Miss Millikan looked at him, frankly incredulous.  “For the love o’ Mike, where’s her eyes?  Don’t she know a real man when she sees one?  I’ll say she don’t.”

“I’m standin’ by Kitty because she’s shy of friends.  Any man would do that, wouldn’t he?  I came to you for help because—­oh, because I know you’re white clear through.”

A flush beat into Annie’s cheeks.  She went off swiftly at a tangent.  “Wouldn’t it give a fellow a jar?  This guy Jim Collins slips it to me confidential that he’s off the crooked stuff.  Nothin’ doin’ a-tall in gorilla work.  He kids me that he’s quit goin’ out on the spud and porch-climbin’ don’t look good to him no more.  A four-room flat, a little wifie, an’ the straight road for ‘Slim’ Jim.  I fall for it, though I’d orta be hep to men.  An’ he dates me up to-night for the chauffeurs’ ball.”

“But you didn’t go?”

“No; he sidesteps it this aft with a fairy tale about drivin’ a rich old dame out to Yonkers.  All the time he’ was figurin’ on pinchin’ this goil for Jerry.  He’s a rotten crook.”

“Why don’t you break with him, Annie?  You’re too good for that sort of thing.  He’ll spoil your life if you don’t.”

“Listens fine,” the girl retorted bitterly.  “I take Jim like some folks do booze or dope.  He’s a habit.”

“Tim’s worth a dozen of him.”

“Sure he is, but Tim’s got a notion I’m not on the level.  I dunno as he needs to pull that stuff on me.  I’m not strong for a harness bull anyhow.”  She laughed, a little off the key.

“What color is ‘Slim’ Jim’s car?”

“A dirty blue.  Why?”

“That was the car.”

Annie lifted her hands in a little gesture of despair.  “I’m dead sick of this game.  What’s there in it?  I live straight and eat in a beanery.  No lobster palaces in mine.  Look at me cheap duds.  And Tim gives me the over like I was a street cat.  What sort of a chance did I ever have, with toughs and gunmen for me friends?”

“You’ve got yore chance now, Annie.  Tim will hop off that fence he’s on and light a-runnin’ straight for you if he thinks you’ve ditched ‘Slim’ Jim.”

She shook her head slowly.  “No, I’ll not t’row Jim down.  I’m through with him.  He lied to me right while he knew this was all framed up.  But I wouldn’t snitch on him, even if he’d told me anything.  And he didn’t peep about what he was up to.”

“Forget Jim while you’re thinkin’ about this.  You don’t owe Jerry Durand anything, anyhow.  Where would he have Kitty taken?  You can give a guess.”

She had made her decision before she spoke.  “Gimme paper and a pencil.”

On Clay’s notebook she scrawled hurriedly an address.

“Jim’d croak me if he knew I’d given this,” she said, looking straight at the cattleman.

“He’ll never know—­and I’ll never forget it, Annie.”

Clay left her and turned to the driver.  From the slip of paper in his hand he read aloud an address.  “Another five if you break the speed limit,” he said.