One man--whom she had noticed the evening before--was adjusting a wig behind the curtain of his section. He looked when he was completely dressed rather a well-preserved person; and Helen was impressed with the thought that he must still feel young to wish to appear so juvenile. Even with his wig adjusted--a very curly brown affair--the man looked, however, to be upward of sixty. There were many fine wrinkles about his eyes and deep lines graven in his cheeks. His section was just behind that of the girl from Sunset Ranch, on the other side of the car. After returning from the breakfast table this first morning Helen thought she would better take a little more money out of the wallet to put in her purse for emergencies on the train. So she opened the locked bag and dragged out the well-stuffed wallet from underneath her other possessions. The roll of yellow-backed notes _was_ a large one. Helen, lacking more interesting occupation, unfolded the crisp banknotes and counted them to make sure of her balance. As she sat in her seat she thought nobody could observe her. Then she withdrew what she thought she might need, and put the remainder of the money back into the old wallet, snapped the strong elastic about it, and slid it down to the bottom of the bag again. The key of the bag she carried on the chain with her locket, which locket contained the miniatures of her mother and father. Key and locket she hid in the bosom of her dress. She looked up suddenly. There was the fatherly-looking old person almost bending over her chair back. For an instant the girl was very much startled. The old man's eyes were wonderfully keen and twinkling, and there was an expression in them which Helen at first did not understand. "If you have finished with that magazine, my dear, I'll exchange it for one of mine," said the old gentleman coolly. "What! did I frighten you?" "Not exactly, sir," returned Helen, watching him curiously. "But I _was_ startled." "Beg pardon. You do not look like a young person who would be easily frightened," he said, laughing. "You are traveling alone?" "Yes, sir." "Far?" "To New York, sir," said Helen. "Ah! a long way for a girl to go by herself--even a self-possessed one like you," said the fatherly old fellow. "I hope you have friends to meet you there?" "Relatives." "You have never been there, I take it?" "I have never been farther east than Denver before," she replied. "Indeed! And so you have not met the relatives you are going to?" he suggested, shrewdly. "You are right, sir." "But, of course, they will not fail to meet you?" "I telegraphed to them. I expect to get a reply somewhere on the way." "Then you are well provided for," said the old gentleman, kindly. "Yet, if you should need any assistance--of any kind--do not fail to call upon me. I am going through to New York, too."