The Search

"Oh, mother fixed that all up. She sent the college a good fat check to establish a new scholarship or something."

"Lucky dog!" sighed his friend. "Now I'm just the other way. I never try to put anything over but I get caught, and nobody ever tried to cover up my tracks for me when I got gay!"

"You worry too much, Bobby, and you never take a chance. Now I----"

The front door of the car opened and shut with a slam, and a tall young fellow with a finely cut face and wearing workman's clothes entered. He gave one quick glance down the car as though he was searching for someone, and came on down the aisle. The sight of him stopped the boast on young Wainwright's tongue, and an angry flush grew, and rolled up from the top of his immaculate olive-drab collar to his close, military hair-cut.

Slowly, deliberately, John Cameron walked down the aisle of the car looking keenly from side to side, scanning each face alertly, until his eyes lighted on the two young officers. At Bob Wetherill he merely glanced knowingly, but he fixed his eyes on young Wainwright with a steady, amused, contemptuous gaze as he came toward him; a gaze so noticeable that it could not fail to arrest the attention of any who were looking; and he finished the affront with a lingering turn of his head as he passed by, and a slight accentuation of the amusement as he finally lifted his gaze and passed on out of the rear door of the car. Those who were sitting in the seats near the door might have heard the words: "And they killed such men as Lincoln!" muttered laughingly as the door slammed shut behind him.

Lieutenant Wainwright uttered a low oath of imprecation and flung his half spent cigarette on the floor angrily: "Did you see that, Bob?" he complained furiously, "If I don't get that fellow!"

"I certainly did! Are you going to stand for that? What's eating him, anyway? Has he got it in for you again? But he isn't a very easy fellow to get, you know. He has the reputation----"

"Oh, I know! Yes, I guess anyhow I know!"

"Oh, I see! Licked you, too, once, did he?" laughed Wetherill, "what had you been up to?"

"Oh, having some fun with his girl! At least I suppose she must have been his girl the way he carried on about it. He said he didn't know her, but of course that was all bluff. Then, too, I called his father a name he didn't like and he lit into me again. Good night! I thought that was the end of little Harry! I was sick for a week after he got through with me. He certainly is some brute. Of course, I didn't realize what I was up against at first or I'd have got the upper hand right away. I could have, you know! I've been trained! But I didn't want to hurt the fellow and get into the papers. You see, the circumstances were peculiar just then----"