come to her assistance if possible."

"Certainly, certainly!" said Speed. "Now, I'll tell you what we have
to do. We must get, if possible, one of the very brightest Chicago
reporters on the track of this thing, and we have to get him on the
track of it early. Come with me to Chicago. We will try an experiment,
and I am sure you will lend your mind entirely to the effort. We must
act in conjunction in this affair, and you are just the man I've been
wanting, some one who is earnest and who has something at stake in the
matter. We may fail entirely, but I think it's worth the trying. Will
you come?"

"Certainly," said Brenton; "and I cannot tell you how much I appreciate
your interest and sympathy."

Arriving at a brown stone building on the corner of two of the principal
streets in Chicago, Brenton and Speed ascended quickly to one of the top
floors. It was nearly midnight, and two upper stories of the huge dark
building were brilliantly lighted, as was shown on the outside by the
long rows of glittering windows. They entered a room where a man was
seated at a table, with coat and vest thrown off, and his hat set well
back on his head. Cold as it was outside, it was warm in this man's
room, and the room was blue with smoke. A black corn-cob pipe was in his
teeth, and the man was writing away as if for dear life, on sheets of
coarse white copy paper, stopping now and then to fill up his pipe or to
relight it after it had gone out.

"There," said Speed, waving his hand towards the writer with a certain
air of proprietory pride, "there sits one of the very cleverest men on
the Chicago press. That fellow, sir, is gifted with a nose for news