Late in the fall of 1911, young Oliver, having passed the age of twenty-one and being a free and independent agent, packed his bag and trunk and shook the dust of Rumley from his feet. Through the influence of an older member of his “frat,” supported by the customary recommendation from the college authorities, he was offered and accepted a position in the construction department of a Chicago engineering and investment concern interested in the financing and developing of water power plants in the northwest. His work took him, in the course of time, to the Rocky Mountain region, where concessions had been obtained and plants were either being installed or projected. There was grave uneasiness in Rumley when he fared forth in quest of fame and fortune. Many were the predictions that Chicago would be the ruination of him; he was bound to fall in with evil companions in that wicked city, and into evil ways. College had been bad enough—but Chicago! Yes, he was working inevitably toward the end prophesied by the gypsy. Next thing they would hear of his drinking and carousing and leading the gay, riotous life of the ungodly, and then, sure as anything, he would get mixed up in some disgraceful brawl—well, he might be innocent of the actual murder but that wouldn’t save him if the circumstantial evidence was strong enough—as it would be. And then, when old Oliver resignedly announced that his son was going up into the wild and lawless northwest, where everybody carried guns and lynchings were common, there was real consternation among the older families in Rumley. One very ancient lady went so far in her senile sympathy as to put into words the question that had been in her thoughts for days. Chancing to meet old Oliver on the way home from church one Sunday, she sadly inquired whether he would bring Oliver October’s body all the way back to Rumley for burial or leave it out there in the wilderness. Early in 1913 he was sent to China by his company on a mission that kept him in the Orient for nearly a year and a half. A week before Christmas, 1914, the Rumley _Despatch_ came out with the announcement—under a double head—that Oliver October Baxter was returning from the Far East, where he had been engaged in the most stupendous enterprise ever undertaken by American capital, and would arrive on the 22nd to spend the Christmas holidays with his father and to renew acquaintances with old friends—who were legion.