"I am, madam."

"And you stand by and see your countrywomen treated in this perfectly outrageous fashion?"

"My dear madam," protested Stewart, "what could one man—even an American—do against a thousand?"

"You could at least——"

"Nonsense, mother," broke in another voice, and Stewart turned to see that it was a slim, pale girl of perhaps twenty-two who spoke. "The gentleman is quite right. Besides, I thought it rather good fun."

"Good fun!" snapped her mother. "Good fun to be jerked about and trampled on and insulted! And where is our baggage? Will we ever see it again?"

"Oh, the baggage is safe enough," Stewart assured her. "The troops will detrain somewhere this side the frontier, and we can all take our old seats."

"But why should they travel by this train? Why should they not take another train? Why should they——"

"Are we all here?" broke in an anxious voice. "Is anyone missing?"

There was a moment's counting, then a general sigh of relief. The number was found correct.

From somewhere up the line a whistle sounded, and the state of the engine-driver's nerves could be inferred from the jerk with which he started—quite an American jerk. All the women who were standing, screamed and clutched at each other and swayed back and forth as if wrestling. Stewart found himself wrestling with the buxom woman.

"I cannot stand!" she declared. "It is outrageous that I should have to stand!" and she fixed glittering eyes upon the bearded stranger. "No American would remain seated while a woman of my age was standing!"

But the bearded stranger gazed blandly out of the window at the passing landscape.

There was a moment's silence, during which everyone looked at the heartless culprit. Stewart had an uneasy feeling that, if he were to do his duty as an American, he would grab the offender by the collar and hurl him through the window. Then the woman next to the stranger bumped resolutely into him, pressed him into the corner, and disclosed a few inches of the seat.

"Sit here, Mrs. Field," she said. "We can all squeeze up a little."

The pressure was tremendous when 

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