"Will you take the train that leaves at eleven tonight and get us the
story--if it is not a 'fake,' as I strongly suspect. Telegraph your story
if there is not time for you to get back here by nine to-morrow night."

"Of course it's a fake, or at least a wild exaggeration," thought Howard as
he turned away. "If Bowring had not been all but sure there was nothing in
it, he would never have given it to me."

He was not well, his sleepless nights having begun to tell even upon his
powerful constitution. The rest of that afternoon and all of a night
without sleep in the Pullman he was in a depth of despond. He had been in
the habit of getting much comfort out of an observation his father had made
to him just before he died: "Remember that ninety per cent of these
fourteen hundred million human beings are uncertain where to-morrow's food
is to come from. Be prudent but never be afraid." But just then he could
get no consolation out of this maxim of grim cheer. He seemed to himself
incompetent and useless, a predestined failure. "What is to become of me?"
he kept repeating, his heart like lead and his mind fumbling about in a
confused darkness.

At Bald Peak he was somewhat revived by the cold mountain air of the early
morning. As he alighted upon the station platform he spoke to the
baggage-master standing in front of the steps.

"Was the little boy of a man named Dent lost in the mountains near here?"

"Yes--three days ago," replied the baggage-man.

"Have they found him yet?"