"Hi!" exclaimed the man, growing interested, there being no other person waiting at the moment. "Who are you?"
"Say! you keep it to yourself, will you?" urged Marty anxiously. "I'm her cousin. What'll a ticket cost just like hers? Her dad's been wounded down there in Mexico and she thinks she can go there alone and bring him back. I can't let her do that, can I?"
"Hasn't she any other folks?" asked the ticket seller doubtfully.
"Her dad's all she's got," Marty declared. "But I'm going to see her through."
Well, it was not the ticket seller's business. He named the sum it would cost Marty to go on that special train.
"Hi tunket! I don't want to buy the train," gasped the boy. "I only want to ride on it."
"Special ticket on this train to Chicago. And berth all the way through to El Paso. I can give you a cheaper rate on another train, however, my son."
"But I got to be on the same train as her to look out for her," observed Marty. "Hi tunket! berth clear through, heh? I'll have to sleep day an' night to get my money's worth."
"It's the best I can do for you."
Marty groaned, but paid like a man. It made a dreadful hole in his capital. He ate his dinner in a lunchroom through the window of which he could watch the exit of the restaurant to which his cousin had gone for her evening meal.