“Or till I got home,” said Allan, finishing the sentence for her. “Admit, Mamie, that you were sitting up for me!” “Yes, I was!” confessed the girl, raising her eyes for one swift glance at him. “Dad came home and told about that horrid man trying to kill you, and I—I just couldn’t stand it to go to bed without seeing you.” Allan took a quick turn up and down the room. That shy and timorous glance had moved him strangely, as did the faltering words which followed it. “Suppose he had killed you!” she added, with a little gasp of horror at the thought. “But he didn’t,” said Allan, coming back to her. “So what’s the use of supposing anything of the sort?” “Dad says he’ll be sure to try it again. Dad says—” “Dad says altogether too much,” broke in Allan. “Now, see here, Mamie, I’m not going to have you worried like this. Wait till I see your father!” “Oh, but I want him to tell me! If you’re in danger, I want to know it!” “But I’m not in any danger—as for that affair with Hummel, it happened so long ago that I’d nearly forgotten it.” “So long ago!” cried Mamie. “Why, it was only this evening!” “Well, so much has happened since. Mamie, I’m worried to death,” he added, with sudden weakness. “The queerest thing happened to-night you ever heard of.” “Tell me about it,” said Mamie, her face glowing with pleasure at this call for sympathy and help; and she patted the lounge invitingly. I fear there was some instinct of the coquette in Mamie, or she would not have done that! Some true womanly instinct, too, or she would not have so welcomed this chance to be of help. Allan sat down, his pulses not wholly steady, and told of the strange disappearance of the crew of the extra west, while Mamie listened spell-bound. “Well, if that doesn’t beat anything I ever heard!” she cried, when he had finished. “What do you suppose happened?” “I haven’t any idea. Only I’m sure the strikers must have had something to do with it. I’m going to take Stanley out to look the place over in the morning. Maybe we’ll discover something. Stanley is pretty shrewd, you know.” “But if the strikers had something to do with it,” Mamie protested, “maybe they will be there yet! And you will walk right into them!” “Well?” laughed Allan. “What if I do? Indeed, I hope I will!” “Oh, but think what they will do to you!” “They won’t do anything very bad! We’re not living in the Middle Ages, Mamie. I believe you think we’re going to find the bloody corpses of that train crew out there in a ditch, somewhere!” “But if they aren’t dead, where are they?” “Kidnapped. The strikers are taking that method of getting our men away from us.” Mamie thought it over a minute, and then shook her head. “Maybe you’re right,” she said, “but it seems to me that the strikers would be pretty foolish to do anything like that. Suppose they do take a crew, that won’t matter much, will it?” “No; not one crew; but suppose they keep on taking them?” Mamie stared at him with wide-open eyes.