"Where did you send Hiram's despatch to?" he asked of Tom, suddenly, as if a new suspicion crossed his mind. "To the Lavalette House, of course. They all stop there!" "Oh, you idiot!" groaned his father. "They had gone to the ball ground before your despatch could reach Chicago!" CHAPTER XVI. THE CONSPIRACY LAID OPEN. The Selbys kept their own counsel, although Tom burned to tell everybody whom he met not to bet with Hank Jackson on the base ball match; but, after pondering the matter in his mind, he came to the conclusion that if people would bet on a base ball game, they must run their own risks and chances. It would serve them right, he thought, if they did lose their money in this foolish fashion. The League, he knew, had enacted severe rules against gaming, and the influence of that example should be strengthened even if by the misfortunes of those who laid wagers. So there would have been no suspicion of Hank's complicity in any plot, if Mike had been able to keep a secret, but Mike adored "the lady operator" secretly and from afar. He submitted in silence and uncomplainingly to her rebuffs and scoldings for the sake of winning her regard. In a moment of confidence, he imparted to the object of his dumb worship the information that the cipher message which she had received for Jackson was "crooked." The young lady was shocked. She had heard that Hank was going about town offering to bet against the Catalpa nine, and now she instantly divined what was going on, and was indignant accordingly. The fact that she had been the unconscious channel of communicating with the culprit did not lessen her wrath. Unhappily for Henry, he came to the office in the course of the afternoon, and the operator, as soon as she saw him, "gave him a piece of her mind," to his great discomfiture. Hank, unlike his co-conspirator, did not attempt to deny anything, but tacitly admitted all that was charged against him by the irate young lady. After turning over in his mind the circumstances of the scrape into which he had been drawn, Master Jackson coolly sat down and wrote the following despatch to Ben Burton: _The thing is blown. Look out for yourself._ _HENRY J. JACKSON._ It was this warning, received by Burton after the game was over, that put him on his guard when he was confronted with the despatch sent to Hiram Porter. Next day, when the town was alive with enthusiasm over the reception to the returning base ball club, Henry Jackson did not appear in any of the excited groups that accompanied the players from the depot to their club-rooms.