The cries were screams by this time,—loud, passionate screams, which indicated great strength of lungs, and roused up the drowsy passengers, who began, some of them, to grumble, while one suggested “pitching the brat out of the window.” With his face very red, and the perspiration starting out about his mouth, Roger arose, and tried, by walking up and down the aisle, to hush the little one into quiet. Once he thought of going into the next car in quest of the missing mother,—then, thinking to himself that she surely would return ere long, he abandoned the idea, and resumed his seat with the now quiet child. And so another hour went by, and they were nearly a hundred miles from the place where the woman had left him. Had Roger been older, a suspicion of foul play would have come to him long before this; but, the soul of honor himself, he believed in everybody else, and not a doubt crossed his mind that anything was wrong until the woman who had first spoken to him began to question him again, and ask if it was his sister he was caring for so kindly. Then the story came out, and Roger felt as if smothering, when the woman exclaimed, “Why, boy, the child has been deserted. It is left on your hands. The mother will never come to claim it.” For an instant the car and everything in it turned dark to poor Roger, who gasped, “You must be mistaken. She is in the next car, sure. Hold the baby, and I’ll find her.” There was a moment’s hesitancy on the part of the woman,—a fear lest she, too, might be duped; but another look at the boy’s frank, ingenuous face, reassured her. There was no evil in those clear, blue eyes which met hers so imploringly, and she took the child in her arms, while he went for the missing mother,—went through the adjoining car and the next,—peering anxiously into every face, but not finding the one he sought. Then he came back, and went through the rear car, but all in vain. The dark-faced woman with the glittering eyes and strange smile, was gone! The baby was deserted and left on Roger’s hands. He understood it perfectly, and the understanding seemed suddenly to add years of discretion and experience to him. Slowly he went back to the waiting woman, and without a word took the child from her, and letting his boyish face drop over it, he whispered, “Your mother has abandoned you, little one, but I will care for you.”