Mrs. Spooner explained that she had found the missive pushed under the front door, and hadn't the least idea who had left it. Matt stared when he opened the letter and began to read. It was from Tom Clipperton, and was very much to the point. "MATT KING: You think you're a better man than I am. I'll give you another guess. We can settle our differences in one way. Man to man. Come alone to the place where you threw me into the canal. Make it 9 o'clock to-night. Either I'll give you the worst thrashing you ever had, or you'll give one to "TOM CLIPPERTON. "P.S.--There's a moon." "It's a challenge," muttered Matt grimly. "I don't want to fight the fellow--it will only make a bad matter worse. I'll have to, though, unless I can talk with him and tell him a few things he'll believe. Clip is not half bad at heart, and if he'd only get rid of some of his foolish notions, and stay away from Perry, he'd make a mighty good chum." Crumpling up the note, Matt threw it into a waste-basket. "I'll have to give him a licking, though, if he won't have it any other way," he added under his breath. The McReady home was only a little way from the place of meeting selected by Clipperton. It was about half-past seven when Matt left Mrs. Spooner's, intending to call on Chub, and leaving in time to meet Clipperton on the bank of the canal at nine. Chub and Susie were at home, but Welcome Perkins was in town, taking his part in the general excitement preceding what was to be a red-letter day in the annals of Phoenix. Chub was in front of his wireless apparatus, for the accommodation of which a corner of the kitchen had been set apart. Flashes were coming brightly in the spark-gap between the two brass balls of the home-made apparatus. Chub had begun his experiments in message-sending with an ordinary telegraph-instrument, which he had manufactured himself. One end of the wire had been in the laboratory and the other in the kitchen. After Susie had learned the code, and was able to operate the key, Chub used to take fifteen minutes wiring his sister for something which he could have gone after in almost as many seconds. Following the telegraph-instrument came experiments in wireless work, in conjunction with an old telegraph-operator who was watchman at the Bluebell Mine, twenty miles away. Many weeks passed before Chub finally got his materials together, and assembled the instruments and erected the necessary wires at home and at the Bluebell. Delray, the operator-watchman at the Bluebell, helped Chub as much as he could at that end of the line, and Matt was constantly called upon for advice as failure succeeded failure. Now, for the first time since he had begun operations, Chub was in extended communication with Delray, and his delight as he worked the key and the sparks flew between the terminals, was scarcely to be measured.