“Good-bye, sir.” Vance took up his hat, after carefully putting all the papers and the check-book of the Chicago National Bank in an inside pocket of his coat, and left the hotel. When he reached home an hour later he duly astonished his mother and sister with the information that he was going out of town on business for his employer. Of course the first thing they wanted to know was his destination. “I am sorry, mother, I can’t tell you. Where I am going, as well as the object of the trip, is a business secret.” “But we ought to know, Vance,” expostulated his pretty sister Elsie. “Unless you tell us we shall be worried to death about you.” “Sorry, sis,” he replied, taking her face in his two hands and kissing her cherry-red, pouting lips; “but I am under strict orders not to say a word about it.” “It’s real mean of you. You know neither mamma nor I would say a word if you told us not to,” she persisted, throwing her arms about his neck coaxingly. “Don’t blame me, Elsie--blame the boss. Let me tell you one thing, dear. I feel sure this trip is the chance of my life. Mr. Whitemore as good as said so.” And with that the gentle mother and loving sister had to be content. Next morning Vance boarded a Pullman drawing-room car and left Chicago over the C. B. & Q. railroad for Omaha. CHAPTER III. TAKING UP THE OPTIONS. Vance arrived at Omaha on the following morning and registered at the Great Western Hotel, where he had breakfast. Then he went to the reading-room and looked over the papers, particularly noting the corn situation. It was now time for him to be about his business. He procured a large, oblong manilla envelope, in which he enclosed his letter of instruction, all but one of his letters of introduction, option vouchers and his check-book, and after removing a single specific check marked by a perforated capital “A,” he sealed up the package, addressed it to himself and deposited it in the hotel safe. Then he sallied forth on the streets of Omaha. The hotel clerk had directed him where to find the elevator buildings, which were located at various points along the river front. He took a car to the nearest point and then inquired his way to the office of Flint, Peabody & Co., who controlled three of the elevators. Their counting-room was in Elevator A. “I should like to see Mr. Peabody,” he said to a clerk who asked him his business. “He is busy at present. Take a seat.” After waiting half an hour he was shown into the private office. “Mr. Peabody?” asked Vance of a little, white-haired old gentleman seated at a mahogany desk alongside a window overlooking the Missouri river. “Yes; what can I do for you?” Vance handed him his card, in one corner of which was printed Jared Whitemore in small type. “Mr. Thornton, eh?” exclaimed the busy head of the establishment, regarding him with some surprise as he sized him up from head to foot. “Yes, sir.”