Hence he puts considerable force into the blow he sends straight from the shoulder. The professor lands on his back in the middle of the car, the most surprised man in seven counties. He does not know what has happened—perhaps imagines he butted his head against some projection, and makes a feeble, bewildered attempt to gain his feet, but Craig pushes him back to the floor, and deliberately sits down upon the prostrate form of the terror.
“Ladies, will one of you kindly close the door,” he says, and it is Dorothy who does as he requests, for besides the hooded Sister, still telling her beads, she is the only one in that panic-stricken company not uttering little shrieks and gasps of real or assumed terror.
“There is no longer any danger, ladies. I beg of you to be calm. Lie still, sir,” giving the professor, who has made a movement as if about to rise, a sudden shake, to remind him that he has met his Waterloo.
Looking up Aleck Craig is conscious of the fact that he is now the cynosure of admiring eyes. Coming thus unexpectedly to their relief, it is but natural that these women should look upon his manly figure, his bronzed features, and curly hair with a kindled interest. What thrills him is the look he sees upon the face of Samson Cereal’s daughter; the expression of fear is gone, and in its place comes one of puzzled conjecture, then a sudden rosy blush.
Dorothy has recognized him.
CHAPTER V.
THE MAN FROM THE BOSPHORUS.
The excitement gradually dies away when the fair inmates of the car realize that they are no longer in danger from the crazy professor, whose brain cannot stand the exhilarating influence of a ride in mid air.
Slowly the wheel revolves, and relieved of their apprehensions some of the women proceed to look out upon the wonderful spectacle, for Chicago lies spread out before their vision, bathed in the mystic moonlight, while at their feet, as it were, nestles the representative homes of the world’s strangest peoples.
The wheel goes on, and again they mount upward for the second revolution. Dorothy all this time has been thinking of other scenes than those upon which her eyes rest. Before her vision came the snow-covered sides of Mount Royal, the icy bosom of the mighty St. Lawrence, the royal splendor of last winter’s ice carnival, when the crystal palace was dedicated in the gay fashion that has been the charm of a Canadian winter for a long time past.