intercept the train, and wired Shelby a peremptory request for a meeting
in New York on the morrow at ten o'clock.

"I'm making a morning appointment with the governor," he told Krantz.

The satellite slanted his head knowingly. Past midnight the answer
reached the club where the Boss made his bachelor home. If Shelby was
amazed at Old Silky's intimate knowledge of his movements, his message
did not betray it. Nor did the Boss betray his own amazement at his too
apt pupil's prompt evasion of a snare. What he read was this:--

"The governor's office hours are nine to five."

Krantz in his eagerness would have laid profane hands on the missive, but
the Boss permitted him neither to touch nor see.

"It seems that he intends returning to Albany to-night," he said calmly.
"It occurs to me, after all, that he can reach New York by trolley.
Probably he'll take the paper train which leaves about three. Energetic
man--very."

"Then you'll see him to-night?"

"No; not to-night," rejoined the Boss, dryly. "I'm going to bed."

Krantz watched the reverend figure out of the smoking-room with his
narrow eyes, and for a time sat as motionless as a dozing crocodile.
Finally he roused and lounged toward the door, where he received a
revelation. Bag in hand, the Boss, whom he imaged above stairs between
sheets, was unostentatiously letting himself out into the night.

Shelby went directly to his berth on reaching the station, and while the
car remained in the train shed, slept. The departure wakened him, and
after useless striving he resigned himself to his insomnia, raised his
window curtain, and lay watching the staid procession of Dutch-named
towns picketting the river banks. A mimic tempest fretted the Tappan
Sea, whose bravado dwindled to mere guerilla marauding in the Highlands,
and vanished altogether where the Storm King held the pass and heralded
the dawn. Presently the purple Catskills marched and countermarched into
line with cloud banners streaming rose-red in the sunrise. Yesterday was
blotted in to-day. The watcher also put yesterday away, dressed, and
left his train all in a tranquillity which even the knowledge that a
stateroom door neighboring his berth had just emitted the Boss could not
have ruffled.

At his accustomed hour the governor entered the executive chamber. Like
the steaming earth and the park elms without in their tender green, this
stately room seemed swept by the breath of spring. Th