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104 "A loose-jointed ventilator slide bar I found on top of the coach."

"And, if I may ask, what was you ever doing perched up there?"

"Well, if you must know, I was waiting for the train to start out. In fact," confessed the speaker in a low, constrained tone, "beating my way, stealing a ride."

"Whereto?" asked Frank.

"Oh—anywhere, anywhere away from the city."

The boy said this in such a forlorn way that Frank felt there was some pathetic cause for the despair expressed.

"You ran away from the policeman, too," suggested Frank.

"Yes, he wouldn't have much use for my kind," observed the boy.

Frank was silent for a moment, Intensely studying as far as the dim light would allow the figure and face of his companion.

"What's your name?" he asked suddenly.

"My name—oh," sort of stammered the boy, "why, it's Markham."

"Well, Markham," said Frank very kindly, placing a gentle hand on the lad's arm, "you and I should be good friends. Don't edge away from