“Of course you will go straight back home in the morning?” asked and answered the officer.

“Oh, I did so want to try something else,” almost pleaded the girl.  “You see, mister, it is awful in the mill end of Flosston.”

“Not very good, I’ll admit,” replied he, “but it will be my duty to send you back.”

They walked along in silence after that brief conversation.  Dagmar was thinking how difficult it would be to go back home on the morrow, and in the company of an officer!  As if the man divined her thoughts, he said presently: 

“We will see how we make out when we get to my house.  My old woman is as good a help to me as the other man on the post, and better.  She helps me a lot with the girls, and I often say she should have had a uniform.  Maybe we can fix it so she will take you back home.”

“Oh, that would be better,” replied Dagmar.  “I would hate to go with a man.”

“Course you would and I don’t blame you.  But I must hurry and put you up with Mary.  If I don’t find your pal I will have to give the word to the next town.  Can’t have a girl like that running around loose all night.”

“I wish she had stayed.  Tessie is—­not really wild, but she has so much freedom at home.  All her folks seem to care for about her is her money.”

“Lots of folks are foolish as that, then they have to spend a good lot to make up for getting a little.  And the funny part of it is, the girls, who seem so wise, are the easiest fooled.  Now, she acted like a real grown-up, but I’ll bet my badge she would go along with the first person who offered her a hot pancake for breakfast.  They have so much nerve it dries up all their common sense.”

“I do wish she had not run away.  She is always making fun of me and calling me a baby.  But I think, as you say, mister, it is better not to have too much nerve.”

“You’re right, girl.  But here we are.  Don’t you be the least bit afraid of my wife.  She is big and blustery, but has a heart of gold.”

The rugged outside of this man evidently hid a heart of his own not far from pure gold, and Dagmar could not help thinking he was the nicest policeman she had ever heard of, and that she had encountered him seemed nothing short of wonderfully good luck.

Turning in at the gate, which even in the night could be seen to form a little arch in vines and bushes, Officer Cosgrove tapped lightly on the door, which was opened before the echo of his last tap had died away.

“Here we are, Mary,” he announced to the woman standing in the portal.  “I just brought you a little girl—­who—­is lost.  Take care of her while I go after the—­other.  She didn’t take so kindly to Jim as this one did,” and with a friendly little push, he ushered Dagmar into the narrow hall, and turned out into the roadway, from whence his light footfall could immediately be heard hurrying over the cinder-covered path.