"If you don't mind, Frank, I'd like to go out of my way a few steps, so as to stop at the post-office. There's a late mail comes in after the last delivery by carrier," observed Ralph, after they had reached town. "Why, certainly," returned the other, quickly, as he glanced at Ralph, who smiled half sadly and nodded. "I keep hoping to hear something from your Uncle Jim. It may come any day now, unless the very worst has happened, and they're all lost over in that big wild country," said Ralph, drawing a long breath. "When did you hear from him last?" asked his friend, as they turned the corner into the main street of Columbia. "A month ago. You know, from England they had gone to India. He wrote me from there that he had just missed Mr. Arnold Musgrove and his widowed sister, Mrs. John Langworthy, who had sailed for China." "Yes, I remember all that. The lady has always been a very great traveler, and something of an explorer. You told me she was intending to do something that few strong men had ever attempted," remarked Frank, wonderfully interested in all that pertained to the strange history of this boy friend. Ralph had been brought up as the son of the Wests, living in the village of Paulding. Then there had come a letter by mail, accompanying bank notes to the extent of fifty dollars, and telling him that a friend, knowing of his great ambition to get an education above what the little country school could afford, wished him to accept this gift, which would be duplicated every month. Ralph, with the assistance of his good friend, Frank, had learned that the money came through a lawyer in New York, really an uncle of young Allen. Then, later on, it was found that Ralph was only an adopted son of the Wests, who had taken him from a poorhouse. By degrees, it came out that the man who had left this sum with the lawyer, Mr. Arnold Musgrove, must be an uncle of the boy, who was, in all probability, a son of the rich widow. Judge Jim had immediately set out for Europe, to confront Musgrove, and tell the lady that her child was not dead, as she believed, but could be restored to her. And, as Ralph had just said, the legal gentleman soon found that he was going to have the time of his life overtaking the energetic couple. "Well," remarked Ralph, in answer to the inquiry of his chum, "she and her brother actually started with a caravan overland across China, skirting Thibet, and aiming to head northeast, so as to pass through a portion of Siberia, and after that reach Russia. They have been gone a long time now, and I wonder if I will ever see her face. Sometimes it seems too good to be true." There was no letter at the post-office for Ralph. He was getting used to this daily disappointment. Still, Frank could see the look of pain that flashed across Ralph's fine face, though he tried to conceal it with a little laugh.