As he turned around to get a glimpse of the miner, Jack got a look at the face of the passenger who had shown such curiosity. The boy started. "Where have I seen him before?" he thought to himself. "I can't seem to place him." Then he leaned over and whispered to Nat. "Make an excuse to go to the end of the car, and on your way back take a look at the man in the first seat." "All right," said Nat, who did not ask the reason. A little later he sauntered to the water cooler. He could hardly repress a start as he passed the man Jack had mentioned. "Know him?" asked Jack, when his chum had regained his seat. "Sure, in spite of his disguise, his new way of wearing his hair, and the fact that he has shaved off his moustache." "Marinello Booghoobally?" asked Jack, in low tones. "Otherwise known as Hemp Smith," whispered Jack. "I wonder what he's up to now." "I shouldn't be surprised if he would like to annex the roll of one Mr. Josh Post," observed Nat. "We'd better keep our eyes pealed. Put John next to the game." Thereupon the Indian student was told the story of the man who had posed as an Oriental mystic and a professor of whatever he thought he could delude people into believing, as it suited his fancy, and netted him cash. "We certainly got the best of him in the haunted house affair," said Jack. "Guess the professor won't tackle another job like that in hurry," and he silently laughed as he thought of the trick (told of in the first volume) the students played on the fakir when a phonograph was used to produce ghostly noises. "Yes, sir, I'm out for a good time," said Mr. Post, as if some one had doubted his word. "Where you boys going?" "Out west," replied Jack, thinking it would do no harm to reply civilly to Mr. Post. "Excuse me for coming into this conversation," spoke Marinello Booghoobally, otherwise Hemp Smith. "I'm going out west myself, and if I can do anything to help you boys or you, Mr. Post, I'll be only too glad to do so." "Help yourself to our money and his too, I guess," murmured Jack. "Well now, that's kind of you, stranger," said Mr. Post, who seemed ready to accept any one as a friend. "What might your name be?" "It might be almost anything I guess," muttered Nat. "Let's hear what he says. I wonder how he got here, anyhow." "I'm Professor Punjab," replied Hemp Smith. "As you can understand by my name I am from East India, but I have been here so long I have acquired some of the habits." "Most of the bad ones," said Jack, under his breath. "What do you work at?" asked Mr. Post. "Work? I do not work," replied the fakir. "I am what you might call a mind reader, a mystic, a foreteller of future events." "Ain't no mesmerizer, are you?" asked Mr. Post. "Yes, I can do that also," replied Professor Punjab. "Shall I give you a sample?" "I'd rather have you give me a sample of your fortune telling," said the miner. "What's going to happen now?"