and I stepped out beside her. Behind us the track curved sharply;
the early sunshine threw the train, in long black shadow, over the
hot earth. Forward somewhere they were hammering. The girl said
nothing, but her profile was strained and anxious.

"I--if you have lost anything," I began, "I wish you would let me
try to help. Not that my own success is anything to boast of."

She hardly glanced at me. It was not flattering. "I have not been
robbed, if that is what you mean," she replied quietly. "I am
--perplexed. That is all."

There was nothing to say to that. I lifted my hat--the other
fellow's hat--and turned to go back to my car. Two or three members
of the train crew, including the conductor, were standing in the
shadow talking. And at that moment, from a farm-house near came the
swift clang of the breakfast bell, calling in the hands from barn
and pasture. I turned back to the girl.

"We may be here for an hour," I said, "and there is no buffet car
on. If I remember my youth, that bell means ham and eggs and
country butter and coffee. If you care to run the risk--"

"I am not hungry," she said, "but perhaps a cup of coffee--dear me,
I believe I am hungry," she finished. "Only--" She glanced back
of her.

"I can bring your companion," I suggested, without enthusiasm. But
the young woman shook her head.