"Well, to begin at the beginning,--we started on the first boat that left the Island for Mackinaw City,--a very few minutes after my letter to you was finished, and were soon on the cars headed south. We only went as far as Petoskey, however, for I remembered that there we could take the Pere Marquette directly to Chicago, which would save time. We bought tickets to that point, being uncertain about our plans, and thinking that we might consider it best to go straight on to Missouri. But you know I told you we should go where the Lord directed us and stop when he said so. Well, just before we reached Grand Junction, a little station where a branch of the Michigan Central crosses the Pere Marquette, I heard some people behind me talking about South Haven--what a nice place it was, but how it was almost deserted now. I thought to myself that a deserted place was about the kind we wanted, so I asked them some questions about how to get there and found that we were right at the place where a decision must be made, for we would have to take the other road at Grand Junction. I went to Margaret and told her it seemed to me the Lord said stop, and she agreed with me. Then we began to hustle. If we had had our trunks we never could have done it, for we had only about three minutes. But when the train stopped at Grand Junction we stepped off and let it go on to Chicago without us. This was blind number one. We figured that if that man should try to trace the two women that bought tickets in Petoskey he would be likely to follow them to Chicago, and there he would lose the scent. "South Haven is directly west of Grand Junction, and Kalamazoo, the other end of this little branch road, is directly east. We bought two tickets to Kalamazoo, making a good many inquiries of the agent about the railroad connections there to different points." ("That's funny," said Bess, "if they were going to South Haven." "Not at all," returned Harcourt, "that was blind number two. Now you will find that they discarded those tickets and boarded the train for the west." "Yes, sir! that's just what they did," she said, looking ahead. "Wasn't that cute in grandma?") "Well," the letter proceeded, "having put him on a wrong trail if the thing were ever inquired into, we went out on the platform and waited for the west-bound train. There were a lot of people waiting who called themselves 'Saints' and had been off for some camp-meeting. That made it easier for us to lose ourselves. The train came along in a little while and we got on, intimating to the conductor that we hadn't time to procure tickets, and paying our fare to South Haven." ("Look here," said Harcourt, "this thing is catching. If she keeps on there'll be another one in Miss Brannigan's class!")