”

Van agreed.  They borrowed a box of dice, threw three times apiece—­and the horseman paid over his money.

“There you are, old man,” said the plunger cheerfully.  “Satisfied, I hope.”

“Not quite,” said Van.  “I’ll owe you forty-five more and throw you again.”

“Right ho!” responded Trask.  “Go as far as you like.”

They shook again.  Van lost as before.  He borrowed again, undiscouraged.  For the third time they cast the little cubes of uncertainty and this time Van actually won.  The room was his to dispose of as he pleased.  It had cost him ninety dollars for the night.