"And running slap into a blizzard," added Bobby.

Thorne glanced out of the window. Snow was beating against the panes in a white whirlwind that hid everything from sight. The train ran laboriously over the drifted rails, staggering at intervals like a ship in a storm, at other times grinding at a snail's pace over the up-grades.

"We have n't got into the worst of it, either," averred Bobby's companion. "The storm is coming this way, and everything ahead of us must be stalled."

As Buck made his bets, his mind busied itself with the problem of Shifty Bellews, which seemed to be oddly involved in the more interesting problem of Buck Thorne.

The chaplain had said, "Help some one," and he had promised that he would. Buck's creed, as gathered from the chaplain, contained only two tenets: "Be on the level," and "help some one."

Now "help some one," for obvious reasons, could not be interpreted to mean help Shifty Bellews. Just as obviously it must mean the girl with whom Shifty had eloped.

Buck reviewed the situation rapidly. Shifty himself was of minor importance, but behind him loomed the formidable proportions of the "Buckley Gang." Jim. Buckley, its leader, was a cousin of Shifty's, and the gang had political affiliations that could make them extremely unpleasant to any one in Buck's position. So Shifty was safe from any direct attack. He was up against a tough game, Buck decided. He picked up his cards despondently. The tall collegian had dealt him a straight flush.

. Diamonds were Buck's lucky suit, and this was a diamond flush. He leaned back in his seat, confident, with the superstition. of the born gambler, that the solution of his troubles would come while the hand was being played; as, indeed, it did..

The man with the pink waistcoat drifted into a discussion with his companion regarding the name of the next station. Time-tables were drawn out and examined, and names of stations mentioned; and Buck Thorne, hearing a certain name, knew that his luck held good.

The discussion ended, the men closed their time-tables. In the brief interval before the game was resumed Buck elaborated his plan.

untouched cards away from him. "Now listen, boys," said he. "I can keep right on winning from you-winning on the level, understand-until the cows come home. Your game is a fair amateur game, but I-" he hesitated a moment; the situation was unpleasant-"I am a professional."

"You held most of your big hands on our deals," said the tall man, quietly. "I am satisfied with the play."

The man in the pink waistcoat nodded. Then with a shrewdly reminiscent glance he picked up a morning paper and held it

out.

"Nice picture," he said laconically. Buck glanced at the scare head-lines that surmounted his picture, and his pulses began to beat fast. He was coming back to his own again, he thought triumphantly -back to the big game of life. He nodded to the young man. "And that fellow with the girl is Shifty Bellews, a little piker who served a term beside me."

"Look out there!" cried Buck Thorne, sharply, as the two men started to their feet. 'He belongs to that Buckley Gang." Neither of the two had heard of the Buckley Gang, but there was such significance in Buck's tones that they involuntarily paused. "Sit down," he added quietly. "I have a plan."

The unfolding of Buck's project struck. two promising sociologists dumb. "There's one weak spot in it, of course," warned its author, modestly. "We may miss the 'phone connection. If we do-" he hesitated a moment; then the light of battle kindled his blue eyes-"if we do miss it, we 'll have to risk the gang, that 's all."

The three men sauntered out of the car, each intent upon the separate task Buck's plan assigned to him. Bobby's curiosity momentarily overcame him. "You don't act like a man who would run a brace game," he suggested.

"I don't run them," said the gambler, shortly. "I promised Irving, the chaplain, up yonder, to make my living honestly, and I don't intend to run them."

The spirit of sociological investigation prompted Bobby to ask another question. "What will you do, then?"

"Gamble fair. See?"
"I see," said Bobby.

The long, crowded car was humming with voices as Buck Thorne entered. Men with connections to make were glaring at time-tables, and calculating the possibilities of making up lost minutes; children were peering through blurred windowpanes; and half-way down the car sat Shifty Bellews, talking earnestly to a fairhaired girl who sat beside him.

Buck Thorne walked slowly up the aisle. Shifty was not facing him, so it was necessary to walk to the end of the car, passing him from behind. At the far end of the car the gambler swung about and began to saunter down the aisle again, peering into the faces of passengers as he passed, as though in search of some one. He made the examination so smilingly and so deliberately that presently half the car was watching him. When he reached the middle of the car Shifty Bellews had vanished.

Buck, who had foreseen that Shifty would not dare risk meeting him just then, halted by the empty seat, smiling affably.

"My friend left just before I could signal him," he said with a bow to the girl who sat near the window.

The girl gave him smile for smile. She had fluffy, light hair and a delicate complexion that showed the blood beneath with each passing emotion. Her eyes were of a luminous brown. "Mr. Holland, you mean?" she asked.

"An old friend of mine." Buck's voice was full of restrained enthusiasm, which the girl did not recognize as the enthusiasm of the game; the blue eyes dominating his pale, smooth-shaven face were smiling and friendly. "Such an old friend that I almost feel justified in sitting down here until he comes."

"Oh, do!" said the girl, making room for him on the seat. "He will be so pleased to see you.'

Thorne smiled again, this time at thought of Shifty's joy at seeing him. He looked at the girl critically, and was glad that he had looked. "I wonder which of us has known him longer?" he asked.

"Oh, I am a very recent acquaintance," laughed the girl. "Mr. Holland first got to know mama and me a month ago, just after his return from one of his Mexican mines."

'Has he mines in Mexico?" asked Buck, innocently. They were at a station now, and he could see Bobby passing the car window, on his way to the telephonebooth.

"At least a dozen." She looked doubtfully at her questioner. "It seems funny, if you know Bob-Mr. Holland, that is - that you don't know about his mines."

"I fancy he has accumulated some of them since I last saw him," said Buck, gravely. "But I knew him away back, before he hurt his foot."

"Was n't it terrible! A solid mass of silver struck his foot in-what was the name of that mine? I never can remember these Mexican names."

A wild longing to seek out Shifty and kick him swept over the gentle-mannered man with the pallid face. But with the thought of the Buckley Gang in the background, the longing died away. It would be easier and much more scientific to stack the cards against Shifty.

Presently Bobby repassed the car win dow, waving his hand in token of success, and an instant later the train began to

move. The girl peered out at the storm with some uneasiness. "It's growing worse, is n't it?" she asked.

"It sure is," agreed Buck.

"But you don't think we shall be snowbound?" There was a touch of anxiety in her voice.

"Oh, we 'll make a few more miles," said Buck, easily. "Then we 'll probably stick until they dig us out."

The girl's face clouded.

"It 's good fun to be snowbound," he assured her; and to kill time, which seemed

the slip to-day and get married, and then explain afterward."

Buck Thorne nodded appreciation, while the train staggered slowly on its way. The grinding of the car-wheels on the buried rails was music to his ears. At intervals he peered out expectantly, watching the monster drifts slip slowly into the wrack of the storm, while the girl beside him craned her neck to see if by any chance Shifty had appeared in the doorway. This latter movement, disguise it prettily as the girl might, was unalloyed bliss to

to drag interminably, he told her the story of a week spent snowbound in Quebec.

She listened patiently. "But don't you see what will happen," she burst out, when he had finished-"mama's train will catch up with us, and there will be an awful scene! You see," she explained, "mama does n't like Mr. Holland."

"There is really no accounting for tastes," he remarked.

The girl seized upon the suggestion gratefully. "You know, when a girl has money," she went on confidentially, "it is always in the hands of hateful old trustees. And mine were asking Bob-Mr. Holland, I mean-very rude questions. So he suggested that we just give mama

Buck's soul, for he knew that the broadshouldered young man was at that moment entertaining Shifty in the smoking

car.

He was to be very friendly and affable, so Buck's instructions ran, but Shifty was to remain in the smoking-car until a certain station had been passed.

The expected station presently came slowly into view. Bobby, his collar turned up to his ears, came out upon the snowy platform. Once more, after a brief interval, he waved his hand in signal to the gambler, and again Thorne gave a little sigh of relief.

He waited until the train was once more on its way, then rose to his feet. "If I find Bob, I 'll send him to you," he promised.

The girl nodded smilingly, and Thorne left the car. Bobby was waiting in the car adjoining. "A close shave!" that young man cried gleefully, "but we got here."

The gambler stood looking into the heart of the storm. "Pass the word to your friend to let Shifty go," he said abstractedly, "and then watch the way things turn." He sat down in an empty seat and began again to stare at the whirling snowflakes.

There was something very pleasant about the chaplain's advice, he reflected, but it was at the same time certain to lead to complications. To be "on the level" had an alluring sound as Buck mentally pronounced it; but to be "on the level" was worse than foolish unless the other man met him on the same platform. And just then Buck Thorne, looking into the gray of the gale, saw a great light.

"The other guy 's got to be on the level, too," he said to himself belligerently, the blue light of battle flashing from his eyes; "or if not-" He shook his head significantly, and was surprised to find the windows shake in unison with him. Then came a dull, grinding noise of wheels, and the train halted in the midst of a gigantic drift.

The winter afternoon was slowly closing in as Buck took his place on a country fence by the roadside, and the long train, white on top, brown on the side, seemed like some gigantic reptile burrowing painfully through the drifts. At times the engine grew noisy and the train shook hopefully, but the men perched on the rail beside Buck knew it for a vain pretense. "Good for two days right here, gentlemen," said a red-nosed person in a husky voice.

Somewhere from the rear came the whistle of an engine, and a second train loomed dimly through the snow. Buck watched it closely as curious men passengers poured forth upon the scene. Shifty, he reasoned, would try to get away before the girl's mother could join her from the second train. Yet Bobby, who was stationed on the car-step, surveying the other side of the train, made no sign.

Presently, as Buck watched, he saw Bobby's head craned far out over the snow; then he swung around and beckoned to the gambler. "There's a village

over yonder," he cried excitedly. "That fellow is offering a country boy a fiver to drive them over."

Buck nodded smilingly as he swung himself into the snow on the other side of the train. Here a winding country road was faintly visible between clustering drifts, and here, handing the brown-eyed girl into a sleigh, was Shifty.

Buck slapped him hard upon the shoulder. "Hello, old man!" he cried cordially. To himself he repeated, "Be ye wise as serpents."

Shifty grasped Buck's hand with profuse friendliness, while the brown-eyed girl gave him a happy nod. "Your best friend, is n't he, Bob?" she cried.

"My best friend," agreed Shifty, mechanically, his black eyes, true to his name, shifting uneasily to and fro. At all costs he must settle with Thorne. "Just step this way a minute," he said.

He held out the

There was a sudden movement in the drift behind them, and the tall collegian stepped to the sleigh. "I beg your pardon," he remarked easily, addressing Buck. "I have a bet on you.' morning paper, with the gambler's portrait showing beneath the flaring head-lines. "I bet you were Buck Thorne, the gambler -the one that killed that man, I mean."

"Ah, fade away!" cried the gambler, gruffly. "Of course I'm Buck Thorne. And just now, young man, Buck Thorne is busy talking to some friends." He laid his hand on Shifty's shoulder. "What do you want, old man?” he asked.

The brown-eyed girl was regarding Shifty with an anxious stare. "What does it all mean, Bob?" she asked passionately. "This convict, whom I read about this morning, surely can't be your friend."

But Shifty found himself too much occupied just then to attend to the browneyed girl, for walking carelessly along by the side of the car, tall, blonde, stately even in her shabby clothes, was his wife!

Buck, who had pulled the wires that brought the woman on the scene, knew things would turn out right the minute he caught sight of the diamond flush. Then the men had mentioned the name of the little town where Shifty's wife, as the chaplain had told him, had taken refuge with a brother, who did odd jobs about the station, and who lived near by. It

was a "long shot," but when a man has a straight flush in diamonds, things are coming his way. And Bobby had managed his part of the game to perfection.

Shifty's wife, in her shabby clothes, advanced to Shifty in his new overcoat, flung her arms around his neck and kissed him heartily. Thorne stepped forward with eager interest. "Your wife, Shifty?" he asked.

The brown-eyed girl leaped from the sleigh as though she had been touched by a live wire. She went over to the tall collegian and stood beside him, tapping nervously with her foot upon the snow. For one bitter moment she watched while Shifty and his wife stood side by side, the man's face a dullish green. Then she looked up at the tall collegian. "I see my mother coming," she said quietly, pointing to a gray-haired woman in black, who, accompanied by a porter, was slowly making her way over the snow from the rear train; and without a glance at Shifty, but with a look of limitless scorn for Buck, she went forward to greet her mother.

The gambler lounged over to Shifty. "Say, old man," he said easily, "you have us all beaten to a frazzle." He looked at Shifty's wife, standing trembling with mingled happiness and fear. "Seems to

me as if you had the finest wife in the United States. I must pass the word along to the boys."

Shifty's face actually lit up, and Buck knew he had gained his point. The "little piker" would look upon his wife with more respect now that she had gained the approbation of a man as big as Buck. He began to feel in the pocket of his furlined coat. "Any kids?" he asked.

"Two-beauties," said Shifty's wife,

proudly.

"Let me know next week, and I'll come to see them, old man," cried Thorne. He drew his hand from his pocket, filled with a huddled mass of notes, the gleanings of the recent game. There were fives, tens, and some twenties. He crammed the whole into the woman's hands. "For the kids till I see them," he said laconically; and, with a nod, swung himself upon the car.

As he walked toward the smoking-car, a strange, new peace diffused itself through every fiber. The first episode in the new life that the chaplain had outlined to him was over, and he had "made good." He would write to the chaplain in the morning, he decided. Meantime-and his fingers began to tingle at the thought—meantime there might be some business doing in the smoker.