I didn't know but I might be of some use to him if he is
alone and injured."

"Ahem!" returned the Senator, grimly. "I do not know that I quite
approve. I cannot understand what your principal was thinking of when
she let you two girls come off alone on such an errand. But----Ahem! I
will see you when we arrive at Cincinnati."

Jennie had not said a word during this conversation. She waited until
Senator Montgomery had gone along the aisle and was out of earshot. Then
she seized Nancy's arm suddenly.

"I've got it!" she whispered.

"Ouch! Got what?" demanded Nancy, striving to free her arm.

"I see it all!"

"Then let me see a little of it, Jennie. And, goodness me, dear! don't
pinch so. What _do_ you mean?"

"Do you know who that man is?" demanded Jennie, in an awed whisper.

"Of course. He's Grace Montgomery's father."

"Yes!" cried Jennie, impatiently. "But who else?"

"Why--why----"

"I don't understand why we did not see it before!" exclaimed Jennie,
mysteriously. "At any rate _you_ ought to have remembered it when Scorch
was talking that day."

"I really wish you would say what you mean, Jen," said her chum.

"That man--that Senator Montgomery--who knows your Mr. Gordon so well
and says he is hurrying to him now----"

"Well?" asked the wide-eyed Nancy.

"That fellow is the man in gray of whom Scorch told us so long ago.
Don't you remember? The man who came to Mr. Gordon and seemed to object
because he had sent you to school at Pinewood Hall?"

Nancy was stricken dumb for the moment. Scorch's description of the
mysterious man who had left Mr. Gordon in tears came back to her mind
now, clearly.

"The man in gray," repeated Jennie, nodding her curly head vigorously.

CHAPTER XXVIII

SCORCH "ON THE JOB"

"Oh, dear! Do you suppose that can be possible?" Nancy demanded,
finally.

"You know I'm right," Jennie returned, firmly.

"It--it might be another man."

"Two big men, who look important, and who both dress so peculiarly?"

"We-ell!"

"It's he, all right," declared Jennie, vigorously. "And he knows as much
about you as Gordon does."

"Do you think so?"

"But he isn't as kindly-intentioned toward you as even Old Gordon. I
know by the look he gave you as he went away."

"But Grace Montgomery's father!" gasped Nancy.

"Maybe you're related to Grace," ventured Jennie, with a sudden chuckle.
"And after all the stuff she's said about you 'round Pinewood, too!"

"Oh, I hope