So the impatient traveler was dragged fuming along weary hour after weary hour through the monotonous glory of a spring afternoon of which he saw nothing but the dust of the road as he tried to count the endless miles. Every mile or two Joe would descend from the wagon seat and fuss around the horse’s leg, the horse nothing loth at such unprecedented attention dozing cozily by the roadside during the process. And so was the traveler brought to his destination ten minutes after the last train that stopped at Milton that night had passed the station. The telegraph office was not closed however, and without waiting to haggle, the passenger paid his thirty dollars for the longest journey he ever took, and disappeared into the station, while Joe, whipping up his petted animal, and whistling cheerily: “Where did you get that girl--?” went rattling down the short cut from Milton home at a surprising pace for a lame horse. He was eating his supper at home in a little more than an hour, and the horse seemed to have miraculously recovered from his stone bruise. Joe was wondering how his girl would look in a hat with purple plumes, and thinking of his thirty dollars with a chuckle. It was surprising how much that thick-set man, weary and desperate though he was, could accomplish, when once he reached the telegraph station and sent his messages flying on their way. In less than three minutes after his arrival he had extracted from the station agent the fact that two people, man and woman, answering the description he gave, had bought tickets for Pittsburgh and taken the afternoon train for that city. The agent had noticed them on account of their looking as if they came from the city. He especially noticed the purple plumes, the like of which he had never seen before. He had taken every minute he could get off from selling tickets and sending telegrams to watch the lady through his little cobwebby window. They didn’t wear hats like that in Milton. In ten minutes one message was on its way to a crony in Pittsburgh with whom the thick-set man kept in constant touch for just such occasions as the present, stirring him to strenuous action; another message had winged its mysterious way to Mr. Holman, giving him the main facts in the case; while a third message caught another crony thirty miles north of Pittsburgh and ordered him to board the evening express at his own station, hunt up the parties described, and shadow them to their destination, if possible getting in touch with the Pittsburgh crony when he reached the city.