Page:McClure's Magazine v9 n3 to v10 no2.djvu/205

Rh now no distinguishing marks of Texas about him. He made diligent inquiries for his friend Billy Smith, and was disappointed when he could find no one who knew him. When he spoke to the hotel clerk about it, that alert young man, who he supposed knew everything, said at once he would find him if he was in New York, and he turned to the bulky directory of the city and looked up the Smiths, and, just as he predicted, he found several hundred of them; so he advised Tom that the only thing he could do was to call on each one of them and discover the real Billy Smith, a task, the clerk estimated, that would occupy Tom, if he gave it close attention, for about a year. The cowboy, with a sigh, gave up the attempt, and grew more and more lonely in the big city.

One day as he passed down Broadway a man accosted him:

"Hallo!" he said. "Is this you, John?"

"No," said Tom, "I'm not John; my name's Tom Stover."

"Well," said the other, with an air of disappointment, "I could have sworn that you were John Bloomingdale from Buggin's Corners, New York."

"No," answered Tom, with a regretful sigh, for he would have been only too glad to meet some one he knew. "I'm not from York State at all. The fact is that I come from the West. My name's Tom Stover, and I worked for five years on Chapman's ranch in Texas. Only came to New York the other day. Never been here before."

"Oh, I beg your pardon," said the man. "I took you for another fellow altogether. Good-by!"

"Good-by," said Tom, and he stood on the crowded edge of the pavement watching the retreating figure of the man who might perhaps have known him; but better luck was in store for him. He had hardly gone a hundred yards down the street when a stranger, looking keenly at him, placed his hands on Tom's shoulders.

"Thunder and lightning!" said the stranger, "if you're not Tom Stover, you're the dead image of him."

Tom's face lighted up.

"You're dead right," he said, "but how the deuce you come to know me now that I got my hair cut, I can't imagine."

"Know you?" cried the other, "why I'd know you anywhere, hair cut or no hair cut. Weren't you on Chapman's ranch in Texas something like five years ago?"

"You bet!" cried Tom, with keen delight. "Why, were you out there?"

"Certain," cried the man. "My name's Smithers. I don't suppose you recollect me. I was going through Texas to the gold fields. I'm a miner, I am, and don't know New York at all; only came here about a week ago."

"Same with me," cried Tom, smiting his big right hand down on the other's palm and shaking his arm vigorously. "Same with me. I've just come through from Texas. First time I've ever been in New York."

"Is that so?" cried Smithers. "Come on and let's have something to drink."

"You bet!" said Tom, taking him by the arm.

Smithers had a smooth-shaven face,