es the secretary was back.

"Yes, sir. It came this morning."

"Then bring it in."

The secretary was inclined to take the affair as a practical joke, but
Peter Winn, after an examination of the pigeon, thought otherwise.

"Look at it," he said, stroking and handling it. "See the length of the
body and that elongated neck. A proper carrier. I doubt if I've ever
seen a finer specimen. Powerfully winged and muscled. As our unknown
correspondent remarked, she is a loo-loo. It's a temptation to keep
her."

The secretary tittered.

"Why not? Surely you will not let it go back to the writer of that
letter."

Peter Winn shook his head.

"I'll answer. No man can threaten me, even anonymously or in foolery."

On a slip of paper he wrote the succinct message, "Go to hell," signed
it, and placed it in the carrying apparatus with which the bird had been
thoughtfully supplied.

"Now we'll let her loose. Where's my son? I'd like him to see the
flight."

"He's down in the workshop. He slept there last night, and had his
breakfast sent down this morning."

"He'll break his neck yet," Peter Winn remarked, half-fiercely,
half-proudly, as he led the way to the veranda.

Standing at the head of the broad steps, he tossed the pretty creature
outward and upward. She caught herself with a quick beat of wings,
fluttered about undecidedly for a space, then rose in the air.

Again, high up, there seemed indecision; then, apparently getting her
bearings, she headed east, over the oak-trees that dotted the park-like
grounds.

"Beautiful, beautiful," Peter Winn murmured. "I almost wish I had her
back."

But Peter Winn was a very busy man, with such large plans in his head
and with so many reins in his hands that he quickly forgot the incident.
Three nights later the left wing of his country house was blown up. It
was not a heavy explosion, and nobody was hurt, though the wing itself
was ruined. Most of the windows of the rest of the house were broken,
and there was a deal of general damage. By the first ferry boat of the
morning half a dozen San Francisco detectives arrived, and several hours
later the secretary, in high excitement, erupted on Peter Winn.

"It's come!" the secretary gasped, the sweat beading his forehead and
his eyes bulging behind their glasses.

"What has come?" Peter demanded. "It--the--the loo-loo bird."

Then the financier understood.

"Have you gone over the mail yet?"

"I was just going over it,