The policeman walked up to the Runt and caught him roughly by the arm. "Move along outa here. I'd ought to pinch you, but I'm not gonna do it this time. See? You beat it!" Durand turned to one of his followers. "Tail that fellow. Find out where he's stayin' and report." Helplessly Johnnie went staggering down the street. He did not understand why he had been treated so. His outraged soul protested at such injustice, but the instinct of self-preservation carried him out of the danger zone without argument about it. Even as he wobbled away he was looking with unwavering faith to his friend to right his wrongs. Clay would fix this fellow Durand for what he had done to him. Before Clay got through with him the bully would wish he had never lifted a hand to him. CHAPTER XVI A FACE IN THE NIGHT Clay did his best under the handicap of a lack of _entente_ between him and the authorities to search New York for Kitty. He used the personal columns of the newspapers. He got in touch with taxicab drivers, ticket-sellers, postmen, and station guards. So far as possible he even employed the police through the medium of Johnnie. The East Side water-front and the cheap lodging-houses of that part of the city he combed with especial care. All the time he knew that in such a maze as Manhattan it would be a miracle if he found her. But miracles are made possible by miracle-workers. The Westerner was a sixty-horse-power dynamo of energy. He felt responsible for Kitty and he gave himself with single-minded devotion to the job of discovering her. His rides and walks with Beatrice were rare events now because he was so keen on the business of looking for his Colorado protegee. He gave them up reluctantly. Every time they went out together into the open Miss Whitford became more discontented with the hothouse existence she was living. He felt there was just a chance that if he were constant enough, he might sweep her off her feet into that deeper current of life that lay beyond the social shallows. But he had to sacrifice this chance. He was not going to let Kitty's young soul be ship-wrecked if he could help it, and he had an intuition that she was not wise enough nor strong enough to keep off the rocks alone. A part of his distress lay in the coolness of his imperious young friend who lived on the Drive. Beatrice resented his divided allegiance, though her own was very much in that condition. Clay and she had from the first been good comrades. No man had ever so deeply responded to her need of friendship. All sorts of things he understood without explanations. A day with him was one that brought the deep content of happiness. That, no doubt, she explained to herself, was because he was such a contrast to the men of cramped lives she knew. He was a splendid tonic, but of course one did not take tonics except occasionally.