"You didn't write this message?"

"No. I vork by de hotel, und I get a man write it."

"It isn't dated. Been carrying it around in your pocket a good while I
guess. Better date it."

"Date it?"

"Yes. Put down the time you send, you know."

"Oh, dat's not'ing. He know putty goot when he get it."

"Very well. 'To Mr. John Thomas,--State Street, Chicago. Job's ready.
Come along.' Who's job is it? Yours?"

"No. It's hees yob yet. You mak it go to-night, all right. Goot night.
I pay it now, yas. Vell, goot night."

He paid the boy and slipped out into the shadows of the street, and
again making the detour so that he came to the hotel from the rear, he
passed the stables, and before climbing to his cupboard of a room at
the top of the building, he stepped round to the side and looked in at
the dining room windows, and there he saw the young man seated at
supper.

"All right," he said softly.

The omnibus sent regularly by the hotel management brought only one
passenger from the early train next day. Times had been dull of late
and travel had greatly fallen off, as the proprietor complained. There
was nothing unusual about this passenger,--the ordinary traveling man,
representing a well-known New York dry-goods house.

Nels Nelson drove the omnibus. He had done so ever since Elder
Craigmile went to Scotland with his wife. The young man he had found
on the river bluff was pacing the hotel veranda as he drove up, and
Nels Nelson glanced at him, and into the eyes of the traveling man, as
he handed down the latter's heavy valise.

Standing at the desk, the newcomer chatted with the clerk as he wrote
his name under that of the last arrival the day before.

"Harry King," he read. "Came yesterday. Many stopping here now? Times
hard! I guess so! Nothing doing in my line. Nobody wants a thing.
Guess I'll leave the road and 'go west, young man,' as old Greeley
advises. What line is King in? Do' know? Is that him going into the
dining room? Guess I'll follow and fill up. Anything good to eat
here?"

In the dining room he indicated to the waiter by a nod of his head the
seat opposite Harry King, and immediately entered into a free and easy
conversation, giving him a history of his disappointments in the way
of trade, and reiterating his determination to "go west, young man."

He hardly glanced at Harry, but ate rapidly, stowing away all within
reach, until the meal was half through, then he looked up and asked
abruptl