ad seated themselves
not five minutes before.

"I've got a hunch. Come."

She rose, and on the way to the aisle brushed past several irritated
ladies. Not till they were standing on the sidewalk outside did he
tell her what was on his mind.

"I want to see that note from my uncle you found in your sister's
desk," he said.

She looked at him and laughed a little. "You certainly want what you
want when you want it! Do your hunches often take you like that--right
out of a perfectly good show you've paid your money to see?"

"We've made a mistake. It was seein' that fellow in the play that put
me wise. Have you got the note with you?"

"No. It's at home. If you like we'll go and get it."

They walked up to the Pioneers' Monument and from there over to her
boarding-place.

Kirby looked the little note over carefully. "What a chump I was not
to look at this before," he said. "My uncle never wrote it."

"Never wrote it?"

"Not his writin' a-tall."

"Then whose is it?"

"I can make a darn good guess. Can't you?"

She looked at him, eyes dilated, on the verge of a discovery. "You
mean--?"

"I mean that J. C. might stand for at least two other men we know."

"Your cousin James?"

"More likely Jack."

His mind beat back to fugitive memories of Jack's embarrassment when
Esther's name had been mentioned in connection with his uncle. Swiftly
his brain began to piece the bits of evidence he had not understood the
meaning of before.

"Jack's the man. You may depend on it. My uncle hadn't anything to do
with it. We jumped at that conclusion too quick," he went on.

"You think that she's . . . with him?"

"No. She's likely out in the country or in some small town. He's
havin' her looked after. Probably an attack of conscience. Even if
he's selfish as the devil, he isn't heartless."

"If we could be sure she's all right. But we can't." Rose turned on
him a wistful face, twisted by emotion. "I want to find her, Kirby.
I'm her sister. She's all I've got. Can't you do something?"

"I'll try."

She noticed the hardening of the lean jaw, the tightening of the
muscles as the back teeth clenched.

"Don't--don't do anything--rash," she begged.

Her hand rested lightly on his arm. Their eyes met. He smiled grimly.

"Don't worry. Mebbe I'll call you up later tonight and report
progress."

He walked to the nearest drug-store and used the telephone freely. At
the end of fifteen minute