“All right,” said Laramie. “I reckon I can stick it out. You tell the cook he can be cookin’ me a can o’ coffee, at same time.” He sapiently left his hat upon the stool, as sign, and wandered again, for that poignant urge of unlawful thirst nagged him. Presently the wail of a child penetrated through the echoes of the waiting-rooms; and like a knight errant seeking the source of distress he was tolled on until, quite ignorantly, he had invaded the women’s section. Always was soft toward kids, anyhow. This was an unhappy, protesting kid, asylumed in the lap of a plump young woman who, brightly if (to eyes other than Laramie’s) somewhat extravagantly appareled, in vain hushed it and rocked it. Gazing down, these he saw; and the woman, gazing up, saw him--a rough red head, breaking his seamed countenance into a quizzical smile. “That yore kid, ma’am?” asked Laramie. She answered, rather frightened, and clasping the child more closely: “My sister’s. Not mine--no!” A comely young woman, she, with round cheeks and sloe-black appealing eyes. Laramie’s heart fluttered responsively. “What’s the matter of him? Sick?” “Hungry, I guess.” “Why don’t you feed him?” “No mooney. Lost my mooney.” The plaintive foreign intonation was delicious. Laramie seized upon her helplessness. “Hey? Where you goin’?” “Denver. Don’t know now.” “Yore man out there?” “Got no man. My sister’s man send me mooney to bring baby. Now I lost my mooney. I teenk baby hungry. No breakfast.” “Gee!” Laramie commiserated. “How long you been here?” “Five hour. I not know what to do.” Her wondrous eyes swam. “Gosh!” quoth Laramie. “I’m yore man. You throw in with me. Gimme the kid. I’ve wrestled calves.” He took the child; he brazenly dragged her up; and to her alarmed expostulations forced her on-- Mr. Bunyan, picking his teeth, crossed the trail. “Oho, my man! Already at ‘work,’ are you? Didn’t look far, eh? Tut, tut! You can do better than that!” “You--get--out o’ my way!” Laramie growled, suffused with wrath at the indictment from this satisfied, plethoric slanderer who alleged to have caught him at something or other, to no credit. * * * * * Laramie proceeded. He swept his hat from the stool. “Set there, now.” The waitress was just bearing in the platter. “I got the chuck done already ordered. Here she comes. And say!” Laramie burst out. “If ’taint enough, you order more. Then you buy some sort o’ ticket. I haint but twenty-five dollars, odd; here ’tis.” He had fumbled in his hip pocket, and he plumped his buckskin sack into her unwilling lap. “No, no!” protested the young woman in perplexity. “Yes, yes,” rebuked Laramie. “Shucks! There’s plenty more where that come from. Fust you see it, and then you don’t.” He beat retreat, lest the incident be noticed. Now he was vastly relieved. Had had his fill of city life, anyhow. He strolled the length of the counter and paused to point.