an almost to despair.

"About two months ago, when we were in Milan--for we have been wandering
about Europe for the last eight or nine months--your friend Adams found
us out; the good fellow had been hunting for us for two months."

"Ah! that explains why I have not heard from him," Frank interrupted. "I
have been looking for a letter for the last two months, and had begun to
conclude that as he had nothing pleasant to tell me he had not written,
and that I should never hear now."

"Then you thought like a young fool," Captain Bayley said angrily.
"Well, as soon as Adams had given your message to Alice--and why you
should have supposed that Alice should have believed in your innocence
any more than me, except that women never will believe what they don't
want to believe, I don't know--well, of course, she told us about it at
once, and we came back to England and talked it over, and settled that
the best thing was for us all to come out and see you."

"All!" Frank repeated in surprise.

"Yes, all; the headstrong young woman would not be left behind, and she
is at Sacramento now, that is if she hasn't been shot by some of these
red-shirted miners, or come to her end some other way. We stayed two
days at San Francisco. I have wandered about a good deal, but I thought
before I saw Sacramento and these places, that city was the residence of
the roughest and most dangerous set of rascals I ever met.

"We travelled by coach across the plains, and on going to the bank at
Sacramento found that you had been just shooting some highwaymen, and
had got your arm broken by a bullet. So we put Alice in charge of the
landlady of the hotel, and dared her to stir out of the room till we got
back; we came on to the place where they said you were stopping, but
found that you had come on here this morning. So we took our places in
the coach again, and here we are; and the sooner we get away from here
the better, so I hope you will be ready to start early in the morning."

"But, my dear uncle," Frank began.

"Don't give me any of your buts, sir," Captain Bayley said peremptorily.
"You have been hiding too long, now you must go back and take your place
again."

"But I can't clear myself of this affair."

"Don't tell me, sir," the old officer said angrily "you have cleared
yourself to me, and I will take good care that the truth is known. As
for that rascal Fred, I deserve all the trouble that I have gone through
for being such an o