Free Stranger within the Gates by Grace Livingston Hill Page B

"That's pretty tough! Is there anything I could do for you? If we knew where to find him, I could get a bunch of the fellas together, and we'd whale him within an inch of his life and make him lay off you!"
    The girl buried her face in her hands for a minute while her slender shoulders shook with sobs, and then she turned a teary smile on Rex.
    "You're sweet!" she said under her breath. "But I wouldn't want to make you all that trouble."
    "Why, that's no trouble at all," said Rex. "The fellows would just love to fight a guy like that and scare him to death. Tell me where you think we could find him. Do you think he'll be around tonight?"
    "Oh, I'm afraid so," said the girl, shivering fearfully, "but he wouldn't show himself, of course, if there were college boys around. Besides, you mustn't think of doing any such things! You'd get in bad at the college, you know, and it would get in the papers and all. Why, he might even shoot you, and I'd never forgive myself if he did."
    "Oh, I'd risk that!" said Rex gallantly. "Suppose you get me a cup of coffee and some of those cinnamon buns, and we'll make a plan to catch that guy and bring him to justice."
    The girl cast a look of deep admiration at him that made him feel a real hero, and then her eyes grew frightened again.
    "No!" she said. "No, I couldn't let you do that! I really couldn't! But there's one thing you could do for me, if you don't mind. Wait! I'll get your coffee, and then I'll tell you."
    Rex watched her as she flew around getting his cinnamon buns and pouring his coffee, and he thought how pretty she looked in that blue print dress that fitted her so well and made her look so frail and delicate! What a shame any fellow was bad enough to torment a girl like that, just because she was alone in the world with nobody to protect her. What a rotter her father must be that he didn't hunt her up and look out for her!
    The girl was back in a moment with the food, telling him again how grateful she was for his kind thoughts of her.
    "You don't know what it means," she said with an adorable expression in her wide gray eyes, "to have someone offer to do a thing like that. After all these days and years of fending for myself, to have someone actually sorry for me! I just can't thank you enough."
    "Oh, forget it!" said Rex royally. " Any body that was halfway decent would do the same. Forget it, and tell me what it was you were going to ask me to do for you."
    "Oh, but I can't ever forget it," she said softly. "You're so good! But what I was going to ask you was, would you mind so very much walking home with me tonight? I'm just scared to death; I really am! And if I could be walking with some man, I know he wouldn't dare touch me. Not tonight. And maybe by tomorrow I could find me another room, then I'd be free from him for a while, and he'd get tired trailing me."
    "Sure, I'll walk home with you! What time do you leave here?" He gave a quick look toward the clock. He was supposed to be in bed by a certain time since he was in training, but perhaps he could do it without being caught; and if he were, he could explain that it was a matter of life and death, something he had to do for a lady.
    "Sure," he said again. "When do we leave? Do you have to stay here late?"
    The girl cast a look at the clock.
    "Why, I'm expecting the proprietor here any minute now. He's always in by quarter past eleven. He knows I want to go home by that time at the latest tonight. And if you would be so good as just to hang around till he comes--? Then you could pay your check sort of as if you were through here, and go outside, and in a minute or two I could get away. I'd meet you up at the corner by the drugstore. Would that be all right with you?"
    "Sure!" said Rex again, feeling very gallant and generous and thinking how pretty the girl looked when she smiled. What pretty little white teeth she had. He certainly would enjoy teaching that hound a lesson if they should chance to meet him.
    So presently,