Johnny studied the girl as she turned to go for his coffee. She was dark. Her hair was black. Her speech was not broken, but her sentences were short and crisp.
“Italian. Born in America, perhaps,” he told himself. “Wonder why they live here? No neighbors; no lawn; no garden; no scenery; no nothing. Only bare walls.”
She brought him coffee, this girl, and thin sandwiches spread with odd but delicious preserves. She set these on a small table in the room where he had spent the night. He ate in silence.
“Queer old world,” he murmured to himself. “Wonder what I should do next.”
Opening his bill folder, he counted two hundred dollars in currency.
“In Chicago they wear store clothes, I guess you’d call them. Better buy some, I guess.” This to himself. The girl by this time was gone.
Leaving his duffel bag and archery equipment in the corner, he walked out of the place, boarded a street car and went rattling away downtown. Twenty minutes later he was engaged in the dual task of trying on a ready made suit and convincing the clerk that he had not always lived in the “sticks.”
Two hours later, when he boarded a car going north, he seemed quite a different person. Save for the deep tan which life in the open had bestowed upon him in lavish abundance, he could scarcely have been told from any city youth. Such is the transforming power of clothes.
“I’ll go back to that shack and see if this fellow, Drew Lane, has come back,” he told himself. “Don’t want to leave without at least thanking him. Queer sort of chap. Wonder why he carries a gun? Express messenger maybe.”
At that he gave himself over to a study of his fellow passengers. He was standing on the rear platform. Two of the half dozen men there attracted his attention. They talked of cards and gambling. One said he had lost a “leaf” last night. What was a “leaf?” Johnny couldn’t even hazard a guess.