the young soldier described, and, in his bitter disappointment, he declared there was no resemblance to justify the report sent him by the boy's own uncle, who vowed he had met him with comrades on the main street of the city, that the recognition was mutual, for the boy had darted around the first corner and escaped. His companions were scattered by the time Mr. Lawrence returned to the spot after a brief, fruitless search, but private detectives had taken it up and "located," as they thought, young Prime and telegraphed the father in the distant East. Now, Mr. Lawrence was away on business of his own. Written assurances that he couldn't be mistaken lost weight, and Mr. Prime, disheartened, was merely waiting the report of an agent who thought he had traced the boy to Tampa. In twenty-four hours he might spirit his daughter away on another chase, and then there would be no further warrant for Miss Lawrence's remaining in the city. She would return to her lovely home in one of the loveliest of Californian valleys, miles away from the raw fogs and chills of the Golden Gate, and would be no more seen among the camps. That, said Billy Gray to himself, would take every bit of sunshine from his life. All this detail, or much of it, he had learned from the fair lips of Miss Lawrence herself, for Mr. Prime and his daughter seemed to shrink from speaking of the matter. From the first Miss Amy had had to take the young gentleman under her personal wing, as it were. In her desire to aid her uncle and cousin in every way, and knowing them to be strangers to the entire camp, she had eagerly sent for him as the first familiar or friendly object she saw. Then when he came and was presented, and proved to possess little interest to the careworn man and his anxious and devoted child, it devolved upon Miss Lawrence to make much of Billy in proportion as they made little of him, and for three days or so the blithe young fellow seemed fairly to walk on air. Moreover, she had taken him into the family confidences in telling him of the missing son and brother, for both her uncle and cousin, she said, were so sensitive about it they could not talk to any one except when actually necessary. They had leaned, as it were, on the General and on Colonel Armstrong for a day, and then seemed to draw away from both. They even seemed to take it much amiss that her father _had_ to be absent when they came, though they had sent no word, until too late, of their coming. He was on his return, might arrive any hour, but so might they go. Now if Billy could only discover that missing son----