CHAPTER 3JENNY PARAINE had never felt so utterly alone and friendless in her whole life. She stood on the windswept station platform and watched them lift Bruce Powell into the station hack. Then she looked uncertainly around.
Joel Zeeman came over to her side. Joel felt that in some way the railroad was to blame for the holdup, and as the representative of the line he conceived it his duty to do anything that he could to aid this girl.
“There’s not much law out here, ma’am,” he told her in a subdued voice, “and mostly people are rough and ready as you might say. But Kansas people ain’t child stealers, no sir, and they won’t take kindly to the news, I promise you.”
“Please,” she said. “I…”
“You come right along.” He gathered up her baggage. “Hack will be back in a minute. I’ll take you
