could return and finish.

Tom, the boy, could not have gone on. It would have been blankly
impossible. But Tom, the man, was a new creature. While waiting for the
reply to his telegram, he plunged doggedly back into the scholastic
whirlpool, kicked, struggled, strangled, got his head above water, and
found, vastly to his own amazement, that the thing was actually
compassable in spite of the mighty distractions.

The return telegram from Gordonia was a day late. Knowing diplomacy only
by name, Caleb Gordon had gone directly to Dyckman for information
regarding the Farleys' movements. Dyckman was polite to the general
manager, but unhappily he knew nothing of Mr. Farley's plans. Caleb
tried elsewhere, and the little mystery thickened. At his club, Mr.
Farley had spoken of taking a Cunarder from Boston; to a friend in the
South Tredegar Manufacturers' Association he had confided his intention
of sailing from Philadelphia. But at the railway ticket office he had
engaged Pullman reservations for six persons to New York.

This last was conclusive, as far as it went; and Japheth Pettigrass
supplied the missing item. The Dabneys and the Farleys made one party,
and Japheth knew the steamer and the sailing date.

"Party will sail by White Star Line Baltic, New York, to-morrow. New
York address, Fifth Avenue Hotel. Papers to you care 271 Broadway by
mail yesterday," was the message which was signed for by the doorkeeper
at the mines and metallurgy examination room in Boston, late in the
forenoon of the second day; and Tom looked at the clock. Nothing would
be gained by taking a train which would land him in New York late in the
evening; so he plunged again into the examination pool and thought no
more of Chiawassee Consolidated until his paper on qualitative analysis
had been neatly folded, docketed and handed to the examiner.

The hands of his watch were pointing to eight o'clock the following
morning when Tom made his way through the throng in the Grand Central
station and found a cab. The sailing hour of the _Baltic_ was ten, and
he picked his cabman accordingly.

"I shall want you for a couple of hours, and it's double fare if you
don't miss. 271 Broadway, first," was his fillip for the driver; and he
was speedily rattling away to the down-town address.

The taking of the cab was his first mistake, and he discovered it before
he had gone very far. Time was precious, and the horse, pushed to the
police limit, was too sl