

E-text prepared by Roger Frank and the Project Gutenberg Online
Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)



Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
      file which includes the original illustration.
      See 25799-h.htm or 25799-h.zip:
      (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/2/5/7/9/25799/25799-h/25799-h.htm)
      or
      (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/2/5/7/9/25799/25799-h.zip)





THE GIRL AND THE BILL

An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure

by

BANNISTER MERWIN

Illustrated







[Illustration: "'Perhaps you can imagine how those letters puzzled
me,' he volunteered"]



A. L. Burt Company
Publishers :: New York

Copyright, 1909, by
Dodd, Mead and Company

Published, March, 1909




CONTENTS

CHAPTER                                  PAGE
      I  The Threshold of Adventure         1
     II  Senhor Poritol                    21
    III  The Shadows                       41
     IV  The Girl of the Car               58
      V  "Evans, S. R."                    77
     VI  A Chance Lead                     93
    VII  A Japanese at Large              115
   VIII  The Trail of Maku                136
     IX  Number Three Forty-One           162
      X  "Find the American"              178
     XI  The Way Out                      192
    XII  Power of Darkness                209
   XIII  An Old Man of the Sea            223
    XIV  Prisoners in the Dark            253
     XV  From the Devil to the Deep Sea   279
    XVI  The Struggle                     295
   XVII  A Chance of the Game             322
  XVIII  The Goal                         347
    XIX  A Saved Situation                359






THE GIRL AND THE BILL
CHAPTER I

THE THRESHOLD OF ADVENTURE


The roar of State Street filled the ears of Robert Orme not unpleasantly.
He liked Chicago, felt towards the Western city something more than the
tolerant, patronizing interest which so often characterizes the Eastern
man. To him it was the hub of genuine Americanism--young, aggressive,
perhaps a bit too cocksure, but ever bounding along with eyes toward
the future. Here was the city of great beginnings, the city of
experiment--experiment with life; hence its incompleteness--an
incompleteness not dissimilar to that of life itself. Chicago lived; it
was the pulse of the great Middle West.

Orme watched the procession with clear eyes. He had been strolling
southward from the Masonic Temple, into the shopping district. The
clangor, the smoke and dust, the hurrying crowds, all worked into his
mood. The expectation of adventure was far from him. Nor was he a man who
sought impressions for amusement; whatever came to him he weighed, and
accepted or rejected according as it was valueless or useful. Wholesome
he was; anyone might infer that from his face. Doubtless, his fault lay
in his overemphasis on the purely practical; but that, after all, was a
lawyer's fault, and it was counterbalanced by a sweet kindliness toward
all the world--a loveableness which made for him a friend of every chance
acquaintance.

It was well along in the afternoon, and shoppers were hurrying homeward.
Orme noted the fresh beauty of the women and girls--Chicago has reason to
be proud of her daughters--and his heart beat a little faster. Not that
he was a man to be caught by every pretty stranger; but scarcely
recognized by himself, there was a hidden spring of romance in his
practical nature. Heart-free, he never met a woman without wondering
whether she was _the_ one. He had never found her; he did not know that
he was looking for her; yet always there was the unconscious question.

A distant whistle, the clanging of gongs, the rapid beat of galloping
hoofs--fire-engines were racing down the street. Cars stopped, vehicles
of all kinds crowded in toward the curbs.

Orme paused and watched the fire horses go thundering by, their smoking
chariots swaying behind them and dropping long trails of sparks. Small
boys were running, men and women were stopping to gaze after the passing
engines, but Orme's attention was taken by something that was happening
near by, and as the