The Mascot of Sweet Briar Gulch

The man slouched off, and made a hasty search around the station. A woman's face--scarcely an improvement on the man's--leaned out of the car window and jeered at the hunter, who cursed her back savagely.

The man walked up to Jim. "Say, did yer see a kid go by here, Mister?"

With a shrug of his shoulders, Jim asked him that question in Mr. Ollendorf's French method, about the pink-and-green overcoat of the shoemaker's wife's sister.

The man showered low abuse on what he supposed was a foreigner, until Jim's ribs rose with the desire to kill him.

"Ayr, wot are yer wastin' time wid th' Dago fur?" ca