“I hear from Master Lang that you have been doing well in your work. Otherwise I would hesitate to suggest the plan I have in mind. As it is, I believe there can be no harm to your education in leaving the school before the end of the term. “I shall be sailing for England in a short time, to look after some business, and it has occurred to me that it would make a pleasant vacation for us both if you were to accompany me. There is now a steam-packet leaving Wheeling every fortnight for the South, and I wish you to make ready as soon as possible, so as to sail by the next vessel, on the sixth of April. “A draft on my bankers is enclosed, which Master Lang will cash for you, and this should provide ample funds for the journey to New Orleans. “I am looking forward with great joy to our voyage together, and shall be waiting for you at the levee on the arrival of your steamboat. “Lovingly, your father, “JEREMIAH HOPKINS. “March 12, 1828.” Tad’s preparations for departure, watched enviously by the other boys in his form, had filled the next two days. And at daybreak of the third morning he had boarded the Baltimore-to-Wheeling stage. Crossing the mountains on the great creaking coach, listening to Long Bill Mifflin’s stories and watching the road ahead for signs of the deer and bear and mountain lions that the driver assured him filled the woods--all this had made it a journey he would never forget. And now he was in Wheeling with the mighty river running past, not a hundred yards from his bed, and the steam-packet _Ohio Belle_ waiting to carry him on the long southward slant of nineteen hundred miles to New Orleans. Tad was genuinely fond of his father, though they had seen little of each other for the past two years. Jeremiah Hopkins was a New York cotton broker of considerable wealth. His interests frequently took him into the South and to Europe, and after Tad’s mother died, he had left the boy in the care of school-masters. The prospect of a whole long Spring and Summer spent in voyaging with his father made Ted’s heart thump joyfully. He was just drowsing off, with rosy thoughts of the future filling his head, when the door of the room was opened quietly. A tall figure entered and crossed the room with slow steps, lurching a little as he walked. There was no lamp in the place, but a ray of moonlight, reflected from the wall, lighted the man’s face dimly. As Tad watched, he moved a few paces toward the cot and stood motionless, looking down at the boy with a somber expression as if he were deep in thought. Tad looked up from under lowered lids, pretending to be asleep, and after a moment the figure turned away and went over to the vacant bed. It was the gentleman with the long white fingers he had seen below in the bar.