Though the room was dark, and though Lucile was tired enough for sleep, her eyes did not close at once. She was thinking and her thoughts were not of the most cheerful sort.
The outlook, she was forced to admit, was gloomy enough. She had hoped to save enough money from her pay at the store to start her in the new term at school. This hope was fast dwindling away. Her own expenses had been greater than she had thought they would be. Added to this was the increase in her room rent due to the presence of Cordie. Her dream that Cordie was saving money had been blighted only the night before, for on that night Cordie had brought home the gorgeous dressing gown she had worn as they sat over the cocoa cups.
“And it must have cost her every penny she possessed,” groaned Lucile. “How extravagant! How—how——”
She wanted to say ungrateful, but could not quite do it. The girl appeared so impractical, so lovable, so irresponsible, that she could not find the heart to blame her.
Quickly she switched her thoughts to a more cheering subject—Laurie Seymour. He had proven such a jolly fellow-worker—so cheerful, so kind and helpful, so ever ready to bear the heavy burdens—that Lucile had all but forgotten the fact that he had given his pass-out to the Mystery Lady on that night when she had in such a surprising manner come into the possession of the valuable fur lined cape. Equally strange was the fact that she had come to think of the Mystery Lady in a new way. She found that she could no longer think of the lady as a thief.
“And yet,” she mused, “what could have been her reason for haunting our store at that hour of the night? Why should she have left the cape?”
The cape. Ah yes, there was vexation enough in that! Too precious to be worn to work, it had hung for days in Lucile’s closet while she had gone to work all too scantily clad in a sweater and broad scarf. She wished that she might have her own coat. Poor as it might be, it was at least her own and it was comfortable.
Next morning, having arrived at the door of the store a full fifteen minutes before the opening hour, the two girls were enjoying a few moments of window shopping before the gorgeous windows of State street. Suddenly, above the rattle of distant elevated trains and the honk of auto horns, Lucile caught clear and distinct the calling neigh of a horse.
Wheeling quickly about, she stared around her. True enough, there were still many horses on the streets of the city, but where before, in the din and rattle of the streets, had she caught that one clear call of a horse?
What she saw caused her to start and stare. Cordie was no longer at her side. Instead she was in imminent danger of being run down by a cab as she dashed madly across the street toward the spot where, like a statue in blue, a young policeman sat rigidly erect on his police horse.
The thing the girl did, once she had safely crossed the street, was even more surprising. Without the least glance at the young policeman, she threw both arms about the horse’s neck and hid her face in his mane.
Far from objecting to this unusual procedure, the horse appeared to rather enjoy it. As for the stern young minion of the law, he was so overcome by surprise that he did not alter his statue-like pose by so much as a movement of a finger.
Lucile flew across the street.
“Cordie! Cordie! What in the world are you doing?” she fairly screamed.
Paying not the least attention to this, Cordie repeated over and over: “Dick, you old darling. Dear old Dick. You knew me, Dick, you did! You did!”
This lasted for a full moment. Then, appearing to come to herself, the girl dropped her hands and stepped back upon the sidewalk.
One glance at the stern young officer, and a quite different emotion swept over her. Her face turned crimson as she stammered:
“Oh, what have I done? I—I beg—beg your pardon.”
“It’s all right,” grinned the young man, coming to life with a broad smile. “Friend of yours, I take it?”
“Yes—Oh yes,—a very, very good friend.”
“My name’s Patrick O’Hara,” there was a comradely tone now in the young officer’s voice. “He’s a friend of mine too, and a mighty good one. Shake.” Solemnly drawing off his gauntlet, he swung half way out of his saddle to grasp the girl’s hand.
“Thanks. Thanks awfully. Is this—this where you always stay? I—I’d like to see Dick real often.”
“This is my beat; from here to the next cross street and back again. I’m here every morning from seven to one. We—we—Dick, I mean, will be glad to see you.” The way he smiled as he looked at Cordie’s deep colored, dimpled cheeks, her frank blue eyes, her crinkly hair, said plainer than words: “Dick won’t be the only one who will be glad to see you.”
“Lucile,” implored Cordie, “I wish you’d do me a favor. I haven’t a lump of sugar for poor old Dick. I can’t leave him this way. I—I never have. Won’t you please talk to this—this policeman until I can go to the restaurant on the corner and get some?”
“It’s all right, Miss—Miss——”
“Cordie,” prompted the girl.
“It’s all right, Cordie,” Patrick O’Hara grinned, “I’ll not run away. Duty calls me, though. I must ride up a block and back again. I—I’ll make it snappy. Be back before you are.”
Touching Dick with his spurless heel and patting him gently on the neck, he went trotting away.
Five minutes later, the lump of sugar ceremony having been performed to the complete satisfaction of both Dick and Cordie, the girls hurried away to the scenes of their daily labors.
This little drama made a profound impression upon Lucile. For one thing, it convinced her that in spite of her expensive and stylish lingerie, Cordie was indeed a little country girl. “For,” Lucille told herself, “that horse, Dick, came from the country. All horses do. He’s been a pet of Cordie’s back there on the farm. His owner, perhaps her own father, has sold him to some city dealer. And because he is such a thorobred and such a fine up-standing beauty, he has been made a police horse. I don’t blame her for loving him. Anyone would. But it shows what a splendid, affectionate girl she is.
“I’m sort of glad,” she told herself a moment later, “that she’s gotten acquainted with that young officer, Patrick O’Hara. He seems such a nice sort of boy, and then you can never tell how soon you’re going to need a policeman as a friend; at least it seems so from what happened last night.”
She might have shuddered a little had she known how prophetic these thoughts were. As it was, she merely smiled as she recalled once more how her impetuous little companion had raced across the streets to throw her arms about the neck of a horse ridden by a strange policeman.
“I wonder,” she said finally, “I do wonder why Cordie does not confide in me? Oh well,” she sighed, “I can only wait. The time will come.”
Had she but known it, Cordie had reasons enough; the strangest sort of reasons, too.
It was in the forenoon of that same day that a rather surprising thing happened, a thing that doubled the mystery surrounding the attractive young salesman, Laurie.
Lucile was delivering a book to a customer. Laurie was waiting at the desk for change and at the same time whispering to Cordie, when of a sudden his eyes appeared ready to start from his head as he muttered:
“There’s Sam!”
The next instant, leaving wrapped package, change and customer, he disappeared as if the floor had dropped from beneath him.
“Where’s Laurie?” Cordie asked a moment later. “His customer’s waiting for her change.”
Though Lucile didn’t know where he was, she was quite sure he would not return, at least he would not until a certain short, broad-shouldered man, who carried a large brief case and stood talking to Rennie, had left the section. She felt very sure that Laurie wished to escape meeting this man.
“That man must be Sam,” Lucile thought to herself as she volunteered to complete Laurie’s sale. “Now I wonder what makes him so much afraid of that man!
“He looks like a detective,” she thought to herself as she got a better look at him. “No, he smiles too much for that. Must be a salesman trying to get Rennie to buy more books.”
The conversation she overheard tended to confirm this last.
“Make it a thousand,” he said with a smile.
“I won’t do it!” Rennie threw her hands up in mock horror.
“Oh! All right,” Sam smiled. “Anything you say.”
Having been called away by a rush of customers, Lucile had quite forgotten both Laurie and Sam when she came suddenly upon the large brief case which Sam had carried. It was lying on her table.
“Whose is that?” a voice said over her shoulder. “That’s Sam’s, confound him! He’s always leaving things about. Now he’ll have to come back for it and I’ll—”
“Who’s Sam?” Lucile asked.
She turned about to receive the answer. The answer did not come. For a second time that day Laurie had vanished.
“Two more shopping days before Christmas,” Lucile read these words in the paper on the following morning as she stepped into the elevator which was to take her to a day of strenuous labor. She read them and sighed. Then, of a sudden, she started and stared. The cause of this sudden change was the elevator girl.
“Why, Florence!” she exclaimed half incredulous. “You here?”
“Sure. Why not?” smiled the big, athletic looking girl who handled the elevator with skill.
“Well, I didn’t know—”
“Didn’t know I needed the money badly enough,” laughed Florence. “Well, I do. Seems that one is always running out of cash, especially when it comes near to Christmas. I was getting short, so I came down here and they gave me this job. Thought I could stand the rush I guess,” she smiled as she put one arm about her former chum in a bear-like embrace.
If you have read our other books, “The Cruise of the O’Moo” and “The Secret Mark,” you will remember that these two girls had been the best of chums. But a great University is a place of many changes. Their paths had crossed and then they had gone in diverging ways. Now they were more than pleased to find that, for a time, they were employed in the same store.
“Speaking of Christmas,” said Florence, “since I haven’t any grand Christmas surprises coming from other people, I’ve decided to buy myself a surprise.”
“How can you do that?” asked Lucile, a look of incredulity on her face.
“Why, you see——”
“Here’s my floor. See you later.” Lucile sprang from the elevator and was away.
“It’s nice to meet old friends,” the elevator girl thought to herself as she went speeding up the shaft, “especially when the holiday season is near. I must try to see more of Lucile.”
Running an elevator in a department store is a dull task. Little enough adventure in that, you might say, except when your cable begins to slip with a full load on board. But Florence was destined to come under the spell of mystery and to experience thrilling adventure before her short service as an elevator girl came to an end.
Mystery came leaping at her right out of the morning. She left her car in the basement and went for a drink. She was gone but a second. When she came back the elevator door was closed and the cage cables in motion.
“Gone!” she whispered. “I never heard of such a thing. Who could have taken it?
“Might have been the engineer taking it for a testing trip,” she thought after a few seconds of deliberation. “But no, that doesn’t seem probable. He’d not be down this early. But who could it be? And why did they do it?”
If the disappearance of her car had been startling, the thing she witnessed three minutes later was many times more so.
With fast beating heart she saw the shadow of the car move down from fifth floor to fourth, from fourth to third, then saw the car itself cover the remaining distance to the basement.
Her knees trembled with excitement and fear as she watched the cage in its final drop. The excitement was born of curiosity; the fear was that this should mean the last of her position. She had never been discharged and this gave her an unwonted dread of it.
The car came to a stop at the bottom. Three passengers got off and one got on, and the car shot upward again. And Florence did nothing but stand there and stare in astonishment!
Had she seen a ghost, a ghost of herself? What had happened? Her head was in a whirl. The girl at the lever was herself. Broad shoulders, large hands, round cheeks, blue eyes, brown hair, even to freckles that yielded not to winters indoors. It was her own self, to the life.
“And yet,” she reasoned, “here I am down here. What shall I do?”
As she faced the situation more calmly, she realized that the girl driving her car must be her double, her perfect double. She remembered reading somewhere that everyone in the world had a double. And here was hers. But why had her double made up her hair in her exact fashion, donned an elevator girl’s uniform and taken her elevator from her?
“That is what I must find out,” she told herself.
“There’s no use making a scene by jumping in and demanding my cage,” she reasoned, after a moment’s reflection. “I’ll just get on as a passenger and ride up with her.”
There was something of a thrill in this affair. She was beginning to enjoy it.
“It’s—why, it’s fairly mysterious,” she breathed.
In spite of all, she found herself anticipating the next move in the little drama. Driving an elevator was frightfully dull business. Going up and down, up and down; answering innumerable questions all day long about the location of silks, shoes, baby rattle, nutmeg graters, boxing gloves, garters and fly-swatters—this was a dull task that tended to put one to sleep. And often enough, after her noon luncheon, she actually had to fight off sleep. But here, at last, was a touch of mystery, romance and adventure.
“My double,” she breathed. “I’ll find out who she is and why she did this, or die in the attempt.”
Again the cage moved downward.
This time, as the last customer moved out of the door, she stepped in. Moving to the back of the car, she stood breathlessly waiting for the next move of her mysterious double.
The move did not come at once; in fact she had to wait there in the back of the car a surprisingly long time. The girl at the lever—her double—had poise, this was easy enough seen, and she had operated an elevator before, too. She brought the cage to its position at each floor with an exactness and precision that could but be admired.
The cage filled at the first floor. It began to empty at the third. By the time they had reached the eleventh, only two passengers, beside Florence, remained in the back of the car. Only employees went beyond the eleventh; the floors above were stock rooms.
The girl at the lever threw back a fleeting glance. Florence thought she was about to speak, but she did not.
The car went to the thirteenth landing. There two people got off and three got on. Florence remained. The car dropped from floor to floor until they were again in the basement. Once more the mysterious double gave Florence a fleeting glance. She did not speak. Florence did not move from her place in the corner. The car rose again. To Florence the situation was growing tense, unbearable.
Again the car emptied. At the eleventh floor Florence found herself in the car alone with her double. This gave her a strange, frightened feeling, but she resolutely held her place.
“Say!” exclaimed the girl, turning about as the car moved slowly upward. “Let me run your car, will you? Take my place, won’t you? You won’t have a thing to do. It—it’ll be a lark.” As she said all this in a whisper there was a tense eagerness on her face that Florence could not miss.
“But—but your car?” she managed to whisper back.
“Haven’t any. Don’t go on until to-morrow. Here’s my locker key. Get—get my coat and furs and hat out and wear them. Stay in the store—Book Section and Rest Room. All you have to do.
“Only,” she added as an afterthought, “if someone speaks to you, tells you something, you say, ‘Oh! All right.’ Just like that. And if they ask you what you said, you repeat. That’s all you’ll have to do.”
“Oh, but I can’t—”
“It isn’t anything bad,” the other girl put in hastily. There was a sort of desperate eagerness about the tense lines of her face. They were nearing the thirteenth floor. “Not a thing that’s bad—nor—nor anything you wouldn’t gladly do yourself. I—I’ll explain some time. On—only do it, will you?”
They had reached the thirteenth floor. She pressed the key in Florence’s reluctant hand.
A tall man, with an arm load of socks in bundles, got on the car. He looked at Florence. He looked at her double. Then he stared at both of them. After that his large mouth spread apart in a broad grin as he chuckled:
“Pretty good. Eh?”
Three minutes later Florence found herself in a kind of daze, standing at the tenth floor landing, staring down at her steadily dropping car.
“Oh, well,” she whispered, shaking herself out of her daze, “sort of a lark, I suppose. No harm in it. Might as well have a half day off.” With that she turned and walked toward the locker room.
The coat and hat she took from the mysterious one’s locker were very plain and somewhat worn, not as good as her own. But the fur throw was a thing to marvel at; a crossed fox, the real thing, no dyed imitation, and so richly marked with gray that it might easily be taken for a silver gray.
“Some strange little combination,” she breathed as she threw the fur about her neck and started once more for the elevator.
As a proof of the fact that she was carrying out her share of the compact, she waited for her own elevator. The strange girl shot her a quick smile as she entered and another as she got off on the third floor where was the rest room and book section.
“Seems terribly queer to be walking around in another girl’s clothes,” she whispered to herself as she drifted aimlessly past rows of people resting in leather cushioned chairs. “Especially when that other girl is someone you’ve spoken to but once in your life. I wonder—I do wonder why I did it?”
She meditated on this question until she had reached the book section.
“It was the look in her eyes; an eager, haunted look. She’s all right, I’d swear to that, and she’s in some sort of trouble that’s not all her own fault. Trouble,” she mused. “Part of our reason for being here in the world is that we may help others out of trouble. I—I guess I’m glad I did it.”
Of this last she could not be sure. She had sometimes been mistaken, had bestowed confidence and assistance on persons who were unworthy. Should this girl prove to be such a person, then she might be helping her to get away with some unlawful act. And she might lose her position, too.
“Oh well,” she sighed at last, “it’s done. I’ll lose my memory of it here among the books.” To one who is possessed of a real love for books, it is a simple task to forget all else in a room where there are thousands of them. So completely did Florence forget that she soon lost all consciousness of the role she was playing, and when a rough looking man with a seafaring roll to his walk came marching toward her she could do nothing but stare at him. And when he said, “Howdy Meg,” she only stared the harder.
“The train leaves at eleven thirty,” he said, twisting his well worn cap in his nervous fingers.
“The—the—” she hesitated. Then of a sudden the words of the girl came back to her.
“Oh! All right,” she said in as steady a tone as she could command.
“What say?” asked the man.
“I said ‘Oh, all right.’”
“Right it is, then,” he said and, turning about, disappeared behind a pile of books.
With her head in a whirl, the girl stood and stared after him.
“The train leaves at eleven thirty,” she whispered. It was a few minutes past ten now. Should she go and tell the girl? She had not been instructed in this regard. What sort of an affair was this she was getting into, anyway? Was this girl hiding from her people, attempting to run away? The man had looked rough enough, but he had looked honest, too.
She had wandered about the place in uncertainty for another half hour. Then a kindly faced women, in a sort of uniform and a strange hat with gold lettered “Seaman’s Rest” on its band, accosted her.
“Why, Meg!” she exclaimed. “You still here? The train leaves at eleven-thirty.”
There it was again. This time she did not forget.
“Oh! All right!” she exclaimed and turning hurried away as if to make a train.
An hour later, still very much puzzled and not a little worried, she returned to the locker room, took off the borrowed clothes, gave the wonderful fox fur a loving pat, deposited it with the coat and hat, then locked the door.
After that she went to her own locker, put on her wraps preparatory to going to lunch, then walked over to the elevator.
A moment’s wait brought her car to her. The other girl was still operating skillfully. Florence pressed the locker key into the girl’s hand and stepped to the back of the car. Five minutes later she found herself in the crisp air of a midwinter day.
“And to think,” she whispered to herself, “that I’d do that for a total stranger.”
As she ate her lunch a resolve, one of the strongest she had ever made, formed itself in her mind. She would become acquainted with her mysterious double and would learn her secret.
“The train leaves at eleven-thirty,” she mused. “Well, wherever it might have been going, it’s gone.” She glanced at the clock which read twelve-fifteen.
And then, of a sudden, all thought of the other girl and her affairs was blotted out by a resolve she had made that very morning. This was Friday. Day after to-morrow was Christmas. She wanted a surprise on Christmas. She had started to tell Lucile about it that morning, but while just in the middle of the story the elevator had reached the Book Department and Lucile had hurried away. Soon after came the strange experience of meeting her double and Florence had quite forgotten all about it until this very minute.
“Have to provide my own surprise,” she said to herself, while thinking it through. “But how am I to surprise myself?”
This had taken a great deal of thinking, but in the end she hit upon the very thing. Her old travelling bag had gone completely to pieces on her last trip. Her father had sent her fifteen dollars for the purchase of a new one. She had the money still. She would buy a travelling bag with a surprise in it.
Only a few days before, a friend had told her how this might be done. Every great hotel has in its store room a great deal of baggage which no one claims; such as hat boxes, trunks, bags and bundles. Someone leaves his baggage as security for a bill. He does not return. Someone leaves his trunk in storage. He too disappears. Someone dies. In time all this baggage is sold at an auctioneer’s place to the highest bidders. They have all been sealed when placed in the store room, and here they are, trunks, bundles and bags, all to be sold with “contents if any.”
“With contents if any.” Florence had read that sentence over many times as she finished scanning the notice of an auction that was to be held that very afternoon and night.
“With contents if any,” that was where her surprise was to come in. She would pick out a good bag that had a woman’s name on it, or one that at least looked as if a woman had owned it, and she would bid it in. Then the bag would be hers, and the “contents if any.” She thrilled at the thought. Her friend had told of diamond rings, of gold watches, of a string of pearls, of silks and satins and silver jewel boxes that had come from these mysterious sealed bags and trunks.
“Of course,” Florence assured herself, “there won’t be anything like that in my bag, but anyway there’ll be a surprise. What fun it will be, on my birthday, to turn the key to the bag and to peep inside.
“I know the afternoon is going to drag terribly. I do wish I could go now,” she sighed, “but I can’t. I do hope they don’t sell all the nice bags before I get there.”
With this she rose from the table, paid her check and went back to her elevator, still wondering about her mysterious double and still dreaming of her birthday surprise.
Twice a day, after Cordie had discovered him, the police horse, Dick, had a lump of sugar—one in the morning and another at noon. And Mounted Officer Patrick O’Hara, very young, quite handsome and somewhat dashing, received a smile with each lump of sugar. It would have been hard to tell which enjoyed his portion the most, Dick or Patrick O’Hara.
Apparently nothing could have pleased Cordie more than this discovery of an old friend. Yes, there was one other thing that would have pleased her much more. She found herself longing for it more and more. Every time she saw the horse she secretly yearned for this privilege.
And then, quite surprisingly, the opportunity came. It was noon. Having come out from the store to give Dick his daily portion, she was surprised to find him standing alone, head down, and patiently waiting. A glance down the street told her there had been an auto collision in the middle of the block; not a serious one probably, as the cars did not seem badly smashed, but of course Patrick O’Hara had gone over there to take down the numbers. Since traffic had been jammed, he had dismounted and walked.
“Wha—what a chance,” Cordie breathed, her heart skipping a beat. “Do I dare?”
She looked up at the splendid saddle with its broad circle of brass and other trappings. She studied Dick’s smooth, sleek sides.
“I know I shouldn’t,” she whispered, “but I do so want to. Dick, do you suppose he’d care?”
The temptation was growing stronger. Glancing down the street, she caught a glimpse of Patrick O’Hara’s cap above the crowd. His back was turned. The temptation was no longer to be resisted. With a touch and a spring, light as air, Cordie leaped into the saddle.
“Just for old times,” she whispered.
She had meant to hover there for an instant, then to leap right down again. But alas for the best laid plans. Old Dick had apparently remembered things about the past which she had quite forgotten, and with a wild snort his head went up, his four feet came together, and with a leap that completely cleared him from the autos that blocked his way, he went tearing down the street.
For a second the girl’s head was in a whirl. So unexpected was this mad dash that she was all but thrown from the saddle. Apparently an experienced rider, she regained her balance, clung to the pommel of the saddle for an instant, then gripping the reins, she screamed:
“Whoa, Dick! Whoa! Whoa!”
Had her scream been “Go Dick! Go!” it would not have had a different effect. He simply redoubled his speed.
Then it was that the State Street throng of shoppers viewed a performance that was not on the program and one they would not soon forget—a hatless, coatless girl, hair flying, cheeks aflame, dashing madly down the street astride a sturdy police horse.
Some laughed, some cheered, others gasped in astonishment and fright. A corner policeman leaped for the reins, but missed. Panic spread through the cross streets. It was a bad morning for jay-walkers. Having failed to see the on-coming charger, they would leap boldly before a slow-moving auto to give one startled look upward, then to register the blankest surprise and shy suddenly backward. Had it not been such a serious business, Cordie would have laughed at the expressions on their faces; but this was no laughing matter. To all appearances she had stolen a policeman’s horse, and that in broad daylight.
Suddenly a second police horse swung out into the street.
“Stop! Stop! I arrest you!” shouted the rider.
“That’s easy said,” the girl murmured in an agony of fear lest Dick should trample someone under his feet. “It’s easy said. I wish you would.”
Evidently Dick did not agree with these sentiments, for the instant he sensed this rival his head went higher, a great snort escaped his nostrils and he was away with a fresh burst of speed which left the surprised officer three lengths behind.
“Oh! Oh! What shall I do!” groaned the girl.
The more she tugged at the reins the faster flew Dick’s splendid limbs. He had the bit between his teeth.
Suddenly, as if aggravated by the crowds that threatened to block his way, he whirled to a side street and went dashing toward the Boulevard.
“The Boulevard! Oh, the Boulevard! We will be killed!”
Before them lay the Boulevard where autos, thick as bees in clover, raced forward at twenty miles an hour. What chance could there be of escape?
Trust a horse. While pedestrians stared and screamed in terror, while policemen vainly blew whistles and auto drivers set brakes screaming, Dick, without slackening his pace, raced ahead of a yellow limousine, grazed a black sedan, sent a flivver to the curb, and with one magnificent leap cleared the sidewalk and the low chain at its edge, landing squarely upon the soft, yielding turf of the park.
“Ah, that’s better,” he all but seemed to say. Then, heading south along the narrow park that extended straight away for a mile, he continued his mad career.
Cordie, risking one backward look, gasped in consternation and fear.
“Dick, Dick, you old villain! You’ve got me in for life! Never, never again!”
Three policemen, each mounted on his steed, came dashing after her in mad pursuit.
A straight, broad course lay before them; a pretty enough course to tempt anyone. Seeming to gain new strength from the very touch of it, Dick gripped his bit and fairly flew.
And Cordie, in spite of her predicament, regardless of impending arrest, was actually getting a thrill out of it. For one thing, there were now no pedestrians to be run down. The park was deserted. For another thing, ahead of Dick lay a clear stretch of turf which she hoped would satisfy his lust for speed.
Finding herself in a more cheerful frame of mind, Cordie took to studying her pursuers. That they were of different ages she guessed more by the way they rode than by a clear view of their faces; Dick had left them too far behind for that. The foremost rider was a man of thirty-five or so, a stern minion of the law, and he was plainly angry. It had been he who had informed her on State Street that she was arrested. He had an unusually long nose—she remembered that. He rode a poor mount very badly indeed. The punishment he was getting, as he jounced up and down in the saddle, he would doubtless attempt to pass on to her and to Dick. She ardently wished that he might never catch up, but realized at the same time that it could not well be avoided. The race must come to a close.
The other policemen were different. One was heavy and well past middle age; the other young, perhaps no older than Patrick O’Hara. They rode with the easy grace of an aged and a young cowboy. She had seen some like that in the movies not so long ago. She fancied she saw a smile on the younger man’s face. Perhaps he was enjoying the race. She sincerely hoped he might be, and the older man, too. As for the one of the long nose—not a chance.
All things have an end. Dick’s race did. Having come close to an iron fence, beyond which towered a brick structure, he appeared to assume that he had reached the goal. Dropping to a slow trot, he circled gracefully to the right, and as he came to a standstill he threw his head high as much as to say:
“We won, didn’t we; and by a handsome margin!”
“Yes, you old goose,” the girl breathed. “And now, instead of a blue ribbon for you and a purse for me, we get an invite to some dirty old police court.”
There was no time for further thought. The foremost policeman, he of the long nose, rode up and snatching at the reins, snarled:
“Suppose you call that smart, you—you flapper!”
Staring angrily at the girl, he gave Dick’s rein such a yank as threw the magnificent horse on his haunches.
Instantly Cordie’s eyes flashed fire. They might take her to jail and welcome; but abuse Dick he might not!
Dick, however, proved quite equal to caring for himself. With a snort he leaped to one side, and jerking his rein from the policeman’s grasp, went dashing away.
So sudden was this turn that Cordie, caught unawares, was thrown crashing to the ground. The officer wheeled and rode after the horse.
It was the older man, the one with gray about his temples, who, quickly dismounting, helped the girl to her feet.
“Are you hurt?” he asked in a tone that had a fatherly touch in it.
That did the trick for Cordie. All her anger was gone. She was not injured, but tears came trickling out from beneath her eyelids as she half sobbed:
“I—I’m sorry. Truly I am. I didn’t, didn’t mean to. Truly—truly I didn’t! I—I used to ride him in races, on—on the farm. And I thought—thought it would be fun to just sit—sit a minute in his saddle. I tried it and I guess—guess he thought it was to be another race. Anyway, he—he bolted with me and I couldn’t stop him. Truly, truly I couldn’t!”
“That’s all right, Miss,” said the elderly one, putting a fatherly hand on her shoulder. “It may not be so bad, after all.”
The younger policeman had also dismounted and now stood smiling at them and appearing to wish he might take the place of his older friend.
“That is Pat O’Hara’s horse,” he said at last. “He’s the smartest mount on the force. And I’ll tell you one thing, if we wait for Hogan to catch him we’ll be here until to-morrow morning.”
Hogan, the irate policeman, was certainly having his troubles catching Dick. With the skill and mischief of a trained performer, Dick was playing tag with him in a masterly fashion. He would stand with head down as if asleep until his pursuer was all but upon him; then with a snort he would dash away. No amount of coaxing, cajoling or cursing could bring him any nearer to capture.
This little play went on for several minutes. Then, at a time when Dick had circled quite close to her, Cordie suddenly put two fingers to her lips and let out a shrill whistle. Instantly the splendid horse pricked up his ears and came trotting toward her.
“Good old Dick,” she whispered, patting him on the neck and not so much as putting out a hand for his rein.
“Well I’ll be—” mumbled the younger policeman.
“There’s lots like ’em, both horses and girls,” the old man smiled, “and I’ll swear there’s not more bad in the girl than the horse.”
“No, now Hogan,” he held up a warning hand to the one who came riding up. “You leave this to me. Where’s O’Hara’s stand?”
“State and Madison,” volunteered the younger man.
“Good, we’re off. You men can ride back to your posts. I’ll tend to this matter myself.”
The younger man grinned. Hogan growled; then they rode away.
“You better mount and ride back,” suggested the older man to Cordie.
Seeing her hesitate, he reached for her rein, “I’ll steady him a bit, but he’s had his race. Guess he’ll be satisfied. But,” he said suddenly, “you’re not dressed for this. You must be half frozen.”
Unstrapping a great coat from Patrick O’Hara’s saddle, he helped her into it and together they rode away.
And so it happened that on this day, only a few days before Christmas, the throngs along State Street viewed a second unusual sight. Though quite different from the first, it was no less mystifying. Who ever heard of a gray haired policeman and a bobbed haired girl in a policeman’s great coat, riding police horses and parading up the city’s most congested street in broad daylight?
“What a fool I’ve been,” the girl whispered to herself as she hid her face from a camera. “It will all be in the papers. And then what?”
They found young Patrick O’Hara nervously pacing his beat on foot. His face lit up with a broad grin as he saw them approaching.
“I sort of figured,” he drawled, “that whoever took Dick would bring him back. Can’t anybody do a good job of riding him except me.”
“If you think that,” exclaimed Tim Reilly, the elderly policeman, “you just take any horse on the force, give this girl and Dick a three-length start, and see if you’d catch ’em. You would—not! Not in a thousand moons!”
Patrick O’Hara grinned as he helped the girl down.
“Now you beat it,” said Tim in as stern a voice as he could command. “I suspect you work around here somewhere close. You’ve overdone your noon hour, and this the rush season. You’ll be in for it now.”
Cordie threw him one uncertain glance to discover whether or not he was in earnest. The next moment she went racing across the street.
“Where in the world have you been?” Lucile exclaimed, pouncing upon Cordie as soon as she came in sight. “Rennie’s been worrying her poor old head off about you, and Miss Mones, who’s in charge of the checking girls, is furious.”
“Oh,” Cordie drawled, “I was out to lunch. Then I took a spin down the park on my favorite steed. It’s a won-der-ful day outside.”
“You’ll have a lot of time to spend outside,” scolded Lucile, “if you don’t get right back to your stand.”
A moment later, having somehow made her peace with Miss Mones, Cordie was back at her task, rustling paper and snipping cord.