"I guess you've got me," admitted the conductor. "But where the
dickens will we put the cat? Every car is closed and locked, and there
is not an empty."
"You can easily get the lion in the caboose. I'll see that he doesn't
bother any one."
"Lions in the caboose is a new one on me. Well, you know your dad's
business better than I do. Look alive, boys, and get that angora
aboard. This is Miss Hare herself, and she'll take charge."
"Kit, Kit!"
"Winnie!"
"Oh, I'll be brave. I've just got to be. But I've never been left
alone before."
The two girls embraced, and Winnie went sobbing back to the maid who
waited on the platform.
What happened in that particular caboose has long since been newspaper
history. The crew will go on telling it till it becomes as fabulous as
one of Sindbad's yarns. How the lion escaped, how the fearless young
woman captured it alone, unaided, may be found in the files of all
metropolitan newspapers. Of the brown man who was found hiding in the
coat closet of the caboose nothing was said. But the sight of him
dismayed Kathlyn as no lion could have done. Any-dark skinned person
was now a subtle menace. And when, later, she saw peering into the
port-hole of her stateroom, dismay became terror.
Who was this man?