At the Seventy-Second Street entrance Johnnie left the bus and plunged into the Park. He threaded his way along walks beneath the dripping trees. He took a dozen shower baths under water-laden shrubbery. Sometimes he stopped to let out the wild war-whoop with which he turned cattle at the point in the good old days a month or so ago.
The gods are supposed to favor fools, children, and drunken men. Johnnie had been all of these in his day. To-night he could claim no more than one at most of these reasons for a special dispensation. He would be twenty-three "comin' grass," as he would have expressed it, and he hadn't taken a drink since he came to New York, for Clay had voted himself dry years ago and just now he carried his follower with him.
But the impish gods who delight in turning upside down the best-laid plans of mice and men were working overtime to-night. They arranged it that a girl cowering among the wet bushes bordering an unfrequented path heard the "Hi—yi—yi" of Arizona and gave a faint cry for help. That call reached Johnnie and brought him on the run.
A man beside the girl jumped up with a snarl, gun in hand.
But the Runt had caught a sight of Kitty. A file of fixed bayonets could not have kept him from trying to rescue her. He dived through the brush like a football tackler.
A gun barked. The little man did not even know it. He and the thug went down together, rolled over, clawed furiously at each other, and got to their feet simultaneously. But the cowpuncher held the gun now. The crook glared at him for a moment, and bolted for the safety of the bushes in wild flight.
Johnnie fired once, then forgot all about the private little war he had started. For his arms were full of a sobbing Kitty who clung to him while she wept and talked and exclaimed all in a breath.
"I knew you'd come, Johnnie. I knew you would—you or Clay. They left me here with him while they got away from the police. . . . Oh, I've been so scared. I didn't know—I thought—"
"'S all right. 'S all right, li'l' girl. Don't you cry, Kitty. Me 'n' Clay won't let 'em hurt you none. We sure won't."
"They said they'd come back later for me," she wept, uncertain whether to be hysterical or not.