s and
steadied a little his whirling thoughts.

"Open it, desert man! Open it, and see if there's a note! And you can ask
the stage driver, if you don't believe me; here, break the string!"

She was now more eager than he to see what was inside the wrapping of
newspaper. "See? That's an El Paso paper--and I don't take anything but
the _Times_ from Los Angeles! Oh, goody! There is a note! You read it,
Starr. Read it out loud. If that doesn't convince you, why--why I can
prove by Vic--"

Starr had unfolded the sheet of tablet paper, and Helen May interrupted
herself to listen. Starr's voice was uneven, husky when he tried to
control the quiver in it. And this he read, in the handwriting of which
he had such bitter knowledge:

"My Dear Miss Stevenson:

"I am enclosing herewith a part of Chapter Two, which I have revised
considerably and beg you to retype for me. If you have no asterisk sign
upon your machine, will you be so kind as to make use of the period sign
to indicate a break in the context of the quotations from the various
authors whom I have cited?

"I wish to inform you that I am deeply sorry to place this extra burden
of work upon you, and also assure you that I am more than delighted with
the care you have exercised in deciphering correctly my most abominable
chirography.

"May I also suggest, with all due respect to your intelligence and with a
keen appreciation of the potent influences of youth and romance upon even
the drudgery of an amanuensis, that in writing "stars of the universe" in
a scientific document, the connotation is marred somewhat when stars is
spelled "Starr's."

"Very apologetically your friend,

"HOLMAN SOMMERS."

It took several seconds for the full significance of that last
paragraph to sink into minds so absorbed with another matter. But when
it did sink in--

"Oh-h!" gasped Helen May, and backed a step, her face the color of a red
hollyhock.

Starr looked up from reading those pregnant words a second time to
himself. He reached out and caught Helen May by her two shoulders.

"Did you do that?" he whispered impellingly. "Did you spell my name into
that man's manuscript?"

"No, I didn't! I don't believe I did--I never noticed--well, even if I
did, that doesn't mean--anything." I hope the printers will set that
_anything_ in their very smallest type, just to show you how weak and
futile and scarcely audible and absolutely unconvincing the word sounded.
For one reason, He