Hetty laughed. "That was an inspiration! You can be positively brilliant, Chris. You will find paper and special envelopes in the office, as well as a big stick of sealing-wax." Allonby, who appeared unable to find a neat rejoinder, went out; and when he left Flora Schuyler smiled as she saw the carefully fastened envelope lying on Torrance's desk, as well as something else. Torrance was fastidiously neat, and the blotting pad from which the soiled sheets had been removed bore the impress of Christopher Allonby's big, legible writing. It was, however, a little blurred, and Miss Schuyler, who had her scruples, made no attempt to read it then. It was the next afternoon, and Torrance had not yet returned, when a mounted man rode up to the Range, and was shown into the room where the girls sat together. "Mr. Clavering will be kind of sorry Mr. Torrance wasn't here, but he has got it fixed quite straight," he said. "What has he fixed?" said Hetty. "Well," said the man, "your father knows, and I don't, though I've a kind of notion we are after one of the homestead-boys. Any way, what I had to tell him was this. He could ride over to the Cedar Bluff at about six this evening with two or three of the boys, if it suited him, but if it didn't, Mr. Clavering would put the thing through." Hetty asked one or two leading questions, but the man had evidently nothing more to tell, and when he went out, the two girls looked at one another in silence. Hetty's eyes were anxious and her face more colourless than usual. "Flo," she said sharply, "are we thinking the same thing?" "I don't know," said Miss Schuyler. "You have not told me your notions yet. Still, this is clear to both of us, Mr. Clavering expects to meet somebody at the Cedar Bluff, and your father is to bring two or three men with him. The question is, what could they be wanted for?" "No," said Hetty, with a little quiver in her voice, "it is who they expect to meet. You know what day this is?" "Wednesday." Once more there was silence for a few seconds, but the thoughts of the two girls were unconcealed now, and when she spoke Hetty closed her hand. "Think, Flo. There must be no uncertainty." Miss Schuyler slipped out of the room and when she came back she brought an envelope, splashed with red wax, on a blotting-pad. "There's the key. All is fair--in war!" she said. A pink tinge crept into Hetty's cheeks, and a sparkle into her eyes as she looked at her companion. "Don't make me angry with you, Flo," she said. "We can't read it." "No?" said Miss Schuyler quietly, holding up the pad. "Now I think we can. This is another manifestation of the superiority of the masculine mind. Give me your hand-glass, Hetty." "Of course," said Hetty, with a little gasp. "Still--it's horribly mean." There was a slightly contemptuous hardness in Flora Schuyler's eyes. "If you let the man who rides by the bluff on Wednesdays fall into Clavering's hands, it would be meaner still."