THE BLACK-EYED WOMAN
The train arrived at Albany about dusk. Janice, disturbed by the
incident of the mysterious lunch, half expected to be met by a telegram
ordering her to return to Polktown. Or perhaps something worse and
harder to cope with. But she told herself that not even a uniformed
policeman should make her return! She was secretly very glad to be able
to get out of the station without being involved in any difficulty of
this kind.
She had studied the time-tables and knew which train to take out of
Albany. Realizing the long and tedious journey before her, she concluded
that it would be the part of wisdom to secure berth reservation right
through to El Paso.
Whether or no she should remain on the train as far as that Border city,
Janice did not at this time decide. She knew that direct communication
with San Cristoval and the Alderdice Mine lay through the desert country
below El Paso, and she must be guided a good deal by what she learned en
route. Her father had an army friend at Fort Hancock. She might stop off
there to make inquiries.
However, she bought her ticket with berth coupons to El Paso, and then
went to dinner. She had two hours to wait for the Chicago express, a
reservation on which her special ticket called for.
She had no idea, did Janice, just how much trouble and worry of mind she
was causing a certain boy who had trailed her from one railroad station
to the other with much care that she should not observe his presence.
When Marty sidled up to the ticket window after Janice was gone and
asked for a ticket to "just where that girl bought hers for," the agent
certainly did stare at him.
"What's all this for?" he asked Marty suspiciously. "Are you following
that young lady?"
"Naw," said Marty gruffly. "I'm goin' with her."
"Oh! you are? Who says so?"
"I do," the boy declared. "D'you think I'm goin' to let her go clear
'way down there to Mexico alone looking for her father?"
"Hi!" exclaimed the man, growing interested, there being no other person
waiting at the moment. "Who are _you_?"
"Say! you keep it to yourself, will you?" urged Marty anxiously. "I'm
her cousin. What'll a ticket cost just like hers? Her dad's been wounded
down there in Mexico and she thinks she can go there alone and bring him
back. I can't let her do that, can I?"
"Hasn't she any other folks?" asked the ticket seller doubtfully.
"Her dad's all she's got," Marty declared. "But I'm going to see her
through."
Well, it was not the ticket seller's business. He named the sum it would
cost Marty to go on that special train.
"Hi tunket! I don't want to _buy_ the train," gasped the boy. "I only
want to ride on it."
"Special ticket on this train to Chicago. And berth all the way through
to El Paso. I can give you a cheaper rate on another train, however, my
son."
"But I got to be on the same train as her to look out for her," observed
Marty. "Hi tunket! berth clear through, heh? I'll have to sleep day an'
night to get my money's worth."
"It's the best I can do for you."
Marty groaned, but paid like a man. It made a dreadful hole in his
capital. He ate his dinner in a lunchroom through the window of which he
could watch the exit of the restaurant to which his cousin had gone for
her evening meal.
"Take it from me girls don't have no idea about spending money," Marty
groaned, swallowing the last mouthful of a ten cent plate of beef stew
as he saw Janice leave the restaurant. "The sign on that window over
there says: 'Dinner seventy-five cents.' Hi tunket! How can anybody eat
seventy-five cents worth of victuals to once't? I never knew Janice had
_that_ capacity."
Marty had insisted upon being given a reservation in another car from
that in which Janice was to ride. He was glad to note when the long
train rolled in that his was a rear car. Janice would ride next to the
dining car.
The boy had no use for the dining car or buffet. He had supplied himself
with a box of cheap lunch. If his cousin had money "to throw to the
birdies," as Marty privately expressed it, not so the son of Mr. Jason
Day of Polktown! After all he had said about his father being a
"tight-wad" Marty found that it positively hurt to spend more for a
thing than he believed it was worth.
He made sure that Janice with her bag boarded the train. He was one of
the last to get on himself, thus making sure that nothing had happened
to cause his cousin to alight again.
But Janice, relieved because she had seen nobody from Polktown, found
herself very pleasantly situated in her car. Nobody had interfered with
her in any way. The lunch given her on the train to Albany was a most
mysterious thing; but whoever had given it to her seemed not desirous of
halting her determined course.
Janice had secured an upper berth; but she did not mind that. She found
that the woman who was to occupy the one beneath was already on the
train.
She was a black-eyed, dark, rather Oriental-looking person, and Janice
thought her quite handsome in a majestic way. And she possessed an
engaging smile.
"You are traveling alone, my dear--yes?" the woman asked her with an
intonation distinctly foreign. "All the way to Chicago?"
"And beyond," Janice said pleasantly.
"Ach! You American girls are wonderfully independent--yes? Friends will
meet you at your journey's end?"
"No. I expect nobody to meet me," Janice told her quite sadly. She did
not care to take the woman into her complete confidence, although she
seemed to be a very pleasant person.
The black-eyed woman lent her a magazine during the evening, as the
train rumbled on across New York State. She was friendly, but not too
pressing in her attentions and certainly Janice was unsuspicious.
At nine o'clock the porter began to arrange the berths. Janice went to
the ladies' room and found the foreign-looking woman there. As the girl,
in her dressing-sack which she had taken out of her bag, combed out her
hair, the sharp, black eyes of her fellow-passenger spied something.
"You carry something valuable there?" she said, touching lightly with
her finger the packet of banknotes the girl had pinned to the bosom of
her waist. "And with only a common pin? Ach! that is unsafe, my dear."
Janice had folded the bills in a silk handkerchief; but of course the
woman could feel just what the crisp notes were.
"I think they will be all right," the girl said, shrinking a little from
the woman's touch, yet without feeling any real fear of her or of her
intentions.
"See!" the other said as though wishing only to be helpful. "I haf a big
safety pin here in my bag--see? We will use _it_ to fasten your
packet--soh. Iss that not much better?"
Janice could only thank her and smile. Really one could not take offense
at such a kind act nor be suspicious of so kindly a person.
Having lost her previous night's sleep it was not strange that Janice
should sleep soundly, even on this rushing train. Occasionally she
aroused to the knowledge of the wheels clattering over switches, or
hollowly roaring as the train crossed a long trestle. The night
sped--and the train with it. She was far, far away from Polktown when
she awoke.
Again her berth mate was before her in the dressing room. "Iss your
money still safe, my dear?" the black-eyed woman asked.
"Oh, yes," laughed Janice, "I am not at all afraid of losing it."
"You are so different. Me, I am always feeling to see if my jewel-bag
iss safe. Oh, yes!"
Janice, having no jewels, was not much interested; though it seemed odd
that the black-eyed woman should have her mind so fixed on robbery.
Before the train reached Chicago the woman had made herself very
friendly with Janice. The latter refrained from telling her new
acquaintance just why she was going to the Southwest, and alone, save
that she expected to find her father there and that she was anxious
about him.
"You will remain over a day in Chicago to rest?" queried the woman. "You
haf friends there--yes?"
"Oh, no. We are going to arrive in good time. I know the schedule
perfectly," Janice assured her. "I shall go right on."
It was not until then that the black-eyed woman revealed the fact that
she, too, was going on beyond Chicago. It seemed odd to Janice that her
fellow-traveler should not before have acknowledged that Chicago was not
her destination, still she gave the matter little thought. She did not
tell her name to the girl. Indeed, Janice did not reveal her own name
during their conversation.
The woman asked Janice very particularly about the route over which the
girl was to travel and then, consulting an ivory-bound memorandum book
she carried, in which Janice could not help seeing the notes were
written in some foreign language, the woman murmured.
"Ach, yes! It iss so. My dear, I can be your fellow-passenger for many
hundred miles farther. Ach! such a great country as it iss. I shall see
about having my routing changed at once. We may travel together yet a
far way. And we are such goot friends."
Janice felt somewhat abashed at this claim. She enjoyed the black-eyed
woman's conversation; but she was not strongly drawn toward her. If they
were such "goot friends" the feeling of friendship must be mostly on
Madam's side.
For it was as "Madam" that Janice knew the woman. It seemed to fit, and
she seemed to expect its use. She was a very interesting person, the
girl thought, and naturally she was curious about the black-eyed woman.
There was an hour's wait at Chicago, and when Janice and her
acquaintance left the train together it was to enter a dense throng in
the train-shed.
"Be careful, my dear," whispered Janice's companion warningly. "Keep
your coat buttoned across your chest. No knowing--pickpockets always in
big crowds are--yes."
Janice was inclined to smile; but as her companion walked closely upon
one side of her she felt herself being shouldered roughly on the other
hand.
She turned sharply and with an exclamation. Her coat was torn open by
some means. Janice wore a loose-fitting blouse and it was not easy to be
certain that a hand was at her bosom.
"Look! that boy!" hissed Madam in the girl's ear. "Such a shrewd-faced
rascal. Ach! I believe he tried to rob you."
Janice, clutching quickly at her blouse over the packet of banknotes,
knew her money was safe. She only saw the back of the boy to whom Madam
referred.
"Why!" Janice Day murmured. "He isn't a bit bigger than Marty. Do--do
you really think he tried to rob me, Madam?"
"Sure of it!" announced her companion with emphasis. "Ach, yes! We know
so little about those we meet in a crowd, my dear."