CHAPTER III
JOHN LIPSKY'S SIGN
After supper, Stafford, feeling clamorously the need of a cigar, strolled back into the smoking compartment. It was already well filled, among the occupants being a Colonel Livingstone, a genial character with whom Stafford had already become acquainted. He was greeted warmly and seated himself to engage idly in the desultory conversation which was going on.
"I wonder what breed of Indians once inhabited this region?" queried one of the smokers. "They must have had poor picking."
"I don't know," said the colonel, "Apaches, I imagine."
A drawling voice broke in, the owner of which was a young man, a person of such self-confidence, nerve and general up-to-dateness, that Stafford whimsically christened him "The Gallus Youth."
"I know an Indian story which is true," said the Gallus Youth. "Do you want me to tell it?"
There was a general assent, the smokers subsided comfortably in their seats, and from clouds of smoke the voice proceeded, the whole group listening, or at least, if not listening, keeping silence:
JOHN LIPSKY'S SIGN
Probably nothing more strange and puzzling has ever happened, either in a great city or in the country, than what is to be told of here, and which relates to both.