mirror. He wasn’t built for that sort of garb. The hard hat looked perfectly idiotic and the starched collars nearly choked him. Eventually he tore the offending article from his sunscorched neck and flung it across the room. The other things followed. He stood once more in the rough gray clothes that served for “best” out West, and jammed the comfortable Stetson hat on his head.

“I’m darned if I’ll wear ’em!” he growled.

A few days of shopping and theaters, and he began to grow homesick. Thoughts of Colorado and the boys constantly flickered in his brain. Here he was an outcast—a nonentity. He was not good at making friends, and the New Yorkers were not falling head over heels to shake hands with him, though more than one pair of eyes looked admiringly at his magnificent physique.

The loneliness of big cities! How terrible a thing it was. Never at any time had Jim felt so lonely. The rolling wind-swept prairie had at least something to offer. In every manifestation 16 of nature he had found a friend. The wind, and the hills, and the wild animals seemed in some queer way sterling comrades; but here—— He began to hate it. It was one huge problem to him. How did it live? What did all the millions do for a subsistence? It was the first time he had seen the poor—the real, hopeless, inevitable poor. He had seen men “broke,” down to their last cent; men on the trail, starving, and lost to all sense of decency. But that was merely transitory. These people were different; they were born poor, and would be poor until their bones were laid in some miserable congested cemetery. He found them actually reconciled to it—unquestioningly accepting their fate and fighting to postpone the end for as long as possible. It sickened him.

Oh, Colorado! With your wide prairie and your eternal peaks, your carpeted valleys and your crystalline streams, your fragrant winds and your gift of God—good men!

He was sitting in the lounge of his hotel one evening, feeling more than usually homesick, when he noticed a beautiful woman sitting near him. Her evening dress was cut well away at 17 the shoulders, displaying a white neck around which a pearl necklace glowed in the light. A mass of auburn hair was coiled up neatly round her head, with a rebellious little curl streaming down one ear.

The curl fascinated Jim. He thought it ought to be put back in its proper place, but a second’s reflection revealed to him the fact that it was intended to trickle thus alluringly. It was there for effect. It enhanced her considerable charm. In the midst of his interested survey she turned and caught his eye. He began to study his boots with an embarrassed blush. When he ultimately stole another glance at this wealth of feminine beauty he found she was busily engaged in similar scrutiny—of himself. They both smiled. Then she stood up, languidly, and came across to him.

“Pardon me, but you are from the West, aren’t you?”

“Right first time.”

“Ah, I thought so. You Westerners can’t disguise yourselves. I love the West. I was born in Wyoming.” 18

Here at last was a sympathetic soul. Jim edged along a little. She sat down.

“You don’t like New York?” she queried.

“I don’t,” he replied emphatically. “It leaves me gasping for breath.”

She nodded.

“I felt like that when first I came down. I wish I were you to be going back again.”

Jim laughed.

“But I’m not going back.”

She opened her brilliant eyes and then laughed.

“I know. You’ve made a pile and are now seeing life. Is that it?”

“Something like that.”

“I knew it.”

Jim was getting his nerve back. It was the first time he had been in close proximity to a powdered back and rouged lips, and the sensation was curious. No man with blood in his veins could help admiring the soft lines of her neck and arms—and Jim had plenty of blood about him.

“Where’d you say you hailed from?” he queried.

“Rock Springs, Wyoming. D’you know it?” 19

“Know it? I should say! Wal, if that ain’t the pink limit!”

“We ran a ranch there,” she went on in a rich musical voice. “I wish I was there now, but there’s a spell about cities. You’ll find that out soon enough.”

“I ain’t seen much spell about this one,” retorted Jim. “Gee! I’ve never seen such a bunch of blank-mangy-looking men. The wimmen ain’t so bad.”

She laughed.

“Thank you!”

“And cyards! Suffering Moses! I seen a guy deal a straight flush to himself and no one savvied he’d got the pack sandpapered. Out in Medicine Bow he’d hev’ bin filled up with lead to his shoulder-blades. I guess this is a darn bad place.”

“You’re lovely!” she said merrily. “But when in Rome, do as Rome does. Do you go to dinner in that rig-out?”

Jim felt nervously at his throat.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing. It suits you admirably. But the hotel won’t like it.” 20

“See here,” he retorted, “I don’t give a tinker’s cuss what the hotel likes. Anyway, it’s decent, which is considerably more’n some of the dresses I’ve seen. There’s a gal with nothin’ more’n a bit of muslin she could fold up and put in her mouth. She’s got Mother Eve beaten to a frazzle.”

They gossiped for half an hour, and then Edith (he heard a friend call her by that name) left him and went to dinner. The next meeting happened on the following day. Edith’s company appealed to him. She certainly used a lot of “make-up,” and creams that smelt like a chemist’s shop; but all New York smelt vile to Jim, so he didn’t complain.

Taking his courage in both hands, he invited her to dine with him. She accepted with as much eagerness as maidenly modesty would permit, and Jim went off to lunch in the best hotel in town, to take careful note of the proper procedure of a gentleman “standing treat” to a lady. He got it off fairly well, making notes on a sheet of paper. Then he went to his room and rehearsed it all. He started dressing himself about five o’clock, and had nearly got his clothes 21 to his satisfaction by the appointed time—seven-thirty.

The dinner was a roaring success. Conversation was feeble because all his time was taken up in observing correct decorum. Edith sat and regarded him with curious eyes. She wondered, for good reasons, what the emotions of such a man might be. Behind those quiet, simple eyes of his there occasionally flashed something that made her afraid—dreadfully afraid. She had not wasted time that day. She knew this big, uncultured fellow was James Conlan, late of Topeka Mine—a millionaire.

Jim breathed a huge sigh of relief when they left the dining-hall and walked through the lounge into the wide balcony. He was standing looking out over the street when he noticed her totter and clutch a chair.

“What’s wrong?” he gasped.

“I—I feel faint. I——”

She closed her eyes. Here was a situation that had not been rehearsed by Jim. He wondered whether he ought to ring the fire alarm or call the police. Edith solved the problem.

“If—you will assist me—to the elevator——” 22

He had never thought of that. He grabbed her arm and helped her to the elevator. She still looked pale and distressed.

“Fourteenth floor. No. 633!” she murmured.

They left the elevator at the fourteenth floor. No sooner had the lift disappeared than Edith collapsed on the floor. He looked round for a friend in need, but the corridor was deserted. The door near at hand was