"'Scorch'?"

"Yes. It refers to your hair, I suppose."

"You're a clairvoyant, lady," said the boy. "I gotter real, sure-'nuff name. But I forget it. My mother don't even remember it any more. But 'Scorch' don't just mean my color. It's because I'm some scorcher,"

proceeded the boy, with pride.

"There weren't any kids my size or age could outrun me at school--nix!

and I won a medal when I worked for the District Telegraph Company. I was the one fast kid that ever rushed flimsies."

"What's _that_?" demanded Nancy, in wonder.

"Carried telegrams. But I couldn't stop there. The other kids pounded the life pretty near out of me," he said, with perfect seriousness.

"Oh! why were they so mean?"

"'Cause I set 'em all a pace that they couldn't keep up with. So they fired me out of the union, and then the boss fired me because I was always all marred up from fighting the other kids. So I come to work at that law shop."

Under advice from the knowing Scorch, Nancy had ordered the very nicest little luncheon she had ever eaten. And the boy gave evidence of enjoying it even more than she did.

Indeed, her appet.i.te was soon satisfied; but Scorch kept her answering questions about herself; and soon she found that she was being quite as confidential with this red-headed office boy as she ever had been with anybody in her life.

"Say! did it ever strike you that Old Gordon might be stringing you?"

demanded Scorch.

His slang puzzled the girl not a little; but the red-headed one explained:

"Suppose he _did_ know all about you and your folks--only he didn't want to tell?"

"But _why_?"

"Oh, ain't you green?" demanded Scorch. "Don't you see he might be making money out of you? Mebbe there's a pile of money, and he's using only a little for you and putting the rest of it in his pocket?"

"Oh, I don't believe Mr. Gordon would do such an awful thing," gasped Nancy, shaking her head vigorously.

"Well, they do it to heiresses in stories," returned Scorch, doggedly.

"And worse."

"But I don't believe it."

"That's all right--that's all right," said the boy. "You're not supposed to believe it. You're the heroine; they never believe anything but what's all nice and proper," urged Scorch. "You lemme alone. I'm goin'

to watch Gordon. If he's up to something foxy, I'll find it out. Then I'll write to you. Say! where's this jail they're goin' to put you in?"

"It's no jail," laughed Nancy, immensely amused, after all, by this romantic and slangy youth. "It's a beautiful school. It's Pinewood Hall.

It's at Clintondale, on Clinton River. And it's very select."

"It's what?"

"Select. It costs a lot of money to go there. The girls are very nice."

"All right. You can get a letter, just the same; can't you?"

"Why--I suppose so. I--I never _did_ receive a letter--not one."

"All right. You'll get one from me," promised Scorch, with a.s.surance.

"If I find out anything about Old Gordon that looks like we was on his trail, I'll let you know."

"That's very nice of you," replied Nancy, demurely, but quite amused.

"Now, have you finished, Scorch?"

"Full up," declared the youngster. "The gangplank's ash.o.r.e and we're ready to sail--if we ain't overloaded," and he got up from his chair with apparent difficulty.

Nancy had paid the bill and tipped the waiter. She had a good bit of the ten dollars left to slip back in her pocketbook; but she reserved a crisp dollar-bill where it would be handy.

They had plenty of time to walk to the station, and Nancy was glad to do this. Besides, Scorch declared he needed the exercise.

The red-headed boy was a mixture of good-heartedness and mischievousness that both delighted Nancy and horrified her. He was saucy to policemen, truckmen, and anybody who undertook to treat him carelessly on the street. But he aided his charge very carefully over all the crossings, and once ran back into the middle of the street and held up traffic to pick up an old woman's parcel.

They came to the station, got Nancy's bag, and Scorch insisted upon taking her to the very step of the car. When she shook hands with him Nancy had the banknote ready and she left it in his hand.

Before she got up the steps, however, he ran back, pushed aside the brakeman, and reached her.

"Say! you can't do that," he gasped, his face as red as his hair.

"Do what?" demanded the girl.

"You can't tip _me_. Say! I ain't the waiter--nor the janitor of the flat. I'm the hero--and the heroine never tips the hero--nix on that!"

The next moment he had thrust the dollar-bill into her hand, jumped down to the platform, and scuttled through the crowd, leaving Nancy with the feeling that she had offended a friend.

CHAPTER VII

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

When the train pulled out of the station Nancy Nelson noticed for the first time that the sky had become overcast and the clouds threatened rain. Scorch O'Brien, the odd new friend she had made, was so sprightly a soul that she really had not observed the change in the weather.

"Oh! I'd like to have a brother like him," she thought. "I don't care if he _is_ slangy--and fresh. I guess he wouldn't be so if--as he says--everybody didn't try to poke fun at his red hair. And how homely he is!"

She smiled happily over some of Scorch's sayings and his impish doings; so they were some miles on the journey before she began to look about the car.

Her ticket had called for a chair in the parlor-car; and she immediately discovered that she was not the only girl who seemed to be traveling alone.

At least there were half a dozen girls not far from her own age who were chattering together some distance forward of her seat. When the conductor came along he smiled down upon Nancy and asked, as he punched her ticket:

"You going to Pinewood, too?"