us route of
train or trolley.

These considerations led Orme to think that the car which he and the girl
had heard in the distance could not have been occupied by the escaping
Japanese.

The fellow, then, had probably made for the electric-car line, and in
that event he would be well on his way to Chicago by this time. The car
he had caught must have gone southward from Evanston about ten
forty-five. The conductor would be likely to remember having had a
Japanese on board; perhaps he would even remember where the Oriental had
got off. The natural course for Orme, therefore, was to take a car
himself and, if he did not meet the other car returning, to get off at
the car-barns and make inquiries. The possibility that the Japanese had
changed to the elevated road on the North Side was great, but the
conductor might remember if the change had been made.

But Orme did not turn at once toward the car-line. Though his logic
pointed in that direction, he was irresistibly influenced by a desire to
walk eastward along the drive where it skirted the southern end of the
campus. A half-hour might go by, and still he would not be too late to
meet, on its return, the car which the Japanese would have taken. He
started, therefore, eastward, toward the lake, throwing frequent glances
through the iron fence at his left and into the dark shadows of the oaks.

He came to the lake without encountering anyone. The road here swept to
the southward, and on the beach near the turn squatted the low brick
building which the girl had told him was the life-saving station. A man
was standing on the little veranda. His suit of duck was dimly white in
the light from the near-by street-lamps.

"One of the crew," Orme surmised, and he sauntered slowly down the little
path.

The beach sloped grayly to the edge of the lake, where a breakwater
thrust its blunt nose out like a stranded hulk. The water was calm,
lapping the sand so gently that it was hard to believe that so gentle a
murmur could ever swell into the roar of a northeaster. A launch that was
moored at the outer end of the breakwater lay quiet on the tideless
surface.

"Good-evening," said Orme, as the man turned his head. "Are you on
watch?"

The life-saver slowly stretched. "Till twelve," he answered.

"Not much longer, then?"

"No, thank heaven!"

Orme laughed. "I suppose you do get more than you want of it," he said.
"But on a fine night like this I should think it would be mi