"Yes, there's that miraculous new messenger boy, wireless telegraphy." Mr. Heywood was in no mood for argument and said no more as Dr. Alton obviously had little faith in any mysterious messenger. So, for the moment, the subject was dropped. When the bone was set--and it proved a simple fracture--Mr. Heywood followed Dr. Alton to the door. "I wish, Doctor, you would ask Cyrus how he got his information--just to gratify my curiosity." "Are you absolutely sure that Ruth did not tell him?" Mr. Heywood, for answer, stepped back into the hall and called to his daughter, who at once came running down the stairs. "Ruth," he said, "do you know how Cyrus heard of your mother's accident so soon after it happened?" "Yes, sir. I told him." "You!" exclaimed her father. "Why Ruth, you never left the house!" "And Cyrus," said Dr. Alton, "is at home, confined to the house with a bad cold. At least that's where he ought to be." "Oh, sir, he is!" said Ruth. "He sent me a note asking me to talk to him, on the porch, from our house at just five o'clock, and I did. Mother fell on the stairs just as I began to talk so I told him about it." "Do you mean," said her father, "that your voice carried from this house to his, nearly a mile away?" "Oh, no, sir! Cyrus doesn't have to hear your voice, always. He has a special way of knowing things." "A special way of knowing things?" Ruth nodded. "What do you mean, Ruth? What things?" "Things you don't say." "But you did say to him that your mother had an accident." "Yes, sir; but he didn't have to hear it. He gets it some other way." She added, with a smile: "He doesn't get it through his ears." "Then how does he get it?" "I don't know. He says it is in the air. He says he thinks it's a kind of wireless telegraph and must work the same way." "Most extraordinary!" murmured Mr. Heywood, and he looked at Dr. Alton as if hoping for more light on a cloudy subject. Dr. Alton, however, was gazing thoughtfully at the girl, whom he knew to be truthful. He also knew the misleading possibility of a child's imagination. "Do you really think, Ruth, that Cyrus learned of the accident in that way?" "I don't know, sir. I couldn't hear anything from _him_." "You mean if he answered back you couldn't get it?" "Yes, sir. Nobody but Cyrus could understand anything at all, so far away." "He knew that you couldn't hear anything _he_ said?" "Yes, sir. He just wanted to find out if he could tell what a person said so far away without hearing it." Mr. Heywood turned to Dr. Alton. "He evidently succeeded, and it seems quite incredible."