Dick waited patiently a few moments. Then: "Hullo! 'The Blade?' This is Prescott. Is Mr. Pollock there? He is? Good! Tell him I want to speak with him." Then Mr. Pollock's voice sounded over the wire. "Hullo, Prescott! Why aren't you on hand, with that big Dodge story hanging over our heads? Why, it brought me down hours before fore my time." "Pollock, I've found Dodge," replied Dick Composedly. "At least, Darrin and I-----" "What's that!" broke in the editor's excited voice. "You've found Dodge? Alive?" As rapidly as he could young Prescott told the story. Mr. Pollock listened gladly. "Now, where are you, Prescott?" Dick told Mr. Pollock the name of the farmer from whose home he was telephoning. "Just you wait there, Prescott. And, oh!---pshaw! I came near forgetting to tell you the biggest news of all---for you. Mrs. Dodge this morning offered a thousand dollars' reward for the finding of her husband, dead or alive. You'll get that reward---you and Darrin! But I've no more time to talk. Stay right where you are until I reach you." Nor was it long before Dick, pacing by the farmyard gate, saw an automobile approaching at a lively clip. In it were the chauffeur and Editor Pollock. The latter waved his hand wildly when he caught sight If his High School reporter. Right begged this automobile sped another, in which sat Chief Coy, Officer Hemingway and a uniformed policeman, in addition to the chauffeur. "We didn't lose much time, did we?" hailed Mr. Pollock, as the first auto slowed up "Jump in, quick! Show us the way." "I suppose there's some excitement down in Gridley, about this time?" laughed Dick, as the two autos raced along once more. "Not a bit," replied the editor. "And for the very simple reason that no one knows that Dodge has been found." "His family know it, of course?" queried Dick. "No; not a word. Chief Coy kept it quiet, and asked me to do the same. He didn't want the Dodge family all stirred up by false hopes in case you had made a mistake. The silence will keep 'The Evening Mail' from learning the news for a while. And I've had our forms left standing. We're all ready to run out an extra ---in case you haven't made a mistake, Prescott," added Mr. Pollock quizzically. Dick smiled resignedly at this implied doubt. But the autos were making fast time, and soon the machines had gone as far on the way as they could be used. "Now we'll have to get out and strike across country, through the woods," Prescott called. So far Dick had resolutely tried to keep out of his mind any thought of that thousand-dollar reward. It sounded too much like "Blood money" to take pay for helping any afflicted family out of its troubles. Besides, it had been the glory of doing a piece of bright newspaper work that had allured the two High School boys at the outset.