. Sometimes the
whistle was soft and low, again it was louder and more cheerful. Josie
listened in suspense. As long as the whistling continued she realized
that the theft of the black satchel remained undiscovered.

Kauffman remained in his room but a few moments. When he departed,
carefully locking his door after him, he was still whistling. Josie ran
to her own door and when he had passed it opened it just a crack, to
enable her to gaze after him. Underneath his arm he carried a bundle of
the sample suspenders.

"Good!" she whispered softly, retreating to bend over the satchel
again. "Mr. Abe Kauffman will sell suspenders this morning as a blind
to his more important industries, so I needn't hurry."

Sooner than she expected the lock clicked and sprang open. Her eyes at
first fell upon some crumpled, soiled shirts, but these she hurriedly
removed. The remainder of the satchel contained something enclosed in a
green flannel bag. It was heavy, as she found when she tried to lift it
out, and a sudden suspicion led her to handle the thing very gingerly.
She put it on the table beside the satchel and cautiously untied the
drawstring at the mouth of the bag. A moment later she had uncovered a
round ball of polished blue steel, to which was attached a tube covered
with woven white cotton.

Josie fell back on a chair, fairly gasping, and stared with big eyes at
the ball. In her desire to investigate the possessions of the suspender
salesman she had scarcely expected to find anything like this. The most
she had hoped to discover were incriminating papers.

"It's a bomb!" she stammered, regarding the thing fearfully; "a real,
honest-for-true bomb. And it is meant to carry death and destruction to
loyal supporters of our government. There's no doubt of that. But--"
The thoughts that followed so amazing an assertion were too bewildering
to be readily classified. They involved a long string of conjectures,
implicating in their wide ramifications several persons of important
standing in the community. The mere suggestion of what she had
uncovered sufficed to fill Josie's heart and brain with terror.

"Here! I mustn't try to think it out just yet," she told herself,
trying with a little shiver of repulsion for the thing to collect her
wits. "One idea at a time, Josie, my girl, or you'll go nutty and spoil
everything! Now, here's a bomb--a live, death-dealing bomb--and that's
the first and only thing to be considered at presen