iskly
through the snowy streets toward "the little dwelling in amity," which
Nan had not seen since leaving Tillbury for her Uncle Henry Sherwood's
home at Pine Camp, ten months before.

"Oh, _dear_, Papa Sherwood!" gasped Nan. "What is the matter with that
horrid man? He says the most dreadful things about you!"

"What's that?" demanded her father, quickly. "What do you know
about Bulson?"

"More than I really want to know about him," said Nan, ruefully. She
related briefly what had happened a few days before on Pendragon Hill.
"And when he called you a rascal, I--oh! I was very, very angry! What did
he mean, Papa Sherwood?"

But her father postponed his explanation until later; and it was really
from her mother that Nan heard the story of Mr. Sherwood's trouble with
Ravell Bulson. Mrs. Sherwood was very indignant about it, and so, of
course, was Nan.

A week or more before, Mr. Sherwood had had business in Chicago, and in
returning took the midnight train. The sleeping car was side-tracked at
Tillbury and when most of the passengers were gone the man in the berth
under Mr. Sherwood's began to rave about having been robbed. His watch
and roll of banknotes had disappeared.

The victim of the robbery was Mr. Ravell Bulson. Mr. Bulson had at once
accused the person occupying the berth over his as being the guilty
person. Nan's father had got up early, and had left the sleeping car long
before Mr. Bulson discovered his loss.

The railroad and the sleeping car company, of course, refused to
acknowledge responsibility for Mr. Bulson's valuables. Nor on mere
suspicion could Mr. Bulson get a justice in Tillbury to issue a warrant
for Mr. Sherwood.

But Ravell Bulson had been to the Sherwood cottage on Amity Street, and
had talked very harshly. Besides, the fat man had in public loudly
accused his victim of being dishonest.

Mr. Sherwood's reputation for probity in Tillbury was well founded; he
was liked and respected; those who really knew him would not be
influenced by such a scandal.

But as Mr. Sherwood was making plans to open an agency in Tillbury for a
certain automobile manufacturing concern, he feared that the report of
Mr. Bulson's charge would injure his usefulness to the corporation he was
about to represent. To sue Bulson for slander would merely give wider
circulation to the story the fat man had originated.

Ravell Bulson was a traveling man and was not often in Tillbury--that was
one good thing. H