It was unpleasant, but forward he went again to avoid the annoyance of

being carried by. He could tell as he came back, by the swing, that

they were heading the Peace River curves, for the trucks were hitting

the elevations like punching-bags. Just as he regained the main aisle

of the Lalla Rookh, a lurch of the car plumped him against a

section-head. He grasped it an instant to steady himself, and as he

stopped he looked. Whether it was that his eyes fell on the curtained

section swaying under the Pintsch light ahead--Section Eleven made

up--or whether his eyes were drawn to it, who can tell? A woman's head

was visible between the curtains. Glover stood perfectly still and

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stared. Without right or reason, there certainly stood a woman.

With nobody whatever having any business in the car, a car out of

service, carried as one carries a locked and empty satchel--yet the

curtains of Section Eleven, next his stateroom, were parted slightly,

and the half-light from above streamed on a woman's loose hair. She

was not looking toward where he stood; her face was turned from him,

and as she clasped the curtain she was looking into his stateroom.

What the deuce! thought Glover. A woman passenger in a dead sleeper?

He balanced himself to the dizzy wheel of the truck under him, and

waited for her to look his way--since she must be looking for the

porter--but the head did not move. The curtains swayed with the

jerking of the car, but the woman in Eleven looked intently into the

dark stateroom. What did it mean? Glover determined a shock.

"Tickets!" he exclaimed, sternly--and stood alone in the car.

"Tickets!" The head was gone; not alone that, strangely gone. How?

Glover could not have told. It was gone. The Pintsch burned dim;

the Teton song crooned through the ventilators; the wheels of the Lalla

Rookh struck muffled at the fish-plates; the curtains of Section Eleven

swung slowly in and out of the berth--but the head was not there.

A creepy feeling touched his back; his first impulse was to ignore the

incident, go into the stateroom and lie down. Then he thought he might

have alarmed the passenger in Eleven when he had first entered. Yet

there was, officially at least, no passenger in Eleven; plainly there

was nothing to do but to call the conductor. He went forward. O'Brien

was sorting his collections in the smoking-room of the next car. Raz

Brown, awake--nominally, at least--sat by, reading his dream-book.

"Is this the Lalla Rookh porter?" asked Glover. O'Brien nodded.




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