The same week that Will was made Superintendent of Construction of the Big Bend Railroad, the newspapers spread all over the country the news that Col. Oliver P. Reynolds had committed suicide. According to their way, the newspapers gave all the sickening details of the tragedy, together with the whole family history. They said that Col. Reynolds had been driven to suicide by his wife. They said that she was much younger than he; that she was extravagant; that she was a leader in gay society; they told how, on her account, Col. Reynolds had driven his son away from home fifteen years before; they declared that the old man’s life had been a hell to him; and that his wife had brought him almost to the verge of bankruptcy, and, in order to escape facing open disgrace, he had murdered himself. When Will heard of his father’s death, he hastened at once to the city, but was denied admission to the family residence, and had to attend the funeral in the little church around the corner not as a member of the family but merely as an outsider. We are not concerned in this story with the fate of Will’s stepmother. But, as to Will’s brothers,--well, the crash came eight or ten years after the death of Col. Reynolds, or a short while before Will became the General Manager of the Big Bend Railroad. John B. Reynolds and Thomas Reynolds, members of the firm of John B. Reynolds & Bro., had been arrested and placed in the Tombs, charged with misappropriating $175,000 of trust funds. Again the family history was rehearsed in the newspapers. The papers did not fail to recall the suicide of Col. Reynolds, nor did they fail to tell how these two brothers had earlier in life turned their backs on a younger brother. [Illustration: “WELL, JOHN, I SUPPOSE SISTER IS DEAD?”] Will read the papers, and, saying to his wife, “Well, Mary, perhaps they’ll be glad to see me this trip,” he went immediately to offer his services to his brothers.