The huge, glistening white peaks of Hood and Adams and St. Helens, towered in lofty majesty, clear and individually distinct above the high altitudes of the range that encompassed them, and even as he looked, a soft, rose-red tinge tipped the apex of Mount Hood, which appeared unusually close, and crept softly down the glacis of its snow-covered, precipitous sides. And nearer, at his feet, in a basin--the city spread out far and wide. The silvery green waters of the Willamette River, cutting through the city's center, silently glided along its sinuous course to the Columbia; while patches of thin mist flitted timidly about on its placid surface, to vanish like tardy spirits of a departing night. The grand panorama gave his usually buoyant spirits pause. Gradually the light of his eyes changed from absorbing admiration to a reflective mood, in which the strange behavior of Virginia Thorpe was the predominating subject. That money, possibly blackmail, was the object of the stranger--scoundrel. Sam could think of him in no other light after the night's experience. There was no doubt, for he had plainly heard her say in a loud, surprised tone, "Twenty thousand dollars." Suddenly the hoarse whistle of a far-off industrial establishment vibrated the air and aroused him from his deep reverie. The morning was well advanced. As the light in his eyes quickened from a pensive stare at the ground a few paces from his feet, he perceived a shred of red peeping between the blades of short grass. He picked it up. It was a narrow piece of soiled and worn ribbon, but attached to it was an old oxidized bronze medal, about the size of a silver quarter-dollar. The inscription upon its rim was in Latin, but Sam clearly made out one word, "Garibaldi," from which he concluded its late owner must be an Italian. From the smooth condition of the medal, and unweathered appearance of the ribbon, he judged it must have been recently lost. "What if it had been accidentally dropped by the man talking to Virginia last night?" The idea was fraught with great possibilities. "A clue! A sure clue, as I live," and Sam's enthusiasm soared with the recollection of seeing the man thrust his hand into the inside breast of his coat to show the knife, when it was quite possible the medal either became unfastened from its clasp, or being loose in his pocket, had been drawn out with the knife and slipped noiselessly to the ground. Somehow Sam's thoughts flew back to the night of his uncle's reception, and connected the old Italian beggar loitering about the grounds with the medal. "Was he the owner of the medal? And, if so, was he the same party that met Virginia, and whom he had followed last night?" "Heavens! Could he have kidnapped Dorothy?" A train of thought had been started and rushed through Sam's brain with prodigious alacrity. "Was the twenty thousand dollars he had heard Virginia mention with surprise, a ransom?"