IT was on the second evening after he had walked up-town with Harry Bromley that Reddick, the railroad passenger agent, squared himself at his desk in the Union Depot office to scowl discontentedly at a basket of freshly opened mail. Though the redheaded young man boasted that he was case-hardened and had no nerves, he had the quick sympathies of his temperament, and he had lately figured in a business episode the effect of which had been to leave him chafing and ashamed and ready to quarrel with his job. While he was absently fingering the letters in the “Unanswered” basket, the door was opened and Philip drifted in. “Loafing around down below, I saw your office lighted and thought I’d climb up and smoke a pipe,” was his greeting to Reddick. “If you are busy, go on with your job and don’t mind me. I shan’t talk.” The redheaded one tilted back in his pivot chair and frowned. “I can’t seem to get down to the job to-night, Phil. I’ve just been a party to something that makes me sick and disgusted with the railroad business and everything connected with it in this blasted, rotten-egg town!” “Turn it loose if you feel like it,” said the smoker. “I’m a good listener.” “It isn’t fit to talk about, but I’ll tell you and get it off my chest. You may not know it, but women--of a certain sort--are shipped into this over-manned town like so much freight--prepaid freight, at that. The landlady deposits the passage money with me, and has me wire our agent in New York, or wherever it happens to be, to deliver the ticket, check the woman’s trunk, and send the check to me by mail. In that way the woman lands in Denver in debt for her railroad fare, and with her clothes in hock to secure the debt. You can see how it works. It is slavery, pure and simple. Once in the toils, the poor girl never has a chance to get out, no matter how badly she may want to. She is shipped from place to place, and always in debt; is kept that way purposely.” Philip swore softly. “You’re telling me that the railroad companies accept that sort of blood money?” Reddick shrugged. “If you had worked in the traffic department instead of the accounting, you’d know that the railroad, like most corporations, doesn’t look for the finger-prints on the money it takes in. My orders are to get business. I got into this at first through playing square--through the boss-women finding out that I didn’t graft on them by overcharging--as nearly everybody else does; and now the dirty business chases me--hunts me up.” “You have had that kind of a job to-day?” Philip asked.