rime and telegraphed the father in the distant East.

Now, Mr. Lawrence was away on business of his own. Written assurances
that he couldn't be mistaken lost weight, and Mr. Prime, disheartened,
was merely waiting the report of an agent who thought he had traced the
boy to Tampa. In twenty-four hours he might spirit his daughter away on
another chase, and then there would be no further warrant for Miss
Lawrence's remaining in the city. She would return to her lovely home in
one of the loveliest of Californian valleys, miles away from the raw fogs
and chills of the Golden Gate, and would be no more seen among the camps.
That, said Billy Gray to himself, would take every bit of sunshine from
his life.

All this detail, or much of it, he had learned from the fair lips of Miss
Lawrence herself, for Mr. Prime and his daughter seemed to shrink from
speaking of the matter. From the first Miss Amy had had to take the young
gentleman under her personal wing, as it were. In her desire to aid her
uncle and cousin in every way, and knowing them to be strangers to the
entire camp, she had eagerly sent for him as the first familiar or
friendly object she saw. Then when he came and was presented, and proved
to possess little interest to the careworn man and his anxious and
devoted child, it devolved upon Miss Lawrence to make much of Billy in
proportion as they made little of him, and for three days or so the
blithe young fellow seemed fairly to walk on air. Moreover, she had taken
him into the family confidences in telling him of the missing son and
brother, for both her uncle and cousin, she said, were so sensitive about
it they could not talk to any one except when actually necessary. They
had leaned, as it were, on the General and on Colonel Armstrong for a
day, and then seemed to draw away from both. They even seemed to take it
much amiss that her father _had_ to be absent when they came, though they
had sent no word, until too late, of their coming. He was on his return,
might arrive any hour, but so might they go. Now if Billy could only
discover that missing son----

Then came an inspiration! Penciling a brief note he gave it to a soldier
of his company and bade him take it to the guard tents. It told Morton of
the colonel's orders, issued that very day, and bade him be patient--he
hoped and believed opportunity would be afforded for an interview that
evening. Then he hunted up a subaltern of his own grade whom he knew
would