out
this--about this adventure of ours, Donald?"

"Don't you think I ought to tell her? Isn't it her right to know?"

She took time to consider.

"I'm not sure; women are singular about some things; they don't always
understand. Perhaps they don't care to understand--too much. Then there
is always the difficulty of explaining things just as they were. I could
tell better if I knew the girl. Is she young?"

"Why, y-yes--some years younger than I am. But she is all kinds of
sensible."

"Is she in New York?"

"No," he answered soberly. "She is not in New York."

She took it as a hint that she was not to ask any more questions about
the girl and changed the subject abruptly.

"Shall you go and look for Mr. Grider after we find a railroad?"

"Not immediately. I shall first see you safe at home in your
girls'-school town in Ohio," he assured her firmly.

"Oh, that won't be necessary," she protested. "I have travelled alone
many times. And I have my return ticket; or I shall have it when I get
back to Quebec."

"Nevertheless, I am going home with you," Prime insisted stubbornly.
"It is up to me to see you out of this, and I shall make a job of it
while I am about it. When it is done I shall come back to Canada to find
out who shanghaied us and what for. And when I find the people who did
it they are going to pay for it."

"Even if they include Mr. Grider?"

"Yes, by Jove! Even if the man higher up happens to be Watson Grider. I
don't mind the kidnapping so much for myself, but the man doesn't live,
Lucetta, who can make you go through what you have gone through in the
past month and get away with it."

"I don't ask you to fight for me, Donald," she interposed. "And,
besides, it hasn't been all bad--or has it?"

"We have agreed every little while, between jolts, that it hasn't. I'll
go further now, and say that it is the finest, truest, happiest thing
that has ever happened to me--hardships and all."

"You mean because it has given you new working material?"

"No; I wasn't thinking so much of that, though the new material, and
more especially the new angle, are worth something, of course. But there
are bigger consequences than these--for me--Lucetta." Then he broke off
and plunged headlong into something else. "How much of an income should
a man have before he can ask a girl to marry him? Does the Domestic
Science course include any such practical data as that?"

"Is that all you are waiting for?" she inq