seemed to be inextricably mixed up with hers, and when the time came for them to leave for Oklahoma, fairly showered them with gifts.

No sooner did word reach Betty that her uncle awaited her in the oil regions than Bob announced that he was going West, too. He had succeeded in getting trace of two sisters of his mother, and presumably they lived somewhere in the section where Betty’s uncle was stationed.

“I’ll never forget how lovely the Littells were to us,” thought Betty, a mist in her eyes blurring the sage brush. “Wasn’t Bob surprised when Mr. Littell gave him that camera? And Mrs. Littell must have known he didn’t have a nice bag, because she gave him that beauty all fitted with ebony toilet articles. And the girls clubbed together and gave each of us a signet ring—that was dear of them. I thought they had done everything for me friends could, keeping me there so long and entertaining me as though they had invited me as a special guest; so when Mr. and Mrs. Littell gave me that string of gold beads I was just about speechless. There never were such people! Heigho! Four months ago I was living in a little village, discontented because Uncle Dick wouldn’t take me with him. And now I’ve made lots of new friends, seen Washington, and am speeding toward the wild and woolly West. I guess it never pays to complain.”

With this philosophical conclusion, Betty pulled a letter from her pocket and fell to reading it. Bobby Littell had written a letter for each day of the journey and Betty had derived genuine pleasure from these gay notes so like the cheerful, sunny Roberta herself. This morning’s letter was taken up with school plans for the fall, and the writer expressed a wish that Betty might go with them to boarding school.

“Libbie thinks perhaps her mother will send her, and just think what fun we could have,” wrote Bobby, referring to the Vermont cousin.

Betty dismissed the school question lightly from her mind. She would certainly enjoy going to school with the Littell girls, and boarding school was one of her day-dreams, as it is of most girls her age. After she had seen her uncle and spent some time with him—he was very dear to her, was this Uncle Dick—she thought she might be ready to go back East and take up unceremoniously. But there was the subject of the probable cost—something that never bothered the Littell girls. Betty knew nothing of her uncle’s finances, beyond the fact that he had been very generous with her, sending her checks frequently and never stinting her by word or suggestion. Still, boarding school, especially a school selected by the Littells, would undoubtedly be expensive. Betty wisely decided to let the matter drop for the time being.

Sage brush and prairie was now left behind, and the train was rattling through a heavy forest. Betty was glad that the rather nippy breeze had apparently kept every one else indoors, or else the monotony of a long train journey. The platform continued to be deserted, and, wondering what delayed Bob, she took up the camera to try again for a picture of the receding track. She and Bob had used up perhaps half a dozen films on this one subject, and the gleaming point where the rails came together in the distance had an inexhaustible fascination for the girl.

“How it does blow!” she gasped. “I remember now when we stopped at that water-station Bob spoke of—I didn’t notice it at the time, I was so busy thinking, but the breeze didn’t die down with the motion of the train. I shouldn’t wonder if there was a strong wind to-day.”

As a matter of fact, there was a gale, but Betty, accustomed to the wind from the back platform of a train in motion, thought that it could be nothing unusual. To be sure, the branches of the tall trees were crashing about and the sky over the cleared space on each side of the tracks was gray and ominous (the sun had disappeared as Betty mused) but the girl, comfortable in sweater and small, close hat, paid slight attention to these signs.

“I can’t see what is keeping Bob,” she repeated, putting the camera down. “Maybe I’d better go back into the car. How those trees do swish about! I don’t believe if I shouted, I’d be heard above the noise of the wind and the train.”

This was an alluring thought, and Betty acted upon it, cautiously at first, and then, gaining confidence, more freely. It is exhilarating to contend with the rush of the wind, to pitch one’s voice against a torrent of sound, and Betty stood at the rail singing as loudly as she could, her tones lost completely in a grander chorus. Her cheeks crimsoned, and she fairly shouted, feeling to her finger tips the joy and excitement of the powerful forces with which she competed—those of old nature and man’s invention, the thing of smoke and fire and speed we call a train.

Suddenly the brakes went down, there was an uneasy screeching as they gripped the wheels, and the long train jarred to a standstill.

“How funny!” puzzled Betty. “There’s no station. We’re right out in the woods. Oh, I can hear the wind now—how it does howl!”

She picked up her belongings and made her way back to the car. As she passed through the coaches every one was asking the cause of the stop, and an immigrant woman caught hold of Betty as she went through a day coach.

“Is it wrong?” she asked nervously, and in halting English. “Must we get off here?”

“I don’t know what the matter is,” answered Betty, thankful that she was asked nothing more difficult. “But whatever happens, don’t get off; this isn’t a station, it is right in the woods. If you get off and lose some of your children, you’ll never get them together again and the train will go off and leave you. Don’t get off until the conductor tells you to.”

The woman sank back in her seat and called her children around her, evidently resolved to follow this advice to the last letter.

“She looks as if an earthquake wouldn’t blow her from her seat,” thought Betty, proceeding to her own car. “Well, at that, it’s safer for her than trying to find out what the matter is and not being able to find her way aboard again. I remember the conductor told Bob and me these poor immigrants have such trouble traveling. It must be awful to make your way in a strange country where you can not understand what people say to you.”

No Bob was to be seen when Betty reached her seat, but excited passengers were apparently trying to fall head-first from the car windows.

“I think we’ve run over some one,” announced a fussy little man with a monocle and a flower in his buttonhole.

With a warning toot of the whistle, the train began to move slowly forward. It went a few feet, apparently hit something solid, and stopped with a violent jar.

“Oh, my goodness!” wailed a woman who was clearly the wife of the fussy little man. “Won’t some one please go and find out what the matter is?”

Betty looked toward the car door and saw Bob pushing his way toward her.

CHAPTER III

WHAT BOB HEARD

When Bob entered the smoking-car he saw the two men he had pointed out to Betty seated near the door at the further end of the car. The boy wondered for the first time what he could do that would offer an excuse for his presence in the car, for of course he had never smoked. However, walking slowly down the aisle he saw several men deep in their newspapers and not even pretending to smoke. No one paid the slightest attention to him. Bob took the seat directly behind the two men in