
Navaho squaw and one papoose or more, and sometimes the beehive-shaped hodags in which the
Navahos wintered.
Seven weeks and three days after the United States Border Patrol plane chased Spad Ames and Waldo
Berlitz northward, there was something else to interest one tourist, however. The unusual article was a
man lying on the road. Apparently the man was unconscious or dead. His hair was slightly white.
The tourist stopped his car and alighted to examine the poor unfortunate.
The man lying on the road lunged up and smacked the tourist on the head with a rock. The tourist
collapsed. The man with the rock then ran to the car, but the tourist’s wife and daughter got out and fled.
They were long, lean women and they were scared. The would-be assailant with the rock failed to catch
them, although he swore terribly and hurled his stone after them.
The man then entered the car, turned it around and drove toward Flagstaff. He did a good deal of cursing
because he had to leave the tourists behind where they would be picked up by the next passing car.
There was a lunch basket in the tourists’ car, and the man wolfed the contents of this. After eating, he
stared grimly ahead, looking a little sick. He was thinking of his diet for the past three weeks. It had
consisted of pack rats, gophers, rattlesnakes, and once, a jackrabbit. Principal item had been the
rattlesnakes, which were easy to catch.
At Flagstaff, the man got a break. An eastbound freight train was pulling out; he swung into a box car.
There were two hobos in the box car, and that night, he bludgeoned them in their sleep, and got a dollar
and eighty-three cents and a better pair of shoes. In Marceline, Missouri, a division point on the railroad,
he robbed a plumber, and to his astonishment, got over two hundred dollars in cash. When he got to
Chicago, he took a plane on to Newark airport, and a taxicab from there into New York City, to the
office of Herman Locatella.
"Hello, Herman, you slimy bat," he said, and sank into a comfortable chair.
Herman Locatella stared at the man and said, "I don’t know you!" indignantly.
HERMAN LOCATELLA was a man who took pains not to know a great many people. Socially, in
particular, there seemed to be very few persons whom he considered worth knowing. He was a prize
snob, but there were plenty of snobs in New York who liked that sort of thing, so Locatella did a
remunerative law business.
Herman Locatella dressed the part; his attire was correct for every occasion. That morning, he had worn
the correct striped trousers, morning coat, lap-over fawn vest and ascot tie. Just now, however, he was
planning to attend the horse races with one of his snob clients, so he had changed to sports attire
consisting of woolly brown trousers, checkered sports coat, and scarf knotted at the throat. He
maintained a dressing room off his sumptuous office for making these changes.
On the desk rested a folded newspaper which contained an article on the society page, stating that
Herman Locatella, society lawyer, was beginning to be mentioned as the best-dressed man in America.
"So you don’t know me," growled the visitor disgustedly.
"I never saw you before." Herman Locatella fingered the telephone. "Will you get out of here, or shall I
call the police."
"Why not call the Kansas City police?" the visitor asked dryly.