d of running feet and a series of yells.

"Labe! Labe!" shrieked Issy. "Oh, my crimus! . . . Labe!"

He burst into the office, his eyes and mouth wide open and his hands
waving wildly.

"Labe! Labe!" he shouted again. "Have you heard it? Have you? It's true,
too. He's alive! He's alive! He's alive!"

Laban sprang from his stool. "Shut up, Is!" he commanded. "Shut up! Hold
on! Don't--"

"But he's alive, I tell you! He ain't dead! He ain't never been dead!
Oh, my crimus! . . . Hey, Cap'n Lote! HE'S ALIVE!"

Captain Zelotes was standing in the doorway of the private office. The
noise had aroused him from his letter writing.

"Who's alive? What's the matter with you this time, Is?" he demanded.

"Shut up, Issy," ordered Laban, seizing the frantic Mr. Price by the
collar. "Be still! Wait a minute."

"Be still? What do I want to be still for? I cal'late Cap'n Lote'll
holler some, too, when he hears. He's alive, Cap'n Lote, I tell ye. Let
go of me, Labe Keeler! He's alive!"

"Who's alive? What is it? Labe, YOU answer me. Who's alive?"

Laban's thoughts were still in a whirl. He was still shaking from the
news the telegraph operator had brought. Rachel Ellis was at that moment
in his mind and he answered as she might have done.

"Er--er--Robert Penfold," he said.

"Robert PENFOLD! What--"

Issachar could hold in no longer.

"Robert Penfold nawthin'!" he shouted. "Who in thunder's he? 'Tain't
Robert Penfold nor Robert Penholder neither. It's Al Speranza, that's
who 'tis. He ain't killed, Cap'n Lote. He's alive and he's been alive
all the time."

Kelley stepped forward.

"Looks as if 'twas so, Cap'n Snow," he said. "Here's the telegram from
the Red Cross."

CHAPTER XV

There was nothing miraculous about it. That is to say, it was no more of
a miracle than hundreds of similar cases in the World War. The papers of
those years were constantly printing stories of men over whose supposed
graves funeral sermons had been preached, to whose heirs insurance
payments had been made, in whose memory grateful communities had made
speeches and delivered eulogiums--the papers were telling of instance
after instance of those men being discovered alive and in the flesh, as
casuals in some French hospital or as inmates of German prison camps.

Rachel Ellis had asked what was to hinder Albert's having been taken
prisoner by the Germans and carried off by them. As a matter of fact
nothing had hindered and that was exa