“So I did,” admitted Clay, and to save his life he could not keep from smiling.

The porter sputtered.  This beat anything in his previous experience.  “But—­but—­it ain’t allowed to open up the cah.  Was you-all havin’ trouble?”

“No trouble a-tall.  He bet me a cigar I couldn’t put him off.”

Clay palmed a dollar and handed it to the porter as he passed into the car.  The eyes of that outraged official rolled after him.  The book of rules did not say anything about wrestling-matches in the vestibule.  Besides, it happened that Durand had called him down sharply not an hour before.  He decided to brush off his passengers and forget what he had seen.

Clay stopped in front of Kitty and said he hoped she would have no trouble making her transfer in the city.  The girl was no fool.  She had sensed the antagonism that had flared up between them in that moment when they had faced each other five minutes before.

“Where’s Mr. Durand?” she asked.

“He got off.”

“But the train hasn’t stopped.”

“It’s just crawlin’ along, and he was in a hurry.”

Her gaze rested upon an angry bruise on his cheek.  It had not been there when last she saw him.  She started to speak, then changed her mind.

Clay seated himself beside her.  “Chicago is a right big town, I reckon.  If I can help you any, Miss Kitty, I’d be glad to do what I can.”

The girl did not answer.  She was trying to work out this puzzle of why a man should get off before the train reached the station.

“I’m a stranger myself, but I expect I can worry along somehow,” he went on cheerfully.

“Mr. Durand didn’t say anything to me about getting off,” she persisted.

“He made up his mind in a hurry.  Just took a sudden notion to go.”

“Without saying anything about his suitcases?”

“Never mentioned ’em.”

“You didn’t have—­any trouble with him?” she faltered.

“Not a bit,” he told her genially.  “Sorry our tickets take us by different roads to New York.  Maybe we’ll meet up with each other there, Miss Kitty.”

“I don’t understand it,” she murmured, half to herself.  “Why would he get off before we reach the depot?”

She was full of suspicions, and the bruise on the Westerner’s cheek did not tend to allay them.  They were still unsatisfied when the porter took her to the end of the car to brush her clothes.

The discretion of that young man had its limits.  While he brushed the girl he told her rapidly what he had seen in the vestibule.

“Was he hurt?” she asked breathlessly.

“No ‘m.  I looked out and seen him standin’ beside the track j’es’ a-cussin’ a blue streak.  He’s a sho-’nough bad actor, that Jerry Durand.”

Kitty marched straight to her section.  The eyes of the girl flashed anger.

“Please leave my seat, sir,” she told Clay.