er, with
perplexed and frowning brows, studied a cablegram; in the Casa Blanca,
Senora Rojas and her daughters listened in amazement to a marvelous
tale. Had it not been their faithful friend and jealous guardian, the
American Consul, who was speaking, they could not have credited it.

At the Forrester Building the cablegram had been just translated from
the secret code of the company and placed upon the desk of Mr.
Forrester. It was signed by Von Amberg, and read: "To-day at meeting
your party, unknown man fired three shots Vega; Young Forrester
overpowered man; Vega unhurt; man escaped. Understand young Forrester
not in our confidence. Please instruct."

Three times Mr. Forrester read the cablegram, and then, laying it upon
his knee, sat staring out of the open window.

Before his physical eyes were deep canyons of office buildings like his
own, towering crag above crag, white curling columns of smoke from
busy tugboats, and the great loom of the Brooklyn Bridge with its
shuttles of clattering cable-cars. But what he saw was his son, alone
in a strange land, struggling with an unknown man, a man intent on
murder. With a hand that moved unsteadily the Light-house King lifted
the desk telephone and summoned the third vice-president, and when Mr.
Sam Caldwell had entered, silently gave him the cablegram.

Sam Caldwell read it and exclaimed with annoyance:

"Looks to me," he commented briskly, "as though they know why Pino
came back. Looks as though they had sent this fellow to do him up,
before we can----"

In a strange, thin voice, Mr. Forrester stopped him sharply.

"If the boy'd been hurt--they'd have said so, wouldn't they?" he
demanded.

Sam Caldwell recognized his error. Carefully he reread the cablegram.

"Why, of course," he assented heartily. "It says here he overpowered
the other fellow: says 'Vega unhurt.'"

In the same unfamiliar, strained tone Mr. Forrester interrupted. "It
doesn't say Roddy is unhurt," he objected.

The young man laughed reassuringly.

"But the very fact they don't say so shows--why, they'd know that's
what you most want to hear. I wouldn't worry about Roddy. Not for a
minute."

Embarrassed by his own feeling, annoyed that Sam Caldwell should have
discovered it, Mr. Forrester answered, "_You_ wouldn't. He isn't
_your_ son."

He reached for a cable form, and wrote rapidly:

"Von Amberg. Willemstad, Curacao, W. I. Forrester most certainly not
in our confidence. Return him