rurban line a good five miles
away.

When he had walked a mile, he stopped suddenly in his track.

"Say!" he exclaimed. "Was that the son or the daughter? All muffled up
that way I couldn't tell."

"Ho, well," he resumed his march, "that'll come out in time. Only I hope
it wasn't the girl. I sort of liked her looks."

CHAPTER VII

CURLIE RECEIVES A SHOCK

Having boarded an interurban car, Curlie slept his way into the city.
Once there he hurried over to the secret tower room, where the news of
his night's adventure was received with great joy.

"So you got him!" exclaimed Coles Masters. "Smashed him up right? Bully
for you. That's great!" He slapped Curlie on the back.

Dropping into his chair, Curlie dictated a message by secret wire to
headquarters in New York. The message stated in modest, concise terms
that the nuisance on 600 in the secret tower region was at an end; that
the station had been effectively broken up and that the offender would
no doubt soon be in the hands of the law.

A half hour later he received a highly commendatory message,
congratulating him on his achievement and bidding him keep up the good
work.

After glancing over Coles' reports for the evening and making mental
notes from them, Curlie prepared to seek his bed and indulge in a good,
long sleep, the first in several days.

"There isn't a bit of hurry in going after that rich young fellow or
girl, if it is a girl," he said to Coles. "That'll keep. We've got
plenty of proof." He jerked a thumb toward the corner where was a box
into which he had tossed the various small parts of a sending set and
the number plate of the car. "All we need to do now is to saunter out
there some fine morning and have a heart-to-heart talk with J. Anson
himself."

Had Curlie but known it, there was to be a great deal more than that to
it. There was to be an adventure in it for him such as he had never
before experienced, an adventure which was destined to take him
thousands of miles from the secret tower room and which was to throw
him into such dangers as would cause the bravest to shrink back in
terror.

Since he was blissfully ignorant of all this he was also blissfully
happy in the consciousness of having achieved success in the thing he
had undertaken.

"This," he laughed as he said it, "is going to bring me face to face
with one of America's greatest millionaires. It's like going before a
king in some ways. In others I fancy it's