“Do you know the way to Police Headquarters?”

“I reckon I can find it.  Is it fur?” The man from Arizona looked down at the high-heeled boots in which his tortured feet had clumped over the pavements of the metropolis all morning.

“I’ll send you in a taxi.”  The postmaster was thinking that this babe in the woods of civilization never would be able to find his way alone.

As the driver swept the car in and out among the traffic of the narrow streets Johnnie clung to the top of the door fearfully.  Every moment he expected a smash.  His heart was in his throat.  The tumult, the rush of business, the intersecting cross-town traffic, the hub-bub of the great city, dazed his slow brain.  The hurricane deck of a bronco had no terrors for him, but this wild charge through the humming trenches shook his nerve.

“I come mighty nigh askin’ you would you just as lief drive slower,” he said with a grin to the chauffeur as he descended to the safety of the sidewalk.  “I ain’t awful hardy, an’ I sure was plumb scared.”

A sergeant took Johnnie in tow and delivered him at length to the office waiting-room of Captain Anderson, head of the Bureau of Missing Persons.  The Runt, surveying the numbers in the waiting-room and those passing in and out, was ready to revise his opinion about the possible difficulty of the job.  He judged that half the population of New York must be missing.

After a time the captain’s secretary notified Johnnie that it was his turn.  As soon as he was admitted the puncher began his little piece without waiting for any preliminaries.

“Say, Captain, I want you to find my friend Clay Lindsay.  He—­”

“Just a moment,” interrupted the captain.  “Who are you?  Don’t think I got your name.”

Johnnie remembered the note of introduction and his name at the same time.  He gave both to the big man who spent his busy days and often part of the nights looking for the lost, strayed, and stolen among New York’s millions.

The captain’s eyes swept over the note.  “Sit down, Mr. Green, and let’s get at your trouble.”

As soon as it permeated Johnnie’s consciousness that he was Mr. Green he occupied precariously the front three inches of a chair.  His ever-ready friend the cow-boy hat began to revolve.

“This note says that you’re looking for a man named Clay Lindsay who came to New York several months ago.  Have you or has anybody else heard from him in that time?”

“We got a letter right after he got here.  He ain’t writ since.”

“Perhaps he’s dead.  We’d better look up the morgue records.”

“Morgue!” The Runt grew excited instantly.  “That place where you keep folks that get drowned or bumped off?  Say, Captain, I’m here to tell you Clay was the livest man in Arizona, which is the same as sayin’ anywheres.  Cowpunchers don’t take naturally to morgues.  No, sir.  Clay ain’t in no morgue.  Like as not he’s helped fill this yere morgue if any crooks tried their rough stuff on him.  Don’t get me wrong, Cap.  Clay is the squarest he-man ever God made.  All I’m sayin’ is—­”